The BFF Bride Read Online Free PDF Page B

again before she had a chance to take her hand off the receiver, and she picked it up again. “Let me guess,” she said on a laugh. “Two dozen?”
    “Two dozen what?”
    Her nerves tightened right back up at the sound of Justin’s voice. “I thought you were somebody else. What do you want?”
    “I want you to get over the damn stick you got up your—”
    She hung up on him.
    It took only a second before the phone rang again.
    She disconnected the phone line, and it went silent.
    Then she turned back to the refrigerator and poured cold tea over the ice in her glass, flicked off the light in the kitchen and went back to the living room to watch her recorded football game.
    She fell asleep on the couch before halftime and woke up around 3:00 a.m. to the fuzzy, bluish-white light from the blank television screen.
    There was no point in going to bed when she needed to be at the diner soon, anyway.
    Rubbing the sleep from her face, she went to shower and got dressed for the day.
    Thirty minutes later, with her damp hair hidden beneath a bright blue knit cap and her gloved hands shoved deep in the pockets of her wool coat, she walked the three blocks from her triplex to the restaurant and let herself in the rear door. She didn’t need to turn on any lights to make her way through the back of the diner, because aside from updating an appliance here and there over the years, nothing significant had changed since she’d started working there as a teenager.
    She went out to the front of the restaurant, where the glass windows overlooked Main Street, and started fresh coffee brewing. With that delicious aroma following her, she went back into the kitchen, turned on the lights and got down to work.
    By the time she heard the back door open again, she had three baking sheets of cinnamon rolls cooling on the racks and was sliding two more into the oven. “Grab that third sheet from the counter, would you?”
    She looked over her shoulder, expecting Bubba.
    But it was Justin who picked up the large metal pan. “This one?”
    Her lips tightened, and she took the sheet pan from him, sliding it into the oven along with the others and closing the door. “Come to check on your investment?”
    She didn’t wait for an answer and went back out through the swinging door to the front, where she poured herself a cup of coffee. It wasn’t quite 6:00 a.m. yet, but she unlocked the door and flipped the Closed sign to Open, anyway.
    When she turned back, Justin was sitting on one of the red vinyl–upholstered stools at the counter. He was wearing dark gray running pants and a zippered jacket with CNJ printed on the stand-up collar.
    His clothes looked expensive. And darn it all, they fit his tall, exceptional physique as if they’d been tailored for him. Which, for all she knew, they had been. He’d admitted quite a few years ago that he not only had his suits tailored, but his shirts, as well. His precious Gillian had seen to that.
    Since Tabby didn’t want to think about that, she focused on everything above his neck. His thick, short hair was damp, making the blond strands look brown. He’d obviously showered. Her nose was even prickling from the vaguely spicy scent of his soap. Or...whatever.
    “You need a shave.” She flipped over a thick white mug, filled it with coffee and pushed it in front of him.
    His long fingers circled the mug. “You should keep the door locked when you’re here by yourself.”
    “Please. Be mighty hard for customers to come in to Ruby’s if I kept the doors locked whenever I happen to be alone.” Hard for customers. Hard for intruders.
    She pushed aside the thought and went back through the swinging door, pulled on clean plastic gloves and turned out the first batch of rolls, deftly packing several up individually, then punched down the dough that was rising in an enormous steel bowl.
    He hadn’t budged when she went back out to the front.
    She deposited the pastry boxes next to the register,