Page 1 of A Package Deal

Chapter 1

“Doyouwantmeto stay?” the server asked, dropping her empty tray on the bar. Kealy’s offer was tempting, but Nelie couldn’t justify it. She’d had all of yesterday, New Year’s Day, to lounge around her apartment, and more of that lounging would send her down a slippery slope. Nelie loved lounging. A lot. Unfortunately, lounging didn’t pay the bills or run the business.

Nelie scanned the Galley, her bar and restaurant in downtown Haven. It was a local staple, originally run by her great-aunt and great-uncle, or her parents, depending on if you were looking at bloodlines or legal documents. Her biological parents had died in a car accident just days after she was born. There were no other family members, so Stella and Gus, her great-aunt and -uncle—but Nelie always thought of them as mom and dad—had taken her in and adopted her.

Without them, Nelie didn’t know where she’d be. She owed everything to them. She was proud she’d bought the Galley from them so they could enjoy their retirement until Stella’s untimely death almost eight years ago. Nelie had started as a kitchen helper, working alongside her mother, peeling carrots and potatoes. Then came bussing tables and washing dishes on the weekends. In high school, she’d worked as a server. The restaurant was all she knew. And she was okay with that. Most of the time.

When she envied her friends for their travel and the families they were building, she shoved the green-eyed jealous monster back in its cage and reminded herself how lucky she was to have Gus and the Galley.

There were a few patrons sitting at the bar nursing their beers and shouting encouragement at the Minnesota Wild as they skated down the ice toward the Canucks’s net. The booths and tables were mostly empty, and she hadn’t seen anyone new enter in the last fifteen minutes. But someone could have slipped in as she’d kept her eye on the center booth. The one withhimin it. And his two daughters. The Binghams looked miserable.

“Let me make the rounds and I’ll let you know. But at the rate we’re going, I might close early tonight,” Nelie told the server.

“Can’t close until the Wild win, Nelie,” Pete set down his pint.

“In that case, I’ll be open until they play the Krakens,” she teased, filling two highball glasses with citrus soda.

“Ye of little faith.”

“Do you guys need anything before I go make the rounds?” Nelie asked the diehard Wild fans as she added a maraschino cherry into each glass, setting them on her tray next to the glass of tap water with a lime slice floating in it and a pot of decaffeinated coffee. They shook their heads and Nelie grabbed her tray, detouring through the kitchen to grab several forks and a slice of her famous Mother Lode Cake—three layers of moist, rich chocolate cake filled with caramel and covered with chocolate ganache.

She didn’t want to seehim, Chet, but his girls looked miserable, and chocolate was a temporary cure-all for whatever ailed a person. Bad day at work? Piece—or three—of chocolate on your break. Break up? Chocolate ice cream—which she’d eaten plenty of, no thanks tohim. Visiting your dad in Minnesota in January? Nelie’s Mother Lode Cake. Her cake wouldn’t fix the problem, but she bet it would put a smile on their faces.

Nelie would be kind and welcoming to the girls. But Chet? She’d ignore him, just like she had been for the last two months since their breakup.

Chet had talked so much about his daughters during the months they’d dated in the fall. Until he’d ruined it. Chet Bingham owned the local newspaper, theHaven Times. When he’d bought it several years ago, the twice-weekly newspaper was nothing more than a glorified coupon clipper. Now it contained local news along with coupons.

Nelie admired his work in turning the paper around, but she didn’t appreciate being the source of his biggest scoop last fall. The scoop that Emily Wyatt, her close friend and mayoral candidate, was pregnant. Chet had published the story the week before the election, and it wasn’t hard for her friends to figure out who his source was.

For his part, Chet gave them some last-minute inside information on how the incumbent had bypassed the town’s meeting rules. It was too late to publish his discovery in the newspaper, but Emily had used it in the last debate. Thankfully, Emily had won. Nelie didn’t know what would have happened if she’d lost. Her friends hadn’t directly blamed her, but Nelie felt responsible.

If she’d taken more care, Chet wouldn’t have overheard her private conversation. But she’d trusted him.Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.Nelie wouldn’t risk a second fooling, no matter how happy he’d made her. Chet was charming and handsome, easy and undemanding, unlike the other boyfriends she’d had. He wasn’t jealous of the time she spent at the Galley or threatened that she ran a successful business.Too bad I can’t trust him, she thought as she approached the booth.

“You must be Ava and Piper, and these are on the house,” she said to the girls as she set a Shirley Temple in front of each of them. Nelie set the tap water and lime in front of Chet. He snorted, and Nelie smiled sweetly at him.

“Daddy likes ice water andlemon,” Piper, the youngest, said.

“I know.” Nelie winked at them and Ava, the oldest, smirked. The girls were eight and ten and bore a strong resemblance to their father: medium brown hair, high foreheads, and light brown eyes. Piper’s eyes had a hint of mischief while Ava’s eyes held concern. Luckily, neither girl had inherited their father’s strong jawline—now covered with several days of whiskers—or his salt-and-sand-colored hair, which was whiter than it had been. Staring at his hair reminded Nelie of the gray one she’d yanked out this morning, as it stood at attention at the top of her head.Stupid forty. Random gray hairs hadn’t popped up when she’d been thirty-nine.

“Ava, Piper, this is Nelie Peterson, my friend and the owner of the Galley,” Chet said warmly. His deep voice rumbled through her. Nelie cocked an eyebrow at him, as if saying,Really?She’d made it clear to him they were over, but it sounded like he still hadn’t accepted it.

“How do you know who we are?” Piper asked as Nelie leaned against the side of the booth, resting the tray on her hip.

“Your daddy talks about you all the time.” The girls lived in Saint Louis with their mother, Heather, and Chet flew down several weekends a month to be with them. If she remembered correctly, he’d hoped to be there for a week or two over the holidays, if it worked out for his ex and her partner.

“Who’s the house?” Piper asked, and Nelie and Chet chuckled.

“I’m the house,” Nelie said. “This is my restaurant. And this is also on the house.” She set the piece of cake between the two girls, handing them each a fork.

The girls’ eyes widened. “That’s the biggest piece of cake I’ve ever seen,” Piper said.

“It had to be big since you’re sharing.”

“And, since we’re sharing, where’s my fork?” Chet wiggled his fingers toward her. Nelie smirked and shrugged, and he dropped his hand, mumbling something under his breath about her being pigheaded and stubborn. Piper dove into the cake while Ava took small bites, as if savoring each one.

“Ava, how is scouts going?” Nelie asked, surprised when Ava scowled and slumped against the booth’s back.

“I wouldn’t know, since I’m not in scouts anymore.”

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