“Well, business has sure picked up at the cafe. I’m thinking of hiring another waitress for the weekend crowds. Jenny told me about a high school girl that is a hard worker and really needs work. I think I’ll talk to her.”
Becky Lee smiled. Keely had such a big heart. Always trying to help people. Making a success out of Magnolia Cafe even though the business had kind of been thrust upon her when her father had died. “Sounds good. I’m sure it will only get busier this summer.”
“Well, I’m going to go see how things are coming along for the dinner crowd. The cook has been making a new kind of honey yeast roll I think I’ll try.” Keely walked away toward the kitchen.
Becky Lee sipped on her coffee, lost in thought. She remembered when she had first started working here for Keely’s father. She’d been in high school, too. She had worked long hours, always paying her own way for clothes, extra things for school, and eventually buying her own car.
She had grown up with a handful of siblings and not enough money to go around. But what their lives had lacked in things had been more than made up for with love and lots of laughter.
She had saved up money. Then with a bit of inheritance from her aunt—an aunt she hadn’t even known she had—Becky Lee had bought the cottage she lived in. The whole long-lost-aunt thing had been strange, but her father never had talked about his sister and refused to talk about her after her death.
Becky Lee had been grateful for the bit of money her aunt had divided between all the siblings. But the haunted look in her father’s eyes when he heard of his sister’s death still remained permanently etched in her memory.
Becky Lee chased away the memories and took another sip of coffee. She liked working here at the cafe. Maybe some of the townsfolk thought it strange that she would keep one job for so long, but she really enjoyed it. She made enough to cover her expenses, and had enough time off for her favorite hobbies, baking and knitting.
That reminded her. She needed to get over to the Sweet Tea and have Rebecca look at a lace wrap she was knitting. She kept ripping out the last two rows of knitting, and couldn’t figure out where she was going wrong. Rebecca was a whiz at knitting and had helped her out before.
Her thoughts bounced from one thing to the next. She put down her coffee cup and slowly got up from the table. She’d walk the short walk home to her cottage and then she thought she’d try baking the new recipe she had found for lasagna without noodles. It used thinly sliced zucchini instead. A person could never have enough uses for zucchini. She grew zucchini, tomatoes, green beans, peppers, and a handful of herbs in her garden each summer. A small garden, but she enjoyed it.
“Bye, Keely.” She waved to the woman as she sat at the counter eating one of the new yeast rolls.
Becky Lee pushed out into the sunshine and started her leisurely stroll home. She loved living so near to work. She rarely got her car out anymore, at least not when the weather was nice. It took just over ten minutes or so, at an unhurried pace, to reach her cottage. A perfect distance. The heady scent of gardenia wafted past her as she turned the corner to her street.
She loved her cottage. It was small, two bedrooms, one bath, a front room and the kitchen. But she loved it. She had decorated it with help from Izzy, of course. Her friend knew how to put the most interesting things together, things Becky Lee would never had dreamed would work together. Izzy might be jealous of her cooking ability, but Becky Lee was jealous of Izzy’s sense of decorating and style.
Which brought her back to her friend’s problems. What were they going to do to help her find a new shop and new place to live? Without really seeming to help, of course, because Izzy liked to solve her own problems these days.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jeremy and Timmy came bursting through the front door of the shop late Friday afternoon.
“It’s not true.” Timmy shook his head. “You’re a liar.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
Timmy ran up to the counter where Bella was going through sales receipts.
“Mom, Jeremy said there’s going to be a restaurant here in this building. That’s not right, is it? We live here. Your store’s here.”
Bella had been dreading talking to the boys about moving, but this is not how she had planned to tell them.
“I heard the kids talking at school. It’s going to be a restaurant again.”
“I hadn’t heard it was going to be a restaurant again, but the building has been sold.”
A restaurant? Why would Owen buy it and turn it into a restaurant? It made no sense.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Jeremy’s eyes flashed, full of anger.