Page 2 of The Lake House (Southern Charm #2)

Chapter Two

What was I thinking?

The words drifted through Rita Osbourne’s mind for the hundredth time in a month.

She’d invited her cousin, Cathy, to help run the Honeysuckle Café with her, and so far it was going about as badly as anyone could’ve imagined.

Especially in light of the fact that Cathy had previously threatened legal action over the cafe ownership.

Rita had no desire to spend her days in a courtroom or to pay a lawyer her hard-earned money.

It seemed easier to mend fences and hope for the best. Thankfully, Cathy had backed down on that front, but it still left a stench in the air between them.

And besides that, Cathy was bossy, overbearing, rude and about a thousand other unpleasant things that Rita really could do without considering she was currently suffering under the effects of chemotherapy.

She sat in her office, listening to Cathy rant on and on about the staff.

“Would you shut the door behind you, please?” She tried to keep her tone upbeat, but it was difficult. What she really wanted was a nap. A nice, long afternoon nap.

Cathy huffed, shut the door, then stood with her arms folded over her chest. “You can’t just ignore things and hope they’ll go away, Rita.”

Rita scratched her head and leaned back in her chair. “I know that, Cathy. I’m listenin’.”

Cathy wore an aqua jogging suit with a large purple slash across the front of the jacket and pants.

There was a matching purple headband pulled tight around her blonde locks, although her hair was a little more grey than blonde these days, and her heavily made-up blue eyes flashed.

She looked as though she’d stepped out of a time machine from the eighties.

It’d been her favourite decade, and she made certain everyone remembered it whenever they looked at her.

“When Chuck came in this morning, he didn’t lock the door behind him. I know this because I came in after him and it was unlocked. Anyone could enter the premises at that time. And with only one or two staff on duty, it could cause problems. The café should be locked until it’s time to open.”

“I agree—I’ll have a word with Chuck. He has a lot on his mind in the morning.”

“He’s a cook, not a rocket scientist.”

Wow . “Okay, Cathy, thanks for that. I appreciate you lookin’ into these things and helping make the café run more smoothly.”

Cathy opened the door. “You’re too soft on the staff, Rita. They run roughshod all over you.”

Rita arched an eyebrow. “I’ll take that on board.”

The door slammed shut, and Rita sighed with relief.

Alone at last. She pressed both hands to her face and stifled a yawn that threatened to split her face in two.

Matilda, her newly discovered niece from Australia, had asked her why she continued to put up with Cathy’s presence at the café during their last shift together, but it was difficult for her to understand, let alone explain.

She felt she owed it to her cousin. After all, Cathy had a point: both their fathers had started the place.

There was a connection for each of them.

And usually Rita might have ignored Cathy’s demands, but with her cancer treatment underway, she needed all the help she could get.

Matilda had been fantastic since she came over from Australia, but she was young, newly married and a vet on hiatus.

Rita wasn’t na?ve enough to believe she’d stick around forever.

And her niece, Julie, was going to be a psychologist. Rita needed a backup plan. And unfortunately, Cathy was it.

She was determined to train Cathy. It was proving harder than she’d thought it would be, but surely her cousin had to take some of the lessons she taught her on board eventually.

She only hoped the café would survive it.

If the staff stuck around during the training period, she’d be pleasantly surprised.

She’d have to remember to buy them each some thank-you chocolates when she was next at the store.

While answering a few emails, Rita thought about Cathy and what she could do to help her cousin feel more connected to the café.

She didn’t want her to be so anxious all the time, worrying about every little thing, but to relax, learn to love the place and the people who worked there.

Rita adored the café. She loved Chuck the cook and Amanda the manager as well as all the wait and kitchen staff who came and went based on their casual schedules and needs.

It was always buzzing with activities, laughter and fun.

Usually, she’d be right in the middle of it all, but now, she didn’t have the energy.

And she needed Cathy to keep her finger on the pulse of the place without upsetting everyone there.

She shuffled across the floor of the cramped office space to the large metal cabinets in the back.

Opening both doors, she scanned the contents.

There were some old photos in there somewhere.

She recalled seeing them once but couldn’t quite remember where they were.

Then she spotted it—a metal box. It wasn’t locked.

She pulled it out of the cabinet and set it on her desk, then sat again with a deep exhale of air.

Everything ached. It felt good to sit down.

Inside the box, there was a stack of photographs.

Old photos of the café. The staff, her father, Uncle Bill, her kids Tyler and Sophie when they were little, and even her sister Helen with little Julie.

By the time she’d flipped through all of the photographs, there were tears on her cheeks, and her heart ached along with the rest of her body.

An idea came to her—what if she printed some new copies of a few of these photographs, framed them and hung them around the café?

It would make for some great nostalgic ambiance, and it might help Cathy better connect with the place and stop acting so high-strung.

She’d been an anxious kid, quick to judge and critique others, but she’d only gotten worse in her older years.

It was as though she was a piece of twine that’d been stretched tighter and tighter with every year of her life, and right now, she was ready to snap.

Rita didn’t know what to do to help break the tension without snapping the string, but she hoped these photographs might start the process.

If she remembered rightly, there was some other memorabilia at the lake house.

A few albums, trinkets and so on, locked away in a closet that she never accessed.

It’d been her dad’s closet when she was a kid.

After he died, she didn’t have the heart to go through it.

Just the thought of throwing any of his things away made her squirm, and looking through it might put her in a puddle of tears.

But the way she was feeling right now, things couldn’t get much more emotional.

With everything she was going through due to her cancer diagnosis, the news that Matilda had brought with her from Australia about her family, the struggles she’d been having at the café …

surely some old photos and junk from the past wouldn’t make her feel any worse.

It might even cheer her up to see some of Dad’s old things now that the sting of his passing had faded.