Page 13 of Lucky Haven

“Is reading something you picked up in jail?”

“Yeah. And I like it more than TV now. I’ll watch a movie sometimes, but generally…books is what I turn to for entertainment.”

“Same.” I offer him the salad bowl. “Wouldn’t have thought we’d have that in common, all those years ago.”

He gives me a crooked, almost bittersweet half-smile. “Yeah. But here we are.”

“I’m glad, you know. It’s nice to have a friend in town. Even if you do have a flair for the melodramatic.”

He laughs out loud and rocks back in his chair. “Me? You’re the one who stomped across the street and plastered your mouth against mine!”

I giggle at the preposterous image.

And just like that, we’re both grinning, and he tucks into his dinner.

“This is good,” he mumbles around a bite.

“I’m glad I could feed you. Kept the ruse honest.” And I ignore the pulse of pleasure I have of seeing him devour a meal I made, in my kitchen. This isn’t going to happen again, and it’s not going to be anything like we pretended it was earlier.

But it still feels special all the same.

Cash doesn’t stay long after I feed him. And I don’t expect him to. He probably has plans later, and I don’t want to think about those, so after he leaves, I pick up the book he was reading, and I go back to the start. Turning the pages he turned, imagining where his fingers were.

A warm, weird, wonderful spiral of impossible feelings twist through me at the unexpected fantasy of sharing more meals with someone like Cash, someone who likes to read and eat and laugh.

Maybe without the tattoos and the growly insistence that trouble is around every corner.

I linger on a passage where the main character is bickering with her future love interest. At this point she thinks they’re enemies, and he’s happy for her to think that, too, tossing barbs back as quickly as she snarls at him. I love this kind of tension in books, but in real life, I definitely prefer the idea of friends to lovers. Something more cozy. Sweet.

A sharp knock at my door makes me jump.

I have a side window that gives a good view of the porch, and I glance through that first, worried it might be Jeb. But it’s not—and it’s not Cash returning, either, and I shove down a little pulse of disappointment at that.

It’s Mercy Lane, who owns The Friendly Table. She lives up to the name of her restaurant, and every time I go into the diner, she has a warm smile for me. But we haven’t had a conversation before today, not really. Technically we went to school together, but she’s a few years older than me, so our paths didn’t cross much.

And Mercy is not a New Harvest girl. Not now, not ever.

I open the door.

“Hi,” she says, a bright smile on her face. “Is this a bad time?”

“No, it’s fine. I was just reading.” Unnecessary information, Haven. “Do you want to come in?”

“I actually wanted to invite you to the town meeting with me.”

“The town meeting?” I repeat. “Sorry, I’m not following.”

“I guess it’s been a while,” Mercy says. “Or maybe you were too young to appreciate just how entertaining a Dragonfly Creek town meeting can be. It’s what passes for a good time around here. I thought I’d see if you wanted to sit next to me.” She lifts a tote bag that looks like it’s groaning with supplies. “And I’ve brought you some belated welcome back gifts.”

“Oh—”

She keeps going as she steps inside. “Cookies, a six pack of hard cider, and a bottle of elderflower cordial in case you don’t drink alcohol.”

“I do.”

“Great.” She flashes a big smile at me as she closes the door. “Then we can have a little pre-game drink while we catch up.”

“Pre-game… for the town meeting? Did Cash put you up to this?”