Page 82 of Playing With Love

Someone had done her homework.

“I don’t know if it’s the best known to man, but it’s a bestseller.”

Sarah stuck out her hand.

Liza took it. When they were done, Sarah waved at me with a smile but retracted her hand.

I followed the women to the counter. Listened as Allyson and Sarah gave their complicated orders.

When it was Liza’s turn she turned to Allyson and asked, “Chocolate chip latte, right, Ally?”

Sarah rolled her eyes but they were smiling when she said, “Ally and her sweet tooth.”

“My sweet tooth is responsible for at least ten percent of your monthly sales.”

Liza’s head tipped back. She gave me a beaming smile that made me want to kiss it off her lips. And since we were married, I did just that.

Closed-mouthed and quick. Not exactly what I wanted but it was something.

When I lifted away, leaving Liza wide eyed and stunned, I quickly ordered her latte and a bottle of water.

The women went to find an open table that thankfully this time of day wasn’t hard to find. I paid, waited for the drinks, and scanned the interior of a hole in the wall coffee house, in a tiny town off the beaten path in the mountains of East Tennessee. I didn’t know the profit margins on selling coffee but the décor didn’t say small mountain town with a median income barely over the poverty line, a DG and a Family Dollar side-by-side with a dilapidated single wide across the street with a tarp over the roof. It said something else—money.

The robin’s egg blue wall looked to have been recently painted. The machines behind the counter top of the line, the pick-up area surface thick butcher block. The tables and chairs scattered around the small space were gleaming black melamine and if the unblemished state of the tables were anything to go by—new.

How a coffee shop that sold seven-dollar coffees and nothing else could stay open in a place like this—let alone turn a profit that would support new paint, top-of-the line machines, and new seating—was beyond me.

Something wasn’t adding up.

“Here you go,” the barista said as she set the trayed coffees on the butcher block. “Have a great day.”

“You, too.”

Juggling the tray and a bottle of water, I made my way to the women.

“That’s amazing.” I caught Liza saying.

“What’s amazing?”

It wasn’t until each woman had their latte that Liza answered me.

“Sarah was just telling me the owner of the coffee shop is going to start stocking her baked goods.”

“Melanie, that’s the owner, used to have a full bakery case, but she lost her baker when her daughter moved to Chattanooga and the shop hit a rough patch.”

I glanced around the space again and noted, “Looks like things turned around.”

“Yeah, Melanie was on the verge of closing but Mackenzie Archer stepped in and invested,” Sarah explained.

“I didn’t know that,” Allyson told her friend.

“Sometime last year.” Sarah leaned forward and lowered her voice. “This place used to be a total dive. Great coffee and Melanie’s daughter made amazing muffins, but the inside was drab. People don’t want to stop and get a coffee and muffin when the place looks like the health department’s moments from shutting you down. Mackenzie’s always looking for ways to help the community, plus Melanie’s a great gal. They closed the shop for a week and…” Sarah lifted her hand, waved it at the room at large then declared, “Voilà. A pretty, modern, clean coffee shop that people want to patron.”

More like Mackenzie was buying the owner’s silence to sell her drugs in the parking lot.

“And great business opportunity for you.” Liza smiled. “Win-win.”

“How long are you two staying in town?” Sarah asked.