WFM Week – Day Five + An Exclusive Scene!

Well, the final day has come at last! I just want to thank everyone who hung around this past week and helped celebrate the release of Wait for Morning with me! I had a blast, and I hope you all enjoyed WFM (or will enjoy it when you read it)! And for all of you that stuck around, I’ve included an exclusive scene today
that I hope you’ll enjoy as well.

You get to meet Marissa’s brother Clay in Wait for Morning. Here’s a little insight into what happened to him when he went to get coffee one morning… Enjoy!

Friday morning, 8 a.m.

“Mornin’,” Clay Trexler greeted Ally Shaffaer when he made his way into the small, but very busy coffee shop located on the ground floor of the building he worked in. The building his family actually owned.

“Good mornin’,” she replied sweetly, big brown eyes peering back at him from behind the counter. “Same as yesterday?”

Clay nodded, fighting the urge to smile. Yes, he was at Percolation, the stellar coffee shop housed on the bottom floor of his office building, to order the same as yesterday and the day before and the day before that. In fact, Clay was pretty sure it was the only thing he’d ever ordered from there. Coming in for a large black coffee was part of his morning routine and being that he was allergic to change, he was certain he’d be drinking the same coffee when he was old and gray.

He watched as Ally retrieved a large Styrofoam cup from the towering stack teetering precariously on the counter before turning to one of the many machines behind her. She pulled the spigot and dark liquid and steam filled the cup until she turned it off.

It wasn’t that the coffee pouring into the cup was all that interesting, but Clay figured watching the process of making coffee was the lesser of two evils. Either watch Ally work or watch Ally’s ass while she worked. Considering the last time he’d checked out her extremely fine backside, he’d been busted by the woman herself.

“On the house,” Ally told him when she turned to face him, just as she did every morning.

“Thanks,” he responded and then slid a five dollar bill into the tip jar.

“Why do you do that?” Ally asked suddenly and his morning routine immediately veered off course. Generally, Ally would smile, her beautiful face aglow with gratitude and he would disappear out the door and trudge up the seven flights of stairs—more to burn off excess energy than for any exercise-related health benefits—to his office.

Not today.

“Do what?” he asked as he eased out of the way of the other customers who were in line behind him.

“Put that much in the tip jar?”

“Because I want to?” he said, phrasing his answer as a question because he wasn’t quite sure where she was going with this.

“It defeats the purpose, you know?”

Was it him or did she seem rather argumentative?

“I know,” he said calmly, studying her as she tracked him from behind the oversized glass case that housed all of the pastries and other cholesterol-laden goodness that she sold.

When he was free of the throng of people, Clay sidled up to the counter, close to where Ally was now standing. For a moment, he considered asking her a question of his own. Perhaps something along the lines of, “Would you be interested in going out with me?” or maybe something simple like, “How about dinner?”

He didn’t ask either question because he’d never conjured up enough nerve to ask the lovely coffee shop owner anything. Hell, she had even managed to eliminate his need to request coffee for himself. But the way she was staring back at him made him believe she was actually waiting for him to ask something. What, he had no idea.

“Are you all right?” he finally asked when neither of them said anything, the cacophony of the busy store growing louder as they stood staring at one another.

Finally, after what seemed like an interminably long time, Ally nodded her head. It wasn’t the direct response that made him question her honesty though. It was the shadows that passed through her eyes as her gaze flipped to the door briefly, the way her brow creased slightly and how she worried her bottom lip.

Was she trying to tell him something?

Then again, he’d always been the suspicious sort. Kind of went along with the job.

Or maybe this was just… what? Mindless flirting?

Hell, Clay would admit that he wasn’t exactly up to speed on the interworking of a woman’s mind, but surely he could figure out if a woman wereflirting with him, couldn’t he?

Especially this woman.

Everyone knew Ally Shaffaer. They knew she owned Percolation. They knew she was a bestselling author. They also knew she wasn’t big on sharing details of her own life with many people, nor did she generally engage in much conversation aside from the necessary pleasantries. Through the years, Ally had become close friends with Clay’s sister, Marissa, but even Marissa had mentioned how closed off Ally was at times.

So was this Ally’s way of opening up a little?

Or possibly just wishful thinking on his part?

Before Clay could muster up the nerve to dig deeper, to question her, his cell phone rang. Snapping it from the clip on his belt, he glanced at the screen before hitting the talk button, once again locking his gaze with Ally’s.

“Trexler,” he greeted.

“Dad wants us to meet him at his house,” Colby informed him gruffly.

“He say why?” Clay probed, turning slightly away from Ally, seeking a modicum of privacy.

“Nope. But he said we’ve got five minutes to get there.”

Clay laughed without mirth. “I’m at the office. They’re fifteen minutes away,” he told his older brother unnecessarily.

“Then I suggest you get off the phone and haul ass, bro.”

With that the call ended.

While Clay snapped his phone back in place, he glanced down at the coffee cup in his hand. Shit. There was no time for caffeine and if he had to deal with his father or his brothers that early in the morning, he was going to need some.

Taking a sip, he smiled at Ally one last time. “Gotta run. I’ll stop back by in a bit. Gonna need more of this,” he told her, raising his cup for her to see before he tossed it into the trash receptacle near the door on his way out.

Snatching his key from his pocket, Clay made his way to his motorcycle—the red, white and black Yamaha YZF-R6 was his pride and joy—and within seconds was out of the parking lot and on his way to his parents’ house.

Too bad mentally he was still back in that damn coffee shop. And the last thing on his mind was coffee.