"It's good today," she said, which was the highest available commendation.
"Hmmm."
"Yesterday was also good." She looked at him then, briefly, with the absent attention she gave things that didn't require her full focus. "The water temperature, maybe. It's been better lately."
He had, in fact, adjusted the water temperature two weeks ago because he'd noted she'd taken one sip and held it in her mouth for a half-second longer than usual, and he'd recalibrated the following morning.
She went back to looking at the street. She had the notebook open now, pressed against the cup with her thumb. She'd writtensomething at the top of the page and underlined it. The angle was wrong for reading, and he was not going to.
He wasn't.
He cleaned the steam wand.
"Busy morning?" she asked. She asked this occasionally. He hadn't worked out whether it was genuine interest or the conversational equivalent of a menu board.
"Steady," he said.
"Mm." She finished the last of the coffee and set the cup on the counter. Looked at her notebook. This time the angle was readable.
She was making a list. A list of men.
"Right. Thanks again."
She hadn't thanked him the first time.
She went back inside. The door swung shut.
Freddie turned back to the machine. Three doors down, a woman with a stroller crossed toward the bakery. A gust lifted a handful of leaves from the planter by the lamppost. The fall light did its thing to the teal-green paint of Pages & Prose. The gold letters above the door caught it and gave it back.
Wren was making a list of men.
Was it a guest list? But then, why were they all men?
Was it a list of men she wanted to date? They were all single men. They were all men who'd gone through the Purple Heart Ranch program.
Wren Banks had sworn off dating after dumping her fiancé. He'd overheard that bit of gossip at Baby Banks' birthday party. What he didn't know, and pretended he didn't want to know, was why his name was not on that list.
