Chapter 1 #3
“When did you get here?” Liv didn’t need to look behind her to know he was following her toward the back corner booth. It provided the most privacy, especially at night when they lowered the overhead lights and lit candles on the tables.
“Saturday afternoon.” Matt slid into the booth, and it didn’t go unnoticed that he picked the side facing away from the dining room.
Liv handed him a menu and then removed the other place settings. “How long are you here for?”
Matt shrugged. “I’m not sure. Maybe for the summer. Definitely until July.”
If he was going to be here that long, would the woman and baby he’d been seen with be joining him?
Or were they already here but off doing something else?
Then again, he may have already moved on to someone new.
While she was curious, it wasn’t any of her business.
Moreover, although she considered him more than an acquaintance—he’d stayed at her parents’ house while in college and had seen her wearing pj’s—they weren’t close friends either.
“Does Owen know you’re here?”
Matt shook his head and opened his menu. “No. I almost stopped by to see him when I drove through Massachusetts, but I thought he’d be at work.”
“He and Jenny will probably be up this weekend. They bought a house here over the winter, and they come up almost every weekend to work on it.” The place was a total fixer-upper, but it had been in her brother and sister-in-law’s price range, and neither minded doing the work.
“He told me they were thinking about doing that. I didn’t know they found anything.”
Liv’s cell phone vibrated in her pocket. Maybe the text was from her dad, letting her know the rumor wasn’t true. Unfortunately, she couldn’t check while standing there.
“Can I get you something to drink while you look over the menu?”
“Just a seltzer water with lime for now.”
With a nod, she turned and pulled out her phone.
Emma: I saw the driver of the Ferrari go inside.
Didn’t her friend have flowers to cut and bouquets to arrange or something?
Emma: Is it anyone worth stopping in to see?
Emma was a great friend. She was also a flirt and a celebrity junkie.
Whenever a well-known actor or musician visited the town, she went a little crazy.
To date, she’d managed to take photos with Mia Troy, Anderson Brady, and Mark Walden.
If Liv told Emma who was sitting in the corner booth now, she’d suddenly need a meal and close the flower shop so she could cross the street.
Liv hated to lie, but considering Matt had sat facing away from potential customers, he didn’t want to draw attention his way. Besides, everyone deserved a chance to eat in peace, no matter what they did for a living or how famous they were.
Liv: I don’t recognize him.
A frowning face popped up on the screen, followed by another text.
Emma: Any news from your dad?
Liv: Nope.
A second frowning face appeared. Liv shared her friend’s sentiment.
When she returned to the table with Matt’s drink and a basket of freshly baked rolls, the menu was still open, but he was focused on his phone rather than his meal choices.
He set the device aside, though, before she got the water glass off her tray.
“So, how have you been?” Matt had been friendly from day one, despite his wealth and family connections. And even though he’d since become a household name, that hadn’t changed.
Overall, she’d been great. At the moment, she was an anxiety bundle on two legs.
Until she got some answers from either her dad or grandfather, she didn’t see that changing.
However, Matt didn’t need to know any of that.
Not to mention, he’d asked to be polite, not because he really cared.
In all fairness, she often asked people she ran into the same question simply to be polite.
“Fine. Yourself?”
She expected an immediate reply like hers. Instead, he seemed to consider the question before answering. “No complaints.”
Something about his tone suggested that wasn’t entirely true, but she accepted his answer and moved on to her reason for standing there. After all, her job was to serve him lunch, not provide him with counseling.
“Do you know what you’d like, or do you need more time?”
“I’m undecided. Is there anything you suggest?”
There wasn’t an item on the menu she didn’t like. They also had some tasty specials available today.
“Depends. Are you in the mood for a full meal or a sandwich?”
“A meal. I didn’t have much for breakfast.”
“If you like salmon, you should have the honey garlic glazed salmon. It’s one of today’s specials. You can order the dinner or the lunch portion.”
Unless she hadn’t eaten all day, the lunch portion was more than enough, especially if she ate the garden salad that came with it.
“That sounds really good. I’ll go with the dinner portion. And I’ll also have a cup of the lobster bisque.”
She accepted the menu Matt held out to her. “What kind of dressing would you like on your salad?”
“The house dressing.”
The house dressing, a recipe her grandfather had developed not long after opening the restaurant, was extremely popular.
Countless times over the years, customers asked where they could buy it.
She’d tried to convince her grandfather to see what they’d need to do to produce it in larger batches and bottle it so they could at least sell it in the restaurant.
Unfortunately, while her dad was on board with the idea, her grandfather wasn’t, and even though he’d turned much of the day-to-day operations over to her parents and her, he still played a role in what did or didn’t happen.
Order memorized, Liv stepped back. “I’ll be right back with your salad.”
She was inputting Matt’s order into the computer when the restaurant’s door opened and a trio of women walked inside.
So much for keeping Maggie out of the dining room and away from Matt.
While she could serve the new customers too, it would be unfair to Maggie, who was saving most of what she made to pay for classes at the community college.
However, Liv would seat them. With a bit of luck, they’d prefer to sit outside.
“Good afternoon. Would you like to eat inside or on the patio?” Liv asked as she grabbed three menus.
The taller of the trio looked at her companions and shrugged. “Up to you two. It doesn’t matter to me.”
“Outside gets my vote,” the blonde replied.
Mine too.
“We’ll sit outside,” the oldest of the group, who Liv suspected was the mother of the other two, replied.
After showing them to a table with a great view of the water, Liv returned to the kitchen, where Maggie and Russ were still talking.
Maggie had never said anything, but Liv suspected she had a thing for Russ.
Based on the amount of time they spent talking when they worked together and the looks the grill chef sent Maggie, the attraction was mutual.
“You’ve got a party of three, Maggie. I seated them outside at table six.”
Maggie nodded. “Thanks. I’ll head out right now.”
Message delivered. Liv got a small garden salad with a side of the house dressing and headed back into the dining room.
She wasn’t surprised to find Matt looking at his cell phone when she reached his table.
After all, he didn’t have anyone to talk to.
But as she set the dish down, he put the device down and looked at her.
“When did you expand the restaurant?”
After more than eight months, she had grown so accustomed to the larger dining room that she no longer noticed it.
“Last summer. Dad had wanted to do it for a long time, and when Milly closed her art gallery and moved to Arizona, he took over the space.”
Matt shifted so he could get a better view of the restaurant and then looked back at her. “Shouldn’t the dining room be even larger than it is?”
She understood his confusion.
“We only used about half the space for the restaurant. The rest we turned into an office for the catering side of things.”
She’d loved cooking from the time she knew what it was.
And she’d always known her future would somehow be tied to the restaurant.
A few years ago, she suggested they branch into catering—a service no other restaurant in town provided.
It had taken a little time for them to convince her grandfather.
When they finally had, they’d started small, catering events such as baby showers and office holiday parties.
Last spring, when her dad took over, they’d decided the time was right to take on larger events.
By taking over the adjacent space, they were able to expand both the kitchen and the dining room.
They’d turned the remaining area into a formal space for her to meet with customers looking to hire them for an event.
To date, the largest event they’d done was a fiftieth wedding anniversary party with one hundred guests.
However, they had two large events booked for the summer.
One was in July and the other in August.
“If I ever need anything catered, I’ll know where to come.”
The door opened again, and a group of four entered. With Maggie outside and the evening hostess not there yet, Liv needed to see to them.
“Your bisque should be ready. As soon as I seat this party, I’ll bring it over to you.”
Alone again, Matt picked up his phone and sent off a text to Owen. He hadn’t seen his friend in close to a year and would enjoy catching up the next time Owen was in town.
From the corner of his eye, Matt spotted Liv heading toward the kitchen, and he mentally shook his head. Considering the number of people he’d met in his lifetime, he shouldn’t remember the first time he met Liv, yet somehow, he did.