Open Your Heart (Kings Grove #4) - Delancey Stewart Page 0,19
eyes indicating that she was not inquiring as to our health but as to the state of her desired reception site.
“We’re doing our best, Ms. Turner,” Dean said, bobbing his head a bit.
“Yeah, Ms. Turner. Please don’t complain to our boss. We’re just the crew.” I parroted, unable to help myself. That earned me a whack on the head with Maddie’s order pad.
“Funny.” She rolled her eyes. “Hurry up and order so I can send you back to work. I’m having the reception there, even if we have to cart food up from the diner to do it.”
Adele cleared her throat loudly at this, making me doubt very much that would be a workable solution. Plus, I didn’t think my former-socialite sister would be pleased with sliders as apps at her fancy wedding. There was a high-end restaurant at the inn, with a chef who’d been hired away from some fancy job in San Francisco. If we didn’t get the outpost finished, we could still have good food—it would just have to be more portable than Maddie might have in mind.
Dean and I had burgers in front of us within a few minutes, and we both settled in to eat. I was just finishing up when my thoughts were snapped immediately back to my new tenant, mostly because she had just come into the diner and was standing uncertainly inside the door. She wore the same clothes she’d had on when she’d come out to the job site, along with a pair of heels that I couldn’t help but like, even though they were wildly inappropriate for the environment. She looked put together and gorgeous. And a little bit lost.
I heard her tell Adele she was waiting for someone, and then watched with interest I tried to hide as Craig Pritchard—of grumpy Post Office fame—came in and the two took a table together across the open floor of the diner. It clicked as I watched them. She sat back, her arms across her chest, her face held still like she was afraid of betraying any emotion. Craig, on the other hand, leaned forward, everything in his posture reaching for her.
Craig had to be Harper’s father. It made sense now, and I marveled at how little I actually knew about the guy. He’d been terse and sharp the few times I’d been into the Post Office. And I knew he rubbed my sister the wrong way, but that was the extent of my knowledge.
“Is Craig getting himself a sugar baby?” Dean asked in a low voice. “Who is that girl? She’s hot.”
I felt my blood thunder at his comment and had the ridiculous urge to pound the guy, but managed to suck in a few breaths instead. “My new renter,” I told him. “I think Craig’s her dad.”
“What the . . .? Seriously?” Dean laughed. “That would mean someone once got close enough to that guy to—“
“Right,” I cut him off, feeling peculiarly protective of Harper, of her past, her story.
The conversation between Harper and Craig didn’t look comfortable. She was now holding her menu up in front of her face between them, and it was Craig’s turn to cross his arms as he stared at the back of the menu.
Dean and I paid and stood to go, and I felt it the moment Harper’s eyes landed on me across the restaurant. I turned to look at her once more as we made our way out. She looked miserable, but offered me a half-smile and lifted a hand, and a little blossom of warmth opened in my chest. I ignored it and lifted a couple fingers at my side in a sad attempt at a wave as I followed Dean out the diner door.
Whatever this was, this glow of interest, of misplaced hope, where Harper was concerned, I needed to squash it.
I was not a guy who developed crushes on girls. I was a widower, and I was grieving. I wanted to keep my life simple from here on out—take care of my sister, mind my own business, and honor my wife’s memory. Plus, I was out of the business of forming close attachments to people.
I spent the rest of the afternoon working with Dean on getting the channels set up for the retractable glass Chance had insisted we could make work. The idea was that the outpost would be wide open to the elements in the summer, but in the winter—or during a storm—there was a system of retractable walls