Brunch at Bittersweet Café

by Carla Laureano

  She approached the window cautiously. “Can I help you?”

  He exhaled, his breath crystallizing around him in a cloud. “My car got stuck down the street. Can I use your phone? Mine’s dead, and I forgot my charger in the hotel.” He pulled out a cell phone and pressed it against the wet window. Evidence, apparently.

  Melody wavered. From what she could tell through the snow-crusted window, he was nicely dressed. Didn’t sound crazy. And sure enough, when she peered down the street, she could see a car cockeyed against the curb with its emergency flashers on.

  “Listen, I don’t blame you for being cautious. I’m a pilot, see?” He opened his overcoat to show a navy-blue uniform and then pulled out a badge clip holding two unreadable cards. “These are my airport credentials. Homeland Security and my employer trust me with a thirteen-million-dollar plane. I promise, I just need a phone.”

  A gust of wind hit him full force, the smattering of snow crackling against the window. He turned up his collar and hugged his arms to himself, waiting for her response.

  Melody sighed and pulled a key ring from her belt loop. She couldn’t leave the poor guy outside to freeze, and she knew there wasn’t likely to be another place open for miles. She just prayed that her compassion wasn’t going to backfire on her. The lock clicked open, and she pulled the door inward.

  He rushed in, rubbing his hands together. “Thank you. You have no idea how much I appreciate this.”

  “Sure. The phone’s over there by the register.” Melody pointed him in the direction of the counter.

  He nodded, turned toward the phone, then hesitated and stuck out his hand. “I’m Justin Keller.”

  As his cold fingers closed on her warm hand, she looked up and found herself frozen by brilliant blue eyes. “Melody Johansson.”

  He smiled, causing her heart to give a little hiccup, and released her before moving toward the phone. She watched as he dug a roadside assistance card from his wallet and dialed.

  The stranger she’d rescued was handsome. Almost unfairly so. Hair that vacillated between blond and brown, cut short and a little spiky. Those arresting blue eyes. And a crooked leading-man smile that must routinely melt women into puddles at his feet. No, not leading man . . . fairy-tale prince. Why was it that pilots seemed to dominate the good-looking end of the gene pool? Was it a prerequisite for the job?

  Justin was talking in a low voice—a sexy voice, she had to admit, just deep enough to balance the boyish charm—and she realized she should probably get back to work before he caught her staring. But he turned to her and cradled the handset against his shoulder. “They said it’s going to take a while. Is it okay if I wait here?”

  “Sure.” She might have been reluctant to let him in, but her answer now was a little too enthusiastic. From the slight glimmer of a smile he threw back to her, he’d probably heard it too.

  Well, a guy like that had to be aware of the effect he had on women. She had just never thought of herself as predictable.

  He hung up the phone. “They say two hours, but they also said that there are people stranded all over Denver right now. I have no idea how long it will be. Are you sure it’s okay? I don’t want you to get in trouble for letting me in.”

  “It’s no trouble.” Especially since the opening manager was a single woman. She’d take one look at him and understand Melody’s decision. “I’ve got to get back to work, though. Do you want some coffee?”

  “I’d kill for some coffee.”

  “I’m not sure I like the choice of words, but I understand the sentiment.” Melody smiled at the flash of embarrassment that crossed his face. “Have a seat and I’ll get you a cup. One of the perks of the night shift—unlimited caffeine.”

  “Sounds like more of a requirement than a perk.”

  “Sometimes.” She found a ceramic mug under the counter and then went to the vacuum carafe that held the coffee she’d made a few hours earlier. She pushed the plunger to dispense a cup and set it on the counter. “Cream and sugar are over there.”

  “I take mine black.” He retrieved the mug and warmed his hand around it for a moment before he took a sip. “It’s good. Thank you.”

  “Sure.” She’d said she needed to get back to work, but now she found herself hovering awkwardly behind the counter. It seemed weird to leave a stranger out here by himself—even weirder that she was reluctant to walk away.

  He was looking around the bakery. “So, you’re the only one here?”

  Now Melody took an involuntary step back, red flags waving wildly in the periphery of her mind.

  He picked up on her tension and held up one hand. “Forget I said that. It sounded less creepy in my head. I just meant, are you the one responsible for all that bread? It seems like a lot of work for one person.” He gestured to the metal bins behind the counter, still awaiting their bounty for the day’s customers.

  “Usually I have an assistant on the weekend, but yeah. It’s mostly me.”

  “Impressive.” His nod made her think he meant it.

  “Not really. This isn’t baking.”

  “What is it then?”

  Melody shrugged. “Assembling, maybe? But it’s a job, and working with bread all day beats sitting behind a desk in an office.”

  He saluted her with a coffee cup. “I hear that. Exactly why I went into aviation.”

  A little smile formed on her lips. She’d expected a guy that good-looking to be arrogant, but his relaxed, comfortable attitude suggested the opposite. “I’m not supposed to let anyone back here, but if you want to keep me company . . .”

  He straightened from his perch by the counter. “If I wouldn’t be bothering you. Normally I’d stream a video or put on a podcast, but . . .”

  “Dead phone. Right.” She moved back to the kitchen, aware of him following behind. She nodded toward a stool by the door. “You can sit there if you like.”

  He shrugged off his wet overcoat and hung it on the hook by the door, then perched on the stool. She couldn’t resist giving him a subtle once-over from the corner of her eye. Seemed like in addition to being unfairly good-looking, he had the physique to match—tall, lean, broad-shouldered. From the way his slim-cut white uniform shirt skimmed his torso, she would not at all be surprised if it were hiding six-pack abs.

  She could tell already that this guy wasn’t the type to let himself go soft from too much sitting and bad airport food. He probably had a gym membership or a personal trainer or something to stay in that kind of shape.

  She shook herself before she could become another pilot groupie. Focus, Melody.

  Starting on the next tub of dough gave her something to think about other than the man sitting a mere five feet away from her. She started cutting and weighing the dough. “So what kind of planes do you fly? 747s or something like that?”

  “No. Not anymore. Light business jets.”

  “Like for executives?”

  “Executives, politicians, athletes, celebrities. I work for a fractional, so it’s different people all the time. You know, they buy a share of a particular plane so they can travel whenever they want without having to pay for the whole thing and the cost of having a crew on standby.”

  “Do you enjoy it?”

  “Sure.”

  Melody cast a look his direction. “That didn’t sound very convincing.”

  Justin chuckled and rubbed a hand through his hair. “Had you not asked me at the end of a seven-day, twenty-five-leg tour—followed by being stranded in the snow—I probably would have said yes, absolutely.”

  “Okay, I guess I can give you that one. You said, ‘Not anymore.’ You used to be an airline pilot?”

  “Do you always ask so many questions?”

  “By my count, that’s only three.”

  “Five.” He ticked off on his fingers. “What kind of planes? 747s? Executives? Do I enjoy it? And did I used to be an airline pilot?”

  Melody rolled her eyes, but she laughed. “You must be fun at parties. Answe
r the question.”

  “I flew for a regional 121 operator out of Texas for a while . . . one of the smaller companies that code-shares with the majors.”

  “And you left because . . .”

  He shook his head, like he realized he wasn’t going to get out of the conversation. “The pay wasn’t great and the schedule sucked. I flew twenty-four days out of the month, which meant I usually stayed in hotels twenty of those. Now I work eighteen days a month for more money, and even though there’s a lot of waiting around for passengers, I actually get to fly instead of babysit autopilot.”

  “You seem pretty young to be a pilot.”

  “You seem pretty young to be a baker.”

  “How old should a baker be?”

  “I don’t know. But they shouldn’t be young and stunning.”

  Heat rose to Melody’s cheeks before she could control it. “Are you hitting on me?”

  “If I were trying to hit on you, you wouldn’t have to ask.” He caught her gaze, his expression dead serious. Just when she feared she wouldn’t be able to breathe again, his mouth widened into a grin.

  The flush eased when she realized he was just teasing her. “You’re terrible.”

  “I’m honest.” He hopped off the stool. “Is it okay if I get more coffee?”

  “Help yourself.” She let out a long exhale when he left the room. That guy was dangerous. He was gorgeous and he knew it. He had a sexy job and he knew it . . . even if he pretended to be blasé about it.

  Pretty much the sort of guy she was always attracted to and lived to regret. In fact, the more attracted to a man she was, the worse off she knew she’d be at the end when the relationship imploded like a popped soufflé.

  Judging from the little quivers she felt in his presence, a mere twenty minutes after their first meeting, this one was a heartbreaker.

  Chapter Two

  JUSTIN LEFT THE KITCHEN in search of another cup of coffee. He needed way more caffeine—or maybe a muzzle, considering the way his thoughts seemed to be spilling from his mouth. He hadn’t lied. The woman who had saved him from a cold morning in his car was young and stunning. Everything about her was lush, from her figure to her lips to the spill of blonde waves she kept partially tucked up beneath a slouchy beanie. When he’d knocked on the door, he’d been silently pleading for someone, anyone, to answer. He wasn’t quite sure what he’d done to deserve her being the one to open it.

  That kind of thinking was the last thing he needed. She was already skittish enough being alone in the bakery with a stranger. His only job was to be as nonthreatening as possible and check the interest that had hummed to life the instant she put her warm hand in his.

  Instead, he wandered to the window to peer out at the car and cursed his own idiocy once more. He should have known better than to trust the warm sunshine that saw him off on his last tour; he was a Colorado native, so he knew as well as anyone that March had an on-again, off-again relationship with spring. It had just been so long since his project vehicle had seen the outside of a garage that he’d left his much more sensible SUV behind and driven the vintage pony car to the airport.

  Which was precisely why he was waiting for a tow instead of already home in his warm bed. The 1967 Mustang GT might be 271 horsepower of pure driving fun on dry roads, but it was virtually useless in conditions like these.

  “You okay out there?” Melody’s voice drifted from the back. “Are we out of coffee?”

  He’d been out of sight for too long. He took his coffee and moved back into the kitchen, where Melody was taking golden-brown loaves from the oven, one by one, and setting them out on vertical racks to cool.

  “Those smell great,” he said. “Why do you say that’s not really baking?”

  Melody started, as if she’d forgotten he was there. Without looking at him, she batched the next set of loaves into the oven and shut the door. “The rye and the country miche are decent breads, even considering they come premixed. But the baguettes and batards aren’t even close to what they should be. And of course, the clientele is used to grocery store bread, so that’s what they expect bread to be like.”

  “What’s wrong with grocery store bread?” Justin asked. “It tastes good and it fills you up.”

  Melody sent him a look that was halfway between resigned and bemused. “Bread shouldn’t be some sort of bland, spongy starch that you use to push down your food. When it’s done right, it’s as complex as wine—the pleasantly sour flavor of well-fermented dough, the nutty quality of freshly ground wheat flour, the bitter caramel notes from the crust. Haven’t you ever wondered why the Bible says Jesus is the bread of life? Bread was once worthy of that metaphor. Somehow I don’t think He would like to be compared to Wonder Bread.”

  Justin raised an eyebrow. The last thing he’d expected from the blonde bombshell was a biblical reference. He put his attention back on her words. “So why aren’t you baking that sort of bread?”

  Melody shrugged. “There are only a few really good traditional bakeries in Denver, and they don’t tend to have much turnover. I had a pastry chef job with a lot of freedom, but that ended when the chef who hired me left.”

  “What happened?”

  “Now who’s asking a lot of questions?”

  “Hey, I’m just trying to figure out how I can get my hands on some of that heavenly bread you’re talking about.” He couldn’t help it. The sentence came out with a hint of flirtation. So much for distance.

  She seemed to be struggling against a smile. “If you’re really that anxious for good bread, I’ll write down the names of a couple of bakeries for you.”

  “I get it. You don’t like talking about the past.”

  She shot him a look, her brow furrowed. “You’re really pushy; do you know that?”

  He didn’t mean to be, but two hours spent in silence with a beautiful and interesting woman was a wasted opportunity. “I’m just trying to pass the time. I could sit out front, but I hoped you wouldn’t mind the company.”

  She didn’t say anything, a clear answer. He could take a hint. He was about to excuse himself to the dining room when she said, “My friend was the chef, and through no fault of her own, she was pushed out of her restaurant. I left as a show of solidarity.”

  “Loyal. I like that.”

  “Impulsive, more like. Even Rachel told me I should have stayed.”

  “Wait. Rachel Bishop?”

  “You know her?”

  “I caught that feature Altitude did on her a few months back. She’s a big deal around here. Which means that you’re kind of a big deal. What are you doing at a place like this?”

  “Like I said, pastry jobs are in short supply.”

  Justin fell silent, watching her more closely this time. He didn’t know anything about baking, but there was something about the way she moved—contained, controlled, with no wasted motion—that marked her as a professional. Her hands seemed to know what to do even when she was focused on something else.

  And then she stopped, her gaze locking with his. “Do you ever look at your life and wonder how you got here? I mean, I realize I made all the decisions that brought me to this point, but I haven’t been working on my craft my whole life just so I could bake a corporate chef’s mediocre recipes in a chain bakery. Do you know what I mean?”

  The personal nature of the question took him off guard, and for a moment, he struggled for an answer.

  She laughed self-consciously. “Never mind. This is why solo shifts are better. I tend to ramble at 4 a.m.”

  “No, it’s okay.” He considered how to answer her question. “I guess I’ve always been pretty focused. I knew I wanted to be a pilot since I was a kid, and no one was going to do the work for me. It took a lot of time and money to get here.” He cocked his head and studied her curiously. “What would you do if you could snap your fingers and make it all different?”

  Melody didn’t even hesitate. “Open my own place. French-inspired, most likely, with all those amazing
pastries I fell in love with in Paris. Maybe light lunch fare. Hearty bread, the way it’s supposed to be done—heirloom wheat, baguettes baked bien cuit, that point just before burnt where the crust gets rich and caramelly.”

  “Then why don’t you?” It was clearly her passion. She’d probably spent hundreds of shifts daydreaming about being her own boss. Maybe he didn’t understand the love of bread or what bien cuit meant, but he understood that need for independence.

  But Melody was shaking her head. “I don’t have a hundred grand stuffed in my mattress, that’s why. And it’s a high-risk venture. Not easy to get a loan with no track record.”

  Her expression shifted toward melancholy, or maybe wistfulness, until she shook it off and plastered a smile on her face. “Tell me how you became a pilot.”

  “How did I become a pilot? Or when did I become a pilot? Or how did I come to do it as a job? All three of those are different questions.”

  Another smile twitched at her lips. “Pick one. Or better yet, answer all three. I’ve got about ten more of these tubs to do.” She indicated the rack with a floury wave of her hand.

  “The answers probably won’t last you even one. My dad is an Airbus driver. He taught me how to fly in his 1966 Piper Cherokee. He sold it later when we built our own, which I know isn’t strictly one of your questions—”

  “You built a plane?” She paused in her shaping to focus on Justin. “From scratch? How do you even do that?”

  “From a kit. We assembled the pieces in our garage and then put them together in our hangar.”

  Melody made a face. “No big deal. You have a hangar.”

  He grinned as he realized how it sounded. “Yes, we have a hangar. For the Cherokee, remember? Anyway, I racked up a lot of my PIC time in the homebuilt . . . well, that and as a flight instructor, but that’s not strictly one of those three questions either. So, short version, I got my private pilot’s license at sixteen. Accumulated enough flight time at my dad’s expense in our plane and as a flight instructor while I was in college to get my commercial license at twenty. When I graduated, I got my ATP—that’s the license you need to fly passengers for anything other than skydiving or tours—and then I got a job as a first officer with a regional airline. Put in enough hours to qualify for a fractional job, and voilà. Here we are.”