A loud blaring sound of horn pulled my attention back to the present.

I had just stopped my car outside of the address that the GPS was showing, and although it were eight p. m., and the darkness of night had covered the residential area, all the lights were off of the home that I was standing outside at.

I checked my GPS again to see if I had made any mistake but the location was showing the same.

Then I remembered that my uncle had mentioned about a coffee shop that he ran after retiring from his position as a police officer when I had talked to him over phone three days ago.

This was actually after the long gap of thirteen years that I was going to see my uncle, Vincent.

I barely remembered the last time when I had seen him. I was about twelve years old then. I remembered running into his arms after seeing him enter the threshold of our house.

But then one day he stopped coming to our home. He did not even come to my parents’ funeral. It made me furious. But he was not there for me to pour out my anger.

I could not even talk to him, unless he called back. Over the course of years, I eventually stopped calling him.

He never called me on his own.

My mom always said that my uncle was always out there if I ever needed him.

Although I had not met him for almost thirteen long years, but when I decided to leave my life behind, he was the only person that came into my mind.

And to my surprise, when I called him awkwardly, unsure and fearing of even his number being active or not after all these years, he picked up my call.

When I asked if I could come to stay with him for a couple of days, he immediately said yes without any question asked.

I grabbed my phone from the dashboard and dialed Vincent’s number. Even after trying four times, it kept going to an engaged tone. I searched for the second address that Vincent had mentioned. It was of his coffee shop.

The address was about two miles away from my current location. Without waiting, I started driving again and did not stop until I was at the mentioned address.

I parked my car across the street and started walking towards the coffee shop that was right in the middle of a busy street of the main city.

Or let’s just call it a coffee shop.

From what I could see from outside, it looked nothing like a coffee shop.

The entryway was blocked by a Harley which almost looked like a deliberate mistake of wrong parking. Although the walls of the coffee shop were made of see through mirror from the front, most of it was covered with heavy curtains.

And the sign on the door said Welcome.

Umm.. from nowhere it looked like a warm welcome.

I managed to squeeze past the Harley and push open the door of the coffee shop.

The chiming bells over the doorway started ringing and my eyes went up to look at them in surprise while walking forward.

I had taken just two steps inside when my body collided with something hard and my footing slipped.

I fell hard on my ass and an ‘ooof’ sound left my lips.

My eyes had unknowingly closed with my fall and when I opened them, instead of a wall, my eyes took in a set of brown cowboy boots.

My eyes followed the path of those boots and took in the dark blue jeans clad muscular legs, and then a wide buckled waist to a white t- shirt covered rock hard chest, and then the most gorgeous fucking thing that I had ever seen.

A set of blue, almost black eyes stared down at me. His mouth curved in an amused smile.

The gorgeous thing standing in front of me had put his hands on the side of his waist over the belt, which was over his hips. The white t- shirt that was hugging his body like a second skin was stopping at the zip of his jeans.

“Want to get up?” He asked.

I blinked.

He extended his one hand down at me with a bit of laughter in his voice.

I blushed immediately.

Then without taking his hand I got up from the floor and looked up into his eyes.

“Are you a barista here?” I asked.

Although I had just made a fool of myself in front of him, I was not going to continue being one by showing him that I was completely smitten by his beauty.

He tilted his head to the side a little bit in a completely sexy move.

And let me tell you, I had never heard anyone call a head tilt sexy, but if a thing like that existed, I had just witnessed one.

“Something like that.” He replied.

“Can you please make me a coffee?” 

Fuck! Now why the hell did I say that?

His eyes started looking like melting pools of dark ocean.

Instead of answering me, he waited for a couple of seconds, making me feel self conscious as hell. And then he nodded his head at me and took a step back, inviting me in.

“Thank you.” I mumbled in a low tone and quickly went ahead to stand in front of the coffee counter.

The mysterious beauty man walked around the counter and started to prepare the coffee.

Even though I did not want to appear as some desperate, horny, cringing woman, unknowingly my gaze kept going back to look at him.

The way he looked, it was impossible to imagine him as a barista.

But anyway, who was I to judge a person?

“Your taste?” his voice had me almost fall down on the ground in shock.

“What?” my eyes snapped up to his.

“In coffee.” He replied, humour clear in his voice,

“What kind of coffee do you want?”

In that moment, I could not even describe in words how badly I wanted to bury my face in something. Like a pillow. Or probably the ground would be good. I will not have to face so much embarrassment ever again.

“Latte.” I said, proud of myself to be able to speak without croaking.

“New here?” He asked casually while starting to stir the coffee in a mug.

“Yeah.”

How the hell does he know that?

Probably accent, or probably the shit head condition of my soil covered, exhausted face.

“So what brings you to Texas?”

“I am here to meet somebody.” I replied softly.

“Boyfriend?” his hand that had been stirring coffee stilled for a second.

“No.” I replied.

Why the fuck did I need to say this?

Whatever. What the hell does it matter to me anyway.

His hand continued stirring the coffee mug once again and after a few minutes he extended the cup towards me.

“Who do you want to meet?” he asked, “Probably I can be of some help?”

I thought about it for a second. As far as I knew, this was my uncle’s shop. So, of course, I needed to ask where he was.

“Umm..” I hesitated, “Do you know Vincent Argeva?”

Just as the words left my lips, the air around us changed.

I literally felt the lack of oxygen around me as his demeanour changed in front of my eyes.

The careless, flirty look was gone and its place was taken by active, interrogative mood.

“Why do you want to meet him?” he asked.

All the humour in his voice was gone. It was replaced by strict, serious demeanour. It was like the man in front of me had changed bodies in a mere two seconds of time.

Before I could answer, a booming laughter rang behind me,

“Hope..”

And without turning back, I recognized the voice that had been haunting my memories for more than a decade.

I turned back on my slippers to see a heavy, big man with beard hiding half of his face and a black bandana holding the curly locks on his head.

His mouth was curved up in a smile so big that I could see each one of his teeth. He looked like Hagrid from the Harry Potter movies, except for the bandana and the body without any fat.

My eyes instantly got filled with tears at the sight of him.

After so many years.. God..

“Uncle Vincent.” I whispered through choked throat.

He did not give me a chance to say anything else. Before I could blink away the tears, he took large, fast steps towards me, and then I was engulfed in a tight as hell hug.

I was tiny in front of his big frame. So he just lifted me up so that I was engulfed in his arms and twirled me around with a happy, booming laugh.

And here I was worried that how awkward my meeting with him was going to be.

“I missed you, uncle Vincent.” I whispered. My eyes closed in happiness while tears dripped down my cheeks.

When I opened them, I was staring straight into the dark pools of ocean eyes. His eyes were crinkling at the corners while he stared intensely at me.

“Me too, darling girl.” Vincent shouted lowly in my ears, even though he tried to say the words softly.

After a few seconds, he put me down on the ground but kept me in a side hug, plastered against him.

“Max!” Vincent’s voice had returned to his loud, booming echo while he turned me to face the barista man,

“Meet the most beautiful woman in the world. This is my niece, Hope.”

He gave me that sexy head nod in greeting while the corner of his mouth curved up in a smile.

“Hope, this is Max. He runs a private investigation agency.”

My head shot up so quick that my neck would have literally got broken. My eyes stared up at Uncle Vincent’s face in horror.

The barista.

The one I had just ordered to make a coffee.

Fuck my life.

And he runs a Private Investigation agency!

Seems like my stay with my uncle was not going to be as long as I had originally planned.