Willowleaf Lane Read Online Free PDF

whenever she stumbled over one of life’s inevitable bumpy patches, she still craved a hit of Pop’s cooking like a junkie needed crack cocaine.
    She knew why. She knew the food at the café represented more than just butter-laden calories. It was her mother waiting for her with a warm towel fresh from the dryer at the end of a rainy walk home from the school bus. It was Pop snuggling her on his lap for a bedtime story, his whiskers tickling her neck. It was summer nights spent sleeping in the tree house with her brothers behind their home while crickets and frogs filled the night with song.
    Pop’s food was like home, or at least the home she remembered before the winter she turned ten, when everything changed forever.
    On days like this, with her emotions in chaos, she wanted nothing more than to be snugged up against the counter at the diner, burying every concern and feeling of inadequacy under calories.
    Drat Spencer Gregory anyway. He had no business coming back to town and leaving her so shaken, filled with dismay and memories and the echo of old pain.
    Lasagna. Wouldn’t a big plate of lasagna, dripping with cheese, hit the spot right about now? She bet Pop had some hot and ready. She only had to say the word.
    She sighed, increasing her pace. She wouldn’t ask for lasagna. She was stronger than the craving. She only had to remember how hard she had worked the past eighteen months to reshape her life. No matter how provoking her day might be, she couldn’t go back to old habits, the well-traveled pathways in her brain that would inevitably lead her to a destination she no longer wanted.
    Instead, she had a chicken breast at home in the refrigerator, soaking in her favorite low-fat marinade of lemon juice, tarragon and a splash of olive oil. As soon as she finished a few errands, she would throw it on the grill along with some vegetables and be far better off.
    She pushed open the door and the familiar rich scents surged through her bloodstream like a solid jolt of high-octane caffeine.
    “Hey, girl.” Della Pine, who had been waitressing at the Center of Hope as long as Charlotte could remember, greeted her with a wide smile on her wrinkled cheeks. She tottered toward Charlotte in the painfully high heels she always wore, even when she had to spend all day on her feet.
    Despite the extra inches, the woman still barely reached Charlotte’s chin, except for her hair, which towered over both of them in all its teased glory.
    Charlotte leaned in and kissed the waitress’s cheek, smiling at the familiar olfactory concoction of hair spray, cold cream and lavender powder.
    The café was busy, as usual, hopping with the dinner rush. The clientele was generally a healthy mix of tourists and locals. She recognized a few of the latter and raised a hand in greeting.
    “Is Pop around?” she asked when Della grabbed a couple menus off the counter by the door for a pair who had come in after Charlotte.
    Della jerked her head toward the back. “Check the office. We had some trouble with one of the beef suppliers. Last I checked, he was still trying to iron it out.”
    “Thanks.”
    She headed toward the office, fighting through the temptation to stop and order a few things off the menu on her way.
    Chicken-fried steak, maybe, with a big side of garlic mashed potatoes.
    Pop was wonderful at running the Center of Hope Café. Over the years, she had learned more from watching him than any of her business classes in college. She had learned by example how to be a responsible, caring employer, how to be kind to customers and workers alike, how to treat everyone with dignity and respect.
    And he cooked one heck of a pork chop.
    She sighed as she walked into the office, tucked in behind the kitchen.
    This place was as familiar to her as her own childhood on Winterberry Road.
    Heaven knows, she had spent enough time here when she was a kid. Even before her mother died, she had loved coming to Center of Hope, hanging out at a