Love at the Candy Heart Cafe (Our Valentine's Serial)

Love at the Candy Heart Café (Our 2018 Valentine Serial)

Chapter Two

Pamela Tracy

Sell the Candy Heart Cafe?  Never!

Chad Hershey was’t surprised by her refusal.  She’d always been one to speak first, think later.  Maybe if she’d been a little less outspoken, they...

No, the old feelings shouldn’t, could not, surface now.  Buying the Candy Heart Cafe was his focus.  His client was depending on Chad to seal the deal, and Chad always delivered.

Except once.

Heading for the corner booth on the left - mostly because when he and Candy had been teenagers the corner booth on the right had been their favorite spot - he sat and positioned his briefcase on the table.  

He didn’t know what to react to first, the briefcase that immediately slanted as the table slanted and was sliding toward the table’s edge or the spring poking through the booth bench and spearing him right in the...

He saved his briefcase and then scooted over a full foot, pretty sure he had a non-fixable snag in the seat of his Italian suit.  Great, just great.  He fought back annoyance and scanned the cafe.

It was smaller than he remember and looked, well, outdated.

“So...” and elderly man shuffled over, coffee cup in hand, and slowly sat himself down across - uninvited - from Chad, “you must know Candy, she called you by your first name.  Chad, was it?”

Chad got the idea that Mr. Friendly knew very well the name was Chad.  

Mr. Friendly continued, “Candy couldn’t sell this place.  It’s her and her grandmother’s pride and joy.”  He pointed to photos that dotted the walls.  “The whole history of the place, their family, resides here.”

Chad focused on the photo closest to him and immediately shut his eyes.  The annoyance he still felt battled with something else.  

Memories.

Mr. Friendly said, “Hey, young fella, something wrong with you?”

Chad shook his head, opened his eyes, and said, “No, but I’ll need you to excuse me.  I’ve got work-”

“Hey!”  Mr. Friendly all but came out of his side of the booth as he struggled to get a good look at the photo next to Chad.  “Hey! that young man in the photo has to be you.  And, why, that’s Candy sitting by your side all smiles.”

Mr. Friendly’s expression went from surprise to thoughtful to darkened before he muttered,  “I think I know who you are and what you did to Candy.   I don’t intend to sit with you.”

Placing both hands on the table, the older gentleman pushed himself up, his face slightly pink with exertion, and his accusing eyes never leaving Chad’s face.

The table wasn’t stable enough for the man to use as a crutch.  Sure enough, Mr. No-Longer-Friendly’s coffee cup slid just as Chad’s briefcase had slid a minute earlier.  

Chad had saved his briefcase.  He didn’t manage to save the coffee cup which slid toward him and crashed into his lap, spreading across Italian fabric that cost more than the bright pink Volkswagen parked outside.  

The coffee cup wasn't the first thing Chad had broken in his very cafe

Chad shot a look to the cash register where Candy was handing back change to a customer.  

Yup, she’d seen everything and was not rushing over with a clean, wet towel and apologies.

“I’m not sorry,” Mr. No-Longer-Friendly said.

Love at the Candy Heart Cafe (Chapter One--Lenora Worth)

Love at the Candy Heart Café (Our 2018 Valentine Serial)

Chapter One

Lenora Worth

“Candy, where’s my coffee?”

“On the way, Mr. Lovestock,” Candy Reese said with a smile. Her feet hurt and her back was numb, but this job paid the rent on her one-bedroom duplex down the beach from the Candy Heart Café.

The café had belonged to her grandmother and Candy, named after this quaint little place located on the beach, had inherited it six months ago.

A bitter irony if there ever was one. She’d fallen in love right here sitting in the bright red corner booth, over hot chocolate and a Valentine-shaped sugar cookie. Fallen in love and then lost her heart when she’d watched the boy she loved walk right out the lacy-wrought-iron encased front door.

“You make the best coffee,” Mr. Lovestock said with a sweet smile. “My Tootsie made good coffee, too.”

“I know you miss her,” Candy replied. “She was a good woman.”

“The best,” he said before digging into his pecan pie. “How about you? Big plans for Valentine’s Day?”

Candy scoffed and pulled at her strawberry red pony tail. Two weeks away and nothing on the horizon. “Yeah. I’ll be right here serving all the people who belong in the Lonely Hearts Club.”

Mr. Lovestock shook his head. “Well, you never know. You might get booted from that club when your true love walks through that door.”

Candy didn’t think that was possible. She was dead-broke and afraid she’d have to sell the Candy Heart. This little beach community depended on this place for fellowship and good home-cooking. The sweet treats the café provided gave people a reason to meet and mingle. But it needed serious updates and repairs and she didn’t have the funding. She couldn’t let her grandmother down. She’d find a way.

The front door rattled, the tinkling bells always bringing back memories of working here after school.

Not bothering to glance up from the chocolate shake she was about to pour from the blender, she called out, “Just sit wherever you want. We’ll be with you in a minute.”

“I’ll take the corner booth on the left,” a deep voice said from behind her. “And I’ll have a hot chocolate and a sugar cookie.”

Candy almost spilled the shake in her hurry to turn around. It couldn’t be. But it was. The boy who’d left her sitting in that corner booth ten years ago.

Chad Hershey. In the flesh and looking better than a double-chocolate cream cheese brownie with his silky dark curls and rich brown eyes.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, wishing she hadn’t chewed off all of her lip gloss.

“I came to see you,” he said, looking into her eyes. “I have a proposition for you, Candy.”

“Yeah, and what would that be, Chad?”

“I want to buy this place.”

Mr. Lovestock snorted. Candy huffed a breath. Her customer waited for his milkshake.

“Over my dead body,” she said before stomping off, her ponytail bouncing with determination.

She had no intention of selling out to the now rich and powerful real estate mogul and she certainly had no intention of giving her heart to him again either.

    

What will Candy do? Come back tomorrow for Chapter Two!