Chapter Three

I had to stop rushing to see who came in. People were going to notice and wonder if I was quite balanced. They wouldn’t want to come in anymore. And I needed this business. I had invested my life’s savings, and I could not afford to damage my reputation because of a pipe dream.

Settling on a stool at the back counter, I filled the small plastic-free bags with loose-leaf teas and placed twenty of them in the small paper bags printed with our logo. We were in theory a coffeehouse, but our teas were also well-known. A source of organic, high-quality leaves had fallen into my lap, and our customers loved them.

The bell rang again, and I fought the instinct to go and look again. My mate was not out there. He hadn’t been the past several thousand times I’d looked, and there was no reason to think that had changed. I had a nice business here with delicious coffees and teas and a part-time baker who made delicious pastries for my patrons to enjoy. If we kept going the way we were, I’d either need him to work full-time or get a second person in there.

Gratitude for what I had should be my watchword instead of acting as if the only reason I opened this place was to make a location for my mate to find me.

Go look.

Not this time.

It had been nothing but wishful thinking. And even if I never met my mate, if Fate didn’t assign one to me, I had a better life than many. The teas I was currently bagging were fragrant and delicate. I had assumed I wouldn’t have to carry more than a few ordinary bags here for the odd customer who accompanied a regular. But more and more often, we’d had requests for the beverage, and I realized we were letting our patrons down with a poor-quality product? We had always bought the best beans and now were even roasting them in house. But I was handing out teas made from the bits of leaves swept up and stuffed into plastic-laced bags?

This led to a deep dive into the tea industry and even a virtual trip to a tea plantation. While I could not be considered an expert, I knew those who were and was able to make decisions that added quality tea to our offerings.

Even then, I thought it might not be a big seller and ordered conservatively, but my doubts were soon proven to be false, and not only were we brewing pots for customers, but we were selling the tea both loose and in little plastic-free bags. It was a fine sideline for us, and one that gave me a whole new interest.

The bell rang again.

Of course it did. We had customers coming in and going out all day, and Glen would call me if he needed help. I filled a few more bags, but my attention was on the voices beyond the doorway. A woman ordered a cappuccino with an extra shot and spent a few minutes chatting with Glen about her favorite roast and how she hoped we’d have lemon scones again soon. A chime announced her leaving, a quick repeat the entry of someone else. Still holding my ground, I filled more bags while a man asked for directions to a residential address that his GPS was insisting was right where he stood.

Sometimes small towns had more of a problem with GPS, or at least ours did. It was a rare week when someone didn’t land in our shop by mistake. Generally, they left with a coffee or a pastry. Maybe a pound of freshly ground beans. The scents were seductive. And sometimes we ended up with a customer who stopped each time they passed through town.

The bell rang again, and I congratulated myself on having stopped that ridiculous behavior of peeking out, expecting to see my mate. My bear, on the other hand, was having fits.