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Summer’s gut twisted in pain at the reminder.
Just a few months ago, those reviews had been the brightest light in her world. They’d been proof that she’d succeeded in her long struggle to make it in the male-dominated world of high-end restaurant kitchens.
Then a fresh worry intruded.If Grandma is following my career so closely, did she hear the news?
Crap. Summer swallowed hard.
She tried to reassure herself that Grandma wouldn’t be acting so worried about Summer’s availability to stay if she knew the truth.
“Frank and I always knew you had a special gift, and I’m so glad the rest of the world is seeing that, too,” continued Grandma. “I’m so grateful that you could come home to help me out.” She sighed. “You see, we finally convinced the Livingston Vintage Rail company to run trains down to the North Gate of Yellowstone, with a stop here in town, just before Frank… left us. Leftme.”
At the desolate note in Grandma Abigail’s voice, Summer put down her spatula, turned, and folded her grandmother into a hug.
She’d always known Grandma Abigail as a force of nature—dynamic, stubborn, and hard-working. She felt strangely shrunken now, as light and fragile as a bird in Summer’s embrace.
“I still can’t believe Frank is really gone. Every time the phone rings, I can’t help thinking that it’s him, phoning from the hospital yet again to make sure that your father and your brother are handling everything just the right way here at the ranch.” She gave a sad little huff of not-quite-laughter, followed by a heavy sigh. “It’s notfair. We both worked so hard to close that deal with the LVR. It’s going to be a whole new start for our town, and Frank won’t be around to see it!” Her arms came around Summer’s waist. “Thank God you’re here, Summer!”
Summer held her grandmother tightly as grief and guilt surged through her.
Truth was, her life in San Francisco been in full meltdown when she got word that her beloved Grandpa Frank was in the hospital. In bitter retrospect, she should have dropped everything right then and rushed home. But she’d still been nursing a tiny spark of hope that maybe she could salvage the disaster.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to say goodbye to Grandpa—” she began, feeling a renewed surge of guilt.
Then her phone squawked again. Grandma quickly ended the hug and stepped back.
Summer decided that chicken ringtone needed to go. Now.
She’d barely finished rejecting the call when her text notifications began chiming and scrolling down her screen at an alarming rate.Bok-bok-bok.
Oh, shit.She absolutely could not deal with any of this right now. Not with her grandmother standing right next to her.And it’s not like I can do anything about the situation at the moment.
“Sweetie, do you need to answer any of those calls? You’ve been getting an awful lot of them,” observed Grandma Abigail.
Summer grimaced. “I must’ve gotten on some spammer’s list,” she lied.
Then, quickly swiping, she put her phone into Do Not Disturb mode. She’d deal with the inevitable voicemail and text messages later.Afterall the guests had departed, and once she’d cleaned the kitchen from top to bottom and put away all of the pots and pans she’d used to cater the funeral repast.
And changed that damned ringtone for something less obnoxious.
Right now, though, according to the schedule she’d fastened to the refrigerator door with a magnet, Summer needed to prep a tray of canapés.
For the base, she sliced a crusty, fresh-baked baguette from Jenna’s Java & Bakery in town. Next, she would top them with swirled rosettes of herbed cream cheese and thinly sliced applewood-smoked trout from fish that her brother had caught and smoked himself.
As she filled a pastry bag with the cream cheese mixture, she asked, “What kind of special project did you need help with?”
“It’s The Yummy Cowboy Diner,” replied Grandma Abigail.
“Are you kidding me?” Summer asked in shock. She had begun to pipe cream cheese rosettes onto the bread, but stopped. “That place is still in business?”
For most of Summer’s life, The Yummy Cowboy Diner had been the town’s only restaurant. If you could evencallit a restaurant. It had always appeared to be hanging on to life by its fingernails.
She remembered it as a no-frills breakfast and lunch place with dingy decor stuck somewhere in the middle of the last century. Her grandparents owned the building, just like they owned most of the commercial buildings in town, and were silent partners in the business. For as long as Summer could remember, Mrs. Michaels had run the diner’s day-to-day operations.
Summer had heard from her mom when Mrs. Michaels passed away last year. At that time, she had assumed that the place would go out of business.
“It is,” Grandma confirmed. “The young man who took over running the diner is a very hard worker and an excellent cook. But he’s self-taught, and I believe that’s the reason The Yummy Cowboy Diner is still struggling. Just before Frank passed—” She paused for a moment to collect herself, then continued. “He and I discussed reworking the place into something a little more… upscale.”
Summer pursed her lips, swiftly piping rosettes of herbed cream cheese onto the baguette slices. “No offense, but do you really think a town this size can support an upscale restaurant?”
