Page 90 of Getting Wrapped Up

Sapphire Falls wouldn’t want to know about her latest findings on global warming. They would want to know about her parents and her siblings and past boyfriends and future plans and her shoe size and how many kids she wanted and what football team she cheered for and if it wasn’t Nebraska, they would work to change her allegiance.

And while he’d rather keep her here, naked, and try to find something resembling breakfast food, Levi realized that he wanted to know some of those things about her as well. This breakfast could pay off.

He pushed off of the porch railing. “Yes, let’s go to town for breakfast.”

Thirty minutes later they pulled up in front of Dottie’s.

Kate looked over at him. “Here? I thought maybe we’d go to Scott’s Sweets. She serves muffins and things, right?”

Scott’s Sweets was Adrianne Riley’s shop, and the answer to Kate’s question was “hell yeah she does”. People came from four counties for Adrianne’s muffins.

And if Kate saw him eat one, she would never believe that he ever wanted to have breakfast anywhere else again.

“Oh, Dottie’s is the place for breakfast,” he told her.

It was. If you were over the age of sixty and didn’t have any kind of affection for coffee. Because what Dottie served hot in cups was…not coffee. It was brown water with brown specks floating in it.

Her eggs were okay though and her French toast was awesome.

Which meant he’d have to convince Kate to eat the oatmeal. That was definitely not awesome.

“Adrianne isn’t open this early?” Kate asked, getting out of the car with obvious reluctance.

Kate had met Adrianne at Christmastime and because of a tray of frosted sugar cookies, Kate was a fan of the other woman’s.

Thankfully, she’d only had the cookies. Oh, and the fudge. If she’d tasted Adrianne’s truffles or her white-chocolate cheesecake, Kate would have given up her job, said to hell with the planet and would have been moved into his house in a day and a half.

Which would have been fine with Levi on several levels. But he was trying to be a better man, a less selfish man, someone who actually thought about things like carbon emissions. So he couldn’t say to hell with the planet. That went against his self-improvement plan. He’d even started a conversation with his father about their company’s carbon footprint. His father had, of course, looked at him like he was nuts, but at least he’d brought the topic up. He’d keep working on it. It was a process.

In any case, he had to keep Kate away from Adrianne’s shop.

“She’s open, but she does a lot of baking in the morning.” That wasn’t untrue. “But you don’t want her muffins,” he said, joining her on the sidewalk and slipping an arm around her waist. “Trust me.”

Kate looked up at him with surprise. “Not good?”

He could just let her assume that’s what he meant without actuallysayingthat Adrianne’s muffins were bad. It was for the good of the planet. He shrugged.

“How can that be?” Kate asked as they headed for Dottie’s. “The cookies were amazing.”

“Hmm,” Levi said noncommittally.

They’d had to park down about a block. As usual this time of day, cars and trucks lined the curb in front of the diner.

It wasn’t that Dottie served fine cuisine. But she was the only person who served any cuisine in the morning other than Adrianne’s muffins. Of course, Adrianne did an amazing coffee business, serving lattes and mochas and cappuccinos and even just good old black coffee—the key word beinggood—to the portion of town that did not remember when Eisenhower was in the White House. But if you were a bacon-and-eggs kind of guy, and seemingly most of Dottie’s regulars was, it was Dottie’s or your own kitchen.

Clearly none of these guys cooked.

Levi held the door open and ushered Kate into the diner.

All of the other diner patrons sat together in a cluster of chairs around four Formica-topped tables pulled together into the middle of the restaurant. Usually, Levi pulled a chair up to that conglomeration and started off with his usual basket of fried green tomatoes.

He would have never ever in his life imagined eating a fried green tomato—or a fried tomato of any other color. But these men had introduced him to one of the best things he’d ever put in his mouth. He glanced at Kate. He’d had some damn good stuff in his mouth, too.

Even if he’d known how good they were, he would have feared coronary artery disease eating them every morning, but out of the basket of six, he usually only got one. And at that table, he was surrounded by men well into their seventies and eighties who had been eating bacon and real cream and dessert for dinner their entire lives. Moderation, fresh air and hard work. That was what they claimed was the secret. Not avoiding fried green tomatoes. Levi had accepted the news with thankfulness.

As expected, conversation halted as he and Kate stepped through the door and everyone—all fourteen of them—turned to look.

“Morning gentlemen,” Levi greeted with a big grin.

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