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Those high hopes had dwindled to a little bit of nothing. The idea that maybe she could make it for at least a year so she didn’t go running home with her tail between her legs, embarrassed that her lifelong dream of owning a bakery had crashed and burned so quickly, almost seemed like too much to ask. She’d be lucky if they made it another month.
The bell over the door jangled, and Davis Thatcher, a newer resident of Strawberry Sands from what she understood, although he had been there longer than she had, came in with a woman she didn’t recognize.
As the owner of the local eatery, the only one in town, Charlotte knew pretty much everyone.
“Hello, it’s a beautiful day,” Charlotte said, knowing her words were true, even if they didn’t match the spreading depression in her chest. “Seat yourself and I’ll be over, okay, Davis?” She nodded her head at the woman beside Davis, who nodded back in greeting with a curious look between the two of them.
There was nothing going on there. Chi didn’t have time for romance, even though Davis was rather good looking, if she looked at him objectively.
But she finally got her life turned around, and she wasn’t going to derail it over an ill-conceived romance.
Plus, it looked like he had someone. The woman with him was probably considered tall in some circles, although her head only came to Davis’s shoulder. She looked a little chunky too, to Charlotte’s trained eye. She worked in the fashion industry for a while; of course, she worked at a lot of jobs for a while. It looked like she was going to work at owning a diner for a while too, before she fell into something else.
Of course, since she changed the way she lived, she didn’t have as many options open to her.
Throwing the rag behind the counter, she grabbed two menus and her notepad and walked over to the booth where Davis and the woman had settled themselves.
“I’m Charlotte,” she said to the woman who looked up as she approached.
“I’m Kim,” the woman said, meeting her eyes, as Charlotte put the menus down on the table in front of them. “I like your choice of music,” Kim added.
Chi grinned, appreciating that the woman had noticed that she was playing hymn music over the speakers. She always had some kind of hymns playing, and strings were her favorite. Maybe that accounted for the lack of popularity of her restaurant.
Of course, a lack of customers might also be because Strawberry Sands wasn’t exactly the bustling beach town she had been expecting when she bought it.
At least the bustling beach town hadn’t materialized yet.
“Thanks. I like to have something playing that reminds me of the direction I want to live my life.”
Kim nodded thoughtfully. “That’s a great idea.”
Charlotte might be imagining things, but Davis seemed to look at Kim like she hung the moon and stars. Interesting, because she hadn’t pictured Davis as anything other than confident and successful.
He was dressed like he was about to take a jog, so he wasn’t exactly screaming businessman today, nor did it say he was trying to impress a woman, but the way he looked at Kim was interesting.
“Can I take your drink orders?” Charlotte asked, pulling her pen and pad out. She wouldn’t have any trouble remembering, since there weren’t any other customers in the diner, but it was a habit.
They each gave her their drink orders, and she said, like she did every time, “I have some bakery goods in the case; you can go look at them, or I can bring you a list of what we have today. Griff and I made everything fresh this morning.”
“And everything I’ve ever had here is absolutely amazing. Except for the shoofly pie.” Davis gave an exaggerated shudder.
“True, but in my defense, you’d never had shoofly pie, and it’s really not for everyone.”
“I’m not saying it wasn’t well-made, I’m just saying I didn’t particularly enjoy it.”
“Have you ever had shoofly pie?” Charlotte asked Kim, figuring that she’d give her a piece on the house if she hadn’t.
“Is that like mincemeat?” Kim asked, crinkling her brows.
“No. Mincemeat is a completely different thing. But we do have that occasionally as well.”
“I like mincemeat. At least the one time I had it. I’ve never made it myself.”
“I’ll get you a piece of shoofly. It’s molasses based, and if you don’t like molasses, then you probably won’t like it.”
“I’m not sure if I’ve ever had molasses. Although aren’t there Christmas cookies made of molasses?”
They chatted a bit about it, then Charlotte left to grab their drinks and to slice off a small piece of shoofly pie for Kim to try.
