Page 12 of Wilde Flame

“Just now.”

Turning back to Lucy, I said, “I’ll take the breakfast special, over-medium for the eggs, please.”

“Sure thing,” Lucy replied, before turning and walking back toward the kitchen. I glanced around to see that everyone was back to minding their own business.

When I looked back at my brother, he raised a single brow.

“I like Lilibeth just fine.”

He laughed.

“Okay, she gets to me. I don’t know how to explain it. And I don’t know why Ensley asked me. But,” I lowered my voice, “she fucking answered her door dressed in nothing but a bra and panties.”

Gatlin slowly shook his head. “You poor bastard. I’m sure that really hurt your eyes.”

I shot him a dirty look. “You don’t get it, Gatlin. The woman drives me mad.”

He leaned back in the booth. “No kidding. The question you need to ask yourself is why does she drive you mad? Are you attracted to her, and that pisses you off because you’d rather walk around grumpy and hating the world?”

I scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not. I’m asking a legit question, Caden.”

“I don’t hate the world.”

“Could have fooled me. Oh, maybe you just hate women, so you take out your self-induced loneliness on everyone.”

Lucy walked back over and placed my coffee and water on the table.

I put sugar and cream in the coffee, the entire time feeling my brother’s intense gaze on me.

“Why the fuck are you staring at me?”

He shrugged. “What happened after she answered the door in her underwear?”

“Nothing. She grabbed a coat and put it on.”

“And once you made sure she was okay, you decided to come to Anna’s for breakfast?”

“I did. Is there a problem with that?”

He raised his hands in defense. “Not at all.”

The bell above the café door rang, and we both turned to see none other than Lilibeth walking in.

“Christ,” I mumbled, as Gatlin chuckled.

“You can’t seem to get away from this woman, can you?”

“Good morning, Lucy,” Lilibeth said, in her usual chipper voice. “May I please grab a coffee and an orange danish to go?”

I was silently praying she wouldn’t look over and see us sitting here.

“Should we invite her to join us for breakfast?” Gatlin asked, his voice lowered this time.

“No, we should not. Besides, she needs to get to her store. Remember the whole oversleeping and running late thing?”

“Right. Right. You planning on doing any Black Friday shopping since you’re in town?”