“Lime, not lemon?”
“Never did learn to like the flavor of lemon,” he said. “And I’ll have one of those strawberry tarts.”
“Be right out,” she said.
“I pass this place at least once a month and have sworn for years that I’d stop by. Today I decided to just do it. I own a little pastry shop in Palestine, so I bet this could be considered research,” he said. “I’m Andy Butler, by the way. Are you the owner here?”
“Part owner.” She sliced a lime and put it into a small bowl, filled a glass with crushed ice and tea, and carefully put a tart on a saucer. She added a paper napkin wrapped around a set of cutlery.
Nettie and Jancy had gone to the kitchen. She could hear them talking about biscuits and the recipes for pancakes and omelets. But Vicky’s eye was on the cowboy and his reaction to the tart.
He rolled his eyes in appreciation at the first bite of the tart. “My God, this is fantastic.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“If you aren’t married, I’m proposing to you.”
“I’ll have to warn you that I’ve turned down more romantic proposals than that,” she said.
“How did your husband propose?” He put another bite in his mouth.
“I think his words were, ‘I guess we’d best go tell Nettie that you’re pregnant and then we’d better find us a preacher.’ But then that was twenty-three years ago.”
“You aren’t old enough to have been married that long.”
“Forty in September,” she said.
He raised a wait-a-second finger while he chewed and swallowed. “Forty-two in October. So does your husband make these delicious tarts, or do you?”
“Nettie, co-owner of the diner, makes them. My husband died six weeks after we married.”
“I’m so sorry.” His gaze seemed sincere. “The people who told me about these did not exaggerate. They really are fabulous.”
“Thank you.” She refilled his tea glass.
“Want to sell me the recipe?”
“I do not!” Vicky growled. “And I’m not selling the diner. You can tell Carlton Wolfe that he’s got some nerve sending his peon in here to do his dirty work. It don’t matter if he comes in here in his three-piece suit or if he sends in a sexy cowboy or even a Dallas Cowboy in full football gear, my business or my recipe either one are not for sale,” she said coldly.
“Whoa, lady.” Both hands shot up like a cowboy in an old western as he dropped the pie. “I don’t want to buy your business. I was jokin’ with you, but I would definitely buy this recipe if you did want to sell it.”
“Sorry about my temper,” she said. “The tart recipe is not for sale at any price you could offer. We don’t even cater them and we limit the number that folks can carry out of here.”
“And that is?”
She glared at him. How dare he stroll in her place of business and try to buy their recipe. Lord, what next? Was someone going to come in and offer to set her up as the madam of a brothel? She’d had an offer for her property, now her recipe. All that was left was her body.
“Two. Most of the time only one goes out the door and it’s for when a guy proposes to a lady or when a couple have a big anniversary,” she said with a coldness her flushed cheeks definitely didn’t share.
“Well, then could I please have two of these to take with me?”
“Proposing or celebrating an anniversary?” she asked as she popped two small boxes into shape and put a tart in each one.
“Neither. I just know that when I get back to the shop, they’re going to ask me about them and I’ll want to let them see for themselves.” He smiled brightly. “They are something else. I’d love to sell them in my shop. Maybe even ship them out to specialty places around the state.” He laid a fancy business card on the counter. “If you ever change your mind.”
“I won’t.” She tucked the card into her back pocket.
“Then I guess I’ll have to make a trip up here every week or two to satisfy my sweet tooth.” He settled his hat on his head, tipped the brim toward her, and said, “Y’all have a good day, now.”
Vicky couldn’t take her eyes off his swagger as he walked out the door, got into a big white crew-cab truck, and drove away. She wasn’t even aware that Jancy had joined her at the counter until the girl giggled.
“If he was twenty years younger, I’d have the same look on my face.”
“He’s the devil. He wants to buy the tart recipe. Even took two with him, but he won’t figure out the secret that makes them so good,” Vicky declared.
“The devil in blue jeans like in that old song ‘Somebody’s Knockin’.’ Downright temptin’, ain’t he? But don’t pay no attention to me. I’m the worst person in the whole state, maybe the whole world, when it comes to figurin’ out a man,” Jancy said.
Vicky grabbed a white bar rag and went to work cleaning up the booth. “You’re not old enough to know that song. I wouldn’t know it if Nettie hadn’t played it when I was a kid.”
“My mama liked jazz. I heard y’all arguing about the recipe for the tarts.”
“Not even pillow talk would get me to give him the recipe,” Vicky said.
Nettie poked her face up to the order window. “Which she can’t do anyway because she doesn’t know what all I put in the filling or the crust. Is that a bad-luck thing or a good-luck thing for the summer?”
“Luck thing?” Jancy asked.
“Vicky hates summer. It’s the time of year when luck, either bad or good, comes to her in threes. Been that way since she was seventeen. How about your good-luck/bad-luck stories, Jancy? You got any? Maybe we’ll uncork a bottle of cheap strawberry wine some evening and have a girls’ night in when Emily gets home,” Nettie said.
“As in Boone’s Farm?” Jancy asked.
“As in one of the few bottles left in the cellar that my mama and Nettie made back in the day,” Vicky answered.
“You go wipin’ the dust off one of them bottles, you better be sure Emily is home for one of them girls’ nights,” Nettie said. “Here comes the first of the lunch run. I bet we don’t take a single tart home tonight. And I mean it about that wine, girl. I won’t have y’all sneakin’ a bottle out without tellin’ me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of poppin’ the cork without you there to tell us the story of how you and Mama nearly put in a winery instead of a diner.” Vicky picked up four menus and headed toward the booth where two couples were settling in for an early lunch.