Lost and Found Sisters Read online

  “Just a few streaks. You wanted to look cool and this is definitely that. And actually . . .” Lena artfully played with Quinn’s hair. “Blue’s a great color on you. I should’ve gone for obnoxious orange, but I was torn between my reputation for great hair and my need to make you look unappealing to Mick.”

  Quinn gaped at her. “I could complain to the owner here, you know that, right?”

  “Go for it. You’re speaking to her.”

  Quinn blinked at Lena and then stared at herself some more. There weren’t many streaks of blue, a very select few actually, professionally placed and . . . damn. It totally made her complexion pop.

  “You’re welcome. That’ll be eighty bucks.”

  Quinn paid her and started to head out, stopping to turn back. “Mick told me you and he were high school sweethearts.”

  “Did he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he also tell you that I let him slip through my fingers once and I don’t intend to do it again?” Lena asked.

  “I thought you were with the bartender.”

  “Boomer?” Lena shrugged.

  “Maybe he’s your soul mate,” Quinn said hopefully.

  “I’m ninety-nine percent sure my soul mate is carbs. And anyway, me and Boomer are taking a break. The thing you should know is that I was Mick’s first. And I intend to be his last.”

  Chapter 11

  I want to be cuddled. But I also want to be left the hell alone. Being crazy is hard.

  —from “The Mixed-Up Files of Tilly Adams’s Journal”

  Quinn knew she was early when she parked at Carolyn’s property, but she’d wanted to check it out. She felt she needed to do this for Tilly’s sake, who was now left with a wanderlust father who’d apparently never expressed interest in either of his two daughters, a closed-for-now café, and a not-so-slightly rundown house.

  Clearly money had been a problem, and Quinn thought of the café’s lost revenue. Not good. She walked around the back of the house and found . . . good God.

  Chickens, all of them staring at her with beady black eyes and squawking in disapproval.

  No one had told her there were chickens.

  Her phone buzzed with an incoming text.

  MOM:

  Honey, did you get enough food for breakfast? Remember you get cranky if you don’t eat.

  Quinn pointed at the chickens. “Hear that? I get cranky if I don’t eat. Don’t test me.” Then she texted her mom back, crossed her fingers, and lied through her teeth that she was eating super healthy.

  MOM:

  You never could lie very well . . .

  Quinn rolled her eyes but also smiled. Love was a funny thing. You could get mad, hold a grudge, let it fester even, and then with one little sentence, forget all the bad for all the good.

  The sound of voices brought Quinn to the front of the café. Three old guys stood there listening to a short, curvy woman with a booming voice and a German accent—which reminded her of Marcel.

  The woman had a key, which she put into the lock to let herself in.

  “Excuse me,” Quinn called out.

  The woman turned and sized up Quinn, and smiled. “Knew I’d see you sooner or later.”

  Quinn swiveled her head to look behind her, but nope, no one was there. “Me? You know who I am?”

  “Quinn Weller,” the woman said. “You’re from L.A., which is proved by those blue streaks you’ve got in your hair.”

  Quinn lifted a hand and touched the strands in question with a grimace.

  “I also know that you climbed a tree and then fell out of it and landed in the ER.”

  “Okay,” Quinn said in her defense, “I was stung by a bee and I’m allergic. Or I wouldn’t have fallen out of the tree.”

  “My point is that you must have known you’re allergic, yes? It’s bee season. Yet you tried to help soothe Tilly anyway.” She paused. “That told me all I need to know about you. You’re Carolyn’s daughter. You were the one in the bar kissing Mick Hennessey last night.”

  Quinn blinked, stunned on so many levels. “How do you know all that?”

  “Because I know everything.”

  “Well, your sources are off,” Quinn said. “I wasn’t kissing Mick Hennessey.” At the B&B, yes. Bar, no.

  The woman shrugged. “If I was skinny and looked like you, I’d kiss him too. As for me . . .” She nodded to the café. “I work here.”

  “Hasn’t the café been closed since Carolyn’s death?”

  “Yes, but I came to check on the perishables and make sure everything is okay. I’d reopen, but I have no authority to do so.”

  “Do it anyway, Greta!” one of the old guys standing around said.

  “Yeah,” yelled another. “We’re hungry!”

  “My wife won’t let me come home until noon,” the third called out. “And the library says I can’t come back anymore on account of when I read, I have to do it out loud to myself and they objected to my . . .” He did air quotes. “Content. They said I read too much porn, that I’m addicted.”

  “You are,” old guy number two said.

  “Hey, I could be addicted to drugs, you ever think of that?” he asked. “Do you realize how lucky you all are?”

  Greta leveled a look at the old men and they shut up as if on cue. “Everyone zip it. Time to be on your best behavior.” She pointed at Quinn. “We’ve got the new owner standing right here.”

  Everyone swiveled wide-eyed gazes her way and then started talking at once.

  “Please open!”

  “I’m starving.”

  “Can I use the bathroom? My prostrate ain’t what it used to be.”

  Greta brought her fingers up to her lips and let out a piercing whistle. “Silence.”

  The three old men fell silent.

  Greta looked at Quinn expectantly.

  Quinn wasn’t happy about being called out, but she couldn’t help but be curious. “I’d like to go in.”

  Greta opened the door for her and then followed her in. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Greta, by the way. I’ve worked for Carolyn the past twenty-plus years. She was the kindest woman I’ve ever known, cared for everyone in her circle.”

  A circle that hadn’t included her own daughter, but hey, whatever, Quinn was over it.

  Or at least working on being over it.

  “You’re from Germany,” Quinn said, knowing that her German accent was the real thing compared to Marcel’s fake one.

  “I came here twenty-two years ago with my husband on a business trip of his,” Greta said. “I had no English. We stopped here for lunch and he left to make a phone call. He never came back.”

  Quinn, who’d been staring at the old kitchen equipment—so old that it was a wonder anyone could cook anything decent with the antiquated appliances—turned to look at Greta in shock.

  “I know,” the forty-something woman said. “He was a sohn von einem weibchen.”

  “Stupid head,” Quinn translated loosely and for the first time in her life, she had something to be thankful to Marcel for.

  “Yes.” Greta looked impressed as she began to go through the storage bins with an eagle eye. “I had nowhere to go, no money, no place to stay. Carolyn took me in and gave me a job. I helped her cook. Or served. Whatever was needed. This place is a mess. It’s good you’re here, City Girl. We’ll clean and reopen.”

  “She’s not staying,” Tilly said, having just arrived in the doorway. She looked at Quinn’s hair and arched a brow. “Blue?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  “My friend did blue streaks once,” Tilly shared. “She’s on the swim team and the chlorine turned her hair from blue to pea green.”

  “Good thing I’m not a swimmer,” Quinn said. “Can we go somewhere and talk?”

  “Maybe. I’ve got to do homework first. I’ll be back.”

  “But—”

  But nothing because the girl was gone.

  Quinn sighed and moved to check out the dining ro