It had been another chilly morning during which the sweet rolls had disappeared at an alarming pace. Edie had put two aside, just in case. As soon as the buyer bit into his, a look of pure ecstasy passed over his face.
That would be fitting, Ali thought, if one of Myrtle Hansen’s sweet rolls helped start the business and another one helped end it all these years later.
The two men were seated in one of the booths in Jan’s station, so Ali didn’t wait on them, but she kept a close eye on the progress of their breakfast. From the kitchen, Edie Larson did the same. Only when they were finished did Edie, now sporting a clean apron, emerge from the kitchen to chat with them. Her arrival at their booth was followed by handshakes and introductions all around. Al Sanders, the taller of the two, was the business broker. Kenneth Dobbs was the potential purchaser.
Dobbs’s praise for the food was nothing short of effusive. “That was by far the best sweet roll I’ve ever tasted in my life. Do you make them yourself?”
“Every day,” Edie answered.
“I thought your husband would be here too,” Sanders said, glancing back toward the kitchen.
“Our grandson is here visiting from California,” Edie returned without missing a beat. “Bob decided to take a few days off. But you can talk to me,” she added. “My husband and I are equal partners in this place. Talking to one is like talking to both.”
“Mr. Dobbs is considering making an offer,” Sanders continued. “But before he does, he’d like to bring in a restaurant consultant to have a look at the place. Would you mind?”
“No,” Edie said. “That would be fine.”
“What about tomorrow?”
“Sure,” Edie said with a reassuring smile. “That would be great.”
Her smile lasted only long enough for Dobbs and Sanders to pay their bill and walk out the door.
“A restaurant consultant. Just what I need,” Edie grumbled on her way back to the kitchen. “By tomorrow, your father will be here, either in a wheelchair or on crutches. He’ll be doing his best to run the place by remote control while I’m stuck with a restaurant consultant who’ll want to turn the Sugarloaf into some kind of trendy glass-and-brass monstrosity.”
“It’ll be all right, Mom,” Ali said. “I’m sure it will.”
“I hope so,” Edie murmured. As she walked away, she used a corner of her apron to brush a tear from her eye. The strain was beginning to show. Ali knew Edie Larson was tough as nails, but with everything that was going on, Ali wondered how much more her mother could take.
Chapter 12
Right in the middle of the lunch rush Chris showed up at the restaurant, pushing his newly released grandfather in a rented wheelchair. They were followed by a grubby-looking and gaunt stranger with dirty clothes and even dirtier hair. From the reek of woodsmoke and body odor, it seemed likely that he was homeless. He was missing several teeth, and his nose seemed to have been broken several times and from several different directions. Despite his scrawny appearance, however, the man single-handedly lifted Bob’s considerable weight out of the wheelchair with an air of practiced ease.
Bob pointed to a spot behind the cash register. “Put the damned wheelchair over there so it’s out of the way, then sit, both of you, and let’s order some decent grub. The stuff they call food in the hospital isn’t fit for man nor beast.”
The grimy newcomer quickly folded the wheelchair and stowed it, then he and Chris eased their way into the booth on either side of Bob Larson. As Chris walked past her, Ali gave her son a questioning look as if to say, Who’s that? Chris merely shook his head and said nothing.
Ali motioned to Jan that she’d take over serving that booth. She emerged from behind the counter, coffeepot in hand.
“They let you out, did they?” she asked her father, pouring coffee into his cup.
“Finally,” Bob said heartily. “And not a moment too soon. They claim the swill they serve there is coffee, but it’s worse than the food. Decaf, too. I had a headache that wouldn’t quit until Chris here was good enough to go out and bring me back some real coffee.” He sipped the coffee Ali had poured and gave a contented sigh. “Wonderful,” he murmured. “Ambrosia.”
She filled Chris’s cup and then turned to the newcomer who, after glancing nervously around the room, was trying unsuccessfully to hide behind his open menu.
“Coffee?” she asked.
“Please,” he said. As soon as she poured some for him, he loaded up with cream and several spoonfuls of sugar.
“Here’s my beautiful daughter, Ali Reynolds,” Bob beamed enthusiastically, making introductions as though what was happening wasn’t the least bit out of the ordinary. “This is Kip Hogan, Ali, an old buddy of mine. He and I were corpsmen together in Vietnam for the 82nd Airborne. Do you believe it? Somebody told him I was living here in Sedona, and he came looking for me. Chris and I happened to run into him on our way down from Flagstaff. It’s a good thing, too. Like I was telling him on the way here, I happen to be in need of a good corpsman at the moment.”
A corpsman, Ali thought. That explained the businesslike way he had stowed the wheelchair, to say nothing of the way he had hefted Bob out of it.
“Glad to meet you,” Ali said.
Knowing her father’s penchant for rescuing strays, Ali had no doubt that he had chosen grubby and, to put it bluntly, stinky Kip as his next rehab project. Out in the kitchen, Edie Larson was busy slamming pots and pans.
“That’s my wife, Edie, back there rattling those pots and pans. Edie’s a hell of a good cook if I do say so myself. So what’ll it be Kip? Order whatever you like.”
The ominous noises emanating from the kitchen made Edie’s opinion about the situation perfectly clear. A few of the Sugarloaf’s regular customers cast their own wary looks in Kip’s direction. They didn’t seem thrilled, either.
“I’ll have huevos rancheros,” Chris said.
“Bacon and eggs for me,” Kip said softly. “Over easy on the eggs. And maybe one of those sweet rolls.”
“Ah, the sweet rolls,” Bob agreed. “Good choice. Very good choice. If there are any left, I’ll have one of those, too, Ali. And some extra butter.”
“It’s lunchtime,” Edie called from the kitchen. “We ran out of sweet rolls hours ago. And you need extra butter like you need a hole in your head.”
“Okay, okay,” Bob grinned at his wife. To Kip he said, “Don’t worry about her. Edie’s bark is a whole lot worse than her bite. We’ll both have biscuits, then, Ali. Biscuits and gravy or biscuits and honey?”
“Gravy would be nice,” Kip said longingly.
Something in the way he said the words made Ali realize that in addition to being dirty, Kip Hogan was also very hungry. Edie must have figured it out as well, because the plate of biscuits and gravy that was waiting at the service window a few minutes later was more than a double order. And, even though nothing more had been said, Bob’s biscuits came complete with honey and several extra pats of butter.
“Maybe I won’t have to kill him after all,” Edie grumbled the next time Ali was within earshot. “His cholesterol will do the job for me.”
“Kip’s been hanging out at one of the camp sites up along the rim,” Bob Larson explained when Ali returned with the rest of their order. “I told him we’d be glad to have him stay in the motor home for a couple of weeks. It’s not much, but it sure beats living in a tent.”
Years earlier, as a favor to a friend, Bob had bought an old used Lazy Daze. At the time Bob had still harbored the dream that some day he’d be able to talk Edie into hitting the road as an RVer. The decrepit motor home had seen better days before Bob had bought it, and time hadn’t improved its condition. Over the years, the tires had more or less melted into the ground. Ali doubted the engine would even turn over anymore, and God only knew what kinds of creatures had taken up residence, but if Kip Hogan had been camping out in this kind of weather, he most likely would be more than happy to share four flimsy walls and a floor with any number of
