Shadows on the Sand by Gayle Roper

June.
    When Lindsay was old enough, she went to work for Mary P and Warren too.
    “Mr. H., can I help with dinner prep?” she asked one day, and it soon became obvious that she had a flare for food.
    “I love the kitchen,” she told me. “And I
love
to bake.”
    Warren quickly saw her culinary promise, and soon she acted as theSurfside’s equivalent of a sous-chef and baker while I took over more and more of the dining room responsibilities.
    Now the restaurant was ours. I reached across the table and patted Mary P’s hand. I couldn’t imagine where we’d be without her.
    She smiled. “What’s that for?”
    “For being you.”
I love you
.
    I turned at the sound of Lindsay’s footfalls on the stairs, and my eyes caught Greg’s. He was studying me with a thoughtful expression.
    Thoughtfully was better than absently, wasn’t it?

12

    G reg kept giving his head mental shakes. Was he really sitting with Carrie Carter in her personal living space, not the café? Sure, Mary P was here and Lindsay was walking in the door, but he was sitting at Carrie’s table, drinking Carrie’s iced tea, letting Carrie tend his—his what? Wounds sounded too extreme, regardless of what they were saying on Twitter and Facebook. All he had were a few scrapes and bruises. No big deal.
    But Carrie had treated them with such care.
    And she’d enjoyed Home Depot!
    Man, Lord, what am I thinking?
    He stood. “Well, I’d, ah, better go.”
    He was pretty sure that was a flash of disappointment on Carrie’s face, though she was quick to hide it. He couldn’t decide whether that was good or bad. He held out the now-defrosted packet of peas. Carrie took it and put it back in the freezer.
    “You’re not allowed to leave.” Lindsay pushed him back in his chair. “I haven’t had the report straight from the horse’s mouth yet.” She sat across from him beside Mary P. “Come on, Greg, Carrie. I want to know what really happened.”
    Greg began telling the story again as Carrie paced, in spite of the empty chair beside him.
    “So it wasn’t that big a deal,” he finished.
    “Ha!” Carrie said behind him. “The guy could have killed you! I know. I was there. Only your quickness saved you.”
    “But he didn’t.”
    “When he drove at you—” She began to pace faster.
    “Sit, Carrie,” Lindsay ordered. “You’re driving me crazy.”
    So Carrie sat, back straight, eyes fixed on her sister, hands folded on the table like a kid ready to say grace. To him, she seemed on edge, not the usual easygoing Carrie of the café. She’d been tense when they’d gone to Home Depot, but he’d chalked that up to driving the truck. What did she have to be stressed about now? And she seemed determined not to look at him.
    What did he expect? He’d kept his distance for all the years he’d been coming to the café. Of course, it wasn’t just Carrie he’d kept at arm’s length; it was any woman.
    It had taken his breath when he discovered that as soon as Ginny was dead, there were women who saw him as available. They didn’t seem to understand that loving someone didn’t stop just because that person died. Deep and true emotions continued, even seemed to intensify, with the absence of the loved one and the stark realization that she was now gone forever. If anything, the fact that he was grieving seemed to bring out the nesting, mothering instincts in these women. They wanted to take care of him, coddle him,
marry
him.
    Ginny and the kids weren’t gone a month when he got his first invitation to dinner from a single woman. And they kept coming. After he refused enough of them, word seemed to have gotten around, and he’d been left more or less alone by the women themselves. That’s when the dinner invitations from families who just happened to have single or divorced daughters began in earnest. He’d even gotten a couple from families with unhappily married daughters. It was like they expected him to fall in love with one such sad