Bellweather Bay Fake Romance

The first thing Clara Bennett wanted from Mercer’s was a quiet table and five uninterrupted minutes in which nobody asked whether she had brought her lovely boyfriend.

She got neither.

A tray of oysters shot across the dining room before she had taken off her coat, skidding over the polished floor in a glistening little avalanche. Somewhere behind the bar, a glass broke. The kitchen bell shrieked twice, stopped, then shrieked again as if it had reconsidered its position.

Jack Mercer appeared through the swinging doors carrying three plates and the expression of a man who had just been informed that gravity was optional.

“Clara,” he said. “You came.”

“I was invited.”

“By Molly. I assumed she meant emotionally.”

He deposited the plates on a waiting table, turned, and caught one of them before it slid into a woman’s lap. The woman applauded. Jack bowed.

Clara stood beneath a framed photograph of Bellweather Bay harbour, salt wind pressing damp strands of hair against her cheek, and considered leaving before anyone saw her. Unfortunately, leaving would require crossing the dining room, which currently contained a toppled chair, two waiters moving in opposite directions, and a small boy attempting to feed a bread roll to a decorative lobster.

She had managed wedding receptions for two hundred people in converted barns during thunderstorms. She had once redirected an entire ceremony because the groom’s ex-wife had arrived with a microphone and a grievance. She could survive dinner at Mercer’s.

Probably.

Jack saw her looking at the chaos and grinned. He had the same irritatingly handsome face he’d had at seventeen, though now it came with a crooked apron, flour on one forearm, and a cut near his thumb. His dark hair was escaping whatever arrangement he had attempted. He looked as though he had been assembled during an emergency and sent directly into service.

“You’re staring,” he said.

“At the fire.”

“There isn’t a fire.”

“Then your standards have improved.”

He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “Table six has been waiting forty minutes, table nine has received the wrong fish, and Harold Pike is threatening to write a letter.”

“Harold writes letters when the weather is too calm.”

“He’s already sharpened his pencil.”

“That is serious.”

“It’s the pencil he uses for council complaints.”

Jack’s smile warmed at the edges. Clara hated that she noticed. She hated even more that he noticed her noticing.

Before she could answer, Molly Mercer hurried over with a stack of menus pressed to her chest. Jack’s mother was small, silver-haired, and possessed of the unshakeable calm of someone who had raised a son capable of turning a minor plumbing issue into a community event.

“Clara, darling. You’re here.” Molly kissed the air beside her cheek. “Evelyn said you’d be joining us.”

“Evelyn says many things.”

“She said your boyfriend was very keen to see the old harbour.”

Clara’s smile held. Barely.

Jack’s attention flicked towards her.

Molly continued, blissfully unaware of the structural damage. “I told Penny Hart he sounded charming, and Penny told Sophie Bennett, and Sophie said she already knew because Evelyn had mentioned it at the post office.”

“There is no boyfriend,” Clara said.

A waiter passed behind her carrying a bowl of steaming mussels. He stumbled. Clara caught the bowl with both hands before it tipped, setting it safely on a nearby table.

“Thank you,” the waiter breathed.

“Table twelve,” she said. “Not table eight. The people at eight ordered chips and are already emotionally attached to them.”

The waiter fled.

Jack looked from the mussels to Clara. “You’ve been back in town for less than a day.”

“And already I’m saving seafood.”

Molly pointed towards the kitchen. “Could you save my son as well? He has put the vegetarian risotto on the fish pass.”

“I heard that,” Jack called.

“You were meant to.”

Clara should have sat down. She should have let Jack’s restaurant sink beneath its own poor planning while she enjoyed one drink and the smug satisfaction of being right about him. Instead, she saw the dining room as a series of problems with solutions: table six needed an apology and bread; table nine needed the correct fish; the lobster child needed a parent; Jack needed someone to stop him from trying to carry four plates at once.

It was not her fault that competence was a reflex.

She took the menus from Molly. “Who is running the floor?”

Molly glanced towards a young waiter hiding behind the bar. “Theo Walsh, technically.”

"Technically is not a management style.”

Jack’s eyes brightened. “You’re going to help.”

“I’m going to prevent a public incident.”

“Same thing, in this town.”

Clara stepped into the dining room.

For the next twenty minutes, Mercer’s became a wedding reception without the bride, groom, or legally significant paperwork. Clara moved between tables with a calm voice and a notebook borrowed from the bar....