“This will always be Lolly’s kitchen.” Jack pushed away from the counter and stepped closer. “And it’s about time you came home to make things right again.”
She fought the urge to step back when he moved. The way he acted so at home in a place that wasn’t his set her teeth on edge. He moved through the kitchen as if he’d been born in it. And maybe that was what irritated her the most—how easily someone else had slid into her grandmother’s sacred space. She needed him out of it.
She glanced around for the rolling pin Lolly usually kept nearby. Maybe a good whack would wipe that self-assured look off his face and push him toward the back door.
The smarter move would be to call the police. But whatwould she even say? “Hello, 911? There’s a trespasser in my kitchen with a cocky grin, forearms that could probably bench press my rental car, and a pot of strawberry jam that’s making my mouth water?” Not exactly an emergency.
Jack seemed to read her mind. “Planning on calling the cops?” he asked. “I heard firemen were more your thing.”
She blinked, thrown off by the dig. “How did you?—”
“Small town.” He shrugged, smirk still in place. “Word gets around.”
“Look,” Cora said, squaring her shoulders. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, but?—”
“Honoring a promise,” Jack interrupted. “Lolly and I had big plans for this place.”
She swallowed, ignoring how his presence seemed to make the room smaller. “Well, I hate to break it to you, but whatever plans you had? They’re not happening.”
A flicker of frustration flashed in Jack’s eyes. “Is that so? What are you going to do, then? Sweep in from the big city and tear it all down?”
“I’m here to sell it.”
Jack gave a dry laugh, shaking his head. “Figures.”
Her chin lifted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” he said, already turning back to the stove. “It just isn’t the future Lolly hoped for, and I didn’t figure you’d be the type of person to take the easy way out.”
It struck a nerve, but she kept her expression neutral. “You don’t get to judge. You’re not the one holding the deed.”
Jack stirred the pot, his forearms slowly flexing with the movement. “No. But it looks like I’m the only one around here who knows how to keep a promise.”
Chapter Four
Cora’s words hit Jack like a sucker punch to the gut.Sell The Spoon? His fingers gripped the edge of the counter, knuckles turning white as he searched her face for some sign that she was joking. But there was nothing in those green eyes but steely determination.
He pushed away from the counter, raking a hand through his hair. “You can’t really be planning to sell.”
“I am.” Cora’s voice was steady, but he caught a slight tremor beneath. Like the first crack in a perfect meringue. “I’ve already spoken with Lolly’s attorney about it.”
He let out a dry laugh. “And what about Lolly? Is this what she would have wanted?”
Cora flinched.
Good. At least she wasn’t completely made of stone.
“You don’t know anything about what Lolly wanted,” she snapped, color flaring in her freckled cheeks.
For an instant, he saw Lolly in her. She had the same spark, the same fire. But where Lolly’s warmth had drawn people in, Cora’s seemed bent on burning everything down.
“I know she wouldn’t have wanted it sold to the highest bidder,” he shot back, closing the distance between them. “This café was her life. It was—” He stopped himself, swallowing the wordeverything.
Cora didn’t need to know about the night he’d slept in his car in the parking lot, too ashamed to walk through the door and ask for a job. Or how Lolly had come outside with a load of recycling, knocked on his window, and said, “Son, you look like you need a hot meal and a friend.” She didn’t need to know how The Salty Spoon was his refuge when he’d had nothing else.
“It’s not just a building, you know,” Jack said quietly.
“It is to me. One I need to sell before it sucks the rest of my life down with it. I can’t just drop everything to run a café I have no business running.”
