Now that the wedding was over, it was time for Grace to dive into Christmas.

With a glass of wine to help with the spirit, she pulled the plastic tabletop tree out of a box she had in the small storage space in her single car garage. She plugged it in, grabbed the decorations, and within fifteen minutes her decorating was complete.

Pathetic . . . but complete.

She looked around her condo and took in the space.

It had everything she needed. A small kitchen that cooked for one. There had been painfully few men who had spent the night, and even fewer that were worth cooking breakfast for. She had space for a dining room table for four. A living room with a sofa, a chair, a floor lamp, and a coffee table. The TV lived mounted on the wall. She had two bedrooms. One doubled as her home office and guest room, but the bed was full of boxes and stuff she’d accumulated before and during the wedding planning that had yet to find a permanent place. Most of it could probably be tossed, but that would require work, and Grace had no desire to clean it up. She had two bathrooms, one in the hall and one in the master bedroom. She had a small balcony that overlooked the courtyard of the complex. And since she was on the third and top floor, she didn’t hear neighbors, and her ceilings were vaulted, giving the illusion of more space.

She’d bought the condo with a little help from her parents shortly after getting the job with the city. Within two years she’d paid her parents back for their loan, even though they said she didn’t have to. She could walk to work if she wanted to, but could count on one hand how many times she’d actually done that. The mall and all the restaurants around her were easier to get to on foot. Especially this time of the year when the parking lots were stuffed with Christmas shoppers. The only drawback was carrying bags home.

Her space was perfect.

Her brothers had opted for houses on the other side of town, but she stayed much closer to where her parents lived. Not that anyone lived far away. Only traffic dictated the time it took to get from one place to another. And traffic in an expanding city like Santa Clarita was a problem.

That was where she came in.

Men like Dameon Locke and their companies wanted to plop subdivisions and strip malls in and often didn’t think about the impact on the roads. The houses would sell, of that she had no doubt. The business properties in outlying areas, however, didn’t always fill up. With all the new tax and employment laws making small businesses struggle, there were lots of shut doors. But that wasn’t her concern. She concentrated on roads and zoning and infrastructure to handle the expansion. Bridges and drainage and even the impact on the schools to a lesser extent. She at least needed to identify the potential issues and make sure someone was on it.

“And why are you thinking about work on a Friday night?” she asked herself.

She set her half-full glass of wine aside and slid off the couch. Maybe a couple of Christmas pillows would add to her decorations and make the space more inviting. Not that anyone came over, but maybe if the right guy . . . Her thoughts shifted to Dameon.

Tall, broad shoulders, with a devil that lived in his brown eyes. Not brown . . . more like honey with a hint of gold. And that voice. Just thinking of it had her tongue moistening her lips.

Grace moaned and reached for her purse. “Enough of that.”

She put on a sweater and boots that complemented her jeans but weren’t needed for any unwanted weather. While it was cool, it wasn’t raining or snowing . . . or any of those other weather things that happened elsewhere in the country this time of year. It was Southern California, and it hardly ever rained until late December.

Well, except the year before when the clouds parked over the region and dumped for months.

Not this year. At least not yet.

Grace grabbed her purse and slung it over her shoulder before heading out the door.

She hesitated as she walked by the coffee shop where she’d stumbled upon Dameon just five days earlier. He wouldn’t be there, of course, since he lived in LA. Grace still patted her back on how she’d managed to gather that information. Stealth. Yeah . . . that’s what she was. He had no idea that she was thinking about him. And there was no way the man was thinking about her.

Except there was the double squeeze.

She dismissed the thought and pulled open the door to her favorite restaurant, or more to the point, favorite bar, and walked inside. People were lined up out the door. Grace walked past all of them to the open seating. She zeroed in on a barstool sandwiched between two couples.

“Hey, Jim,” she greeted the bartender.

“Hey, Gracie, how you doin’ tonight?” He placed a coaster on the counter as he walked by with someone else’s order.

“Better than you, this place is slammed.”

“It’s the holidays. The usual?”

She nodded an affirmative, and he scrambled off to fill her order.

One look to each side of her and Grace realized she’d be talking to herself. She pulled out her phone and did what just about every single person did on a dateless Friday night. She opened up Instagram and started scrolling through posts. The first images to pop up were Parker’s. It looked like the honeymooners had managed to get out of the hotel room long enough to take some beach pictures. But the image of her brother in a grass skirt standing with a bunch of tourists shaking their asses was what had her laughing out loud.

Jim dropped off her martini. “You eating tonight?”

“Chicken wings.”

Jim winked, placed a napkin on the bar, and walked away.

She looked up long enough to realize everyone at the bar was deep in conversation or busy watching one of the many sports that played on the monitors mounted on the walls.

From Instagram she went on to Facebook. Some of the same pictures she’d seen on one app were on the other, courtesy of having the same friends as she did followers.

She picked up her drink and took a sip at the same time she clicked on “Friend Requests.”

Dameon Locke’s image, name, and page had her sucking in a breath instead of swallowing her drink.

She came up sputtering, dripping vodka down her shirt.

Grace managed to set the drink down without spilling more and reached for the napkin. Her throat burned, and people around her started to stare.

Jim came to the rescue with a glass of water. “You okay?”

After coughing several times, she managed a thumbs-up and a deep breath while her eyes watered.

She looked at his name for several seconds. Before accepting anything, she moved to his page.

It was public and looked like a giant advertisement for Locke Enterprises.

After a good minute she concluded that Dameon hadn’t friended her. Locke Enterprises had. Which wasn’t shocking since she, too, had a public page and often talked about the new things happening in the city.

Someone in his office was obviously in charge of these things.

The debate in her head that followed was a tennis match of should she accept or should she deny. A corporate gesture being denied felt wrong. The CEO of the company asking to be a friend, even on social media, felt equally erroneous. Saying no was petty. She closed her eyes and hit “Confirm.”

“Whatever. It’s nothing,” she said to herself. She tried her martini a second time after putting her phone away.

CHAPTER FIVE