A Man for the Summer by Ruby Laska

problem. Griff didn’t want anything to do with her. He’d only made love to her out of some sort of misguided pity, and now he was furious because she’d let it happen.
    She knew he was right to be angry. Having sex with Griff had opened up a complicated Pandora’s box of issues that would take a long time to untangle. She’d taken advantage of a man in a way that was pretty much indefensible, and she hadn’t even really figured out her own feelings about what had happened.
    But she didn’t have the energy to think about those complications right now. If only things could be as simple for her as for the kids, who spent their long summer days doing whatever they felt like, drinking Gatorade and never staying mad.
    What Junior felt like was finding her way back into Griff’s arms.
     
     
    There were worse places he could have been marooned.
    From a strictly professional point of view, that is. Griff squinted across the street at the Green Bean Café, then took a few steps down the sidewalk, changing his visual angle slightly.
    He needed Gordon. He and the photographer he always worked with had developed a kind of intuition, Griff communicating the feeling he was trying to achieve, but it was Gordon’s genius that captured his intentions on film.
    And what a picture this would make. The galvanized tin tubs planted with geraniums and six-foot-tall sunflowers were the only spots of color besides the green. The awnings, the door, the “OPEN” sign. The image might even be book cover material, but the trick was to make sure it didn’t come off too cutesy, too patronizing.
    Griff sighed. Missouri Highways and Byways was, he had to admit, a bit tougher to pull off than he’d expected. Oh, he’d found the cornfields and pickups and greasy spoons, and he could probably work them up into a competent two hundred pages, but it wouldn’t be right , wouldn’t be the whole picture.
    And Griff prided himself on getting things right.
    He needed local color. Sighing heavily, Griff dug in his pack for his notebook. Gloria may have had a point. His editor had accused him of getting a little too slick. Griff had always felt that featuring the top spots, the restaurants, night clubs, and high culture of a city, and somewhere along the line he’d quit trying to find the heart of a place, its pulse and personality.
    Readers of his books about Miami and Tokyo and other big cities generally didn’t care. But the people who shelled out fourteen bucks for Missouri Highways and Byways just might.
    The café’s screen door swung open and two familiar looking boys spilled out, followed by Junior, dressed now in a faded Grateful Dead tee shirt and a pair of yellow denim ankle pants that seemed to have been molded to her curves. Griff’s mouth went dry.
    “Hey, that’s him!” one of the boys shouted, and Junior glanced his way, her hands automatically darting out to grab the boys’ collars.
    Even across the street her eyes glinted green. Even from that distance he could see her lips part slightly, her breath caught, and the surprise etched on her face tempered by something else, something that caused his blood to simmer in his veins.
    “Hey,” he said, raising his hand in a half-wave, feeling a little ridiculous. He stuffed his notebook back in his pack and crossed over.
    Junior licked her lips, and placed her hands on the boys’ muscular, bony shoulders.
    “Manners,” she murmured through her teeth as Trevor and Joey shrugged her hand off. They glanced up at her curiously, and she wished she hadn’t had the bright idea of bringing them down for a malt after they’d tossed the softball around.
    “Griff Ross, I would like to introduce you to my nephew, Joey Atkinson, and his friend Trevor. Boys, please say hello to Mr. Ross.”
    “It’s my pleasure.”
    Griff gravely held out his hand. The boys stared at it for a minute before grabbing and shaking vigorously.
    He looked stiff as a board, she could see, and didn’t know the