And that pisses me off too.
She doesn’t get to use me as her good deeds anymore.
Not when she’s on my sus list.
“Where’s Sabrina?” someone asks at the counter mid-morning while I’m tapping my foot at a side table and rubbing my hands together to keep them warm, impatiently waiting for a late contractor who’s supposed to be here to talk about the renovations I want done in both the dining room and the kitchen.
My shoulders bunch at her name.
I wish the answer was she quit and is packing to move to Siberia, but alas, it is not.
“She gave herself kitchen duty,” Willa, the normal kitchen duty person on the crew, whispers in a hushed voice. Willa’s a round-cheeked, brown-skinned, middle-aged lady with cat pins all over her Bean & Nugget apron and blue streaks in her brown hair.
She hugged me for saving the café from being turned over to the IRS when she introduced herself.
I pretended I didn’t buy Chandler Sullivan’s family business so that I can watch him watch me destroy it piece by piece in the process of building something even better in its place.
Not that he’s stopped by this morning.
Nor have I invited him.
Wouldn’t break my heart to not see the bastard until the new signage is put in, even if I’m paranoid about when he might randomly drop in and catch me unprepared.
“Again?” the customer asks.
“Again,” Willa confirms.
“Poor thing. I saw her grandpa this morning, and he just looked so sad. I hope the new—”
Willa clears her throat. “Did you want a cinnamon latte today? Since Sabrina’s in the kitchen? Not every day you get a Sabrina Cinnamon Special.”
I need to focus on what I’m doing and quit listening in on this conversation, but as I’m turning my attention back to my research on kombucha brewery suppliers, something tickles my nose.
Something sweet.
Hot.
Fresh.
Is that lemon? Do I smell lemon?
My mouth waters.
Profusely.
Like I need to surreptitiously wipe away the drool threatening to slip out of my mouth.
I glance around the dining room. The moms and their little ones at the picnic table across the way don’t notice. The older couple at one of the three tables in the picture window are staring out at the snowcapped mountains, or maybe at the lake below the town that you can see clearly from this side of the café. The dude wearing headphones and staring at his computer in front of the fire is smirking.
But none of them are sitting up and sniffing like the whole entire dining room smells like freaking heaven.
Except Zen, who’s at the other end of the counter, watching everything.
I can’t see their nose quivering, but I’d bet it is.
“Is she making Elsie’s lemon scones?” the customer asks reverently.
So it’s not just me and Zen.
Someone else smells it too.
Also, who’s Elsie?
“Oh. Yes. That too,” Willa confirms.
“I want the Sabrina Cinnamon Special and one of Elsie’s scones.”
“You got it, Ms. Isabella.”
“Sabrina!” the customer at the counter shrieks.
I look back.
Can’t help it. Everyone looks up at that.
And there she is, Duchess Sabrina with the absolute audacity to be bright and cheery and gorgeous as she pauses on her way past the doorway in the kitchen, a silver tray held aloft in one oven-mitted hand.
She looks like she belongs here.
Was born here.
Grew up here.
Is comfortable here.
This is her happy place, and I can’t help wondering how much of the grief in her eyes in Hawaii was from knowing that it wasn’t hers anymore.
I shake my head.
Not my problem.
What I’m doing with this café has nothing to do with her, and she doesn’t get to be in the soft spots of my heart anymore.
“Hey, Isabella,” she says cheerfully. “Be just a minute on your latte, okay?”
“Oh my god, you poor thing, how are you?” the customer, Isabella apparently, replies.
My shoulders bunch higher. I grunt, turn back around, and distract myself with a sip of my tea, which is cold now.
The chill makes a shiver slink through my body, but the tea itself?
Still delicious.
Dammit.
Everything I’ve had here this morning has been good, and Zen’s made a point to tell me that they haven’t used any of my tea stash that we travel with.
That all of this is what they sell here at Bean & Nugget.
“I’m doing great,” Sabrina calls back.