Sandcastle Beach (Matchmaker Bay #3) - Jenny Holiday Page 0,74

strolled toward the lake, Brie said, “I didn’t know if I should introduce myself as the new bar manager back there. I assume that part isn’t a secret? I’ll be here soon enough.”

“Oh no. Just the restaurant part. And I know I’m being kind of cagey about that, but small towns can be gossipy. I need to…” Decide if I’m mortgaging the damn bar. “Get it off the ground before word really gets out. But some people know. My friends know. Maya, who you met back there, knows.”

“Maya is not your friend?”

“What?”

“You said your friends know, and you said Maya knows. Which suggests that Maya isn’t a friend?”

“Oh. Right.” That was another thing that was hard to explain. “No, she’s not really a friend.” Was she?

“Ex-girlfriend?”

“No! God, no.”

“Sorry, none of my business. She just seemed a little frosty back there.”

“That’s just what she’s like.” Around him, anyway. He thought back to her laughing and dancing with Holden the other night. They’d reached the little beach. He handed Brie a flower and pointed toward the pier. “Let’s walk out there to throw them.”

“Aren’t these supposed to be moonflowers?”

“Traditionally, yes. But the town has gotten more popular with tourists, especially around the two big summer festivals, and everyone was stealing the moonflowers, so now the town steers people to buy flowers from A Rose by Any Other Name. And you can’t sell cut moonflowers, since they grow on vines, so this is sort of like a copycat flower. It’s an amaryllis, I think.” He paused. “And yes, I do realize how absurd that sounds. This town sometimes straddles that fine line between charming and bonkers.”

“Now you tell me,” she joked, “after I’ve signed the contract.”

He gave a moment’s thought to telling her about “the matchmakers,” but decided not to. He had no idea what her relationship status was, and as her boss it wasn’t his place to ask. Anyway, if she was going to be working downtown, she’d find out about them soon enough.

When they reached the railing at the end of the pier, she gazed at the water. It was a sunny day, and the lake was at its bluest. “Amazing.” She held her flower out. “You’re going to do it, too, right?”

He supposed he was. He’d bought two flowers. She flung hers into the water as he pondered. He hadn’t done this for years. His mind went blank. Brie turned to him expectantly. Okay, clearly he should wish for the restaurant to be successful. But that seemed so big. So amorphous.

He tried to narrow it down. To put it in Spice Girls terms, what did he really really want?

His mind flashed forward to tomorrow morning. Crystal Palace versus Liverpool.

Raising his hand, he threw the flower and wished for Maya to not be so mad that she didn’t show up.

Chapter Fourteen

When Maya arrived at the bar Saturday morning, she was thirty minutes early. She’d planned to run over to Jenna’s to pick up something—she usually tried to arrive at truces with some little offering or other even though she and Benjamin both knew she was going to drink his wine. Although no wine for morning matches. There was no precedent for this. But when she’d come downstairs from her room at the Mermaid, she’d found Pearl and Eiko chatting in the lobby with Eve. They hadn’t noticed her creeping down the stairs, so she’d quietly fled through the kitchen.

Once she was out back, she’d nearly run into Karl, who was, for God knew what reason, poking around in the passageway between the inn and the bakery.

Were these people everywhere?

Well, yes. That shouldn’t be surprising. They just seemed extra everywhere right now.

As she’d crept carefully past the passageway, Karl had looked up, but not right at her, so she’d hightailed it past and, instinctively, jogged over to the bar.

And now she was having a bout of indecisiveness. She was already here. She should just go up, right? Rather than risk Karl seeing her?

But was it rude to be so early?

She shook her head. When had she ever been worried about being rude to Benjamin?

She pulled on the door.

Locked. Hmm.

The back door opened onto a vestibule containing an old-school pay phone and a chalkboard list of what was on tap. From there, you could open another door to get into the bar or head up a flight of stairs to Benjamin’s apartment.

She’d assumed he always kept the outside door open, because she had literally never encountered it locked. And since he kept the