“Can you tell me what this flavor is?”

She directed the question at Steve behind the counter. Griff had hired the kid when he had no place to go, which was pretty much how he found most of his workforce. Steve was gawky-thin, had two eyebrow rings, a tattoo on his neck and the generic scowl of a delinquent-which he was. He had been kicked out of school three times last year alone. Oddly enough, the stranger with the Virginia accent looked at the boy as if there was nothing unusual about his appearance.

“We call that one Griff’s Secret, ma’am. It’s everybody’s favorite. If you never tried it…well, let’s just say, once you’ve tried Griff, you never go back.”

“Hmm. Okay. Could I have a small cone? It has to be the smallest. I don’t even have time for that, but it looks so-”

“Yeah, it is, ma’am. Beyond good. Everybody says so.”

“How much?” She buried her head in a purse the size of a small country, emerged with a change purse barely big enough to hold a half dollar.

He’d have gone back to his paper-really. Except that, once she got a hold of the kid-size sugar cone, she sank into one of his fountain stools, closed her eyes, and took a single, long, slow lap.

The town claimed no one ever moved slower than Griff Branchard, but it wasn’t true. He just believed that speed required motivation. Seeing that soft, pink tongue curl around that cone propelled him across the room in maybe three seconds flat.

“I was hoping you might like that flavor,” he said, deliberately making his voice honey slow, because she looked like a lady who could be spooked easily-and he sure as hell didn’t want to do that.

Her eyes popped open, and for a whole, long second, she treated him to a dazzling smile. Griff had seen it before. Sometimes he only had a small window of opportunity before a woman slammed on the caution brakes, but invariably, females initially liked what they saw.