by Maddie James
“We have sleeping bags,” he told her.
“Oh.” She paused. “But I’m not sure how comfortable those hard-wood floors…”
“We’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure you want to move tonight? I mean…”
Carson held up a hand. “Wait.” Flipping open his checkbook, he took a minute to write out a check, carefully tore it from the book, and handed it to her. “Here is the deposit and the first month’s rent. Now the place is officially mine, right? I’m moving in later tonight. If you want the cleaning service to come first thing in the morning, that will be fine. Until then, Izzie and I can fend for ourselves.” He glanced to the child. “Actually, we’re used to a little dust, aren’t we Iz?”
Izzie nodded furiously. “Actually, sometimes we’re used to a lot of dust.”
“Enough, Iz.” Carson chucked. “Ms. Hart might kick us out on our ears if she thinks we’re not good tenants.”
Izzie clamped her mouth shut and made a funny face. Carson had to laugh out loud. Looking to Gracie, he also noticed she was smiling, intent on Izzie’s antics. He took in that smile for a moment and let himself wonder just a little bit more about Gracie Hart. What was her story? He couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
Finger. Hm. Why didn’t she have a ring on the third finger of her left hand? Then he mentally chastised himself for noticing.
“Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret, Izzie,” she said as she leaned a little closer to the girl, interrupting his thoughts. “Sometimes I have a little too much dust in my house, too.”
Izzie giggled, her big eyes animated. “Betcha don’t have as much as us! One time, me and Dad wrote our entire whole names in the dust on the bookshelves and it stayed that way for weeks!”
“Izzie!”
“Well, it did!”
“Did not.”
“Did so!”
“Well, okay. You could be right. But you know you’re not supposed to tell those things!”
Gracie laughed again and for the second time that afternoon, Carson found himself mesmerized by her smile and captivated by the sound of her laugh and so very curious as to what made Gracie Hart tick.
* * * *
“Okay, Gracie, spill it about the new guy next door.”
Amie, always on the lookout for new guys in town, chewed on a blueberry bagel and looked across the table at Gracie, staring her square in the eye. “You’ve been holding out on me. I hear he’s a doll.”
Gracie snorted and took another sip of hot lemon tea. “A doll? Hardly.” If it were up to her to find words to describe Carson Price, doll would not be on the list. Hunk? Stud-puppy? Those two descriptive terms came to mind quite quickly, and if pressed, Gracie was sure she could drum up a few more. Yes, he was a very attractive man. Of course, she wasn’t the least bit interested in drumming up descriptive terms for the likes of Carson Price, or any man, for that matter.
She was only interested in Carson Price for his rent check, although it seemed her friends had other thoughts on the subject.
Nice looking eligible bachelor were the words Constance had thrown up to her the day before. Gracie had shushed her off with a wave of her hand. Gracie Hart wasn’t on the lookout for nice looking eligible bachelors, she’d told Constance.
The older woman had made some comment but Gracie pretended not to hear. Something about specific parts of her anatomy shriveling up from lack of use....
“You know he’s the talk of the town.” Amie interrupted her thoughts. “I mean, all the women have been sneaking by to peek in the window at him. I haven’t had the chance. So, spill.”
Fiddling with her teacup, Gracie stared off into Amie’s coffee shop, trying not to think about atrophying body parts. It was early Friday morning, two hours before her shop and most of the others on Main Street opened for the day. The coffee shop was on the same side of the street as Romantically Yours, but on the other side of the traffic light. She was North Main, Amie was South Main. About a dozen people were occupying space with them, drinking tea or coffee and eating bagels and pastries.
Amie’s Place, which also served a light lunch, closed at two in the afternoon. That’s the way Amie liked it. She had the remainder of the day to play.
Gracie already knew Carson was the talk of the town. Her own business had been boosted for the past few days since he’d moved in and started some minor renovations. The talk from the women was non-stop. Gracie would smile and nod and try extremely hard not to get drawn into the middle of those oh-God-he’s-so-gorgeous conversations.
She’d talked to him only once, and briefly at that, during the week. Seems his plans were to open his café at the end of the month, barely three weeks away. Izzie, she’d learned, was staying in Louisville for the next two weeks with her babysitter until school was out for the summer. Then she would be joining her father. For some reason, Gracie had felt a sense of urgency from Carson that he get the café up and running as soon as possible. She’d sensed that urgency in him before and wondered what that was all about.
She supposed he was just ready to get on with his new life. Of all people, she could understand that. Once upon a time, she’d done the same thing.
But she tried not to think about that much anymore. Ten years was a long time, but she was extremely proud of the way she had recovered.
“Of course, you wouldn’t sneak a peek, would you, Gracie?”
Had Amie said something? Her thoughts were temporarily back in New York. Gracie looked at her and said, “I’m sorry. You were saying?”
Amie huffed. “I said, you wouldn’t sneak a peek, would you?”
“Moi? Of course not.” New York was all but forgotten.
“Yeah, right.”
“Well, I, for one,” Gracie returned, “have more things to do with my time than ogle my next door neighbor while he hammers two-by-fours and moves equipment about, wearing nothing more than a pair of tight jeans and work boots, perspiration glistening off his back like some model in a diet soft drink commercial.”
“So you’ve never even peeked, huh?”
Gracie shook her head. “Nope, not interested.”
Amie snorted and then laughed out loud. About six customers turned to look at her. “Like I said, yeah, right.”
Gracie stuck out her tongue at her friend and picked up her cinnamon bagel. “You’re impossible.”
“And you’re lying. I know you Gracie Hart. There is something up with this man.”
“You’re wrong.” Grace bit off a bite of bagel, looked Amie square in the eye. “There is...nothing up...with that man,” she returned between chews.
Sitting back in her seat and pushing her coffee cup away at the same time, Amie crossed her arms over her chest. Gracie didn’t like the way she was studying her. “Well, I’ll tell you what. I’ll reserve comment on that subject until a later date. Until I have some time to see you around this man. I mean, Constance told me the other day that—”
“Constance?” Gracie sat up a little straighter. “What does Constance have to do with this conversation?” Knowing that Constance and Amie had been talking made Gracie a teensy-bit uncomfortable. Even though the two women were her best friends, and had good intentions, she didn’t want them joining forces again to instigate something into an area of her life where Gracie had no intention of going.
Will those two never stop trying to hook her up with a man?
“Oh nothing,” Amie replied, popping the last bite of bagel into her mouth. “You know, Gracie, I am a bit miffed at you, however.”
Puzzled, Gracie stared at her friend. “Whatever for?”
“Allowing him to come into town and open up another café. I mean, when the soup and sandwich place closed down the street, I all but had a monopoly on the lunch crowd.”
“My goodness, you have the monopoly on the breakfast crowd! And more customers than you can handle, as I recall, at lunch,” Gracie told her. “Weren’t you just complaining last week that you weren’t prepared for the o
nslaught and that people could barely get in the door during their lunch hour?”
“Complaining? No. Drooling at the thought of the increase in lunch sales? Yes. But now I suppose…”
Leaning forward, Gracie replied, “Look, Amie. Carson Price putting in another café down the street is not going to ruin your business. If lunch customers can’t get in your door because it’s too crowded and the service is slow, do you think they are going to come back? No. And besides, Carson’s place is going to be different from yours, not just a soup and sandwich place, he said. In fact, he’s even going to be open for dinner.”
Amie thought about that. “Not just a soup and sandwich place, huh? Wonder what he meant by that?”
Gracie shrugged. “Not sure. I just think he must be designing something fairly upscale since he’s planning to be open for dinner, too.” Her thoughts drifted for a moment, then she looked at Amie. “I wonder...wouldn’t it be great if he was putting in some sort of tea room? I mean, that would be so cool right next door. We could possibly double up on advertising and marketing and bring in customers for each other....”
Thoughts were swimming in her head. This could be perfect. This could be just the thing she needed. She couldn’t wait until the next meeting of the Chamber.
“I dunno,” her friend said, “Carson Price doesn’t look much like the tea room type to me.”
But Gracie wasn’t listening. Visions of increased business and new customers were dancing in her head.
Amie touched her arm.
“What?”
“I said why don’t you ask him now.”
Gracie shook her head. “Excuse me?”
Pointing with her thumb over her shoulder, Amie directed Gracie’s attention to the front of the shop. “That’s him, right? Why don’t you go discuss business with him now? See if you two could drum up some business together.”
Gracie sucked in a deep breath. Amie’s innuendo stood for more than business, she knew. Turning, she looked in the direction her friend pointed. There he stood at the front counter, wearing tight jeans, work boots, and a black t-shirt that fit like a second skin—ordering breakfast to go.
“Doesn’t look like any lawyer I ever met,” Gracie muttered.
“What?”
She sat up straighter and looked at Amie. “Wait a minute. You said you’d never seen him. How did you know that was Carson Price up there?”
Amie tossed her an evil little grin and tilted her chin a bit. “Oh, all right. So, I lied. I peeked. And, oh yeah, he comes in here every morning for breakfast. Just in case you’d like to know.”
Amie grinned wide and giggled and Gracie could all but strangle her. She was up to something. So was Constance. And that didn’t bode well for her, she knew.
* * * *
“Just a large coffee, black, and one of those honeybuns. To go.”
Carson eyed the young girl across the counter as she turned and headed for the coffeemaker. She couldn’t be more than seventeen, he thought. Yet, she was giving him the once over and smiling like he was prime rib or something.
Another teenager sidled up next to her, pretending to get coffee as well. She glanced back at him and both girls giggled. He thought he heard one of them say something about “his honeybuns” and tried like hell to ignore that statement.
Briefly, he closed his eyes and shook his head. It had been like this all week. If it wasn’t the two teenagers behind the counter who served him breakfast every morning, it was the same group of women who sauntered by his place every afternoon as though they were window shopping. Sighing, he glanced around the shop. His gaze immediately latched on a tall brunette in the back of the room.
Gracie?
“Honeybun...and coffee.”
He turned back to the girl. She sat his coffee and pastry down on the counter with a sassy seventeen-year-old smile and stared at him while he produced the couple of dollar bills and the change he owed her.
What was it with this town? Ever since Tuesday women had been parading by his windows, staring like they’d never seen a man before.
New man in town. Single. Eligible bachelor.
Oh, hell.
Out of the blue, the concept hit him square in the face. He didn’t like it. Memories of old festered up mighty quickly and he shook himself, desperately trying to tamp them down.
Living in Louisville for the past twenty years, he’d forgotten about small town antics. He should have known. He’d grown up in a little village just east of Cincinnati where everyone knew everyone else and no one thought twice about getting involved in their neighbor’s business. That was one of the reasons he had preferred the city. One could get lost in the shuffle and do their own thing and not worry about what their neighbor thought or did. It just had never occurred to him that he would have to revert back to dealing with small town antics here in Franklinville.
It was the one thing he’d forgotten.
He just hoped...oh, hell...that he could at least avoid the gossips, busybodies, and matchmakers. He’d had enough of that growing up. If there was anything he disliked more, he didn’t know what it would be.
“Get you anything else?” The teenager batted her eyes and he felt a little queasy.
“No. No thank you,” he told her.
He risked a quick glance back to Gracie again. Yes, it was her. Just as quickly, she averted her gaze.
For some reason, that bothered him.
Gathering up his breakfast, he headed for the door, wondering why she’d kept to herself all week. Then again, he’d not ventured far from his little corner of the world, either, had he? He’d thought, at the very least, she might be curious as to the renovations. Obviously, she wasn’t, which was all the better for him.
“Oh, Mr. Price?”
Gracie?
No. It wasn’t her voice. For some reason, though, he sort of wanted it to be Gracie’s voice. Stopping, he turned to look behind him.
The woman who owned the coffee shop stood about three feet away. He’d not met her but he knew who she was. He’d seen her here every morning and figured she was the “Amie” of Amie’s Place. She commanded the most authority and was definitely the one in control. He’d also seen her at Gracie’s once or twice and assumed they were friends.
She stepped closer. “If you’re not in too much hurry, why don’t you join us for breakfast?” She glanced back to Gracie. Carson followed her gaze and Gracie finally gave him a feeble smile and a little finger wave. She almost looked like she was embarrassed.
It was a small smile. Almost an insecure little half-grin. And it intrigued the hell out of him.
Turning back to Amie he said, “I should really get down the street and to work.”
But Amie was not about to take no for an answer, it seemed. In one motion, she slipped her arm through his and led him toward the back of the coffee shop. “Oh c’mon, just for a few minutes,” she told him. “Have a seat and savor that honeybun and coffee. Besides, I can’t give you free refills down the street and if you stay, you can take one to go when you leave.”
Well, she was right about that. Before he knew it, he was sitting between Gracie and Amie.
There were a few awkward seconds between sips of coffee and tea before Gracie finally spoke.
“So how are things coming along next door?”
Carson took another sip of coffee and finished chewing a bit of pastry. “Fine. Right on schedule.” He nodded in acknowledgement of his own words and finished chewing at the same time.
“That’s great,” she added.
He dropped his head in another nod. “Actually, we’re a little ahead of schedule. Besides the plumbing, there actually wasn’t that much which required a lot of time. We’ll definitely open before the end of the month.”
Gracie nodded. “So, Carson. Can you tell us exactly what your little café is going to be like? I mean, you’ve not really mentioned what your plans are.”
For the first time that morning, Carson allowed his gaze to ling
er over Gracie’s face. She appeared tense and nervous, almost like she didn’t want to be there. Or that she didn’t want him to be there. Her gaze kept skittering away from his whenever he tried to make eye contact, while her fingers fiddled with the handle of her teacup.
Did he make her nervous?
Turning to his right, he took in the opposite expression on Amie’s face. Her eyes appeared to twinkle, like she was holding in a deep belly laugh and the tickle of it was about to make her explode.
Amie leaned forward. “We’d love to hear what you have in mind for the most recent addition to Main Street Franklinville, Carson.”
Oh hell, this one is going to call for fast thinking on your feet, old boy, Carson told himself. Reverting back to tactics he often used in the court room, Carson turned to Gracie. He felt certain he could dupe her easily than he could dupe Amie. That one was a mite too precocious for her own good. Not that Gracie wasn’t an intelligent woman, he was sure she was. There was just something that told him that Amie might be on to him more than Gracie.
“I have a plan in mind,” he started, “but it’s sort of evolving as I go along. Things are coming to me as I work and quite honestly, I think I’d like to keep most of them under my hat until the grand opening.”
“Oooohhh, a man who likes a mystery,” Amie chided. “He’s going to keep us in suspense, Gracie.”
Gracie studied him for a moment with a look he was quite certain he’d never seen on her face before. Suddenly, he wasn’t sure if he Amie was the one he needed to be concerned about.
“I’m sure Carson will let us in on his little secret in due time,” she said, a matter-of-fact tone in her voice.
Then Amie spoke, glancing back and forth from Gracie to him, smiling all the while. “You know, there is a Chamber of Commerce luncheon next week, right Gracie? Perhaps Carson should come and introduce himself to the other business persons in the community and give us some small dribble of news about his new business venture. Would that be possible by then, Mr. Mystery Man?”
Carson stared at her for a moment. Just what was Amie getting at? She did know something, didn’t she? No, impossible. He was just being paranoid. The only person who knew about his real plans for the café were Izzie and his brother. Her suggestion wasn’t a bad idea, though. Besides being breeding grounds for gossips and busybodies, small towns were generally political towns, and networking with local business and professional organizations was exactly what he needed to be doing right now. He needed as many people on his side as he could get, especially when Gracie found out that he had actually duped her.
