by a male voice shouting in Italian. The bakery went silent for a brief moment, then the customers laughed a little. Reed didn’t understand the language, but it didn’t take much to get the gist.
The older woman marched away from the counter, through the kitchen hallway, sticking her head out the open door and shouting at the man.
Reed thought he could figure that one out, too.
The man shouted back, and she gestured with her hand, scowling as she returned to the counter. The last of the current customers took their paper bags and moved out onto the sidewalk, leaving the bakery empty.
“Engine trouble?” Reed asked the woman, wiping his hands on a paper napkin as he came to his feet.
At first, he thought he was going to get an earful himself.
“The delivery truck is ancient,” she offered rather grudgingly.
Reed gestured to his empty plate, giving her a friendly smile. “That was fantastic.” It was easily the best pastry he’d ever tasted. Same went for the coffee—it’d been strong but flavorful.
She nodded an acknowledgment of his compliment, but still didn’t smile in return. The younger woman, however, gave him a broad, slightly flirtatious grin.
Then another bang reverberated through the alley, and both women jumped. It was followed by a deafening clatter and clang, and another string of colorful swearwords.
Reed moved swiftly and reflexively around the glass display case, down the short hallway, past the heat and bustle of the kitchen, past stacks of boxes, buckets and bins, and out the back door.
The alley was narrow and dusty. Stained, soot-covered brick walls rose up on either side. The awful noise was coming from the engine of a five-fifty panel truck, with Gianni Bakery written on the side in chipping blue paint, that blocked the alley.
A balding man sat in the driver’s seat with the door propped open.
“Shut it down!” Reed called, making a slashing motion across his throat.
The man shot him a glare.
“Shut it down,” Reed repeated, striding forward. “You’ve dropped a valve.”
“Always takes her a few minutes to warm up,” the man responded with confidence.
Reed reached in and turned the key to Off.
“What the—”
“It’s dropped a valve,” Reed repeated. “If you keep it running, you’ll blow a connecting rod.”
“You a mechanic?” the man asked.
“Rancher,” said Reed, stepping back. “But I’ve worked on plenty of diesels in my time. Some older than this.”
“I’ve been limping her along for a few months,” said the man.
“Does it idle a lot?” asked Reed, knowing that was the most likely explanation.
“In the winter,” the man said, reaching for the key.
“Don’t do that,” Reed warned. “You need to call a tow truck.”
“I don’t have time to call a tow truck.”
“If you try to start it you’ll only make it worse.”
The man clamped his jaw, rocking back in the worn, vinyl driver’s seat. “We’ve got deliveries to make.”
“Do you have a backup? Another truck maybe?”
This one wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and probably never. Even on the ranch, where they jerry-rigged pretty much anything back together, they knew when it was time to put something out to pasture. There wasn’t much point in replacing the engine in a twenty-five-year-old truck.
The man shook his head. “I’ve been looking for another truck for six months. The used ones are as worn out as this, and the new ones cost a fortune.”
“Tough break,” Reed commiserated.
“Irony is, these days, I need two trucks.”
“Business that good?”
The man rubbed his hands along the steering wheel. “Walk-in business is slowing.”
“Doesn’t seem very slow today,” Reed observed.
“It’s slowing,” the man reiterated. “We need to strengthen distribution to other retail outlets. We also need to diversify.” Then he stuck out his hand. “Nico Gianni.”
Reed shook. “Reed Terrell.”
“You from Brooklyn?”
“Colorado.”
“On vacation?”
“More business than pleasure.” Reed’s interest had been piqued by Nico’s words, not to mention by his own experience sampling the bakery’s wares. “You’re saying you’ve got enough orders to run two trucks?”
“If I had two trucks, I’d bring my nephew in on nights, and run the kitchen twenty-four hours. The walk-in traffic may be going down, but catering, now there’s some expansion potential. Expensive parties, weddings, dances. The rich don’t stop getting richer.”
“True enough,” Reed had to agree.
Nico seemed to have a good handle on the industry, and he seemed to have a plan for his business. Reed sized up the building. “You own this place?”
“Me and the wife.”
Reed couldn’t help but wonder if this was what Danielle meant by buying a percentage of a business. This wasn’t exactly a start-up. Though, for Reed’s money, it seemed