Elisa fanned her flushed cheeks with her free hand as she set the carafe on the stainless-steel island. “I dumped coffee on table fifteen.”
“See? This is why they shouldn’t let managers do a waitress’s job.” Trish set her tray down with a grin, looking more like a college student than someone in her late-twenties. “Isn’t that right, Mama Delia?”
Delia Boudreaux cocked one rounded hip and laughed as she stirred the black beans simmering on the industrial stovetop. “I plead the fifth.” Tendrils of graying hair had freed themselves from Delia’s trademark blue handkerchief, and her furrowed brows did nothing to hide the amusement dancing in her wise eyes.
“Cheater,” Trish teased. She cast Elisa a sympathetic look. “Want me to go clean it up so you can save face?”
“You’d be a daisy if you did.” Elisa braced her elbows on the island and buried her face in her hands as Trish grabbed a rag and bustled out of the kitchen. But her shut eyes only provided a backdrop for the last few agonizing minutes to replay in slow motion. Along with a few replays from one particular summer—a movie she hadn’t indulged in for quite some time.
Several minutes ticked by and she realized she was afraid to move.
“You okay over there?” Delia’s familiar voice held a smile, though Elisa couldn’t be certain with her closed eyes.
She slowly raised her head, straightening to a half-draped position over the island. “That man could intimidate the petals right off a tulip.”
“Oh, what man?” Trish was back, tossing the coffee-soaked towel into the giant hamper under the back row of counters. Her red ponytail skimmed her back as she checked over one shoulder, as if said man might be in the kitchen with them.
Delia pointed the long-handled spoon at Elisa. “Your father?”
Elisa snorted. “That depends on who you ask.”
“Now I’m pleading the fifth.” Trish raised both hands. “Not that I know him well. But he can be scary.”
“Dad used to be a lot gentler before…well. Before Mom died.” He used to be a lot more of a lot of things before her mother passed. “But no, I wasn’t talking about Dad. Even though he’s out there right now…with Noah Hebert.”
Blood roared in her ears at his name, and she tried to temper her visceral reactions.Be a good girl and calm down.
“Noah’s out there?” Delia perked up at the stove, even as she reached around and massaged her lower back. Though forever young in spirit, Delia’s age seemed to be creeping up on her, but she remained determined to keep cooking for the café. No one else would remember to put love in her recipes, as she put it. “What did he say?”
“Nothing. I was pouring Dad coffee, then I spilled it. Not a lot of opportunity for chit-chat.” Not that she’d wanted to give Noah any. This diner was her safe spot—and he was an intruder.
“Who’s Noah?” Trish crossed her arms over her apron-clad waist. “You know, this is one of the downsides to being new in a small town. I get zero tea.”
“There’s sweet tea in the fridge, hon.” Delia gestured toward the double fridge across from the industrial sink.
“Not that kind of tea. Gossip. You know… like, spill the tea?” Trish gestured with her hands, as if pouring from a teapot.
“All that slang. Your generation makes communicating so much harder than it needs to be.” Delia waved one hand in the air and resumed stirring with the other. “Noah moved away when he was a teenager but spent every summer here with his grandfather at the Blue Pirogue Inn. Noah and Elisa were…well. They were?—”
“We justwere. Once upon a time. Past tense.” Elisa hated labels. Especially ones that were impossible to define.
Trish wiggled her eyebrows as she headed for the kitchen door. “I’ve gotta check him out.”
“Trish!” Her protest was in vain. Her redheaded coworker was already peering through the rounded window in the double-hinged kitchen door. “Didn’t you see him when you cleaned the table?”
“No one was there except your dad.” Trish tilted her neck as she squinted to see. “Noah must have been drying off. That was a lot of coffee, Elisa. What’d you do? Trip and throw the entire pot?”
Elisa joined her at the second of the two doors and peeked through the circular glass pane. Noah wasn’t back yet. “I was startled.”
Mostly by the force of his direct eye contact, but Trish didn’t need those details. Hopefully Elisa had managed to save face. She didn’t have much left by way of Noah Hebert, but she had her pride. Didn’t she?
“Speaking of coffee spills, I appreciate your extra help today, even if you did try to drown my customers,” Delia called from behind them.
“Anytime, Mama Delia.” As manager these last three years, Elisa didn’t often wait tables, but they were short-handed when she’d arrived that morning and it was packed as usual for the morning rush. Her father could have warned her that rush was going to include meeting up with Noah Hebert.
She turned back to the window. “Why didn’t Dad warn me he was meeting him here?”
And why had no one warned her Noah’s hair had gotten deliciously longer?
