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She liked the way Davis looked at and treated Kim, and she was curious as to what exactly was going on.
Maybe that’s what made her a good diner owner, because even though Strawberry Sands was small, and her diner was struggling, and she wasn’t sure whether she was even going to make it to the next month, let alone for an entire year, she loved the people in the town and cared about them.
It was one of those small towns where everyone knew everyone else and everyone cared about everyone else. It was exactly the kind of place that she needed to land after all the poor choices she’d made in her life.
There were lots of people she could blame for how her life ended up, but she always found it best when she took the blame for herself.
And now she had the eye of a great man, handsome and upstanding, a lawyer in Chicago who had a big beach house nearby and who had come into her diner to eat a few times. They’d hit it off, and he texted her once in a while. She had every expectation that they’d develop a great relationship and maybe progress to more. She hoped so.
She grabbed the drinks and the slice of pie, shoved her notebook in her pocket, and walked back over to their table.
After setting the drinks down, she set the pie down and said, “It won’t hurt my feelings either way. But people who love molasses usually really love the pie.”
“Thanks so much. I appreciate the opportunity to taste it. I’ve never even heard of it before.”
“I don’t think it’s something that’s real common in this part of the country. I come from southern Ohio, and it’s a much bigger thing there.”
“Amish roots?” Davis asked, like he was familiar with the area.
She nodded. Not wanting to talk about it. She had moved away from that part of her life, and while she’d come back from the depths she traveled, she wasn’t quite ready to go home.
She probably would never be ready to go home.
“I didn’t want to introduce Kim without her permission, but she and I are expecting a baby in three months. She’ll be here at Strawberry Sands. Her mom,” he tripped over the word “mom,” which Charlotte found odd, “owned the house I am leasing.”
That was quite a bit of information. She certainly hadn’t thought of Davis as the kind of man who had a woman running around who was pregnant. He hadn’t said anything about her being his wife.
That was completely common in today’s day and age, and Charlotte supposed she shouldn’t be shocked. She certainly couldn’t judge. Not with her past.
“Well, congratulations. Boy or girl?” she asked, having all day to talk. It wasn’t like she was expecting a lunch or supper rush. Or any kind of rush for that matter.
“A girl,” Kim said softly, sweetly.
Charlotte liked her and had a feeling that they could be friends. “Do you have names picked out?”
Kim’s eyes went to Davis before she looked back at Charlotte. “No. Not yet. We have three months. I guess we’ll have to figure something out eventually.” She laughed a little nervously.
Charlotte took their orders, wondering about what was going on exactly. People had such interesting stories.
She tucked her notebook in her pocket, grabbed her tray, and assured them that she would be back out with their salads shortly.
Talk about interesting stories, she thought to herself as she walked into the kitchen where her short-order cook stood at the griddle, scraping its already clean surface.
Griff had heard people come in, and he’d turned the griddle on to get ready. She couldn’t have found a better person to work for her, even if it had been an accident.
He’d shown up in town, tattoos covering both arms, bandanna around his head, two earrings in his left ear, wearing a leather vest, which exposed biceps bigger than her thighs and a thatch of chest hair that looked to be about as thick as the hair on her head sticking up from the V in his vest, worn jeans, and biker boots, his Harley parked along the sidewalk.
He had watched her walk down the sidewalk and use her key to open the door of the diner. Just a few minutes later, he’d knocked on the door and asked if she needed a short-order cook.
She couldn’t deny that she needed one, and Griff turned out to be the cook of her dreams.
Well, the cook of her dreams didn’t have quite that many tattoos and probably talked a little more too.
But Griff was good at his job. As much time as they spent together, she would have thought she would have gotten his story out of him. But he was very tight-lipped, and he knew way more about her than she knew about him.
Which wasn’t saying much.
She handed him the order. He stuck it on the board above his head, and she didn’t need to tell him that she would make the salads.
