The Solid Grounds Coffee Company Read online

  Praise for Carla Laureano

  The Solid Grounds Coffee Company

  “What a bright and engaging story! The Solid Grounds Coffee Company is full of snappy and smart dialogue, genuine characters I was rooting for, and sweet romance with just the right amount of tension. I loved getting to know Analyn and Bryan and seeing their two very different worlds dovetail into one layered, romantic, and delicious story.”

  LAUREN K. DENTON, USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE HIDEAWAY, HURRICANE SEASON, AND GLORY ROAD

  “Carla Laureano is at the top of her game with The Solid Grounds Coffee Company. I was invested in Bryan and Ana’s journey from the opening pages and had fun catching up with characters from Laureano’s previous books. I enjoyed watching Bryan set out to turn his life around . . . and of course, I loved the delicious romance! (And, yes, now I’m craving a latte!) Another winner from an author who belongs on your keeper shelf.”

  MELISSA TAGG, CAROL AWARD–WINNING AUTHOR OF THE WALKER FAMILY SERIES AND NOW AND THEN AND ALWAYS

  “Coffee and romance! Who could ask for a better treat?”

  DIANN MILLS, AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF FATAL STRIKE

  “Carla Laureano writes the kind of books I’m eager to begin . . . and that I’m just as sorry to see end. The Solid Grounds Coffee Company is filled to overflowing with fictional characters who readers will wish were their real-life friends, along with a how-is-this-going-to-work-out romance and a glimpse into the creation of many people’s favorite addiction, coffee.”

  BETH K. VOGT, CHRISTY AWARD–WINNING AUTHOR OF THINGS I NEVER TOLD YOU AND MOMENTS WE FORGET

  “Carla Laureano has a reputation for penning smart, sophisticated reads, and The Solid Grounds Coffee Company is no exception. Brimming with complex characters and a captivating storyline, it’s a book readers are certain to devour and one I highly recommend.”

  JEN TURANO, USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  “I’m an avid coffee drinker, so this book definitely intrigued me. With elements of redemption and second chances at love, The Solid Grounds Coffee Company was quite an enjoyable read.”

  T. I. LOWE, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LULU’S CAFÉ

  Brunch at Bittersweet Café

  “With fun food scenes and organic spiritual elements, Laureano’s book will be relished by sweet-toothed inspirational readers.”

  PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

  “The delightful characterization of baker and pastry chef Melody Johansson coupled with a realistic romance and spiritual message make Brunch at Bittersweet Café an exceptional pick.”

  MIDWEST BOOK REVIEWS

  “This romantic drama portrays realistically flawed characters in messy situations.”

  WORLD MAGAZINE

  The Saturday Night Supper Club

  “A terrific read from a talented author. Made me hungry more than once. I can’t wait to read what comes next.”

  FRANCINE RIVERS, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE MASTERPIECE

  “Bright, jovial, and peppered with romance and delectable cuisine, this is a sweet and lively love story.”

  PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, STARRED REVIEW

  “Romance aficionados and fans of stories about overcoming obstacles and the role of faith in everyday life will eagerly await the next entry in this sweet food-centered series.”

  LIBRARY JOURNAL

  “Writing charmingly about faith, love, friendship, and food, Laureano will leave readers hungry for the next installment in the Supper Club series.”

  BOOKLIST

  Visit Tyndale online at www.tyndale.com.

  Visit Carla Laureano’s website at www.carlalaureano.com.

  TYNDALE and Tyndale’s quill logo are registered trademarks of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

  The Solid Grounds Coffee Company

  Copyright © 2020 by Carla Laureano. All rights reserved.

  Cover photograph of woman copyright © Stephanie Hulthen. All rights reserved.

  Designed by Mark Anthony Lane II

  Edited by Sarah Mason Rische

  Published in association with the literary agency of The Steve Laube Agency.

  The Solid Grounds Coffee Company is a work of fiction. Where real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales appear, they are used fictitiously. All other elements of the novel are drawn from the author’s imagination.

  For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Tyndale House Publishers at [email protected], or call 1-800-323-9400.

  ISBN 978-1-4964-4187-4 (HC)

  ISBN 978-1-4964-2032-9 (SC)

  Build: 2019-12-31 12:29:59 EPUB 3.0

  For Lori, who literally prayed this book into existence.

  Your friendship and your encouragement mean more than you’ll ever know.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Discussion Questions

  Preview of The Saturday Night Supper Club

  Preview of Five Days in Skye

  Acknowledgments

  IF AUTHORS ARE office-dwelling creatures who court their muses—or at least their coffeemakers—in yoga pants, then novels are their high-maintenance progeny who need entire teams of specialists before they can meet their public.

  This book’s specialists are even more special than most. I owe a great debt of thanks to: my Tyndale #dreamteam, Karen Watson, Jan Stob, Sarah Rische, Amanda Woods, Elizabeth Jackson, Andrea Garcia, Mark Lane, Danika King, and the Tyndale sales team whose enthusiasm is so crucial to the success of a book; my ever-wise and humorous agent, Steve Laube; my personal circle of awesome, who get a mention every time because they’ve stood by me with every twist and turn of this business, Evangeline Denmark, Brandy Vallance, Amber Lynn Perry, and Lori Twichell; my fearless assistant and de facto publicist, Audra Jennings, who didn’t roll her eyes too hard every time I had a last-minute request; and my family, Rey, Nathan, Preston, Mom, and Dad, who would be proud of me if I never wrote another story . . . that’s the kind of love that lets me write these books. Lastly, my gratitude goes to my gracious heavenly Father, who chose to give me the desires of my heart even as He uses them to mold me into the person He wants me to be.

  Prologue

  BY ALL ACCOUNTS, Suesca was haunted.

  From everything Bryan Shaw had seen, he believed it. But for him, it wasn’t the spirits of the dead that hovered over this small Colombian town. It was the memory of the living. A memory that he’d ignored, run from, and blotted out for three years without any significant success.

  He zipped up his one-man tent and stood there, letting the coo
l, dark night surround him before he made his way toward the campfire where a cluster of other climbers gathered. Suesca was the epicenter of rock climbing in Colombia, its 8,400-foot elevation giving it the benefit of comfortable temperatures year-round, its proximity to Bogotá giving it the benefit of ease of access. The entire town was built around climbers: gear shops, hostels, campgrounds. Like most, Bryan had opted to rent a tent from the outfitter and camp here, just a stone’s throw from the rock.

  “Hey, mate, want a beer?” Jack, the big blond Australian Bryan had met earlier in the day, pressed a bottle into his hand as he approached and slapped him on the back. “I was just telling this mob about how you on-sighted Natalio Ruiz this morning.”

  Bryan made a noncommittal sound that could be taken as assent or appreciation and settled into a spare folding chair by the fire. Just because he’d never climbed that particular route didn’t mean he’d never been on that pitch—he’d been climbing in Colombia on and off for most of his career. Nor did he say that for a climber of his caliber, a simple 5.9 wasn’t much of a challenge. But Jack was a convivial sort who liked to tell stories, even if they weren’t his own. Fine with Bryan. He didn’t much feel like talking tonight.

  Maybe Suesca had been a mistake after all. He could have gone on to Florián or La Mojarra without returning to the site of his old memories. Maybe he’d figured that by coming back he could reclaim them, expunge them. He’d been wrong.

  Bryan took a swig of his beer and stared into the dark. He and Vivian had met here for the first time five years ago when Bryan was filming a climbing video. She’d been a production assistant, a climber herself, and even though Bryan was supposed to have his mind on the rock, half the time it had been on her. Which explained why he’d fallen on his first attempt. Embarrassing, but altogether understandable considering the nature of the distraction. Black-haired, lithe, and athletic, she was pretty much a climbing supermodel, and she naturally drew the eye of any man within a hundred yards.

  A shadowed woman skirted the fire, and for a moment, he could have sworn it was her. Now he was seeing things, and he didn’t even have alcohol to blame for it. He took another drink, closed his eyes, and tipped his head back to the sky.

  “Hello, Bryan.”

  His eyes snapped open and he looked at the bottle in his hand as if it could confirm that he hadn’t lost time, wasn’t in the middle of some drunken vision. When his voice came out, it sounded hoarse and scratchy. “Vivian. What are you doing here?”

  She dragged a folding chair over and plopped down beside him. “What anyone else is doing here, I imagine. Just got in tonight. How about you?”

  “Last night, late.” He looked her over as if to convince himself that she wasn’t an apparition. But no, he knew her features as well as he knew his own. Hair pulled back into a severe ponytail, longer than it had been last time he’d seen her. Chiseled cheekbones. Sleek climbing pants and sport-fabric shell showing off every curve and muscle on her small frame. His stomach tightened and his heart clenched in response. “You’re telling me we just happened to be in Colombia at the same time? That’s some coincidence.”

  “It’s no coincidence. I was in Peru, and when I saw your Instagram, I thought, Why not?” She flashed him a smile that managed to be halfway between knowing and regretful.

  “In that case, I’m going to bed. Early morning tomorrow, and I want to be rested.” He rose and saluted her with his mostly empty bottle.

  He’d only taken a few steps when her voice trailed after him. “Since when are you so concerned with getting your beauty sleep?”

  He paused for a second, then continued to his tent several hundred yards away and ripped the zipper open. He resisted the urge to shatter the bottle, setting it down carefully inside instead. Turned on the battery-operated lantern and zipped himself in, then stripped down to his athletic shorts. All the while he clenched his jaw so tightly his teeth ached.

  Bryan was just reaching for the lantern’s switch when the flap of his tent opened with a slow, deliberate zip. He straightened, muscles tensed, hoping it was just some drunk climber who forgot which rented tent was his own.

  He couldn’t be so lucky.

  Vivian ducked through the opening and settled on her knees, zipping up after herself. “I don’t like the way we left things.”

  “Just now? Or three years ago?”

  “Both.” She studied him carefully. “You look good.”

  He looked away before he could be pulled in by her pleading expression. “I’m not doing this, Viv. If you remember, you were the one who decided how we left things. I asked you to marry me, you said no, and I never saw you again. It sounded pretty definitive to me.”

  She crept closer. “Bryan, I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I just . . .”

  “You just didn’t want to marry me. I’m over it.” He made his face and his tone stony, as if the affectation would reach his heart.

  Vivian bit her bottom lip. “Well, I guess I’m not.”

  Great, she was going to cry. He’d never been able to bear seeing her upset. That had been the whole problem. He would have given up everything for her, and she would give up nothing for him.

  “I’m sorry. This was a mistake. I just thought—” Her voice strangled for a split second. “I thought if I could see you again, I could stop wondering if I made the right decision.”

  Despite the fact he hated himself for it, her imploring tone began to soften the hard shell he’d erected around the part of his heart she still owned. He reached out and smoothed a tear off her cheek with the roughened pad of his thumb. “Viv, we can’t go back. What’s done is—”

  “Done, I know. But it doesn’t stop me from missing you. It doesn’t stop me from wishing I’d done things differently.”

  Her eyes, shining wet in the glare of the lantern, met his, and all the anger he’d held against her crumbled. For a while, he’d thought an endless string of women would help numb the pain, but they couldn’t erase her memory when he’d never stopped loving her, never stopped wanting her.

  Bryan didn’t think when he slid a hand behind her neck and brought her closer. Acted on instinct when he lowered his lips to hers. And when her arms wrapped around him and she kissed him in return, the last three years melted away. It felt like all the wrongs in his life had been righted.

  * * *

  Bryan woke to a pale-blue glow through the tent canvas, the distant chirping of birds alerting him to the cusp of morning. He rolled to his side and touched only an empty space where Vivian should be, the chill on the nylon telling him she’d been gone for a while.

  Quietly, he pulled on his clothes and shoes and unzipped his tent flap, a rush of relief coming immediately when he saw Vivian crouched in front of a small campfire. The smell of coffee drifted from the aluminum percolator set on the rocks. He crept up behind her and pressed a kiss to her neck. “Good morning, beautiful.”

  Instead of twisting around to kiss him as he expected, she straightened and slipped out of his embrace. “Coffee?”

  “Sure.” He retrieved his lightweight camp mug and held it out as she poured the thick black cowboy coffee into it. “Sleep well?”

  Once more, she avoided his eyes. For the first time, a pang of fear struck him. “Viv? What’s wrong?”

  “Last night shouldn’t have happened.”

  Bryan frowned and settled into the dirt beside her. “Viv, baby, I know it wasn’t planned, but now that you’re back . . .”

  She swallowed hard and looked him straight in the eye. “I’m getting married.”

  He swayed in a sudden rush of dizziness. “Excuse me?”

  “In May. I came here for closure. To get you out of my head once and for all. I didn’t mean—”

  “You’re getting married?” His stomach clenched, not a single word after those three registering in his brain. She was getting married. To someone else. Not to him.

  “Bryan—”

  He jumped to his feet, but it didn’t feel like
his brain had any control over his body. “How could you? I thought—”

  “Bryan, I’m sorry. You know I’m sorry.” She buried her face in her hands. “If Luke finds out . . .”

  “Wait, not Luke Van Bakker . . . What does he have to do with this?”

  Vivian raised tear-filled eyes to his. “I thought you knew.”

  Bryan wiped a hand over his face, sudden understanding dawning. Luke Van Bakker, president and CEO of Pakka Mountaineering. A man he’d known for ten years, one he’d like to think was a friend. Engaged to his ex, and neither of them had told him.

  Even worse, Pakka was his biggest sponsor, the one that allowed him to travel all over the world climbing instead of holding a real job.

  “How could you come to me when you were engaged to him? I thought . . . I thought you were coming back to me. Wasn’t that what this was all about? How much you wanted to be able to do things over?” He scrubbed his hands through his hair. “You must not think very much of me if you think I’d be okay with this.”

  Viv jumped to her feet. “Do you think I meant for this to happen? You can’t tell him.”

  “Tell him?” Bryan barked out a harsh laugh. “The last thing I want is for Luke Van Bakker to know I just slept with his fiancée!”

  She jerked her head around as his voice rose, and sure enough, another climber poked a sleepy head out of a tent. He lowered his voice. “You and I are screwed. If there’s anything Luke prizes, it’s loyalty.” It suddenly occurred to him that had Luke prized loyalty so much, he wouldn’t have taken up with Bryan’s ex in the first place. “How long have you been seeing him? Was that why you wouldn’t marry me?”

  “No! No, Bryan, you have to believe me.” She reached for his hand, but he stepped out of reach. “Luke and I have only been together for a year. We reconnected at an event. Figured it had been long enough, you know? I assumed you were long over me, that you wouldn’t care.”

  “Which is why no one told me.”

  “I swear to you, it wasn’t like that . . .” Viv broke off, her lips pressing together stiffly, and Bryan turned to see Jack approaching them at a jog.