She wanted to like someone in a suit and tie with shiny shoes and a briefcase in one hand and his cell phone in the other. Someone who had a house in the suburbs or a penthouse downtown.
Someone like James.
He didn’t exactly make her heart beat fast, not like Griff could.
She didn’t even really enjoy talking to James, because he spent a lot of time complaining. Complaining about the commute, his workload, his partners at the law firm, or the weather.
She didn’t mind listening to him tell her how none of the other women that he’d ever known matched up to her.
She liked that kind of complaining.
But she hung on his every word, laughing at all of his jokes, even the ones she didn’t think were funny, which was most of them. She had to admit she didn’t even get some of them. But she laughed anyway, admired him, and fussed over him any time he set foot in the diner. Just because he showed a little interest in her, and she saw him as her ticket out.
Although, less and less she felt like getting out.
There was a part of her that was sad at the idea of leaving Strawberry Sands.
There was a bigger part of her that was sad that he wanted her to move in and hadn’t offered her a ring. Or any kind of commitment.
She moved around the diner, smiling at her friends, pushing aside the thoughts that she was going to miss these people. These people who had rallied around her, supported her when she was down, and loved and encouraged each other.
She was moving on to a new part of her life, and she was going to look forward to it. She was not going to look back with any regrets.
If only that nagging sensation that there was something that was not quite right with James would leave her alone.
Chapter 3
Griff wiped his skillet out for the last time, loving the way the cast iron glistened under his rag. He’d seasoned it, which he did every evening after he was done using it all day, and placed it on the hook above the stove.
Who knew who was going to buy this place, but when they did, the skillet would be there, ready for them to use. It was a good one.
Silly that he was thinking about a skillet like that, when the woman he really was going to miss was moving around behind him.
They closed down together every night. They opened together every morning. They’d been doing it for several years.
He had hopes that someday they would go home together, raise a family together, watch sunrises and sunsets together.