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“He’s a nice guy,” I said.
“He might be. Still don’t like him.”
“What’d he ever do to you?” I asked.
“Nothing until he set his eyes on you.”
“His eyes aren’t set on me. Not at all. We have writing in common and that’s it.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t get vibes of anything else. Besides, so what if he was interested?”
“I don’t like it.”
“You don’t get a say.” I stopped walking. “What just happened back there didn’t mean anything, Cash. We aren’t a thing.”
He halted a few steps ahead of me, turned toward me, then took slow steps back to me. “We may not be a thing, but we still have chemistry.”
In spades, but the last thing I needed to do was admit that. I started walking again and he came with me. “What buddy were you helping celebrate, and isn’t he going to wonder where you went?”
“Jake Bergman. He deserted me first for a blond out-of-towner. Dylan Copeland was with us too but he’s been fluttering around like a damn social butterfly. I texted him I was leaving. He’s fine.”
“Jake’s turning forty, huh?” I knew him through Cash, and he’d helped me at the hardware store the other day. I’d not spent a lot of time with him in the past—my time with Cash had been limited enough that we stole what we could get whenever we could get it—but he was a friendly guy and I liked him.
“Forty today,” Cash said.
“Which means the big four-oh is coming up for you too.” It wasn’t news to me, but I’d always given him a hard time for being older than I was, jokingly, of course. I nudged him with my elbow.
“Hey, that age joke’s not as funny as it was in our twenties,” he said with a low laugh.
We reached Honeysuckle Road and turned left, Cash taking the side closest to the road as we walked along the shoulder. It was dark and there wasn’t much traffic. I inhaled deeply, appreciating the familiar lake smells and taking comfort in the night sounds—frogs, insects, and the periodic dog bark in the distance. I had to admit Dragonfly Lake was a peaceful place, so opposite of LA.
“You seem…settled these days,” I said after a couple minutes. “Like you’ve made peace with living in a small town, doing what you do.” Back when he’d enlisted, he’d been restless, unsure what he wanted out of life.
“I am for the most part. This is my home now, no question. I saw parts of the world with the Navy, figured out what I’m meant to do. Now I’m just trying to build credibility for Henry’s and Rusty Anchor.”
I envied him that. I’d never felt settled, at least not since my dad left us when I was a kid. Looking back, with Wes, I’d felt more like I was living his life instead of mine. And here in Dragonfly Lake, it’d been much the same. I’d been absorbed with making up for my mom’s lacking in the inn at first, and then when she’d gone downhill physically, I’d added her care to my to-do list. My time to myself had been filled with Cash whenever possible. Back then, I hadn’t even started writing seriously. Now I hoped to make writing my priority and settle into my own place, my own life, in California.
“Everything I’ve seen and heard says Henry’s has plenty of credibility, along with its top-notch chef,” I said. I’d looked online, checked their reviews, seen how popular the place was, and it had nothing to do with how long it’d been open, very little to do with the woman who’d founded it. No question, Guinevere Henry had been savvy and ballsy and a hard worker. She’d laid the foundation, but what Cash was doing now was his own thing, his and Seth’s and Holden’s too, and it was, in my opinion, impressive.
“We do okay,” he said modestly. “I’m on a mission to be featured onSmall Town Smorgasbord.”
“On that cooking channel?”
“That’s the one.” He told me he and Seth had hired Hayden’s friend to do their marketing, and their number one goal was the show. “Our customers are doing their part, sharing posts, posting their own reasons we should be featured, using the show’s hashtag. Only problem is the Cove is trying for the same thing. That’s the restaurant in the new Marks Resort. Friendly competition most days, but when it comes to representing this town on national TV, that should be us. We’ve been here decades longer and we’re better.”
“I agree,” I said. “You deserve it.” We reached the driveway to the inn and turned down it, the conversation between us easy, comfortable, about his restaurant and my potential TV series.
When we got to the inn, I shook my head and turned toward the cottage instead. “If I go in there, I’ll get caught up in work,” I explained as we veered toward the path. “Loretta texted me that Deshon is here and has everything handled. I’m going with that.”
I felt Cash peering at me. “Taking some breathing time from work. I like it.”
“You don’t have any room to talk, from what I’ve seen.”
“I took tonight off just to go out with Jake and Dylan.”
With a laugh, I said, “What does it say that you deserted them?”
