She blinked, then laughed. “I’ll look forward to it.”
Jess wasn’t sure about the whole compromise thing, but she had to admit that spending the afternoon with Will had been more fun than she’d anticipated. Not once did she catch herself worrying about whether he was analyzing every word she said.
Eventually, when she said she needed to get back to the inn, he surprised her by asking if she could use an extra pair of hands.
“To do what?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Whatever you need. I’m not bad in the kitchen, if they need help in there, or I could wait tables or seat people.”
She regarded him with puzzlement. “Why would you do that?”
“Do you really need to ask? I want to spend more time with you. The inn matters to you, so it makes sense to me that I understand what goes on there.” He held her gaze. “And I like raiding that big old refrigerator with you. I thought maybe we could do it again when the restaurant closes down for the night.”
“You’re after a free meal?” she teased. “Is that what this is about? I thought you were making money hand-over-fist with your practice and Lunch by the Bay.”
“Even without the promise of more of Gail’s incredible food, I’d want to stick around. You’re the draw, Jess. Just you.”
She blinked at the heartfelt sincerity in his voice. “Then, by all means, come back with me and hang out for as long as you want. I’ll find something for you to do.”
What intrigued her more than anything, though, was the unexpected image she had of what the rest of the night might hold.
Mick wasn’t entirely satisfied with the way they’d left things with Jess that morning. She’d gotten her knickers into a knot just because the family had shown a little interest in her relationship with Will. They probably should have known better than to gang up on her, but they’d only done it because they all cared. Why hadn’t she been able to see that?
After dinner, he and Megan were settled down for the evening when he stood up and announced, “I’m feeling a little restless. I think I’ll go for a walk. I won’t be long.”
Megan looked up from her book, her gaze instantly filled with suspicion. “You surely aren’t thinking of walking over to the inn, are you?”
“And what’s wrong with dropping in on our daughter, making sure things are running smoothly over there?” he inquired testily.
His wife laughed. “As if the efficiency of the inn’s operation is on your mind!”
He frowned at her. “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”
“You do realize that will tick Jess off just as much as if you walk in there with more questions about Will on the tip of your tongue? I think she’s had her fill of family concern today.”
“I can handle Jess,” he claimed, knowing it was far from true. She was the most sensitive and defensive of all of his kids. If he’d had problems understanding Bree’s uncharacteristically shy, reticent nature, he’d been even more uneasy dealing with Jess’s difficulties. He’d lost patience far too many times when he should have been sympathetic and supportive.
He’d thought for a time that the diagnosis of mild attention deficit disorder had been nothing more than psychological mumbo jumbo, an attempt to explain away the fact that she’d been a crummy student. It had taken too long for him to accept that it was a real disorder that could affect the way she focused and handled things for the rest of her life. He hated himself for all the pressure he’d put on her to buckle down and fix something over which she had no control.
Now, he thought, was his chance to make up for some of that. He wanted her to know she had his support in whatever she did. If that meant stepping in and making sure this thing with Will turned out the way she wanted it to, he’d do that, though he doubted she’d appreciate the interference.
He realized that Megan was watching him with an exasperated expression.
“You’re going over there no matter what I say, aren’t you?” she said.
“I am. The only question is whether you want to come along with me.”
She sighed heavily. “Well, somebody has to keep you from making things worse,” she muttered as she put aside the book she’d been reading. “Let’s go.”
He grinned. “You can stay in the background if you want to. You don’t have to say a word.”
“I’ll do just that,” she said, then grinned. “At least until I have to save you from yourself.”
Will’s admiration for Jess had increased a thousand-fold over the course of the evening. She seemed to thrive on the mini-crises that crept up in the kitchen, on dealing with the sometimes outrageous demands of difficult guests. She appeared to be everywhere at once, chatting with a customer, filling a water glass, even clearing the occasional table. He wondered if it was the fact that she dealt with things in the moment that made it so much easier for her to stay focused.
He’d been pitching in wherever she asked him to, amused to find himself taking directions from Ronnie Forrest in the kitchen, a kid who, a few short weeks ago, had been within seconds of being fired. He knew Ronnie’s history of job failures and wondered if perhaps he had an undiagnosed case of ADD. Like Jess, now that he’d found his niche in the kitchen, he seemed to be thriving. Will had heard somewhere that quite a few chefs seemed to have attention deficit issues, but worked well in the chaos of a restaurant kitchen.
Now that the last of the customers had been served dessert, Gail and Ronnie were cleaning up in the kitchen, the tables in the dining room were being cleared and Jess was behind the front desk counting the night’s receipts. Will joined her.
“You’re good at this,” he
