Chapter One

Emily

“I will have a double cheeseburger and a coke. Oh, and throw in a slice of apple pie.”

I stop scribbling on the notepad and fix my glare on the man who won’t meet my eyes. I have to fight back a smile when he takes a sudden interest in the menu, even if he knows it like the back of his hand. “You think you’re so sleek huh, Mr. Wilford?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Do you really want your wife to yell at us again? You know darn well you can’t have a double cheeseburger and a coke, your blood pressure–”

“Yes, please save me the lecture. I know all too well about my blood pressure, but we all die, don’t we? Can’t I at least go out with a bang?”

“You consider eating your way into a heart attack, going out with a bang?”

“Yes. So, can I get one? Make it extra cheesy.”

“Grilled chicken sandwich and unsweetened tea coming right up!” I smile sweetly at the older man. “I’ll be sure to add a slice of apple pie though.”

He groans and I fight back a smile, shaking my head as I walk away. I’ve lived in this town long enough to know he doesn’t mean any of the words he just said. The man loves his wife more than air itself, and while their constant bickering might make you doubt that I’ve seen the way she fusses over what he eats and how he, in turn, rushes to open the door for her even after an argument.

At seventy, they’ve both been married for more than fifty years and it’s the kind of love I daydream about during my breaks -- a love so pure it lasts through decades of hardship. A part of me knows I will never have a chance to experience that with the past I’m running from, but a girl can dream.

I hand Mr. Wilford’s order to the chef and I’m about to turn around to attend to another customer when the diner suddenly becomes quiet. The place is so silent that I catch the sound of heavy combat boots as someone steps into the diner.

I don’t need to turn around to see who it is. There is only one person in Sweetheart Falls who can receive that reaction and no, it’s not the devil. Although now that I think about it, he might actually be the devil.

Tall, handsome, and scary. Well, he’s terrifying to everyone else but me. The man makes me nervous in ways I refuse to look too closely into.

Despite myself, I turn around to find everyone watching him walk into the diner, his face blank and eyes dark as he walks to the booth at the corner. The one where his back is facing the wall but with a perfect view of the entire place. He folds his massive trunk arms over his chest, and I notice the tattoos peeking through the folded sleeves of his black shirt.

Everyone’s attention slowly shifts from him and back to their food but the tension in the air remains.

“Uhm… Emily?”

I turn around to find Wendy, one of the waitresses staring anxiously at me. I can practically read the nerves on her. She’s a college student who started working at the diner right around the same time I did. “What’s wrong?” I ask her, although I’m pretty sure I know already what she wants.

“Can you please take his table,” she whispers shakily, nodding towards the man who just walked in. The same man currently staring into our direction with his dark expressionless eyes. “I… I will cover a shift for you on my day off. I will do anything please don’t make me talk to him.”

“Hey, you don’t have to go that far,” I tell her, patting her shoulder. “I’ll take him. Take care of Mr. Wilford’s order and don’t let that sweet old man talk you into getting him a cheeseburger or his wife will hang us both. Don’t let her walking stick fool you, that old woman can outrun us both.”

The tension on her face disappears as she smiles at me, rushing to take Mr. Wilford’s order to him when the chef calls it out. I grab my notepad and pen and start for the man, his eyes trailing my every move and causing a shiver to run down my spine.

See, this is not the first time a waitress has asked me to attend to the strange man. No one knows his name and those that do absolutely refuse to say it. Almost as if saying it out loud will suddenly summon him.

All I have heard about him is that he is related to Bigfoot, a man who lives in the mountains. The locals say that between the two, this man is the one to be most wary of. Unlike his brother who hides in the mountains and only became a savage when he moved there, this man has always been this way -- cold and terrifying from the moment he was a child. They said he enjoyed fighting, that he would lose himself in a brawl until the other person was bloody and broken. Looking at him now, I could see the power his large fists could deliver. It should scare me, or at least make me wearier of him, but I found his silent form compelling. He always stood straight and proud, as if he were in control of everything. His tattoos snaked around his arms, standing out against tanned skin and I wanted to know what they were of… how far down did they travel? His light blonde hair was cropped short, and dark eyes always seemed to watching over me, even in my dreams.

While I can’t claim to know the validity of those words, the locals who claim to have known him back then warn the rest of us to keep our distance. The other waitresses seem to have taken the words to heart and perhaps I should too but if I did, who else would serve the man? Wendy would probably pass out before she even got to him considering how nervous he makes her.

So that leaves me.

Saying the man doesn’t make me nervous too would be a lie. It’s impossible to not grow nervous around a man that looks like he could wrestle a bear and win… by a mile.

Even so, I take in a deep breath and remind myself that he is only a man as I approach him. But all that pep talk goes up in smoke when I step up next to his table. This is not my first time serving him, but it always takes me by surprise the dark and powerful energy that radiates off him in waves. The same energy that shuts up a room when he walks into it.

The same energy that sends a strange pulsing heat between my legs.

No. Noo, don’t think about it!

“Hi there,” I say, my voice suddenly shaky. “What can I get you today?”

He doesn’t immediately speak, which makes me look at him, but I quickly shift my gaze away when I find him watching me with cold, unnerving gray eyes.

“Do I scare you?”

My eyes shoot back to his in shock, suddenly taken aback by his question. I start to speak but hesitate. The man sure is scary, even without taking into account the buzzcut and bulging muscles. He has these cold, gray eyes that remind me of dark clouds on a stormy day, and then there’s the long scar on the right side of his face that disappears into his thick beard. Everyone avoids talking about the scar, but it’s not exactly easy to ignore.

At six foot five, he easily towers over everyone in town.

His strength is not silent. No, it’s right in your face, daring you to test him with the promise to send you into the afterlife when you do.

Does he scare me?

I’ve been scared before by a man. One who was much smaller than this giant and didn’t hold half the power this man does. I was so scared that I ran away and hid in a small town in Montana miles away from my home.

This man, however, doesn’t scare me. Not in the way he does with the others. The effect he has on my body is what terrifies me the most if I’m being honest.

“Should I be scared of you?”

There is a small twitch at the corner of his mouth before it’s gone but I see it. “No, never of me,” he says gruffly before adding. “I’ll have a double cheeseburger with fries and water.”

I nod before walking away to hand his order to the chef. My legs are shaky as I walk away, and I have no idea how I even make it to the counter without plummeting to my face. I look around the diner as I wait for his order and notice people hunched over, probably discussing him. Even Mr. Wilford seems to be gossiping with Wendy as she pretends to be wiping down his table and I can’t help but wonder what that would feel like.

Unlike the giant who seems to be the center of attention, I’m the girl who has always fallen in the background. Born and raised in the system, I was one of the millions of kids without families to celebrate Christmas with. Even at the orphanage, there were so many of us that we all became numbers rather than faces and names.

I wonder if the giant feels as lonely as I do. Being the center of everyone’s attention while, at the same time, having no one by your side.

I know that feeling all too well.

The chef calls out my order and I grab it, tossing him a quick smile before running it over to the man’s table. I’m tempted to walk away right after, but something stops me.

Walk away, Emily . Heavens know I cannot afford to engage this man everyone is terrified of, but for one insane moment, I feel a sense of kinship with him. I awkwardly stand next to his table as the man grabs the burger and takes a massive bite.

“Is it the food to your taste, sir?” I blurt out.

“It’s a burger all right,” he says, and I bite my lip to fight back a smile. I know the burgers here are not the best, but Dan’s Diner is the only place that serves them in this part of town. “And my name is Callan Graham.”

Callan, Huh. Not what I was expecting. I had him pinned for a Bob or Blaze or something macho but Callan fits.

Now that I know his name, I should leave. I’ve engaged the man for much longer than I’ve ever seen him talk to anyone else before however, I find myself frozen to the floor, unwilling to leave.

I hug the tray to my chest and take a deep breath before I finally decide I need to break the silence. “So… uhm, you grew up in this town, right?” I ask, oblivious to the shift my question brings. “. I have a day off tomorrow and would like to do something fun. Do you have any activities you could recommend? I moved here a few months ago, but really haven’t had time to explore much.”

Silence.

A long, tense silence that unnerves me. The man’s expression morphs from a blank canvas to a look that’s colder than the deep ocean as he drops his burger back to the plate. I watch with horror as his jaw tenses up and nostrils flare. For the first time, I catch sight of the man everyone is terrified of.

I realize two things simultaneously. One, whatever I said seemed to strike a nerve and two… I probably should have walked away before I knew his name.