Read Online Home Fires by Kathleen Irene Paterka - Free Book Online Page B

who’d invited him out to dinner. The least she could do was be polite and play the gracious hostess. If Mike wanted to walk, then they would walk… right into a nice air-conditioned restaurant. She gazed back and forth from the t-shirt shop on her left to the nautical-themed gift shop on her right. “Where do we go from here?”
    “Why don’t we head that way?” Mike pointed down the block toward the lake, a cool shimmering oasis of blue. They started down the street, taking one block, then another.
    “Hey, smell that? Mmmm, pastrami. My favorite.” Mike halted beneath a pink striped awning with navy blue swirls proudly proclaiming “Diana’s Downtown Deli.” He peered inside the window, then straightened and grinned at her. “What do you think? This looks pretty good to me.”
    “Are you sure you really want to eat in there?” The delicatessen was unfamiliar to her. Just another new business venture, one that would most likely be shut down by season’s end. Businesses in James Bay needed to turn a tidy profit in the summertime. Rent in the downtown district was expensive for shopkeepers, especially during the winter months without the tourist trade to sustain them.
    Mike shrugged. “What have we got to lose? Worst-case scenario, we get a little heartburn. Come on, it’ll be fun. We can grab some sandwiches and take them over to the park. Have a little picnic down by the water’s edge.”
    A picnic in downtown James Bay sounded exactly like something a tourist would do. Rose gave the deli another once-over through the front window. It looked fresh and inviting, but a deli was a deli, no matter how you sliced it. And this place wasn’t at all the type of place she’d imagined they would go for dinner. Was Mike merely trying to be nice? Did he think she couldn’t afford to buy him a good meal?
    But she was hungry. Best of all, there was no line at the front counter.
    A little brass bell tingled above the door as they entered the shop. Tantalizing aromas of spicy meats and fragrant cheeses greeted them. Ten minutes later they were headed out the door with two large paper bags packed with sandwiches, chips, coleslaw, and drinks. Down the street the shimmering lake beckoned. Within minutes, they reached the marina and waterfront. Rose started for a picnic table but Mike shook his head and kept on walking. They ended up in front of a bench close to the water.
    “How’s this?”
    “Perfect.” Rose sank down on the park bench. She caught a breath of cool breeze drifting in off the lake as he dropped down on the bench beside her. Before them stretched the fresh blue waters of James Bay, which opened up farther out into Lake Michigan. The sun was halfway near the horizon, poised for its nightly plunge below the glistening waters far from shore. Together they watched nature’s beginnings of the perfect summer sunset.
    “Hungry?” Rose finally broke the golden silence.
    Her words seemed to startle him. His gaze hung far out at sea. He turned back toward her and she caught a glimpse of something, a sudden longing in his eyes, a lost, lonely look cast about his face. Then, quickly as it had come, it disappeared, replaced by a rueful smile.
    “Sorry about that.” His voice betrayed his embarrassment. “I’ve been inside all day long filling out fire reports. I didn’t realize how much I needed something like this.”
    She’d been inside all day long too, at her mother’s bedside. The hospital was air conditioned, sterile, cool, and serene. The fresh lake breeze had blown the smell of antiseptic out of her head.
    All she could smell now was pastrami.
    Rose picked up one of the bags and peeked inside. “Are you hungry?”
    “Starving.” Mike pulled wax-paper-wrapped sandwiches from one of the bags and handed over a thick roast beef built on rye. “I think this one is yours.”
    Seagulls swooped and soared along the waterfront dock as the two of them munched in companionable silence. James Bay spread out