by Katie Cross
“Interesting,” he murmured, with that same shrewd gaze. “And what would happen to this place if you were hospitalized?”
“Hospitalized? That’s a bit macabre.”
“Is it?”
Unnerved, I said, “It would remain closed.”
“And your debt?”
“It would wait.”
He lifted his brow. “Would it?”
“What is this?” I snapped. Considering that my father had died of a heart attack, perhaps I should have asked these questions already. But I hadn’t because I was just trying to stay afloat enough to keep Dad’s dream alive and find mine again. I eyed him with deep skepticism. “Are you an insurance salesman or something?”
He huffed a laugh. “Definitely not that. Who runs your accounts?”
“Like my bookkeeping?”
“Yes.”
“Me.”
“You do everything?”
I nodded proudly. “My dad taught me. Or I just figured it out. Mostly that.”
My cheeks burned. Did that sound as juvenile to him as it did to me?
“Any reason for the third degree?” I asked as I tied my apron more firmly around my waist. I smoothed wrinkles that didn’t exist. His gaze followed the movement, then skated away. The five o’clock shadow that he’d walked in here with the other day had grown into an early beard, filling the angled hollows of his cheeks. He looked darkly grizzled now.
Enough to set my stomach on fire.
“Yes, actually. There is a reason for my questions. I’m in Pineville because I’m considering a new business. It revolves mostly around taking failing brick-and-mortar stores and turning them into successes.”
My spine tightened like a stack of dominoes with a string. Failing? Okay, he wasn’t wrong. But he didn’t have to be so right, either.
“Oh?”
He flashed another quick smile, but something lingered beneath it. Something solid. Stern, but charming in itself. It reminded me of Dad. I didn’t like that at all.
“We can both pretend that this place isn’t on the brink of disaster. Or we can face the obvious situation for what it is.”
My courage returned on swift feet. “You have some balls to walk in here and say that.”
“Because it’s true?”
“You don’t know anything about my coffee shop.”
“I can guess.”
“Try me,” I snapped.
One side of his lips lifted up in a smirk. “Fine,” he murmured. “I will. You have credit card debt, and it’s piling up. I’m willing to bet you’re almost maxed out, but not quite. You make enough to satisfy the minimum payment, but the balance is starting to get to you. Soon, you won’t be able to do even that.”
My palms started to sweat, but I kept them balled up at my side. He continued easily, as if he’d glimpsed into my life with binoculars.
“You still have business overhead you have to deal with, like rent and supplies. You don’t have an actual accounting system, so you can’t tell me if you’re hitting any growth, and I’d wager you wouldn’t know what KPI stood for if I bet you on it.”
My nostrils flared.
“On top of that, I’m also willing to bet that wasn’t the first employee you’ve lost. You give them a crash course on the store and then leave them to it for a test run, but you have no system set up for them to make decisions. They fail every time. When it comes to supplies, you’re guessing at what you need when you order inventory instead of doing regular audits and budget checks.”
“Wrong,” I said coldly. “We have a great system for new orders.”
Didn’t, because it had more holes than a sponge, but I couldn’t drown here. My system was very much tilt-my-head-and-make-an-educated-guess.
He quirked an eyebrow but still seemed skeptical. “Point taken. One thing in your favor. In the end, you have almost no cash flow, you don’t take home a paycheck, and you’re barely scraping by. You live and breathe this business. You’re starting to hate and resent it. Your own dreams and aspirations are getting sunk into this black hole, and you’re starting to forget what even makes you happy. You’re tethered, drowning, and have no idea how to get out. Is this sounding familiar?”
Oh, he made me want to hiss like a cat. If there was one thing I couldn’t stand, it was bullying and pressure. In particular, when there were notes of truth in it. So many of them, too.
And . . . it wasn’t exactly bullying, because he was totally, dead-on correct.
For several seconds, I stood there, debating how to handle my response. Then the bell on the door rang, announcing another customer. I glared at him.
“Please excuse me. I have a customer to attend to.”
Millie Blaine sauntered up, wreathed in a bright smile. Her blonde curls bounced as she approached, the corkscrew curls bright with new highlights. Her lipstick was a bit too dark, but it made her eyes pop.
“Hey, Bethie! How are you doing?”
Relieved at the sight of a familiar face, I returned her smile. “Hey, Millie. The usual?”
“Mmm. Double shot today, please. I’m packed with hair appointments. Luckily, Devin’s at home helping his father with a new truck job. Good Lord loves us.”
Thankfully, Maverick faded into the office again. A long breath whooshed out of me when he shut the door. Millie silently tracked him until he disappeared, then turned to me with a squeal.
“Who is that?”
“Trouble,” I muttered.
“Then trouble is gorgeous. Wait, why is he in your office?”
“He’s renting it as a workspace.”
Her nose scrunched. “That tiny thing?”
“That tiny thing.”
She studied me with a shrewd gaze. “Uh-huh,” she murmured. “And sparks are flying?”
“Millie, no! Geez. What are you . . . no. Nothing like that.”
“Right. You haven’t noticed that he’s 1,000% male and the size of a fridge? Don’t tell me you don’t want to feel those arms around you, or haven’t thought about it. That’s a lie!” She pointed to me as soon as I opened my mouth. Her voice took on a wispy edge. “It would be like cuddling a Viking.”
“Or a large piece of inflexible wood that thinks highly of itself.”
She smirked.
I set her steaming cup in front of her with a dangerous glare. “This is not something I’m going to talk about. He’s a paying customer of Dad’s coffee shop, and that’s it. I treat him with courtesy and respect, just like anyone else.”
Which is why I haven’t punched him.
“It’s your store now,” she said softly, a sad smile on her face as she took the cup. “It’s not your dad’s anymore.”
“How’s the family?” I asked, hearing the edge in my own voice.
“Fine.” She sighed. “Mac’s already butchered the cows we had on track for the summer, so he’s picking up car work again. If we’re not borrowing money from Peter to pay Paul, I don’t know what we’re doing.” She glanced at her watch with a little cry. “Gotta go! Thanks, girl. You’re a lifesaver.”
After she left, Maverick’s steady voice came from the office, a blur in the background. Probably in another meeting. I leaned against the counter with a long breath. Thinking was easier when I didn’t have to see him.
Life was never supposed to be fair, Dad muttered in my head.
I made a mental note to riffle through the messy binder he’d left behind. Maybe there was an operations manual. The uneasy truth that maybe Maverick was right made me restless.
My eyes roved the shop, lingering on the old fishing knickknacks decorating the far wall. Pictures of bass and trout and carp. Dad fishing in Alaska. Stupid signs like I fish . . . therefore I am . . . not here!
Homey. Cozy. Definitely Dad.
This didn’t look like it was teetering on the edge of disaster.
Right?
The Frolicking Moose had been Dad’s big retirement and dream. A coffee shop and a bed-and-breakfast on the rese
rvoir of a small mountain town, Bee, he’d always said to me, sipping artisan coffee and looking out over the lake. It’s the life.
He’d thrown everything into it after retiring from the military. Blueprints for the bed-and-breakfast expansion lay forgotten in the storage room, collecting dust. At the time, I thought him indomitable. Everything would happen because Dad made things happen.
Only now was I starting to see the truth.
He had been disorganized, at best. Drowning, at worst. He’d invested in things he didn’t really need, like an awning, when the ice maker had been sputtering to death. I’d been forced to buy a run-down espresso machine that was unreliable on its best day.
Dad’s booming laugh had hidden the truth. Everything had seemed fine. I’d called him the day before the heart attack. The last time I’d spoken to him in person, he’d left me with the biggest bear hug I’d ever felt. All my concerns about finishing college and settling into my real estate dream had felt much smaller. I wished that was all I was dealing with now.
Maybe that’s what hurt the most. Seeing a side of Dad I hadn’t known existed, left with a legacy I’d never wanted.
Had the coffee shop pushed him to that early grave?
Why had he hidden his debt from me?
Amongst the expenses was my college tuition. The mortgage. Some debt from years past. His insurance could only cover so much, and it was already gone.
Shaking that off, I found my determination again. This place would prosper. It would achieve all the dreams that he’d set for it, and then some. And then I’d crush it in the real estate market here with The Frolicking Moose as my very first sale.
As soon as I pulled it out of the mounting credit card debt, talked to the bank about the mortgage, and . . . figured out how to run this place without driving myself into the ground.
Like so many other problems, at least I could put Maverick off until tomorrow. The soft padding of four feet coming down the spiral stairs caught my attention. Just in time, too.
I had another quandary to face.
That night, I grabbed my laundry bag to head to the laundromat and then my second trip to the grocery store this week. Feeding young mouths was more intense than I’d thought. I stopped when the bag dropped to the ground, unexpectedly heavy.
Frowning, I stooped down and yanked it open.
An old plastic water bottle lay inside. It had already been used, but it was carefully refilled all the way to the top. Next to it was a collection of half-eaten pastries I’d given Ellie for breakfast. She must have stashed this all away here. Some doughnut packages and candy bars and protein bars I was sure had been stolen. Amongst the food were old shoelaces, wire, and metal pointy things sanded to a sharp tip that she’d probably found outside.
Understanding dawned all at once.
Ellie had always been flighty. Half-feral as she roamed the woods and fields by Jim and Mama’s house. They had open acreage for farming against a backdrop of forest, and Ellie had always lost herself in the outdoors.
But now she was trying to be ready again, just in case. She was always one step ahead of everyone.
Shaken, I stuffed the bag back where I’d found it and stared at my hands. If I didn’t take the girls, Ellie would run. We might never find her again.
Grabbing my keys with a scowl, I headed out. Laundry could wait another day.
The wheels of my cart squeaked a lonely song as I snaked through the only grocery store in Pineville, my mind on Ellie. Everything here lay packed close together, as if they wanted to cram as much as possible into the rectangular space. Air conditioning blew on me from overhead vents as I drove past the fruit, grabbing a cantaloupe.
Then I wandered to the greeting card aisle and spent way too long laughing at a few stupid cards before I bought them. Sending cards had always been Pappa’s thing, so I’d kept his list going in his honor. Birthdays. Deaths. Anniversaries. All of them inherited family friends, because all my other family had died, except Lizbeth and Ellie.
When I steered my cart back to the food, I realized I should have gotten a grocery list from Lizbeth. I had no idea what the girls liked. Or what I had in my bank account.
With a sigh, I tapped into my phone and logged into the banking app.
Ninety-seven dollars left.
“Yikes,” I muttered. Boxes of cereal marched down the aisle in variegated colors. They were cheap enough. Could the girls live on cereal for a few weeks? Blech. No. Ninety-seven dollars should feed the three of us for a week. The real question was whether I could pry that much out of the coffee shop next week.
“I would go with Fruity O’s, if that’s the debate that’s stalled you in the middle of the aisle.”
A voice from behind made me spin around. Maverick stood there, a wry expression on his face, as if I hadn’t glared him to death earlier in the day. I pushed my cart to the side, freeing the aisle, and silently waved a hand to indicate he could pass. He wore shorts, a prosthetic leg built for running more than obvious now. A slight sheen over his neck and a damp shirt meant he’d likely come from a run.
My stomach twirled.
“You’re clearly still misguided if you’re buying Fruity O’s,” I managed to say, tucking my phone into my back pocket. “Or any breakfast food.”
“Not a fan of breakfast?”
My nose wrinkled. “I rarely eat before noon.”
Forcing my shoulders back, I grabbed a box of plain Cheerios and quickly nabbed a Sugary Flakes after it. Ellie would go for those. Lizbeth ate almost anything. He eyed it, then me. His amusement made it hard for me not to roll my eyes. He had flecks of olive in his golden irises.
“If you’re going to eat cereal,” I said out of sheer nerves, “don’t go for the sugary crap. Plain Cheerios is the way to go.”
He lifted one eyebrow in interest. “Oh?”
“Sugar. Yuck.”
“That is very un-American of you. No breakfast? No sugar? Who are you?”
A smile lit up his face. Very unfair of him. It was almost impossible to focus with something that gorgeous staring at me. I shoved my cart down the aisle, trying to get away from the scent of pine and the urge to explain myself.
“I don’t like sugary things,” I said over my shoulder. “Sweet is not my jam.”
He caught up to me with surprising speed.
“Then what do you like?” he asked, idly moving next to me as he perused the opposite shelf. Oatmeal. How very . . . bland. He tossed a round container of old-fashioned oats into the cart, followed by a jar of agave.
Intriguing.
“Guess,” I said.
His lip twitched as he surveyed my cart. So far, I’d gathered only toilet paper, cards, cantaloupe, and cereal. Milk and eggs were next. Bread was always safe. The girls had to like pizza. I wracked my brain but couldn’t recall anything special we’d eaten when I visited Mama. She’d always ordered out, sometimes making homemade burritos or breakfast for dinner.
“If it’s not sweet that you like,” he said, “I’ll guess salty. Occasionally sour.”
“Maybe,” I drawled.
He fist-pumped. “Nailed it.”
Unfortunately, spot-on, but he didn’t need to know that. Chocolate wasn’t my thing, either; something I’d always been grateful for. I had Mama’s rounded hips that didn’t need help. But sour straws? Those I could deal with all day, every day.
He grinned, drawing far too much attention to that perfect beard and set of firm lips. “I’m right,” he said matter-of-factly. “You know I’m right. Again.”
I ignored the tacked-on ending and kept going. The subtle jab there wasn’t lost. I didn’t try to correct him, afraid he’d bring it back up.
The dairy aisle loomed straight ahead, providing a perfect escape. While I tossed a half gallon of whole milk—we had limited fridge space—and some eggs inside, he grabbed shredded cheese and precooked, shelled hardboiled eggs. Containers of spinach, goat cheese, and an assortment of peppers filled the rest of his cart. He�
��d probably go for grilled, skinless chicken next.
Although he finished first, he lingered. “You?” I asked as he started cruising next to me. “Sweet or salty?”
“Sweet. It’s my weakness.”
“Only weakness?”
He laughed. We pushed our carts down the next aisle in tandem, moving slowly. I acted as if I were totally involved in which kind of cheese slices to get the girls, buying myself a few minutes to stop looking at him and let my heart slow down. He leaned against an open freezer to wait.
“Well,” he drawled, “one could consider my prosthetic a weakness.”
The tone of his voice was only slightly probing, as if he were testing something. Setting it out there to gauge my response. Dad had a different approach with his leg. He’d take it off and try to hit me with it sometimes. People often got weird around him, so he loved making them feel even more awkward. Then he’d break the tension with a laugh and the story of how it happened.
The memory made me smile.
“Depends on how you define weakness.” I snatched a package of cookie dough—Lizbeth’s favorite—from the case and tossed it inside. He studied it, then me, then straightened as I kept walking.
“Sugar is my ultimate weakness, but doughnuts are a close second.”
“Same thing! You have to give me a surface one and a deep one.”
“Have to?”
I hesitated. What I asked of him, I knew he’d ask of me. Maybe I wasn’t brave enough for this conversation yet.
“Fine.” I studied the sudden challenge in his gaze. “Sugar will suffice.”
A slow smile spread across his lips. “You know I’m going to ask you the same question, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t want to answer?”
I hesitated only a moment, then said, “No.”
“Fair enough.” His smile widened. “We’ll call it even.”