TWO

FIFTEEN minutes later, my ex-husband buzzed for entry.

Matt was drenched and shivering from the chilly downpour, an irony considering his tropical tan and the designer sunglasses dangling from his T-shirt’s neckline.

I opened the door with one hand while closing my mouth around a buttermilk-tender sample of our new Farmhouse Apple Cake Muffins, my own recipe with the baker’s addition of Cinnamon-Vanilla Glaze. (The perfect kiss of spice and sweetness; the very description I’d used for Matt’s smooches, once upon a time. If not for his compulsive need to spread them around the globe—the kisses, not the glaze—we still might be husband and wife.)

“Your mother and I were just talking about you,” I informed him while licking my fingers clean.

“And this is news? Now are you going to let me in or let me drown?”

I stepped aside, and he moved through the doorway, dripping Niagara.

“I thought you were still in Costa Rica for the harvest.”

“I was, and I’m going back. Urgent business forced me to take a red-eye from Juan Santamaria to JFK . . .”

As he spoke, he shrugged out of his hooded Windbreaker and hand-combed his disheveled, dark hair. That’s when I smelled something far less appealing than apples and cinnamon.

“Well that explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“Why you’re so . . . shall we say pungent? You’re suffering from jet lag.”

“I’ve been back for two days.”

“Is there a plumbing problem at Casa Breanne?” (That seemed doubtful. Matt’s fashionable wife ran her personal life with the same zealous efficiency as she ran her fashionable magazine.) “The Queen of Trend usually keeps you pampered with the latest fancy soap and designer cologne.”

Matt sniffed his shirt and frowned. “I’ll shower at the health club later.”

“I’d suggest sooner. Unless the hot new trend is eau de body odor.”

“Very funny. Now thank me. I brought over your consignment in the van.”

“From the warehouse? Why were you in Red Hook at the crack of dawn?”

“I told you I had business to take care of. And so do you.” He draped his sopping Windbreaker over a chair near the now-crackling fireplace and waved me over to the coffee bar. “Sit. And brace yourself for another reason to thank me, because I have news. Big news.”

I resisted the temptation to roll my eyes. The last time Matt had “big news” it involved his honorary judgeship at a Panamanian beauty contest.

While Matt pulled us fresh shots, I checked my watch. “Will you please get on with it? My morning baristas are late, I still have to mop up that ocean you dripped, and we open in twenty minutes—”

“I know that. Who do you think managed this place while you were playing footsie with the flatfoot in DC?”

“You now have ten seconds to tell me—”

“Okay!” He slid my espresso across the bar. “Drink up and listen. The Village Blend has been asked to create an exclusive signature coffee blend for a brand-new luxury cruise liner.”

I blinked. “You’re right. That is huge.”

“It’s huger than huge . . .” He took the stool next to mine, dark eyes gleaming. “Think of it, Clare. A luxury cruise liner carrying thousands of passengers every year, all of them drinking our coffee. Think of what it will do for our brand. All we need to do is come up with an affordable version of your Billionaire Blend . . .”

Creating the world’s finest (and most expensive) coffee blend had thrust this century-old business into an international spotlight, so I shouldn’t have been all that surprised at this chance to supply a luxury cruise liner. In terms of volume, however, that rarefied “Billionaire” roast was a Lilliputian part of our bottom line, available to a select group of elite clientele, only a few times a year.

Matt was clearly proposing a broader opportunity. I could already imagine contented travelers sipping an exclusive Village Blend espresso while gazing out at the Atlantic—or was it the Pacific?

“When and where will this ship sail?”

“There’s a shakedown cruise next week, she goes from New York to Nova Scotia and back, staff only to work out the kinks. Then she tests passengers on short hops before embarking on ports of call in the Med and United Arab Emirates, where the real money is.”

“I’ll need some inspiration for this blend. What’s the ship called?”

“The Andrea Doria.”

I stared at my ex long enough to comprehend his reply. Then I punched him.

“Ouch!” He rubbed his arm. “What was that for?!”

“I’m barely awake. We’re about to open. And you waste my time with a stupid joke?”

“It’s no joke!”

I blinked at the man, wondering when he’d switched from caffeine to crack. “You want me to come up with a boffo coffee blend to serve on a ship sitting two hundred feet below the Atlantic?”

“Clare, are you nuts?”

“Me?” I clamped my hands on his muscular shoulders. “The Andrea Doria hasn’t carried passengers since before we were born. She was struck on her way to New York and sank to the bottom of the ocean!”