“And if I married Kaitlyn LeClark?” he tested.
“If you absolutely had to,” she said.
“Good to know.”
“Any other questions?” she asked tightly.
Landon did have another question, but he hesitated a moment before asking it. “Do you still feel sorry for the ocean?”
Martha’s voice was bewildered. “Are you drunk? What kind of inane question is that?”
Landon shook his head and laughed. “Never mind.” Martha had evolved enough for one week. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
For not trying to run the woman I love out of town.
“For taking the women to LeClarks.”
Kait and Gray knew the weekend would be make or break. Sales had been declining since the rash of food poisonings. The Canteen’s article had the ability to send their thinning profit margin into the red. And to be honest, they expected it.
“Can we even say we had a good run?” Gray asked morosely as they prepared for the Friday evening shift.
“Let’s see,” Kait said. “The first LeClarks was open for 73 years. We managed a month.”
But to their surprise, business was nearly as good as it had been the previous Friday night. Kait worked the front of the house, and more than one person told her that they were there because of the Canteen’s article.
“A whole lot of people in this town want food poisoning,” Antonio joked when she told him.
But Kait’s heart was too full to laugh. For the first time since they’d come back, she felt like it was the right thing. People cared about LeClarks. They’d grown up with it, and they’d missed it when it was gone. They were sorry they hadn’t done more fifteen years ago. They were trying to make up for it now.
Gray walked into the kitchen and met her eyes, and they both gave each other watery smiles.
“We’re going to be okay,” he said.
“I know.”
“Sweet Jesus.” Antonio rolled his eyes, looking between the pair of them. “Chop onions if you want to cry about something.”
Now, Kait did laugh. She checked her reflection in the back office mirror to make sure her make up hadn’t smudged, then got back on the floor. It was a buzzy kind of night when everything was going well. Despite the crowd, none of the servers were in the weeds. They only had to rush a few forgotten orders and remake a handful of drinks that were left at the bar too long. Toward the end of the night, she even had a chance to stop and talk to Ana.
“So what do you think about Antonio?” she asked.
Ana looked at her strangely. “I don’t think about Antonio at all.”
“He’s kind of cute, right?”
“Sure,” Ana said. “You should go for it.”
“No, not for me. For you.”
“Isn’t ‘kind of cute’ a subjective term, Kait? Like if he’s kind of cute for me, that means he’s kind of cute for you. Unless you and Landon are still—”
“No,” Kait said, some of the buzz going out of the night. “We’re not.”
Ana gave her a penetrating glance that made Kait feel oddly vulnerable. She pulled Antonio back into the conversation like a safety blanket. “I just thought that since you’re both from New York, you guys might have a lot in common.”
“You’re from New York, too,” Ana pointed out.
“Not really. I’ve lived there for a few years, but I was raised in New Canton.”
“No one’s really from New York, Kait.”
“That’s true.” Kait chewed on her lip, trying to think of any other sparkling attributes Antonio possessed that might change Ana’s mind.
“I’m not looking for a guy,” Ana said gently. “Not even a kind of cute one from New York.”
Kait looked up and caught something unexpected in Ana’s gaze. It was hard to define. She might not have recognized it if she hadn’t seen it in her own after Basil Hampton. It was the look that came when, even though you were safe now, you didn’t feel safe because you’d been terrified for so long. It was a look of fear that had fossilized into a permanent sort of hunted wariness.
Her lips parted in surprise, but then Ana blinked and it was gone. Kait stared at her, wanting to inappropriately blurt out: What happened?
But just then, a family on their way out stopped at the pastry case, and Ana’s face transformed completely.
Kait had made a mental note to mention it to Gray the next morning, but when she woke up, it was because the contents of her stomach were already burning their way back up her esophagus. She barely had time to lean over the side of the bed and grab the trash can before she retched up everything she’d eaten the night before.
“Gray,” she croaked, hearing him making coffee in the kitchen. “Gray.”
He came in with two steaming cups, then immediately stepped back out. When he returned, he had a dish towel over his mouth and nose. His dismayed gaze went from her to the contents of the trash can. “Shit, Kait,” he said, his voice muffled. “What did you eat last night?”
Kait tried to remember. It hadn’t been a full meal but rather bits and pieces from the dead food that had been rung in wrong or the customer had changed their mind about. She shrugged helplessly and managed to say, “Call urgent care—make sure no one else from LeClarks is sick.”
Gray took care of her first, emptying and cleaning out the trash can and then replacing it, putting a tray of ginger ale and crackers on her nightstand. “I have to go,” he said, his brow creasing with worry. “Are you going to be okay alone?”
Kait nodded weakly. “Call urgent care,” she reminded him.
“I will on my way. I’ll text you what they say.”
She spent most of the day curled up in bed. Around noon, she made the Herculean effort to move to the couch where she could curl up in front of the TV. Instead, she fell asleep and didn’t wake up until 3:45 when a quick,
