Love And Coffee: A Cup Of Grace Romance Series Book 1 (17 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN             

              “We need to talk,” Matt had said leaning toward me.

              I swallowed hard.  We were working the morning rush at Cup of Grace.  The line was nearly to the door and we were making drinks as fast as we could.  His tone sounded serious and I had butterflies in my stomach.  My dragon dream was nothing more than a few barely remembered images, but somehow the feelings remained when I thought about it.

              We worked to make people happy for the next hour and finally everything slowed down.  I was wiping the counter down when Matt came up to me.

              “I think we need some couple time.  Tonight.  Why don’t we have dinner at that nice Italian restaurant over on Bridge Street?”

              “Okay,” I said.  I watched him head to the back room.  He seemed happy.  Why did I always worry about our relationship?  I sighed and told myself to chill out.  I was too high strung these days.  Still, I wondered what this was all about.

***

I stood in front of the mirror in my bedroom, looking at my reflection.  I had decided to put my hair up, which is no easy feat when you have really long hair and the humidity is trying to make you look like a poodle.  It looked pretty when I was done, though.  I smiled at myself.  Everything was going to be fine and Matt and I were going to get to spend a wonderful evening together.  I could hardly wait.

              “You look pretty,” Kathryn said, coming in and flopping down on the bed.

              “Oh, you do!” Jillian said, following her in and moving over to the edge of the bed and sitting down.

              “Do you think so?” I asked, looking at myself in the mirror again.

              “Yes.  I do wish I had someone to dress up for,” Kathryn said wistfully.

              “When we hire more people at Cup of Grace, you’ll have more time to find someone,” I said.  Business had picked up and it felt like it was time to bring on more people.  We had hired Janey on permanently.  She had more than earned it.  She was a great asset to the team.  That’s what we were. A team.  All five of us. I anticipated adding on at least two more people.  Maybe a third, part-time.

              “So where is Matt taking you?” Jillian asked.

              “La Bella.”

              “Nice,” she said.

              “It is.” I agreed.

              “All right, what’s up?” Kathryn said.  “You don’t seem nearly as excited about this date as we do.”

I sighed.  “Just a lot on my mind, I guess.”

“Oh Tara, didn’t I tell you that you needed to stop that worrying?” Kathryn asked.

“I know.  I can’t seem to stop it though,” I said with a sigh.  I had turned into a big worry wort.

“You’re going out on a romantic date with a seriously cute guy.  You should have no worries,” Jillian said.  “Don’t be a worry wart.”

I giggled.  Jillian was a mind reader.  “All right.  You guys are right,” I said.  “There.  Do I look all right?” I asked turning around for them.

“You look hot,” Jillian said.

“Very pretty,” Kathryn said.

Truth was, I felt kind of hot.  And pretty.  I smiled.  I did need to get over this worrying.  I was about to spend the evening with my favorite person.  I had nothing to worry about.

***

I looked the menu over, trying to decide.  The Malfalde with prawns and zucchini looked good and I had been wanting to try it for some time. 

“So, do Italians have the equivalent of escargot?” Matt asked.

“Um, I think you already know the answer to that,” I said.  “I think I am going to try the Malfalde.”

“A wise choice, Madame.”

I looked at him.  How had I gotten so blessed?  He was everything I could have hoped for, and more.  I had a successful business and a church I loved.  Okay, this perfect man wanted me to leave that perfect church, but if it was right, wouldn’t the new church be just as perfect as the old one?  I still couldn’t make myself be happy about making that change though, and it bothered me.

The waiter took our order and we looked at each other.  I couldn’t help it, I giggled.  He made me giddy.

“What?” he asked.

              “What what?” I answered and giggled some more.

              He smiled back at me.  “You are silly,” he said.

              “Only because you make me that way.”  Yeah, I know.  Gag.  But I couldn’t help it.  It was true.  I had never thought I would be silly in love, but I was.  And I loved it.

              Our meals came and we ate and discussed everything but church and missionary work and Cup of Grace.  They were subjects I sort of wanted to avoid.  For that evening, anyway. 

              When we had finished eating, he took my hand and opened the restaurant door for me.  There was a black horse carriage with two white horses pulling it out front.  That was odd.  When I turned to ask him what that was doing here, he was smiling ear to ear.

              “Your carriage, La femmina,” he said motioning toward it with his hand.

              “What?” I said.  What was he up to?

              “Come on,” he said and led me toward it.

              “Are you serious?” I asked, smiling really big.  I had never ridden in a carriage before.

              He opened the carriage door and helped me into it.  “I am as serious as can be,” he said.

              “Well this is special,” I said.  “I can’t believe you did this!  I love it Matt!” 

He chuckled and laid a lap blanket across my legs.  Fall hadn’t completely set in yet, but the night had turned a little chilly.

              “Only because you’re special,” he said. 

              People stopped to look at us as we passed.  I sort of felt like giving a parade wave, but decided not to.  It felt funny to have this much attention.

              “How do you like your carriage ride?  I could get one for you.  We could park it in the apartment parking spaces.  The ones reserved for visitors.”

              “And where would we keep the horses?” I asked.

              “Maybe we could build walls on a couple of the other ones and make stalls for them.”

              “Sounds good.  I’ll hold you to it,” I said.  “I always wanted a pony when I was a little girl.”

              He chuckled.  “Wouldn’t the apartment manager have a fit?”

              “Oh, yes he would.  Especially after we had to explain that Jillian just forgot to pay the rent when he tried to kick us out.  On second thought, I think I better fly under the radar for a while.”

              “Maybe you should,” he agreed.

              A few minutes later and we pulled into the park.  The horses pulled the carriage right up to the pond with the swans.  It was a full moon and the pond was beautiful in the moonlight. 

              Matt got out of the carriage first and then helped me down.  It took me a minute to get my land legs under me and for a second I thought I was going to tumble down the bank of the pond and make a big splash.  How graceful would that be?

              Matt turned back to the carriage and pulled out a picnic basket and a blanket.  He winked at me.  What was all this about?  Such a romantic!

              He spread the blanket out on the ground and then led me over to it.  “Please be seated, la femmina,” he said.

              When I was sitting comfortably, he sat beside me. The carriage pulled a little ways from us.  “You know Tara, I have to say, I have never met anyone as special as you are,” he said

              I smiled.  “I feel the same way about you,” I said.  I could feel tears threatening at the back of my eyes.

              He looked at me very seriously, then he got up from a sitting position and knelt on one knee.

              What was this?  My eyes got big and I held my breath.

              He took my hand and looked into my eyes very intently.  “Tara, I feel like God has led us to be together.  I have never felt so strongly about anything in my life.  Tara, will you marry me?”

              My head began to spin.  What had he just asked me?  Had he asked me to marry him?

              “What did you say?” I asked.

              He frowned slightly.  “I asked you to marry me.”

              Oh, that was it.  Tears sprang to my eyes.  Was this really happening?  Oh please tell me it wasn’t another dream, because if it was, then I never wanted to wake up.

              “Tara?” Matt asked, his brows knit together. 

              Oh.  He was waiting for an answer.  “Yes,” I finally managed to squeak out.

              Matt beamed and leaned over and kissed me.  “Oh my gosh. I almost forgot,” he said and pulled a small box out of his pocket.  “I can’t believe I forgot that,” he said and blushed a little under the park lights.

              I giggled.  What else could I do?  He had bought me a ring! He opened the box and the diamond caught a glint of streetlight.

              “Oh my gosh, it’s beautiful!” I exclaimed.  And it was.  It was the prettiest ring I had ever seen.  The diamond was heart shaped on a white gold band.  Simple yet stunning.             

“I wish I could have gotten something a little bigger,” he said bashfully.

              “Don’t you say that!  It’s beautiful.  It’s the most perfect ring I have ever seen,” I said and held my hand out so he could put the ring on my finger.  It slid on easily and I wondered how he knew what size to get.  Kathryn and Jillian!  They had probably known about this all along.

              Matt sat beside me again and opened the picnic basket.  He pulled out a bottle of champagne and two glasses and poured for us.  “I don’t normally drink, but this is a special occasion,” he said.

              “Indeed, it is,” I said and took a glass from him.

              We both sipped from our glasses.  “Oh wait, let’s do this,” I said and directed him so that our arms linked one another.  “I’ve always wanted to do this,” I said.

              He laughed.  “Well I’m glad I’m the man you got to do it with.”

              “Matt?” I said.

              “Yes?”

              “I hate to bring it up, but I want you to know that I am so unsure about some things,” I said.

              His face sobered.  “Like?”

              “Oh not about us,” I reassured him.  “But about what you believe to be your calling.  And about changing churches.  And oh, I don’t know, probably a lot of little things.”

              “Tara, I feel like this is exactly the right thing to do.  To ask you to marry me.  So you know, I really think everything else will work out.  We don’t have to make any hasty changes.  I was probably wrong to insist that you change churches immediately.  Why don’t we just pray about things and let God handle how it gets worked out?”

              I smiled.  “That’s exactly what I needed to hear.”

              “Good.  Because we are going to have an awesome life together.  I just know it.”

              “You are so right,” I said.  And I knew he was.  God would work things out.  He always does.

THE END

Please continue reading for chapter one in book two of the Cup of Grace Romance series.

LOVE AND MOCHAS

A CUP OF GRACE ROMANCE

By

KATY HALLIDAY

My feet were screaming at me.   I had just slipped my not-so-sensible shoes off when the front door swung open and he walked through it.  He had dark curly hair, piercing brown eyes and he was tall.  Really tall.  I figured him to be at least six feet four inches.  I stopped wiping down the counter and stared at him.  Who was he and where had he been all my life?  And then I suddenly realized that I had met him before.  He smiled at me when he caught my eye and I forced my shoes back onto my aching and complaining feet.  It was agony.  I had been on my feet for over ten hours and they had swollen to the size of cantaloupes.  I tried not to grimace when my shoes bit into my puffy feet.  How had my feet grown a half size since this morning when I had first put my shoes on?

You would think I would have been smarter, knowing I would be on my feet all day, and worn sensible shoes.  But sensible shoes were for my grandma.  I had cute little red pumps that made my dress sparkle.  My dress was mostly hidden beneath the yellow and white striped apron I wore, but so what?  I knew the dress was there and I knew what these crazy cute shoes did for it. 

“Hello Kathryn,” he said easily as he approached me.  I stood up straight and looked up into his handsome face and smiled back.  He remembered my name!  I felt like dancing a little jig right then and there.  

“Hello Jeffery.  How have you been?”  I remembered his, too.

              “Good,” he said with a little bit of a twinkle in his eye.  “You remembered my name,” he said and fairly beamed with pleasure. 

              “Of course.  You were our knight in shining armor when we needed one most,” I said.  “That cockroach lady thought she had us in a corner, but you dug us out of that corner.  How could I forget?”  Was I spreading it on too thick?  I didn’t care if I was.

              Jeffery was a lawyer and also Tara’s fiancé’s cousin.  We had met several months earlier when we had a woman claim to find a cockroach in her scone and threaten to sue us.  Jeffery had been our hero and rescued us.

              I thought I saw him blush just the tiniest bit.  But it was the truth.  We had been in hot water and he rescued us.  A lawyer.  I had never been attracted to a lawyer before, but there was something different about this one.  Call it woman’s intuition.

              He glanced up at the drink menu on the board behind me and then looked back at me.  “What’s good this evening?  Do you have any specialties?  I was working late with an incredibly boring client and I need something as a reward for having gotten through it without falling asleep at my desk.”

              “Everything’s good here,” I said, looking him in the eye.  “But the mocha bliss is my specialty and if you ask me, which you did, it’s pretty special,” I said in a flirty voice.  Yes, I know.  But I couldn’t help myself.  He was cute.  And I like tall.

              “What’s in it?”   He asked, taking a step closer to the counter that separated us, without taking his eyes off of me.

              “It’s a base of freshly brewed espresso with a homemade dark chocolate syrup, followed by coarsely chopped dark chocolate and topped with whipped cream and a dusting of cocoa powder,” I said.  “I came up with it myself and if you dare to attempt it, you had better really love chocolate.  Just like I do.” I tilted my head a little, waiting for his response.  There was nothing better than coffee and chocolate.  Nothing.

              He chuckled and broke into a huge smile.  “Oh, I do love chocolate and since it’s your creation, I would be remiss if I didn’t try it out.  That homemade chocolate syrup sounds intriguing.”

              “Oh, it is.  One Mocha Bliss, coming up,” I said and turned slowly back toward the coffee pots.  I could feel his eyes on me as I went about making his drink.  My hands suddenly fumbled everything I touched and I dropped the container of cocoa powder on the floor.  I glanced at him and giggled and then turned so I wouldn’t give him a show before I half kneeled to pick it up.  “Butter fingers,” I tossed over my shoulder at him.   He chuckled, a deep baritone sound and I told myself to calm down.  The scent of chocolate was heavenly.  You could never go wrong with chocolate and I was not about to go wrong here.

              Tara tossed me a look as she passed and I tried not to smile too big.  She was happily engaged, and it was my turn to find love.  It was certainly high time I did, anyway.  Now if I could just get Jeffery to cooperate.  Because suddenly, he seemed like someone I really wanted to get to know.

              “Hey Jeffery,” Tara called out as she headed to the kitchen.

              “Hey Tara, nice to see you,” he answered back.

              My friends, Tara and Jillian and I had opened up this coffee shop after having been laid off at the newspaper we had all worked at since we were fresh out of college.  It seemed like the sensible thing to do at the time, but it had turned into an awful lot of work.  Not to mention expense.  We had financed it with our 401k’s.  That seemed sensible, too.  But as our funds had begun to dwindle, I began to wonder about the whole thing.  Don’t get me wrong, we loved the place.  We had the freedom to do as we pleased and we had created a cozy atmosphere where like-minded people could come and hang out, relax and hold their bible studies.  I loved this place.  We had named it a Cup of Grace and it did feel like a place full of the Grace of God. 

Did I mention that we all loved it?  When my feet weren’t aching and my entire body wasn’t screaming out in pain from all the long hours I was putting in, I did anyway.  No, I really did.  It’s just that some days I really had to remind myself that I loved it.  We were all putting in really long hours, but it had been a dream come true for all of us.

              I sighed and topped off Jeffery’s drink.  The smell of it made my mouth water, but it was too late in the evening for me to indulge in caffeine.  I’d be up for hours.  Maybe I would have a decaf later.  I turned and headed back to him, steaming drink in hand.  As far as I was concerned, this was the best drink I had come up with.  Much better than the white turtle or the peach tree.  Those had been sickeningly sweet and just off tasting.  Especially the peach tree.  What had I been thinking, adding peach syrup to coffee?

              “Smells wonderful,” he said as I set it down in front of him.  He inhaled deeply.  “I bet Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory doesn’t smell this good.”

“You know it doesn’t,” I said.  I inhaled, too.  I would never get tired of the smell of the combination of coffee and chocolate.

He handed me his debit card and I ran the sale through.  There was this awkward silence and I mentally cursed myself.  I was never at a loss for words, and yet now, when it was so important that I have something to say, I couldn’t think of a thing.

              “Well, thank you,” he said when I had finished running his card through.  He picked up his drink and then paused.

              “You’re welcome,” I said lamely.  “Have a nice evening.”  I continued smiling insanely at his back as I watched him walk out of the coffee shop and probably out of my life forever.  I sighed.  What was wrong with me?   I was really out of practice in the flirting business.  I leaned over the front counter and moaned quietly.  My feet were aching even more and now I had let prince charming just walk out the front door.  I either needed to learn how to flirt or I needed to go home and go to bed.

              “So?”  Tara said excitedly, popping out of the kitchen where she had been watching my less than charming exchange with Mr. Prince Charming. 

              “So what?” I said tiredly, looking at her.

              “Did he ask you out?”  She nearly squealed.

              “Nope.” I sighed again and dropped my head down.  I had blown it.

              “Oh,” she said, the smiled fading from her face.  “Well he seemed interested.  I bet he comes back in and asks you out.” She leaned against the counter next to me.

              “You think so?” I said, looking at her, but without much enthusiasm.

              “I do.  And if he doesn’t, I’ll have Matt talk to him.”

              “Oh, no you don’t,” I said standing up straighter.  “I don’t need anyone playing matchmaker.  I can get a man on my own, just fine.”

              “Well of course you can,” Tara said and patted my arm.  “But sometimes we all need a little help.” She strolled over to the front door, key in hand.  “Time to lock up,” she called over her shoulder.

              “Thank goodness,” I muttered and blew air out through my mouth.  I did not need any assistance in the romance department.  Really, I didn’t.  Sure, it had been months since I had had a date.  But I wasn’t rusty.  Not yet anyway. 

That got me thinking.  Exactly how long had it been since I had had a date?  I thought back and suddenly realized that it had been before we had started working on the coffee shop.  We had spent several months getting the shop cleaned up, painted and ready to open.  We had been open another seven months.  So that made over twelve months since I had had a date.  Wow.  Maybe I
was
a loser? 

And then I realized, that last date had been a disastrous affair with an ex-work colleague from the newspaper that thought the bill for dinner should be split evenly, down to the last penny.  Don’t get me wrong.  I have no issues paying my way.  But when he insisted that even the tip, which had to be exactly 15%, and no more and had to be split down to
that
penny, well it was a bit much for me.  I finally just grabbed the bill and paid for the entire thing with my credit card and cut the date short.  I sighed and picked up a dishcloth and headed toward the tables.  Maybe I did need some help.

              “I saw you talking to that cute guy!” Jillian called from the kitchen as I passed by.

              “Yes, I know.  I saw you watching us,” I said and kept going.

              “When are you going out?” she asked, wiping down the counter in the kitchen.

              “Never, it seems,” I said and started wiping down a table.  “I think I’m out of practice.”

              “I told you, Matt will talk to him.  Some guys just need a little encouragement,” Tara called from across the room where she was gathering up the now filled trash bags from the trashcans.

              “No thank you, I’m fine,” I said.  “And just where is Matt?”  We needed all the help we could get to clean the place up and our part-time help, Janey, hadn’t been there all evening.  We had also hired two other part part-time people, but they seemed to be off as well.  When was
I
going to get some time off, I wondered.

              “He had to go visit his grandma.  She hasn’t been feeling well and he just felt like he should spend some time with her.  Isn’t he sweet?” she said.  She had a dreamy look on her face whenever she talked about Matt.  I couldn’t blame her.  He was a pretty great guy.  He had been through a lot with us, from renting the building to the great roach invasion to the roach lady trying to sue us.  If it hadn’t been for him, we would have been stuck back at the roach invasion.  None of us were brave enough to do battle with those minuscule monsters.  That was Matt’s job.

              “Let’s get this done so we can go home,” I said and hurried my table wiping.  I tried not to imagine all the grubby fingers that had touched the counter top that day.  I was exhausted and feeling more lonely and tired by the minute and didn’t have the energy to disinfect everything with bleach.  If I had my way and if I had the energy, the entire place would be scoured with bleach every night.  Tara said that was over-kill.  But what did she know?  She only took one shower a day.  Germs lurked everywhere and multiplied at light speed.

I sighed.  Surely God had someone special for me just like He had for Tara.  Right?  Right?