Sugar And Spice (Main Street Merchants Book 7) Read online

  “Hey, good morning. I didn’t know you delivered this early.”

  “I don’t usually, but this guy tipped extra.” Gabe winked. “Have a good day.”

  He left before she could offer him some coffee. Intrigued, she walked over to the counter and pulled the card out of the holder. Just her first name was written on the front of the envelope. Inside, it read,

  Please forgive me for the horrible impression I made last night. I’d like a chance to make it up to you. Chad

  Chad. Oh, Chef Avery? She’d all but forgotten he even had a first name. Sending her flowers? It seemed . . . well, she didn’t know what it seemed. It was confusing.

  She took the vase and set it up on the shelf behind the cash register. That way, everyone could enjoy something bright and cheerful—the sky was gray, and there were enough clouds that she doubted they’d see much blue at all before nightfall. The card disappeared into her pocket. She’d have to think about it.

  Her regular customers bustled in, and she was kept busy refilling coffee cups and handing out plates of pancakes. Soon, the smell of freshly baked bread filled the whole diner, and more than one person said they’d be back for Eddie’s signature bread and soup lunch. Each time the door opened, a gust of cold air rushed in, but the warmth of the kitchen chased it away, and Sloane couldn’t help but smile. There were few things more comforting than being warm and toasty on a chilly day.

  Then the door opened again, and Toby stepped through.

  “Hey, Sloane,” he said, hanging his coat on the rack. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine, thanks. And you? Catch a cold last night?”

  “What? Oh, no—I was fine.” He chuckled. “Is this booth okay?”

  “It’s great. Let me get you some coffee.”

  Sloane was a little annoyed with herself at how her hands trembled as she grabbed a clean mug. She’d had her head in the clouds for so long, she thought everything was a romance novel. How silly. Toby was just a really nice guy—a really cute nice guy—who had taken time off from work to walk her home. There was nothing romantic about that at all. In the slightest.

  She set the mug in front of him. “Do you know what you want?”

  “Yeah, I’ll take your pumpkin chocolate chip pancakes.”

  She grinned. “And anything else?”

  “Bacon. Quite a lot of bacon.”

  “Great. I’ll be right back.”

  When she put the ticket on the order wheel, Eddie peered at her through the window. “Guy came back?”

  “He did. Weird, huh?”

  “It’s about time.”

  Sloane opened her mouth to argue, but then realized she couldn’t. Yes, it was about time someone came back in to see her. Maybe he’d come for the coffee, though—she couldn’t discount that.

  And she wasn’t sure if the flowers counted.

  Especially when she’d rather be getting flowers from Toby.

  After several of her customers had gone and she finished wiping pancake syrup off the tables and chairs, Toby came up and leaned on the counter. “Hey, you mind if I say hi to Eddie?”

  Sloane lifted an eyebrow. “You aren’t going to try to get another recipe off him, are you? I mean, that better not be your reason for coming back here.”

  Toby laughed. “I just want to say hello. I promise that I won’t even look at his stove.”

  “All right, but if I smell anything fishy going on, you’re outta there, buddy.”

  She led him toward the back and left the two of them chatting. Or rather, Toby chatted and Eddie grunted. It was a pretty standard Eddie conversation.

  Two more sticky tables were cleaned up, and then Chef Avery walked into the diner. Sloane froze, a rag in her hand that smelled like bleach. She tossed it into the little sink behind the counter and wiped her hands, then walked toward him, smiling. “Hello. Thank you for the flowers.”

  “I see you’re enjoying them.” He nodded toward the shelf.

  “I am, and I’ve gotten several compliments on them. Really, though, you didn’t have to send them. Everything’s fine.”

  “Are you sure? You didn’t seem fine when you left.”

  Sloane glanced around. This wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have in front of the whole diner, but she only had two tables full, so she guessed it wasn’t too bad. “Why don’t you have a seat and let’s talk. Coffee?”

  “No, thanks.”

  He took a chair at the table she indicated, and she sat across from him. “I wasn’t expecting to have this conversation,” she said honestly. “I actually thought I wouldn’t be seeing you again.”

  “And you’d probably prefer it that way.”

  Nope, nothing awkward happening here. “Your note said you wanted to make amends. Did you mean that?”

  “Of course. Last night was . . . well, I wasn’t quite myself. Some things happened that set me on edge, and I’m afraid I didn’t handle it as well as I should have.”

  He seemed sincere. Time to see how long that lasted. “What about firing your sous chef?”

  He raised both hands. “That’s the first thing I took care of this morning, even before I ordered your flowers. I called Andrew, apologized, and asked him to come back.”

  “You did?” Huh. “That’s good. You need to understand, I’m in food service too, and I know how rough it gets. He didn’t deserve to be fired for some limp vegetables.”

  “I know. I was completely wrong and told him as much.” Chef Avery smiled. “What else can I do to make this up to you?”

  She sat back and contemplated him. “Why do you want to make it up to me so very much? We’ve known each other . . . what, a couple of days? How can my opinion be so important to you?”

  He glanced down at the table, the first sign of vulnerability she’d seen. It looked good on him. “I’m new here, as you know, and you were the first person I really spoke to. I’d like us to be friends, Sloane. I’d like to feel as though I have a connection here.”

  Oh, shoot. He was going to play the “be my friend” card. She hated it when people did that—she could never say no. “So, what all does being your friend entail?”

  He smiled, and it was warm. “It entails letting me take you to lunch up at the resort. That way, neither of us will be in our work environments, and it gives me a chance to check out the competition.”

  “But if you’re checking out the competition, that’s a work environment for you, isn’t it?”

  He threw his head back and laughed. “Yes, you caught me. That’s the problem with working in food service, and I’m sure you do this too—you’re always comparing your restaurant to everywhere else you eat. Am I right?”

  “You’re right.” Sloane saw two of her customers rising from their table. “Hold on a sec—I’ll be right back.”

  She rang up their meal, thanked them for coming in, and bussed their table, using this time to think things over. She could give him another chance, see if he had learned anything, and maybe she’d be pleasantly surprised. Or she could tell him to go far, far away.

  Toby came out of the kitchen just then and paused when he saw Chad sitting there. “Hello, Chef,” he said.

  Chad rose from the table and held out his hand. “Hello, Toby. I’d like to apologize for my behavior last night. I promise it won’t happen again.”

  Toby shook the offered hand, looking a bit startled. “Thank you. That . . . will be nice.” Then he turned to Sloane. “I’ve got to go, but I’ll see you later.” He grabbed his coat and left before he even put it on.

  Sloane watched him go, a little smile on her lips. “I take it the two of you had some words last night?”

  “We did, yes. He lectured me about how I treated you, and he was right.”

  “Oh? So that’s why I get flowers and an apology?” She was teasing him now, but she wanted to see if he could take it.

  “I might have come around on my own, but yes, he . . . inspired it.” Chad cleared his throat. “So, what do you say? Tomorrow’s
Thursday, and I’m told that Thursdays are typically slow at the restaurant. I could turn things over to Andrew for the lunch shift. Can you get some time off?”

  Sloane thought about it. Taci would probably be up to snagging a few extra hours. “Let me call the other waitress and check, but I think I probably can.”

  “That would be great.” He gave her another one of those warm smiles. “Wait. The other waitress? Are there just the two of you, then?”

  “We sometimes bring in a third during the peak seasons, but most of the time, yeah. It’s just us.”

  “How do you keep on top of things?”

  Sloane grinned. “What can I say—we’re awesome.”

  Chad reached in his pocket and pulled out a card. “Here’s my number. Let me know for sure about tomorrow, all right? And in the meantime, I’ll look forward to it.”

  She nodded, and he left. She slid the card into her pocket, where it landed, coincidentally enough, next to the card that came with her flowers.

  She helped her next two customers, then leaned against the doorjamb of the kitchen. “Did you catch any of that?” she asked Eddie.

  “Guy who sent you the flowers?”

  “Yeah. Kind of weird, huh?”

  Eddie grunted as he finished dicing the carrots he was adding to his pot of soup. “Toby didn’t seem to care for him.”

  “He was pretty rough on Toby last night too, along with the rest of the staff. He apologized, though. Did you see?”

  “I saw.”

  Eddie might not come out of the kitchen very often, but he could see plenty, and Sloane was pretty sure he had better hearing than a rabbit. Although, now that she thought about it, did rabbits actually have good hearing, or did people just assume they did because of their big ears? Was that like expecting every tall person to be good at basketball?

  “So, what do you think?” she pressed when Eddie didn’t share his opinion.

  “What I think doesn’t matter. It’s what you think that counts.” He gave her an arch look.

  “But I don’t know what I think. That’s why I want you to tell me.”

  Eddie jerked his head toward a sign on the wall, a sign that had hung there since the beginning of time. Stop whining. You’re not a grape. She sighed. “You’re right. Okay, I’ll go out to lunch with him. If it doesn’t go well, it’s not like I’m obligated to see him again. And in the meantime, how was your visit with Toby?”

  Eddie shrugged. “He’s a nice kid.”

  “Yeah, he is.”

  Sloane pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed Taci. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to get the time off after all—that would make this decision cut-and-dried. But no, Taci was free and was happy to cover for her. Great. Just great. Before she could think about it, she called the number on Chad’s card. She got his voicemail, which was just fine by her. “Hi, this is Sloane. Yes, I’m free tomorrow. Why don’t you pick me up at the diner around ten thirty?” It was familiar territory . . . and she wanted Taci’s opinion of Chad before she got in a car with him.

  ***

  Toby entered the kitchen a little cautiously that afternoon. Nothing in the world could have surprised him more than getting a public apology from Chef Avery, and he wasn’t entirely sure he trusted it. There was something about the guy, something that seemed like a big act. Toby was willing to put everything behind him and move forward, but he wasn’t ready to be best friends or anything.

  Andrew pulled Toby aside and spoke out of the corner of his mouth. “What’s up with Chef? He called me this morning, apologized, and asked me to come back in, and he’s been going around the restaurant apologizing to the whole staff.”

  “I have no idea, but I’m glad he called you—he shouldn’t have the authority to fire you in the first place. What was up with that?”

  Andrew shrugged. “Frannie told him he could run his kitchen any way he wanted. I’m just glad I’m not out there pounding the pavement again. If he’s going to keep his temper, like he promised he would, we might be able to work together after all.”

  “I hope so.”

  Toby helped set up the dining room and then stepped back into the kitchen to see what was still needed back there. He hadn’t heard any yelling and screaming, which was awesome, but it was quiet . . . almost too quiet . . . like a Western town right before a gunfight. He almost expected a tumbleweed to come drifting across the floor. Instead, what he saw was a busy kitchen with a chef and a sous chef and a kitchen helper working alongside each other respectfully. Huh. This was more like it.

  When the lunch shift was concluded without any drama whatsoever, Toby felt his shoulders relax a little bit. Maybe this could work after all. If Andrew, who had received the brunt of the chef’s anger, could be optimistic, maybe Toby could too. Jen was a lost cause, though—Frank had called her to see about coming back, and she’d refused. Toby couldn’t exactly blame her.

  The dinner crowd seemed a little more sparse than usual. In fact, Toby actually had time to water the plants and tidy up the lobby, something that rarely happened during a meal. Frank waved him over, a worried look on his face.

  “Do you think that what happened here last night is responsible for this?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

  “Let me see what I can find out,” Toby replied. He stepped into the corner of the lobby, pulled out his phone, and accessed the Internet. A quick search for frannies aspen ridge Colorado brought up the very thing he’d hoped not to find—a bad review on Yelp.

  Beautiful atmosphere in a picturesque town. I was ready for a nice dining experience, but then the chef threw a tantrum in the kitchen. I mean, a for-real tantrum. Everyone in the dining room could hear him. It was crazy. Or maybe he was crazy. I don’t know. Anyway, we’re never coming back, and if I hear he’s gotten a job somewhere else, I’m never going to that restaurant either.

  Toby grimaced. That was bad. That was really, really bad. With a sigh, he walked over to Frank and showed him. How were they going to undo that kind of damage?

  Frank read it without a word, then handed the phone back to Toby. They both turned to greet the customers who had just walked in, and Toby noticed that one of his tables was out of water. The place might not be buzzing, but at least they had something to do.

  As the restaurant closed up for the night, Frank asked Toby to step into the office. Frannie was already there, as was Chef Avery. “Toby, can you find us that review you showed me earlier?” Frank asked, nodding toward the rarely touched computer on the desk.

  Toby found it and stepped back, trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. This really wasn’t any of his business.

  Frank asked Chef Avery to read the review aloud. He did, a vein in his forehead throbbing as he neared the end. When he finished, he cleared his throat. “Yes, I saw that this morning when I got up. I try to keep on top of the reviews for any restaurant where I work.”

  “And that’s why you’ve been apologizing to everyone all day?” Toby asked. So much for remaining inconspicuous. Turned out he had something to say after all.

  “Yes. I figured I might be able to do some damage control.”

  Frank nodded. “Well, I wish your change of heart had come about because you felt some genuine remorse, but I must say that today has been much more pleasant, so I can’t complain too much.”

  Frannie nodded. “We really can’t have these kinds of reviews, Chef. We’re scrambling to keep our footing almost every day, and things like this could ruin us.”

  He gave a swift nod. “I understand, and I promise I’ll try to do better.”

  “Thank you.” Frank shook his hand, and the chef left the office.

  “What are we going to do?” Frannie asked as soon as the door closed behind him. Toby thought that she must have forgotten he was there, and he tried to edge out of the room without being noticed. But she held up a hand. “What do you think, Toby? You tried to warn us that something like this could happen, and I wish I’d listened. Do you have any ideas for how
we can fix it?”

  Toby shook his head. “I don’t know what to tell you,” he said. “But I’ll think about it.”

  “Thank you.” Frannie reached out and grasped his hand. “You’re a good boy.”

  She reminded Toby so much of his grandmother, he couldn’t help but grin.

  Chapter Six

  Chad opened the door to his silver Lexus and helped Sloane inside. She was glad she’d chosen to wear a blouse and skirt—not only would that be expected up at the lodge, but she felt like this car expected it too. If she’d been wearing jeans and a T-shirt, it probably would have locked its doors and refused to let her in.

  The engine was so quiet, Sloane didn’t even realize the car was running until they pulled out into traffic. She bit back her exclamation of surprise, trying not to look totally gauche even though she knew she was.

  The drive up to the lodge was beautiful. The fall colors had taken over the canyon, turning it into a riot of color. It had looked beautiful from town, but now that she could make out the individual leaves and how the shades varied even on the same tree, she was blown away. Mother Nature must have a ball up here every year.

  Chad was regaling her with stories from his first year in culinary school, and while she found some of them amusing, she realized quickly that they all revolved around the same theme—one of his classmates had made a stupid mistake, and Chad had been the one to save the day. You could really only listen to about one of those without getting tired of them, and after about five in a row, she was reduced to smiling politely.

  “But I’m talking about myself far too much,” he said as he turned the car into the parking lot at the lodge. “The drive home will be all about you.”

  “There’s really not much to tell,” she said. “My life story will only last us about a mile.”

  He laughed. “I doubt that.”

  They pulled up to the front of the lodge, where a uniformed valet waited to park the car. Chad smoothed down the front of his jacket and motioned with a sweep of his arm. “Shall we?”