More Than Anything (Broken Pieces #1)(21)

“Hello, we haven’t officially met. I’m Lia McGregor. You’re Clara’s mom.” She walked toward Libby, tugging the handsome blond man along behind her.

“Olivia Lawson,” Libby said with an equally gorgeous smile. “But please call me Libby.” She held out her hand, and the other woman took it and shook enthusiastically.

Feeling a bit like the fourth wheel on a tricycle, Tina kept an awkward smiled pasted on her face. She guessed Libby knew the other woman from Clara’s day care. Typical. Libby had moved to Riversend just a couple of weeks ago after purchasing her decrepit house on the beach and already knew loads more people than Tina did. Libby was like the sun: people were just naturally drawn to her warmth.

“Really lovely to officially meet you,” the other woman, Lia, said. She gestured to the lean, good-looking man standing beside her. “This is my fiancé, Sam Brand.”

“Nice to meet you,” the man said, also taking Libby’s hand. Tina thought she detected an English accent—hard to tell with just a few words—and he had a wicked, sexy smile.

“This is the restaurant’s new owner, Martine Jenson. But everybody calls her Tina,” Libby said.

Oh good, acknowledgment at last. She thought Libby was going to gush over her new buddy all day. Okay, maybe Tina was being a little uncharitable. But she was already tense after everything that had gone wrong, and it was making her bitchy. Still, at least the couple was here and supporting the restaurant tonight, and Tina was immensely grateful for that. She tried to disguise her edgy impatience behind a warm smile and reached out to shake Lia’s, and then Sam’s, hands.

“Ooh. You’re an MJ too? That’s perfect,” Lia enthused. “Well, I’ve been excited about this new MJ’s, and I called my sister when we saw your doors were open. I know she and her husband will be along soon. She’s a little slow these days. Super pregnant. I know quite a few other people who said they were keen on trying the new MJ’s. Don’t worry: as soon as people see you’re open, this place will be filled to the brim very quickly.”

The evening was disappointing.

Nothing like the huge success Tina had been fantasizing about for months. She felt like curling up into a ball and crying her eyes out but kept a smile plastered to her face while she thanked her staff for their hard work and praised them for their excellent service that evening. It was the least she could do, considering how badly she had let them all down tonight.

The people who had come to the relaunch had left with smiles on their faces and full bellies. They had enthusiastically promised to encourage everybody else to come to “the New MJ’s.” In fact, so many people had referred to the restaurant as “the New MJ’s” that Tina caustically wondered if she should include it on all her signage. She feared that the moniker would stick and thus doom the restaurant to a—probably short—lifetime of otherness.

She didn’t want it to be referred to as “new”; she wanted them to think of it as MJ’s, the beloved institution that they had supported for three decades. But, after tonight, that might well prove to be an exceptionally tall order.

Lia McGregor had called her family and all her friends, urging them to come out and support MJ’s, and they, in turn, had called their friends. By the end of the night they had managed to scrape together a respectable number of patrons. Not exactly a capacity crowd, but half-full was better than they’d hoped for at the start of the evening.

Tina was exhausted, and Libby, who had kept a tight ship in the kitchen all evening, looked absolutely destroyed. After Tina’s post-dinner-service pep talk, Libby had retreated to the kitchen to oversee the cleanup, and Tina had gratefully made her way to the small back office.

Only when she entered the office did she remember that Clara and her babysitter, Charlie Carlisle, were still in there.

The pretty teen looked up from her e-book and smiled.

“Hi. How did it go?”

“Less than ideal,” Tina admitted, squeezing her palm around the nape of her neck. God, she could sleep for a week. She picked her reading glasses up from the cluttered surface of her desk and put them on before sinking into her desk chair, grateful to finally get off her feet after hours of standing.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Charlie was saying. “I’m sure it’ll get better. My family was here; my sister-in-law, Daff, texted me rave reviews about the food and the atmosphere.”

“Daff’s your sister-in-law?” Tina asked distractedly, more in an effort to keep the conversation going than out of real interest—she wanted to get to her accounts and see how great the damage was. Daff was Lia McGregor’s oldest sister. The woman was at the huge and uncomfortable stage of her pregnancy. She was married to Spencer, an intimidatingly large, good-looking guy. It was hard to imagine this petite slip of a girl having a brother that size. The girl was biracial, so the familial relationship wasn’t immediately apparent, but upon closer inspection Charlie did have her brother’s gorgeous green eyes, appealing dimples, and shy smile.

“Uh-huh,” Charlie replied. “Also, Mrs. Chapman sent me some dinner and dessert earlier, and it was all so much better than the old MJ’s food. As soon as people hear about how awesome the food is, they’ll be lining up down the street.”

“I hope so,” Tina muttered, her eyes burning and her head pounding as she stared at the bright computer screen. She had a migraine coming on, she just knew it. She wasn’t sure she could do the accounts tonight. Not with any accuracy, but delaying the task would only add to her tension.