Page 7

Chapter 6

U nder the brilliant blue sky, the town square was ablaze with color. The smooth lawn of green, the burnished bronze statue, the foaming white spray of the fountain. Yellow and pink flags whipped on street lamps and proclaimed their reassuring message: Gentle Juliana, Your Forever Home.

I put Mere’s dream about the old woman with braids out of my mind. It had to be one of those weird coincidences—us having the same dream—the result of the two of us being so connected emotionally. Things like this happened. The universe was a weird place.

We took our time, leisurely walking down each street that bordered the square, assessing every empty space we passed. Most of them were too small for what I envisioned. The former Billie’s had been a cozy spot, intimate, small even for a Manhattan eatery, but it had worked. Here, there was no reason we couldn’t double the space. I was the only game in town.

“Mama, look!” Mere had stopped and was pressing her face to the glass of one corner space with a robin’s egg–blue door and a brown-and-white checkered tile entryway. In the center, blue tiles spelled out the name Minette. I leaned against the window, too, cupping my hands around my eyes to block out the light. At the sight, I let out a short, sharp gasp of delight.

Brick and lathe and plaster walls soared at least twenty feet to a stamped-tin ceiling. The floors were worn pine plank. Being on the corner, light flooded in from both sides of the building. I could see instantly in my head where the bar would go, the barista station, and the host stand. We could do at least fifteen tables, three of them for large parties, and maybe four to six outside on the wide sidewalk. I’d need to see in the back to confirm there was room for a decent-sized kitchen, cooler, and storage.

“It’s perfect,” Mere said. I glanced over at her, and a rush of love filled my heart, almost cramping it. What kind of six-year-old kid instinctively knew what space would work for a restaurant? My kid, that was who. My perfect, adorable, quirky little kid.

“Want to see inside?”

I turned to see a man standing a couple of feet away watching me and Mere, his hands on his hips. He wore wrinkled chinos stained with paint and a navy crewneck T-shirt. A small chocolate Lab at his side was wagging its tail furiously. The man was in his forties with dark blond hair only slightly receding at his temples, a trim beard, and a warm, welcoming smile. He was blindingly handsome. Disconcertingly so.

“I have the key if you’re interested in taking a look. I can let you in. Show you around.” He gestured behind him. “I own the antique store next door. Jamie Cleburne.” He tilted his head to the dog. “This is Ever.”

He offered his hand, and we shook. His grip was firm and warm.

“Billie Hope. And Meredith. We just moved here for the Initiative.”

“We definitely want to see it,” Mere said. “Can I pet your dog?”

“Have at it,” he said.

“If you’re not busy,” I said.

He snorted. “Trust me, busy is not a thing anybody ever is around here. Just give me one second.” He disappeared inside his store, then returned a few moments later, unlocked the door, and ushered us in. Ever the Lab followed behind.

The space was cool and smelled of wood shavings, motor oil, and a hundred past lives. I took in the details. The impossible height of the ceiling. The windows, trimmed with intricate molding, that stretched the full length of the walls. The way dust motes swirled around me, anointing me with a sort of welcoming benediction.

“It was a general store,” Jamie Cleburne said. “A mercantile, back in 1832, when Juliana was first founded. Would’ve carried everything from flour and salt and sugar to dresses and farm implements.” He cocked his head. “Okay, now I got it. You’re the family who bought the Dalzell-Davenport house, aren’t you?”

I nodded. “I plan to open a restaurant.”

“Well, this would be a perfect spot,” Jamie said. He narrowed his eyes. “I didn’t realize the Dalzell-Davenport house was available to the Initiative folks. I would’ve bought it myself if I had known it was on the market.”

“It wasn’t, not exactly, but I really loved the place, so I might’ve gone full New Yorker on Bonnie over at the town council, and they made an exception. Sorry.”

He laughed and our eyes met. “Remind me to hire you as my next real estate agent.”

“Oh, I’m much better at pancakes.”

“I believe you.”

I felt it then, a low-level warning alarm reverberating through my whole body. The eye contact between us was going on for longer than was actually wise. I directed my attention back to the space.

“What are you going to call it?” he asked.

“Her other restaurant was called Billie’s,” Mere said, appearing out of the shadows where she’d been prowling.

“I know,” he said. I met his gaze again. “I ate there once.”

I lifted my eyebrows. “You did? When?”

“Right before the pandemic—2019, I think. I was on a buying trip for the shop up there. Vermont, New Hampshire, upstate New York. At the end of the trip, I traveled down to the city for a show, to meet a friend, and have some good food. I had a particularly delicious sage sausage, uh . . .”

“Frittata.” God, his eyes, they were this green-blue concoction, really beautiful, with the dust-mote light hitting them from the side like that.

“It was definitely worth the two-hour wait it took to get them.”

“Sorry about that. We do advise reservations.”

“I tried,” he said. “You were booked out for months. Popular place. You definitely make an impression, though, I have to say. I hope you can recreate the magic down here in Juliana.”

“That’s the plan.”

“Love a woman with a plan.” He smiled. I did, too. He seemed to be mulling over something, his face thoughtful, and then he nodded once and turned to Mere. “What kind of tables would you put in here?”

Mere put her hands on her tiny hips, all business. “We had round ones at the other restaurant.”

“Unfortunately, I sold them after we closed,” I said. “For practically nothing.”

“You know,” Jamie said. “I have all these incredible pieces, marble-topped coffee tables and side tables from the turn of the century, that you could modify. I could help you cut them down. I also have this really spectacular bar if you want to take a look at it.”

“Yeah, I was thinking about a bar.”

“And a coffee station,” he said. “Like the one you had at Billie’s.” He addressed Mere again. “You want to come over and see what I’ve got?”

She brightened. “Sure.”

Jamie clapped his hands together and rubbed them. “There’s this side door.” He gestured toward the back. “The spaces are connected. You ladies can follow me.”

I could tell Mere was charmed by Jamie and his dog. Not that I wasn’t, but I was on my guard. Mainly because of that warm smile and those blue-green eyes, and whatever it was that was making the air between us electric. It wasn’t something that happened often, me noticing a man in this way, and it unsettled me. And if I leased the space, he’d be next door, every single day.

Jamie unlocked the door, and we followed him and Ever into the gloom. We were in the back of his antique shop. The space was dimly lit, with soft light coming in from the windows in the front of the shop. Other than the clutter of furniture, the place was similar to next door, with high ceilings, stamped tin, and that smell of a century and a half of commerce.

“This way.” Jamie wound his way around stacks of bureaus, chairs, dining and bedroom sets, and curio cabinets. The sheer amount of furniture was overwhelming, but the place didn’t feel dusty or oppressive. It felt like an unfolding adventure. Like all these old lives had entrusted their keepsakes to someone who saw their worth and cared for their future.

“I was thinking these might work.” Jamie was standing in front of a collection of pink-and-green marble-topped tables. “Put them on metal bases and they’d look fantastic.” He pointed to more tables. “If you need a six- or eight-top, these could work. I also have chairs somewhere in here.” He led us to another section of the shop where he pointed out the bar. It was a long stretch of zinc and wood and shelves of etched glass, dumped from some old pub up North.

He ran his fingers along the surface and examined the residue. It was gray and grimy, not like the white dust that we’d scrubbed in the conservatory in my house. “Needs a good cleaning.”

“It’s stunning,” I said. “As are the tables. It’s just I don’t know if I can afford it all. It’s probably way over our budget.”

“We can work something out.”

I furrowed my brow. “Like . . .”

“Like I get a few months of free breakfast?”

I surveyed the bar again. “I’m pretty sure that bar’s worth about a decade of free breakfasts.”

“I’m okay with that.”

I wasn’t sure how to answer that.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “This is how we do things in Juliana. We help each other. Barter here and there a bit. Consider the pieces yours.”

“Thanks,” I said. “But I should probably wait to see if I can get the space.”

“Oh, you’ll get the space.”

I furrowed my brow. “How do you know?”

“Haven’t you figured it out yet? You can have anything you want.” He said it outright, in the least guileless way. No apologies.

I felt a whisper of suspicion ripple through me. “Is that so?”

“It is.”

“Well, in that case I’d like the first year free.” I laughed at my own joke.

He didn’t. He just looked self-conscious. “Everyone’s just really glad you’re here, Billie. You and your family . . . and everyone else who’s accepting the Initiative. All of you are basically saving our town. I look forward to brunch at Billie’s Two.”

Mere spoke up. “Or The Lottery. We may call it the Lottery.” She was winding her way back toward us through the dusty furniture, running her fingers lightly over the carved surfaces, Ever close on her heels.

“There’s a book about the land lottery in one of the bedrooms at our house,” I explained to him. “I didn’t realize the land around here had been distributed that way.”

He nodded. “Unfortunately. Our local history is checkered, like most of the South. The story goes, when they found gold up in Dahlonega, about an hour northeast of here, the federal government basically took all the Cherokees’ land and parceled it out to white settlers. It’s not something we’re proud of, but we do what we can to address it. Land acknowledgments before city council meetings and school events, for whatever that’s worth. Some residents donate to the Cherokee Nation.”

“And nobody ever found gold here in Juliana?”

“No. But we had Minette’s mill, and it was enough to establish the town, for a while anyway. Now, we need more. Res-tauranteurs, for example.” He grinned and handed me the key to next door. “I’ll speak to Mayor Dixie about the space, and she’ll get you the paperwork. Anything else you need?”

His eyes were kind, and I felt like he was someone I could be frank with. “There was something.” I lowered my voice so Mere wouldn’t hear. “The day we moved in, there was a sheriff’s car at the mill. An officer, or deputy, I guess, was rolling up crime tape. I was just concerned, you know. I didn’t know . . .”

Jamie’s brows lifted.

“Well, I was wondering if something happened there. If there was anything my husband and I should know about, for safety’s sake.”

He looked grave. “Yeah. I think there were some kids out there messing around. Nothing major, just drugs and stuff, probably. You know kids. The town likes to keep an eye on that kind of stuff. It can get out of hand pretty quickly.”

“Makes sense.”

“It’s nothing to worry about.”

“Okay. Well . . . good.” I thought about mentioning the uncapped well, too, but decided to save that one for another day. I didn’t want to come off as all full of complaints after the guy had just gone above and beyond to help me.

Jamie touched my arm lightly. “Let’s talk more about those tables in a few days, okay? I want to make sure we get you what you need.”

I nodded. “Thanks again.”

“My pleasure. Looking forward to my first breakfast.”

“Mere?” I called, but she’d already disappeared into the gloom of the back of the shop with the dog.