“Poor guy doesn’t know he’s dead meat.” Roan said it with so much glee that Sophie came close to smiling.
Again she looked around the small restaurant. Sun was coming in through the windows and showing the dust motes in the air. The glass on the display cabinet was dirty and the wooden floor needed a good scrubbing. Reede’s text made her realize that she’d be seeing him every day. “I think this was a mistake,” she said and walked to the door.
“Christmas!” Roan said loudly.
She looked back at him. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Everybody around here, all the way to DC, thinks Edilean is the cutest little town they’ve ever seen. All of us who live here hate being called ‘quaint,’ but we’ve learned to make money from it. Seventy-five percent of our business is from Thanksgiving to Christmas. And all those shoppers get hungry. Make some soup, some fancy sandwiches, charge big city prices, and by the middle of January you’ll have enough money to bankroll your trip out of here.”
Sophie still had her hand on the doorknob. “I couldn’t do this alone.”
“So we can get you some help.”
“Who is ‘we’?”
“The people of Edilean. Al told me he plans to make them feel so guilty that they’ll buy three meals a day from you.”
Sophie’s hand tightened on the knob.
“Okay, two meals, and you choose which ones you want to cook. If it were me, I’d make the menu simple and change it every day. That way you won’t get bored. Tell people they have to take what they get. For Thanksgiving you could do—”
“Food in cartons,” she said softly. “They could order it all beforehand.” She’d seen a butcher shop that did that, and she’d envied people who could afford it. Having to cook a turkey and a dozen side dishes wasn’t easy, so it was nice to be able to supplement.
“Did you see the stove?” Roan asked as he went behind the counter. “It’s a Wolf. Red knobs. Nice, huh?”
Sophie took her hand off the door and stepped toward the counter to peer through the glass. “I’ve never used a commercial stove before.”
“It has eight burners. The last tenant wanted it and I bought it for her. Cost me a fortune.”
“And how did she pay you?” Sophie asked, one eyebrow raised.
Roan gave a laugh. “You got me on that one. Yes, she asked me for an eight-burner Wolf while we were in bed together. I thought she was referring to me, but it turned out she meant a cooking stove.”
The tiniest smile crossed Sophie’s lips.
“That’s better. Don’t you think you could stand to do this for two and a half months? Just until after the New Year?”
Sophie went to the end of the counter and looked behind it. There was the huge stove with its cast iron burners, double ovens beneath, stainless steel shelves above. More stainless covered the countertops. The wall had open shelving.
Could she do it? she wondered and tried to envision the little shop full of people. Mothers with overexcited children, carrying half a dozen shopping bags. Locals rushing in at the last minute. Fellow shopkeepers wanting sandwiches to go.
Turning, she looked back at Roan.
“Want to see the upstairs?”
Silently, Sophie nodded, then followed Roan to the back of the shop. As she walked, Sophie couldn’t help looking around the place. There were some booths in the back and there were lighter places on the walls where pictures had hung. If there were a lot of tourists coming through Edilean, especially ones “all the way from DC,” as Roan had said, maybe Sophie could display some of her work. She used to be rather good at reliefs, so why not hang some on the walls?
If she served breakfast and lunch, no dinner, she’d have the evenings to herself. With no man in her life—and she vowed that there wouldn’t be—she’d have time to create things. What a wonderful word, she thought as she went up the stairs, and couldn’t help saying it aloud. “Create.”
“Did you say something?” Roan asked.
“No, nothing.” She opened the door at the top of the stairs and saw the apartment. It was small, as long and as skinny as the store below, but there were windows all along the front, and it had tall ceilings. Facing the street was a living room, the middle held a kitchen, and in the back was a bedroom and bath. There were a lot of boxes that seemed to be full of the last tenant’s personal goods and she’d have to remove them, but the apartment could be liveable.
She looked at Roan. “I don’t own any furniture, I’d need help in the store, and I don’t have any money to pay for anything. I can’t even afford to buy a bag of onions.”
“What if I—?”
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