“She almost had him, too,” John joked, looking at Destiny, curled into a chair, quietly talking to the puppy. “Ten more minutes and…”
“Uh-uh.” Summer gave him a look. “I see you teetering on the edge of surrender there, Yianni.”
He grinned, loving the way his name sounded on her lips. Loving everything about her lips, to be honest. “What else did they tell you about me, other than my formal Greek name?”
“Oh, just how awful you are, how terribly you run your business, and…” She squinted playfully at Yiayia. “That you are generally the least attractive and most unavailable bachelor in Bitter Bark. No brains and…” She pointed to her daughter. “Clearly, you’re heartless.”
His grandmother jabbed him with her elbow. “I like a little sarcasm in a woman, don’t you?”
“I like you, Yiayia, don’t I?” Turning to Summer, he angled his head in apology. “Forgive these ladies. They are on a mission, firm in their belief that I cannot manage my own social life.”
“Because it’s work, work, work with you,” Yiayia said. “Can you blame a grandmother for wanting to intervene a little?”
“Intervene?” He choked a laugh. “You do a marital status check on every woman over twenty-five and under forty who walks in this restaurant.”
“In their defense, I offered my status to them,” Summer said, her eyes glinting with humor at the situation.
“Did they or did they not literally lasso you into this seat?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Depends on what you mean by ‘lasso.’ They did lure someone…” She pointed her thumb toward Destiny. “With their adorable doxies.”
“We did no luring, lass.”
Yiayia nodded in agreement. “This woman came up to us and said, ‘Hello, my name is Summer Jackson. My daughter likes your dogs. May I sit with you?’ What are we going to say? No?”
Summer Jackson. He filed away her full name, but managed to give her a skeptical raised brow, keeping the playful conversation going.
“Never mind how it happened,” she said. “Truth is, if I had known their matchmaking attempt was with you, the owner of the world’s most coveted dog, I might have written my phone number on the check.”
Both the grannies gasped, and John had a hard time not pumping his fist in victory.
“Oh, sure, and it’s time for us to go, Agnes.” Gramma Finnie gathered up a pocketbook hurriedly and nudged Summer out of the way. “Our work here is done.”
“Oh, don’t go,” Summer said.
“We must,” Yiayia agreed. “Your spanakopita is coming soon, along with the little girl’s pathetic plain chicken.” She added a smile as she pushed her chair in and slid behind John, patting his shoulder. “And you, young man, will sit here and talk to her until a date is set.”
It was Summer’s turn to suck in a soft gasp, but John just closed his eyes and fought a smile. But his mind was already whirring. He’d learned at an early age that there were two kinds of people in the world. The ones who were just born lucky, like his younger brother, Theo. And people like John, who made their own good fortune.
That realization made him a man who seized the day on a regular basis. Which was why he wasn’t about to let Summer Jackson slip through his hands again. Yesterday, he had to assume she was married, and asking her out would have been a douche move. But today, he knew she was a widow, with no rings at all on either hand.
“Whatever you say, Yiayia.” He took his grandmother’s hand off his shoulder, kissed her knuckles, and leveled his gaze on the woman across the table, waiting for her to finish saying goodbye to the ladies. Then he leaned forward. “So, how’s Friday sound to you?”
“Friday?” Summer drew back, obviously not sure if he was joking for Yiayia, who hooted softly as she walked away with her dogs.
“Didn’t you say you want to adopt a dog?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll take you and Destiny to Waterford Farm on Friday,” he said, deeply pleased with the idea.
“Waterford Farm?”
“It’s an elite canine rescue and training facility and the site of this week’s Adoption Days event. It also happens to be owned by my stepfather. There will be eleventy-hundred dogs. And cousins. And step…people.” He frowned a little. “On second thought, maybe just skip that and head right to dinner?”
She stared at him, searching his face a little, obviously not quite sure what to make of the invitation. “I’ll think about it.”
Think about it? He rested his chin on his knuckles, drowning in the blue that was the very color of skies that bore her name. “My grandmother’s recitation of my résumé didn’t work, huh?”
She laughed. “MBA from Duke and getting a pilot’s license? Pretty impressive.”
“But not enough to say yes.” He stole a quick glance at the table where Destiny all but set up the service to have tea with Maverick. “I could throw in the puppy.”
She dropped her head back and gave that throaty laugh, officially making it his new favorite sound.
Just then, Karyn reached the table, order in hand, pausing at the sight of him, a little exhaustion and exasperation at the edges of his best server’s faint smile. “Did you want something to eat, John?”
“No, I’m good, Karyn. And this place is clearing out, so you can clock out anytime. I know it’s been a crazy-long day for you. Lunch is over in fifteen minutes, and Erin can handle a straggler or two. I’ll close and do the bank today.”
Karyn’s shoulders relaxed as she put a steaming spanakopita in front of Summer. “God bless you, boss. My feet are screaming, and my kids are home no doubt doing the same thing.”
“Then definitely go.” He took the plain chicken gyro from her. “Thanks for working so hard today.”
She smiled at him, then at Summer. “I heard your little girl sing before,” she said. “She’s amazing.”
“Oh, thanks. It helps her to get her thoughts out, so we’re lucky it’s on key most of the time.”
So she sang to avoid stuttering, John mused, filing yet another piece of the puzzle that made up this intriguing mother-daughter duo.
“Well, she’s beautiful. She can come in here and sing anytime. Thanks, John. I’ll be in early tomorrow morning.” Karyn stepped away as John put Destiny’s chicken on the table.
“Honey?” Summer called to her daughter, opening her purse to pull out some hand sanitizer. “Your lunch is here.”
“Can I sh-sh-share it with Mavvie?”
“You can sit here next to me and give Mav back to John.”
For a second, the little girl looked like she might put up a fight, so John pushed his chair back and stood. “Let me take him for you.”
She gave him up reluctantly, handing over Mav, and then holding her hands for her mother to sanitize before she sat down. John remained standing, waiting for Summer to look up so he could close the deal on Friday and let them eat.
“Please stay, nice man.” Destiny whispered.
He felt his eyes widen, and Summer bit back a soft laugh. “Go ahead, say no to that. Nice man.”
“Well…let me put Mav back in his crate.”
Destiny gasped. “No crate!”
“He likes it there,” he assured her. “It’s his favorite place to think about you.”
Summer slid him a look. “Slick.”
Wasn’t it? “I’ll get some coffee and join you. Be right back.” He didn’t waste a minute on that errand, crating Mav and grabbing a cup of black coffee to head back to the table. The restaurant had really emptied out, with only a few tables ready to close their tabs.
By the time Summer and Destiny finished their lunch, he’d have that date for Friday, John was certain.
When he got back, Summer and her daughter were still side by side, talking and laughing as they ate.
“How’s the food?” he asked, sitting across from them.
Destiny looked up. “Not aw-aw-awful.”
“Whoa, that’s…some faint praise.”
“I mentioned falafel earlier, and all she can hear is that it rhymes with awful. She likes rhymes and makes up songs with them.”
“Cool. I bet our cook could make a falafel you would sing about.”
The little girl gave him a skeptical look, a hint of a smile pulling at her mouth as if she didn’t quite know what to make of him.
“While you were gone, I was telling Destiny that your restaurant name is also a beautiful place in Greece,” Summer said. “Have you been to Santorini?”
“A few times,” he said as he stirred some sugar into his coffee. “I got a lot of inspiration for this place from going to the restaurants there. I wanted it to be somewhat like the original location, over in Chestnut Creek, but I really went all-in for that authentic Greek feel. I loved it in Santorini. The food, the music, the people. It’s amazing.” He leaned a little closer. “It’s where I learned to dance.”
“I heard you’re the best in the family.” Summer smiled at his surprised look. “The Yiayia PR machine,” she explained.
He rolled his eyes. “She’s proud of my sirtaki, which is better known as the Zorba the Greek dance.”
“You can do that?” she asked, a satisfying glint of admiration in her eyes.
“Add it to the pro column for Friday.”
She laughed softly. “I will.” Then she flaked some of the pastry with her fork. “If you tell me you made this, you have a date.”
He grunted softly. “Wish I could. That’s the handiwork of Luther ‘Bash’ Sebastian, our newest hire in the kitchen. But Bash is following my grandmother’s recipe, which was her grandmother’s and so on.”
“She said she and your grandfather started the first Santorini’s?” Summer asked.
“They did, in the fifties after they left New York. Then my dad ran it until he got sick, and my brother and I took over. It wasn’t really my plan, but…” He shrugged, not wanting to get into the history of how he and Alex jumped in “temporarily” when Dad was diagnosed with cancer.
“Alex was the cook, and I managed the store. We did pretty well.” Exploded, to be frank, under John’s management, which was a blessing and a curse. He was so good at his job, he couldn’t quit to start his own business. So he was going to reimagine this one. “We opened a second location, and then, last year, launched this one.”
Summer glanced around. “They said you refurbished it, and it’s a lot different than what it was before.”
“It’s a flagship store that I’m going to franchise,” he said, taking a sip of coffee and wondering just how interested she was in his business plans. “If I close the financing.”
“And then you’ll buy the building?”
He rolled his eyes. “Wow, Yiayia really did tell you my life story.”
“Oh, I asked.”
Then she was interested—either in him or the business. Confident, he leaned closer to share more. “So, get this. The financing is contingent on one guy right now, and he is planning to come in here, unannounced, unidentified, and unexpected…to check out the place.”
Her eyes widened. “Like a secret shopper?”
He’d been thinking of it more like one of those restaurant critics who insisted on being anonymous, but he liked “secret shopper” way better. “Exactly. Some dude could walk in here any second and decide whether or not to invest.”
She gave a soft grunt. “I’m a teacher,” she told him. “Third grade. And when parents come in unannounced and want to observe the class from the back of the room?” She made a face. “My stomach is in knots all that day. I imagine it’s a lot worse if he’s your potential investor.”
A teacher. The job suited her, he decided, imagining how pretty she must look in her teacher clothes. And out of them.
“I have no idea when he’s coming, which is…” He shook his head. “Yeah, a little disconcerting since, as you could tell, I’m down a hostess, who is remarkably important in keeping the front of the house running smoothly.”
“Well, this place certainly looks good,” she said, gesturing toward the matching awnings and umbrellas he’d recently added. “And the food’s great. Hard to believe it was once a sandwich shop. Do you—”
A noisy laugh from a group of people walking up to the door cut off her question and stole John’s attention. Damn, there had to be a half dozen of them. And there were more in a group behind them.
“’Scuse me,” he said, pushing out of his chair. “Unexpected late afternoon rush.”
He hustled to the door and held it to invite them in. Otherwise, they’d be greeted by an empty hostess stand.
“Hey, all. How many will there be?”
“Um…” A woman turned around, half laughing. “I think there are twenty of us. There are a few stragglers on the way.”
“Twenty.” He managed to keep his voice steady, mentally kicking himself for sending Karyn home. “No problem. Give me a second to alert the staff and pull together some tables.”
“We don’t have to sit at one table,” she said. “Just close together.”
“We can find another place if it’s too much,” a man behind her called.
“Not at all,” John said. “Give me one sec.” He headed back to the kitchen to find Erin and to make sure Bash hadn’t started cleaning for the day. With her, they coordinated a few tables at the far back of the restaurant, then he headed back to the hostess stand, slowing his step when he saw Summer talking to the group and…handing out menus?
What was she doing?
As he approached, she turned. “Are we all set, John?” she asked with a smile.
He blinked, speechless for a moment, vaguely aware that her daughter sat quietly on the reception bench, swinging her ankles. “Yeah…yeah. We have three tables ready, all next to each other.”
“Well, there you go.” Summer ushered the woman at the front of the group toward him. “And I meant what I said about the spanakopita,” she said to one of the men as he passed. “It’s an old family recipe from 1958 and the best bite you will ever have outside of the country of Greece.”
“Thanks for the tip,” the man said, smiling at John and looking around. “Nice place.”
John managed to throw Summer a look that was a mix of gratitude, amazement, and the beginnings of a life-altering crush, and all he got in return was her sunny smile and a playful wink.
“Why’d you do that?” he asked under his breath.
“Just in case,” she whispered, then mouthed, “Secret shopper.”
He didn’t have time to respond, forced to guide the group to the other side of the restaurant and start the service. He couldn’t let Erin get swamped by this unexpected party, and Bash might need some backup at the grill.
The whole process was nonstop for almost forty-five minutes, keeping him from the only place he wanted to be right now. Finally, when the last order was up and last drink refilled, he hurried back to the patio…but the table was empty.
Muttering a curse, he spied a piece of paper covering some cash to pay for the meal.
The paper was from a kid’s game book, but on the back was a note.
J—See you Friday at Waterford! xo, S & D
PS. Give Mavvie a kiss from Des.
He got the date. Mav got the kiss. A win all around.
Chapter Four
“Wow.” Destiny leaned forward in her booster seat as Summer turned her Nissan Rogue through the gates of Waterford Farm and down the tree-lined drive that opened up to a stunning vista.
Wow was right.
From east to west, there was nothing but rolling foothills, precious clapboard buildings, and acres of grass covered with…dogs of every size, shape, and breed.
A massive yellow farmhouse with green shutters and tall chimneys perched on a slight rise above it all, wrapped with a porch meant for sipping and rocking.
“Daddy must be here,” Destiny whispered, falling back into her seat with a thud.
Summer took a slow, deep breath, a tendril of frustration worm
ing up her chest. She had to put an end to this daddy fantasy that had taken hold of Destiny’s overactive imagination ever since they’d been in Tennessee with Isaiah’s family. It wasn’t healthy, realistic, or welcome.
“Sweetheart, we talked about this,” Summer said gently. “We’re not in Bitter Bark to find a daddy.”
“N-n-no, Mommy,” she insisted. “I mean my daddy must be here. My hero daddy.”
She often referred to Isaiah as her “hero daddy”—and Summer liked it so much better than “used-to-be daddy” she used when she was four.
“You think Daddy is here?” Summer asked.
“You said he’s in he-he-heaven.”
Summer caught the wonder in her daughter’s expression through the rearview mirror. “Waterford Farm looks like heaven to you?”
“Dog heaven.”
From a child’s perspective, Summer could see that. She slowed to a crawl between the line of cars parked on both sides of what might have been a quarter-mile-long drive, heading toward a large homemade sign that read: Welcome to Waterford Farm! A Hundred Acres of Happy! It’s Adoption Day!
A dark-haired teenage girl and a little boy a year or two older than Destiny, both wearing Waterford Farm T-shirts, greeted them with double-armed waves, directing them to an open parking spot not far from a huge penned-in area where at least thirty dogs frolicked. Around the pen were booths of various sizes, some serving food and drinks, some with more dogs, some with what looked like crafts or toys for sale. There had to be a hundred people, kids, and dogs roaming in the late morning sunshine.
As she parked, Summer scanned the whole area, but Destiny was digging at her safety belt, desperate to get out. “Do you think that p-p-puppy’s here?” she asked. “Mavvie?”
“I do, but I also think that many puppies are here,” Summer said as she pushed her door open and stepped out. “I’m sure you’ll find one you love.”
“But I want Mavvie.”
Summer froze for a moment, then turned to get the back door.
“I know, but Maverick is taken, as I think I’ve mentioned about six hundred times, Des. But we’re going to find a dog today, and I’m sure you’ll love that one as much, if not more.”
Hush, Puppy Page 4