The Reluctant Baker (The Greek Village Collection Book 10) by Sara Alexi

makes no move to leave the eatery. Instead, his gaze follows the foreign girl as she turns the corner by the bakery and disappears out of sight, and then he leans against the counter to watch Mitsos turning the split chickens, the fat dripping and igniting the hot coals, hissing and sizzling. With only a coffee since he got up this morning and no breakfast, his stomach responds with a gurgle. His dough-clean fingers rub across his belly and catch on the strings of his long white wrap-around apron.
    ‘You want anything?’ Mitsos asks, clanging the tongs against the grill to indicate the sausages. Loukas looks longingly, but the old lady will have cooked and will be expecting him back, and he shakes his head. It is beetroot again today.
    ‘Better not.’ He tries to hide the disappointment in his voice.
    Mitsos casts him an understanding glance, slides the top napkin from a pile on the counter, and with deftly wielded tongs and economy of movement, he takes a sausage from the grill and delivers it to the napkin. He nods at it and looks at Loukas without a word before continuing at the grill.
    ‘So, late again, Loukas? Are you not getting enough sleep?’ Stella remarks. Loukas takes a second napkin to mop the juices running down his chin. Stella shifts her hip away from the counter. She heaps a spoonful of coffee and two of sugar into a metal beaker and adds a small amount of water. The stationary electric drinks mixer’s metal blade knocks against the beaker’s side as she turns it, making talk impossible.
    Having finished his sausage, and with no haste, Loukas takes a step through the doorway and calls a hello to the farmers, who greet him back. A quip or two passes as he turns a wooden chair and pulls it to the adjoining doorway to face Stella.
    Stella pours the froth of coffee and sugar she has made over a glass of ice and then tops it up with cold water and hands it to Loukas. This event is the daily mark for the end of his working day.
    ‘So what’s new?’ Stella asks the time-worn Greek phrase as she adds evaporated milk to her own cold coffee, the white curling round the ice as it sinks. Loukas shrugs.
    ‘Nothing. You? I’m surprised you are here. You have the hotel’s official opening tonight, eh? I heard the Mayor of Saros is coming and a few more besides?’
    Stella throws her head backward, her face glowing in delight. Mitsos stands taller and his chest puffs out. Loukas considers him a lucky man in many ways. ‘Yes, the mayor, for all he is worth, but also the whole village, I am thinking.’ Stella’s face shines at the thought before a small frown creases her brow. ‘Everything is pretty much in control but there are still one or two things I need to do,’ she adds as her eyes scan left and right, unfocused, and she gnaws the inside of her cheek.
    Loukas is glad for her. She went through hell with her first husband. Some of the memories of that time are dim, but others are sharp. He has never mentioned it, but witnessing her pain helped him when Natasha died. It showed him that colder, uglier things can happen. At least his wife left this world unblemished. He can hold his head up in pride at the mention of her name. Poor Stella has suffered so much more in that direction. At the time, it was hard to imagine how her life could reassemble.
    Then, through his own tear-filled eyes, he watched Stella transform. All it took was meeting Mitsos, and their love did the rest. They ignited each other, brought out the best in each other. That is what he hoped for when he married Natasha.
    How wrong he had been. There was no electricity, no igniting, not even smouldering. Not for him anyway. If only he had recognised what it was that he felt back then, right at the beginning. But he mixed up one feeling for another. There was so much pressure. His degree was going well but there was talk of no jobs by the time he graduated. What he read in the papers about an economic collapse scared him. Then Natasha