her husband Jeremy, who works with Albert and went as a lobster to the Halloween party. Then she takes a few more of the other tables in the room. Sam, of course, had put two fingers over Izzy’s head when the camera pointed his way. When Izzy sees that she’s going to put her foot so far up his ass, he’ll be tasting her steel-toed boot for a month.
The server hands the phone back, and a wistful look comes over Kira’s face as she slides her finger across the screen to view the photos.
“Refill on wine?” I ask and reach for the carafe in the center of the table.
“Yes, thanks,” she says quietly. “I wonder how the viewing is going?”
“I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.” She nods and looks off into the distance. “It’s nice, isn’t it?”
She turns back to me and blinks. “What?”
I look around, take in the happy crowd. “This…”
She follows my gaze and swallows. I get the sense that she’s fighting her emotions again.
“Nate,” she begins quietly. “I’ve never really experienced anything like this. These people, the comraderies…they’re all like one big happy family. I see what Gram has always seen in this town. I get it now.”
My heart pinches as I take in the longing in her eyes. “You’re going to miss this place, aren’t you?”
She nods.
“You don’t have to go, you know.” I work to keep my voice steady. Only last week, she reminded me of our timeline, reminded me that it was just sex between us. Damned if that wasn’t a hard kick to the balls. But I can’t fight the things that are happening to me.
Over the last month, my goals have shifted, and while building the processing plant is important to me, there’s no doubt I’ve realigned my priorities. It’s crucial that I move on to the next processing plant, bring it into the twenty-first century for the company’s and the workers’ sake, but maybe I could make a home here and travel. Or maybe I can get the project started and hand it over to someone else to complete.
Then again, if Kira has no interest in staying, building on what’s between us, then…shit, I don’t even want to let my thoughts go there. She makes me want to be a better man than those in my family. I never thought I had it in me until I met her. I have to find a way to convince her that we’re right together.
“I know you already talked to the mayor about donating the money to the town, but twenty grand will make a nice down payment, and if you ran the B&B properly, it could pay the mortgage,” I say.
She looks down at her drink, but not before I catch the sadness in her eyes. “I can’t manage a B&B with my work schedule. That, and my life and my family… Well, they’re on the other side of the country.”
Her voice falls off, and my gut clenches as she tells me the reasons that she doesn’t belong here, but fuck me, she does. So do I. She once said to me that we can’t pick our families, but she was wrong. We can choose our families, and I choose this one right here. I want to be a better man than my father, my brothers. I want to be a man who puts the community ahead of the bottom line. I want to stay here with these kind and caring people. I want Albert to call me son. I rack my brain, try to figure out how to convince her she belongs here, as the servers come with our huge two-pound lobsters.
“Oh my, that’s big,” she says.
I lean into her and whisper, “Thankfully, Sam is out of earshot, or he would have blurted out, that’s what she said.”
She laughs at that, and her mood lightens. It’s all I can do to stop myself from pulling her in for a hug. From my pocket, my phone buzzes, but I ignore it. The only people I want to speak to are here. Yet, the damn thing won’t stop.