Page 103 of Just Trouble

“I do.”

“You said you thought he guided you to Merrie’s place that day.”

“I do. I did.” He looks down at me, his eyes vehemently blue. “And that’s what’s behind the new plan.”

“Ah, the new plan. Whatareyou going to do for an encore?”

Luke takes a breath, as if to steady himself for this confession. “I bought the Odeon Theatre this week from Nate Thompson.”

I stop to stare at him. “Shut the front door.”

“I did. I didn’t want you to handle the sale for me, because I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“It is.”

“He wanted to sell, but not to Patrick. He warned me that it needs a ton of work, but he didn’t want to pour cash into it himself. I bought it for a buck, Daph, and the promise to bring it back.”

“Why would you want to own a theatre?”

“Because it brings everything together beautifully.” He nods in the face of my confusion. I can’t see the connection, but I have to wonder one thing.

“What did Patrick want?”

“To get under my skin.”

“Did it work?”

“Not this time. Even though the man has a gift.” He’s pretending it doesn’t matter, but I know better. When he bends to steal a kiss, I put a fingertip over my mouth and look into his eyes again.

“Promise me something,” I say and his gaze sharpens. “Whatever you choose to do, don’t choose it because of Patrick. Don’t chart a course just to get even with him or to make him angry.”

“What then?”

“Let it all go. Make your choices based on yourself, what you want and what you envision. Maybe he has the power to point out a failure to you, but don’t give him more power than that. Act upon the information; don’t respond to his provocation. It’s the only way you’ll ever break whatever hold he has over you.”

Luke’s smile dawns slowly and is blindingly brilliant. “That’s what I’ve already done,” he says and I smile, sliding my fingertip across his lips. “Thank you, Daph.”

“For what? As your legal counsel, I should be giving you the best advice I can. What have you done?”

“Rewind,” he says, spinning a finger. “Patrick stopped by the table tonight to point out the weakness of my plan with The Carpe Diem Café.”

“And that is?”

“Location, location, location. In a way, Empire isn’t any better than the site Merrie had before. It’s a lot cheaper, but it has significantly less traffic. There will be people like Rafe, who make a regular pilgrimage to town just for the food, and people like you, who walk across the street once or twice a week for lunch, but she needs a stronger customer base than that. And Patrick is probably right about winter and its complete elimination of any visitors to Empire.”

I don’t argue that there are virtually no visitors to Empire regardless of the time of year, because he knows that.

I’m interested that he’s jubilant after any discussion with Patrick. “He doesn’t seem to have depressed you,” I venture and Luke grins.

“Because I’m ahead of him this time. I started to think about this earlier in the week. I realized that it’s not just one restaurant. We need an entire plan for the town, even to make that restaurant a success, and if I’m not just setting Merrie up for failure, I need to think ahead. I need to think bigger.” He squeezes my hand. “I need to listen and learn about the merit of plans.”

Oh. I like that he’s sharing the credit with me, but he’s the one leaping in here. Before I can point that out, he continues.

“So, we need to look at other places with seasonal traffic and learn from them. What they do is cultivate traffic during the best season, with festivals and events. They may do that in the off-season, too, but the point is that they fill the well when times are good, and that gets them through the slow months, when times are less good.”

“Fair enough.” It’s true that we have very few festivals in Empire these days. There used to be a strawberry festival in June and a fall fair, as well as a Santa Claus parade in December, but we’ve rolled all of our events into the much larger versions in Havelock. If Luke plans to revive any of those, it will be an uphill battle, but I keep quiet and hear him out.

And I’m glad, because he surprises me completely.

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