I stifle a smile.
“I saw that,” he mutters.
“Saw what?”
“That little tease of a smile.”
“No, you didn’t,” I say, trying to stay stoic.
“Yes, I did.”
“You’re impossible,” I say, right as Daisy’s granddaughter,Maggie, hustles over to me from the front counter and gives my arm a squeeze. “Hey there, Ripley. I just saw Sarah is handling you today. She’s my new girl, and I love her already. You’re getting the usual? A standard pedi?”
“That’d be perfect.”
As Maggie grabs a towel, Banks looks my way. “So you don’t do manicures, but pedicures are your thing?”
I shrug happily. Maybe I threw him for a loop there. “I love pedis. My mom always used to take Haven and me when we were younger,” I say, fondly remembering those times when Mom took us out for our girls’ trips, her little matching towheads happily following her down the street to this very salon.
“That sounds nice,” he says with a warm smile.
“It was. A little treat every few months. I kept it up. But manicures are a waste in my line of work.”
“Makes sense.”
I pause for a beat, giving him a playful look. “Or maybe I just contain multitudes,” I add.
His lips curve up. “You sure do.”
Maggie returns and sets up a towel on the footrest. “Here you go.”
“And how’s little Carson?” I ask Maggie, the friendly, freckled woman who owns the shop now. It’s gone from generation to generation, like my farm.
“Aww, he’s great. Just started to crawl last week.”
“Watch out, Mama,” I say with a low whistle.
“Don’t I know it,” she says, then tells me about her little babyand all the milestones he’s hit. When she’s done, she squeezes my arm again and takes off as Sarah returns and sets up on a low stool. Another tech parks a stool at Banks’s feet.
I turn to my shadow. “My grandma’s bestie—Daisy—owned this shop, and then her son ran it, and now her son’s daughter runs it. Maggie,” I say, nodding toward the front counter, where Maggie’s set up on the computer.
“Family business. Nice,” he says warmly as the tech scrubs my feet with an exfoliating scrub. “That must be one of the things you like about this town?”
The earnestness of his question catches my full attention. “I do. I love that everyone looks out for each other,” I say, thinking of high school, when my parents died. My throat squeezes with emotion. It was fifteen years ago, and I can still remember the aftermath of their death clearly. Not just the day we got the terrible news, but the way the people of Darling Springs took care of Haven, my grandmother, and me.
I must be wearing my emotions on my face since Banks shifts in his chair, almost like he’s trying to shield me with his body. He can’t, of course. But I can feel it in the gesture. Like he’s trying to protect me from anyone listening in on the emotional moment as he asks quietly, “You okay?”
With sadness, I meet his dark-brown gaze, answering first with a sturdy nod. “I am. Just remembering when my parents died. It was like the whole town wanted to take care of us afterward.”
His expression is sympathetic, his tone solemn. “I’m sorry for your loss, but I’m glad you had people to comfort you.”
“Thank you,” I say, then look around toward the door and the street beyond. The businesses I know. The families I see every day. The stories they share. I look back at him. “Even though there are photogs in town for the movie and paparazzi now and tour groups, I don’t think I could leave. It’s weird, but it’s like the whole place became my family. Even when Haven left, I always felt like”—I pause, take a moment to collect my thoughts—“this was where I was supposed to be. I have good friends here,” I say, and before I know it, I’m telling him about Chloe and Bridget and even some of my new friends in Darling Springs. “Like this woman named Juliet who moved here recently. Well, she’s a part-timer. She lives and works in San Francisco.”
“Does that mean she feels like less a part of the town?”
I shake my head. “Oh, she’s one of us now. She’s brought a lot of business to Darling Springs. She and her hubs started hosting couples retreats here,” I say, enthused as I tell him more about the new kids. “They have this podcast all about romance and dating and such, so they host couples retreats at a house they were gifted by a listener who’s from here.”
“Juliet and Monroe, right?” he asks.
