Somebody Like You (Starlight Hill Series Book 2) by Heatherly Bell Page A

the waitress, well-done, but no. If they were going to do this, it had to be professional. Brooke would never go for it any other way. 
    So he ordered from the menu, which his old trainer (and now his mother) would call Heart Attack Alley. Everything sounded good, but he settled on the Santa Fe skillet with eggs over-easy.
    A few minutes later, Brooke set his platter down and tried to walk away, but he grabbed her wrist. “Can we talk?”
    “I’m working.” She shook him off.
    “Si,” Billy called out to the chef, “Can your waitress take a break and talk to me?”
    “Hells to the yes!” Si shouted.
    “What a shock. You get your way again.” Brooke dead-panned.
    “You’re working here now?”
    “It’s temporary. I give Em a few days off a week so she can do her rescue dog training. And also because I can’t buy the vineyard I’d planned to buy. Since someone else already did.”
    “Yeah.” Billy said, but he hadn’t missed the fact that the reporters were leaning a bit closer. Not exactly the privacy he’d hoped to have this conversation. “Didn’t know you were looking for a job.”
    “I’m not.” Brooke locked eyes with him. Had she already guessed he’d been about to try and hire her? It wouldn’t surprise him. Seemed like Brooke had always been two steps ahead of him.
    “Because if you are, I’m looking for a general manager.”
    “Is that right?”
    “I think you know that I’m slightly out of my element here. I need someone who knows what they’re doing. I could hire an outside firm, but I already know who I want.” He tried his best to give her a significant, completely non-sexual look.
    Which, let’s face it, was not easy,looking the way she di d face flushed, hair a bit plastered to the side of her face. Like she’d just had a good— work-out. Still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. 
    “And of course, everyone knows you get what you want.” Brooke leaned towards him, giving him a generous view of her cleavage.
    The reporters were practically salivating. Not to mention Billy. If he could bury his face in that fleshy rack, he’d die a happy man.
    “Not true,” he said, regaining consciousness. He swallowed some of his water, wishing he could splash it in his face. He needed to concentrate right now.
    “Order up!” Si called out.
    “Sorry, gotta go. But this was fun,” Brooke said.
    She flitted about the rest of the tables, where her attitude remained as bright and cheery as a monsoon. Waitress material she wasn’t. A few times he noticed customers wound up straightening out their orders after she’d left, unwilling, or perhaps afraid to set her straight.
    He understood the feeling. If not for the fact that he’d faced a lot worse— such as rehab after the first shoulder surgery— he might have felt the same way. Brooke was like a tornado that fascinated as it drew people and objects in its direction with the assurance that if one got too close they faced certain death.
    He still thought it might be a good way to go if he got to choose.
    A couple of hours later most of the customers had left and even the reporters straggled out when Billy continued to silently read the sports section. Giving them nothing.
    “You’re still here?” Brooke asked, as if she hadn’t been silently throwing him death stares the entire time.
    “You need the table?” He scanned the empty room.
    “No, smart ass. I don’t.” She headed toward him with the coffee carafe, but he finally had the mix of creamer and sugar where he wanted it to be. He covered the mug but too late. Brooke poured a splash of hot coffee right on his hand.
    He drew his hand back as white blinding pain seared his skin, and Brooke’s eyes turned to big amber saucers.
    “Oh no, I’m so sorry. Let me get that for you.” She ran out of the room and came back with a wet towel and some ice.
    This was by far the best injury he’d ever endured. No stranger to blinding searing pain that cut like a razor