3. Grace
Grace
As I tucked a recently vacated chair in under its table, a prickling sensation crept up my neck, urging me to look around.
A man stood too still in front of the photo wall, his gaze fixed on my grandmother’s portrait.
He was shy of six feet tall with thick, wavy black hair that was gray at his sideburns and curled at his jacket collar.
A day’s worth of stubble covered his jaw, and his cheeks were so hollow I had a sudden desire to feed him.
“Hey, Grace, you about done with those tables?” Vanessa called from the counter.
“Almost,” I replied, keeping my eyes on the stranger. “I’m just finishing up.”
I approached him with my best customer-service smile, which was, honestly, my everyday smile. “Have you had a chance to place your order?”
“Not yet.” His accent was maybe Russian, each word precise and measured. He turned slowly, pursing his lips, and undoing the top button of his dark gray shirt. He gestured to Didi’s photo. “This woman. She is quite beautiful.”
“Thank you. She was my grandmother.”
“Ah.” Why wasn’t he smiling? The people who stopped at the photo wall always smiled. “Where was this taken? Paris?”
I shifted my weight, keeping my tone deliberately light while every instinct screamed danger. “Actually, London. Early fifties.”
“Such a vibrant time,” he mused, returning to the photo. “Did she travel to France often? During the war, perhaps?”
“It’s possible.” Where my grandmother traveled certainly wasn’t any of his business. I inclined my head toward the counter. “Would you care to place an order now? We have a fresh batch of bagels coming out soon.”
He ignored my attempted redirection. “Did your grandmother live in London long? You’re certain she wasn’t in France?”
What is with this guy? I took a step toward the counter, expecting him to follow. “Why don’t we check the menu?—”
“We need to speak.” His hand shot out, and he grabbed my wrist, holding me in place. The grip wasn’t painfully tight, but firm enough that I couldn’t easily pull free. “She had pale eyes. Green, like yours?”
I tried to move further away, but he didn’t let go. “Sir, please?—”
“Do we have a problem here?” a deep voice asked from behind me. His voice had been like thunder the first time I’d heard it, but now, it felt more like a security blanket. Tristan’s friend appeared beside me with his frown aimed at the Russian man.
I’d handled difficult customers before, but… I twisted my arm out of his grip, accidentally snapping it into the expanse of muscle that now stood next to me.
The Russian canted his head back, as though the angle would allow him to speak down his nose at a man who was inches taller than he was. He muttered something that wasn’t English and definitely sounded dismissive.
Tristan’s friend responded in kind—in Russian?—and folded his massive arms.
Tristan joined us, his usual easy smile nowhere in sight. “Everything okay, Galahad?”
Galahad? His name was Galahad? Who names their kid Galahad? And what were the odds he was friends with a guy named Tristan?
“He believes we’re causing a scene,” said Galahad.
“I was looking at the photos”—the Russian man gestured at the wall—”and speaking with this woman. You are the ones causing the scene.”
Galahad inched closer, shifting his body so he was slightly in front of me. “And you’re the one who called me a shithead.”
“Clearly, you misheard. I said mundir, not mudak. You’re obviously military.”
Galahad said something else in Russian that wasn’t him agreeing. Not only had he come to my defense, but he’d done it in a foreign language. Who was this guy?
The Russian man peered around Galahad at me. “I would order some of your coffee now.”
“No.” Galahad stepped forward, and his broad shoulders blocked my view of the entire room. “It’s time for you to leave.”
The Russian continued speaking. I didn’t understand a word of it, but it was far from friendly.
Galahad unfolded his arms and put them on his hips. This sounded like the start of a fight—one I didn’t want inside my shop.
“It’s fine.” I touched Galahad’s back and stepped out from behind him. “I’ll take his order. No need for?—”
“You heard him.” Tristan’s voice carried across the now-silent café. “Let’s take this outside.”
The Russian cleared his throat. “I only wish to enjoy the coffee.”
“Yeah?” Galahad shifted again, keeping himself between the man and me, but didn’t cut off my view this time. “Then why were you harassing the owner?”
“I was curious about the photographs.” The Russian raised his hands. “If they are not for people to admire, why hang them here?”
“Outside.” Galahad grabbed the man’s upper arm. “Now.”
The man tried to jerk away, but Tristan was already blocking his path to the counter. They herded him around me and to the door, unaffected by his twisting and shoving against them or by the stream of what had to be curses pouring out of him.
As they reached the entrance, a sheet of paper fluttered from the Russian’s coat pocket.
Everyone watched as the three men argued by an empty bistro table on the sidewalk.
Luckily, no one was sitting out there this morning.
The Russian’s face went red, and his hands flew wildly to punctuate his words, but Galahad remained perfectly calm.
The man backed up on the sidewalk, nearly colliding with a couple of my regulars who detoured around the shop rather than coming in.
What was happening? Why was I standing by through this whole ordeal? I should have been taking care of my customers. Or the men outside. It had all happened so?—
“Grace?” Vanessa’s voice snapped me out of my spiral. She held a small piece of paper in her hand. “This fell out of the guy’s pocket.”
It was an old photograph, its edges worn and creased, with a familiar face. My stomach flipped over, and I had to put a hand on her arm to stay upright. I looked up at the Russian man distancing himself from the men outside, at Tristan waving him off, and back at the photo.
“It’s her, isn’t it?” said Vanessa.
It was her. Didi. My grandmother. But not the Didi I knew. This photo showed her years earlier. She stood in front of an old building without panes in the windows, with bricks and debris around her feet. A crooked sign hung over the door, written in French.
“What is this?” I took the photo from Vanessa and studied the details. It was the same old velvet jacket she’d said brought her luck. The same smile. Different hair. “Why would he have a photo of her?”
“Maybe he knew her?” Vanessa moved to my side as the greeting bell chimed.
I should have checked who’d entered, but all I could do was stare at my grandmother’s face. “She loved to tell stories. If she’d had Russian friends, surely she would have mentioned them?”
Heavy footsteps approached, and the light dimmed as Galahad blocked out the sun. “Are you all right?”
He was close. So close. His jaw clenched, and the frown from earlier was even deeper. But his eyes. There was softness in them. Was it worry? Concern?
For some reason, I showed him the photo. “He dropped this. It’s…”
He held out his hand. “May I?”
I handed it over. “Did he say anything about what he wanted?”
“No, and I don’t think he’ll be back anytime soon.”
“What did you say to him?”
“Nothing worth repeating.” He was intense, exactly like Vanessa had said. Intense and… what? Domineering? Protective? “The photo. Is it a relative?”
I walked to the wall, and when he joined me, I pointed at the framed image that had started everything. “My grandmother grew up in London and moved here in the sixties.”
Galahad held the tattered photo next to the framed one. “This looks like France. World War II era.”
France? Had she been traveling? Would she have traveled there during the war? Wouldn’t she have been safer in London? “How do you know? From the debris?”
He turned the photo over and furrowed his brow. “Delphine? Was that her name?”
“What?” I moved closer, tilting my head to read the one word on the back: Delphine. Delphine? “Her name was Diana. I called her Didi.”
Was Delphine a place? A name? Someone who’d been with her?
It was her, wasn’t it? She didn’t have a doppelganger, did she?
He returned the photo to me. “What time does this place close?”
“Close?” The abrupt change of subject threw me. “Four. Why?”
The bell chimed, and I glanced around Galahad. Tristan stalked in, more irritated than I’d ever seen him, other than when he’d first met my best friend. Some customers averted their eyes, whispering to each other or pretending to be absorbed in their phones and laptops, while others stared.
But this is going to end up all over social media.
The only bad press is no press?
Brenton was small enough that people knew Tristan and his mother, and they knew what had happened to Izzy in the spring. Instead of judging him or his old friends as being scary ex-military types, I was pretty sure people understood they were a bit safer with these men around.
Tristan rejoined us, running his hands through his hair. To Galahad, he said in a quiet voice, “He’s gone. Headed down the block and called a rideshare.”
“Mm,” Galahad practically grunted. “Your name’s Grace, right?”
I nodded.
“Will you be alone at any point today?”
“No, I…” I glanced at Vanessa. “There’s usually two or three of us here.”
He nodded. His expression was so flat, it was like being interrogated by the police. “Usually?”
“Always,” I amended. “We always have multiple staff on duty.” This was wrong. All of it was wrong. “Should I be worried about being alone?”
“Just asking.”
But the way his eyes met Tristan’s, and they shared another one of those small nods? That, and the tension in his shoulders, the careful way he positioned himself between me and the door? It all suggested he wasn’t just asking anything.
“Why did he have this picture?” I said, more to myself than him. “And why was he so interested in when the other one was taken?”
“I’m in town for a few days.” Galahad put out his hand—a big one, that could have swallowed both of mine with room to spare—palm up. “Give me your phone, and I’ll plug in my number. If he comes back, I want you to call me.”
Tristan made a noise, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from Galahad to figure out what it meant.
Nervous energy pinged around inside me. Part of it was from him, but not the scared-nervous part.
No, he was responsible for the excited-nervous part.
I pulled my phone out of my back pocket, unlocked it, and handed it to him.
This was not what I meant when I thought about needing security.
That was supposed to be a silly idea, like a woman in one of my romance novels who needed a military man to protect her.
“My name is Garrett Cruz,” he said as he typed. “Galahad’s a call sign I don’t use anymore. I’m marking myself as an emergency contact.”
Emergency contact?
“What he means,” said Tristan softly, “is if the guy comes back, we’d like to ask him some more questions, and it would be best if we were easy to reach. You have my number, too, right?”
Questions. Right. The phone number was about asking questions. No, not right. “Why didn’t you ask him those questions when you were outside?”
“He was too worked up.” Garrett gave my phone back. “Promise you’ll call me if you see him again? Anywhere?”
I swallowed hard and nodded. Too many unknowns were swirling around my brain.
Was Tristan telling the truth about wanting to talk to the guy?
Or was the real truth that they thought I needed an emergency contact?
Why did a stranger carry around a photo of my grandmother with the word Delphine written on the back?
Had she really been in France during such a dangerous time?
And how the hell did all of this mess lead to me having Mr. Tall, Dark, and Frowny’s phone number?