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Maretti’s was outside of Comfort Cove’s little downtown district. It sat about five miles down the coast from Beachside Books. Paige hadn’t been there in several years, at least, and she was looking forward to it. Of course, part of her wondered if she might be ruined for Italian food served anywhere outside of Italy. She sighed. That was one good thing about Marco—he was an insanely good cook.
Paige pulled the Jeep into a spot at the edge of the restaurant’s big parking lot, checked her hair in the vanity mirror, and hopped out onto the concrete. It was a pleasant evening, and she took a second to listen to the waves crashing onto the beach, audible from the other side of the building. Maybe they’d get a table with a surf view.
Jay waited for her by the front door. He was true to his word, anyway—he hadn’t changed his clothes. Paige herself had taken off the navy-blue dress she’d worn to the memorial and put on a comfortable pair of green skorts and a lightweight, ruffly top with matching green polka dots. She hadn’t had time for the stress-relieving shower she’d wanted once she left Bickle’s Nursery, so she’d swept her hair up into a ponytail and called it good.
“Hey.” Jay grinned at her as she approached. “You’re right on time. Last time I had dinner with a pretty lady, she was thirty minutes late. I was like, ‘What gives?’ I hate standing around wondering if a chick is going to show up or not.”
Paige cringed internally. She’d known Jay wasn’t her type, but now it seemed like he was trying to drive that point home extra hard. She couldn’t hold back. “Maybe if you didn’t use disrespectful terms to refer to women, they’d be in a bigger hurry to show up for dates with you.” She cocked her head at him and wondered if he’d still want to have dinner with her. It wouldn’t be a big loss if he didn’t.
Jay’s cheeks reddened, and he looked at his shoes. “Sorry,” he mumbled. Then he glanced back up and spoke more clearly. “I can be a dolt sometimes. But I have good intentions.” He winked and moved to open the door to the restaurant, motioning her to enter ahead of him.
Maretti’s was known in Comfort Cove as having better food than décor. It looked more like a family pizza joint than an upscale Italian restaurant. With tattered and duct-taped red plastic booths and tables covered with glass tops holding down red and white checkered tablecloths, it wasn’t even quaint enough to be called charming. The place wasn’t busy, but there were a few other couples scattered around the dining room.
“Hello, hello. Welcome!” A tall, middle-aged man with short salt-and-pepper hair greeted them the second they were both inside. He stepped out from behind a lectern to greet them, pushing round glasses up his nose. His large belly spoke volumes about his preference for his own food.
“Hi, Frank.” Jay stuck his hand out and the two men shook. “Do you have a good table for me?”
What? Was she invisible now?
“I’ll give the two of you my finest table.” Frank Maretti gestured at the dining room expansively with his arm. Paige looked around. None of the tables looked finer than the others, but the ones on the far side of the room had nice ocean views. She hoped for one of those.
Frank gathered menus from the host’s stand and led them to a tiny, two-person table in a dark corner with no window through which to see the water. “Great table, Frank. Thanks!” Jay beamed and pulled one of the chairs out for Paige. Disappointed, she sighed and sat down. Her back faced the rest of the room, and there was nothing in front of her to look at besides the wall. Jay sat down in his own chair and grinned at her. Oh boy. She could look at him instead of the wall. Super.
Frank handed them each a laminated menu, disappeared for a minute, and returned with two glasses of ice water. Paige declined when he asked if they’d like anything additional to drink. Jay ordered a domestic beer.
“We have something very special on the menu tonight that I think you might enjoy,” Frank said and kissed the tips of his fingers as he described the food. The bells on the door jingled, and Frank promised to send their waitress over before he hurried off to seat the small family.
Paige’s stomach rumbled as she looked over the menu. “Wow, this looks great.”
Jay wasn’t looking at the food choices, and Paige remembered he said he always got the lasagna. Instead, he was watching her look at her menu, which made it harder to concentrate.
A dark-haired girl who looked like she was in her early twenties appeared with Jay’s beer. “The special tonight is me,” she said and winked at Jay.
His face turned bright red. Paige wasn’t amused.
“No really,” the waitress said with a hair flip, “it’s ossobuco alla Milanese and polenta. Really yummy. I tried some earlier.”
Jay ordered his usual and Paige ordered the special, thinking wistfully of Marco’s version as she did. The waitress wiggled off to the kitchen. Paige immediately regretted her choice. There was no way this place would make the dish as well as Marco, and she didn’t want to think longingly about the gorgeous but irritating Italian while she ate.
“We’ve had pretty nice weather lately.” Jay took a swig of beer and rested his arm on the table.
“I guess.” Paige knew she was being uncharitable. Comfort Cove’s weather had been perfectly mild since she’d returned. The Texas heat had not yet reached the sweltering level it would in the next month or so. “I just miss Portofino,” she added.
“That’s where you were in Italy?”
She nodded.
“You’re a writer, aren’t you? That’s what Neal told me.”
“Yes. Well, I’m not published yet. I was finishing my novel in Italy when Aunt Nora died, and I had to come back home.”
“That’s a drag.” Jay glanced around. “This isn’t the most happening of places in the world, that’s for sure.”
“You didn’t grow up here, did you?” Comfort Cove wasn’t very big, and Paige knew most of the people near her or Scott’s ages.
Jay shook his head. “Nah. I’m from New York City. But I like the ocean life. And I make more money here than I could there . . . selling bikes. I own the bike shop.”
Duh. Did he think she’d already forgotten?
“The people in this town spend more money on stuff like that. In New York, there’s way more competition. It’s easier to sell stuff here without all the other peeps around selling the same things. I’m hoping to grow my business even bigger.” He paused and took another gulp from his glass. “Plus, most people leave you alone around here.”
“I suppose,” Paige said. She thought about the bookshop’s financials. It sure didn’t seem like Aunt Nora was doing a booming business, unfettered by competition. “There’s always the internet to compete with, though. Ebooks, in my case.”
“Oh yeah, I suppose so. Well, you gotta have the right product to offer. That’s for sure. Most people don’t buy bikes online. I’m not surprised the bookstore is going broke. Who reads anymore?”
Paige shook her head, not even bothering to contradict him. She wanted to say that she hadn’t really seen too many bikes leaving his shop while she’d been working at Beachside.
Luckily, the waitress appeared with two heaping plates on a platter. She deposited their food in front of them, and Paige’s mouth watered. It looked and smelled amazing. She grabbed her fork and took a big mouthful. She couldn’t contain a moan of pleasure. “Holy cow, this is fantastic!” she said once she’d swallowed.
“Yeah, this lasagna is even better than usual.” Jay didn’t bother swallowing before he spoke.
“You like the food my new chef makes?” Frank suddenly spoke from beside their table, making Paige jump a little. She was too busy chewing to answer, so she only nodded. “Good, good.” The restaurant owner wandered off, leaving Paige and Jay to eat.
“So what are you going to do with the bookstore?” Jay asked after he’d washed down a bite of food with some beer.
Paige didn’t want to talk. She wanted to eat. It was unreal how good the food was—just like she’d had in Italy. She wished she had a way to make Jay disappear so she could savor the flavors and dream of her life back in Italy. Next time, she would come alone and bring a book. Reluctantly, she used her napkin to wipe her mouth and answered, “I’m planning to buckle down and get it back in the black. After that, I’m not sure.”
“You know, I might be able to help you.”
Paige gazed at the last of the food on her plate longingly. She forced herself to look up at her tablemate. “Oh yeah? How?”
“I’ll buy Beachside Books from you.”
She didn’t know what she’d expected him to say, but that definitely wasn’t it. She looked sharply at him. “Why would you want a bookstore?” she asked. “Especially one that’s currently failing? If you bought it, you’d have to make even more money to get it turned around than I will because you’d have a loan to repay.”
Jay shrugged. “I can buy it without a loan. And I don’t want to turn the bookstore around. I want to close it down and expand my bike shop into that space. It’s a win-win thing: you can go back to Italy and write your book, and I can build my business bigger and better.”
“Absolutely not! Don’t you dare consider selling your aunt’s beloved bookstore to this rat.”
Paige’s eyes widened at Frank’s raised voice. He’d been walking by their table again, but now he stopped and stared at them.
“What are you talking about?”
Jay narrowed his eyes at the restaurant owner, who knelt down by Paige and took her hand. “Are you the niece of our dear Nora Murphy? I’ve heard so much about you.”
“Yes,” she said, both flattered and confused. “But how—”
“Sweet Nora used to come here often, usually alone with her book, sometimes with that pair of pazzo, crazy girls. I trust they are not your sisters.”
“No. My cousins.”
“Va bene,” he said and smiled. “Then you understand about family. My family, you see, has been in this American place for three generations now. In fact, my grandfather, Alberto Maretti, once owned the very building that is now home to Nora’s bookshop. I often talked to her about selling it back to my family. After all, we are its rightful owners.”
“Rightful owners?” Jay repeated. “What does that mean?”
“That means the lawmen stole it from my family back before the war. Said it had something to do with taxes. Bugiardos! Liars.”
Paige pulled her hand back and Frank stood up.
He nodded his head toward Paige. “I do not expect you to give it to me out of pity. I will pay you a fair price.”
“Not a chance,” Jay said and threw his cloth napkin on the table. “She’s selling it to me.”
Frank, his face red and fists clenched at his sides, glared back at Jay. “If the lady is going to sell that building, it should be me who is offered the chance to buy it!” The Italian’s bushy mustache bounced up and down as he blustered. His glasses were dangerously close to falling off his nose. He shoved them up, and they slid right back down.
Paige’s mind cast back to Horace’s recital of the bookstore’s history. He’d said the Italian mafia bought the place in the twenties. That was Frank’s family?
“Yeah, well, they lost it, didn’t they?” Jay obviously disliked the way the older man towered over him because he stood up to face Frank. Paige took the opportunity to take a bite of food. She closed her eyes to savor it.
“Bah,” Frank snarled. “I have more right to it than you do. And how dishonest, bringing the lovely bella here as though you want to wine and dine her only to weasel your way into her good graces so you can steal her building away.”
Paige had the feeling the man would spit on the floor in disdain if he wasn’t standing in his own restaurant. She continued chewing and glanced around the dining room. Everyone was staring at the two men, who stood squared up as though they might start throwing punches or plates of pasta. That would be a shame. The pasta was too delicious to waste. She’d never had men fighting over her before. Okay. They were fighting over her property, but it felt like the same thing. And she had a front row seat.
“Who you callin’ a weasel?” Jay stuck out his chin and bobbed his head slightly as though daring Frank to take a swing at him. He looked more worked up than Paige would have thought possible. The laid-back surfer dude persona was gone.
“Gentlemen, please! You’re interrupting the digestions of our lovely patrons.”
The voice came from the doorway to the kitchen. Paige put the last bite of food from her plate into her mouth and then turned sideways in her chair to see the speaker. She almost spewed pasta from her mouth when she recognized the man.
Marco hurried over to Paige’s table and inserted his body between Frank and Jay. “Signori,” he said softly. “This is the wrong time and place for an argument.”
Frank’s eyes moved from Jay’s face to Marco’s, and his muscles relaxed. He took a step back, adjusted his jacket, and looked around. “So sorry,” he said to the room at large. “Please finish your meals. And everyone gets a basket of breadsticks on the house.” Then he leaned close to Jay and said something under his breath that Paige couldn’t hear. It made Jay’s jaw clench, but the bike shop owner didn’t reply. Frank turned and stalked off into the kitchen.
Jay pulled his wallet out and dropped a handful of bills on the table. He looked at Paige. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I’m going to head out now. You let me know if you want to talk about my offer again.”
Paige nodded. “I will. Thanks for dinner.”
Jay left, and Paige got up from the table and faced Marco. “So you’re the new chef?”
Marco beamed at her. “Yes. Did you like your dinner?”
“It was delicious. You sure got a job fast.”
“Frank, you see, is my great-grand uncle,” he explained. “We have a very big family. Our people are all over. I’m going to stay here a while. Work here, live in a studio apartment Uncle Frank owns, and enjoy the beach rabbits.”
“Bunnies,” Paige corrected automatically and then shook her head. “That’s an offensive term.”
“Ah. So sorry, bella. The English attacks me sometimes. I need to go check my sauce now.” He grabbed her hand, kissed it, and hurried away.
Paige left the restaurant feeling conflicted. Part of her was ecstatic that Marco’s cooking had followed her to sleepy little Comfort Cove all the way from Portofino, Italy. But she couldn’t shake away a thought that nagged at her. Was it really a coincidence that Marco had a family member in Comfort Cove? Not only that, but his family used to own the building that now housed the bookstore?
Some might chalk it up to being a small world and all that. But this just seemed too coincidental.
And she didn’t believe in coincidences.