by Tracy Ewens
“One condition.”
“And what would that be?”
“Nothing about my past. I’d like to focus on right now.”
This time, their eyes met and Kara wasn’t sure if he was asking her not to discuss his other women or his past with her. Neither were topics she wanted to cover, so she agreed. Instead, she asked him why he chose the hardware store for his restaurant and learned Logan had grown into a man who cared about preserving the world he lived in and he believed in reusing and recycling when possible.
“Why would I build from scratch when I can add on to the history of this place, give it new life?” he asked. “This would have been demolished for some strip mall eventually, but now it’s a restaurant, a place for people to gather. Kind of like the hardware store it was before. One honors the other. I hope someday when The Yard is past its prime that someone will come in and change it up. Layers, I like layers.”
Kara nodded. She agreed, but didn’t want to say so. She took notes because any more than that distant act would feed the yearning she felt every time he shared more of himself.
“Last question, do you believe in big farms? I mean you must since your family has run one for generations.”
“I believe in anything as long as it’s responsibly run.” He stood and put their dishes in a bin behind the bar. “I’m not against big. There are a lot of people on the planet. I’m against sloppy, lazy, and just plain wrong.”
“Can I quote you on that, Mr. Rye, because that was a great line?” She grabbed her keys and then standing, she slung her bag onto her shoulder.
“Sure.” He handed her a box.
“What’s this?”
“A surprise.”
“Logan, I don’t need—”
“I know,” he interrupted, and Kara could have sworn he looked concerned, “but just take it.”
She took the box.
“Now go.” He smiled. “Enough questions, I have work to do.”
She waved to Travis, and upon being questioned by the hostess about her hair, Kara told the beautiful young girl that she too had naturally curly hair, but she had it blown out most of the time.
“See, I need to do that. My name is Summer by the way.” She touched her curly auburn hair a bit self-consciously.
Kara leaned over the hostess station, not concerned about the waiting crowd. “Don’t touch one hair on your gorgeous head. You don’t want straight hair,” Kara urged, meeting her eyes. “Trust me.”
Summer smiled and Kara knew that, despite her advice, the young woman would spend countless hours with a flat iron. She would have to figure it out on her own someday. Women rarely took advice, preferring instead to learn as they went along.
Kara climbed into her black BMW, but before she shifted into drive, curiosity got the best of her. She popped open the folded closure of the brown cardboard box Logan had given her. Rich, deep chocolate cake with cherries. In the stillness of her car, Kara sighed and picked up the plastic fork that was in the box. The cake was so moist, just the right amount of cocoa and the zing of cherry puckered her lips. At the last bite, she rested back and closed her eyes. Her stomach was warm and full. She opened her eyes, picked up the last few crumbs with her finger, and put them in her mouth. She smiled. No one was watching her. As she pulled out of the parking lot, she felt something she barely recognized: satisfied.
Chapter Nine
The Yard ran a food truck once a month down at Irwindale Speedway. Logan grew up watching the races with his family. His brother Garrett was into racing in his twenties, but not so much anymore now that the farm kept him busy. Once a month Logan broke out his best short ribs, pulled pork, and burgers for the race crowd. It was his way of bringing good, wholesome food to places that up until recently only offered pizza pockets or bad hot dogs. Todd, their new apprentice, had asked to work the truck with him.
Logan loved that a lot of the same race fans had known him since he was a kid. They supported every restaurant he worked at on his way up into his own place. They were family—show up and smile even if it’s raining or hot as hell family.
Logan was inside the truck and trying to remember why he’d agreed to bring Todd, who was leaning up against the stainless-steel counter that ran the back length of the truck, texting with a big dumb grin on his face. Logan didn’t want to know what that conversation was about, but he did pound on the cutting board that had four onions the guy had yet to slice. Startled, Todd slid his phone into his back pocket.
“Right, sorry bro, I’ll get on these criers right now. There’s just this girl who won’t leave me alone and—”
Logan held up his hand, indicating he didn’t want to hear one more word of Todd’s story and pointed back to the onions, or “criers” as Todd like to call them. Logan maneuvered around him to grab more napkins and then turned back to the grill. Logan’s dad was sitting outside at one of the picnic tables they’d set up, waiting for his burger and talking to Eddie, “the plastics guy,” as his father called him. Eddie was a rep for the company that supplied the farm with all its feed buckets and lockers. The two men went all the way back to high school together.
“Herb, your son is quite a cook there,” Logan heard Eddie say as he slid his father’s burger onto one of their homemade buns.
“Thanks, Eddie. Yeah, he’s really making a go of it. Have you been to his restaurant yet?”
“Oh yeah, Bev took me there for my birthday last week. I had that cauliflower in cheese for an appetizer. Holy Moses, I told Bev I didn’t even know I liked cauliflower.”
Both men laughed and Logan smiled as he wrapped his father’s burger and stepped up to the food truck window.
“Hey, Eddie.”
“Logan. Good to see you down here at the races. Don’t want to lose you now that you’re a damn master with that cauliflower.”
“Not a chance. It was nice to see you on your birthday. Thanks for sharing it with us.”
“Thanks for that pudding and the candle. That was nice of ya.”
“You’re welcome. Can I get you something tonight?” he asked, handing down the paper-wrapped burger to his father.
“What’ve you got there, Herb?”
“Burger, he grinds the meat himself.”
“No shit?” he asked looking at Logan.
“No shit, we get the chuck and sirloin from our butcher every week. About eighty-five to fifteen ratio, depending on what they have.”
“This isn’t one of those damn gourmet burgers is it?”
Logan shook his head. “Just salt and pepper. When the meat’s that fresh, you don’t need to do much else.”
“Sounds good. I’ll take two: one for Bev, one for me. Both medium.”
“You got it.” Logan turned to the grill.
“You don’t get much of a chance to see the show from in there,” Eddie called to him in the truck.
“No, but at least I can still hear it.” Logan packaged everything up in a small box and threw in some napkins and peppers from the garden he’d recently pickled. He knew Eddie loved peppers.
When Eddie reached for his wallet to pay, Logan stopped him. “It’s on the house. Consider it an extended birthday celebration.”
“That’s awful nice of you, Logan. You’ve got a good boy here, Herb.”
His father nodded with his mouth full. Logan promised to cater Bev’s fiftieth birthday party next year and Eddie headed back out to watch the races.
Todd finished the onions and seemed ready to actually work, so Logan left him at the window while he loaded the two small refrigerators at the back of the truck with more bottles of water.
“Oh, yes please. Prime cut heading our way.”
Logan shook his head, but then laughed. “Is it sad that I know you’re talking about a woman? Prime cut, huh? Well, you can go ahead and take this one, just behave.” Still crouched down at refrigerators, Logan shot him a warning look.
“Not a problem, man. I got this.”
Todd turned to the window.
“Hey there, darlin’. What can I get you?”
“Wow, are you from the South?”
Logan stopped at the sound of the familiar voice. Todd’s prime cut was Kara Malendar. Oh, this was going to be good. He stayed out of sight and listened to the show.
“No, I’m from Sacramento. Why?”
“Oh, no reason. I just think Southern gentlemen are the only ones who can pull off little nicknames for women they don’t know without sounding sleazy.”
“But I said I wasn’t Southern.”
“Exactly. I’ll have the burger.”
Logan cracked up and Todd turned to him, looking like a man who had just been taken down a notch, maybe two. While Todd fixed her burger, Logan moved toward the window.
“Hello, Kara,” Logan heard his dad say. He’d met Kara briefly when he’d come into The Yard for lunch. Herbert Rye never forgot a pretty face, Logan thought smiling, as he remained out of sight.
“Hello, Mr. Rye.”
“Oh, please call me Herb.”
“Sorry, can’t do that. I would never hear the end of it from my mother.”
She must have smiled because from Logan’s view, he could see his father was smitten. Couldn’t actually blame him. Kara’s smile could be pretty potent.
“Well all right then. Burgers are good tonight.”
“That’s what I hear.”
“I didn’t know you were a race fan.”
“Well, I’m not really. I’m here with my brother, Grady, and some idiot . . . I mean a very special guy he thought I should meet.”
“Ah, blind date?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Might want to get a beer with that burger.”
Kara laughed and walked back to the window. Logan could finally see her. Tight jeans, a thin orange sweater that left little to the imagination, and short black boots. Boots with super high heels at a racetrack. Logan smiled. Her hair was down, curly, but pulled off her face in some braid he didn’t understand, but the whole look woke him right up.
“I might.” She laughed again as Logan’s father threw out his wrapper.
“I’ll be back, Lo. Kara, try to have a good night.”
“Thank you.” He could see her neck stiffen as she turned to find Logan looking down at her.
“You’re the famous burger?”
“Well, not exactly. I make the famous burger. Blind date, huh?”
“Don’t start.” Kara grabbed some napkins.
“What? I was just going to say that this is a surprise, princess.”
“Yeah, well Grady likes this sort of thing.” She looked over her shoulder toward the track as the announcer riled up the crowd.
“I knew there was a reason I liked him.”
Kara handed up her money and Logan took the burger from Todd—who was now cowering in the corner of the truck like a neutered dog—and handed it down to her.
“Is that for you, or did you walk all the way over here in those boots to get your new honey a snack?”
Kara shook her head. “Very funny. It’s for me.”
“Good to see you eating, even if it is my food.”
“I eat.” She shifted from one of those heels to the other. “And, I didn’t know it was your food. Why isn’t the name on your truck? Why didn’t Grady tell me when he sent me over?”
Logan could almost see the lightbulb go on behind Kara’s eyes. Grady must have caught on that the blind date was not going well, so he sent Kara to him. He was running on about three hours of sleep, and curly, sexy Kara Malendar was exactly what he needed. “Thank you, Grady,” he almost said out loud.
“We recently finished refurbishing the truck. The name goes up next month,” he explained instead.
“And what’s wrong with my boots?” she asked, putting her free hand on her barely there hip. Kara needed two burgers, he thought. She still didn’t look like she ate enough. For a moment, Logan wondered why and then he stopped. Not his circus, not his monkeys. That was his new life motto, but he was allowed to tease the monkeys. That was just good fun.
He leaned out the window and peered down at the boots and the woman wearing them. A smile spread across his face.
“Nothing.”
Kara shook her head. “You’ve passed annoying now. It seems like you’re only decent when we’re talking about food.”
“Probably.” Logan fixed the condiments in front of him and wiped the small metal shelf.
Kara appeared to be gearing up to say something but must have changed her mind. Logan’s aching head was thankful for that. She turned to leave.
“Have a good night, princess. Enjoy that date, oh and the burger.”
Kara put her hand up to wave and one finger in particular barely shot up a little taller than the others. Huh, who would have thought, and this close to Election Day. Must be the racetrack dust rubbing off on her.
Logan laughed.
“He was a perfectly nice guy. I don’t think you gave him a chance,” Grady said two races later.
“Where did you find him?” Kara asked.
“He’s Josh’s brother.”
She had no idea who Josh was, let alone his brother.
“Josh, we were friends at Stanford? He runs my . . . I think he runs that Roads Foundation, you know the big one?” Grady suddenly appeared uncomfortable, but Kara let it go.
“Your friend runs a foundation like Roads and his brother still collects baseball cards?”
“What?” Grady asked and started to laugh.
“He shared that little tidbit with me when you went for your pretzel. The man is thirty-three, just recently moved out of his parents’ home, and bought his first house. The highlight, the best part of owning his own place according to him, was having a spot for his card collection. Takes up his entire guest bedroom apparently.” Kara sipped the last of her water and threw the bottle into the metal barrel.
Grady was still laughing. “Are you kidding me?”
“Would I make this crap up? So, thanks for introducing me to that little gem.” She was now laughing with him.
“Sorry about that, but at least I got you out to the races. Pretty cool, huh?”
“It is.” Kara stopped and looked back one last time at the lights cutting through the air still thick with dust from the last race. “It was surprisingly cool. I might come back.”
Grady raised his eyebrows as if he was still holding out hope for Josh’s brother.
“Alone. I might come back alone.” She smiled. “Or with my favorite brother.”
Kara hooked her arm in his as they left the track, heading toward Grady’s car. She had suggested getting a driver for the night, but Grady argued that it messed with his innate manliness to be driven to the alpha of all sports, a racetrack. Fortunately they’d met “the blind date” at the track, so there was a quick handshake when he left right before the last race, claiming his allergies were acting up. Blind Date was going to stop by his mom’s because she made him this great herbal tea. Dear God, as if Kara didn’t have enough reasons not to date.
“Did you see Logan?” Grady asked, opening the car door for her.
“You know I did. You sent me to him.” She grabbed the door and closed it. She heard Grady laugh as he walked over to his side.
“How was that?” He put his seatbelt on, still smiling.
“It was fine. A good burger.”
“Is that all?”
“Yup.”
“Huh. Something’s up with you two. Are you ever going to tell me how you know him?”
“I already told you. We both went to UCLA.”
“So you met him in class?”
“Sort of.”
“Can I get a little more?”
Kara sighed. “I’m going to tell you where I met him, okay, but you need to be an adult and refrain from giggling. Can you do that?”
“I do love a good giggle, but I think I can control myself.” Grady stopped the car amid the huge bottleneck of traffic leaving the track.
“Okay, try hard.” Kara took a deep breath. “I met Logan in Paris.”
Grady looked over and she could see he was trying to control himself, but probably wouldn’t succeed.
“Paris your junior year? The year Stanley made you—”
“Yes, that Paris.” She hoped the conversation would die there. She should have known better.
“Cooking school. Ah, that makes sense. He was part of that cultural thing.”
“Yes.”
“Huh. Were you two . . . friendly? Because at the volunteer thing it seemed like he might have known some things about you.”
“We were friends.”
“And?”
“And then he found out who I really was, that I was lying, and I was leaving. When Mom’s flying monkeys came to collect me, it all became a bit ridiculous.”
“I thought Dad’s flying monkeys brought you home.”
“Whatever, I always blame everything on Mom because, well she’s easier to dislike.”
Grady laughed.
“Anyway, I never heard from Logan again.”
“Until now.”
Kara nodded. “Right, until now.”
“And you’re writing this article or these three articles about him and his place.”
“I am.”
Grady was quiet as he finally made it out of the gate and turned onto Speedway.
“What?” Kara asked when he snickered.
“Oh, nothing. Just sounds like the setup for a really good romance.”
“Yeah? And you watch a lot of romance?”
“I’m all about romance these days, little sister.”
“Great. Well, let’s stick with your romance because I’m more of an action film girl myself or maybe one of those moody, tragic, but somehow life-affirming, indie stories.”
“Like one where the woman is pent up for so long that she finally breaks free and becomes a Vegas showgirl or a high-end hooker?”
Kara laughed. “Yes, exactly like that. I’ll take one of those, except no hooking. I feel like I lack the skill set for that job.”
“Well, as your brother, that is good to hear. Enough of your sad little indie flick, let’s get back to my sweeping romance. Kate and I are going away for the weekend. Last weekend before the big Election Day.”
