* * *
Lizzie carefully stacked her finds into the back of Jesse’s SUV, feeling more excited about the café than she had since she’d arrived in Dolphin Bay. Jesse had driven her through unsealed roads that twisted through acres of bushland to a property where the parents of one of Jesse’s old school friends had a beekeeping business.
On the spot she’d bought honey harvested from bees that had feasted on blossoms of the eucalypts growing in the adjoining national park and named for the trees: Spotted Gum, Iron Bark, River Gum.
Jesse seemed bemused she’d bought so many jars. ‘This is liquid gold,’ she explained as he slammed shut the door of the boot. ‘Each honey has a particular flavour and they’re not always available. I’m thrilled to bits. It’s also considerably cheaper buying it direct from the farmer.’
‘Your head is buzzing with ideas on what to cook with all this?’ he asked.
She smiled at his joke and he met her smile with one of his own. When she’d first climbed into his car this morning she’d felt tense and on edge in his company but had gradually relaxed to the point she felt she could have a normal conversation without being choked by self-consciousness. ‘You could say that. I love to cook with honey but I also like to drizzle it over, say, baked ricotta for breakfast.’
‘Ricotta cheese for breakfast! A hungry man coming into the café won’t think much of that.’
‘How about served with a stack of buttermilk pancakes?’
‘With a side of bacon?’
‘With a side order of bacon,’ she said.
‘Much better,’ he said. ‘I like a big breakfast to start the day. I might become a regular customer while I’m in town.’
There was something very appealing about a big man with a hearty appetite. She remembered—
No! She would not even think about Jesse in relation to other appetites. Not for the first time she thanked heaven that her time with him at the wedding had been interrupted. She might have been very, very tempted to go much further than kisses and that would have been a big mistake of the irredeemable kind. Mere kisses were easy to put behind her. Though not without a degree of regret that they could never take up where they’d left off.
‘Why not?’ she said lightly. ‘I guarantee we’ll have the best breakfasts and lunches in town. If you’re still hungry after one of my breakfasts I’ll give you your money back.’
‘Is that a challenge?’
‘An all-you-can-eat challenge? You’ll just have to wait and see the food, won’t you?’
‘What about the coffee? A café will live or die on its coffee.’
‘The beans they’re ordering for me through the Harbourside are single origin beans from El Salvador and Guatemala. Fair trade, of course. I have no quibble with them.’ Her voice trailed away at the end. She’d decided not to complain too much about anything to Jesse in case it found its way back to Ben and Sandy.
He turned to her. ‘You don’t sound as confident about the coffee as you do about the food.’
‘How did you know that?’
‘Just an edge to the tone of your voice.’
It was scary how quickly he’d learned to read her. Was that the Jesse way with women? Or a genuine friendship building between them? Still, she decided to confide in him—this was just business. ‘You’re right. We’ve got a state-of-the-art Italian coffee machine. But I’m not sure how good the girl is we’ve employed to use it.’
‘If she’s no good, employ someone else,’ he said, again displaying the ruthless business streak that surprised her.
‘Easier said than done in a place like Dolphin Bay. There’s not a lot of need for highly skilled baristas; as a result there aren’t many to call upon.’
‘I’m sure you’ll sort it out,’ he said. ‘You’re likely to have a few teething problems to overcome.’
‘But I don’t want teething problems,’ she said stubbornly. ‘I want the café to run perfectly from the get-go.’
‘You really are a perfectionist, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘Which isn’t always a good thing. It means I’m often disappointed.’
She knew there was a bitter edge to her words but she couldn’t help it. ‘No man is perfect,’ Philippe had shouted at her when she’d refused to take him back that final time. Was it so unreasonable to want a man who wouldn’t cheat and lie? Who could manage to stay faithful?
Another reason to keep Jesse strictly hands-off. He was a player like Philippe. With all the potential for heartbreak that came with that kind of guy.
She forced herself away from old hurts and back to the café.
‘Tell me if you think this is a good idea—I want to ask your mother if she could share some of her favourite recipes from the old guest house. It would be nice to have that link to the Morgans in the café menu.’
Morgan’s Guest House had been such a wonderful place, especially for a girl interested in cooking. Maura was an exceptional home-style cook.
Jesse paused for a long moment before he replied. She wondered if it had been a bad idea. She let out her breath when he answered, not realising she had been holding it. ‘It’s a great idea,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m sure Mum would be flattered. I’d certainly like it.’
‘I’m so glad you think so,’ she said with a rush of relief. ‘I have such happy memories of helping Maura cook in the kitchen. She taught me to make perfect scrambled eggs. I’ve never found a better technique than hers.’
‘When my mother heard you’d become a chef she was tickled pink that she might have had an influence on you.’
‘I’m glad to hear that, because she was a big influence. My own mother encouraged me too.’
‘And your father?’
She looked away from the car so she didn’t have to face him. ‘You’ve probably heard something from Sandy about what my father was like,’ she said stiffly.
‘Ben said Dr Randall Adam was an officious, domineering snob who—’
Lizzie put up her hand to halt him. ‘Don’t say it. After all he’s done, he’s still my father.’
‘Sure,’ he said, and she felt embarrassed at the sympathy in his voice. She didn’t want him to feel sorry for her.
She scuffed at the ground near the back tyres of the car with the toe of her sneaker. ‘Shall we say, he was less than encouraging when I didn’t want to follow the academic path he’d mapped out for me. I wasn’t the honours student Sandy was but he didn’t get that. He wanted me to go to university. When I landed an apprenticeship at one of the most highly regarded restaurants in Sydney he didn’t appreciate what a coup that was. He...well, he pretty much disowned me.’
Under threat of being kicked out of home without a cent to support her if she didn’t complete her schooling, she’d finished high school. But the kitchen jobs she’d worked during her vacations had only reinforced her desire to become a chef. When she’d got the apprenticeship at the age of seventeen her father had carried out his threat and booted her out of home. It had backfired on him, though. Her mother had finally had enough of his bullying and infidelities. He went. Lizzie stayed.