one of those huge brown trays laden with the family’s meal on her shoulder. He held his breath, hoping she didn’t see him until after she’d delivered the food.
He kept his gaze glued to her as she moved, noticing the familiar details he hadn’t been able to see from outside. She’d gained a little weight. Just a little. Baby weight from becoming a mom? He swallowed that question.
The blond hair he’d fondly remembered flying loose and carefree had been yanked into a ponytail, hanging limply down her back. Did it still feel as soft...and smell like roses...and the ocean?
She wasn’t wearing any makeup and the sad, orange uniform she wore had seen better days, but her smile was warm as she served. The dimple he remembered so vividly flashed in her right cheek, giving him faint hope that maybe the girl he remembered was still in there somewhere.
He remembered her wearing orange once before—a bikini that hid all the right stuff, and not much else. Shaking his head to dispel the memory, he focused on the here and now.
Without mishap, she distributed the plates and carted off the tray. She snagged the coffee carafe from the burner before heading toward him. She didn’t look up, focusing on pulling an order pad from her pocket.
DJ held his breath. Waiting.
Two feet away, Tammie finally saw him—and froze. She stared, her eyes growing wide. Somewhere in the distance glass shattered and the coffee carafe lay in a zillion pieces on the tile floor.
* * *
TAMMIE’S HEART POUNDED in her chest as she met DJ Hawkins’s cold stare. She recognized him immediately. The long blond hair she remembered all too vividly was gone, as she’d expected. But the face was the same—the same one he shared with Tyler.
Breathe, she reminded herself. Think. She’d known this could happen—that she’d be found. She’d run through every scenario a dozen times in her mind, but none of those scenarios had starred DJ. Not like this, anyway.
“Hello, Tammie.” His voice came out deep and gruff, cutting through her daze. “We need to talk.”
The serious tone of his voice sent fear shooting through her. How had he found her, and why? He was angry. That was obvious. She’d expected that, too, considering she hadn’t told him about Tyler. But why was he here now?
“Is Tyler okay?” Her fear turned to panic.
DJ frowned. “If you consider how much he misses his mother, and the fact that his dad, who he just met, left him to go find her, yeah, he’s okay. Miserable, but okay.”
Her heart hurt. She couldn’t tell DJ, or anyone, why she’d left Tyler. She didn’t dare share the details of the danger she’d put Tyler, and herself, in. A dose of humiliation and a lot of fear kept her quiet.
Reality interrupted as Lindsey wheeled the mop bucket out of the kitchen. Tammie knew the other waitress wasn’t coming out to help her. She was being nosy.
Tammie straightened her shoulders, shoring up her determination now that she knew Tyler was okay. “I’m...I’m working. It’s not break time yet.” Looking around, she knew she could avoid whatever he had to say with all the customers and her coworkers listening.
“I’ll wait.”
Why did those words scare the hell out of her? She trembled, then grabbed the mop handle as much to give herself an excuse to not talk to him as to clean.
“I’ll take a cup of fresh coffee, when you get a minute,” he drawled.
Of course, it took her twice as long to clean up the mess with him watching. At least the other diners had gone back to their meals and ignored them. Lindsey, however, was leaning over the counter, watching the scene with interest.
“One coffee. Coming up,” Tammie said automatically, moving with stilted, hesitant steps, like a sleepwalker on the verge of waking up. In the back room, she put the bucket away and paced the kitchen. What was she supposed to do now? She glanced at the back door. Only the old, battered screen door stood between her and the alley behind the diner.
She called herself every kind of stupid. She shouldn’t have stayed here in Austin. She’d known that, but the idea of leaving, really leaving Tyler behind, was more than she could bear—he was her world. So she’d stayed. Lot of good that did.
Every instinct told her to run now. Run fast and hard while DJ was occupied and not expecting it. Run and hope he’d only found her because Tyler had said something.
Tyler. She missed him so much. Closing her eyes, she pictured him as she’d last seen him. How much had he changed in the few months she’d been away? Curiosity and determination to not give in to her fears had Tammie grabbing the fresh coffee and heading back to DJ’s table. “I... Is...Tyler...settling in okay with you?”
“He’s fine.”
Her hand shook as she poured the coffee.
“I’m not going anywhere.” His voice sounded almost reassuring. He didn’t say any more but instead looked pointedly around the room. “We’ll talk when we’re alone.”
Alone. She gulped. She didn’t dare let him get her alone. He’d ask questions she couldn’t—wouldn’t—answer. “Can I get you anything else?” She forced herself to shift gears. Distant-waitress mode was safest. It was where she’d lived for months.
“No, that’ll do.” He looked up, his gaze hard. “For now.”
She shut off her thoughts and made her decision. Move, feet, move. She prayed she could get out of here before he caught up to her. Probably a stupid notion, but she had to try.
Tammie walked slowly toward the kitchen, returning the coffee carafe to the burner, and as nonchalantly as possible, she bent down and scooped up her battered backpack. She kept walking, right through the kitchen to the back door. She ran out into the night, not bothering even to think about where she was going. Just out of here. Away.
The light from the diner’s kitchen was all that illuminated the alley. And it lit only the first few feet. The shadows swallowed the rest.
She knew there were creepy crawlies and evil trash in the world, and probably half of them lived in this neighborhood, but she told herself she could handle all of them. What she couldn’t handle was being found. Not by DJ—and certainly not by the man who would follow. If DJ had found her, Dom would, too.
Her heart pounded and her soul dropped to her knees as she hurried through the alley, toward the street. Please don’t let him notice I’ve left. Not yet.
She was nearly to the light at the mouth of the alley when a shadowed figure stepped into her path, blocking her escape. Silhouetted in the streetlight’s glow, DJ looked dark and ominous. Once, he’d been a friend. He’d been her first lover. He’d been kind. But time had a way of changing everyone. She shivered, not sure who she was really facing.
“I won’t hurt you, Tammie,” he called to her, sounding a lot as though he was trying to cajole, not harm her. But she couldn’t trust him. She didn’t dare trust any man. Not ever again.
“I know,” she lied. She’d learned a lot of tricks in the past nine
