“Uh… gorgeous,” Bubba stage-whispered to me where I was standing in front of him at the bar, “I think that’s your cue.”

I sighed.

I’d been home in Carnal for two weeks. After my conversation with Tate, I’d stayed in Indiana the three further days that it took to get Dad home and a nurse visiting morning and night.

Now I was back at the hotel with Ned and Betty. Back to my boot camps and the other camps I did, namely camping out by the pool or with a latte at La-La Land. And back at Bubba’s.

Amber, one of our new waitresses, was twenty-two, five foot two with lots of wavy blonde hair and she was a baby biker babe in the making. She confided to me that she was saving for a boob job, this and her scant wardrobe in the face of a crazed serial killer who targeted scantily-clad waitresses were my evidence Amber was a biker babe in the making but maybe not a very smart one.

Twyla, our other new waitress, was an ex-marine and the antithesis of Amber, of Wendy, of me and of most every female I knew.

I was on day shifts a lot considering that was what Twyla worked and both Bubba and Krystal were hoping I’d rub off on her.

So far, this hadn’t worked.

I gave Bubba a look and moseyed hesitantly toward Twyla’s table.

“Hey Twyla,” I called as I got close, she turned to me and her scowl was so ferocious it took a lot not to stop moving forward and start running backward.

“You gonna tell me that my tips’ll be more if I smile at ‘em and call ‘em by name again?” she snapped.

No, I wasn’t going to do that. I’d tried that one hundred and twelve times and it hadn’t sunk in.

I actually didn’t know what I was going to do, except try to stop her challenging the biker to an arm wrestling match, the winner gets fifty dollars, a tactic Twyla had utilized on more than one occasion. I was guessing this was because she normally walked away with the fifty dollars and the biker walked out because a woman beat him at arm wrestling. Still this meant she didn’t have to wait on them anymore and she had fifty dollars which meant it wasn’t exactly stupid. Then again, they didn’t come back which was bad for business.

“Um…” I replied.

“Common decency to give twenty percent,” she went on. “Fifty cents on seven-fifty ain’t no twenty percent.” Her eyes swung to the biker. “A buck fifty is twenty percent.”

The biker’s eyes came to me. “Can you wait our table?”

Twyla’s back straightened so fast it looked like a steel rod had been jammed into it.

“You got a problem with the way I wait tables?” she asked the biker loudly.

“Well, yeah,” he answered.

“What’s your problem?” she demanded to know.

“Woman,” he replied, “you’re in my face. She don’t get in a man’s face. She serves the drink, takes her tip and walks away, an added bonus because it’s a damn good view comin’ and goin’.”

Even though this was all unfolding in front of me, automatically I turned my head when the door opened. It was what I did in case someone I knew was coming in. I liked to greet them and they liked it too.

In this instance, I would have warned them.

Instead, when I saw who walked in I froze.

It was Tate, wearing a tight, wine-colored t-shirt, belt, jeans and boots. His hair was even longer and he still had his beard.

He looked beautiful.

I’d been doing the texting business for over three weeks. I’d been getting my sweet dreams phone calls every night for that same period of time. I got one last night and he didn’t tell me he was heading home. I was surprised to see him.

Surprised and ecstatic.

So ecstatic I didn’t even think. I just moved.

I darted across the bar, running full-tilt, my eyes locked to his. He had been moving into the bar but when he saw me running he stopped and, luckily, braced because I launched myself at him. Arms around his shoulders, I hopped up as he went back on a foot on impact and my legs went around his hips. I felt his hands move to hold me at my behind.

I stuffed my face in his neck and held on tight with all four of my limbs.

“You’re home,” I whispered.

“Yeah baby,” he whispered back.

I lifted my head and smiled down at him.

His eyes touched mine briefly before they dropped to my mouth. Then one of his hands left my bottom, went up my back and into my hair. He tipped my head down and then he was kissing me, a Tate out-of-mind, all-about-body kiss that tore straight through me in a good way.

I heard the catcalls and wolf whistles about two seconds after Tate released my mouth and started walking through the bar, holding me to him.

His head turned toward the bar as we got to its side.

“Laurie’s on break,” he said to a grinning Bubba.

“Guessed that,” Bubba replied as the catcalls and wolf whistles reached zenith and were joined by some very raunchy words of encouragement.

“I’d pay a five hundred percent tip for that,” I heard Twyla’s biker nemesis shout.

Tate and I ignored him. Tate was busy carrying me down the hall. I was busy kissing his neck and feeling his beard rough on my cheek. One of his hands left me as he unlocked the door and I lifted my head to flip the light switch on when we entered. The door closed behind us as I noticed Tate’s head tip back and then my mouth found his. We necked all the way across the office and my legs automatically accommodated a seating position, straddling him when he sat on the old, beat up couch that was situated diagonal across the middle of the big office, my lips never leaving his.

We kept making out for awhile stopping only when Tate pulled the string of my apron and we separated when he tugged it from between us and then we went back at it.

Finally, when his hands were roaming my skin under my t-shirt at the back and my hands were in his hair, his mouth disengaged from mine and his lips and beard trailed down my jaw to my neck as I shivered.

“Now that’s a welcome home,” he growled into my ear and I shivered again as I smiled against his hair. “Lot better than the last one, babe.”

That didn’t make me shiver. My head came up and my eyes went squinty when his head tipped back.

“How many times are you going to throw that in my face?” I asked when my squinty eyes caught his.

He grinned. “You strung out your grudge against me for nearly two weeks and I just said somethin’ stupid, so I figure I get at least a month of throwin’ that in your face since how you f**ked up meant somethin’.”