The Billionaire Land Baron by St. Clair Emma

Author:St. Clair, Emma
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-09-11T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

“That counter do something to you?”

“What?” Shelby looked up at Noel’s words.

Noel had come out from the kitchen and was watching her scrub down the counter with a rag. She hadn’t really noticed, but her forearm was sore. He pointed. “You’re likely to put a hole through it.”

Shelby tossed the rag under the counter. “Sorry.”

It was almost time for the early supper crowd, but the diner had been pretty empty today, save a few older women who came in almost every afternoon. Shelby was brewing decaf for them and it was almost ready. While it brewed, she stewed. Her thoughts pinballed back and forth between lots of things she didn’t want to think about at all.

There was Matt. Good, dear, faithful Matt. Shame hung round her neck at the fact that she had only just realized how she had allowed him to stay in limbo, orbiting her as she drifted through life. She had told him no to dating and marriage, but had still somehow let him stay invested. It made her slightly ill to realize how she’d gotten used to his constant presence, his firm love always there. He was the rock in her life, but it wasn’t fair to have him take that role when she couldn’t and didn’t want to offer him more. A conversation was coming, but it was going to be hard and ugly. Better than keeping him on an emotional chain, which is how it felt now. That was thing one.

Thing two was losing their home. Gracielynn’s words from that morning had stuck in her head, the idea that the people made the home. While that was, in a sense, very true, it wasn’t all true. It didn’t account for the memories that places held. Though she wasn’t superstitious in the ghost sense, Shelby was firmly rooted in the belief that places held a lot of their history close. When she thought about losing her home, it was like her memory started playing a slideshow at high speed of all the things she’d be losing and leaving behind. It made her chest tighten up every time. It was the only place where she had any good memories of her mama.

Her dad fit in as thing number three, tied closely to the house. Because she hadn’t told him yet what was happening. Not a word. And she didn’t know how she could or would. She had to, of course, but it felt like the worst kind of failure to admit what happened. She had failed to keep their place. That’s what it came down to. She was a failure.

The last and most surprising thing her thoughts bounced toward was Jake. This one shouldn’t have been so hard or even been on par with the other three. The fact that Jake was there at all concerned her. That she was upset about two long-term relationships in her life, yeah. Losing the house, sure. But thinking about Jake had her more shook up than anything. Gracie’s

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