An autumn leaf blows off of the old maple tree. It falls into the already cold river. Soon, Lucy reminds herself, the lake will freeze over. The fall beauty will disappear. It's a beautiful morning. Sunshine, Lucy's small black puppy, barks happily trying to catch leaves as they fall. Lucy laughs at her puppy's enthusiasm. She squats down to pet the cutie.
Life seems so perfect, but of course that's when it really isn't. You wish for the moments to stay forever, but will they? One thing can turn everything upside down. That's what happened to poor Lucy. Five minutes of peace with Sunshine is all she received.
"Hello, Ma'am!" A tall, not too shabby looking guy came toward her waving both of his hands. She assumed he was talking to the other lady at the park, but he kept coming towards her.
"I'm sorry, but are you Lucy Arnolda?" The guy says panting.
"Depends on who's asking."
The guy pulls out his hand in a hand shake.
"I am Luis Greenburg. I need to talk to you about something."
"Greenburg? That sounds so familiar." She frowned, as something sparked her memory from far ago.
"I'm sure it does. My great-grandfather, Thomas Greenburg, co-owned Greenolda's Magnificent Pastries years ago. He eventually went on to own Pastries Galore."
"Who?" Luis expected her eyes to light up but she was still very confused.
"The pastry shop became known as Arnolda's Magnificent Pastries a while after."
That's when it finally clicked. "That's my father's shop!"
Luis had to smile, but not for too long. He had one task and one task only. He could not mess up. His father would kill him. "I was wondering if we could go discuss this over coffee?"
"You know what, why not. We clearly seem to be family friends. Do you mind if Sunshine joins us?" She played dumb.
Luis snorted. Abruptly, he started fake coughing to hide his mistake. They were not family friends. "Of course, she can. And I know the perfect coffee shop. It's actually just a little walk from here."
"Great, let's go," Lucy smiled, grabbing her puppy and walking in no direction in particular.
"It's this way," Luis pointed. He had to wonder how she was in such an upbeat mood this early in the morning.
"Oh, right," She laughed it off.
The short walk starts off in silence, but then Lucy had to question. "So how did you find me at the park?"
This left Luis a little tongue tied, because he really had been stalking her for the past 3 weeks. Having finally figured out a logical response, he answered. "Well, I found your address and stopped by. You weren't there, of course. Your neighbor was outside and told me that you usually are at the park this early in the day. And of course you can figure out the rest."
"Oh, why did you want to find me? Why not go to my father's shop since you know so much? Or talk to my uncle or somebody? Or even one of my cousins?"
Honestly, Luis didn't want to talk to her cousins, because he had already stalked them each for a week, and being honest, all three of them scared the crap out of him. And talking to the father or the uncle would be too suspicious, and it would not be easy to reach his goal that way. Simply put, Lucy had the least brain cells out of everybody in her family. With her pink everything, and her little dog, it was obvious.
"I don't know, I just thought maybe they would be too hostile toward my family. We have a big feud between us, you know? You seemed the least likely to care," he finally said. He tried to talk about the feud as nonchalance and he could, so she wouldn't ask so many questions.
"Ohh, makes tons of sense," was all Lucy said back.
They reached the coffee shop a few minutes later. Luis being a gentleman, held the door for Lucy and she smiled.
"Thank you."
"Anything for a beautiful lady," he smiled back.
She narrowed her eyes a little unsure what Luis meant by that comment. Was he trying to flatter her? It didn't matter, she decided. She needed to figure out what Luis wanted from her.
She finally remembered exactly where her suspicion towards the Greenburg name came from. Her father had warned her of the Greenburg family all her life. "Lucy, my darling, my sweetheart. Mia figlia, those Greenburg's are like foxes. They may look fuzzy and small and may even look pretty in a field of snow, but they could kill a little child. The Greenburgs are cunning and sly and you never hear them coming, so be sii cauto Lucy. Be cautious. Check over everything."
She would play dumb as much as she could she decided. She would try to get him to say his plan so she could act against it as soon as possible.
Luis picked a table farthest away from everybody seated in the restaurant. Lucy delicately sat down setting Sunshine on her lap. A waitress came by.
"What would this lovely couple want to have today?" The woman said.
"We're not-" Before Lucy could even finish her protest, she was interrupted by Luis. Her hatred for him was slowly growing.
"Why thank you, Miss Holinda," he read her name off of the tag. "We're actually on our honeymoon. It is just so lovely in this city. Somebody told us that if we were stopping here, we absolutely had to come into Miss Holinda's Café. And we are just so happy to be here. What's your favorite drink?"
"Aw, how sweet." Holinda's dark skin had turned 3 shades pink. She laughed with a cute smile. "You know, I absolutely love the Cherry Cheesecake latte, it pairs perfectly with my homemade biscotti, or so I've been told," She gushed.
"Perfect! We'll take 2 of those and 2 pieces of biscotti."
"Okay! Wonderful! I'll have the coming right up, and congrats on your marriage!" Holinda was so happy, for a second I almost forgot to ask why Luis had lied.
"What was that about? What the heck?"
"I was hoping she would give us a discount," he said disappointedly. "Being honest, we would be a good couple though," he snickered.
"We have only met, and you-you're ridiculous looking. I would never marry you. I would never marry anybody who even looked even a little like you," She spat.
Luis had a blank face. It was hard to read his emotions, but not impossible. She could tell that he was hurt even a little. He straightened the collar to his button-down and put his hand on the table.
Clearing his throat he changed the subject. "How about we get to business then?"
