Chapter Twenty-Two #2
Nathaniel tilted his head, studying her reaction with smug satisfaction. “Your grandmother was barely keeping the café afloat after your grandfather got sick. Cancer, wasn’t it? Long treatments. Longer bills.”
Cora blinked, caught off guard. Her grandfather had passed away before she even came to live in Sunrise.
She remembered bits and pieces about his illness, mostly things she’d overheard her mother say in her weekly phone calls with Lolly.
But even after his death, Lolly had never talked about money.
About struggling to make ends meet. But if Nathaniel was right, Lolly had never recovered financially.
She’d kept The Spoon running, but just barely.
She swallowed the growing lump in her throat. “That has nothing to do with me.”
Nathaniel leaned in, his voice dropping to a low, deliberate murmur. “Doesn’t it? You’re the one who wanted to go to college in the big city. That doesn’t come cheap. Tuition. Housing. Flights home. Your grandmother made it happen. Because you asked her to.”
His words landed hard.
“She told me she had a plan to pay it all back,” Nathaniel added, straightening his cuffs as if the matter was settled. “She said she just needed time. But then, well . . .” He gave a practiced sigh. “Time ran out.”
Cora stumbled backward and collapsed onto the nearest chair, her hands trembling in her lap. Her mind scrambled for a rebuttal, a crack in his logic, anything to make it untrue. But deep down, beneath the shock and anger and guilt, she felt it.
He was right.
She was the reason Lolly took out the loan.
Memories flooded back in a dizzying rush.
Lolly sending her checks during college with little notes attached that said: Just because I love you.
Buy something fun! Love, Lolly. She had always thought the café was doing well.
It made sense, right? Lolly had run The Salty Spoon with that effortless charm of hers, never once letting on that things might be slipping.
She’d acted like money was never an issue, sending Cora funds so she wouldn’t have to worry about books, rent, or the occasional splurge.
She’d even insisted on paying her tuition, despite Cora’s protests. Cora had thought the café was thriving.
But it wasn’t.
The checks hadn’t come from some magical cushion of savings or from the café’s “busy season” as Lolly always claimed.
All those times she’d told her, The Spoon’s been booming!
People can’t get enough of my biscuits, she must’ve been hiding the truth.
The money to fund Cora’s fresh start in New York had come from Nathaniel Worthington.
From him. The man who stood smugly in front of her, as if he’d always been the one pulling the strings.
She felt sick.
Every dollar Lolly had sent, every little gesture of love and generosity, had come with a cost, one she’d never told Cora about.
Lolly had borrowed from the Worthingtons to send her to college.
She had made a deal with them for her, all while letting her believe everything was fine. And Cora had taken it. All of it.
The guilt was suffocating.
If she hadn’t gone to college, would Lolly have needed the loan?
If she hadn’t let Lolly send her money, would the café still be hers, safe and thriving?
She wanted to go back in time and tell her to stop.
To insist that she didn’t need her help.
But it was too late for that now. Too late to change anything.
Nathaniel’s words echoed in her head, She needed the money, and I was only being neighborly.
Neighborly? What a joke. He hadn’t been helping Lolly out of kindness; he’d been waiting, biding his time, ready to snatch the café from under her. And now, Cora was standing in the wreckage of Lolly’s choices—choices she had made because of her.
The weight of it was crushing.
Before she could speak, the café door opened. For a second, her heart leaped, hoping Jack would come storming in, ready to throw Nathaniel out on his pompous behind. But no, this time, it really was just the wind.
Nathaniel chuckled but stepped back slightly, his confidence wavering. “Quite the dramatic weather, isn’t it?”
She forced herself to stand, her legs shaky but steady enough. “Yeah, well, I should close up before it gets worse. Thanks for stopping by.”
He lingered in the doorway, eyes gleaming with a thinly veiled threat. “Of course. But do think about what I said, Cora. The Worthingtons can be powerful friends . . . if you’ll let us.”
She didn’t respond. Instead, she held his gaze until he turned and walked out the door.
She waited until his taillights disappeared down the road before stepping outside, the wind tugging at her hair as she crouched to retrieve the spare key from its hiding place under the porch pot. Her hands were still shaking as she locked the door behind her.
Powerful friends. The implication echoed in her mind. He hadn’t needed to say the rest. She knew exactly what kind of enemies they could be too.
She needed twelve showers, and maybe an exorcist, to rid the café of the creep factor that lingered after he left.
She leaned against the door, drawing a shaky breath.
It was like the next-to-the-last scene in a horror movie.
The one where the monster walks away, but everybody knows he’s not gone for good.
As she turned toward the pile of documents on Lolly’s desk, the dread returned, heavier this time. She finally had her answer. Lolly had asked for that loan . . . for her. When the bank wouldn’t give it to her, she’d made a deal with the devil.
And now, Cora had to live with that.
The insistent banging on the café door jolted Cora from a fitful sleep.
The sun was up, but it still felt like the middle of the night.
She groaned, burying her head under a pillow, wondering, not for the first time, if it was some sort of Southern tradition to bang on people’s doors at ungodly hours.
Was this how they did hospitality down here now?
Forget the sweet tea, just startle everybody awake before breakfast.
“Go away,” she mumbled into her pillow, hoping that whoever was trying to break down the door would take the hint and let her wallow in her exhaustion.
No such luck. The banging continued, and now it came with voices. Familiar ones.
“Cora Jean Lockwood! You open this door right now, or I swear on Ethel Simmons’s prize-winning pickles, I’ll sic my garden gnomes on you!”
She snorted despite herself. Only Aggie would think ceramic lawn decor could be used as a weapon. She reluctantly dragged herself out of bed, not even bothering to change out of Lolly’s old Grateful Dead T-shirt and fuzzy pajama pants covered in cartoon squirrels.
She stumbled down the stairs and landed in an ungraceful heap at the bottom, face to face with a dust bunny the size of Texas.
She dragged herself up and peeked through the window.
Sure enough, there they were, just like every morning.
Aggie was rocking her rhinestone glasses, Bea balanced a basket of muffins, and Winston tugged at his bacon-printed bowtie.
And then there was Jack . . . looking like Jack.
Too handsome for this early in the morning, wearing a look of concern that made her heart flip.
She sighed, unlocked the door, and braced herself for whatever small-town chaos awaited her.
“Well, it’s about time!” Aggie announced, barging past her. “We’ve been out here long enough to grow roots. The spare key’s gone, and the door’s locked tighter than Mildred’s girdle at the church picnic—”
“Good morning to you too, Aggie,” Cora mumbled, rubbing her eyes. “Coffee. I need coffee before I can deal with all . . . this.” She waved a hand at the whole scene unfolding in her café.
Before she could make a move toward the coffeepot, Jack was in front of her, holding out a steaming takeout cup from The Bean. The name Jake was scrawled across the side. “Figured you might need this,” he said, his voice low and rough.
It sent a shiver down her spine. Despite her bedhead, morning breath, and the suspicion that she had yesterday’s mascara smudged under her eyes, she managed a breathy, “Thanks.”
Jack’s gaze lingered on her, his eyes intense, unreadable, and she swore her heart skipped a beat.
“Cora,” Winston’s gentle voice cut through the moment. “Is everything all right? It’s not like you to lock up so tight. And with the spare key missing . . .”
“Oh, um, yeah. Everything’s fine.” She felt Jack’s eyes on her, seeing right through her flimsy excuse. Darn him and his perceptiveness. “I just thought it might be safer. Can’t be too careful these days.”
“Right,” Jack said slowly, clearly not buying it. “Hey, mind if I borrow you for a sec? I’ve got a question about that thing we were working on.”
Before she could argue, Jack was already guiding her toward the kitchen, away from the others’ curious stares. Once they were alone, his playful smirk faded, replaced by a look of concern that made her heart flip again.
“Okay, spill it. What really happened? And don’t try to feed me some line about ‘being careful.’ You look like you’ve seen a ghost. A very annoying, probably expensive-suit-wearing ghost.”
She sighed, the weight of everything catching up to her in a rush. “Nathaniel paid me a visit last night. Late.”
Jack’s expression darkened, his jaw tightening. “Did he . . . are you okay? Did he try anything?”
“No, no, nothing like that,” she assured him quickly. “He was just a bit unsettling. All smiles and charm on the surface, but something was off. He kept talking about how he was there for Lolly and could be there for me too.” She waggled her eyebrows. “If you know what I mean.”
Jack’s fists tightened at his sides. He was trying to hold it together, but the storm brewing behind his eyes was impossible to miss. It tugged at something deep inside her, seeing how fiercely protective he was.
“Jack?” she said softly, touching his arm. “What is it?”
He let out a long breath, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. “I just hate that he came here and made you feel unsafe. I should’ve been here.”
She shook her head, guilt pressing down on her. “There’s nothing you could’ve done. And, honestly, I’m the one who should’ve known better.”
Jack’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“Nathaniel said something last night, something I didn’t want to believe.
” She bit her lip, struggling to get out the words.
“He told me Lolly didn’t take out the loan just because of the café.
She did it for me. To pay for my college, to cover my expenses .
. . I’m the reason she had to make that deal with him.
” Her voice cracked as the truth hit her.
“It’s my fault we’re going to lose the café, Jack. All of this. It’s because of me.”
She took a shaky breath, swallowing hard. “I moved to New York because I needed a fresh start. But that fresh start cost my grandmother everything. I wasn’t here. I didn’t see what she was going through. If I had—” Her voice faltered. “She trusted me, and I let her down.”
Jack’s eyes softened, concern written all over his face, but before he could respond, Aggie, Bea, and Winston stormed into the kitchen, clearly having eavesdropped on every word.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Aggie huffed, her arms crossed, ready to give her a good talking-to. “If I hear one more word about this being your fault, I’m going to throw this wooden spoon at you, Cora.”
Bea nodded solemnly, brandishing a dish towel like a backup weapon. “And I’ll be right behind her.”
Aggie stepped closer, her voice gentler now. “Sweetheart, you don’t always need a fresh start. Sometimes, you just need a fresh perspective.”
“Exactly,” Bea chimed in, her voice firm. “You didn’t force Lolly to do anything she didn’t want to do. That woman was as stubborn as a mule in a cornfield. Helping you was her choice, and I know she’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
Winston adjusted his suspenders and gave a solemn nod. “And for the record, I’ve never seen her smile bigger than when she talked about you. Well, except for that time someone brought her a pineapple upside-down cake and a shirtless fireman in the same afternoon.”
A tear slipped down Cora’s cheek before she could stop it. Jack gave her a small smile and squeezed her hand.
Aggie tapped her spoon on the counter. “Now, enough of this pity party. We’ve got a festival float to decorate, and I don’t want to spend the day wallowing.”