Page 18 of The Uncomplicated Café
“Mysterious.” Logan studied the man with a critical eye. The raised, tense shoulders and clenched hands made him look wary, constantly on edge—a similar posture to airmen he’d known who’d returned home with PTSD, whether they’d admitted the diagnosis or not.
“Exactly. CeCe and I call him Mystery Man. His conversation with Verna this morning was the most I’ve ever heard him talk to anyone.”
“Sometimes I think Verna missed her calling as an interrogator for counterintelligence,” he teased, keeping an eye on their guest.
Mystery Man stood near the railing, staring blankly at the sea. Two cushioned bistro chairs offered comfortable seating, but the guy didn’t seem to notice or care, completely transfixed by the vanishing horizon line.
“She is quite adept at subtly gathering information,” Abby agreed with a lighthearted laugh. “I may see if she’ll come over again and have another chat with him. Out of curiosity, I tried to look him up on the internet but couldn’t find anything on Thomas Maineland.”
“Not anything?”
“Nope. Not a single search result.”
“That’s weird.” He made a mental note to have his own chat with the guy.
“Right? It’s like he doesn’t exist.”
Or, Logan thought with an uneasy churn in the pit of his stomach,he’s hiding something.
Chapter Eleven
CECE
“What?!”Sage Harper cried into the phone, her dismayed squeal barely audible above the whoosh of wind.
CeCe pictured her friend aboard the Unbound Bookshop, her honey-blond curls whipping around her shoulders as her boyfriend, Flynn, expertly steered the svelte sailboat across the sparkling blue waters.
“It’s afakeengagement to help a friend,” CeCe shouted into her single earbud, gingerly navigating her fragile Fiat Jolly down her mother’s pitted gravel drive. The wicker driver’s seat creaked beneath her weight as the wheels rattled over yet another pothole. Her father had promised to refill the divots during his next visit—a visit that felt more improbable every day.
“It sounds like a terrible idea,” Sage shouted back. “Your feelings for Jayce are complicated enough as it is. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I’ll be fine,” CeCe assured her, although she had yet to convince herself. For good measure she added, “I don’t think about him in that way anymore,” despite the claim not being entirely true. More like wishful thinking.
“Why don’t I believe you?” Sage was the only living soul she’d told about her silly unrequited crush, and she’d beensworn to secrecy. But that still didn’t stop her friend from having an opinion on the subject. An opinion that often involved encouraging CeCe to tell Jayce the truth. Advice she’d tried to take once, although it thankfully hadn’t panned out.
“Because you’re madly in love, which makes it hard for you to think straight,” CeCe teased, tearing her thoughts from her unpleasant past.
Sage laughed. “Guilty. But I still can’t say I’m on board with a fake engagement. Lies tend to cause more problems than they solve.”
Sage had a point. And from the moment she’d agreed to Jayce’s proposition that morning, she’d second-guessed her decision more than once. Deep down, her heart knew it wasn’t wise. But something had compelled her to say yes. And she didn’t want to admit—even to herself—that the impulse probably stemmed from those pesky feelings she purported to no longer possess.
“You’re probably right,” she admitted. “But I can’t go back on my word now. I just need to know if you have an opening for a sailing tour tomorrow morning for me, Jayce, and his parents.”
“For you, yes. Anytime. But, CeCe—” Another gust of wind barreled into the cell phone speakers, drowning out her words.
CeCe felt a pang of guilt at her relief. She couldn’t stomach another word of warning to echo her own misgivings. “Sorry, Sage. I can’t hear you. Too much wind. Plus, I’m almost at my mother’s for dinner. Text me what time we should meet at the marina tomorrow. Thanks!” She hung up her phone the same moment she pulled up to her mother’s tiny beachfront cottage.
In actuality, a beach shanty was a better description of the scant two-bedroom dwelling sitting on stilts. The peeling papaya-colored paint had seen better days, and some of the double-hung windows were warped shut, but the home still held a special place in her heart.
With the carefully boxed Toto cake in hand, CeCe rounded the side of the house, following the scent of grilled plantains to the backyard oasis. Caribbean music blended with the hum of the ocean, which could be reached by a narrow footpath down to the beach. Vibrant hammocks swayed in the gentle breeze beneath the trees, and flaming tiki torches glowed in the soft light of the setting sun, bringing an island feel to the rugged coastline of California.
Despite being a second-generation American, her mother held on to her roots in a way CeCe admired, and she’d loved visiting the Caribbean on multiple occasions as a child. But her mother’s heritage wasn’t the only influence in their home. Unusual artifacts from her father’s travels taunted her from all corners of the house.Treasures, her father called them. But the souvenirs merely served as reminders of his true love in life, the career that kept him from her.
“You’re here!” Her mother’s beautiful face brightened when she spotted her. She stood barefoot at the grill in a blue cotton sundress, her black curls tied haphazardly with a silk scarf. Ageless in both appearance and spirit. “Just in time. Hand me the peppers, please.” She gestured to the picnic table set with a colorful tablecloth and votive candles flickering in eclectic glassware, from assorted Mason jars to antique apothecary bottles.
After setting the pastry box on the table, CeCe grabbed the basket of Scotch bonnet peppers picked from her mother’s garden and brought them to the barbecue. Brown stew salmon simmered in a cast-iron skillet on the side burner, sending the savory aroma of rich gravy and heady spices into the air.
Her mother set a whole pepper into the sauce to infuse its spicy flavor, then flipped the plantains.
