“Look,” she had said in Spanish, and bared her teeth at him. What she had of them.
“You lost your tooth,” he said.
“On a carrot. I wanted to show you first, but Bridgie came, and I couldn’t talk to her or get up close because then she would see, and then the teacher thought...” Around the lisping of her gap, Sofia spilled her version of events, so by the time he reached Bridget and Isabella, he’d pretty much known where things stood.
He’d filled in Bridget on Sofia’s dental status, and Bridget dutifully inspected the gap and the tooth preserved in a plastic bag.
Meanwhile, he’d kneeled before Isabella. “I’m sorry. But I let Bridget come because I trust her completely. If you’re with her, it’s like you’re with me.”
He’d said it to reassure Isabella, but he knew it for the truth. He’d always trusted her and still did. He was the one who’d disappointed everyone. “I’d like you to apologize to her. In English, so she understands.”
And when she’d muttered her apology to Bridget’s stomach, Bridget had melted and wrapped her arm around Isabella’s shoulders. “I accept. Now let’s go see the surprise your fa—Jack has made for you two. Tell them,” she said to Jack, “that you’ve made them a gingerbread house.”
She’d turned it all around and made him into a hero when nothing could be further from the truth. They’d driven back to the restaurant with Bridget teaching the girls to sing “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” with him providing translation.
The least he could do now was make sure Bridget received a compliment straight from the source.
Bridget immediately rewarded Isabella’s accented English with a huge smile that he knew would make Isabella feel as if she’d scored the winning goal. It was how he always felt.
She turned to him and her smile retracted like an elastic. “I said a few things at school. Don’t worry, nothing to do with the kids. About the restaurant.” She explained that somehow in the quarter hour there she’d promised a discount to every new customer.
“You told me the other day that the best Penny’s has ever done was a nine percent profit margin. What’s the point of keeping the doors open?”
“Don’t be so dramatic.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I thought we were partners.” He could hear his sarcasm.
“How was I supposed to tell you beforehand? It just came out.”
“So your first thought when someone said that they haven’t come to the restaurant is to pay them to come?”
“It’s not paying, it’s promoting.”
“We’re here to make money, not friends.”
Sofia touched his arm. She and Isabella were staring at him, their brown eyes wide. So much for a happy memory. He’d blown it by attacking Bridget for at least doing something to get customers in the door.
Mano suddenly stepped out from the back where he’d been testing a new omelette. “Is there something about this business I should know?”
“No,” Bridget said. She shot a warning look at Jack. He understood. If Mano knew how bad things were, he’d pack up his wife and five kids, and bang pots at the next fine casual eatery. Without a chef, Penny’s would have to close its doors.
Mano waved his meaty paw. “Which means ‘yes.’ How bad is it? Tell me straight up.”
Bridget looked as if Mano was asking her to give up the secret recipe of her cinnamon buns. Jack would say it for her. “We need to make the payment this month or the bank will move on us.”
“I didn’t want you to know how bad it is,” Bridget said, head down.
Mano pointed at her. “You think I didn’t know? You think I don’t count the meals served? You think I’m some kid you have to hide bad news from?” He turned his finger on Jack. “It is good you told me.”
He swiped off his hat, pulled the string on his apron. Bridget gasped. “No, Mano, look. I’ll make sure you get paid. Please don’t leave.”
Mano stopped in the middle of removing his apron. “You think after all these years I will walk off not a month after your aunt leaves this world? No, I am taking off my apron to sit with you two and we will think. We will think about how to make money for our families.”
He settled his girth beside Bridget, which meant Isabella was pressed to the wall. She slipped underneath the table and emerged on the other side beside Sofia, then pulled her cinnamon bun across the table and resumed eating.
“How much does it cost to make one of these buns?” Jack asked Bridget.
“Nothing, really. The ingredients are simple, the power to bake is nothing. They are honestly the highest margin item on the menu. Problem is I don’t sell enough to keep a candle lit.” She paused. “I was thinking we’d go ahead with our traditional Christmas breakfast menu all December instead of just the week before. I put red and green sprinkles on my cinnamon buns. And crushed gingersnap chunks. I also have small ones. Minicinnis. Set them out in a display case. We make Santa pancakes for the kids, specialty coffees, things like that. And prices are a little more. It is always our best week.”
“The best week,” Mano said, “because it was only one week. Every day, and people will get sick of it.”
But Jack saw where Bridget was going with this. “We might as well capitalize on the Christmas lights outside, make them a draw for at least the first hour in the morning when it’s still dark. People still have the option of the regular menu. It’s more how the plate is dressed, right?”
Bridget nodded, then chewed on her cheek. “It won’t be enough, is the thing.”
Jack had been tumbling an idea around all this week. “How about we run a dinner service? Not every day. Just Friday and Saturday, say. For Christmas.”
“I thought about it,” Bridget said. “We did it last year as a windup to our Christmas week. We were full for two entire sittings. But this year we don’t have the staff. And I can’t afford to pay.”
Mano slapped his hands on the table. “Didn’t I just say I’d help my family? You help us by letting us help you. My wife can cook. Better than me, but she doesn’t like to show me up. And the two oldest? Seventeen and sixteen. One can do expo—” he turned to Jack “—dress the plate, garnish, do a few sides. The other, she can, I don’t know, do as she’s told.”
Bridget’s face lit up, then dimmed. “But will we make money?”
Today was Thursday. “Could we run with a modified menu this Saturday?” Jack proposed.
“Yes. Definitely.” Mano stood and reached for his apron. “I’ll call the wife.”
Isabella had finished her cinnamon bun and was eyeing Jack’s. “Don’t even think of it,” he warned her in Spanish. “It will spoil your supper.” He didn’t think it would, but she needed to know that meals came regularly. “How about you and Sofia come by every Tuesday and Thursday, and we’ll all have cinnamon buns together?” Time with the girls from here on in would be calculated in hours and minutes. He needed to arrange for as many as he could.
Isabella looked across the table at Bridget. “Will she be here, too?”
“Is it all right if she is?”
Isabella nodded. “She’s your partner.”
Bridget was miming to Sofia how to eat the bun with her back molars to avoid the tender front area. It involved extravagant, slow-motion chewing that had Sofia in wide-mouthed, gap-toothed giggles.
Partners, yes. And this Saturday he’d prove that he was a worthy one.
CHAPTER SIX
“WOULD YOU LIKE to do the honors?”
Lemons in hand, Jack looked over the counter at Bridget. She tilted her head to the front door. “Is it that time already?” he asked.
She held up her phone. “One minute to four.”
“How did that happen?” For the past two days, Jack had ridden a learning curve so sharp his brain had contracted altitude sickness. Either that, or the combo
of sleep deprivation and skipped meals accounted for the pounding in his head.
“Be glad it has,” Bridget said. She flashed her glossy-lipped smile, part of the package with her sleeveless cocktail dress and the updo Krista had given her. Even if tonight was a complete bomb, at least the sight of Bridget would stand out in his memory.
He raised the lemons. “My hands are full. You open.” He watched her clip away on short heels, tiny gold bells jingling around her ankle. Krista’s idea. His cousin had lots of good ideas when it came to Bridget.
He popped the lemons into the fridge and went to do...what? There was nothing left to take care of. The interior had been restaged for the dinner service with a candle centerpiece, the lights dimmed, Christmas instrumental music flipped on and the dinner menus stacked under the register. And in the kitchen, the fridge was stocked, the sides prepped, the grill hot. He’d even switched into a white dress shirt and black slacks to play the part.
All that was missing were the customers. Bridget puttered about, scrolled through her phone and looked as if an empty house was perfectly fine. But after she’d rearranged the same table for the third time, Jack’s nerves jangled like Bridget’s bells.
In his decade working in relief agencies worldwide, he’d pulled together high-profile meetings as naturally as snow fell. This was different. People he loved depended on him to provide for their basic needs. Isabella. Sofia.
Bridget.
Outside there was a slap and thud. The sandwich board with the evening specials had tipped over. “I’ll get that.”
Outside he nearly collided with a group of four women bubbling with giggles and chatter. Dressed for a night out. Time for him to get to work.
“Ladies.” He righted the board. “It must be a sign, don’t you think?” He let them groan at his pun, let them soften up. He held open the restaurant door and gestured inside. “Our fine establishment awaits you.”
“Are you open?”
Jack turned to the speaker, a pretty woman in glasses. “Yes, we are open for dinner every Friday and Saturday during the season. You are in luck.”
She moved to follow up on her luck, but another held back. “I’m paleo. Do you cater to that?”
Was that a disease? “Our kitchen will customize your meal, not to worry.”
The other two were reading the steak special on the board. “I suppose I could go for that,” said one.
And with three down, the last trailed after the others inside.
“Nice work,” Bridget said, after seating them.
He wiped his hands, ready to become their server. “If you can get it. Which apparently I can.”
She waggled her phone. “Hockey tournament. Kelsie finished putting flyers in the parking lot windshields an hour ago.”
“They’ll go to the sports lounge.”
“It’s not giving away apple cider and minicinnis.”
He sighed. “I take it we are.”
“One of each only. And a chance to buy them by the half dozen from the display case.”
“That might work. I’m going to pitch it to the ladies.”
“The one in glasses? She’s Tanya, our bank manager. Give her an extra one. Or whatever you’re willing to offer up.”
Was there a tinge of competitiveness in Bridget’s voice? She had no reason to be, but it meant she had feelings for him she couldn’t hide. He hoped the sandwich board fell at the feet of every passing female tonight.
* * *
AT A QUARTER to midnight, Jack sat at the bar, the first his feet had been off the floor since they’d hit it at five that morning. “Please tell me we made so much money we can retire to a Maui beach.”
Bridget didn’t break in her counting of cash. She wrapped bills in an elastic, wrote a number on the top one. She started in on a pile of loonies and toonies. “Forget the one and two dollars,” Jack said. “Give me a ballpark figure before I die here.”
Bridget reverted to counting aloud. There was no stopping her. There’d been no stopping all night. At one point, the restaurant had a wait time of ten minutes to be seated. Mano and his family had worked with the speed and precision of marines on a sinking ship. Hopefully, one that could be bailed out.
Bridget tapped on her phone and then looked up and smiled. The gloss had gone from her lips, but this smile was the biggest he’d seen yet. “We’ll make payments this month. I’ll take it in Monday. Two weeks after the first-of-month due date but it’s done.”
Jack spoke to the ceiling. “Thank you, hockey families everywhere. Anything extra?”
She named an amount. He gave a low whistle. “That’s good, real good. We can put it toward back payments. Or aside for next month’s. Whichever.”
“Or—” She tilted her head.
“What? What else is there?”
Instead of answering, she crossed to the front door. No. Was she actually—She lifted out the Christmas Crates box from its stand and brought it in.
“You still plan to do the campaign? There’s no money.”
Bridget set the crate on the bar counter and lifted the lid. She peered inside, grimaced. “Just as I feared. There are more than ever.”
“All the more reason to cancel it. At least for this year.”
“All the more reason I need to do it. In memory of my aunt. In memory of your mother.”
Mother. A week had passed since he’d learned that Penny was his mother and he was no closer to dealing with it, other than to bury it under the crush of other worries. “Emotional blackmail doesn’t work on me.”
“I’m not asking for your help. I can do it myself.”
“Do you have anyone to help you?”
“Tanya had volunteered to take over from Auntie Penny. Now she can’t. Her mother has cancer and she needs to be there for her.”
“We need you to be here for us.” He could use emotional blackmail, too.
Bridget’s shoulders sagged. He was getting through to her.
“The girls shouldn’t have to fear for a roof over their heads or food in their bellies. You, more than any of us, know what that’s like.” She’d never spoken much about the reasons she was taken into foster care, but she once said that she taught herself how to cook an egg when she was three.
“I do, Jack, but...”
“But what?”
She turned pleading eyes to him. “Not doing it endangers Christmas for dozens of families. Life hasn’t been easy these past few years around here.”
Poverty in Canada looked a whole lot different than poverty in Venezuela. The poor here weren’t dining on rats. Thousands of abandoned children weren’t walking to other countries. He was thankful to be back in a community where there were people like Bridget who treated individual family struggles like a humanitarian crisis.
She rested her arm on the crate. “This event is more than a charity. It brings people together. Businesses up and down this street, and over in the downtown, and even big places like Walmart and Canadian Tire chip in by way of products or services or even cash so we can package everything up. Volunteers prepare them and then on December twenty-third, Auntie Penny, myself and other volunteers who aren’t busy with family deliver them. People talk to each other, people who don’t see each other any other time of the year. Yes, it benefits those in need, but it also benefits those who want to give.”
“You make it sound too good to be true.”
He couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice. He braced for her to bite back, to tell him what a selfish jerk he was and how he’d no business running her life. Instead she sat on a bar stool, pillowed her cheek on her hand and contemplated him. All the lights off except the overhead one above them, dimmed to what a bedside lamp might give off.
“Jack. What happened?”
He hadn’t told anyone the real story—not Penny, not the stream of officials
, not the blank lines on the forms. But this was Bridge. And if he wanted back in her life, then he was going to have to let her into his.
“I had a desk at an orphanage in Caracas. I wasn’t working at the place but the agency assigned me there because that’s where there was an internet connection, and my job was to coordinate emergency supplies from around the world and bring them into Venezuela.”
He grabbed a towel and wiped at a stain on the counter. It had soaked right in and wouldn’t come out, but he kept forgetting. He tossed the towel back down. “The biggest problem among good agencies is finding a sure and safe way to get things to where they need to be. Past the corruption and to the people who need it. I learned about a charity that coordinated the money and supplies. I did due diligence on them, and they seemed aboveboard. I ran a couple of operations with them. They were small, only four employees, but they had a long reach. That should’ve been my first clue. Anyway, they came to me with this idea of expanding their scope, and I thought I could make a real difference. Make a mark, leave a legacy, whatever. So I put the proceeds from the sale of Dad’s house into the organization.”
It burned how much of an egotistical fool he’d been. “Turns out I was the mark for their long con.”
Bridget didn’t say anything, just curled herself closer to him.
“I found out when I logged into my bank account. All of it was gone.”
She gasped. “They hacked into your account?”
He gave short nod. “Probably happened when I transferred the first amount over. They hacked into my other accounts, as well. Took my savings. Luckily, the account for my wages was at a different bank.”
“Can’t you go after them?”
“I called my contact and he told me the name of his criminal boss. It was basically a courtesy, a sign of goodwill, that they wouldn’t kill me—if I shut up and left the country. The sooner, the better.”
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