Small-Town Fireman. Allie Pleiter

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СКАЧАТЬ the love of his life left him high and dry for someone with what she deemed were faster prospects for success. Ditch your future fiancé for his boss? Who did that? How had he not seen that icy vein of ambition in her before she’d slit it open right in front of him?

      He could almost be thankful. Almost. With the life sucked out of him like that, it had only taken Dylan three weeks after Yvonne’s grand exit to realize how much he had bought into a giant lie. He hated corporations. And suits. And cubicles in high-rise buildings. He’d never truly wanted any of it, just thought it was what he was supposed to want. Half of what he’d done, he’d only done out of Yvonne’s urging for what he ought to be.

      Startled out of his corporate stupor, Dylan woke up to what made him truly happy. He slogged it out six more months in that suffocating office to scrape together the boat, the money and the contacts to kiss Chicago goodbye and launch his charter fishing business. He hadn’t ventured the three hours back to Chicago since. He owned one suit for weddings and funerals, and hoped to never touch another briefcase again. The fancy coffee, however...that might be worth revisiting.

      “I don’t think I’ve seen you before,” Karla remarked, straightening up off the counter. “What time do you normally come in?”

      “I’m not much of a regular, and if I do get here it’s rarely before ten-thirty.”

      “Well, that explains it. I’m usually done by eleven.”

      “Are you the only one who makes these?” He was pretty sure he knew the answer. Emily, the other server, was a nice enough lady, but he doubted the fifty-year-old ex-librarian cared to learn barista skills.

      She smirked. “Let’s just say I don’t think you’d want Emily’s version of a cappuccino.”

      He nodded in agreement.

      “Karla?” someone called from the room full of tables behind him.

      With the tiniest glimpse of weariness, she grabbed the glass carafe again from the brewer behind her and walked toward the sea of customers. Dylan took another exquisite sip and watched her move through the tables, efficient but not engaged, feeling his curiosity rise and stretch like a lazy cat. Or was that caution getting his back up?

      Karla returned. “So...what brought you in today?”

      “That tourism meeting.” He checked his watch. It was only ten minutes until his meeting with Cindi the tourism rep—Cindi with an i, for crying out loud, with a flighty personality to match the alternative spelling. If he wasn’t eager to go before, now he felt certain Cindi was too young, too perky and too cheerful to come up with anything truly effective. “Like I said, I need some new ideas to grow my charter fishing business.” He’d gone through his savings faster than he’d expected launching this business, and pretty soon the boat loan payments were going to start becoming a challenge if things didn’t pick up.

      “What about applying a little added value? You could bring your customers in here. End their experience with a nice, home-style breakfast and some killer coffee.”

      While Dylan abhorred business school buzz-terms like “added value,” the simple idea sounded ten times better than the unimaginative set of bullet points Cindi had emailed to him yesterday. “You know, it’d be nice to end the morning on a high note even if the customers came in empty-handed. Only I can’t exactly pull the boat up to Tyler Street, you know?” Karl’s Koffee sat right in the middle of Gordon Falls’ main thoroughfare, Tyler Street. The shop was, in many ways, the social center of the town—at least for the locals. Tourists tended to breakfast at their inns or the more upscale restaurants.

      Karla pulled a ballpoint pen from her apron pocket and a napkin from the canister on the counter. “Solvable...” One eye narrowed while she began making calculations, rapidly scratching numbers on the napkin.

      “Hey, coffee here?” a call came from a table to his left.

      Without looking up from her calculations, Karla held up one finger, “In a second...”

      A disgruntled sigh from the customer made Dylan wince, then let out a breath as Karla circled a number at the bottom of the napkin. She slapped down the pen, reached behind her to the coffee brewer—again, almost without looking—and then stared at Dylan. “Stay,” she commanded with a pointed finger just before dashing out toward the diners.

      Woof, Dylan thought, annoyed. What am I, a puppy?

      Still, he did stay. He told himself it was to finish off the great coffee, but the command still stung. Today’s charter had been hard to take—a herd of accountants bent on upstaging one another the entire morning. As much as he chafed from the upscale customers, they were essential to his business. These past ten minutes had been the most pleasant of his day: it was nice to have someone take his satisfaction into consideration instead of the constant press of “customer service.”

      Returning, Karla slid the carafe onto the brewer so fast it nearly sloshed out the top. She had energy to spare, this woman. Eyes bright, she spun the napkin to face him. “How many trips do you have the rest of this month?”

      Dylan squinted in thought. “Eight.” That hurt to admit; it needed to be more like ten or twelve.

      “Easy deal. You pay a flat eight dollars a head, I take orders in advance that you phone in from the dock, and they have perfect specialty drinks and such waiting for them when they arrive. That’s if Grandpa approves it—” she parked her hand on her hip with an air of determination “—which he will.”

      Dylan had to admit, it solved a multitude of problems. His customers got a good send-off no matter what they caught—or failed to catch. If he was smart and applied himself, he could roust up some repeat business while they sipped. And good old Karl got some extra business. Maybe “added value” wasn’t as evil as it sounded. “You’re one sharp cookie, Karla Kennedy.”

      The corner of her mouth curled up into the cutest little grin. “Just for that, there’s free lunch in it for you—well, late breakfast anyway—if you like.”

      Dylan liked that idea so much he ordered scrambled eggs and toast while he phoned Cindi to cancel their meeting.

       Chapter Two

      “Looking good there, Grandpa!” Karla called to her grandfather and his physical therapist when she came in the front door of his house an hour later.

      “That’s what I told him,” Rosa, the therapist, said, frustration clipping the edge of her words. Her grandfather was impatient and used to activity; ensuring that he got his rest was no small feat. The only thing harder than getting him to take it easy was coaxing him to do the required exercises to heal his hip. That lion-tamer of a job required patience, diplomacy and a thick skin. Medical progress aside, it seemed to irk Grandpa that Karl’s Koffee was actually surviving without him behind the counter.

      “We miss you at the shop,” Karla confessed, momentarily unsure if that would make it better or worse. “Everyone’s asking how you are.”

      “How do they think I am?” Grandpa snorted. “I’m stuck using this stupid walker like some old coot.”

      Karla detoured into the living room to kiss her grandfather’s cheek. “Yeah, but you’re my old coot. It won’t СКАЧАТЬ