“I know you don’t trust me, and that we’re almost strangers, but I promise this time after I leave I’ll stay in contact, okay?”

“Okay.”

He knew it was a small step they’d just taken, but a step nonetheless. They fell silent, slurping their smoothies, and Dylan decided that before he left, if he did nothing else, it would be to see his little sister settled into a hairdressing apprenticeship. Even if it took several arguments with his mother to achieve that.

Chapter 17

Piper hadn’t slept well again last night. Like the last five, she’d spent time thinking and dreaming about Dylan Howard and his hot body.

“Three weeks,” she muttered. “Why the hell is the man still here?”

The sex they’d had should not have made such an impression on her. Okay, so she didn’t have a great deal of experience, but Dylan had taken her places she’d never dreamed she could go, and had achieved that in a matter of minutes. It hadn’t been long, with sweetly whispered words; no, it had been anything but that. And it had been wonderful, amazing, and a million other words.

She’d told him it was a one-time thing, but she’d be lying to say she didn’t want more. The problem was, Piper didn’t think she could take more without getting emotionally invested in him. And that was a good enough reason to never go there again.

The man was turning out to be a royal pain in her butt. She could usually dismiss men as quickly as they came into her life, but not him. He was like something burrowing under her skin.

She’d woken early, gone for a ride today, then cleaned the house and was doing the afternoon shift now at the cafe in the hopes that she could forget about him. If he just left town it would make things easier. Then she wouldn’t have to see him.

Piper had avoided going anywhere Dylan might be after that one awkward conversation when he came into the café the day after they’d had sex. He’d told her they hadn’t used a condom, Piper had told him it would be okay, and if not she’d let him know. He’d apologized and muttered something about never being unprepared before, then left. Since she’d gone into hiding. The bar, the tea shop... she’d avoided them all. The man was turning her into a recluse.

Thankfully, he’d not come into the café, so perhaps he was feeling the same as her.

“I’ll start on the baking for tomorrow, Piper, seeing as we’re quiet.”

She ran Phil’s Place, and owned part of it with her cousins. She loved it here, loved the small empire the Trainers had built together, especially as they’d started with nothing. But lately... well, lately it had not been enough.