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Spring finished off each table by cutting thin Plexiglas sheets to protect the refurbished table tops from spills and stains, and to make cleanup easy.
It was hard work but fun, with music blaring and everyone joking around as they worked their asses off.
Most of the lunchtime taco fixings had vanished by the time Bob’s old friend Kevin Aberdeen arrived in a large, flat-bed truck loaded up with two pieces of a white quartz slab with gray veining.
Kevin had phoned Summer a few days ago to offer her a deep discount on a large slab that had cracked in half during shipping. Despite Kevin’s assurances that he could fix the damage with an invisible seam of epoxy, the customer had refused to take delivery and insisted on a replacement slab.
Not only had Kevin offered to drive down from Livingston to deliver the damaged slab, he’d offered to cut it to fit the breakfast counter and the antique backbar Summer had bought.
As expected, Brock had grumbled at first about the additional expense of the old pharmacy counter. But he eventually admitted that it added old-fashioned character to the diner, and would be the crowning touch on a great new dining room.
∞∞∞
To Brock’s amazement, all of the extra helping hands meant that all of renovations wrapped up by the end of the first day. The dining room was completely transformed, and it looked great.
When all of the tables, chairs, and stools had been carried back inside, Brock tapped a glass with a knife to get everyone’s attention.
He reached for Summer’s hand. “Thank you all so much for coming out to help us today,” he began.
“I’ve cooked a special dinner for you, if you’d like to seat yourselves,” Summer added. “But before that, I’d like to add one final touch to this beautiful new dining room. Autumn?”
Summer’s sister approached Brock, carrying two large flat rectangles wrapped in brown paper. To Brock’s surprise, Autumn presented the items to him.
“We’ve made a lot of big changes today, but we also wanted to pay homage to the diner’s history,” she said. “Go ahead, unwrap them.”
Wondering what she and Summer had cooked up behind his back, he ripped away the paper. And then stopped in shock.
Unaccustomed tears stung his eyes as he gazed down at the two large matted and framed photos in his hands.
The first photo was of Mama at work in the diner, standing behind the breakfast counter and smiling at the camera while refilling a customer’s coffee cup. The second photo showed Mama, a very young Brock, and Gran, all dressed in their Sunday best and posing in front of The Yummy Cowboy Diner.
“How…?” he asked in a choked voice.
Summer smiled shyly up at him. “I noticed you had a bunch of photo albums on your living room bookshelves,” she said. “I went through them last week, while you were out picking some stuff in the garden for our dinner. Do you like them?”
In reply, he bent and kissed her, a long, sweet meeting of their lips as their friends and Summer’s family whooped and clapped.
“I love them,” he whispered. “Thank you, Summer.”
She blushed. “Why don’t we hang them over our new backbar?” she suggested, pointing at an empty patch of wall over the espresso station. The rest of the wall was lined with open shelving intended to hold cups, glasses, and plates.
Speechless and fighting his tears of gratitude and happiness, Brock nodded.
“Good,” she said. She gently tugged the picture frames out of his grip and handed them to Jason.
“If you’ll do the honors?” she asked him.
“Of course.”
While Jason hammered in a couple of picture hooks and hung the photos, Austin, Brock and Summer went into the kitchen.
There, they rapidly plated and served a dinner of Brock’s buttermilk fried chicken with macaroni and cheese made from Priscilla Snowberry’s recipe, and fresh steamed corn on the cob.
Then he and Summer seated themselves at the Snowberry family table, and dug in. It felt incredibly good to share this meal with all of their helpers in this beautiful new dining room.
They were in the middle of dessert—Summer had whipped up a batch of Grandma Russo’s strawberry shortcakes—and debating the merits of huckleberry pie versus cherry and apple pies, when the shopkeeper’s bell installed over the front door tinkled.
Brock looked up to see Abigail enter the diner. Frowning, she peered around the crowded dining room, then made a beeline for the Snowberry table.
