Page 21 of Protected By the Grumpy Single Dad
“Right.” I drag a hand over my jaw. “Scotty’s it is.”
He smiles the small, satisfied smile of a boy who has won a minor war. “Thanks, Dad.”
I grab my keys and stand there like a man about to do something brave and stupid. Brave: feed my kid the thing he wants from the place with the good oven. Stupid: potentiallywalk into the lion’s den when the lion has very green eyes and a talent for lighting me on fire.
“Back soon,” I say. “Plant it, action star.”
“No promises,” he deadpans, then grins.
I step out into the morning, where the light’s sharp and the heat’s already working. There are a half dozen diners and bakeries I could drive to. There’s one he asked for. There’s one I’m avoiding like a teenager who broke curfew.
I get in the cruiser anyway.
On the way, I pass Town Hall, where Nora Alvarez is probably working two jobs at once and making sure the copier doesn’t eat the budget again. I pass the church where Pastor Jim gives people casseroles whether they want them or not. I pass the corner where Old Thomas reads the paper and heckles anyone in a uniform with equal opportunity. This town is a small organism with a loud heartbeat, and I signed on to keep it alive—jobs, protests, and all.
Brick’s voice floats up from yesterday:I thought maybe it’d be from…He’d stopped himself before he said Scotty’s, like the brand mattered more than the sugar. Maybe it does. Maybe taste buds have hometowns. Maybe scones help bones knit. Maybe I just want to make something easy in a week where a lot wasn’t.
I catch myself at a red light and laugh once, low. In the reflection of the windshield, I look exactly like a man en route to trouble and trying to justify it with pastry.
The light changes. I turn onto Main, then onto Brime.
Scotty’s comes into view with its red booths and hand-painted sign and the certainty that if I walk in there, the owner will have something sharp to say about statutes and bulldozers. I pull to the curb and idle. Through the window I can see the line. I can’t see her.
“I’m just buying scones,” I tell the steering wheel. “For a kid who asked very nicely.”
The steering wheel, unhelpfully, does not argue.
I kill the engine, step out, and close the door softly like I’m sneaking up on a deer. The bell over the diner door jingles when I push it open, and the smell hits me—coffee and butter and lemon sugar. Voices, the light clink of plates, Hank doing the crossword out loud.
If she’s on the floor, I’ll deal with it. If she isn’t—if Sarah or the kid with the asymmetrical haircut is running the counter—I’ll buy scones, say thank you, and go home to the only person whose opinion matters right now.
I square my shoulders and step fully inside.
Great.
Just great.
Chapter eight
Jasmine
I press my fingers to my forehead and sink onto the stool behind the counter. It’s early; the diner has that soft, echoey quiet before the day remembers it’s hungry. The neon hums. The coffeemaker sighs like an old man. Across from me, Riley twirls a stir stick in her cup and lets me rant about imminent doom and the destruction of civilization by way of one very shiny oil rig.
“Well,” she says, squeezing my hand, “if the world ends, it’s not because you didn’t try to tape it back together.”
“I want to see theimpact survey,” I mutter. “If there even is one. Someone must have filed something. I want numbers. Air particulates. Maps with red circles that say ‘bad idea.’”
“Do you think,” Riley ventures carefully, “you might be taking this just atinybit too hard?”
I stare. “Why would you ask that?”
“Because it’s all you think about.” She lifts a shoulder. “And sometimes the brain works better after a nap.”
“You don’t get it,” I say, rubbing my temple. “This is how it starts. First an oil rig. Then someone ‘not from around here’ buys a haunted house. Then we’re a dot on some mining company’s dartboard. Do you think a bakery survives if the dirt under it turns into cash?”
“I get it,” she says gently. “But it’s okay to admit there’s only so much you can do.”
The words sting more than they should—not because she’s wrong, but because if Riley, of all people, is telling me to ease up, I must look like a woman trying to fistfight a bulldozer.
