The Solid Grounds Coffee Company by Carla Laureano

Author:Carla Laureano
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION / Christian / Romance / General, FICTION / Romance / Clean & Wholesome
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2020-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

ANA DIDN’T SLEEP WELL, and she blamed the hotel mattress, even though it was perfectly comfortable. Whatever discomfort she felt stemmed from the way things had gone with Bryan yesterday.

She’d held his hand. Voluntarily.

Not that that meant anything to him, not in any real sense. He had obviously picked up on the things she didn’t want to say and sought to comfort her. She wasn’t surprised. Whatever he might think about himself, he was an essentially kind person. Even in his wilder days, he hadn’t been predatory or untruthful; no doubt every single one of the women had known what she was getting into with him. Bryan never pretended he was something he wasn’t.

But he might be pretending not to be something he was.

Enough, she told herself. She was spending a lot of time thinking about a guy who was unsuitable for her in every way, not the least of which being their web of interconnected friendships and the fact she was investing her time in his company. A company that was going to need their full attention to avoid meeting the same fate as Fourth City Roasters.

Getting the cashier’s check and picking up the truck went seamlessly, even though there was a brief question as to the weight capacity when they signed the paperwork and found out they’d been given a smaller truck than Bryan had rented. They’d assured him it was capable of hauling a thousand-pound machine with no problem, assuming it would fit in the back. So they’d busted out a tape measure and checked against the crate dimensions listed on the roaster manufacturer’s website.

“Let’s hope Louis managed to get it in the crate,” Bryan said when they settled onto the ugly patterned-fabric bench seat. Yes, the truck seemed to be from 1990. But the diesel engine started with a reassuring rumble, so Ana hoped it would get them the eight hundred miles back home.

By some miracle, when they arrived at Fourth City Roasters, Louis was waiting for them, the machine disassembled and crated, all components shrink-wrapped so they wouldn’t move during hauling. Just to make sure, Bryan looped tie-downs around the crate and secured them to the anchors in the floor of the truck bed. This thing wasn’t going anywhere.

Bryan handed over the check, Louis handed over the bill of sale, and Ana and Bryan were on their way west with a nearly twenty-thousand-dollar piece of roasting equipment in the back of a rental truck. The truck, which had felt so light and powerful moments before, now felt sluggish and heavy.

“At least we don’t have to go through mountains. Were we coming from the West Coast to Colorado, we might have a bit of trouble.”

“That’s not reassuring.” Ana cast a look at the side mirror, as if the view of the moving truck would tell her anything useful about its mechanical competence.

“Oh, it’ll make it. It just might be slow. And cost us a lot in fuel. Good thing you’re a killer negotiator.”

“Let’s just hope he didn’t damage anything while he was packing it up.

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