Mending Hope (Contemporary Western Romance) (License to Love Series:Book 2) Read Free

opened the door to let her out. 
    “We’re here to eat.  This is the café,” he told her as he started to walk down the path and around to the back porch door. 
    She started to walk around the front of the car but stopped.  He didn’t look back but instead kept walking until he heard her footsteps crunching on the pavement behind him.  He nodded hello to a couple of regulars who were sitting on the back porch deck and walked into the house under a wooden sign with the words “Main Street Café” etched into the grain. 
    “Oh my, this is interesting,” he heard Alyssa whisper as she came up behind him. 
    His smile was now so wide that his cheeks were hurting.  They walked across the room to the side of what used to be the living room.  The inside of the house had been gutted and transformed to look like a café, but the wall décor still looked like the inside of a regular home, complete with bookshelves and pictures on the wall.  The difference was that there were seven different patio table sets spread out across the hardwood floor where people were eating. 
    Woody strode up to the counter, “Hey Melissa, can we have a couple of menus? My friend, Alyssa, is new to town and I promised to take her to the best we have.”
    “Now hush, Woody.  You know we’re pretty much the only game in town for a decent lunch.” Melissa answered as she reached underneath the built-in bar and pulled out two paper menus and handed them to him.  She was tall with thick auburn hair that cascaded across her shoulders when she bent down.  When they’d been in high school, everyone had wanted her to play basketball but she’d refused to do so telling them that she was too big and clumsy.
    “That’s what I told him,” Alyssa said as she took the menu from him.  She was smiling again, and he joined in as Melissa stepped out from behind the counter and led them to the back of the room.  “In fact,” she continued, “I never would have even found this place if it weren’t for Woody.  This is a really neat set up you have here.”
    “Here’s your regular table.” Melissa said motioning to the table that was closest to the kitchen door.  And then she turned to Alyssa and flashed a thousand watt smile, “And thank you!  I really wanted to do something completely different with my restaurant so I decided to combine the idea of home cooking with a traditional café.”  She looked at Woody and slapped him on the shoulder. “Most of the locals thought I was crazy, but it’s worked out well enough!”
    Someone else walked in the door, and Melissa excused herself to see to them.  As soon as she was gone and they had ordered, Alyssa set in on him with the questions.
    “What happened?  How did he find her?  Is everything okay?” she asked in rapid fire succession.  He could tell by the pinched look on her face that she had been holding back as long as she could.  If the situation weren’t so serious he might have chuckled a little at her outburst.
    “This is the story as I understand it,” Woody started.  “I’m sure you know more about the beginning than I do, so why don’t you fill me in on that, and I will tell you what happened afterward.”
    Alyssa studied him for a moment and then nodded her approval, letting out her breath in one long sigh before beginning.
    “Clara has a stalker.  She doesn’t know who he is, she’s never seen him.  He has been playing a game of cat and mouse with her for months, shutting off her electricity and freezing her bank accounts.  It had started getting more and more personal, and that’s why she was heading to my house.  I’m someone so far in her past that he shouldn’t know about me.  Plus, I don’t have much connection with the outside world since I’m one of those ‘reclusive writer types’ so we thought she might be able to stay there off the grid and start to get her life back together.” 
    When she spoke, she moved her hands through the air and