Page 91 of Coffee Shop Girl
Operating expenses covered for the day.
Sixty dollars in sales tax.
My broken heart will never heal.
Thirty to the credit card.
I’ll sell this place to forget him.
Forty to the line of credit at the bank.
I called a local bakery in Jackson City and discussed selling their goods. While we worked out a delivery schedule and a cost table, Maverick fluttered through my mind. Erasing Dad’s favorite scone from the chalkboard sent physical pain shooting through my core. I bit my lip to keep from crying again. I thought I heard Maverick shuffle in the office, and turned that way. My heart plummeted to see it dark and empty.
When a clang sounded at the door, I jumped. Lizbeth glanced at me from the top of her book.
“Just the mail, Bethie,” she said, turning another page. “You’re twitchy today.”
She’d been studying me all day. I’d felt her eyes on me. I hadn’t mentioned Maverick yet. Couldn’t bear to force the words out. But I felt a moment of panic when his truck pulled up in the parking lot. My cracked heart split down the middle. I ripped the apron off and threw it at Lizbeth.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I can’t.”
She looked up at me in surprise as I rushed into the hall, hurrying up the spiral stairs. The door below opened as I sat at the top of the steps, folding my knees into my chest. Maverick’s low voice rumbled as he spoke with Lizbeth. I bit down on my jeans to muffle a short cry.
Tears trailed down my cheeks, soaking my knees. I tried not to hear his words.
Several minutes later, Lizbeth appeared at the bottom of the stairs. The door chime rang, indicating his final departure. She looked up, then climbed toward me. When she reached the top, she sat down and folded me into her arms.
I fell into her embrace with a muffled sob.
“There’s always pain and struggle in the books I read,” she whispered against my hair. “The heroine has to go through something dark before the light comes. Before she figures out what she needed to know all along. Maybe that’s where Maverick is. Maybe that’s whereyouare. Some writers call it thedark night of the soul.”
My throat choked as I spiraled back over the last year. Dad’s heart attack. Dropping out of college. All the lonely nights in his coffee shop. The weight of crushing debt. The destructive emptiness of living alone, with no one to touch. No one to be part of my team. Then Lizbeth and Ellie’s arrival.
And the final blow: Maverick leaving.
It was more than heartbreak over Maverick that poured out of me now. It waseverything. Losing the motorcycle. Dad disappearing out of the coffee shop.
Maverick leaving meant that my team was really and truly gone. As if there was something broken inside of me that kept anyone from staying.
“I ... I think my heart is going to break,” I whispered. “And it’s all my fault.”
Lizbeth folded me against her, and I cried.
* * *
The next day,I clutched an official-looking letter from an attorney. The coffee shop purred quietly in the background, the air thick with the scent of a new brew Lizbeth had started advertising on our shiny new Facebook page.
My stomach churned as I stared at the return address through bloodshot eyes.Riverdale.
“Oh no,” I muttered.
This could only be from Jim.
Lizbeth didn’t look up from the laptop, where she was putting together a post about the Fourth of July sugar cookies we’d bought from the Jackson City bakery.
“What is it?”
“A letter. From your father’s lawyer.”
