Second-Chance Sweet Shop

by Rochelle Alers

  “He’s here in name only.” The tall, striking, dark blond man with suspicious green eyes didn’t let up watching her and was probably waiting for the full explanation.

  That threw her. Franks wasn’t the guy? So much for Dad’s list. He’d only been gone a year, and yet the list was out-of-date. She cocked her head, trying to add things up. Daryl Franks was the name her father had put first, but she’d found Franks & Gardner in the town business directory. Now he was telling her Franks was a name only. Had the man retired or died? More important, if Franks was gone, was this vaguely familiar man—because who could forget a gorgeous face like that—the gatekeeper?

  Flustered, she had to think fast.

  “Uh, may I speak to Mr. Gardner then?” She said it an instant before her vision landed on an official name tag pinned to his minichecked green-and-tan shirt. Zackery Gardner, Construction Manager. “Oh, hello.” She didn’t give him the chance to point it out. He wore the fitted button-up shirt well, the long sleeves rolled up his forearms revealing a dusting of hair lightened to gold by a ray of sunshine peeking through the leaves.

  “Hello.” He waited. Patiently? Folding his arms, legs in wide stance.

  It was her turn, and she had better make good her reasons for showing up unannounced.

  “So, Mr. Gardner, I see you’ve started a huge project here and I wondered if you could use my services for your workers?”

  He canted his head. “And your services are—” Uncrossing his arms, he studied her truck, then looked back at her. “Getting wrapped up and taken home?” he said each word slowly, as though reading her logo aloud. Had she detected a mocking tone?

  Obviously, her cutesy title had fallen flat for him, or he was purposely playing it dense. Dear Lord, please don’t let him think this is a mobile massage parlor! If he was teasing, that was mean, though perhaps deserved, for her having made a cold call. At first, she’d considered phoning before showing up. Then she’d talked herself out of that, thinking the huge truck would do a better job of convincing someone to give her a chance than a nervous voice over the phone. Her father had once told her, before she’d applied online for her first job, that it was harder for a potential boss to pass on an applicant while looking into their eyes. So, as tough as it’d been at the time, she’d taken her teenage self off to the smoothie store in town instead of simply submitting the application through the website. Yep, she’d gotten the job, which led to another job and another. And here she was today, making sure her baby blues didn’t blink under the scrutiny of the site manager’s sexy greens.

  Holding tight to her pride, she chose to ignore Gardner’s gibe about the name of her truck and take the higher road. She was looking for long-term work, after all. Not just the occasional wedding gigs that, thanks to the current trend in California of hiring food trucks instead of caterers, those outdoor marriages provided. A place like this, which clearly had a long way to go before completing the senior housing, could guarantee six months or more. That would be a great start. With references. But she was getting ahead of herself.

  “I make hearty wraps to order, and assorted hand pies. May I show you the menu?” She reached for one, since she hadn’t yet had time to post the big menu on the outside of the truck. She wouldn’t do that—overstep her bounds—until she was hired. Though maybe she’d already overstepped those bounds by showing up uninvited. “Perhaps I can give you a sample?”

  In all truth, she’d hoped she’d find Mr. Franks, like she’d planned, and he’d have a huge stomach hanging over his belt buckle, a man always eager to eat. She would’ve appealed to his appetite and secured the job with ease. So much for meditation and envisioning her future. Why did she even bother to listen to online self-help podcasts?

  The Not-Mr. Franks, the well-built man who obviously watched what he ate, stepped toward the window, so she leaned over to give him the also-neon-pink-flyer-styled menu. Maybe she should have rethought the color before targeting construction jobs. Her fingers touched his at the handoff. Zip, a tingle ran up her arm. Well, that hadn’t happened in a long time. Odd. Had he felt it, too?

  He removed his hard hat while he perused her face. Hair that was longer than she’d expected swept across his forehead and covered half of his ears. Nice waves. Nice suntan. Nice smile lines. Wait, he was smiling at her.

  She forced a tense, overwide smile. “See anything you like?”

  His eyebrow shot up as his gaze held firm with hers. Oh, crud, she hadn’t meant to say it like some old come-on line. Understandably, he could totally take it wrong, but she hadn’t meant it that way! His steady stare with the one raised brow said otherwise and made her wonder what was going on in his mind. Really, dude? Her thoughts quickly slipped to insecurity. “Food-wise,” she added hastily.

  His green eyes twinkled playfully for an instant before he gave her a benevolent smile and glanced back at the menu. “What do you recommend?” Thank goodness, he hadn’t taken the lowbrow tease route, because these days she wouldn’t work for a man who did.

  “If you allow me to fire up my grill, I’ll make you the Chicken Done Right wrap. Oh, and I’ve got all the permits to operate and the health department certificate, if you’d like to see them.” Being in construction, the man had to know all about the importance of pulling permits.

  He thought, his lower lip pushed out the tiniest bit, and, darn, that was a sexy look, which she had no business noticing. “Chicken sounds good. And I can see your permits from here.” They were posted in frames on the kitchen wall. All she’d needed to do was gesture to them, but no, she’d gone her usual route of explaining too much.

  “How much time do you need?” He broke into her self-doubt and chronic overthinking.

  “Since the grill needs to heat first, ten minutes?” Her index finger went up, thinking fast. “But if I was serving your guys, it’d only take five minutes.” She tightened the elastic on her ponytail, glad she’d put a word in for herself and her short-order-cook abilities. “Because the grill would already have been heated up.” There she went, repeating herself again, but only because she understood the importance of being redundant when necessary. Then, with his nod to go ahead, she turned on the grill and gave him another wide smile. “I pride myself in being fast.”

  Both of his brows shot up this time, accompanied by an amused expression. Yeah, she seemed to be on a roll. Thank goodness, she only had two feet to stick in her mouth. She blinked and took a tiny inhale, avoiding his tolerant gaze by getting busy.

  Why did she keep feeding him old lines, and why were his reactions pointing in all the wrong directions? Because he’d started it by not getting her puns in the truck logo? Wrap her up and take her home? Or because of him, and the fact he was total construction-god material and everything about him spelled S-E-X, and...

  No way was she in any mental or emotional state to think about such things. And yet he’d taken her there on a zip line. Not good.

  * * *

  Her hand flew to wipe a wisp of hair out of her eye, not having felt this nervous about cooking for someone in ages.

  “I’ll be back in ten,” he said, ignoring her jitteriness and thankfully not taking the usual route of many men. You pride yourself in being fast? Well, then, I’d really like to try that out. Duh and har-har-har.

  Not him. Maybe all the hoopla from recent sexual-harassment scandals had all men—and it was about time—on their best behavior. Even at construction sites, leaving her looking like an old-school ditz. Which she definitely wasn’t! She slid on the ponytail hairnet and put her bright pink toque in place. May as well complete the picture, because no way would she ever let one of her easily identifiable hairs land in her food.

  Seriously, though, he didn’t strike her as the type to not respect women. Just a hunch, but there was something kind about his demeanor beneath that hard hat. Something she recognized. Remembered?

  Zackery.

 
An eerie chill tiptoed down her spine, suddenly transporting her back twenty years to when she used to accompany her dad to his work sites during summer vacations right here in Little River Valley. The first huge crush of her lifetime had been on a grown-up. Well, in reality, the guy was probably a teenager, but in her little-girl eyes, that was an adult. A handsome construction worker. She still remembered his name. Zack. Blond. Green eyes. Long wavy hair, back then, really long. Swoonworthy in a Thor kind of way. She and her immature heart had vowed to never forget him.

  Except she had until just now.

  A full body shiver nearly had her missing the sizzling grill with the marinated chicken concoction. It was him, had to be, except twenty years older and, in her opinion, sexier than ever. Because what had she known at eleven about sex appeal?

  She’d had the most amazing and superinnocent daydreams about him then. Simply because he’d been nice enough to smile at her and tease her about her copper-red hair. You look like a new penny. Maybe I should call you Penny instead of Lacy? In her little-girl fantasies, he’d held her hand and told her how beautiful she was. They’d walked through meadows of wildflowers, and, as dreams go with little girls, he’d delivered her first kiss. Her idea of what a kiss would be like, anyway. A chaste kiss, because again, what had she known about any of that back then?

  His mouth came to mind, while he’d read her menu with that lower lip man-style pout. She wouldn’t mind trying out everything she’d learned about kissing with him since she’d grown up. She snorted and made a dry swallow. Whew, was the grill superhot or something?

  Wait. In her rush, she’d forgotten to turn on the vent and open the back windows. After a quick push of the chicken around the grill, she slid open the extra windows and wiped the tiny sheen from her upper lip. Where had she left the water?

  Finding the bottle, she took another drink and focused on making the best dang wrap she could. Her welfare depended on it since she’d recently quit her other job. While she was at it, she’d warm one of her apple hand pies from the batch made fresh last night. Wasn’t that every man’s favorite?

  For the sake of the next phase of her career, she sure hoped so.

  * * *

  Ten minutes to the second later, Zack Gardner strolled from his office toward the bright food truck. The sight of it made him smile, but he kept it to himself. Wouldn’t want to encourage her when he had zero intention of letting the redhead set up shop. That girlie rig was meant for kids’ parties and Santa Barbara beach volleyball games, not construction sites. Any serious business person should know it, too.

  A flash of her natural red hair while she cooked sent a memory whirling through his mind. The color was the kind so many women tried to match in salons, but usually fell flat. Hers was nothing short of stunning, and he’d only met one other person with that shade in his life. He’d gotten his first summer temporary job in construction when he’d been nineteen. He recalled that he couldn’t believe how hard the job was and how ravenous he’d been, all the time. There’d been a long line of jobs and food trucks over the past twenty years, all blurry. But he remembered his first real job and first food truck just like it was yesterday because, well, everything was the first back then. The Winters Breakfast and Lunch truck. That was it. That guy hadn’t needed a catchy name or flashy color. Winters’s truck had been institution white with black lettering on the side. And didn’t the middle-aged guy have to bring his kid with him during the summer? Just like Zack would have to do over spring break next week with his own ten-year-old daughter, Emma. His memories grew stronger. Back then, John Winters made the best cheeseburgers he’d ever tasted, and Winters’s daughter had bright red hair just like her father. A copper penny came to mind. Could this woman be that kid?

  He narrowed his eyes, studying the foodmobile. Erase the neon-pink paint job, and it looked about the same size and style as that other food truck. When she’d first pulled up and had caught his attention through the office window, he’d had a hunch the truck was vintage. Here in Little River Valley, people liked vintage stuff. On closer examination, it most definitely was an original, even for twenty years ago. He had to respect someone who valued history. It showed insight.

  Getting nearer to the truck, with a delicious aroma perking up his nose and appetite, even though it was way too early to think about lunch, he made a snap decision. He’d keep all his memories to himself because, as he’d previously decided, he wasn’t going to let her set up. The guys were perfectly happy bringing their lunch pails or piling into cars and driving into town on their break. Why get her hopes up, make her think they had some connection, by playing the reminiscing game?

  Those bright blue eyes noticed him coming and another inviting smile creased her lips. Don’t even think about it. Women are bad news, especially ones that look like her.

  “I hope you’re hungry,” she said with an eager-to-please expression. An expression that came off far too sweet to ignore. How could she be bad news?

  History, remember? As in all women.

  Still he fought off a smile. He hadn’t been hungry fifteen minutes ago, but now his stomach growled in anticipation. “Sure smells good.”

  She handed him a supersize paper plate with the enormous wrap nearly filling it. “Whoa, this thing’s huge.”

  “I know how big construction workers’ appetites can be.”

  Yeah, he did, too, but he no longer did the hard work, not for the past five years, anyway. He’d put in his time breaking his back with construction company after construction company, and eventually worked his way up to foreman. Now he was the owner-manager. Half of this wrap was going home to share. Just like her logo said, he’d wrap it up and take it home.

  He bit into the wrap. Holy heavenly taste buds, she knew how to season, and the chicken was melt-in-your-mouth tender and juicy. Filled with unexpected vegetables and bits of potato swimming in her special sauce, the mouthwatering spinach-green wrap was more a meal in a megasize tortilla than a substitute for a sandwich. She should’ve named the truck Manwich—Sandwiches for men with manly appetites. But Emma would love the wrap, too, and it was so much healthier than their usual fast food. Still, he didn’t want to get Ms., uh, her hopes up. “What’d you say your name was?”

  “Lacy Winters.”

  Dang it! Memories were strange things, popping up after lying dormant for years, and right now his recall worked at hyperspeed. “John Winters’s girl?”

  She nodded, a hint of surprise in her stare.

  He knew it. How many people walked the earth with that color hair? Penny! “This is pretty good,” he said, before he had a chance to remember he wasn’t going to go there—reminisce—or give his consent for her to park on his construction site.

  There went that extra bright smile again. It was hard to take his eyes off her, especially while mouthwatering flavors hit his tongue. He looked around for a place to sit and couldn’t find one, so he left the plate on the food truck counter and, using both hands to hold the wrap, took several more bites.

  “Can I get you another napkin?”

  Sauce dribbled over his chin and onto his hands. “Thanks.”

  “Would you like a drink?” she said, after handing off the wad of napkins.

  “Water’s fine.” Wouldn’t want anything to compete with the delicious ingredients he was ingesting like a man who hadn’t eaten in days. “What’s this?”

  She’d placed, next to his wrap, a much smaller plate holding a pastry with a light brown crust.

  “That’s half of one of my apple hand pies. I heated it for you.”

  Why wait until he was too full to want or be able to enjoy dessert? He grabbed it and took a bite. Warm melt-in-your-mouth piecrust hit his taste buds, the kind he only remembered from his mother’s kitchen, until now. Cinnamon-seasoned, obviously fresh apples sweetened to perfection broke through as he chewed. “What’s your background?” He couldn’t help
talking with his mouth full.

  “I’ve been a cook at the Local Grown Restaurant here in town for the past three years. Before that, I was a short-order cook at Becky Sue’s.”

  “That breakfast and lunch diner?”

  She nodded, then continued. “My dad got me started in the food industry. This is actually his truck.”

  He knew it!

  “I got it updated and overhauled after he died last year.”

  The man would probably roll over in his grave if he knew it was pink. “I’m sorry to hear that. You know, I remember your father. He had red hair like you, right?” The Winters food truck had shown up at a lot of construction sites he’d worked over the years, but not with her. Except for that first summer.

  Her prideful closed-mouth smile and nod told him she loved her dad, and was both pleased and surprised Zack had remembered the man.

  He finished off the hand pie and took a swig of water. “I’m fairly sure I remember you, too.” With a happily full stomach, and in the presence of a pretty woman, he was suddenly in a chatty mood. “You were about this tall.” He leveled his hand waist high. “And skinny. Looked like you were all head with that wild red hair.” He half grinned, proud of his recollection.

  Well, so much for Lacy’s little-girl daydreams. He’d thought she was “all head” and skinny as a rail? At least he remembered her. Bet you didn’t know you were my first imaginary kiss, did ya? For some crazy reason, probably from still being raw for the last several years, after losing the two men she’d loved most, her dad being the latest, she’d let Zack hurt her feelings. Irrational thinking or not, calling her “all head” had stung, and Lacy did a lousy job of hiding her reaction.