“Austin said the same thing. Said it was good marketing to hype an opening.”
“It sure worked for the hotel. Did you see how many people were there? And Delbert said they’re almost full of reservations for the month. I think everyone wants to go stay there and see it now that it’s all fixed up.”
“I’ll talk to Evelyn and see how much time she needs, then we’ll pick an opening date.”She chewed on her lip. She was anxious to open, but nervous. What if she’d made the wrong decision? What if the cafe wasn’t a success? Heather had invested in it. What if she lost all her cousin’s money?
“You okay?”Austin asked.
“Sure.”She tried to look convincing.
“You look…concerned.”
She smiled weakly.“Just a lot of things to juggle at once.”
Emily jumped up.“I’ve gotta run. But don’t worry about the page, Mom. I’ve got it.”She turned to Austin.“I don’t suppose you can talk her into updating the website while you’re at it?”
“I make no promises,”Austin laughed.
“It looks like it was made in 1990…and it probably was.”Emily hurried out of the cafe.
Austin leaned forward on the table.“There are a lot of balls to juggle with owning and running a business, aren’t there?”
“There sure are. I mean, I love the challenge. I’ve really enjoyed coordinating the expansion and setting up the cafe. I just—”She stopped, unwilling to tell him—an almost-stranger—that she was worried she’d fail. That the cafe would flop. That the decision to expand had been a bad one.
“Just what?”
“I just want things to go well.”She’d leave it at that.
“So, pick an opening date. Let’s update your website. Is it search engine optimized?”
She was sure her eyes glazed over.“Um…probably not.”
“How about I take a look at it? I could help with it.”
“I can’t ask you to help with all of this. You’re supposed to be on vacation.”
He grinned.“Thisisvacation for me. I’m not really a kick back and do nothing type guy. And I love doing this stuff. At least let me look at it.”
She pushed the laptop toward him.“Have a look.”She stood and nodded toward the door.“There’s the electrician. Let me get him started.”
Once she got the electrician set up, Evelyn came in. They discussed what Evelyn should work on first, and Olivia left her busy making a list of supplies to order.
She finally came back to sit beside Austin.“Sorry, I didn’t mean for that to take that long.”
“No problem. Gave me time to dig through your website. You do need to update it. You know, you could also put in an online ordering system for the cafe. People might like to order sandwiches or whatever to pick up.”
She shoved her hair back from her face.“That’s a good idea…yet one more thing to learn. And software to buy, I assume.”
“I could set it up and show you how it works.”
“Could you give me a quote for doing that?”She didn’t know where she’d find the money, though. She’d just about tapped out everything she had. And there was no way she’d touch Emily’s college money. Her mother hadn’t been overly excited about the expansion, so she didn’t want to ask her.
“I will.”He pushed back from the table and shut the laptop.“Now, there’s something else I wanted to ask.”
“What’s that?”She frowned.
“So I ran into those ladies. The twins? Jackie, Jennifer, Judy? You know, the ones with the J names.”
“Jackie and Jillian.”
