Run To You

Roll Saloon in Miami and tell them there’s someone passed out on their back doorstep.” He laughed as he took Stella’s elbow and turned the corner. The commanding touch was so brief, it was over before she had time to pull away. So brief, yet it left a hot imprint even after he dropped his hand. “Yeah. I’m sure he’s drunk.” He laughed again. They moved to the curb and he stuck out his arm like a security gate as he looked up and down the street. “I’m headed there in about an hour. It should go down easy.” Then he pointed at the café across the street as if he was in command. In charge. The boss.
    No one was in charge of Stella. No one commanded her anymore. She was the boss. Not that it mattered. She’d give this guy ten minutes of her time and then it was sayonara, G.I. Joe.

Chapter Two
    S tella plopped her backpack on the seat of a metal and vinyl chair at the little Cuban café tucked between restaurants and bars in Miami Beach. G.I. Joe pulled out a chair for her and waited for her to take a seat. “Thank you.” Nice manners from the guy who’d just punched Ricky in the head? The two just didn’t quite fit.
    “You’re welcome.” He sat across from her, and her gaze landed on his chest. Hard muscles covered in a black T-shirt. This was Miami. Men didn’t go to clubs dressed like ninjas or stunt doubles in an action movie. Not even on Back Door Betty Night. They wore cotton or linen button-down shirts tucked into designer jeans they probably couldn’t afford. Even if they had to eat hot dogs every night, they dressed like jetsetters and ballers who had money to burn.
    A waitress in a tiny pink T-shirt, smooth black ponytail, and big gold earrings set two menus on the table. “You back already?” she asked, her accent barely discernable.
    “I’ve changed my mind about that flan.” He reached for his hat and tossed it on the chair beside him. He looked up at the waitress, and Stella got her first good look at him. Like his muscles, his face looked hard, too. Hard like he’d been chiseled from stone. Like an action figure in an action movie come to life. “Black coffee.” Captain America with a nasty case of hat hair.
    The waitress turned her attention to Stella. “For you, miss?”
    “I’ll just have decaf.” Caffeine was the last thing her central nervous system needed. As it was, she was going to be awake a long time anyway, trying to sort this night out in her head. “Cream and sugar.”
    Joe watched the waitress walk away and combed his fingers through his short blond hair. “What time do you have to meet your someone?” He glanced at the big watch on his wrist, then looked across the table at Stella. “Or was that a lie?”
    Gray. His eyes were gray. The color of storm clouds and smoke. Anna Conda had said he looked like Channing Tatum, but Stella didn’t really see it. Perhaps the shape of jaw and mouth was similar, but Joe was older than the Magic Mike star. Late thirties maybe, with tiny creases at the corners of his eyes. She couldn’t imagine that he was a smiley guy. They were probably scowl lines. “What?”
    “You told your boss you were meeting someone.”
    Oh. “I just wanted him to let me go.” She shook her head, and her Amy bouffant shifted. “How long were you out in the parking lot?”
    “About twenty minutes.” He sat back in his chair like he was irritated and folded his big arms across his bigger chest.
    “Sorry.” She reached above her head and untied the red scarf from her hair. “If I’d known I was being stalked, I would have hurried.” She shoved the scarf in her pack, then started pulling out bobby pins.
    “The laws of stalking vary from state to state, but generally they are defined as a person who repeatedly follows and harasses another person and poses a credible threat of physical harm, whether expressed or implied. Of course that’s the short version.” He paused a moment to watch her pull the pins from her hair before he added, “The key word is ‘repeatedly.’ Tonight is the first time I’ve seen you, so I think it’s safe to say I’m not a stalker.”
    She didn’t know if she should be alarmed that he knew the rules of stalking. Long or short version. She shoved a fistful of pins into her backpack, then pulled the bouffant from the top of her head and set it on the table. Instantly she felt cooler. “So what are you?” she asked, although she could guess. Stella wasn’t exactly hiding from anyone, but she