A Man for the Summer Read Online Free Page B

Junior’s too. Junior shrugged, realizing it was pointless to resist, and took her crocheted bag from her aunt.
    “Yeah, I guess they could country-fry just about anything,” Junior said. Thinking of their menu, she relented a little. “They do have a pretty good blackberry cobbler.”
     
     
    Griff held the door open, smiling to himself as Junior swept imperiously past, as though she were entering the Academy Awards instead of a diner.
    Though it wasn’t just any diner. True to its name, the Green Bean Café was… very green. The exterior was painted in three different shades, and inside he could see that the floor was covered in green linoleum and the seats in green vinyl.
    It was a popular place. The lunchtime crowd filled every available table. All eyes lifted as the bell on the door jangled, and a chorus of greetings rang out.
    “Hey there, Junior.”
    “Hi, sweetie!”
    “Catch the Cubs last night, Junior?”
    With a pang Griff remembered the dozens of diners he’d entered to open curiosity followed by silence, silence that had always seemed mildly disapproving.
    Guess it paid to know people, even in a backwards place like this.
    “We can wait outside,” he offered.
    “There’s tons of spaces,” Junior said.
    And sure enough the patrons began waving eagerly, taking purses and parcels off chairs.
    “Come on over here, sweetheart, and let’s catch up.” A large woman with an imposing hairdo patted the chair next to her. Her companion nodded and grinned encouragingly.
    “Well, Dottie, Betsy, how sweet of you! I think we will join you. Won’t we, Griff?” She smiled in his direction, just a trace of wickedness in the curve of her lips, and pushed past him.
    Shrugging in resignation, he followed. Glancing at the table, he saw that only the wilted lettuce and lemon garnish remained on their plates; the two women would be moving along soon.
    What he needed to talk to Junior about did not need an audience.
    “Now, who is this young man?” the skinny lady asked.
    “Griff Ross, allow me to introduce Dottie Johnson and Betsy Potter. Griff is a famous author ,” she said, leaning across the table and stage-whispering confidentially.
    Griff found himself mildly annoyed at her change of heart. In the office she’d acted as if he’d told her he skinned kittens for a living. Now she was winking at him and fairly gushing to the two older women.
    “Oh, my heavens, a writer! How wonderful! What have you written?”
    “Travel books,” Griff replied, smiling tightly. “For Hart press.”
    Betsy’s face fell just a bit.
    “Oh,” she said. “Well, now, I like the novels myself.”
    “Not me,” Dottie said. “I don’t waste my time on fiction. I like books that are facts, you know, that you can learn from. I just read the marvelous biography of Frank Sinatra. Old Blue Eyes,” she added, sighing rapturously and giving Griff’s arm a squeeze. “He was a great man.”
    “A great man,” Griff repeated.
    Oh man, it was going to be a long lunch.
    Across the table Junior just smiled at him, letting her heavy-lashed lids slide down halfway over those blue eyes. She took a compact from her purse and poked at her lips with gloss from a little pot, running her tongue over them when she was finished.
    On the other hand, a long lunch might be just the thing. Griff could keep up his end of the conversation pretty well with the occasional “mmm-hmm” or “you don’t say”—and just about get lost in that smile.
    What the hell, he thought. He was going to take this woman to bed, after all. He might as well enjoy getting her there.
    She wasn’t pretty, exactly. In fact, he would bet she had been a funny-looking kid, with those long limbs and sharp angles and all that red hair. And no doubt she was the kind of girl for whom womanhood came as a surprise—and that even now she probably still wasn’t used to being looked at. The way he was looking at her.
    And there were her clothes. Today she had on a shirt