Brendan reached out and squeezed her shoulder.
Beth’s face slanted up to his. For a moment stark grief shadowed her eyes, then she broke away and walked across the room where she pulled a glass coffeepot out of the maker. “I’ll put on the coffee.”
Brendan didn’t argue. A cup of coffee with Beth sounded like heaven.
Blue and red lights reflected off the kitchen walls. They exchanged glances. Beth’s hand held a scoop of grounds above the coffeemaker. “Oh no.” She dumped it in and pressed a button on the machine.
“Please tell me you didn’t call the cops,” Brendan said.
Beth raced by him toward the swinging door to the dining room. Brendan followed. In the dining room, the lock clicked as Beth twisted it, and she pulled the glass door open. The wind blew the huge raindrops into the entrance of the restaurant.
Jimmy Gunderson, dressed in a sheriff’s uniform and sporting a dark mustache, sauntered in, his hand on the handle of the gun in his holster like a boy playing dress up.
Beth pushed the door closed, muffling the thunder. “Thank you so much for coming, but …”
Jimmy smiled and moved around one of the square tables to stand in front of Brendan by the bar. “Brendan, are you giving Beth here some trouble?”
Brendan reached an open hand out to Jimmy. “Hey, it’s been a long time. How are things?”
Jimmy kept his hand on his belt. “It has been a long time. What’s going on here?”
Brendan laughed in a futile effort to break the tension. “Come on, Jimmy. You don’t have to put on your cop attitude for me. We used to sneak into the football stadium together.”
Jimmy’s head tipped to one side. “I’ve changed a lot since then, Brendan.”
Beth waved her hands out in front of her. “It’s okay, Jimmy. He was looking for a place to get out of the rain. I put on a pot of coffee. Do you want to have a cup with us? We can all catch up.”
Beth was still the same openhearted person she had been as a teenager. Everyone loved Beth, and he had been no exception.
Jimmy hiked up his holster. “I’m on duty. I need to get back to it.”
Brendan didn’t like this new cocky attitude from the kid he used to defend from bullies on the playground. “You do that.”
Beth shot Brendan a look of warning and followed Jimmy to the front door.
“Good luck tomorrow, Beth,” Jimmy said. He tipped his head at Brendan before ducking it down and disappearing into the rain.
Brendan took a seat on one of the spinning bar stools with the same green vinyl tops he remembered. “Is he always so pleasant these days?”
“Well, you can’t exactly blame him.” Beth disappeared into the kitchen. “I did call him and ask him to check on things,” she said from the other side of the wall.
Brendan spun the ketchup bottle around on the counter.
Beth emerged with white mugs with steam rising from the top. “You’re my first customer.”
Brendan wrapped his hand around the mug. “What do you mean?”
Beth added a packet of sweetener to her cup. “My grand opening is tomorrow. I guess I should say the grand reopening.”
Brendan took a sip and didn’t grimace when it burned the back of his tongue. “Is that why you’re here so late?”
Beth closed her eyes and frowned as she stirred her coffee. “I need to remake the two pies I ruined.”
Brendan’s mouth watered at the thought of Ethel’s pies. Brendan had traveled all over the world as a photographer, but nothing he had eaten had come close to the pies Beth’s grandmother baked. “What kind?”
Beth picked up her mug with two hands and blew steam from the top. “A lemon meringue and a coconut meringue.”
He slapped his hand against the counter, and the salt and pepper shakers rattled. “Well if I was here to rob the place, I know what I’d take.”
A warm grin spread across her face. “You can’t forget it’s me making them, not my grandmother.”
“They’re her recipes, aren’t they?”
She held her cup under her chin. “Yes, but the last two looked more like marshmallows burned over a campfire than pies. Besides, mine never taste quite as good as Nana’s.”
“If they’re half as good as your grandmother’s, they’ll make the trip back to Wyatt Bend worth it.”
Beth’s expression softened. “So why are you back, Brendan?”
He took another swig of hot coffee. “I’m here for Connor’s wedding.”
She crossed her arms. “Connor and Laura’s wedding is almost six weeks away. Are you seriously staying here that long?”
He hadn’t seen any of his family in years. “I’m between assignments, and Connor asked me to be a groomsman.”
Beth nodded as if she were impressed. “I’m sure your mom is thrilled to have you home.”
He called his mother every few months, but his relationship with his family was damaged to say the least. “They don’t know I’m here. I just drove into town.”
Beth’s eyebrows rose. “So you’re going to go bang on your parents’ door in the middle of the night?”
“Of course not. I’m planning to bang on Connor’s door in the middle of the night, but now I’m worried he might call the cops on me.”
Beth put her hand over her eyes and shook her head. “Sorry about that.”
He smiled at her. “I don’t blame you. I’m sorry for scaring you.” Brendan hated waking up his brother, who didn’t even know he was coming. “Unless the room upstairs is empty.”
He hadn’t thought about that studio apartment in years. When Brendan worked at the restaurant, the fry cook had rented it from Beth’s grandmother.
Her head jerked up to him. “What?”
Brendan pointed up at the ceiling tiles. “The little apartment your grandma rented out. Does someone live there?”
She stood up straighter. “No, but …”
He was too beat to face a reunion with Connor tonight. Between Beth and Jimmy, he’d had all he could handle for one day. “Could I spend the night up there?”
Beth’s face didn’t hide the shock of his bold request. “Well, I don’t know. It’s full of junk, and I don’t think it’s a great idea for you to stay here.” Beth stumbled over her words.
A boom of thunder rattled the walls. “I understand. I shouldn’t have asked. I can stay with Connor.”
Beth stared out at the rain thumping against the glass. She sighed. “Don’t do that. You can stay here.”
He stood up from the stool. “Are you sure? It would only be for one night.”
Lines across her forehead suggested she second-guessed her decision. “There probably aren’t any sheets on the bed, but there’s a couch and some old quilts in the chest.”
He held his hands up in front of him. “I’ll be fine. I don’t need much.”
Beth nodded and turned to the kitchen door.
“Beth,” he said.
She faced him, her hand still on the swinging door.
“It’s great to see you again.”
Her gaze broke away from his. “I need to get back to my pies.”
Chapter 2
Beth balanced a tray with glasses of orange juice on her palm and pushed through the kitchen door to the dining room. Energy surged through the space. A line of patrons waiting for free tables snaked out the door.
Beth had planned this as a soft opening to give her and the staff a practice run. She hadn’t thought many people would show up to a restaurant opening in the middle of the week, but the news had traveled through Wyatt Bend like a grass fire. Half the town had shown up when the doors opened.
A glass of milk and a plate of pancakes sat in front of her younger brother at the counter. Beth nudged her elbow against Chase’s back. When he looked up at her with a mouthful of pancakes, she nodded to the booth in the back corner.
“Can you clean off that table for the Johnsons please?” Beth asked, her combination of nerves and excitement escaping w
ith each word.
Chase swallowed his bite. “I’m not supposed to be working until after school. I’m here to eat.”
Tammy, the waitress who had worked for Beth’s grandmother for twenty years, rang the bell as she clipped another slip to the order wheel in the window.
Chase gulped his milk.
Beads of sweat had already formed on the back of her neck, and it wasn’t even eight o’clock. “Unless you’re paying for those pancakes and that milk, you owe me this.”
Chase’s shoulders slumped, and he shoveled another giant bite of pancakes into his mouth. “Fine, but I’m not doing anything else. I have to finish my homework before school.”
Her mouth fell open to protest the unfinished homework, but the sight of more customers crowding around the doorway pressed her to move on to the table waiting for their orange juice. In her hurry to remove the glasses from her tray, she sloshed orange juice on the table. “I’m so sorry.”
She pushed the hair from her face with the back of her arm. She reached around a man wearing a plaid pearl-snap shirt and a straw cowboy hat to deposit the last glass. She grabbed a rag from the tray and wiped it over the orange juice. Her heart beat wildly, and her mind jumped to the next table and the next order that needed to be delivered.
The man placed his hand over hers, stopping her.
She took a deep breath and returned the man’s warm smile.
“Ma’am, I used to be a regular of your grandmother’s, and I’m mighty excited you’ve opened the place back up,” he said.
His words quieted the questions she had about her decision to reopen the restaurant. She’d enjoyed her old job working for her friend Cassie as a cook for the local camp, but she’d always dreamed of opening a restaurant. Plus she knew this would make her grandmother proud. She tucked the empty tray under her arm and patted the man on the shoulder. “Thank you. I appreciate you coming in today.”
Beth made her way through the crowded dining room to the kitchen. The support and encouragement she’d received so far had been overwhelming. Even with the excitement of the restaurant, the grief of her grandmother’s death still weighed heavy on Beth’s shoulders. Nana wouldn’t want it to suck the joy out of the big day.
Beth flew through the kitchen door to check on the cook. Oscar wore a blue bandanna tied around his forehead and a tie-dyed T-shirt. He flipped the fluffy pancakes on the flattop grill. The door leading to the stairway upstairs opened, and Beth jerked her head up.
“Good morning,” Brendan said as he breezed into the room.
Oscar shot Beth a bewildered look, but Beth didn’t explain. Brendan’s reappearance into her life made the floor unsteady under her feet.
“Good morning,” she said, fighting to hide the unwanted feelings he stirred inside her.
Brendan, looking like an action movie star in dark jeans and a black T-shirt, strode out the swinging door to the dining room.
Beth blinked to shake the memories of Brendan from flooding her mind. She didn’t want to think about their first kiss in that little red car or the days they spent together in this kitchen as teenagers.
Beth stood behind the pass-through window as he slipped onto a bar stool just as an older man stood up. Brendan took a menu sandwiched between the napkin dispenser and sugar container.
Tammy clipped another slip to the wheel in the window to the kitchen. Beth looked past her and stole quick glances Brendan’s way. He still had the same boyish good looks he had in high school. With his all-American blond hair and the same lean physique he’d had as a track star, Brendan didn’t resemble his brothers who had dark hair and brawny builds. She used to tease Brendan that he’d been adopted.
This wasn’t how Beth had pictured her reunion with Brendan. She had imagined if she ever saw him again, she would give him a piece of her mind. Instead she had offered to let him stay the night in the apartment upstairs. This was why her life was always such a mess. She could never say no if someone needed her, even if she knew it was bad for her.
But Beth couldn’t act like the sixteen-year-old girl flattered that the senior boy had talked to her anymore. She was an adult with a business to launch and a teenage brother to raise.
With a deep breath to strengthen her resolve, she walked through the kitchen door to the counter and pulled a pen and pad out of the pocket of the red apron around her waist. “Can I get you something to drink?”
Brendan’s eyes squinted when he smiled. Despite his eyes being light blue, they’d always done a good job of concealing what was going on behind them. He pointed to the glass cabinet on the bar behind her. “I’ll have a piece of that pie.”
The pie sat unsliced in the clear cabinet. She turned back to Brendan. “Pie for breakfast?”
He folded his hands in front of him. “Coconut meringue. I’ve been waiting fifteen years for a piece of that pie. And a cup of coffee, please.”
She didn’t take her eyes off him as she stuck the pen and notepad back in her pocket.
Beth took the pie from the case and sliced him an extra-large serving. She pushed the plate and a fork in front of him.
Brendan rubbed his hands together before picking up his fork and sliding it through the layers of pie.
Beth took an empty container from underneath the counter and furiously loaded dishes into it. “I have to give it to you. You’re pretty brave.”
Brendan swallowed a bite of pie, closed his eyes, and sighed. “Why do you say that?”
She balanced plates on top of one another in the tub. “If your parents still don’t know you’re here, I hope that motorcycle can move faster than the Wyatt Bend gossip wire.”
Brendan’s eyes popped open, and he took another huge forkful of pie and thrust it into his mouth. “You’re right. I better hurry and finish this.”
Beth concealed a smile and handed the tub of dirty dishes to her brother who walked past her toward the kitchen. She heard Chase’s groan over the sound of the noisy restaurant, but he wrapped his hands around the edges of the dishpan.
When Beth’s friend Cassie had married Brendan’s brother, Will, Brendan had been a last-minute no-show. What had made Brendan return this time? She wiped down the counter with a soapy dishrag as he devoured his last forkful of pie. At least her baking had passed its first test.
His eyes slanted up to her.
He had caught her staring at him. Beth’s cheeks warmed.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “The pie is amazing—as good as your grandmother’s.”
She shook her head. “It’s not that.”
He picked up a paper napkin from his lap and wiped his mouth. “What is it?”
Tammy hurried by them. “Beth, we’re almost out of jelly.”
They were serving the preserves her grandmother had canned before getting sick. “I have more in the back. I’ll get it,” she said, remembering she had a restaurant crammed with customers.
Brendan pushed his plate back. “Hang on. Why were you looking at me like that?”
Beth set the stack of plates on the counter behind her. “If you’re here for a visit before the wedding, why didn’t you tell your family you were coming?”
He shook his head. “I guess I’m worried they might not be that excited to see me.”
Brendan knocked on the craftsman-style front door of Connor’s remodeled bungalow. The town had that fresh, clean smell that only a downpour could accomplish. Combined with the birds singing from the tree in the front yard, it felt like he’d been transported to Mayberry. He’d traveled all over the world, but nothing evoked more emotion—good and bad—than his hometown.
Connor answered the door in bare feet, jeans, and a white T-shirt. His mouth fell open. “Brendan?”
Brendan pulled his aviator sunglasses from his face. “Surprise!”
His brother embraced him in a quick hug. “You’re early. The wedding is a month and a half away.”
Brendan hung the sunglasses from the front of his shirt. “I had some time off, so here I am.
I hope it’s okay.”
His brother looked older, not the seventeen-year-old Brendan had left behind. He was tall, and his hair was such a dark brown that it was almost black. “It’s great.” Connor opened the door wide and waved him inside. “Come in. Come in.”
Boxes were piled in the corner of the small living room, and a roll of bubble wrap sat on the couch. Their mom had told Brendan that Connor’s fiancée lived in the big, old house at Canyon Crossing. “Getting an early start on packing for the move?”
Connor moved the bubble wrap from the couch. “I sold the house. The buyers want to close before the wedding, so I’m moving in with Mom and Dad tomorrow.” Connor’s eyes widened. “Wish me luck.”
Brendan held the groan in his chest as his plans unraveled. Brendan had planned to stay with Connor while he was in Wyatt Bend. He loved his parents but preferred his brother’s laid-back attitude.
Connor leaned against the dark woodwork of the living-room doorway. “I’d stay at Will’s, but we’d drive each other nuts.”
Brendan’s stomach clenched at the mention of his youngest brother’s name.
“Do Mom and Dad know you’re here?” Connor asked.
Brendan’s laugh came out in a huff. “No. Not yet.”
Connor shrugged one shoulder. “Of course not. We both know Mom can’t keep a secret. Do you want some breakfast? I just poured myself a bowl of cereal.”
He was stuffed from the pie he’d downed in record time. “No, but thanks.”
“Have a seat,” Connor said as he disappeared through the kitchen door.
The stiff couch groaned as Brendan sat. Connor’s house, a stereotypical bachelor pad, contained little more than a flat-screen television, leather couch, and recliner.
Connor returned carrying a bowl of cereal in one hand and a spoon in the other.
Brendan’s gaze fell on the incredible woodwork inside the small living room. “Did you do all this? It’s amazing.”
Connor’s blue eyes scanned the room. “Thanks. I did most of it. Will tried to help.”
Canyon Weddings Page 30