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“Yesterday?”

“The date?” Sophie clarified. “What else would I have meant?”

“Right, yes. Well, there won’t be a second one. Let’s put it that way.”

“That’s a shame, although maybe that means there’s a chance for Kent? You know, I saw the way he looked at you yesterday, and he stayed later to help you out. Any gossip I should know? Have you warmed to him at all yet?”

Gemma shifted her line of sight to the kitchen door. Should she tell Sophie about the night before? About what Kent had said to Angus to rescue her from the disastrous date? No, Sophie would read way too much into that. That was something she would keep to herself.

“I’m sure he has his good sides,” she said, opting for an answer that was noncommittal. “Now, come on. I suspect yesterday’s rain means we’re going to be twice as busy today.”

They weren’t exactly twice as busy, but it was a steady stream of people all day, and the queue barely let up. As such. Gemma didn’t have any opportunity to pop into the kitchen and offer Kent a proper word of thanks for his help. She had hoped to say something before he left at three, after all, working together all day and not even thanking him wasn’t good manners, but when he appeared at just gone two-twenty, Sophie was talking Gemma’s ear off about Graham’s birthday, and there was no chance Gemma was going to say something with her there.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Kent said, flashing them both a smile, although it seemed to linger longer on Gemma than Sophie. Her stomach clenched with nerves.

“Bye Kent, have a great evening,” Sophie said.

“See you tomorrow,” Gemma added.

She had thought the comment was as innocuous as it could be, and yet Sophie grinned.

“Well, that was very civil,” she said, as Kent disappeared.

“We can do civil,” Gemma replied. Besides, now that Tuesday was done, they were down to fifty-four days.

Who knew, maybe she wouldn’t need the countdown after all.

CHAPTER 34

Forty-eight days remained.

Forty-eight.

Gemma was over ten per cent of the way through the eight-week trial, and the first week had gone so well that she had almost forgotten Kent was in the kitchen. He was certainly efficient, and there were zero complaints about the food. In fact, she got so fed up with hearing the line “Compliments to the chef” that she stopped telling him. She was starting to think that the arrangement would work. After all, his only current initiatives as executive manager had been minor menu alterations, like the pesto and balsamic options and changing the cheese blends in their toasties. But she was forced to do a double take when she walked into the cafe early Tuesday morning.

“Kent,” she said, pushing open the door to the kitchen. “Why are there blackboards that say ‘Reserved’ on four of the tables? We don’t take reservations.”

A slight smile corkscrewed at the corner of Kent’s mouth.

“I know. It’s a technique to stop people lingering too long.”

“Sorry? I don’t understand.”

“Did you look at the times?” he said. “I put times on all the reservations.”

Gemma frowned. “I think I saw one was at 12:45 and another at 11:30.”

His smile widened as he dried his hands on a tea towel and walked across to her.

“Exactly. They’re all in the afternoon or late morning. When people sit down, they think they’ve got a limited time at the table. That makes them move on a little faster, get a few more covers in and hopefully it should put off some of those all-day lingerers. I’d been considering it for a while, but after yesterday, when that woman with the long grey hair spent almost two hours nursing one Americano, I thought it was time to put it in place. At least four more customers would have had a seat if she’d just spent a reasonable time here.”

An uncomfortable pressure started building behind Gemma’s ribs.

“Margaret’s mother is very ill in the hospital. It doesn’t look good at all.”

“That’s all very sad, I get it. But even so, she could have ordered more than one drink, right?”

The pressure of a moment ago was reaching boiling point. Was he actually serious? Did he truly want to push grieving people into drinking their Americanos faster? What kind of monster was he?