flowers, and caressed the roofline of a cottage nestled in a fictional forest. A perfect little world, captured in Technicolor paint. “I was fine,” Riley repeated.
“I think if you tell yourself that often enough, you’ll eventually believe it,” Mary said softly.
Riley let out a long breath. He wasn’t much for serious talks, or serious conversational topics, or, come to mention it, the serious room. Altogether far too stuffy and formal. And well, hell, serious. “I’m supposed to be meeting someone for lunch, Gran.” He rose halfway out of the chair. “I really need to get going.”
“Cancel your plans.”
He cocked a brow. “Oh, now I get it. Are you planning a birthday party for me, Gran? You know you’ve never been able to surprise me.”
“No party this year, Riley. In fact, I think it’s high time your party days were behind you.” She steepled her fingers and brought them to her lips. “Sit back down please.”
Uh-oh. Riley recognized that stance. It meant Gran had an idea—one he knew he wasn’t going to like. He lowered his lanky frame back into the uncomfortable Windsor chair.
“I think you need a real wake-up call, Riley. Consequently—” Gran paused and her pale eyes nailed him like a bug on a board “—I’m cutting you off.”
The words hung in the air for a long time before Riley processed them. “You’re…what?”
“Effective immediately, you are fired from McKenna Media, not that you had a real job there as it was. And you will also be expected to pay a reasonable rent on the guest house. Every month, on the first. Which happens to be two weeks away.”
Gran meant business. No mistaking that.
Riley opened his mouth to argue. To joke. To cajole. To employ any of a dozen techniques he’d used before to talk his stern grandmother out of punishments and edicts.
He didn’t. Instead he considered her words and realized she had a point.
Gran had never approved of the way he lived his life. But what his grandmother didn’t understand was that Riley didn’t spend his days without any sense of commitment because he wanted to shirk responsibilities. It was because he had yet to find a direction that interested him.
He’d tried nearly every job at McKenna Media, and within a few days, been bored to death. He’d dated dozens of beautiful women, but not found a single one who dared his heart to take a risk.
Gran probably wanted Riley to go out and find yet another job in a field he could hardly stand, then settle down with one of her friends’ single, available granddaughters. But what Riley really wanted was…
A challenge. Something that made him rush to get out of bed in the morning. Maybe he needed something—God help him—with substance.
Riley had always known this day would come, and for some reason, instead of being panicked by it, he felt…energized. For the first time in a long time.
Had his partying ways finally grown tiresome? No, he told himself. It was a minor bump, a moment of ennui, nothing more. He’d spend a few days doing things his grandmother’s way, prove to her that he wasn’t nearly as irresponsible as he looked, and then be back to his old life in no time.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll do it.”
She blinked her surprise. “Well, good.” She reached into her pocket and handed him a slip of paper. “Your final paycheck. I’m kicking you out, and cutting you off, but I don’t want you to starve the first day.”
Riley gave his grandmother a soft smile, then leaned down and brushed a kiss across her wrinkled cheek. “I’ll be fine, Gran.” He pressed the check back into her hand, then said goodbye and headed out the door, and into a world he had never truly experienced.
He thought it would be easy, like everything else in his life had been.
He was wrong.
* * *
Stace Kettering had had enough. “I quit, Frank.” She tossed her apron on the counter in emphasis, and slapped her order pad down beside it. The last of the breakfast crowd had left a few minutes earlier, giving Stace her first break since five in the morning. She grabbed a glazed donut out from under the glass dome on the counter and took a bite. “I’m serious. I quit.”
Frank let out a laugh. His barrel belly shook with the sound, and his wide smile broke into an even wider grin. Frank Simpson had been the head chef and part owner of Morning Glory Diner for thirty years—almost as long as anyone could remember the burger that had made Frank’s famous. Stace had worked there nearly all her life—almost as long as anyone could remember a Kettering offspring at the counter at Frank’s.
“I’ve heard that before,” Frank said, emerging from the kitchen to plant his beefy palms on the counter. He gave Stace a wink. “A hundred times. No, maybe two hundred.” He picked up her apron and held it out to her.
“I’m serious this time. I’m done.” She ignored the apron and took another bite of donut. The sweet glaze melted like heaven on her tongue.
“Is Walter giving you a hard time again? You know he means well.”
“He is the grumpiest man in the city of Boston. No, the state of Massachusetts.”
Frank chuckled. “I think the entire You-nited States.”
That got a laugh out of Stace. “I think you’re right.” She plopped onto one of the counter stools and let out a sigh. “Why does he always pick my table?”
“He likes you.”
Walter was a daily customer at Morning Glory Diner, though Lord only knew why he kept returning when all he did was find fault with everything from the forks to the fries. And every single time, he made sure he was seated in Stace’s section, as if he was on a one-man mission to ruin her day. “He told me I was the slowest waitress in the entire solar system, complained that his water was flat—”
“Flat water?” Frank arched a brow. “Did he expect it to be round?”
“I think he ran out of things to complain about.” Stace let out another laugh. She put down the donut, then reached for the apron and snatched it back, tugging it over her head before fastening the strings in the back. “Okay, so I won’t quit today. But if you don’t hire someone else soon, I will quit. On principle.” It had been two weeks since Irene had gone on maternity leave, which had left Stace to single-handedly carry the weight of the diners at Frank’s until she returned. The tips were great and much needed, but at the end of day, Stace was so tired she needed to be rolled to her little house eight subway stops away. And given the way things had been going at home lately, Stace needed to be alert. There wasn’t just her to worry about anymore.
Frank gave her a smile. “You’re exhausted, honey.”
“I’m okay. Walter just stressed me out, that’s all.” She eyed the older man. “I’m more worried about how you are. I know business has been down for a while and I hate to see you working so hard.”
He wagged a finger at her. “Nope, not falling for that. You know me,
