Small-Town Fireman

Wasn’t it? She had a whole binder of marketing ideas upstairs on her kitchen table. Her shop would have great publicity. “PR’s like fishing. You have to go where the fish are and offer the right bait. You should be good at it.”

He took a bite of the pastry, momentarily closing his eyes to savor the Danish. Grandpa got his baked goods from a little German farm woman just down the river, who delivered fresh every morning. Karla was having trouble keeping her jeans from getting too tight given the quality of the goodies, even if she did prefer scones to doughnuts.

“I’d rather gut fish than advertise,” Dylan admitted. “And I don’t enjoy gutting fish.”

“Yeah, but it’s part of the job if you want to grow your business, right?”

“I prefer the term necessary evil.”

Like coffee and doughnuts, Karla thought. Just to prove her point, two men at the corner table held their mugs aloft to cue her for a refill. “Be right back,” she sighed, lifting the pair of glass carafes from their perches on the brewer and preparing for another tour around the tables.

* * *

Karl Kennedy’s granddaughter didn’t belong in Gordon Falls. Dylan couldn’t claim to be an astute judge of female character—Yvonne had taught him just how wrong he could be about women—but Karla with a K clearly considered herself out of place in the quaint little tourist town he loved. Oh, she resembled her grandfather, but that was where the connection stopped. She was city all the way—from sleek dark hair that framed wide, ink-blue eyes to the boutique clothes and the manicured nails. She looked smart. As a matter of fact, she appeared highly ambitious. It wasn’t a trait he valued much anymore. Still, the coffee was a welcome change—he’d all but forgotten the pleasure of fancy espresso drinks.

“I should have asked for your recommendation earlier,” he said when she returned to the counter. “All those weeks of ordinary coffee...”

Karla chuckled, a low, sophisticated sound that pushed up one reluctant corner of her mouth. She wore an elegant shade of lipstick that he could only imagine came from some fancy city department store. “You must not come in here a lot.”

It was true. Most days he was still out on the water at this hour, just finishing up with whatever junket of tourist fishermen he’d taken out on the river. He maybe came into Karl’s once a week, if that. Based on what he was sipping, that might have to change.

“You’re right. I’m just in early for my meeting.” He took another long, slow sip of coffee. “Pity I can’t put one of those machines on my boat—the last batch of investment bankers I had out were all complaining about having to forgo their usual grande-soy-mocha-whatevers.”

“Not the supermarket coffee from a thermos type of guys, huh?” She raised an elegantly arched eyebrow.

Dylan winced at the thought of the can of supermarket coffee grounds in his kitchen and the dented old thermos currently rolling around the passenger seat of his truck in the parking lot. “This is exceptional coffee,” he admitted. “If you ask me, a lot of that other stuff is just high-priced hype.”

“Well, lots of it is.”

“Not this.”

She planted her elbows on the counter, pleased at the compliment. “No, sir, not my coffee.”

Dylan stared down at his cup, now nearly empty. He considered asking for another. The lady really did make a mean coffee. He took another sip. He’d never have thought to put cinnamon in there. And what had made him consent to one of those fancy drinks now that he’d retooled his tastes back to “black, one sugar” java? “You can make these to go?” Karl’s never really did a “to go” business, but she looked ready to try new things.

“Absolutely. I mean, a couple of national chains have built a fortune on it—why not Karl’s?” She shrugged. “Gordon Falls is just catching on. Or catching up.”

There it was, that ever-so-slightly judgmental tone he’d see every now and then from charter customers. Nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live all the way out here. It didn’t take a marketing genius to see she wasn’t terribly thrilled to be here. Which was funny to him, because Dylan had moved heaven and earth to be here. “Gordon Falls has lots of other charms.”

“Yeah.” She clearly didn’t hold to that theory. He could spot that bored look a mile off.

Well, Chicago had bored him. Wouldn’t she be surprised to discover he’d been one of those blue-suited, briefcase-toting caffeine junkies rushing to make the seven-ten downtown? He’d bought into the whole upwardly mobile mind-set, working long hours and hitting all the right societal notes. He’d even found himself the perfect partner in Yvonne, sure she was the love of his life.

Then the love of his life left him high and dry for someone with what she deemed were faster prospects for success. Ditch your future fiancé for his boss? Who did that? How had he not seen that icy vein of ambition in her before she’d slit it open right in front of him?

He could almost be thankful. Almost. With the life sucked out of him like that, it had only taken Dylan three weeks after Yvonne’s grand exit to realize how much he had bought into a giant lie. He hated corporations. And suits. And cubicles in high-rise buildings. He’d never truly wanted any of it, just thought it was what he was supposed to want. Half of what he’d done, he’d only done out of Yvonne’s urging for what he ought to be.

Startled out of his corporate stupor, Dylan woke up to what made him truly happy. He slogged it out six more months in that suffocating office to scrape together the boat, the money and the contacts to kiss Chicago goodbye and launch his charter fishing business. He hadn’t ventured the three hours back to Chicago since. He owned one suit for weddings and funerals, and hoped to never touch another briefcase again. The fancy coffee, however...that might be worth revisiting.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you before,” Karla remarked, straightening up off the counter. “What time do you normally come in?”

“I’m not much of a regular, and if I do get here it’s rarely before ten-thirty.”

“Well, that explains it. I’m usually done by eleven.”

“Are you the only one who makes these?” He was pretty sure he knew the answer. Emily, the other server, was a nice enough lady, but he doubted the fifty-year-old ex-librarian cared to learn barista skills.

She smirked. “Let’s just say I don’t think you’d want Emily’s version of a cappuccino.”

He nodded in agreement.

“Karla?” someone called from the room full of tables behind him.

With the tiniest glimpse of weariness, she grabbed the glass carafe again from the brewer behind her and walked toward the sea of customers. Dylan took another exquisite sip and watched her move through the tables, efficient but not engaged, feeling his curiosity rise and stretch like a lazy cat. Or was that caution getting his back up?

Karla returned. “So...what brought you in today?”

“That tourism meeting.” He checked his watch. It was only ten minutes until his meeting with Cindi the tourism rep—Cindi with an i, for crying out loud, with a flighty personality to match the alternative spelling. If he wasn’t eager to go before, now he felt certain Cindi was too young, too perky and too cheerful to come up with anything truly effective. “Like I said, I need some new ideas to grow my charter fishing business.” He’d gone through his savings faster than he’d expected launching this business, and pretty soon the boat loan payments were going to start becoming a challenge if things didn’t pick up.

“What about applying a little added value? You could bring your customers in here. End their experience with a nice, home-style breakfast and some killer coffee.”

While Dylan abhorred business school buzz-terms like “added value,” the simple idea sounded ten times better than the unimaginative set of bullet points Cindi had emailed to him yesterday. “You know, it’d be nice to end the morning on a high note even if the customers came in empty-handed. Only I can’t exactly pull the boat up to Tyler Street, you know?” Karl’s Koffee sat right in the middle of Gordon Falls’ main thoroughfare, Tyler Street. The shop was, in many ways, the social center of the town—at least for the locals. Tourists tended to breakfast at their inns or the more upscale restaurants.

Karla pulled a ballpoint pen from her apron pocket and a napkin from the canister on the counter. “Solvable...” One eye narrowed while she began making calculations, rapidly scratching numbers on the napkin.

“Hey, coffee here?” a call came from a table to his left.

Without looking up from her calculations, Karla held up one finger, “In a second...”

A disgruntled sigh from the customer made Dylan wince, then let out a breath as Karla circled a number at the bottom of the napkin. She slapped down the pen, reached behind her to the coffee brewer—again, almost without looking—and then stared at Dylan. “Stay,” she commanded with a pointed finger just before dashing out toward the diners.

Woof, Dylan thought, annoyed. What am I, a puppy?

Still, he did stay. He told himself it was to finish off the great coffee, but the command still stung. Today’s charter had been hard to take—a herd of accountants bent on upstaging one another the entire morning. As much as he chafed from the upscale customers, they were essential to his business. These past ten minutes had been the most pleasant of his day: it was nice to have someone take his satisfaction into consideration instead of the constant press of “customer service.”

Returning, Karla slid the carafe onto the brewer so fast it nearly sloshed out the top. She had energy to spare, this woman. Eyes bright, she spun the napkin to face him. “How many trips do you have the rest of this month?”

Dylan squinted in thought. “Eight.” That hurt to admit; it needed to be more like ten or twelve.

“Easy deal. You pay a flat eight dollars a head, I take orders in advance that you phone in from the dock, and they have perfect specialty drinks and such waiting for them when they arrive. That’s if Grandpa approves it—” she parked her hand on her hip with an air of determination “—which he will.”

Dylan had to admit, it solved a multitude of problems. His customers got a good send-off no matter what they caught—or failed to catch. If he was smart and applied himself, he could roust up some repeat business while they sipped. And good old Karl got some extra business. Maybe “added value” wasn’t as evil as it sounded. “You’re one sharp cookie, Karla Kennedy.”

The corner of her mouth curled up into the cutest little grin. “Just for that, there’s free lunch in it for you—well, late breakfast anyway—if you like.”

Dylan liked that idea so much he ordered scrambled eggs and toast while he phoned Cindi to cancel their meeting.

Chapter Two (#u6b2872ec-8c70-563c-bc65-d68fee05683a)