I pour the refill. “How was your breakfast?”
He takes one sip and levels a look at me. “It hit the spot, although I noticed you upped the price of biscuits by two cents.”
“Inflation,” I shoot back. “You can take it up with the Federal Reserve.”
He harrumphs but I see the twinkle in his expression. “I fought for this country.”
“Then consider it your patriotic duty to pay more,” I tell him sweetly.
My bestie Larkin sits next to her identical twin, Laken, who sits to the right of Pap. The ladies have twin halos of luxurious chocolate-brown hair, arresting hazel eyes and matching grins.
“Pap’s feisty this morning,” Laken observes as I top off their javas.
“Your grandpa is a teddy bear,” I counter, cutting to Pap, who ignores the comment. Which… pretty sure no one has ever referred to the retired Marine as a fluffy stuffed toy before.
Larkin snorts and the twins share a laugh at Pap’s expense, but I’m already spinning off to the next table, where Mary-Margaret Quinn sits wearing her broad-brimmed hat and rings on every finger.
“Penny, darling,” she calls, “if you’d let me bring in one of my antique mirrors, this space could really shine. It’ll open up the room—and reflect all our sins at the same time.”
“Appreciate it, Mary-Margaret,” I reply, picking up three plates from a nearby table and balancing them on one arm, “but I think Whynot’s got enough mirrors for that.”
She giggles like a young girl and I grin back at her.
The café hums like a hive, full of laughter, clinking mugs, and the hiss of Johnny’s griddle. It’s pure craziness, but the good kind—loud, alive and entirely unpredictable.
Johnny’s laugh booms from the kitchen. “Penny, you got a second?”
I dodge around Pap’s stool and walk through the double doors to the kitchen, dropping the plates with a clatter in one of the large industrial sinks. Johnny Clemons—forty-something, red-faced, and built like a linebacker who never stopped bulking up—is wearing an apron that readsKiss the Cook—But Not If You Value Your Life. His grin could light up a power outage.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“Order for Eli Hart’s ready,” he says, handing me a brown paper bag that has a Styrofoam container inside. “Called it in half an hour ago—honey-biscuit sandwich with bacon. Told him I’d have it hot when he got here.”
“Got it.” I wipe my palms on my apron and accept the order.
I head back into the dining area just as Eli walks in.
It goes quiet and I swear, even the bacon stops sizzling.
My breath catches just a little as the owner of Hart Apiaries strides in. Eli’s in his mid-thirties, devastatingly gorgeous with near-black hair, blue eyes sharp as a Carolina sky after a storm, jeans faded just right, and a plain gray T-shirt that looks sinful on a man who clearly knows manual labor. I swear the air pressure shifts just from his presence.
Mary-Margaret actually fans herself with her laminated menu. “Mercy.”
Larkin murmurs, “He is not hard to look at.”
“No, he is not,” Laken adds, starry-eyed.
Pap snorts. “You girls get those hormones under control. You both have husbands at home.”
The twins snicker and continue to stare at Eli.
Floyd leans back on his stool, amused. “I admit… he’s handsome in all the right ways.”
Eli nods as he moves past other customers, unbotheredby the attention. Or maybe he’s oblivious, but he walks with the quiet confidence of a man who doesn’t need to prove a damn thing.
I move to the register to meet him. “Hey, Eli.”
“There’s the heroine of the town,” he says, voice deep, warm, Southern but not twangy. “Opening back up Central Café and making all our dreams come true.”
