Karla slipped the business card in her pocket and smiled. She’d been moaning to God in her prayer journal last night that being cooped up in Gordon Falls was feeling like a colossal detour. This morning, however, felt like God’s personalized reminder that she could pursue her dream even while out here. The card in her pocket—and the contact it represented—served as a deposit on the future she had beyond the counter at Karl’s.
The massive tip Shoemacher added to the meager breakfast tab? Well that was very nice, as well.
* * *
“So.” Jesse Sykes, a fellow volunteer fireman at the Gordon Falls Volunteer Fire Department, pulled on a gray T-shirt and shook his still-wet hair as they stood in the locker room later that afternoon. “How was the big rig gig?”
Dylan yawned—it was tiring to pull a shift as a volunteer firefighter right after a full morning of playing host to a bunch of city visitors. It was 3:00 p.m. and he’d been up for eleven hours already. “Not bad, actually.”
Jesse took one last swipe at his hair before tossing the towel he held into the large canvas laundry bin in the corner. They’d just finished a demonstration at the high school, so it wasn’t as if they’d just come in off a fire, but the heavy gear could make a guy sweat in January, much less June. “Today was the day you took them to Karl’s afterward, right? How’d that go?”
“It’s a nice perk—no pun intended.” Dylan rubbed his own hair dry. “Puts just the right cap on the morning, especially if the fish haven’t been biting, which they weren’t this morning.” One of the worst parts of the charter fishing business was that the satisfaction of his customers sometimes depended on the participation of Gordon Falls’ finned inhabitants. This morning the fish had not been cooperative.
“Came in empty-handed?”
“Not completely, but there’s always—” he made quotation marks with his fingers in the air “—the big one that got away.” He laughed. “A lot of them got away this morning. Makes it hard to keep the customers happy, you know?”
“I can imagine.” Jesse smirked. “Hey, I think the coffee thing’s a pretty clever idea, actually. A way to add to the experience no matter how the fish are biting—and a bit more sophisticated than coffee in a thermos. Anything you can do to pull in the high-end crowd is always a good thing, right? You’ve got bills to pay.”
Dylan shut his locker door and spun the lock. “Those boat loans don’t care that I’ve just about run through my savings getting this thing up and running. As for the coffee, the whole thing was Karla Kennedy’s idea, actually.”
“Karla? Karl’s granddaughter?”
“She’s studying restaurant management, or something like that. I’d have never thought of it, being a ‘coffee in the thermos’ kind of guy.” He smiled ruefully. “Although I did like whatever it was she made me the other day. Had cinnamon in it, and frothy milk. I gave up all that stuff when I stopped working downtown, but now I think maybe I might go back to some of it.”
“So you talked shop with clever little Karla Kennedy.” Jesse hoisted a bag over his shoulder. “There’s brains behind those big blue eyes.” He waggled one eyebrow at Dylan. “Reeling in more than the fishermen, are we?”
“She’s not my type and I don’t think I’m hers.” Dylan leaned against the locker he’d just shut. “Karla’s definitely a city girl. I get the feeling she can’t get back to Chicago fast enough. You should have seen her charming up my customers—she definitely prefers a high-end kind of guy.”
Jesse fished a watch out of his pocket and put it on. “You’re a high-end kind of guy. You just do it in a down-home kind of way now.”
“You just contradicted yourself, Sykes.” Dylan sat down on the locker-room bench and began tightening the laces on his work boots.
“Not necessarily.” Jesse tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, wait a minute—I thought you told me this morning’s fishermen were guys in their forties.”
“They were.” Dylan tied off the knot.
“So I highly doubt Karla was fishing for dates from them.”
“I didn’t say she was flirting with them.”
“Maybe not with words.” Jesse set his bag back down. “Look at you. You didn’t even realize you were jealous.”
“Cut it out, okay?” He was not jealous of the attention Karla had paid those businessmen.
“Likely she was just being nice. You know, making business contacts. You said she wants to open her own place back in Chicago, right?”
“She mentioned it a few dozen times.”
“So she talked to you. A lot. And she made you coffee. And you said she gave you a free lunch the other day. Do the math here, buddy.”
Dylan didn’t even bother to reply. He only shot Jesse a glare as he stood up to go.
“Man, we have to get you out more. You’re spending way too much time with fish instead of females.”
Maybe I like it that way. “Ever since you started ‘ring shopping’ with Charlotte, you’ve become impossible, Sykes. Well, more impossible than usual.” Jesse had been the firehouse’s most proclaimed bachelor until a pretty, young Chicagoan named Charlotte Taylor had bought a property right out from underneath him. Jesse got himself hired to help Charlotte renovate that cottage, and it was safe to say the relationship had gone far beyond contractor-client since then. “You going to pop the question soon?”
Jesse’s smile gave the answer even though he replied, “That, mister, is privileged information.”
“Good for you. Really, I’m glad for you.” He was—he and Jesse were good friends—it was just that the wave of happy couples in Gordon Falls was getting a little hard to bear. Starting with Fire Inspector Chad Owens, there had been four weddings and an engagement in recent years, and Jesse was about to make that number five.
Dylan hoped that would signal an end to the discussion, but no such luck. His buddy sat back down on the locker room bench. “Look, Dylan, you gotta put yourself back out there. You can’t let Yvonne keep doing this to you—I can’t stand to watch it. Just because she went after someone with deeper pockets doesn’t mean every woman sees you as short on cash.”
How many versions of this lecture was Sykes going to give him? Dylan glared at Jesse again, hoping to signal his reluctance to hear any more on the topic.
“I mean it. You’re doing fine for yourself. You are long on charm, buddy. Give yourself more credit. You’re a catch. There are other fish in...”
Dylan rolled his eyes and held up one hand. “Stop with the fishing metaphors. Please, I’m begging you.”
Jesse squared off at him. “Tell me you’re over Yvonne.”
“I am,” Dylan declared as he bent down over his second boot, trying hard not to sound as annoyed as he felt.
Jesse shook his head and blew out a breath. “Nope. Make me believe it.”
Dylan tied off his second boot so ferociously the lace broke. Determined to put an end to this once and for all, he stared hard at Jesse and growled, “I. Am. Over. Yvonne.” He tried to remember that the other fireman had his best interest at heart. Still, no one could ever call Jesse Sykes subtle. For all his good-hearted companionship, the guy was an interpersonal bulldozer.
“And Karla Kennedy is...” Jesse circled his hand in the air, cuing Dylan to finish the sentence.
Just say what he wants to hear and he’ll go away. Dylan shrugged his shoulders. “Kind of cute and very smart.”