Page 35 of The Pumpkin Spice Cafe
And then something strange happened to Norman’s face. Was that a slight blush working its way up his cheeks? Was there an uncertainty in his eyes, a shyness?
‘Have you spoken to your aunt?’ he asked, diligently wiping down the counters and avoiding Jeanie’s gaze.
She propped a hip against the counter. Well, this was interesting. Maybe Hazel was right about Norman. Maybe he did have a thing for her aunt. Maybe he was missing her. The thought softened her towards him immediately. Poor old guy.
Jeanie studied him as he cleaned. He wasn’t a bad-looking man. She tilted her head. He might even be sort of cute in the button-up shirts and sweater vests he wore every day. His dark-framed glasses were quite distinguished, and he still had a full head of hair, graying at the temples. Aunt Dot could definitely do worse.
‘I talked to her yesterday, actually.’
If Jeanie hadn’t been staring at him trying to picture him with her aunt on his arm, she would have missed the tiny change in his body language. The way he paused in his counter wiping, the way he leaned toward her just a little, as though wanting to get closer to any words about Aunt Dot.
Interesting, indeed.
‘She asked how things were going so I filled her in. I told her you’ve been a really big help to me in getting settled.’
Norman did something entirely uncharacteristic then. He smiled. It was the first Jeanie had seen from the man since she got here, and she nearly fell over.
‘She’s having a great time in St. Thomas. Snorkeling, windsurfing. She even went zip lining the other day.’ And just like that, the smile dropped from Norman’s face. Aha! Even more proof he missed her aunt! His grumpiness toward Jeanie wasn’t about her, at all! He just missed Dot. It was almost sorta sweet.
‘Well, she should have trained you better before she ran off,’ Norman said, with one last swipe at the counter before he marched off into the backroom, muttering something about taking his break.
Okay, so maybe Norman wasn’t that sweet, after all.
Jeanie leaned her elbows on the counter, watching the rain pour down outside. A brave couple decided to leave the café and make a run for it to their car, and Jeanie watched them hurry out. That left her, an older man with giant headphones and the Sunday paper in his lap at the window seat, and a group of high school kids nursing the dregs of their lattes as they waited out the rain. The perfect crowd for a rainy afternoon.
The conversation with her aunt had been good. Jeanie was excited to fill Dot in on how things were going, and it was nice to see her aunt’s tan face, with her dangly seashell earrings filling up the screen. Thinking back on it now, though, Dot had acted a bit odd when Jeanie mentioned Norman. She’d given Jeanie’s comments about his helpfulness only a brief acknowledgment and then changed the subject to her latest snorkeling adventure.
Jeanie pulled out her book from under the register, running a hand over the half-naked farmer on the cover. It was possible she was getting too many ideas from this book, but she was suddenly convinced that something was going on between her aunt and Norman.
She flipped open to the next chapter, hoping the farmer would finally make his feelings for the milkmaid known. She didn’t have time to worry about Norman and Dot.
She had her own secret relationship to think about.
ChapterSixteen
It was Sullivan’s Pub’s first-ever trivia night and Noah had insisted they go. His exact words were, ‘Come on, man. I need your big, beautiful brain to help me win!’ To which Logan replied that his brain was neither big nor beautiful and they definitely weren’t going to win, but here he was.
The problem was, he liked Noah. He especially liked that Noah hadn’t grown up here and didn’t really give a shit about Logan’s lost father or his dead mother, had missed the Christmas-tree lighting debacle entirely, and just treated Logan like a regular guy. Plus, he talked so much that Logan rarely needed to when they went out, which suited him just fine.
He took another swig of his beer and checked out the crowd. It was a pretty big turnout, but he wasn’t surprised. This town loved an event. Give them a festival, a club, a meeting, a class and they were on board.
Noah had snagged them a high-top table surrounded by three stools, one for each team member. He’d also recruited book club Jacob onto their team, but the man hadn’t arrived yet.
‘Hey, there’s Hazel and the new café owner. What’s her name? Jenny? June?’
‘It’s Jeanie,’ Logan said, forcing himself to turn his head at a reasonable speed instead of whipping it around to get a glance at Jeanie.
‘Jeanie, right,’ Noah said, but his gaze was locked on Hazel, who nervously pushed up her glasses and glanced away.
Logan didn’t have time to unpack the way his friend was staring at his other friend right now. He was too busy playing over the past few days in his mind. He’d only seen Jeanie briefly every morning, right in the middle of the morning commuter rush, when he came in for coffee. He was sure he’d been more awkward than ever, giving her his order and trying desperately not to make his feelings for her known to the whole town.
How did he stand normally? What did he usually do with his hands? Did he always talk this loudly? It had been a taxing few mornings, but Jeanie’s bright smile and dark eyes were worth it. And now she was just a few tables over and he was paralyzed.
What was the protocol here? It’d be weird if he didn’t go over, right? Why had he thought doing this, whatever this was, secretly would be easier than doing it out in the open?
He should have stayed home with his chickens.
This was why he didn’t do things like this. This was why he didn’t go to trivia nights or secretly date women (Date? Secretly make out with women?). He was a big, surly, awkward-as-hell guy who did better with animals than women. If Lucy hadn’t come up to him at the bar that fateful night, he never would have had the nerve to talk to her.
