Chapter Two
Two
Living in a tourist town would be heaven on earth if it weren’t for all the damn tourists.
“Do you have cashew milk?”
Nick clenched his jaw so hard his molars ached, but he forced a cleansing breath through his nose before he answered. “We’ve got soy milk,” he said, his voice even. Almost pleasant. “We’ve got almond milk, oat milk, and regular old cow’s milk. That’s it.” That should be plenty, shouldn’t it? How many damn milks could one coffee shop offer? Any more and he’d have to rebrand as a dairy.
The woman across the counter wrinkled her nose and curled her lip, the only parts of her face visible behind the biggest pair of sunglasses Nick had ever seen. He ground down harder on his back teeth, waiting for her to decide already. He could have made three lattes in the time it took this woman to make up her mind.
She finally gave a dramatic sigh. “I guess I’ll have the almond milk, if that’s all you’ve got. Can you do an iced shaken espresso?”
This woman was really missing her Starbucks. Unfortunately for her, he was the closest thing to a Starbucks around here. And as proud as Nick was of this place, Hallowed Grounds was absolutely not a Starbucks. He didn’t know the first thing about shaking an espresso, but he was able to bargain her down to an iced latte with her precious almond milk.
“So tell me…” Big Sunglasses leaned over the counter while Nick ran her payment. Her tank top was low cut, and Nick wasn’t complaining about the view. “Is this town really haunted?”
“That’s what the websites say,” he answered cheerfully as he handed her back her card.
Of course it was; being haunted was what put Boneyard Key on the map. When you were a tourist town in Florida, you had to have something to set you apart, something to attract any tourist dollars left over from the theme parks. One of those travel magazines a few years back had called Boneyard Key the most haunted small town in Florida, which had definitely helped pick things up. The chamber of commerce across the street had commissioned this big-ass sign, and Sophie’s ghost tour had been sold out for months after that article had come out.
These days you couldn’t throw a rock in this town without hitting a T-shirt store or a souvenir shop selling all kinds of ghostly wares. Trucker hat, tie-dye sundress, shot glass—if you could slap a ghost on it, you could buy it in Boneyard Key.
Of course, it was different when you were a tourist. When you were just here for the weekend, you get the airbrushed T-shirt with a ghost on it and tell your friends you went to visit the spooky town on the Gulf. But you never quite take it seriously. You don’t believe.
But it was different when you lived here. As if on cue, Nick’s phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number. Of course. No matter how many times he’d added Elmer’s number to his contacts, each new text showed up as an unknown number. Sure, it had been a little weird at first, but you learned to roll with things like that around here. He’d been doing it all his life.
What did you do to the banana bread?
Nick frowned at the text. How did he know? Stupid question, he thought as he started tapping out his response. Elmer always knew.
Just put some cinnamon in it, no big deal.
Cinnamon doesn’t go with bananas, what were you thinking?
Sure it does . Nick rolled his eyes as he typed. It just wasn’t in your recipe. But last I checked, you don’t own this place anymore. Like that was going to stop Elmer from having an opinion. Nothing in the world could stop that—not even death.
The bell above the door chimed—thank God, a reprieve. Despite the bouncing dots indicating an incoming response, Nick locked his screen and shoved his phone back in his jeans pocket.
“Hey, Libby.” He nodded at the woman who’d just walked in. Libby Simpson was a Boneyard Key native from a long line of Boneyard Key natives, just like Nick. And while they’d both stuck around this town, she’d gone into the family business instead of striking out on her own like he had. But Nick had never been cut out to be a tax accountant, and besides, Libby’s family business was a lot more interesting.
“Morning.” Her blond ponytail swung over her shoulder as she examined the pastry case. “The largest coffee you can possibly make, please.”
When Libby said coffee , she meant latte. And it sounded like she needed an extra shot. “You got it.” The espresso machine hissed as he got to work. “Nan working today?” he asked as he set her extra-strong latte in front of her.
Libby nodded, and he reached for the coffee pot. Libby drank lattes, but her grandmother was a purist. Black coffee and nothing else. “May I have a banana bread too?”
“Of course.” He wrapped it up for her and placed it on the counter next to Nan’s coffee.
Libby sipped her latte, closing her eyes briefly in bliss before blinking them open again. “Oh, hey. Did you hear that someone bought the Hawkins House?”
“Sure did.” Which wasn’t a lie. He just hadn’t heard it through the usual gossip channels.
“I don’t mean when that out-of-state contractor or whatever bought it a couple years back. I mean sold to a new owner.”
“Yeah,” Nick said. “I guess they finished fixing it up.” And it had needed a lot of fixing up. Ever since mean old Mrs. Hawkins had died, long before Nick was born, the two-story house at the edge of the historic district had sat empty. It was practically a landmark on the way to the pier. The road bends around to the right, past the creepy old house on the corner…
“Anyway.” Libby broke off a piece of the banana bread slice and popped it into her mouth. “I saw a moving truck there the other day. Someone’s actually going to live there.”
“I know.” Nick handed her back her card. “She came in yesterday.”
Libby’s eyes went wide. “No way. What’s she like?”
Pushy. Opinionated. Big brown eyes. Legs for days. A pain in the ass. She’d bustled in yesterday like she owned the place, plopping her bag down on that table in the back corner, plugging in her laptop and setting herself up for what looked like a business meeting. Hadn’t glanced at the menu or asked him for so much as a glass of water. Of course, Elmer had been giving him a running commentary on the morning breakfast rush, so it was possible Nick had missed something.
He’d written her off as a tourist. The type who ordered one singular coffee and then set up camp for the day. Probably here on vacation for “inspiration,” whatever the hell that meant. Nick had seen plenty of people like that in his time owning the café. They took up all his outlets and mooched off his Wi-Fi, all for the price of the cheapest cup of coffee they could get.
Then she’d insulted him, and he’d insulted her right back, and for some reason that had cleared the air between them. And for the first time he really noticed her. Her eyes were the color of espresso, and her dark, blond-streaked hair was piled up on top of her head in that messy way women did that still managed to look put together. She’d huffed a breath, blowing a lock of hair out of her eyes, which only served to dislodge another. Something about that lock of hair, falling down to curve around her jaw, softened her face and made her look younger, more vulnerable. That lock of hair transformed her from a bitchy customer into someone having a bad morning.
Libby’s eyebrows went up, because Nick still hadn’t answered her question. He cleared his throat. “She was all right. From Orlando, I think.” As he said that, he heard her voice echo in his head, bright and professional on her virtual meeting. How’s everything back in Orlando?
“She’s going to be living here? Not turning the place into a vacation rental?” She broke off another piece of banana bread; he should have just given it to her on a plate.
“She was talking about moving boxes, so I think she’s here to stay.”
“That’s wild.” Libby considered that. “No one’s lived in that house since before Nan was born; she said she always remembers the place being empty.” She took another sip from her latte. “What’s in the banana bread today? It tastes different.” She said different the way a less polite person would say shitty .
Nick sighed. Maybe Elmer was right after all. “Cinnamon.”
“Hmm.” She took another bite. “It’s not bad,” she said finally. “It’s just…”
“Different,” he said. “I know.”
“I bet Elmer had things to say about the cinnamon,” she said with a wry smile.
Nick snorted. “He has things to say about everything. You sure your grandma can’t talk to him?”
“She did, remember?” Libby shrugged. “Elmer said he’s good where he is.”
“I bet he did.”
She clucked her tongue at him. “He likes you. Said you’re his favorite.”
Nick growled under his breath, but it was half-hearted. Elmer hadn’t owned the café for a couple decades now, and Nick was the only one since who could put up with him. The last owner of the place had been happy to sell the business to Nick for a song, just to get away from Elmer’s constant meddling.
After Libby left, the true morning rush began. Well, it wasn’t so much a rush as it was a trickle: Theo dropped by for a large coffee and blueberry muffin on the way to open the bookstore a couple doors down next to a T-shirt shop. Two tourists consulted the novelty map while he made their vanilla lattes, denying their requests for extra foam and half caff or whatever the hell. (How is a coffee made extra hot anyway? If it’s hot coffee, it’s hot coffee.) Eventually he pointed them in the direction of the kayak rental and bait shack by the pier and tried to sell them on Sophie’s ghost tour if they were still around on Friday. They made noncommittal noises in response, so that was a bust.
The end of the morning rush was punctuated, as always, by Josephine, running late to open the consignment shop down the street that she helped her parents run. Nick reached for the box of herbal tea before the door-opening chime had faded. Jo hated coffee, but she still came by for a morning cup of hot water with tasteless leaves. (Nick was not a fan of herbal tea, but he was a fan of the money Jo gave him for it.)
Jo dunked her tea bag a couple times before leaving the cup on the counter and taking a card out of her back pocket. “You mind if I…?” She pointed to the corkboard by the door, and Nick nodded.
“Of course.”
“That time of year again.” She stabbed a pushpin into the middle of the card, securing it to the board. The words HELP WANTED were scrawled across the top in stark black marker, and he nodded knowingly. School would be out soon, and kids home from college for the summer would be looking for part-time gigs. Just in time for tourist season, when almost everyone around here would need the extra help.
Boneyard Key was too small to have a newspaper of its own. The best way to get the word out about something was by leaving word with whoever was volunteering at the chamber of commerce that day, or by sticking an index card on the corkboard here at Hallowed Grounds.
Of course, the other way to get the word out around here was an even more old-fashioned way: gossip. Had Jo heard the latest? “Did you hear someone’s moved into the Hawkins House?”
“No shit?” Jo’s eyebrows jumped up her forehead as she retrieved her cup of tea. She dunked her tea bag a couple more times before pitching it into the trash and adding way too much sugar. “Like, to live?”
“Yep.”
“Man.” She shook dark hair out of her eyes. “The number of times my brother dared me to go up and knock on that door during a full moon, see if a ghost would answer…” She gave a mock shudder and a crooked grin, then popped a to-go lid on her tea. “Can’t wait to see who’s gonna brave that place.”
“Yeah, no kidding.” He didn’t need to tell Jo about Cassie’s dark eyes and tousled hair. The gossip was really more about the house than about her. He could leave her out of it for now.
Jo shook down her wrist to look at her watch, a bracelet-like ornamental thing that was at least three generations older than she was. “Ah, crap. I’m late.” Jo was always late. But then again, not a lot of people were hammering on the door of a consignment shop in a tourist town at nine fifteen in the morning.
She turned back at the door. “Oh, if you see Vince before I do, tell him Dad got a couple guitars from an antiques fair in Tampa. If he wants to come by, we’d love his help figuring out what they’re worth.”
“Oh, man. He’s gonna be all over that.”
“I know.” She rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “I’ll have to listen to ‘Stairway to Heaven’ at least twelve times, but he knows his shit.”
Jo threw a wave over her shoulder on the way out, the bell above the door echoing in the ensuing silence. That silence would remain, mostly unbroken, until Ramon showed up a little after ten thirty to help with the lunch crowd. (This time of year, “crowd” was relative, but Ramon had been hired by the previous owner and was better in the kitchen than Nick, so it was easier to just keep him around.)
Nick liked the quiet. He liked that time to catch up on dishes and reset the coffee counter, which was in almost-constant disarray. He liked that moment of running a rag across the pristine countertops. He liked the peace of this time of the morning. The routine of it.
Of course, part of that routine was yet another text from Elmer. Told ya. Cinnamon is shit in banana bread.
Yeah, I know. There was easily a loaf and a half of the stuff left today. This town did not take well to change. But Nick was not going to admit defeat, especially not to Elmer. What if I tried chocolate chips? He pressed his lips together to hide his smile as he typed, knowing that would set Elmer off.
It did. What is wrong with you?
He was contemplating the many ways he could reply to that when the bell above the front door chimed. At first he groaned inwardly; he’d cleaned up from breakfast and had already mentally turned over to lunchtime. But then he glanced up. Tousled hair, dark eyes. Laptop bag over her shoulder.
“You’re back.” The words fell out of his mouth before he could think them, abrupt and unwelcoming. It really was amazing that he worked in the service industry. He tried to sound friendly, but it usually came out as gruff. Nick Royer was an acquired taste, his sister Courtney liked to say. Come to think of it, his ex-girlfriend had said that too. And most of his friends. Huh.
But this woman didn’t know him, so she hadn’t acquired anything.
“Sure am.” She sounded about as happy as he did as she slung her laptop bag onto that same table in the back corner. The one near the outlet. “Don’t worry,” she said. “No meetings today. I just need to charge up my computer and maybe get a little work done.”
Nick nodded. “Hazelnut latte?”
“Please.” She smiled. “Iced.” She uncoiled the charging cord and plugged it in. Nick narrowed his eyes at that.
“So what’s up with your computer?”
“I wish I knew.” She sighed and shook her head, sending that lock of hair that Nick couldn’t stop thinking about tumbling down to curve around her cheek again. She tucked it behind her ear absently. “I leave it plugged in all night, and it’s dead by morning. I’ve even switched outlets, but it’s the same no matter what. It doesn’t make any sense; if I plug a lamp in it works fine. But my laptop? No joy.”
“Did you call Buster yet?” Nick was already reaching for his phone. There was a string of texts from Elmer, still waxing philosophical on the virtues of his banana bread recipe. He fired off a quick response to shut him up. Gotta go. Got busy again.
“No,” Cassie said. “I didn’t get a chance yesterday. I’ll call him this afternoon.”
“Nah, I got it.” But before he could bring up Buster’s number, another text from Elmer popped up.
Oh please. There’s like one person.
“That’s okay.” Cassie frowned at her computer screen, hit a couple keys. “I’ll get around to it soon.”
“What are you going to do until then? Just keep coming here?” He fired off another text to Elmer (She’s requiring a lot of attention ) and was about to hit the Call button under Buster’s name when a response came.
Damn, she’s cute. Who’s that?
“Wow. You make me feel so welcome.”
“What?” His gaze flew up from his phone. Cassie had her elbows on the table, cradling her chin in her hands, looking at him with her eyebrows raised and a sarcastic smile. He’d said something wrong. He knew it. But having two conversations at once, while planning a third, was too much for his brain today.
So he stowed his phone back in his pocket. Elmer could wait. Hell, so could Buster. Cassie was a customer first and foremost. The rest could wait. “I’ll get your coffee.”
Her smile only widened as she turned back to her work, and Nick made himself stop watching his new customer and get started on her latte. But he was only human, and Elmer was right. She was cute.
Maybe he could pawn off some of this leftover banana bread on her. Did she like cinnamon?