Shirley Jump - How the Playboy Got Serious

Riley McKenna was the last person she would have picked for the job. And now, watching Riley and Jeremy talk—and her nephew smile for the first time in forever—Stace realized she was stuck with her worst nightmare. At work, and now, at home.

Somehow, Stace had to get rid of Riley. As she hustled her nephew out of the diner, she vowed to make sure the bachelor was gone by the end of the day tomorrow.

CHAPTER FOUR

RILEY had no business being here. He should have gone to his grandmother’s house, to try to talk Gran out of her crazy idea. Or gone to hang out with his friends, who were undoubtedly several beers deep into their evening out already.

Instead Riley found himself flipping through a phone directory, then taking the train several stops down the Red Line until he arrived on the outskirts of Dorchester. Then a long, brisk walk to reach a neighborhood dotted with security bars over the store windows and battered No Trespassing signs nailed to the front of abandoned houses. He took a right, then a left, and another right before finally arriving before an aging one-story Cape with a sagging front porch and peeling white paint.

Riley checked the address he’d jotted down. Checked it again.

This was where Stace lived, according to the phone book. He thought of the guest house he lived in on Gran’s property. It wasn’t anything grand, but the Newton house and accompanying land were a far cry from the dilapidated building before him.

He wondered again how someone could work the job she did, for the pittance she received, and still be happy. All those years of sports cars and women and parties, Riley had told himself he was happy.

But now he wasn’t so sure that was true. Even though she faced the usual stresses involved in working a hard job, at the end of the day, when she was humming along to the radio, or giving him or Frank a good razzing, he saw something in Stace. A contentment, with her life, her job, herself. So he’d come here tonight, in part, to find a little of that for himself.

And maybe brainstorm a little. He’d been thinking about the diner’s struggles over the last few days and had jotted down a few ideas, fiddled with some concepts. Maybe he could put something he’d learned at McKenna Media to work.

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