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“With a little more rain, you may be able to moor the Great Escape down at the corner.”
“How’d you know the name of my boat?”
Griffin made a point of knowing things, but he hadn’t been showing off. “Darcy must have mentioned it when you took her out whale watching.” He turned away to look out the side door on the nursery, where the water was streaming around the plants placed near the building. “My memory just naturally collects odd bits of trivia.”
“How’s it look out there?”
“Terrible. What’s the weather report for the next few days?”
Jeremy paced the shop’s center aisle. “More rain. It’s been such a mild spring. That just makes this storm all the worse.”
“It will blow over eventually,” Griffin offered. They’d been clearing shelves and moving stock to the rear of the shop, but now he wondered if they shouldn’t be carrying things upstairs. “They have some expensive computer equipment. If we can’t keep the water out, that ought to go upstairs first.”
“Sure,” Jeremy agreed. “I suppose the water could reach the counter. Just how solid is this building?”
“I asked that question myself before I bought it, and it’s very well built. The wood on the exterior is there for show.”
“Good, because I sure wouldn’t want the roof to cave in on us.”
“Now you sound like Darcy, and worry never changes anything.”
“Which is probably a good thing,” Christy Joy added on her way down the stairs with a tray laden with sandwiches. She had two bottles of water in the pockets of her pink ruffled apron. “I hope you don’t mind wheat bread. It’s all I buy. I had plenty of cold cuts, but I’ll make peanut butter and jelly if anyone wants it.”
“This is fine,” Griffin assured her, and he helped himself to a ham sandwich and a bottle of water. “I’ll just take this up front where I can keep an eye on the storm.”
“Yeah, you do that,” Jeremy encouraged.
Christy Joy had changed into a pair of Levi’s and a pink sweater. She sat on the stairs and looped her arms around her knees. “I ate earlier with Twink. Come sit here beside me.”
Jeremy sat on the same step, but he kept his distance. He took a bite of his ham and cheese sandwich, had trouble swallowing and had to wash it down with water. “Look, about earlier—”
“Don’t you dare apologize. I kissed you first, not the other way around. It was wonderful, by the way.”
Her smile was so very lovely, Jeremy wished he could have kissed her all day. “Yeah, I thought so too, but obviously Twink didn’t.”
“Twink’s only four and, while she is very bright, it’s natural that she’d be confused. I’ve told her only good things about her father, you see.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
“It’s not merely kind, it’s smart. I don’t want her to grow up disliking men.”
“You needn’t tell me any painful stories.”
“I realize that, but let me say my ex-husband never expected me to make a success of Defy the World. He gave me a generous settlement, but still, he thought I’d do poorly at running a business, spend the money foolishly, and beg him to take me back.”
“He didn’t know you very well, did he?” Jeremy took another bite of his sandwich. It was the best he’d ever eaten.
“He didn’t know me at all,” Christy Joy confided softly. “But then, he wasn’t the man I thought him to be either. Oh, I knew he was ambitious, but ruthless is a more accurate term. His law practice didn’t leave much time for a wife and family, but when we were together, he expected a perfection I had no desire to achieve. So rather than become his version of a Stepford Wife, I left him. It’s not an insult he’ll ever forgive.”
Christy Joy paused and, while Jeremy nodded thoughtfully, he offered no insight of his own. Nor did he volunteer any regrets over any of his past relationships. She knew him to be quiet, but his silence now provided ample evidence that she’d said too much. Embarrassed, she rose hastily to her feet.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to burden you. Please excuse me, I need to check on Twink.”
She hurried up the stairs before Jeremy could swallow a mouthful of sandwich and assure her she was wrong. His appetite gone, he finished the sandwich anyway rather than waste the time and money it had cost her to make it.
When she’d visited his boat, he’d greeted the fact that she’d confided her fears for Defy the World’s future as a sign she really did trust him. Now it seemed that she’d changed her mind, and he didn’t understand why.
He could just make out Griffin’s silhouette against the front window. That guy was so damn slick, while he was about as smooth as a scrap of sandpaper. The candle on the counter had begun to sputter, but when he rose to find another, he spotted a trickle of water inching across the floor.
