Page 13 of Found Objects

When I’d built The Bower, I had done it with the same boundary that I put around my home, my land, and the shelter. That meant if anyone who had any desire to harm anyone there put even a foot on the cobblestone drive, they would be rendered unconscious. That was my intention. What had not been planned, or anticipated, was that the boundary magic drew others looking for a port in the storm. Meaning, if you were having a crappy day, week, month… popping into The Bower could be quite soothing. After the first hundred years or so, I understood that lots of folks would come in to eat as an excuse to simply sit on the patio or by the hearth in the winter, and breathe.

So it was not a surprise that when new people came to town, they would eventually find their way to my restaurant. Over the following month, I saw a lot of new faces. Guests came in for coffee in the morning, appreciating that they didn’t have to wait to order. We had a designated counter to the far right with a gorgeous rendering of Titania from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She was smiling down from a sign, where it looked as though her arms were crossed and her head was resting on them in serene contemplation of every customer. It had been painted in the 1920s, and I had kept it in mint condition. All the artworks that hung in The Bower were originals, and every now and then a historian would recognize a piece that should have been in a museum somewhere. Of course, I would not part with my treasures, so they remained where they were, adorning the walls of a restaurant in the middle of nowhere.

Our new residents were also stunned to find that there was no meat served at The Bower. I was always surprised when people couldn’t tell from the names of the items on the menu. Things like beetloaf instead of meatloaf. What did they think that was about?

We were a plant-based restaurant, but not vegan, as we did serve eggs and cheese. All the servers wore T-shirts or hoodies—because in the winter, everyone was cold—that said “We don’t eat our buddies.” I had some made with pigs on them that said “No little piggies went to market.” The kids normally got it before their parents, which was fun. We had some with cows, turkeys, and chickens too, and the one with lobsters on it had crabs on the back that said “You don’t really want crabs, do you?” Paris had cracked herself up ordering them.

In the fifties, there had been red sweaters with heart-shaped turquoise acrylic buttons. Everyone liked the look of those in the black-and-white pictures on the walls, so we got some like that as well.

Now, some newbie diners left when they found out about the lack of cow, pig, or, since we were near a forest, even deer on the menu, but never the ones with kids. Kids wanted to eat the giant cinnamon rolls we brought out with water at breakfast, or the cheese fries at lunch, all before they even ordered. Parents tended to try as well, and since we had everything but meat… they always came back. Seriously, it was either us or you were driving out of town. And it wasn’t far, but it felt that way, I’d been told, when your kids were in the back seat, whining because they were about to expire from hunger. And fake bacon frying up on the grill still smelled pretty good.

Reggie came with his fiancée, Helene, and was surprised by the lack of dead anything, but she was thrilled. Apparently, she felt it would be fantastic for him to frequent the restaurant, as he ate far too much red meat as it was.

No one minded the oat milk, and we had almond and soy as well. Even our fabulous coffee was dairy-free, and it was just as rich and frothy as anywhere else. Reggie surprised himself with how much he loved the caramel and chocolate concoction Lupe whipped up, and when she let him try her coveted café de olla on his third visit and he drank it as fast as I did, she was impressed. When she discovered he also loved her chai, and would sit and wait patiently for her to make whatever she wanted for him, she made him one of her special customers and always had something new for him to try. I looked forward to him coming in every morning just to see her face light up when she saw him.

I checked in on Missy Harrington several times, and it seemed living with her sister suited her, her daughter, and their puppy. Her divorce attorney got a restraining order for the new family of four—counting her sister—and it didn’t hurt the case against him when her estranged husband was found with a gun in his hand in her sister’s boxwoods one morning. Again he told everyone—cops, his public defender, the police officers who carried him to their car—that he wasn’t drunk, but that sounded as ridiculous as it had the first time he said it. Again, passed out in the bushes didn’t look good. The boundary I had put up had been temporary, and I didn’t have to use much of my energy to maintain it for such a short time. I removed it once I knew he was safely in jail awaiting sentencing for what could only be seen as attempted murder. Missy, her daughter, and her sister wouldn’t be seeing James Harrington again for a good long time.

It was Friday, right after eight, so it was pretty dead. Everyone was getting their drink on, watching TV, or shooting pool at the Bullet and Hound, the local pub, by then. After the dinner crowd cleared out, we did coffee until ten, and then we closed up. Only the pub and the lone gas station stayed open until midnight. My staff was starting to discuss their Thanksgiving plans, as the holiday was suddenly looming.

Fletcher, who was finishing up his dinner as I was wiping down salt and pepper shakers and marrying them up, said, out of the blue, that Justin had been out of town or he certainly would have come by to see me.

I stopped wiping the counter in front of him to stare. “What?”

He shrugged. “Well, you’re all he talks about.”

“Awww,” Desta said from where she stood beside me, leaning on my arm, having been figuring out what homemade tea blends she was going to make next week for each day. She liked to change them up, and since she was the one who mixed them, she was the one in charge of the schedule. “He thought you were pretty.”

“I suspect so,” Fletcher said, smiling at Desta.

She straightened up and pointed at him. “Fletcher Beauden, I told you to stop flirting with me. I could be your mother.”

He scoffed. “Hardly.”

“I’m older than you,” she reminded him.

“Yeah, by what, three years?”

“Five,” she said firmly.

“And?”

“I’m too old for you. Ask Sachi out, or Gaia.”

He rested his chin on his fist. “No, ma’am.”

“I have two kids.”

“Who seem to like me just fine.”

She gave a huff of frustration and walked away.

After a moment I said, “You do remember that you’re a wolf and she’s not, right?”

“Yeah, but I get the feeling that with what she’s been through in her life, me being a wolf wouldn’t scare her at all.”

I nodded. “That’s probably true, but do you have permission from your alpha to date someone outside your species?”

He squinted at me. “Why would he care?”