Page 81 of Talulah's Back in Town

Talulah took her time getting ready. Depending on who was out and about, she’d probably draw attention and wanted to look her best. But when they got to Urban Remedy, a farm-to-fork restaurant that was new and trendy and something she thought Paul would be more likely to appreciate than the traditional greasy spoon where she’d run into Brant shortly after she’d arrived, there was no one she recognized.

Feeling the tension coiled tightly inside her slowly begin to unravel, she ordered the mushroom toast with fresh leeks, shiitake mushrooms and lemon aioli, and Paul chose the eggs benedict with local farm-fresh eggs and hollandaise sauce. And of course they both ordered coffee.

“It was hard not to get the chorizo scramble, but I can’t pass up eggs benedict,” Paul commented as a tall young man with dreadlocks entered their order into an iPad.

Talulah glanced at the menu painted on a wooden sign behind the counter as she stuck her credit card in the reader. Paul had offered to pay, but she’d insisted it was her turn. She didn’t want him to be able to accuse her of taking advantage of him if their relationship didn’t develop as he hoped. She was now especially glad she’d always been careful about that. “I was tempted by the biscuits and gravy and fried sage,” she said as she reclaimed her card.

“You love biscuits and gravy.”

“I do, but I went with the mushroom toast because I’ve never had anything like it before.”

Food was one area where they were a natural fit. They loved trying new things—whether it was someone else’s cooking or their own. Overall, they did well as business partners, too. And Talulah liked hiking and hanging out with him. She’d even enjoyed it when they’d had sex—well enough, anyway. She’d thought that maybe she’d broken through a barrier, and that she’d be interested in getting more serious when she returned.

But then she’d slept with Brant and that had somehow demolished the small amount of desire she’d begun to feel for Paul.

She hoped she could get back to where she’d been before. If not...

She didn’t want to think about the ramifications. She’d worked so hard to establish herself in the restaurant business. And she was fairly certain she wanted a family. If she married Paul, it would be easy to maintain what they already had. They could even trade off working at the diner and taking care of the kids.

If only she could get her stubborn heart to cooperate.

They each poured some water from a carafe set out for people to help themselves and chose a two-seater table in the outdoor section near the garden.

“I’m surprised to find a cool place like this in such a small town,” Paul said.

Talulah put her water on the table. “It’s definitely more Bozeman than Coyote Canyon, but it just opened last year, so maybe Coyote Canyon will become more hip over time.”

“There’re enough people around to support it?”

“I think it pulls customers from the surrounding area, too. I saw several people on Yelp say they drove over from various places an hour or two from here.”

“Opening this kind of restaurant in such a backward town is ballsy.”

“Are you trying to be insulting?” she asked.

He looked surprised. “No. You’ve called it backward yourself, on numerous occasions.”

She supposed she had. Coyote Canyon wasn’t anything like Seattle. She’d often joked about coming from “nowhere.” But it irritated her whenhebelittled her hometown. “Well, from what I read online, the owners already had the farm,” she said, veering away from an argument. “The restaurant’s just an extension of that.”

“I hope they can make it work.”

At the moment, Talulah was more worried about their own restaurant. “How many days have you been away from the diner? Four? Five? Isn’t that kind of long?”

“I was there Tuesday and Wednesday,” he told her. “I didn’t leave until early Thursday morning, after I finished the baking.”

She felt her eyebrows pull together. “But I called...”

He looked away. “I told everyone that if you called to say they hadn’t seen me.”

He had? And what reason had he given them? Had he also told everyone at the diner that she’d slept with someone else? At the very least, Selma, Beth and the others had to be aware that there was now a problem between them, something she’d purposely avoided making apparent herself. Not only was it unprofessional to drag them into the middle of an argument, she hated to think of the people they’d hired speculating on her personal life, or choosing sides.

What Paul had done bothered her for another reason, too. “You wanted me to worry about the diner when you knew there was nothing I could do, other than head home, if our employees had a problem?”

He toyed with the condensation on his glass. “Not really. I just wasn’t ready to talk to you.”

No, he’d tried to make her worry; she could tell. He knew how much she cared about the diner. It wasn’t the worst revenge anyone could devise, but turning their employees against her, having them lie for him and making her fear for the diner was revenge all the same. “You could’ve told me you needed time. I would’ve respected a request like that. Then we wouldn’t have had to involve our employees.”

“They actually helped talk me through it,” he said as if that made it okay.

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