The Fortune Cafe (24 page)

“I’m not grieving. Why was it a stupid idea? I think it’s amazing. Let me see the fortune.”

He froze for a moment so quick she wasn’t sure she’d seen the hesitation. “No, it’s fine. I’m sure it’s trashed anyway from the soup spill.”

“Should be fine inside that bag. I want it.” He started to stand, and she tried to snatch it away from him again, but he jerked it out of her way and they both lost their balance. She pitched into his chest and knocked him flat on his back. She didn’t apologize. She didn’t even move. She stared down at him, into his eyes full of nothing but her. He wasn’t breathing; if he was, she would have felt it against her lips. “I want the fortune,” she repeated, propping herself up on her forearms but making no effort to move off of him.

His eyes flicked down toward her mouth, and he shook his head. “Lucy.”

A tingle shot down her spine at the strain in his voice. “Yes, Carter?” she asked, relaxing into him even more.

His eyes slammed shut, and she grinned. “Lucy...”

“Yes?”

He hesitated. She didn’t mind. She liked her perch.

“Carter...” She trailed off his name and swallowed, trying again. “Carter, I want to be brave.”

That got his eyes open. He reached up and twined his fingers through her hair, giving it a soft tug. “Don’t mess with me,” he said, his voice soft as the breeze off the ocean.

“I’m not.” She wiggled against him while she tried to reach behind her for the slip of paper she’d pulled from her pocket.

His eyes shut again, and he clenched his jaw. “Lucy-Lou, stop.”

“I just need—”

His hands closed around her waist and held her still. “I mean it. Stop.”

She tucked her worn fortune into his hand and slid her arms around his neck, loving the feel of the warm sand against her palms and his soft hair against the backs of her hands, her lips barely grazing his as she spoke. “Read it.”

He held her gaze for a long moment, and the intensity of it only made her want to dip down and steal a longer kiss. He glanced at the fortune, his eyes scanning it then darting back to her face, searching again. They were so close she could see his eyes darken, and this time the look inside them sent another shiver down her spine.
Why wasn’t he saying anything?

She slowly righted herself and let him up. He reached into the wax bag for a homemade-looking fortune cookie, plucking the paper slip out, and handing it to her.

She straightened it and read the words.
Maybe what you’re looking for is just a balcony away.

He watched her so closely she wondered if he could see the pulse jump in her neck, and she blushed. He reached for her and settled her into his lap, turning her face up to his for a kiss that would have melted her if he wasn’t holding her up, his arms tight and sure. He deepened it, confident in a way that sent tingles skittering through her stomach, hotter than she’d ever have thought possible, and tasting like sweetness that was purely Carter.

When he drew back enough to breathe, he rested his forehead against hers, and she wondered if he could feel how flushed her skin was. That had been good. So, so good.

He smiled and dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose. “If you’re going to be brave, then I guess that means I’m very, very lucky.”

But his next kiss only proved that Lucy’s luck was back again.

Stella Novak ignored the incoming text. She didn’t care if Andrew was “stopping in” at Seashell Beach and wanted to catch dinner together. The fact that she was now a
stop
along the way bothered her more than it should. Thinking of her ex-boyfriend used to hurt, it used to make her mad, but now she just felt… tired.

Besides, if Andrew really wanted to find her, he knew where she worked. He’d been to her mother’s jewelry shop, Spyglass Jewelry, more than once. He used to tease her about how someone on a full-ride academic scholarship to Stanford had come from a touristy town.

“Did you even have to take tests in your tiny school?” Andrew’s voice echoed in her mind. “Or did they let you out early to go cater to the tourists?”

At first, Stella thought Andrew was charming, witty, and cosmopolitan. He was from Seattle and was one of the most brilliant minds in the business entrepreneurial program. They were put on the same team in Marketing 410 while doing their undergraduate degrees. By the time they both graduated, they were a steady item on campus.

Stella aced the GMAT and had her application in for the MBA program when her world fell apart.

Or more accurately, her mother fell apart.

Her mother had suffered a mild stroke from her diabetes, and now Stella spent her days running her mom’s shop, and her nights taking care of her mom.

Andrew had been sympathetic at first, but when he realized Stella was dead set on moving back home to take care of her mom on a long-term basis, he had walked away. Until the last three months. It seemed Andrew hadn’t found any women to fawn over him during his MBA studies. And now he was back on her trail. Thinking of his persistence made Stella want to close the shop for a couple of hours and walk alone on the beach. Sand between her toes always seemed to help her forget Andrew and her former dreams.

Her phone buzzed again.

She looked at it simply because she had to. Most of her vendors texted her when they were running low on product.

Need 2 doz moon & star bracelets b4 weekend. ??? –Ronnie

Stella set down the silver bead she was crimping and texted back.
No prob. Pick up Fri a.m.

Setting the phone back down, she scrawled a note on a lavender Post-it note. She had them all over the wall above her desk. It looked disorganized, but the method helped her prioritize. The note about the moon & star bracelets now went into position #2, right below Post-it #1 that read:
Order food.

She kept that Post-it in first position always because if there was one thing she was forgetful about, it was eating dinner. She worked late after her mom went to sleep in their house behind the shop, and by the time she realized she was starving, the restaurants were closed. And her mom’s special dietary food did little to satisfy Stella.

She grabbed her stack of takeout menus and fliers, then glanced at her phone to check the time. 9:15 p.m. It was Tuesday, so the restaurants closed down by 9:00 p.m. That left the pizza joint. She dialed and ordered a personal size with pepperoni, olives, and mushrooms, then as an afterthought, she added a Diet Coke. She’d be up late starting on Ronnie’s order anyway. She pretty much kicked her Diet Coke habit after moving back home, but it had been creeping back lately.

While she waited, she reviewed the orders of the day. A woman had come in earlier with a broken jade necklace. When Stella said it would take at least a week or two to fix, the woman was upset… the necklace meant a lot to her, she’d said. Stella reviewed the contact information on the Post-it:
Lucy Dalton
. Stella suspected that the woman put a lot more stock in the superstitious nature of jade— and the fact that it was supposed to be a good luck charm. People were certainly interesting.

The door chimed as it opened, and Stella looked over to see a teenaged kid, carrying a pizza box.

“Set it on the counter, please,” she said, digging out her money from her purse. She handed over the money, then checked the pizza box. The order was right. “Thanks.”

“Have a good night,” the teen said.

The smell of the pizza made Stella realize how hungry she was. She carried it to the work desk. As she ate, she browsed through the other takeout menus. She stopped when she got to The Fortune Café menu. The restaurant was down the street, but she hadn’t ordered from them in a while. She remembered them being good, so she’d have to try them again.

Stella was about halfway through the pizza when the door chimed again.

Maybe the delivery boy had left his keys or something. She rose from her desk and walked into the shop.

A man, with a little girl tugging at his hand, had just entered. For a second, Stella stared. The little girl had blonde curls, reminding her of herself. And the girl was about six or seven, the same age Stella had been when her father was killed in a car wreck on the PCH.

Stella’s throat felt tight, and she commanded herself to breathe until she started to relax. The man and the girl hadn’t noticed her yet. “It smells like flowers in here, Daddy! Can you smell it?”

The man exaggerated a sniff. “Yeah, I smell it.”

“Look at these!” the girl said, pulling her father toward the display of sun necklaces. The dark-corded chains contrasted with the polished brass suns. They were one of the more popular tourist buys. “Sunshines! Can we get one for Mommy?”

The man crouched next to his daughter and fingered the metal charm. “Do you think she’ll like this?”

“Yes.” The girl’s blonde curls bounced as she nodded. “She loves the sun!”

The man smiled, then he looked up to see Stella.

She flushed, realizing she’d been caught eavesdropping— but it was her store, wasn’t it? Yet for some reason, her standard “Can I help you?”
didn’t materialize. She was staring into the most incredible eyes she’d ever seen. She could only describe them as sea glass— a mixture of green and blue.

And the man’s gaze had that
appreciative
look in it.

This was definitely not happening. He was good-looking, any woman could see that, but he was married with a kid. Stella ignored the awareness spreading through her body and looked down at his daughter. “Do you like that necklace?”

The girl clasped her hands together. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Stella laughed at the kid’s dramatics. The man was laughing too. He straightened to his full height, and their gazes caught again. If Stella wasn’t mistaken, he was checking her out.

Wow.
She was flattered for precisely two seconds, then she was mad. What married guy checks out other women when shopping with his kid?

Not that there was a lot to check out. Stella’s blonde hair had faded to a dirty-wash color the past couple of years from spending so much time inside, and she probably had pizza breath, not to mention her multicolored hippie blouse gave her no shape whatsoever. Still.

“It is beautiful, sweetheart.” But he wasn’t looking at his daughter. “We need to find out how much it is. Can you read the numbers?” His gaze finally went back to his kid.

The girl turned the necklace over. “There’s no numbers.”

He reached for the necklace and turned it over himself. “You’re right. Maybe we should ask someone the price?”

The kid pointed at Stella with a grin. “How about the shop lady?”

Stella smiled at her. She had to hand it to the guy— he was an adorable dad.

“Great idea,” he said, his tone low and amused. “How much are the necklaces? We don’t see any prices.”

That’s because I don’t label anything. Encourages customer interaction. And why are you looking at me like that? You’re married.
But Stella said none of these things. “They’re $65.”

The man’s eyebrows lifted slightly. If he thought he was in a junky jewelry shop, he was mistaken. Stella had handcrafted everything in the store. And her mother had done it before her; it was what made the store unique.

“Can we get it, Daddy? Pleassssse?”

His daughter’s begging tore his attention from Stella, and he looked down at his daughter, a half smile on his face.

What? Your wife’s not worth $65?
Stella wanted to say, but instead she said nothing. The man didn’t look like a bum or anything. His daughter wore a cute sundress with sparkly sandals, and his casual clothing— a button-down shirt and jeans— was nice-looking.

“All right, Katie,” he said. “It’s a deal. Pick which one you want.”

The girl named Katie squealed and started sorting through the metal suns, chattering to her dad as she did so. Each of the suns was a little different and the cord lengths also varied.

“I’ll be over here when you’re ready.” Stella popped a piece of gum into her mouth and absently redid her messy ponytail. Her hair was probably a mess— the charming curls of her youth had become a pain to work with as an adult. If she didn’t take the time to manipulate her hair with a flat iron, then it was hopeless, and she ended up pulling her hair up or winding it up in a clip.