by Hart, Gemma
Eye wide, she said, “You don’t think it’s those buyers from New York, do you? Maybe they’re giving money to pretty up the town before they buy it all up.”
Malcolm paused, spatula in hand. He seemed to think this theory over before shaking his head.
“Don’t you remember that town meeting a few months back? Hoyt was the most against the buy out. He would never take money from those people,” Malcolm said, flipping pancakes with a furrowed brow. “But it is weird. I wonder who else would have the money for such a big project.”
Kat knew Malcolm was right. Hoyt Floyd owned the local grocery store and was dead set against the buy out. He wanted Hoyt’s to have nothing to do with it in protest.
But then where did he get the money? And where had the bank gotten its money?
But as the bell ringed over the door with new customers, Kat shrugged off the thought and threw herself into work. Making sure that Janelle was managing the front well, Kat headed towards the kitchen to whip up another batch of her vanilla almond scones, which were quickly becoming a town favorite. She had been improving the baked goods menu of Doughy Pop’s slowly but surely and she was pleasantly surprised to see just how well the townspeople were receiving the expanded menu items.
Baking required focus. Measurements had to be precise and temperatures exact. So focused was Kat that she did not hear the door ring as a customer entered. She did not hear Janelle through the order window taking the customer’s order. She didn't even hear Janelle repeating the order through the order window.
It wasn’t until Malcolm had slammed his spatula against his grill that Kat looked up. Jerked out of her focused meditative state, she turned around and saw her brother glaring out the order window.
Kat’s baking station stood at the opposite end of the kitchen. She couldn’t see out through the order window which was directly next to the grill. But she could see Malcolm’s scrunched face and grease spattered glasses as he glared through the window.
What was going on?
“Tell him we don’t have cheese,” Malcolm nearly snarled.
Kat could hear Janelle’s surprised voice at the opposite end of the window. “We don’t have cheese? But for table three’s order, you just made—”
“Well now it’s out. And a Denver omelet has cheese. But there’s no cheese. So no omelet,” he said in a clipped voice.
Kat stared at her brother in astonishment as Janelle’s steps retreated, presumably to tell the customer the unfortunate news.
“Col, what are you talking about?” Kat started, her hands floury and half in the mixing bowl. “We just ordered 20 pounds of—”
Janelle had returned. “He said that any omelet would do then.” It was clear by her wavering voice that Janelle was a little nervous to be caught in the middle of this awkward interaction.
Malcolm didn’t skip a beat. “We’re out of eggs,” he said flatly as a dozen uncracked and pristine eggs sat in a bowl next to him.
“Uhhhh,” Janelle started, clearly seeing the same.
“Malcolm!” Kat chastised. “What is wrong with you?”
Wanting to save Janelle from this highly unusual behavior from her brother, Kat pushed through the swing door out to the front of the restaurant. Almost immediately, she wanted to swing right back in.
Sitting at the end of the bar, near the order window, was Jason Daniels.
And he was looking right at her.
As if someone had a direct accelerator to her heart, she could feel her pulse racing as she looked at the man with the smoldering gaze sitting calmly at the end of the diner bar.
He looked a little different from when she had seen him a week ago in Fayetteville. He had shaved the long dark scruff off. His hair was trimmed and slicked back. And instead of the all black ensemble she had seen him in that night, he wore a green flannel shirt and jeans. The shirt was rolled up at the cuffs, giving Kat a tantalizing view of his well muscled forearms.
He seemed like a hallucination of that soldier she had met two years ago, the man who had taken her breath away and had stolen her heart.
But Kat wasn’t fooled. She still saw the tightness in his jaw. She saw the darkness in his eyes. There was something changed in him. He was not the same man she had seen sitting at table six two years ago. That man had been powerful but sweet. Quiet but charming. There had been something still a little boyish about him.
This man, the man that sat at her restaurant bar, exuded something far more dangerous. There was a whiff something lethal about him. You could tell he had been in danger, touched it, slept with it, and had breathed it every day for years. There was nothing boyish about this man. He was 100% all man.
Kat approached the end of the bar. Through the order window, she saw Malcolm glaring at Jason, clearly remembering just who the man was.
“Err…” Kat started, unsure where to go in this situation.
Jason took the lead. “Apparently Doughy Pop’s has fallen short a few key ingredients,” he said dryly, unbothered by Malcolm’s fierce squinting glare.
Kat looked over at Malcolm, giving him a look that said, cool it. But her brother took no heed. She knew he was feeling anger on her behalf but at the end of the day, they still had a business to run.
Jason’s lips twitched. My god, how could a lip twitch look so sexy? Kat covertly pinched her thigh under her apron. Get a grip! she chastised herself. Remember who that man is.
And Kat remembered. He was the man who had let her go.
“How about some coffee then?” Jason asked, never breaking his gaze with Kat.
Janelle moved for the coffee pot when Malcolm suddenly spat out, “We don’t have any coffee!”
Janelle, Jason, and Kat both eyed the completely full coffee pot, standing piping hot on its hot plate.
Malcolm made a grumbling noise. “No mugs,” he said petulantly.
“Malcolm, stop,” Kat said in a voice that brooked no argument. She pulled out a thick mug and poured Jason a cup of coffee.
A noise of annoyance and frustration was heard through the window as Malcolm returned to his grill, smacking his spatula unnecessarily hard onto the grill.
As Kat put the mug in front of Jason, she left a track of flour on the countertop. “Sorry about that,” she said as she took a washcloth to wipe away the flour but wasn’t very successful since her hands were covered in flour.
Jason took a sip of his coffee. “Seeing all that flour makes me think of your blueberry pie,” he said in a low voice that brought back too many memories for Kat. “I’d love a slice.”
Kat looked up at him. This was the same man that had ignored her letters and had roughly pulled her out from a biker bar, telling her casually that her only hope for survival was dead. She couldn’t let her heart falter.
And yet….
“We don’t have any blueberry today,” she said. “But I have lemon meringue, if you still want pie.”
Jason nodded, a small smile appearing at the corner of his lips. “That sounds perfect.”
Janelle jumped past them. “I’ll get it!” she said cheerily as she hopped off to fetch the pie.
A beat passed between them.
“What are you doing here?” Kat blurted suddenly. This was a long way from Fayetteville. And after so much time had passed.
“If I recall, you had asked that I come back to Peytonville someday,” he said, his gaze never wavering.
Kat felt a sudden shyness and surprise at the mention of her letters. Yes, she had asked him to come back one day. But she had asked him that two years ago. She had asked him before he had decided to forget her.
“So is that what you’re doing? Here for a visit?” she asked, trying to infuse her voice with as much casualness as possible.
Janelle returned and placed the pie in front of Jason. He took a huge forkful and then closed his eyes as he gave a low hum of pleasure. “It’s hard to believe anything could taste as good as your blueberry pie but this sure does come close,” he said, taking anothe
r heaping bite.
Kat tried to ignore the pleasure she felt at his words. She always loved seeing people enjoy her baking.
After finishing the entire slice, Jason sat back and took another sip of his coffee. “I’m here for more than a visit,” he finally answered. “I’m looking for some work.” He paused, his coffee cup nearly to his lips, his eyes pinned on Kat. “And maybe a home.”
Kat swallowed. Was the man purposely trying to seduce her? She could feel the heat of him from all the way over the counter.
“Well,” she said, tossing her ponytail over her shoulder, “good luck. There’s hardly any work around here nowadays.”
Jason crossed his arms, emphasizing the broadness of his chest. “Oh I don’t know about that,” he said breezily. “I think I could manage to find something.”
So clearly he wasn’t in the Army anymore if he was looking for work. But if he was looking for work, Fayetteville offered him better luck than Peytonville did. In fact, most of anywhere in North Carolina offered him better luck than Peytonville.
So what was his real reason for being here?
“You sound pretty confident about that,” Kat said, eyeing him warily, the words of his long ago letters suddenly ringing clear in her mind.
Jason smiled warmly. She felt shaken by not only his sudden appearance but also the sudden remembrance of the man she had met two years ago. There was a familiar warmth in him that she had failed to see in Fayetteville.
“I’m just very determined,” he said quietly, infusing meaning into his every word.
After one final look at Kat, he smiled and stood up, opening his wallet to pay for his meal.
“Thanks for the pie,” he said, smiling to Janelle, who was clearly enthralled by this tall, dark, and handsome stranger. Jason looked over to the order window where Malcolm was still angrily slapping the grill. “And I hope the Doughy Pop’s egg and cheese and coffee and mug shortage gets resolved soon.”
Before Malcolm could whirl around with a comeback, Jason had already strode through the door, the echoing chimes of the door bell left in his wake.
Chapter Eight
“It’s just a cough,” Dillon complained as he sat back in the recliner, his arm outstretched with an IV trailing its toxic but very necessary medicine into him.
“And a fever,” Kat added. “And shivers.” She looked at her brother pointedly, his thin shoulders shrugging indifferently. “You’ve also lost some more weight.”
Dillon made a face. “Oh and I’m sure hospital food is just the thing to bring those pounds back on,” he said sarcastically.
Kat grinned. “Jell-O is delicious at this time of year,” she said.
“It’s gelatin goop and water, Kat,” Dillon said in a grumbling voice. “Not a honeycrisp apple. There’s no season for goop.”
Kat’s grin widened as she gently straightened the blanket over Dillon. He got cold easily now and the hospital was always a little on the cool side.
They sat together in the outpatient chemo room as Dillon received his treatment. But today, they would not be going home together. Dillon had been coughing quite a lot lately and his loss of appetite was more extreme than usual.
His doctors had agreed and suggested Dillon be kept overnight for observation. With how weak his immune system was, there was no such thing as being too careful with him. Every cough or sniffle could mean something more sinister for Dillon.
Kat looked at her brother’s hollowed out face. His cheekbones were protruding out like cliffs against a flat seaside. How many treatments like this had he endured in his life already? How many times had he been poked or prodded? All without his mother’s comforting touch or his father’s solid strength behind him.
And yet, Kat couldn’t help but smile at him. Even still, he managed to always joke around with her. He always offered to help at the diner even though Kat and Malcolm would soundly refuse him.
Kat looked up at the IV bag as the clear liquid dripped slowly down. Hopefully it was just a cold that Dillon had caught and it could be treated quickly.
“I’ll pick you up tomorrow, bright and early,” Kat promised, quietly assuring him that he would only be stuck here for one night. She knew that no matter how brave Dillon liked to act, he had grown a true fear and phobia of staying overnight at the hospital.
When Kat looked back over at her brother, she caught him staring intently at her, his clear blue eyes steady and focused.
“Any more news about the buyers?” he asked quietly.
Despite herself, Kat felt her shoulders stiffen and her jaw tighten. She forced a smile though. “Don’t worry about that,” she said in a false cheery voice that she knew her brother could sniff out from a mile away. “That’s not important right now.”
Dillon’s lips pursed together as he debated whether to argue with his sister or not. Instead he said, “I heard Hoyt’s was getting remodeled.”
Kat shook her head. “Not just Hoyt’s. The bank got a complete makeover. And the front walk and steps of the library and park was just recently repaved.”
Dillon’s brow furrowed, hearing the news. “Don’t you think those are the buyers trying to pretty up the parts of the town they might want to keep?”
“I don’t know,” Kat said with an honest sigh. “At the last town meeting, it was made pretty clear that the reason why the buyers were giving everyone a lump sum was because they wanted to raze the town and build their own resort condos. They wanted it to be modern and new.”
Kat tried not to feel too sour at those words even though it essentially meant Peytonville was old and outdated. She didn’t understand why these New York buyers wouldn’t just fund to redo the entire town and make it into a unique tourist destination.
At least then, the whole town could stay where they are. There was so much beauty and history in Peytonville.
But it wasn’t her place to understand crazy.
Dillon leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. “That’s weird then, isn’t it?” he said. “Where would that kind of money come from? Have you talked with Hoyt?”
Kat opened her mouth to say that she hadn’t yet but was planning to grill the grocer as soon as she could when a tinny melody began singing from her purse.
She reached in and pulled out her cellphone. The screen read, “Bank/Mr. Rilkes.”
God, what now?
Smiling, she stood and said, “I’ll be right back. I think Janelle might’ve dropped a pie or two.”
Dillon’s eyes drooped a little as he nodded. He was exhausted from talking anyway and needed a rest.
Kat quickly stepped out into the hallway and answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Hello, Miss Ryans,” Mr. Rilkes greeted warmly.
Hmmm, she thought, that doesn’t sound like the voice someone would use to tell me I’d just lost my livelihood and everything that mattered.
Maybe it wasn’t bad news?
“Is anything wrong?” Kat blurted, still unable to help herself from panicking a little whenever she got a call from the bank.
“No, not at all,” Mr. Rilkes said. “I actually have some good news.”
Kat felt her heart catch in her throat. Could a miracle finally have come through for her? Had the price perhaps dropped on the property of her diner? Could she possibly somehow afford to purchase it now?
“The buyers from New York have dropped out,” Mr. Rilkes announced, clearly happy as well with the news.
Kat nearly dropped the phone. It was as if someone had finally taken pity on her and had opened up the heavens to allow a little bit of sunshine and luck to fall on her. “Really?” she breathed. “They’re gone? Really?”
Mr. Rilkes chuckled at the disbelief in her voice. “Yes, they’ve been outbid,” he said.
The sunshine and warmth she had been feeling suddenly cooled. A creeping chill of wariness tingled down her spine. “Outbid?” she echoed.
“Yes,” Mr. Rilkes said. She could hear a ruffling of papers on his desk as he looked u
p information. “They’ve been outbid by Brothers Construction and the—”
“Wait,” Kat interrupted, feeling her world swimming. “You’re telling me my property—Doughy Pops’ land—has already been bought?”
“Not just Doughy Pops’ grounds but nearly half of Peytonville. Even our bank has been—”
“But I wasn’t consulted! I wasn’t even offered a chance to counterbid!” Kat cried out, feeling everything fall away from her. Doughy Pop’s, the last remaining connection she had to her beloved Uncle Do, was now about to be torn away from her.