Tilting his head, he studied her as she dealt with the payment. Wylie had mentioned he’d hired new waitstaff.

Intriguing-looking woman. Medium height and full-bodied rather than slender. She wore the roadhouse’s denim vest over a rich blue shirt. A tooled leather belt wrapped around her black jeans. Gold earrings twinkled against dark brown hair that fell to mid-back in a long braid. She wore no makeup from what he could tell, but her gorgeous brown eyes, with stunningly long black lashes, were the color of melted dark chocolate.

She had a strong face with an assertive chin…and her perfectly curved mouth was made for smiling.

He wanted to see her smile.

Unfortunately, when she glanced at him, he got nothing. In fact, her big eyes were cold. It appeared here was one beauty who wouldn’t be flirting with him. After giving him an unreadable look, she walked away.

He rubbed a thumb and finger down the sides of his goatee as he watched her.

Interesting. Did she dislike men with shaved heads? Or was the color of his skin a shade too dark?

Or maybe bartenders were on her shit list? If so, she’d certainly picked the wrong profession.

She stopped at a table to take orders and talk with the customers.

He was right—her smile was beautiful.

That man was here. The one who’d been so cruel to the woman in the parking lot. And he was a bartender.

Earlier, on her break, Frankie’d been outside and strolled around the building in time to witness the huge and hotter-than-hell bastardo coldly crushing his lover’s heart and tossing her aside. Like she was nothing.

Like Jaxson did with me. Frankie’s mouth tightened at how similar the parking lot drama had been to Jaxson’s leaving.

How many nights had she cried herself to sleep at the memory of her husband’s—ex-husband’s—vicious words when he told her he was leaving.

“Hey, we had some good times, and hell, I know you liked the sex. You didn’t seriously think it’d last, did you? I mean, I like you—I married you, right?—but this living together isn’t working for me. It’s time to move on.”

Move on? He’d leave her? “B-but you love me, Jax. You said you did.” She moved forward…somehow. Her legs didn’t feel as if they belonged to her anymore. Taking his arm, she stared up at him.

With an irritated sound, he pried her hands off. “You’re nice. Pretty and all that. Really. I just, kinda realized I don’t love you. Yeah, you deserve someone better, right?”

He didn’t love her.

But they made love just last night. She wrapped her arms around herself, against the chill in the air. In her heart. Had he forced himself to have sex with her?

Her hands fisted. “Did you ever love me?”