Coffee and Kelpies (Crescent Cove #2)

Chapter 1

A woman enters the Toast I’ve had the voice of a disgruntled bear ever since puberty. “Listen, I can make you a Wild Eye, if you’re sure that’s what you want. But I think the Angel Frappe or the Bay Luck Cocoa would do you more good right now.”

“You think you know best.” She sheds a beautiful smile over me, even as her eyes sparkle with violence and vindictive tears. “You don’t understand shit.”

Before I can say anything else, she’s off the stool, sweeping out the door, and marching away down the street.

I think about following her, but then Bob Cochran yells at me from the end of the bar. “Rick, I want another Stiff Breeze.”

“Two is enough, Bob,” I tell him. “Gotta pace yourself, remember. Drink too many of these, and you lose the ability to regulate your own emotions.”

“Spare me the side effects warning,” he drawls. “I used to hear it from Lou all the time.”

“Yeah? Did you ever listen to him?”

“Nah.”

“I figured.” I give him a half smile. “How about I get you a basket of fries instead, and then you can go take a stroll on the boardwalk, enjoy the sunset? The evening air will feel real good after those two Breezes.”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

I kick the kitchen door open halfway and call back to Tae, the cook. “Basket of fries.”

“You got it,” he replies.

The bell jingles. My eyes snap to the door and my stomach flips over because for a second I think she’s back. But it’s just a family coming in for dinner.

Once I seat them and take their orders, the Toast & Tide gets so busy that I don’t have time to think about why my stomach flipped over like a caught fish at the idea of the black-haired woman walking back into my diner.