One

      Clint Slade strolled into the Rocking W Coffee Shop in search of a caffeine rush. He got a rush, all right, of the testosterone kind. Walking down the center aisle of the restaurant, holding a tray and heading toward a couple in the far corner booth was the shapeliest thing he’d seen in denim and boot leather. The cowbell tied to the knob clanked as he closed the door.

      The woman didn’t look his way, or break stride. “I’ll be right with you.”

      Take your time, honey.

      Clint pushed his black cowboy hat farther back to give himself a better view. Watching her walk was a pleasure. He couldn’t put his finger on what it was he found so appealing, but damn, he sure liked the way she moved.

      Her blond hair was braided in a single plait that hung down her back. He imagined himself untwining it, could almost feel its silky texture slipping through his fingers...

      He watched as she refilled the customers’ glasses with iced tea. They were the only ones here, besides himself. In an hour, after the bar across the parking lot closed, the place would be packed with people grabbing an early breakfast before heading home to sleep off their night out. But at the moment, it was quiet.

      The waitress turned in his direction. Blue...he hoped her eyes were blue.

      At first, she was smiling. Then a look that might have been surprise, or fear, flashed across her face before her lips settled back into a polite smile. Once she had closed the distance between them, he forgot about the changes he’d noticed in her expression and stared into her blue eyes.

      “Would you like a table, booth or a seat at the counter?”

      What he’d like and what he was likely to get were two different things. He forced his mind away from the need that had been developing while he’d watched her and onto the need that had brought him into the coffee shop in the first place—his fatigue and the twenty miles left on his late-night drive home from San Antonio to the Diamond S Ranch.

      “Just coffee to go.”

      She nodded, then walked behind the counter, treating him to another look at the sway of her hips. He’d bet she was dynamite on the dance floor...not to mention between the sheets.

      Attractive or not, he admonished himself silently, he shouldn’t be thinking about her that way. He had a strict rule about not sleeping with any woman who lived within a hundred miles of Harmony Ridge, Texas. He liked to keep his business interests, his personal life and the satisfying of his physical needs separate so they didn’t interfere with each other—it was a lesson he’d learned the hard way.

      “New to town?” he asked. He hadn’t seen her working here before. Of course, he usually came in during the day. It had been years since he’d been part of the late-night breakfast crowd.

      “Cream or sugar?” she