Love Inspired December 2014 - Box Set 2 of 2: Her Holiday Family\Sugar Plum Season\Her Cowboy Hero\Small-Town Fireman (55 page)

“You're right. I'm just in early for my meeting.” He took another long, slow sip of coffee. “Pity I can't put one of those machines on my boat—the last batch of investment bankers I had out were all complaining about having to forgo their usual grande-soy-mocha-whatevers.”

“Not the supermarket coffee from a thermos type of guys, huh?” She raised an elegantly arched eyebrow.

Dylan winced at the thought of the can of supermarket coffee grounds in his kitchen and the dented old thermos currently rolling around the passenger seat of his truck in the parking lot. “This is exceptional coffee,” he admitted. “If you ask me, a lot of that other stuff is just high-priced hype.”

“Well, lots of it is.”

“Not this.”

She planted her elbows on the counter, pleased at the compliment. “No, sir, not my coffee.”

Dylan stared down at his cup, now nearly empty. He considered asking for another. The lady really did make a mean coffee. He took another sip. He'd never have thought to put cinnamon in there. And what had made him consent to one of those fancy drinks now that he'd retooled his tastes back to “black, one sugar” java? “You can make these to go?” Karl's never really did a “to go” business, but she looked ready to try new things.

“Absolutely. I mean, a couple of national chains have built a fortune on it—why not Karl's?” She shrugged. “Gordon Falls is just catching on. Or catching up.”

There it was, that ever-so-slightly judgmental tone he'd see every now and then from charter customers.
Nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live all the way out here.
It didn't take a marketing genius to see she wasn't terribly thrilled to be here. Which was funny to him, because Dylan had moved heaven and earth to be here. “Gordon Falls has lots of other charms.”

“Yeah.” She clearly didn't hold to that theory. He could spot that bored look a mile off.

Well, Chicago had bored
him
. Wouldn't she be surprised to discover he'd been one of those blue-suited, briefcase-toting caffeine junkies rushing to make the seven-ten downtown? He'd bought into the whole upwardly mobile mind-set, working long hours and hitting all the right societal notes. He'd even found himself the perfect partner in Yvonne, sure she was the love of his life.

Then the
love of his life
left him high and dry for someone with what she deemed were faster prospects for success. Ditch your future fiancé for his boss? Who did that? How had he not seen that icy vein of ambition in her before she'd slit it open right in front of him?

He could almost be thankful. Almost. With the life sucked out of him like that, it had only taken Dylan three weeks after Yvonne's grand exit to realize how much he had bought into a giant lie. He hated corporations. And suits. And cubicles in high-rise buildings. He'd never truly wanted any of it, just thought it was what he was supposed to want. Half of what he'd done, he'd only done out of Yvonne's urging for what he ought to be.

Startled out of his corporate stupor, Dylan woke up to what made him truly happy. He slogged it out six more months in that suffocating office to scrape together the boat, the money and the contacts to kiss Chicago goodbye and launch his charter fishing business. He hadn't ventured the three hours back to Chicago since. He owned one suit for weddings and funerals, and hoped to never touch another briefcase again. The fancy coffee, however...that might be worth revisiting.

“I don't think I've seen you before,” Karla remarked, straightening up off the counter. “What time do you normally come in?”

“I'm not much of a regular, and if I do get here it's rarely before ten-thirty.”

“Well, that explains it. I'm usually done by eleven.”

“Are you the only one who makes these?” He was pretty sure he knew the answer. Emily, the other server, was a nice enough lady, but he doubted the fifty-year-old ex-librarian cared to learn barista skills.

She smirked. “Let's just say I don't think you'd want Emily's version of a cappuccino.”

He nodded in agreement.

“Karla?” someone called from the room full of tables behind him.

With the tiniest glimpse of weariness, she grabbed the glass carafe again from the brewer behind her and walked toward the sea of customers. Dylan took another exquisite sip and watched her move through the tables, efficient but not engaged, feeling his curiosity rise and stretch like a lazy cat. Or was that caution getting his back up?

Karla returned. “So...what brought you in today?”

“That tourism meeting.” He checked his watch. It was only ten minutes until his meeting with Cindi the tourism rep—Cindi with an
i
, for crying out loud, with a flighty personality to match the alternative spelling. If he wasn't eager to go before, now he felt certain Cindi was too young, too perky and too cheerful to come up with anything truly effective. “Like I said, I need some new ideas to grow my charter fishing business.” He'd gone through his savings faster than he'd expected launching this business, and pretty soon the boat loan payments were going to start becoming a challenge if things didn't pick up.

“What about applying a little added value? You could bring your customers in here. End their experience with a nice, home-style breakfast and some killer coffee.”

While Dylan abhorred business school buzz-terms like “added value,” the simple idea sounded ten times better than the unimaginative set of bullet points Cindi had emailed to him yesterday. “You know, it'd be nice to end the morning on a high note even if the customers came in empty-handed. Only I can't exactly pull the boat up to Tyler Street, you know?” Karl's Koffee sat right in the middle of Gordon Falls' main thoroughfare, Tyler Street. The shop was, in many ways, the social center of the town—at least for the locals. Tourists tended to breakfast at their inns or the more upscale restaurants.

Karla pulled a ballpoint pen from her apron pocket and a napkin from the canister on the counter. “Solvable...” One eye narrowed while she began making calculations, rapidly scratching numbers on the napkin.

“Hey, coffee here?” a call came from a table to his left.

Without looking up from her calculations, Karla held up one finger, “In a second...”

A disgruntled sigh from the customer made Dylan wince, then let out a breath as Karla circled a number at the bottom of the napkin. She slapped down the pen, reached behind her to the coffee brewer—again, almost without looking—and then stared at Dylan. “Stay,” she commanded with a pointed finger just before dashing out toward the diners.

Woof
, Dylan thought, annoyed.
What am I, a puppy?

Still, he did stay. He told himself it was to finish off the great coffee, but the command still stung. Today's charter had been hard to take—a herd of accountants bent on upstaging one another the entire morning. As much as he chafed from the upscale customers, they were essential to his business. These past ten minutes had been the most pleasant of his day: it was nice to have someone take his satisfaction into consideration instead of the constant press of “customer service.”

Returning, Karla slid the carafe onto the brewer so fast it nearly sloshed out the top. She had energy to spare, this woman. Eyes bright, she spun the napkin to face him. “How many trips do you have the rest of this month?”

Dylan squinted in thought. “Eight.” That hurt to admit; it needed to be more like ten or twelve.

“Easy deal. You pay a flat eight dollars a head, I take orders in advance that you phone in from the dock, and they have perfect specialty drinks and such waiting for them when they arrive. That's if Grandpa approves it—” she parked her hand on her hip with an air of determination “—which he will.”

Dylan had to admit, it solved a multitude of problems. His customers got a good send-off no matter what they caught—or failed to catch. If he was smart and applied himself, he could roust up some repeat business while they sipped. And good old Karl got some extra business. Maybe “added value” wasn't as evil as it sounded. “You're one sharp cookie, Karla Kennedy.”

The corner of her mouth curled up into the cutest little grin. “Just for that, there's free lunch in it for you—well, late breakfast anyway—if you like.”

Dylan liked that idea so much he ordered scrambled eggs and toast while he phoned Cindi to cancel their meeting.

Copyright © 2015 by Alyse Stanko Pleiter

ISBN-13: 9781460345023

Her Cowboy Hero

Copyright © 2015 by Carolyne Aarsen

All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical,
now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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www.Harlequin.com

The Catch of a Lifetime

Karla Kennedy doesn't belong in Gordon Falls. The aspiring restaurateur has far loftier goals than running her grandfather's quaint coffee shop. The only person who seems to relate is handsome volunteer firefighter Dylan McDonald. Dylan understands dreams—he risked everything to start his fishing charter business. Now he needs Karla's help to make it succeed. As they work together, Karla and Dylan quickly discover that while their timing may be bad, their chemistry is undeniable. Karla always thought of Gordon Falls as a layover on her way to a big-city career, but could it be where her heart truly belongs?

Gordon Falls: Hearts ablaze in a small town

“This'll get your motor humming.” Karla slid a coffee mug in front of Dylan.

“Go on, try it.” Her eyes were wide and persuasive.

Dylan took a sizable gulp. “Wow,” he said after a long pause. “That is…really…”

He set the cup back down on the counter and pushed it back toward her, smiling.

“…awful.”

Karla laughed. “Wow, don't hold back on my account, Captain McDonald.”

“Maybe leave this one off the Coffee Catch menu.”

“Coward!” she playfully called as she snatched back the full mug.

“Purist,” he corrected. And just because her pout was so disarming, he added, “but the Captain part? You can keep that. How about you just give me a regular coffee today.”

“Aye, aye, sir. One boring regular coffee, coming up.” With a mile-wide smirk, she scribbled on the check before placing it facedown in front of him. “On the house.”

Smiling, Dylan turned the check to face him.
Kaptain Koffee
was written in an artistic hand, with a little doodle of fish and bubbles running up the side so the “$0” was the last of the bubbles.

Karla Kennedy sure knew how to bait a hook.

Books by Allie Pleiter

Love Inspired

  
My So-Called Love Life

  The Perfect Blend

*
Bluegrass Hero

*
Bluegrass Courtship

*
Bluegrass Blessings

*
Bluegrass Christmas

  Easter Promises
*“Bluegrass Easter”

†
Falling for the Fireman

†
The Fireman's Homecoming

†
The Firefighter's Match

†
A Heart to Heal

†
Saved by the Fireman

†
Small-Town Fireman

Love Inspired Historical

  Masked by Moonlight

  Mission of Hope

  Yukon Wedding

  Homefront Hero

  Family Lessons

  The Lawman's Oklahoma Sweetheart

Love Inspired Single Title

Bad Heiress Day

Queen Esther & the Second Graders of Doom

*Kentucky Corners
†Gordon Falls

ALLIE PLEITER

Enthusiastic but slightly untidy mother of two, RITA® Award finalist Allie Pleiter writes both fiction and nonfiction. An avid knitter and unreformed chocoholic, she spends her days writing books, drinking coffee and finding new ways to avoid housework. Allie grew up in Connecticut, holds a BS in speech from Northwestern University and spent fifteen years in the field of professional fund-raising. She lives with her husband, children and a Havanese dog named Bella in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois.