“Looking for anything special?” She caught the bemused smirk that played at his lips a second before said lips captured his straw. He drank dark green juice from the same clear cup every day. Whatever he put in there was working. Dev was the picture of vitality—tall and lean and built like a cyclist, or a swimmer or a player of any endurance sport. A healthy tan proved he found time to be outdoors.
His beard was lustrous and dark—in her fantasies she had touched it and it was impossibly soft. It matched silky hair that was shaven on the sides and grown in on the top and tousled just right. Spiked up at the roots somehow with ends that fell into form without looking stiff, it managed to achieve a frightening shine. But his eyes—God, his eyes—they were the real stars of her fantasies; not dull green like his juice—bright and vibrant like aspen leaves. Even his skin seemed to glow.
“Any chance my order is in?” Shea asked, knowing full well today was Monday.
“Sorry. You’re a day early,” he said.
“Oh.” She pouted a little, then appeared to recover from feigned disappointment.
Dev leaned his hip against the counter and his lips eased into a slow smile. The rumble of his voice gave her a shiver. “Guess you’ll just have to come back tomorrow.”
With that, she gave another little smile and continued inside, taking her time as she thought of items she really might need. It was a well-thought-out store, with plenty of fresh staples in the produce section and aisles full of dry goods fit for a health nut or a gourmand.
Shea made her leisurely way up and down the aisles.
Coffee. Honey. Probiotics. Dried currants and slivered almonds for tomorrow’s salad. A bottle of that Malbec I like...
The simple foods she limited herself to were the extent of what she was willing to cook herself. Shea hadn’t done any real cooking in a long time.
It didn’t hold a candle to what she’d grown accustomed to in New York. But she did like a good, hearty salad—the kind that had nuts and fruit and meat and dairy protein. They weren’t haute cuisine, but they sustained her. Prepared foods and hearty salads were what she’d been living on for weeks.
“Hey—do you have any sumac?” she asked, circling back to the front after picking up the other items and searching for the herb herself. She’d become convinced that a little bit of the tangy spice would be the perfect addition to the aioli they served with the calamari at The Big Spoon. It was one of only three restaurants in Sapling. Delilah’s served sweet and savory pastries and Gator’s Sports Bar had pub food and wings. The Big Spoon served breakfast, lunch and dinner and had the largest menu of them all.
“Sumac is edible?” Dev looked up from shuffling his papers, seeming a touch surprised.
She frowned. “What else would it be?”
“Poisonous,” Dev picked up his green juice cup again. “Worse than poison ivy, but not as bad as poison oak. Poison sumac’ll give you a rash all over.”
“Huh,” Shea tutted, wondering whether she’d ever come across it hiking the trails near Kendrick’s house. “Well, people use it for cooking, too. Its berries are a deep red. I’ve never seen it in the wild, but the color of the ground spice is actually kind of beautiful.”
Then Dev did that thing he did whenever they got to talking: he got quiet for a minute, but never broke their gaze. In moments like that, he had a way of looking at her that made her feel like he was right in her space.
“Sounds like you want it?” his lips settled into a half-smile. The full smile, she’d noticed, was for genuine amusement. The half-smile seemed to mean something else. It held a different sort of softness too intimate to name.
“If you can get it…” Her voice held shyness and hope and all the other complex tones she’d forgotten her voice could make. The thrill of possibility was a heady thing.
“How much do you need?” he wanted to know.
“I guess a single jar is fine.”
The warmth in his eyes lingered even as the set of his lips changed. “I can get you sumac.”
What else can you get me?
Shea looked forward to the day when she would feel at ease flirting out loud instead of only inside her mind. Acknowledging attraction to other men still felt weird. Nodding her thanks, she walked off before he could notice or read into her blush of embarrassment—more accurately, a flush of lust.
He probably isn’t even interested, the rational part of her brain pointed out—the part that knew she hadn’t read into a tiny flirtation like this since she was a teenager. These small gestures likely meant nothing to him. It was his job to smile at her. The Freshery must have attracted all sorts of flirters, with Dev looking the way he did. Hell, he might even have been laughing at her beneath it all, with all of her strange requests and thinly veiled loitering.
Not just that—she felt mildly creepy for stalking him at work, maybe even un-feminist for objectifying his fine behind so hard. If her life weren’t this messy, she might throw out speculation and make an actual move. But her life was this messy. And he was the coincidentally hot grocer. And at the end of the day, a girl had to eat.
3
The Critic
Dev
Dev liked to be nice to the city folk—not just because he’d kind of turned into one himself—because not everyone in Sapling was. He could only half-blame people for the way they felt. All the wealthy people who had bought up the Hamren houses on Elk Mountain—second homes they barely used—made for strange local economics and a complicated relationship between tourists and locals.
He’d been back in Sapling for just over a year, though he’d traveled freely between California and Colorado in the six months before that. Delilah had worked on him those months, convincing him that Sapling was where his Midas touch for business was needed. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t torn about being back.
These were his people. He loved them. With the town struggling like it was, this was where he needed to be. His neighbors had helped him become who he was. People invited him to their barbecues, told him their gossip, called him when they needed help fixing a fence or felling a tree and trusted him to help the town.
Still, some part of him had one foot out of this place. He loved his forests and his mountains. But he also loved the things beyond. When he was in the city, he missed Sapling in all of its simplicity. When he was in Sapling, he missed the vivaciousness of the city. Maybe that was why he was so drawn to Shea.
There’s something different about her.
Dev pontificated for minutes after she left, trying again to pinpoint exactly what it might be. Her fashion sense was a clue. Bright toenail polish that always matched her eyeglass frames and changed with every visit was yet another quirk. That morning, both had been a dark electric blue to match a flattering color gradient she’d somehow gotten to fade onto the tips of her rich curls. She’d carried a gray bedazzled tote that read, Alright, patriarchy. You’ve had your turn.
But Dev was fairly certain the “something special” feeling he got about Shea went far beyond her appearance, though reflecting upon her visit in any way made him recall how amazing her ass had looked in those white jeans. He knew she stayed in one of the big, glass Hamren houses. Only, most people who owned up there never came except in the winter. Shea had arrived in July.