“Please excuse me. I have a customer to attend to.”
Millie Blaine sauntered up, wreathed in a bright smile. Her blonde curls bounced as she approached, the corkscrew curls bright with new highlights. Her lipstick was a bit too dark, but it made her eyes pop.
“Hey, Bethie! How are you doing?”
Relieved at the sight of a familiar face, I returned her smile. “Hey, Millie. The usual?”
“Mmm. Double shot today, please. I’m packed with hair appointments. Luckily, Devin’s at home helping his father with a new truck job. Good Lord loves us.”
Thankfully, Maverick faded into the office again. A long breath whooshed out of me when he shut the door. Millie silently tracked him until he disappeared, then turned to me with a squeal.
“Who is that?”
“Trouble,” I muttered.
“Then trouble is gorgeous. Wait, why is he in your office?”
“He’s renting it as a workspace.”
Her nose scrunched. “That tiny thing?”
“That tiny thing.”
She studied me with a shrewd gaze. “Uh-huh,” she murmured. “And sparks are flying?”
“Millie, no! Geez. What are you . . . no. Nothing like that.”
“Right. You haven’t noticed that he’s 1,000% male and the size of a fridge? Don’t tell me you don’t want to feel those arms around you, or haven’t thought about it. That’s a lie!” She pointed to me as soon as I opened my mouth. Her voice took on a wispy edge. “It would be like cuddling a Viking.”
“Or a large piece of inflexible wood that thinks highly of itself.”
She smirked.
I set her steaming cup in front of her with a dangerous glare. “This is not something I’m going to talk about. He’s a paying customer of Dad’s coffee shop, and that’s it. I treat him with courtesy and respect, just like anyone else.”
Which is why I haven’t punched him.
“It’s your store now,” she said softly, a sad smile on her face as she took the cup. “It’s not your dad’s anymore.”
“How’s the family?” I asked, hearing the edge in my own voice.
“Fine.” She sighed. “Mac’s already butchered the cows we had on track for the summer, so he’s picking up car work again. If we’re not borrowing money from Peter to pay Paul, I don’t know what we’re doing.” She glanced at her watch with a little cry. “Gotta go! Thanks, girl. You’re a lifesaver.”
After she left, Maverick’s steady voice came from the office, a blur in the background. Probably in another meeting. I leaned against the counter with a long breath. Thinking was easier when I didn’t have to see him.
Life was never supposed to be fair, Dad muttered in my head.
I made a mental note to riffle through the messy binder he’d left behind. Maybe there was an operations manual. The uneasy truth that maybe Maverick was right made me restless.
My eyes roved the shop, lingering on the old fishing knickknacks decorating the far wall. Pictures of bass and trout and carp. Dad fishing in Alaska. Stupid signs like I fish . . . therefore I am . . . not here!
Homey. Cozy. Definitely Dad.
This didn’t look like it was teetering on the edge of disaster.
Right?
The Frolicking Moose had been Dad’s big retirement and dream. A coffee shop and a bed-and-breakfast on the reservoir of a small mountain town, Bee, he’d always said to me, sipping artisan coffee and looking out over the lake. It’s the life.
He’d thrown everything into it after retiring from the military. Blueprints for the bed-and-breakfast expansion lay forgotten in the storage room, collecting dust. At the time, I thought him indomitable. Everything would happen because Dad made things happen.
Only now was I starting to see the truth.
He had been disorganized, at best. Drowning, at worst. He’d invested in things he didn’t really need, like an awning, when the ice maker had been sputtering to death. I’d been forced to buy a run-down espresso machine that was unreliable on its best day.
Dad’s booming laugh had hidden the truth. Everything had seemed fine. I’d called him the day before the heart attack. The last time I’d spoken to him in person, he’d left me with the biggest bear hug I’d ever felt. All my concerns about finishing college and settling into my real estate dream had felt much smaller. I wished that was all I was dealing with now.
Maybe that’s what hurt the most. Seeing a side of Dad I hadn’t known existed, left with a legacy I’d never wanted.
Had the coffee shop pushed him to that early grave?
Why had he hidden his debt from me?
Amongst the expenses was my college tuition. The mortgage. Some debt from years past. His insurance could only cover so much, and it was already gone.
Shaking that off, I found my determination again. This place would prosper. It would achieve all the dreams that he’d set for it, and then some. And then I’d crush it in the real estate market here with The Frolicking Moose as my very first sale.
As soon as I pulled it out of the mounting credit card debt, talked to the bank about the mortgage, and . . . figured out how to run this place without driving myself into the ground.
Like so many other problems, at least I could put Maverick off until tomorrow. The soft padding of four feet coming down the spiral stairs caught my attention. Just in time, too.
I had another quandary to face.
That night, I grabbed my laundry bag to head to the laundromat and then my second trip to the grocery store this week. Feeding young mouths was more intense than I’d thought. I stopped when the bag dropped to the ground, unexpectedly heavy.
Frowning, I stooped down and yanked it open.
An old plastic water bottle lay inside. It had already been used, but it was carefully refilled all the way to the top. Next to it was a collection of half-eaten pastries I’d given Ellie for breakfast. She must have stashed this all away here. Some doughnut packages and candy bars and protein bars I was sure had been stolen. Amongst the food were old shoelaces, wire, and metal pointy things sanded to a sharp tip that she’d probably found outside.
Understanding dawned all at once.
Ellie had always been flighty. Half-feral as she roamed the woods and fields by Jim and Mama’s house. They had open acreage for farming against a backdrop of forest, and Ellie had always lost herself in the outdoors.
But now she was trying to be ready again, just in case. She was always one step ahead of everyone.
Shaken, I stuffed the bag back where I’d found it and stared at my hands. If I didn’t take the girls, Ellie would run. We might never find her again.
Grabbing my keys with a scowl, I headed out. Laundry could wait another day.
The wheels of my cart squeaked a lonely song as I snaked through the only grocery store in Pineville, my mind on Ellie. Everything here lay packed close together, as if they wanted to cram as much as possible into the rectangular space. Air conditioning blew on me from overhead vents as I drove past the fruit, grabbing a cantaloupe.
Then I wandered to the greeting card aisle and spent way too long laughing at a few stupid cards before I bought them. Sending cards had always been Pappa’s thing, so I’d kept his list going in his honor. Birthdays. Deaths. Anniversaries. All of them inherited family friends, because all my other family had died, except Lizbeth and Ellie.