CHAPTER ONE

It was almost time. Addison Price slid the coffeepot back on the heater, unable to keep her eye from the clock.

The diner closed at midnight. Every night at eleven fifty-five on the dot, he came in.

Tonight, though, eleven fifty-five came and went. And eleven fifty-six, eleven fifty-seven.

She’d have to close up. Bo, the owner, liked everything shut down right at midnight. He’d come in about fifteen minutes later and start going through the accounts for the day.

Eleven fifty-eight. The last customer, a farmer in a John Deere cap he must have picked up forty years ago, grinned at her and said, “Night, Addie. Time to go home to the wife.”

He said that every night. Addie only nodded and gave him a warm good-bye.

Eleven fifty-nine. In one minute, she’d have to lock the door, turn the “Open” sign around to “Closed,” help with the cleanup, and then go home. Her sister and two kids would be asleep, school day tomorrow. Addie would creep in as usual, take a soothing shower, play on the Internet a little to unwind, and then fall asleep. Her unwavering routine.

Tonight, though, she wouldn’t be able to analyze every single thing the white-and-black-haired man said to her and decide whether he liked her or was just making conversation.

The second hand on the analog clock above the pass to the kitchen swept down from the twelve toward the six. Eleven-fifty nine and thirty seconds. Forty. Forty-five.

Addie sighed and moved to the glass front door.

Which opened as she approached it, bringing in the warmth of a Texas night, and the man.

Addie quickly changed reaching for the door’s lock to yanking the door open wide and giving him her sunniest smile. “Hello, there. Y’all come on in. You made it just in time.”

The big man gave her his polite nod and walked past her with an even stride, his black denim coat brushing jeans that hugged the most gorgeous ass Addie had seen in all her days. Because this diner’s clientele had plenty of men from all walks of life, she’d seen her fair share of not-so-good backsides in jeans or showing inappropriately over waistbands.

Her man was different. His behind was worth a second, third, and fourth look. He was tall but not lanky, his build that of a linebacker in fine training, his shoulders and chest stretching his black T-shirt. The footwear under the blue jeans was always either gray cowboy boots or black motorcycle boots. Tonight, it was the motorcycle boots, supple leather hugging his ankles.

And, as always, Addie’s man carried the sword. He kept it wrapped in dark cloth, a long bundle he held in his hand and tucked beside his seat when he sat down and ordered. At first Addie had thought the bundle held a gun—a rifle or shotgun—and she’d had to tell him that Bo didn’t allow firearms of any kind in his diner. She’d lock it up for him while he ate. They had a special locker for the hunters who were regulars.

The man had shot her a quizzical look from his incredibly sexy eyes, pulled back the cloth, and revealed the hilt of a sword.

A sword, for crap’s sake. A big one, with a silver hilt. Addie had swallowed hard and said that maybe it was okay if he kept it down beside his chair. He’d given her a curt nod and covered the hilt back up.

But that was just him. He was like no man Addie had ever met in her life. His eyes were an amazing shade of green she couldn’t look away from. The eyes went with his hard face, which had been knocked around in his life, but he still managed to be handsome enough to turn the head of whatever woman happened to be in this late. Which, most nights, was only Addie.

His hair, though, was the weirdest thing. It was white, like a Scandinavian white blond, but striped with black. As though he’d gone in for a dye job one day and left it half finished. Or maybe he simply liked the look.