Page 14 of Please, Stay

She leaned forward and dropped her voice. “I let you keep up.”

“I know you do.” Nash winked at his girlfriend before he tipped his head toward the counter. “Jules, is your dad still pushing you to date Chester?”

Juliana’s head snapped that direction. Sure enough, her dad pointed at her, reminding her of the cattle auctions she’d gone to when she was little. Chester, his serious, beady eyes taking her in, nodded thoughtfully. How much did it take to sell her to a man that only emerged from his single-wide, dirty trailer twice a week to come into town?

Lexi patted her arm. “I know a few guys in Atlanta if you’re up for a blind date.”

“Thanks, but that’s the problem. My dad is so scared of me leaving, he’s determined that I only date guys in a sixty-mile radius. I wouldn’t normally care,” she said and then paused, thinking about Grayson. “But with his blood pressure and the two false alarms we’ve already had, I have a hard time pushing the point.”

“I mean,” Lexi began, her dark curls bouncing as she chuckled. “What could he really do about it?”

Nash whistled low. “Don’t even get us started on the many moods of Hugh Campbell. Phew, he’s mean sometimes. But if you stay on his good side, he’s pretty even-tempered.”

“And that’s my goal. Try to keep his blood pressure down, so he doesn’t have a stroke.”

Juliana ignored her dad’s marriage scheming and the roaming eyes of Chester and moved on to Becky. Becky set glasses into the dirty dish bucket and spared her half a glance.

“I know that look, Jules, and I don’t want to hear it.” Becky swept her hand to indicate the floor where half a slice of meatloaf and most of a bowl of diced carrots were mushed. “That sweet-natured, little angel that Diana named Louis and I had a small misunderstanding about how he likes his food served.”

Louis had left Becky’s tip in the form of a red smear of ketchup down the side of her blue jeans. Juliana swallowed down her earlier complaint. It seemed like Louis had beat her to Becky’s punishment for leaving her alone with Grayson.

“Louis,” Becky lowered her voice to a growl, “the Devil reincarnated two-year-old, apparently has a very mature palate.”

“No,” Juliana said with false shock. She squatted with a napkin to pick up the soggy meatloaf. “Not a child of Diana’s.”

“Right. Diana is Miss Perfect. You’d think after six kids, she’d figure it out already.”

Juliana rose and plopped the napkin full of meatloaf into Becky’s bucket. “You’d think.”

“I wasn’t aware that carrots could offend such a small child.” Becky reached for the broom set against the wall. “Or that a two-year-old survived with ketchup as a major food group. Louis was quite put out when I refused to give him a second bottle of his drug of choice.”

“Ketchup-rehab. Do you think it has a ten-step program?”

Becky managed a half-smile in response.

Juliana risked another glance at her dad. He sat in their usual spot at the counter. The smell of burgers and fries caused her stomach to rumble in an extremely unladylike way.

Add that hunk of man that walked through the door for dessert, and she’d have a well-balanced meal. Now, in a plain white T-shirt, Grayson commanded the attention of all the females in the room. Did they recognize him? His eyes scanned the other customers until they landed on Juliana.

“Damn,” Becky mumbled and set the dirty dish bucket on her hip. “You better write me a thank you card for backing out as competition.”

“I thought you were seeing Tommy?”

“Oh, I was, until the asshole called me about an hour ago to let me know that any wife of his wouldn’t work. That he’d support me while I raised our bushel of kids.”

Juliana tore her stare from Grayson. “I thought Tommy was only part-time at the wood mill.”

“He is. It’d be a dream life, let me tell you about it. I broke it off with him.” Becky nudged Juliana. “Your dream-life is walking this way.”

Yes, he was.

Lexi and Nash stood up, Lexi’s head looking back and forth between Grayson and Juliana. She gave Juliana a hidden thumbs up and tugged Nash out the door, probably before he could say something incredibly embarrassing.

Grayson’s lips tilted in acknowledgment of her.

“Juliana?” Her dad called, Chester still standing by his side.

She blinked, clearing away that typical daydream where Grayson is dumping a pitcher of water over his head and soaking his shirt like Hugh Jackman inAustralia.

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