Page 12 of The Hampton Beach Café 6
“Hi, I need you to run a credit check on my name,” Frances said quickly.
“Uh, sure, may I ask why?” the accountant asked, sounding a bit confused. “It's been months. Last time we spoke about was the exchange of title when you bought that investment business in New Hampshire—”
“Just do the credit check, please,” Frances replied, trying to hide the urgency in her voice. “It's really important.”
“Okay, I'll get that started right now,” he said, typing away on his computer. “Is there anything else you need from me?”
Frances paused, debating whether to share everything that had happened as well as her suspicions with him. In the end, she decided to keep it to herself for now.
“No, that's all. Thank you,” she said, hanging up the phone.
Loans…she couldn't have loans. She'd have needed to sign stuff, and have interviews with bankers…right? But Clarkson was hardly going to take them out in his own name…not when he was scamming her.
Vincent and Lucinda could obviously sense her distress growing and moved closer to her in formation, trying to comfort her.
“Frances, it's going to be okay,” Vincent said reassuringly. “We'll figure this out.”
Lucinda nodded in agreement. “There must be some mistake. We'll help you sort it out.”
With a deep breath, Frances fought her instinct to panic. She needed to calm herself down.
“Thank you…both of you,” she said, her voice shaking. “I just don't know what to do.”
The bell above the front door jingled and Frances turned to see a family of five tumble in. The two teenagers were mid argument about something the other had said.
“Well, right now…” Lucinda said, “…we have plenty to do. We'll talk about this later, okay?”
This time, she held a deep breath until her lungs started to hurt a little. It cleared her urge to cry and interrupted her mental spiral. Frances nodded after letting it out in a long, slow, and controlled breath.
She had a café to run, after all.
EIGHT
It had been several hours, and even though Frances was behind the counter calmly polishing spoons, she was still very much on edge.
So much so that when she heard the bell above the door jingle, she actually jumped—she had been jumpy all afternoon. Frances turned just in time to see Hayley step inside, looking as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Hayley gave her a small wave and walked over to the counter.
“Hey, Frances,” she said, smiling hesitantly. “I hope it's okay that I stopped by kind of unannounced. I just got in, and I really wanted to talk to you straight away about…what we talked about on the phone last week.”
Lord, had it been a week since that conversation? It felt like a month.
“Of course it's okay,” Frances replied warmly. “What's going on?”
Hayley looked around the café, as if searching for the right words.
“Can we go somewhere more private?” she asked finally. “Maybe grab a drink or something?”
Frances raised an eyebrow but nodded, tapping Lucinda on the arm, and gesturing around the café. Lucinda nodded her agreement that she would be fine looking after the place. This little wordless exchange had become pretty much second nature to them by this point—one of them was always asking the other to cover for them. The contentment that inspired in Frances made her smile despite the day she'd had.
“Sure. There's that little bar down by the shore? We can go there.”
Hayley visibly relaxed. “That sounds great.”
Frances quickly finished what she was doing and checked in with Vincent before heading out of the bar. The walk was quiet, the tension between them palpable, and they had given up on the awkward half-conversation about the show Hayley had been in well before they reached their destination. Frances couldn't help but wonder what Hayley had to tell her that was making her so nervous, and her imagination was conjuring wild theories about what could have happened between Hayley and Malcolm in Texas to instigate this kind of anxiety.
As they entered the bar, Frances scanned the room for a quiet corner where they could talk. She spotted a small table in the back and led Hayley over to it. The waiter accompanied them, and they both ordered a drink and sat down. Hayley fidgeted nervously with her paper napkin, shredding it to pieces before the poor waiter had a chance to return with their drinks. When he did finally get there, he scooped the mess Hayley had made onto his tray and put another one down in its place with a glare at Hayley.
“Okay,” Frances said as he left. “What's going on? You're making me nervous.”
