Chapter Thirty-Six Grace
Thirty-Six
Grace
Blossoms a café which had suddenly gone quiet.
His eyes locked on to Grace’s across the café, while everyone else’s eyes bounced between him and Grace like spectators at a tennis match.
“Reese, what are you—”
“I just wanted to take you to lunch,” he interrupted. “If that’s okay with you.”
He said it simply. Like it was the most reasonable thing in the world to fly thousands of miles to take your…whatever Grace was…to lunch.
“You’re supposed to be in Cuba,” Mabel said.
He turned to Grace’s mom, a charming smile on his face. “Hi, Mrs. Sullivan. I was. But I left. I hope it’s okay to take your daughter out over her lunch break?”
Grace’s mother put her hand to her heart. “Hell, honey, she can have the whole afternoon off.”
“You left Cuba?” Ray said. “But the sanctuary—”
Reese turned to him. “Hey, Man Who Served Me the Best Fish Ever on Sunday. The sanctuary is being handled by people far more qualified than me. Any more questions?”
Sophie put her hand up but Grace dragged it down.
Reese took a step closer, and she caught the full force of him: the intensity in his eyes, the barely contained energy that seemed to crackle around him. “I needed to see you,” he said. “You weren’t answering my texts.”
The knitting ladies gasped, giving Grace disapproving looks. “You didn’t text him back?” one of them said.
Reese turned to her. “I know, right?” Then he turned back to Grace. “So I thought I’d come see you in person. How about it then? Lunch?”
Grace grabbed her bag and whipped off her apron. “I’m in.”