Or maybe he did. Just a little.
“Mustard, please. Mayonnaise is oil, vinegar, and egg whites whipped into a white fury. Disgusting.” She shivered theatrically.
He made a face like she’d just insulted his granny’s cornbread. “How very un-Southern of you.”
He set the jars aside and reached for the loaf of homemade bread Eliza kept in wax paper in the wooden breadbox beside the fridge.
“I haven’t lived in Georgia in fifteen years,” she said, winding a strand of that deep red hair around her finger.
It was nearly auburn but not quite. The kind of color women paid good money to fake, but Lura had had naturally since she’d run around in pigtails at Sunday socials.
“Pretty sure everyone back home would say I’ve turned traitor and become the worst thing someone can become. A Yankee,” she added with a dramatic widening of her cobalt-blue eyes.
“Ya know what they say about Yankees.” He grinned. “They’re like hemorrhoids.”
She finished the saying with a smirk. “A pain in the ass when they come down and a relief when they go back up.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Noticed ya lost your accent. Most of it, leastways.”
That earned him a wide grin, and his hand tightened around the counter's edge because something weird happened to his kneecaps.
Lord have mercy. She was as sweet as peach pie, sure. But that smile? That smile could make a man forget his own name.
“You haven’t lost yours,” she countered. “It’s still as thick as a bowl of cheesy grits.”
“Ya can take the boy outta the north Georgia woods, but ya can’t take the north Georgia woods outta the boy, I reckon.”
He braced for another smile and was mildly relieved when she got distracted by Peanut.
All the womenfolk who lived and worked at the shop had reformed the former alley cat of his wicked ways. Instead of chasing mice and sifting through dumpsters, the tom now spent his days hunting up sunny patches to sunbathe in and haunting the kitchen in hopes someone would toss him a treat.
The cat twined around her barstool’s legs, earning himself a cheek rub that had him purring loud enough to drown out the fridge’s humming compressor.
The shop was oddly quiet for the tail end of a workday. No whine of metal grinders. No boom of Ozzie’s eighties hair bands from the speakers in the War Room. No good-natured insults bandied about as folks went about their various tasks.
Half the group had gone off to support Grace and Julia on their mission to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. The other half was helping Ozzie follow a lead he’d pinpointed on the recording of the ransom call.
Normally, Graham would be right there with the second half, doing what he could to contribute to the endeavor. But as Lura had been tapping away on her phone, looking for flights back to D.C., he’d heard her stomach growl.
The first time, he’d ignored it.
The second time, he’d lifted an inquisitive eyebrow.
The third time, he’d said, “Your belly’s makin’ noises like it thinks your throat’s been cut.”
After some coaxing and a promise to build her the best roast beef sandwich east of the Mississippi, he’d escorted her down to the kitchen.
His nerves had been strung as tight as a fiddle string all day. Abductions of friends and colleagues and ten-million-dollar ransom demands would do that to a man. But Lura’s presence for the last handful of hours had brought about another kind of tension.
It wasn’t homesickness. Although it sort of felt the same. It wasn’t wistfulness. Although it kind of felt like that, too.
If he were forced to put a label on it, he’d say it was equal parts nostalgia and regret. The kind of feeling that fisted in his gut and twisted in his heart, because every glance her way pulled up memories he’d shoved down deep.
He thought he’d buried the boy he’d been back when he knew her. Thought he’d healed from the hurt that had driven him away.
But with her close, breathing the same air, all those old feelings clawed right back to the surface and proved some things don’t stay in the ground. Some things are always right there, waiting to rear their ugly heads.
Lord, what he wouldn’t give to go back to the day his mother had her accident. He’d fake an illness so she’d stay home instead of going to work. He’d slice her tires so she couldn’t drive. He’d tackle her before she could set one foot inside that textile factory.
