“Ha!” Carter said. “I walked out in pursuit of you and I left no note, nothing. When I called the housekeeper about the cookbook, I asked her if Dad had asked about me. Not a word. I am a dispensable person to him.”
He said the words lightly, but Sophie knew the pain behind them. “You can stay here in Edilean with Kelli and start your new business here.”
“I think I will,” Carter said. “And what about you? Your boxing doctor ask you to marry him yet?”
“I . . . ”
Carter stopped slicing and looked at her. “You what?” When Sophie said nothing, he said, “I just poured out my heart to you, so I think you can tell me what’s going on with you. If this doctor has done anything to hurt you, I’ll—”
“No!” Sophie said. “It’s just that—” She broke off because it was eight a.m. and Kelli had unlocked the front door. In an instant the little restaurant was full of customers, all of them hungry.
Twenty-two
At Christmas eve lunch, Lewis Treeborne showed up in the sandwich shop. He just walked in, ordered soup and a sandwich, then stood there and waited.
Sophie recognized his voice and froze in place—and all her fears came back to her. Were the police with him? Would she be taken away in handcuffs?
Carter, a bowl of soup in his hands, held it out to her. “Hey, Soph! Wake up. People are waiting.”
She nodded toward the register, where Mr. Tree-borne was paying.
Carter hesitated for a moment, then put the bowl down and turned his back on the man.
/> “Shouldn’t you go to him? Or something?” she asked quietly.
“I’m not afraid of him anymore,” Carter said softly. “He found me here, so if he wants more he knows where I am.”
Sophie nodded and had to work to keep from hurrying to the man to ask what he wanted. She reminded herself that this was Edilean and that the Treeborne family did not own this town.
But she couldn’t help watching the man sitting alone at a little table, eating slowly, never once glancing at the people behind the counter.
“Why are you two whispering?” Kelli asked Sophie and Carter. “What’s going on?”
“That’s Carter’s dad,” Sophie said, nodding toward the man.
“Yeah? Ol’ Treeborne himself?”
“The monster in the flesh,” Carter said with a grimace.
Kelli looked from one to the other. “You two are cowards.”
“You know us well,” Sophie said.
Kelli rolled her eyes as she went to the big glass counter full of her freshly baked pastries and began to fill a plate full of slices.
“What are you doing?” Carter asked.
“Taking an opportunity,” she said. When the plate was full of samples, she got napkins and a fork and took them to Lewis Treeborne’s table. “Your son and I are thinking about using his connection to the Tree-borne empire to start a line of frozen pastries.”
Lewis didn’t look up as she set the plate on the table and turned away.
Sophie and Carter pretended they weren’t looking, but they were. And when Lewis picked up his fork and took a bite they drew in their breaths.
“What’s going on?” Roan asked and Kelli told him.
Even though there was a line at the register, Danni left it to ask what they were looking at, and Roan explained. By that time everyone in the shop had caught the tension and had stopped to look at the man with the big plate of desserts.
“Does he like coffee?” Danni asked Carter.