Page 67 of The One You Want

My stomach swooped down to the vicinity of my ankles. There was a hint of something in his voice, in that little smile, in the dark intensity of his eyes, and all of a sudden I was finding it pretty hard to catch mybreath.

Then the first visitor showed up at his table and I tried to push away those tantalizing thoughts so I could concentrate on helping. Grant was on his own until Kia closed up the store so I did what I could to help keep the line down, even though he told me several times that I didn’t have to help if I would rather go out and enjoy thefestival.

I didn’t know how to tell him that I would enjoy myself much more with him, even if I wasworking.

Kia showed up just after seven, right as things were really picking up. She joined us at the booth, ringing up customers so Grant could concentrate on wrapping the arrangements and I could focus on replacing stock. Everything Grant was selling was pre-made—bouquets of fresh flowers, dried arrangements, wreaths. He even had some fresh herbs bundled—rosemary and lavender and mint, all of which smelledamazing.

As the night wore on, the line never really got shorter. The wreaths and herb bundles were particularly popular and we sold out of both before the blue grass band even started playing. The dried flowers went next and by the time the concert began, we were running low on fresh arrangementstoo.

“Wow,” Kia said, looking over the paltry stock behind the table. “They cleaned us rightout.”

“Yeah, I guess they did,” Grant said, a slightly disbelieving tone in hisvoice.

She grinned at him. “You did good,boss.”

I felt a rush of pride for him. It was obvious that his flowers were becoming a hot commodity on the island, for touristsandresidents. If things continued to go this way, he was going to have no problem staying open through thewinter.

“Why don’t you go eat,” he told Kia but she shook herhead.

“I took a late lunch. You goahead.”

“I’m not going to leave you alone here,” he told her, but Kia wouldn’t take no for ananswer.

“We’re almost sold out anyhow,” she argued. “Besides, the concert is starting.” She pointed down the green to where the blue grass band was warming up. Most of the festival-goers were drifting in that direction, stopping at the various food vendors along the way to pick up snacks and drinks. “I can manage this on my own until the rest of the stock is gone.” She shot me a quick glance then looked back at her boss—I was pretty sure I saw her wink. “Go on and eat, enjoy the festival for awhile.”

Grant raised his eyebrows at me and I felt my stomach dip yet again. “Make the most of it, right?” I asked, unable to keep the breathy tone from my voice. I was pretty sure I saw Kia smirking behindhim.

But then Grant held out his hand and I decided I couldn’t care less if his employee could tell we were flirting. I slipped my palm into his and we turned to check out thefestival.

We stopped to get pulled pork sandwiches from Rose Powell’s booth then got in line for Cora’s cider. Across the way, I saw Libby smirking at us from her booth and pointedly turned my back on her to avoid herteasing.

But as we stood in line, I began to realize that Libby wasn’t the only person who noticed us. Several people called out hellos as they passed, a few of them stopping by to chat. Grant must have really been getting popular aroundhere.

Slowly, I began to realize that it wasn’t only Grant’s popularity that was attracting attention. Margaret Munson came over to ask me about the job hunt. Jill Franklin caught up with us at the front of the line to ask if I wanted to come over to the community college the following week to see what it was like to teach classes. I told her about what had happened at Cora’s class and she laughed, promising that teaching adults was verydifferent.

Of course she managed to “accidentally” grab Grant’s ass before she saunteredaway.

When we had our food and drinks, we went to find an empty hay bale to sit on, saying hello to a few more neighbors along the way. Tessa was arguing with Mayor Jones, jabbing a finger at the light posts around the square. Probably something to do with the green energy initiative she was working on for her Pride Project. For his part, the mayor looked completely terrified by herfervor.

Having no luck with the hay bales, we ended up on a bench on the far side of the green, where it was slightly quieter. It took me a minute to realize that it was the same bench I had sat on that day this summer, when Libby had joined me while I tried to psych myself up to go talk to Dr. Miller. I couldn’t help but notice how different things werenow.

For one, I hadn’t thought about Dr. Miller in weeks. I also remembered noticing how many people stopped to say hello to Libby while I had remained nearly invisible at her side. I didn’t feel so invisible tonight. Tonight, I felt like I actually had friends. That my neighbors knewme.

“You’re deep in thought,” Grant murmured, nudging my shoulder with his. I shook my head, trying to clearit.

“Just thinking how long ago summerfeels.”

“Are you kidding?” he asked. “Autumn always feels like the shortestseason.”

I grinned over at him. “I forgot how much you loved thefall.”

He gave a tragic sigh. “I’m mourning italready.”

“Winter’s not so bad,” I offered. “The island is gorgeous with some snow. Do you know how to iceskate?”

He shook his head. “Maybe you can teachme.”

I liked that he seemed to think we were still going to be spending time together in a few months. The last Artisan Market was in two weeks and there was a part of me that wondered what would happen once we didn’t have those Saturdays on the mainland connectingus.