Second Chances in Lavender Bay (The Lavender Bay Chronicles #3)

2. Chapter One

Chapter One

E vangeline “Angie” Cook threw back a quick drink of water and laid the glass upside down on the drainboard. It was the same glass she used every morning before heading off to her café, Coffee Girl. On occasion when she had to turn the dishwasher on, she’d throw the glass in. But as that was as rare an occurrence as a white peacock, she usually washed it by hand every couple of days.

Angie lived in a small craftsman-style cottage on Cherry Tree Lane in the small beachside town of Lavender Bay. She’d like to say her home was her refuge, but she was so rarely in it she couldn’t put her hand up and claim that one. She gave a quick look around her kitchen to make sure everything was in its place. Her gaze rested on the house’s only other living thing: a variegated ivy in a red clay pot. Of course, the word “living” might be an overstatement. The houseplant was a gift from Debbie, her best friend since the second grade, who assured her this was one plant you couldn’t kill. However, the heart-shaped leaves, once a marbled green and cream, were now brown, shriveled, and curled. Apparently it was a plant that could be killed.

She sighed. How had she forgotten to water that? She tried to think back to the last time she looked after it and came up blank. Not one to spend too much time ruminating, she quickly forgot about it, grabbed her keys, and headed off to work.

Angie was more wired than usual that day. The previous evening, as she scanned The Lavender Bay Chronicles, she came upon a notice placed by the town clerk. They were accepting applications for food trucks for the beach beginning the following spring. The deadline for filing the application was in two weeks’ time. She’d make her way over there later today. The thought of branching out her successful business caused her an excitement she hadn’t felt since the opening days of Coffee Girl. She’d been awake most of the night, ideas swirling in her head about all the possibilities. Opening day for the five food trucks chosen would be the following June fourth, Jacques Aubert Day, a local holiday named for the town’s founding father.

It was a four a.m. start that morning. The early October sky was the color of a plum, and along the horizon ran a thin strip of dawn. Angie could easily walk the distance from her house to her café but as that would waste time, she always drove the straightforward route up Pearl, right on Cedar, and on toward the corner of Cedar and Main, where her café was located.

There was no one on the roads at this time of the morning. Behind the shops on Main Street, at the corner of Pine, was a small parking lot that was all but deserted, except for one car that had been there for months and most likely had been abandoned. She made a mental note, like she did every day, to call the highway department to get the car towed, knowing she’d forget about it as soon as she stepped through the café door.

She parked as close as possible to the back of her building and locked the car, scanning the environment around her, not wanting any surprises. As she arrived at the back door, a loud meow startled her, causing her to jump. To her right, in the shadows, stood a large black cat with a white chest. He meowed again and looked at her expectantly.

Putting thoughts of the cat aside, she keyed in the code on the alarm until the light flashed green. The cat stepped out of the shadows and into the swathe of light from a fixture that hung above the door. Able to get a better look, she noticed his prominent ribs.

“All right, hold on, let me see what I can find,” she huffed. She didn’t have time to be feeding stray cats. After dropping her purse and keys into the desk drawer in her office, she scrounged around in the employees’ refrigerator in the break room and pulled out some lunch meat she kept on hand for sandwiches. The turkey had been there longer than the ham, so she opened the deli bag, gave it a quick sniff, and decided it was semi-okay. She took it back outside, where the cat walked around in a small circle, voicing his interest. She pulled out the last three slices of turkey and threw them on the ground, balling up the deli bag in her hand. The cat pounced on the meat, hunching over and eating quickly.

In a firm voice, she said, “Don’t expect this every morning.” The cat ignored her and continued to eat.

Locking the door behind her, she glanced at her Fitbit and saw that she was already running five minutes behind. She hoofed it to the kitchen, flipping on all the lights. The stainless-steel counters, refrigerator, sinks, and appliances gleamed in the overbright fluorescent lighting. Everything had been wiped down, cleaned, and put away the previous night at the end of the shift, like always.

With her hands on her hips, she looked around, surveying her kingdom, feeling that tug of satisfaction she always felt at the start of a new day.

This was home.

Some days she had to pinch herself; how lucky was she to make a living doing this work she loved? Right out of high school, she’d taken a job driving a coffee truck, going from job site to job site to sell coffee, pastries, and sandwiches. People were always so happy to see her. A great cup of coffee brought people joy. She knew of people who hated what they did, saw it on a daily basis, those workers whose lunch hour was up five minutes ago, but they stayed, dragging their feet going back to a job they didn’t like. Not her. She hoped to be baking when she was ninety years old.

She allowed herself one minute to muse on that satisfied feeling before she got to work. These early starts were required to get ahead of the day’s baking needs. She rolled out the industrial-size mixer from the corner. The first order of business were those pastries that required a yeast dough, like her cinnamon rolls and almond rings. She glanced at the list at the end of the table. There were muffins and donuts and cupcakes and pastry hearts to be made. Donning her apron and humming to herself, she gathered her ingredients and got down to business.

By six thirty, she was icing the last of the pastry hearts. When she finished, she cleaned up and began to take trays of baked goods out to the front and slide them into the bakery case. She flipped on all the interior lights, smiling at the empty café. It was so rare to see it like this as during the day, it was bustling.

Once her baking was done—her staff would continue baking until eleven as she prided herself on offering fresh-baked goods daily—she headed back to her office to do some paperwork, her least favorite part of being self-employed. But she liked to stay on top of it.

A glance at the clock told her she didn’t have a lot of time before the café opened. She turned her attention to the sandwich board, where she would list the donut flavors and specials of the day. Because how would people know what wonderful creations the café held for them if she didn’t tell them?

As she dragged the sandwich board out from behind the counter, she heard her assistant manager come in through the back door and call out a greeting.

“Hey, Melissa,” Angie replied. She selected a piece of colored chalk from beneath the counter.

Melissa came down the narrow hall that led to the restrooms and the back door.

The girl wasn’t even thirty and had worked at the café since the beginning, ten years ago. At the time, she’d completed one year at the Culinary Institute of America but had to drop out because her mother had become ill. Like a dutiful daughter, Melissa had returned home. She knew the café inside and out, almost as well as Angie, who considered Melissa her right hand.

Melissa approached the table, wearing a jean jacket over her uniform shirt, which had “Coffee Girl” emblazoned over the breast pocket, and a pair of jeans. Her dark hair was cut short, and her eyes were of the palest blue. Earrings lined both ears from the lobe to the top of the ear. Angie had once thought herself adventurous with her two piercings in each ear.

She pulled out a chair, leaned over, and began to write on the sandwich board.

“Can I talk to you for a minute, Ang?” Melissa asked.

“Of course.” With a nod to the other chair at the table, she added, “have a seat.”

Melissa pulled out the chair and plopped down.

“What’s up?” Angie asked without taking her eyes off the sandwich board.

“I wanted to talk to you about my role here at the café,” Melissa started.

Please don’t quit was Angie’s first thought.

“I’ve been here for a long time, and I’d say I’m a good employee,” Melissa said with confidence.

Angie wondered if she was angling for a raise. “You’re a great employee,” she said.

Melissa’s nod was almost imperceptible. “I’d like more responsibility. I think I’ve earned it—but you tend to micromanage everything, to the point where you’re doing almost all the work.” The younger woman’s voice was laced with frustration. “It’s like you’re territorial, especially with the baking.”

Ouch .

“What did you have in mind?” Angie asked weakly.

“I would love to do more experimenting. The whole reason I went to culinary school was I love to bake, but I’m not really doing that here.”

Angie cut her off. “You’re baking here. Aren’t you coming in three mornings a week to do the pastries and the donuts for the day?”

Melissa’s shoulders sagged. She shook her head. “You don’t understand.”

“Enlighten me.” Angie reminded herself not to get frustrated and to listen to what her best employee was trying to tell her.

“I’d like to try coming up with new items for you to sell. I don’t mind doing all the other stuff: opening up the shop, closing it, working weekends, doing inventory and ordering, but I feel like I’m not being used to my full potential.”

Angie’s first instinct was to protest and say that wasn’t true, but being honest with herself, she acknowledged she’d allowed Melissa no creative duties. Weakly, she said, “We’ve got a pretty full assortment of baked goods here. Pastries and donuts that our customers clamor for.” Had she just used the word clamor ? Besides, Coffee Girl was all about Angie’s baking. It was Angie’s signature pastries and desserts that drew people in. She’d personally created and selected everything for her café. It was her brand. Admittedly, she’d been happy to pass off many of the things that didn’t involve baking to Melissa. Maybe she was territorial.

“You do quite a bit as it is, Melissa,” Angie said. “You’re already opening and closing, managing the schedule, hiring, doing the payroll and handling the bank deposits.”

Melissa was quick to speak. “And I don’t mind doing all that. But I was hoping to have more creative input.”

Chalk still in her hand, Angie thought for a moment. As much as she was loath to cede any of the baking to anyone other than herself, Melissa’s background was pastries, and it wasn’t fair to assume she’d be content with administrative tasks. And if she was successful in obtaining a food truck license, she wouldn’t be able to do it all. There were only so many hours in the day. Although she was hesitant, she also didn’t want Melissa leaving and looking for work elsewhere.

“Okay, let’s continue this conversation,” Angie finally said. “I’m open to some suggestions as to what you might want to add to our pastry case.” She refrained from saying she thought they had enough variety on hand, choosing instead to kick the ball down the road and deal with this in the future.

Melissa smiled, her eyes bright. She hopped up from her chair and pushed it in. “Thanks, Ang. Maybe next week, we can talk about some of my ideas?”

Not ready to be pinned down to a specific date, Angie stammered out a response. “Um, sure. Of course.”

She stared at the retreating figure of her employee and tried to figure out how to keep Melissa happy without giving up too much control.

She finished the sandwich board and dragged it to the front door, which she unlocked. Across the street, Java Joe’s had their Halloween decorations up, even though it was only early October, reminding her that pretty soon, she’d have to start baking her apple cider cake, which she only made in the fall.

As she was setting up the sandwich board near the curb, Tom Sloane, the owner of Java Joe’s, pulled his own board outside. Once it was set up, he walked over to his newer-model pickup truck parked by the curb. Angie lived to give him a hard time for opening up his own café directly across the street from hers. But recently, as he’d given her nephew Everett a job, she’d had to back off. Just a little bit. No sense in letting him get complacent.

He spotted her and threw his hand up in a wave. “Good morning, Evangeline.”

Begrudgingly, she replied, “Morning, Tom.”

There was a pile of broken glass near the building, and she went inside to get the broom and the dustpan. When she returned, she was aware of Tom whistling to himself as he stood at the back of his truck, the tailgate open. It sounded like someone was in a good mood, and that irritated her. He was wearing some ridiculous getup that included a wide-brimmed hat, a fishing vest over his long-sleeved T-shirt, and a pair of sunglasses hooked to the neckline of his shirt. It was not his usual uniform of jeans and a short-sleeved T-shirt, usually black. Still whistling, he set a fishing pole against the truck and pulled a tackle box from the bed, opening it.

Angie swept the broken glass onto the dustpan and used the broom to brush all the debris in front of the café into the street, for the street sweeper to collect on its daily nine a.m. pass.

Curiosity got the better of her, and she leaned the broom against the front of the café and walked across the street. Tom stopped whistling and regarded her with a wide grin.

She got right to the point. With a nod toward all his gear, she asked, “What’s up?”

“Going fishing.” He looked up to the clear blue sky. It was a crisp fall day. “It’s a beautiful day for it.” He leveled a gaze at her. “Care to join me?”

She snorted in response. “I’m working, in case you hadn’t noticed. I run a café.”

He was still grinning as he returned his attention to his tackle box. “It’s all about balance, Evangeline.”

“Can you leave your business unattended all day?”

He turned back to her. “First, it’s not unattended. I have employees I trust to keep things running smooth until I get back. And I won’t be gone all day. I’ll be back by lunch.”

“Still.” She sniffed in disapproval.

Tom closed up the box. “Evangeline, let me ask you a question. What do you do to relax?”

“I bake,” she said.

“Other than baking.”

“I still bake.”

“My point exactly.” He rubbed his beard and regarded her.

Man, he was maddening.

“You’re wound up tighter than a drum,” he said. “You need some hobbies. You need some balance in your life.”

Reddening, she lifted her chin ever so slightly and said, “I have plenty of balance in my life.” Even as the words were falling off her tongue, she knew them not to be true. And by the look in his eyes, she knew that he knew too.

Huffily, she said, “I do not need you as a life coach.”

He threw back his head in a bark of laughter. “That’s my girl.”

“I am not your girl,” she declared before turning on her heel. As she turned, something caught her eye on the sandwich board he’d set up outside his café.

Before you stop at Coffee Girl, try a mouthwatering sandwich at Java Joe’s.

Angie saw red and she sputtered, “What is this!”

Tom shrugged with that maddening grin of his. “People should eat their sandwiches first before dessert.”

Gritting her teeth, she spun around, marched back to her café, and went inside. With a damp rag in hand, she went back out and wiped her sandwich board clean, erasing all of the day’s specials. In big, bold letters, she wrote: Life is short. Eat dessert first .

As she went back inside, she could hear Tom’s laughter from across the street.