“Why are you here?” He greeted Hank with a grunt, wiping his hands on a towel as if he were a boxer anticipating a fight.
“For a donut. I’ll take one of those chocolate ones with the sprinkles.” Hank pointed at a display of pastries. “And a cup of coffee, black.”
Travis glared at him, and Hank thought he might refuse, but he turned and grabbed a coffee cup. He must have decided to keep silent in favor of a sale.Smart kid.
Travis pulled a donut off the paper, put it into a brown paper bag, and shoved it at Hank, along with the cup ofcoffee. “One donut and coffee to go. That’ll be four-fifty.” He curled his lip. “What’s with the shiny new toolbox?”
Hank gave him an easy smile. “You like it? Bought it across the street just now.”
Travis’s expression did not change. Hank continued. “I had some downtime, so I thought I’d check the place out this morning. Make a few repairs.”
Travis narrowed his eyes, his displeasure filling his entire face, all the way to his hairline.
Hank kept his tone casual. “I’m the landlord and the building needs attention. Where’s your sister?”
“Not here.”
Obviously.Hank smothered a sigh. “When do you expect her?”
Travis stiffened, jutting his chin. “Not sure. She didn’t say.” He thrust a hand out to Hank with his change.
Hank didn’t move. “You keep it.”
Travis did the staring act again before pulling his hand back with the generous tip. The kid showed promise...reminded him of Connor.
Hank’s phone buzzed in his pants pocket. He turned and found a booth to unload his stuff before checking the number.Elizabeth.He had forgotten. She’d arranged some publicity stunt for the day. He breathed deeply and tried to dispel the feeling of doom that hung over him like a dark cloud. He had promised her he would pump iron at the local gym to attract a crowd, so she could plug some pics of him on Instagram...or maybe it was TikTok. He had trouble keeping track.
Hank sent Elizabeth a text to reschedule and set the phone down to devour the donut.Pastries two days in a row and no workout.He would need to redouble his efforts on Monday.Not today, though.Today he’d reserved forhimself and Bethany Parker. If she ever showed. Last night, he’d ordered New York City cheesecake to be delivered after Rosie told him it was Bethany’s favorite. Now he only needed to convince her to have dinner with him. He watched the door like a hawk in between checking his texts. Then he remembered the wobbly chair and that he was supposed to be fixing things. So he crawled under the table to give it a look and that’s how he overheard the women.
“No dogs allowed in the place, Daphne. Remember, the owner doesn’t like them.”
From his vantage point under the table, Hank noticed two pairs of women’s feet some distance away. One of them wore stilettos. His gaze rose a little higher to take in a pair of long and shapely legs.
“How could I forget after the scene she made the last time. Not to worry. I left poor Gulliver in the car and cracked the windows. What’s she got against dogs, anyway? She lets that old man in here with his awful cat all the time. It’s not fair.”
The door jangled, but before Hank could crawl out from under the table to see who’d entered, the other woman’s next words stopped him.
“I knew her in high school. Straight-A student. She’s one of those business sorts, you know. Never married, no kids...acatlady...”
This last was said as if liking cats was the worst thing in the world, which was not far off from Hank’s general feeling about cats, but still...
“. . .surprised her restaurant is failing.”
“I heard from a friend shedidhave a fiancé, but the guy stole money from her and took off. That’s why the business is doing so badly. They can barely keep the lights on. A shame ’cause the food is good.”
“Yeah, she dated the guy on that cooking show. . .what’s the name. . .Chef Master or something.”
The woman who knew Bethany in high school let out a high-pitched cackle, which made all the hairs on the back of Hank’s neck stand on end.
“No, silly, the Chef King. He lives in New York and has his own cooking show. But he’s back in town. I ran into him at the grocery store yesterday. Said he was working on an idea for the next episode.”
“That’s cool. Well, I heard she’s entering some baking contest to try and save the place. The winning restaurant gets a pretty hefty sum of money.”
“Hey, we’d better grab a table. This place is filling up fast. Imagine Apollo turning up in our little neck of the woods. If you see him, holler. I wanna get his autograph.”
The voices faded as the women crossed to the opposite corner of the café, and Hank let out his breath. Not surprising some of his die-hard fans would show up on the chance he would be here. He should have thought of that. But now he had something more to think about.Bethany and the Chef King.A dark feeling settled in his stomach like a bad dream.
Hank wedged a folded napkin beneath the chair leg to keep it from wobbling and dragged himself out from under it to sit at the table, doing his best to remain hidden. If he were going to make Grandma Lou’s a hangout, he’d need to come up with some sort of disguise.
