This old cafe, p.1
This Old Cafe, page 1
Copyright © 2019 by Marci Bolden
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover design by Okay Creations
ebook layout by Lori Colbeck
mobi ISBN-13: 978-1-950348-14-5
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Continue the Stonehill Series
Stonehill Series Book Six
Also by Marci Bolden
About the Author
Chapter One
Jenna Reid jumped back as water shot straight out of the pipe leading to her kitchen sink. She screamed, dropping the wrench when an ice-cold deluge soaked every inch of her body crammed under the industrial-sized sink. She covered the open joint with her hands but, like a fire hydrant struck by a wayward car, the stream was too powerful to be contained. Water squirted through her fingers and drenched her face.
She could have sworn she’d shut off the water, but apparently, she could add the valve to the list of things that didn’t work in the broken-down kitchen of her broken-down diner. She held her breath and turned her face away as she assessed the situation, determined not to let panic set in.
She had to figure out why the valve hadn’t turned off. If she didn’t, she’d have to sit there holding the pipe while water sprayed her face until someone—likely her brother Marcus—came to her rescue.
She was done letting other people save her. She was an adult. A full-grown woman, damn it. She could do this. She could fix this.
She pulled herself up and shrieked, her tennis shoes skating across the wet cement flooring as she rushed toward the shut-off valve on the other side of the wide sink. She dropped to her knees and turned the handle as hard as she could. But once the valve was off, the water didn’t stop. She turned the lever the other way.
Water continued flooding the cement floor.
“No,” she begged. “No, no, no. Goddamn it!”
Despite her efforts, the puddle continued to grow.
The valve clearly wasn’t working.
Rushing back to the sink, she slid to where she’d loosened the joint and fumbled with the pipe wrench. If she got the…thingie-ma-jig…tightened, maybe the water would quit spraying the entire room and she could clean up and pretend this never happened.
Then Marcus could fix it—like he’d told her he would. She could be grateful and repay him with dinner—like she’d told him she would before she decided watching a video on YouTube qualified her to be her own plumber.
The only problem—okay, not the only problem, but the biggest problem—was the pressure seemed to be increasing. The water was shooting faster. And she was certain the temperature was even colder than before. Whatever she’d done to the valve was making things worse.
A scream of frustration ripped from her as the frigid torrent made it even more difficult for her fingers to operate. Her heart pounded in her ears, nearly obscuring the constant whishing of water coming from the pipe. Her eyes blurred, but she wasn’t sure if it was tears of defeat or water draining from her hair into her eyes. She fumbled with the pipe wrench, trying to redo what she’d undone when she’d decided to replace the section of leaking pipe, saying words that she was sure would shock most people who knew her. Jenna tended toward the innocent side of things, but she certainly had it in her to drop an F-bomb or two if the occasion called for it.
And that occasion was now, as she sat saturated on the kitchen floor of the diner that was falling down around her faster than she and her brother could duct tape it back together. She was about to let another curse rip when, without warning, the geyser turned to a trickle.
Finally, her kitchen was silent save for her desperate panting and the annoying ping-ping-ping that had started this entire fiasco.
The nonstop drip had been going for days. Marcus had told her what he needed to do to fix it; he’d even bought a new section of pipe and fittings. He just hadn’t had the time to devote to her plumbing. Tired of hearing the sound of droplets clinking in the metal bowl she’d put under the sink, she’d decided to be her own hero.
“Way to go, genius,” she muttered.
Wiping her forehead—which was pointless since her hands were as soaked as her face and the strands of dark hair sticking to it—she sat back on her heels and choked down the sob that was threatening to erupt.
“Are you okay?”
The unexpected male voice caused her to jolt. A squeal eeked out of her as she lurched back. She wobbled for a moment then landed on her ass in the pool that had formed behind her. A man emerged from the shadows on the other side of her kitchen. Her heart seemed to stop beating as she scurried back and reached for something, anything, she could use to protect herself.
Bowls crashed around her as she grasped a firm handle and held up…a colander. She would have laughed if it weren’t for the fact that she had no other weapon within reach. Instead, she lifted the perforated bowl in warning—if he didn’t back off she’d…strain him. “Who—who are you?”
“I was outside. Heard you scream. Thought there might be trouble.” He lifted his hands as if to prove he meant no harm. “You turned off the wrong valve.”
She swallowed. He spoke slowly, in a deep voice with a hint of an East Coast drawl. He wasn’t from Stonehill. Just about everyone knew everyone in this small town and she didn’t know him.
His skin, what she could see of it around the dark, shaggy hair, was tan from too much sun. Like he’d worked outside most of his life. The question where he was from formed in her mind but stuck in her throat. That didn’t really matter at this point in time. She sat there, letting ice-cold water soak into her jeans and numb her skin as she threatened him with fine mesh.
“You turned off the valve to the faucet, but you should have turned off the main valve,” he explained. “Rookie mistake.”
As he came into the light, she could see that his clothes were dingy and worn. His beard was full, but not trimmed, and his hair was shiny, as if he had gone too long between washing the strands that hung over his ears.
She couldn’t determine if he was homeless or just too old to pull off hipster. Either way, he’d somehow appeared in her kitchen without her noticing, and that unsettled her.
She lifted the colander when he took a full step toward her. “This may not look deadly, but I could still put your eye out with it.”
He lifted his hands, again showing his innocence, and smirked behind his facial hair.
“I have no doubt that you could. But I can help. If you want. Or you can try again now that the water’s off. Whichever works for you. But either way, you might want to get out of that puddle and into dry clothes. Your lips are turning blue.”
Jenna finally inhaled and looked at the clothes clinging to her. If it weren’t for the vintage print of Barry Manilow’s face clinging to her chest, she could have just auditioned for a wet T-shirt contest. While holding a flimsy bit of steel to save herself.
What the hell was she doing? What in the actual hell did she think she was doing?
She wasn’t a plumber any more than she was a business owner.
She’d been winging it for almost three years now, but she was tired. Exhausted.
And she sure as hell wasn’t capable of assaulting a grown man with a strainer. If he wanted to slit her throat and rob her...
Marcus had told her a hundred times to lock the kitchen door even when she was cleaning up. He’d told her a hundred times to carry the pepper spray he’d bought for her. He’d told her a hundred times to take basic self-defense classes.
She’d done none of those.
Not only was she ill-equipped to fix her plumbing, run a business, or protect herself, but she was also freezing. A shiver ran through her as she realized just how much water her clothing and hair had absorbed.
She laughed to stop herself from crying.
When she looked up again, the stranger was standing over her. He held out a hand to help her up and she noticed the dirt caked under his nails and in his knuckles.
Homeless.
Definitely homeless.
But his gray eyes were kind. Concerned. Nothing about him felt threatening or intimidating, though Jenna was certain she should be terrified. She swallowed before accepting his help, letting him pull her to her feet, all the while hoping it wasn’t a ruse to grab hold of her and drag her off.
He eased her up and immediately released his hold, taking a step back rather than running off in the night with her.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
He gestured to the pipes. “May I?”
“Please. You certainly can’t do any worse than I did.”
The man stepped over the puddle and kneeled to assess the mess she’d made. “I’ll have this fixed before you finish mopping,” he said without looking at her.
Mopping? Oh. Right. Her tennis shoes sloshed when she moved her feet. She sighed as water seeped through the mesh. After setting the strainer aside, she grabbed the rag mop and a bright yellow bucket on rollers. She watched him from the corner of her eye as she started cleaning the floor, not letting her guard down, but also fully aware that if the man decided to attack her, there wasn’t much she could do about it.
She’d traded up from a strainer to a mop handle, but she wouldn’t know how to use that either.
Just as she finished and squeezed as much water out of the end as she could, the man silently rose and turned on the valve at the back of the kitchen—the one that actually stopped the water flow. He went back to the sink, used his sleeve to wipe the pipe dry, and watched, as if he were waiting for something amazing to happen.
And it did. Or didn’t, depending on how Jenna decided to look at it.
The incessant drip that had been making her crazy for days didn’t start. The water didn’t slowly leak from the joint and form a dewdrop that would plop and echo around the room.
The man turned the valve that Jenna had tightened in her attempt to stop the water, then tested the faucet. It worked. And the dripping still didn’t start.
She set the mop aside and hesitated before joining him in observing the now-dry pipe.
“This turns off the faucet,” he said. “That”—he pointed to the other valve—“turns off the water to the faucet.”
“Got it. Thanks.”
He nodded. “You’re welcome.”
She looked him over as he wiped his hands down his dirty jeans. Just like her denim, his had absorbed a fair share of freezing water. “You’re soaked.”
“I’m okay. I can change.”
“Where?” she asked, surprising even herself. “I mean…where were you headed?”
He didn’t answer.
“For the last few weeks, whenever I’ve gone out to the alley, I felt like I was being watched.”
“Is that why your brother put on that deadbolt that you don’t use?”
Wow. He sounded just like her brother.
“Yeah. That’s why.” Her amusement faded, and she furrowed her brow at him. “How did you know my brother did that?”
His only response was, “You should use it.”
“Maybe I’ll start.” She tilted her head. “So you’re…hanging out in the alley?”
He glanced toward the sink. “You shouldn’t have any more problems with that pipe.”
“Would you like some coffee?” she asked as he started for the door.
He stopped. “No thanks. I’d be up all night.”
“Maybe something to eat? Something…warm?”
Facing her, he took a moment to look her over. “Your lips are purple now. Go warm up before you get sick.”
Jenna opened her mouth, but he disappeared through the door leading to the alley. Glancing around the kitchen, she decided she’d mopped up enough of the flood she’d caused and pushed the bucket to the back door. She paid more attention to the shadows, looking for the stranger, than to dumping the water. Her pulse quickened as she began to wonder if she was right—was there was a homeless man living in her alley? The thought put her on edge, even if he had swooped in to save her.
She went back into the kitchen and started to shut the door, but realized that would be the same as telling him she didn’t trust him now that she knew he was there. That seemed rude after the way he’d helped her.
She hesitated one more moment before tugging it closed behind her, but stopped short at turning the recently installed deadbolt that he’d mentioned. After gathering up the wet towels, she dropped them in a pile to be washed the next morning—no way in hell was she dealing with that tonight—and set the tools on the shelf where Marcus liked to keep them.
Keys in hand, she turned off the lights and headed for the back door. Her heart rate picked up again. He was probably out there. Watching her. The voyeuristic homeless plumber. Going into the dimly lit alley made her uneasy, and not for the first time. If her sixth sense was correct, he’d been living out there for about five weeks now. Or at least that was when she’d first started wondering if she were being watched as she headed up the metal stairs that led to her still-under-construction second-floor apartment.
She’d tolerated the feeling for a week before mentioning it to Marcus. He’d taken a look around, but didn’t find anything suspicious. No cardboard houses or piles of clothes, nothing to indicate someone was living in her alley. But she was certain now that someone was.
Jenna couldn’t imagine. As soon as she’d worked up the courage to leave the fancy city loft where Peter liked to keep her, she’d never worried about not having a place to go. She’d come back to Stonehill with nothing but the clothes she could fit in a suitcase—and she was lucky to have those by the time Peter’s lawyer got done with her.
Her big brother had been determined to help her start her life over. And as Jenna tended to do, she let someone else take control. She let someone else determine what she needed and how she’d get it. And even though she wasn’t prepared—emotionally or financially—she let Marcus convince her she was ready to tackle her starry-eyed dream of owning a restaurant. Peter had promised her that as well, but she’d never quite managed to jump through all the hoops he required for her to get there. He had a chain of fancy restaurants in the city. The kind that served two olives and a crouton as a meal.
He’d done a guest lecture at the culinary institute when Jenna had been a student and she’d been awestruck by him. When he offered to take her under his wing and give her hands-on training, she transitioned to mesmerized. By the time he convinced her to drop out of school and become his glorified secretary—or as she liked to call herself, his wife—she was in over her head.
Several years passed before she started to realize her dreams were fading away because she spent all her time focusing on his. Whenever she reminded him that she had ambitions, too, he’d remind her that there was no room in San Francisco for the kind of home-style cooking she loved. The kind he said was the reason she’d had to lose twenty pounds before he’d agreed to a wedding date.
Apparently, city folk didn’t need real food. Apparently, they needed more carrot roulades and toasted brioche with goat cheese on fancy platters with upmarket names only the most elite could pronounce.
And Peter needed a thinner, more contemporary version of Jenna than the one he’d asked to marry him. True to Jenna’s style, she’d complied. She’d bent and wavered and lost herself in his life until she couldn’t bend and waver any longer.
She’d had a dream. One Peter had promised to help her fulfill. One that was forever just out of reach because his restaurants always came first. His career always came first.
Marcus, however, delivered after one night of sipping wine at his house while complaining about how their lives hadn’t quite gone as planned. Marcus had fallen head over heels for his boss, Annie, and knew she’d never return his affections as long as he worked for her, but he couldn’t imagine not working for her. Jenna told him how she was an afterthought even before she and Peter had exchanged vows. How she’d never own a restaurant since she’d dropped out of culinary school and spent the last ten years building Peter up. She’d given him everything and received nothing.
Marcus asked if she still wanted to open a restaurant. She’d smiled and said she’d love to own a little diner, just a little place to dish up some home-style meals. The next day, he walked her through this building, telling her how they could fix it up and how she could renovate the second and third floors to be living space.
Sure, it had sounded good. It had sounded great. The fantasy played out well. The reality sucked.
