than a week. It burned him up to know that pompous overcharging jackass, Silvio, was there with her now.
This isn’t good, Dev thought to himself. He didn’t have time for this. Why was he getting jealous and territorial over a woman he wasn’t even dating? How did Shea Summers manage to distract him so thoroughly from life-and-death matters he needed to be fully focused on? Worse yet, why was he getting this way over a woman who seemed less and less interested in him every day, and was every bit as unavailable as Delilah had described?
It would be one thing if other stars aligned—if either of their circumstances left room for it to turn into something long-term. As it stood, whatever happened between them could only be a temporary thing. Shea was going back to New York or to Hollywood or to wherever you went when you wanted to be a filmmaker. It wasn’t like he could marry the girl.
His own situation was equally untenable. He would always have one foot in Sapling, but only just one. His redevelopment work rotated all over. Even if he permanently moved his home base from Oakland to Sapling, his project work would take him all over. He was wanted on projects in places like Las Vegas and Boston and New Orleans.
Then, there was the leisure piece. When he wasn’t working projects or back in Sapling in his mountain home, he wanted time off to see the world. Dev had been all work and no play for far too long. It presented a fundamental dilemma: Dev was attracted to smart, driven women. Only, no woman with her own prospects would pack her bags and follow him wherever he went.
“How’d it go?” Dev asked as he finally made his way into The Big Spoon. He’d used his key to let himself in the back. Silvio’s delivery truck hadn’t been parked next to the loading ramp, which was probably a good thing. Dev wasn’t exactly at his best.
“Pretty good,” Delilah said distractedly as she continued to look between her clipboard and the new arrivals on the counter. “You just missed Silvio and Shea.”
Dev hated his own disappointment at not getting a chance to see her. And the fact that hearing Silvio’s name next to hers irked Dev beyond reason was another bad sign. He was way too invested in a woman whose hand he’d never even held. And he needed to get a grip.
“I feel like she’s done enough…” Dev tried out as casually as possible. “Don’t you feel bad about how many hours we’re taking of her time? I mean, after some point, doesn’t it just start being unfair?”
Delilah got a look on her face that reproached the very idea and was soft and protective all at once. “Her being in a kitchen again…it’s giving her something back.”
Dev didn’t know what that meant, and he didn’t expect that Delilah would tell.
“Just don’t overwork her is all I’m saying…” Dev half-grumbled before rolling up his sleeves to help with the putting away. Obsessing over Shea Summers was making him absolutely nutty. And he had to let her go.
19
The Book Nook
Shea
“Just the gal I’ve been looking for,” Gus Krall called cheerfully from behind the register the minute Shea walked into The Nook. It was the nickname for the bookstore-slash-newsstand on the east end of Oliver Street. Gus had owned The Book Nook along with his husband, Keith for just about ten years. One or the other was always behind the counter, chatting and gabbing about the other. People in town joked about the fact that you never saw both of them at the same time.
“Uh-oh. What’d I do wrong?” Shea quipped. Keith and Gus had kept her deep in writing craft books since her first week in town.
“More like, what did you do right? Keith won’t stop getting lunch takeout for the fish and chips. Every night I come home, it smells like malt vinegar.”
Shea smiled conspiratorially. “All you gotta do is put a little bit of baking powder and vinegar into the batter.”
“Oh no, honey…Daddy doesn’t cook. We’re gonna keep gettin’ it from the Spoon.”
Shea let out a little laugh and gave a small wave before breezing toward the back. Kendrick’s library held more volumes than she could ever want to read, but Shea liked a good magazine. It wasn’t natural, reading The Times Sunday Magazine or Vogue online. She was busy trying to recall whether another issue of Vanity Fair was due out then, when