“That’s funny. And you probably won’t forget my name.”
She stood there, looking no less uncomfortable. As uncomfortable as Finn was starting to feel.
“How long are you staying for?” Finn asked.
Cain glanced around the room, studying the surroundings intently. And then his blue eyes fell back to Finn, looking far too serious for Finn’s liking.
“Well,” he said slowly, “I figured we would be staying for good.”
MAYBE SHE HAD demonstrated a little bit of cowardice in leaving Finn alone with his invading family. But Lane hadn’t really seen what she could contribute to the scene. She loved Finn to pieces, and he was her best friend in the world. But he was gruff and he didn’t share his feelings easily. He was the kind of guy who led with angry, then made up for it with grand gestures, like the time he’d come to her house and built a deerproof fence for her new garden. Or the time he’d spent an entire day clearing away all the thick brush around the cabin, and forging a path for her that led into the woods so she could more easily access the berry bushes that grew around her property. Or when he’d rebuilt the dock at the lake by her home so that it was larger and didn’t have any soft, damaged boards.
Yeah, Finn was more hammer and nails than hearts and flowers. He had a soul of gold beneath his general cranky exterior.
That didn’t mean she wanted to hang out and witness the ensuing crankiness, though.
And anyway, she had standing plans to meet up with her friends Rebecca Bear and Alison Davis.
She was just going a little earlier than necessary. And if they could make it at the new time, all the better. If not, she would just sit there and eat French fries while she waited. Since she hadn’t stayed for dinner at Finn’s, she was officially starving to death.
And here she had given him a hard time about his palate. But she, Lane Jensen, known foodie, also had a soft spot for really greasy food. And when she wanted that, Ace’s bar was the place to go.
“Hi, Lane,” Ace Thompson said from his position behind the bar. “French fries?”
Ace had made women swoon across town for years. And he still did, but the wedding ring on his left hand put a damper on things. He was lumbersexual hot. But he was also a one-woman man since marrying Sierra West and starting a family with her.
“You’re like my dealer. And yes. Regular, not sweet potato. I’m not in the market to pretend that there’s any nutritional value involved in this.”
She breezed through the dining room and took her place at the counter-height table that she and her friends typically occupied on their nights at the bar.
She sighed, picking up a menu and examining the dinner column, even though she knew exactly what was served at Ace’s. Just in case he’d added something new.
Ultimately, she decided that she was going to order a hamburger. And when the server came with her basket of fries, she did just that.
“I was able to get one of the girls to close up for me.” Lane looked up and saw her friend Alison approaching the table. Her red hair was disheveled, dark shadows beneath her eyes. “I think I might need a vacation.”
“You definitely do. I think you’ve been working more than overtime getting the bakery stable over the past couple of years.”
Alison took her seat across from Lane and immediately stuck her hand in the basket of fries. “True. And I also lost two of my long-term employees last week, so I’ve been scrambling to try and fill holes in the schedule. I haven’t had anybody approach me for a while about a job. Which is good, I guess. Since I have a reputation of hiring people in dire circumstances, I can only suppose that there isn’t anybody hanging out in a dire circumstance. But I’d be more grateful if I wasn’t working my fingers to the bone.”
“That’s not a very appealing visual. Considering that your fingers touch baked goods.”
Alison made a scoffing sound. “Why did you order those pale, anemic fries?” she asked, as she took another one.
“Oh, you mean real fries instead of your imposter sweet potato nonsense?”
“They’re better. That’s just a fact,” Alison said, reaching into her purse and pulling out her phone, checking it quickly.
“What? Who are you? What is our friendship?”
“Rebecca said she’s almost here.”
As if on cue, Rebecca walked into the bar and crossed the room, heading straight for the table. “Sorry. I tried to get here sooner but Gage was at the store helping me close.”
“I imagine that’s relationship code for doing something that is absolutely not helping you close your store,” Alison said.
Rebecca turned bright red. “Possibly.”
Lane tried to ignore the stab of jealousy in her stomach. She had been single going on way too long now. It was getting old.
It was incredibly petty to have any sort of jealousy regarding Rebecca’s relationship with Gage West. It had been hard-won, the obstacles between them seemingly impossible to overcome given the fact that Gage had been at fault for an accident that had caused Rebecca serious scarring—inside and out. If anyone deserved happiness, it was Rebecca.
However, her friend’s happiness certainly highlighted Lane’s own aloneness. Granted, to a degree it was a choice. She didn’t exactly have the time or energy to devote to a relationship right now.
Too bad her discontentment had nothing to do with rationality. She knew that she didn’t want a man in her life at the moment—not in a romantic capacity—it was just that her bed felt very empty sometimes.
And looking at Rebecca, who fairly glowed with satisfaction, it felt very, very empty indeed.
“Gross,” Lane said, not thinking it was gross at all. In fact, she thought it was downright enviable. “Do you need to order? Because Alison and I didn’t wait for you.”
“I called it in,” Rebecca said, “mostly because I knew neither of you would wait.”
Rebecca’s hamburger ended up arriving before Alison’s or Lane’s, which seemed unfair on top of everything else. Not only had she very recently had some sex, she was also indulging in a hamburger a full five minutes before her friends. Her single, celibate friends.
When Lane’s food did show up, she attacked it with gusto. She had the vague thought that she was very likely using her hamburger to help soothe some of the unsettled feelings that were left behind after witnessing Finn’s confrontation with his brother. But it was no big news to her that she used food to deal with her feelings.
There was a reason that she had opened a specialty food store, and it was only partly because the old business had been established but needed to change hands right around the time she had been financially able to make that step.
She had always loved the
