he pulled into the driveway of the mechanic and turned it off, he got out and shut the driver-side door hard enough for her to hear it inside the diner.
Torn jeans and a tight black T-shirt, broad shoulders and the first lips that had ever made her curious about kissing.
All things that were much more fun to think about than her real life.
Fantasy, of any kind, was better than real life right now.
But if that fantasy came with broad shoulders and a compelling mouth, all the better.
“You’re embarrassing yourself,” Catherine said. “It is so obvious that you’re staring at him.”
“Who’s going to tell? Do you think that Buzz is going to tell?” She indicated the gray-haired man sitting at the bar on one of the red stools.
“No,” Catherine said. “But if he looks this way...”
They both stared at Luke as if they were willing him to do just that. But he didn’t. He never did.
Instead, he went into the garage, and even then it took Emma’s heart rate a full twenty-five seconds to go back to normal.
“Okay,” Catherine said. “We have stared long enough. Finish your stuff and let’s go.”
She chugged down the coffee and picked up the doughnut, leaving five dollars on the table. Adam gave her a nod as she walked out the door, and she waved.
She waffled between going back inside and asking him if he would please not tell her mother that she had come in that morning, but that might just guarantee he’d call her mom.
Of course, Adam didn’t seem like the type to get involved too deeply in people’s lives.
She walked out into the damp, cold morning. The fog hung low over the buildings on Main Street, rolling in off the sea. The air smelled sharp like salt and pine, with an earthy hint of asphalt and dirt thrown in for good measure. The street was mostly empty, with nearly everyone gone off to work or settled in to wherever they might be spending their mornings.
It wasn’t high season yet, and the town was populated mostly by locals. Once things picked up, Emma would be busy with the inn. She always helped her family work the inn during the busy season, and they would need her help more this year than usual.
She sighed heavily. She had no idea what it was going to be like at school today. In some ways she could see why her mother had been tempted to call in sick to life.
“Better to just face it,” Emma said.
“People probably won’t ask,” Catherine said.
“Why not?”
“Because it makes them uncomfortable.” Catherine smiled and reached for Emma, wrapping her arm around Emma’s shoulder. “I’m not uncomfortable, though. I’m here for you. Even if I have to be...here for you while I’m in Boston and you’re in Oregon.”
ANNA
She was standing frozen in a deserted aisle of the grocery store in front of bags of quinoa with reality bearing down on her like a herd of wild horses.
Thankfully, it was early and the store was mostly empty.
The past two weeks of Anna’s life had been like a competition for just how far the phrase going from bad to worse could stretch.
Jacob’s death.
Her decision to take her emotional affair and make it physical.
Thomas finding out.
She kept replaying that moment over and over in her head. That rush of elation that had turned into dread, her scalp and face hot as her eyes met his.
He hadn’t spoken to her for days. It was the silence that had killed her. If he’d yelled, if he’d screamed, if he’d cried, even, she might have felt...
Like it mattered. Like they mattered.
And then she’d had to move back in with her mother.
Even a cabin on the property was a little bit much. Rachel might be able to deal with living in such tight proximity to their mom, but Rachel was...
Well, Rachel was a saint. And that wasn’t helping anything, either.
She could still remember, though, when her mom had caught her sneaking in one time, on the cusp of what might have become a misspent youth...
“You have to take your life seriously, Anna. You have to surround yourself with the right people.”
“We weren’t doing anything! Just hanging out.”
“Good people make the difference. Good men do. I was married at eighteen, and I did right, but he didn’t. And it’s what he did that hurt me for years. You have to be careful whom you associate with, because even if you don’t mean to do wrong, the people around you might...”
Thomas had been