LITMIR.BIZ

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man. The situation was complicated. But cooking wasn’t complicated at all. You followed a recipe and there you had it. Simple.

      She stood at the cannoli station, which was a two-foot-long section of stainless-steel counter, and added a dusting of powdered sugar to a mini strawberry cannoli.

      “Here you go,” she said to Clementine Hurley Grainger, who sat at the swivel stool at the tiny desk near the cab of the truck.

      Twenty-five-year-old Clementine’s dark eyes lit up and she put down the stack of receipts she’d been going through. “Ooh, that looks amazing—thank you.” She took a bite. “Absolutely delicious!”

      Among Olivia’s favorite words.

      Clementine took another bite, then put down the cannoli. “I’m amazed by these receipts!” she said, picking up a few. “One order alone was for seven cannoli—and not even the lower-priced minis!”

      Olivia smiled at her friend and one-quarter boss. Clementine’s grandmother, Essie Hurley, owned Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen, where Clementine was a waitress. Clementine had had the brilliant idea for the food truck while on a family honeymoon with her new husband, Logan Grainger, his twin three-year-olds and the foster daughter they were in the process of trying to adopt. On a road trip across Texas, everywhere they stopped there were brightly colored, inviting food trucks with long lines of customers. One family meeting later, some numbers crunched with Georgia Hurley—Clementine’s sister, who baked for the restaurant and handled the books—and creating the menu with Annabel Hurley—their other sister and the lead chef for the restaurant—and the food truck came into existence. Working with the three Hurley sisters and Essie to get the truck ready for business had given Olivia such purpose the past weeks.

      “Mandy from the real estate office bought those,” Olivia said as she sautéed onions, celery and garlic for the next batch of pulled-pork po’boys. “She says they tend to put clients in signing mode.” And for the past week, one o’clock meant she’d have a line of hungry customers from Texas Trust, the employees at the coffee shop, plus the construction crew working on a house just around the corner that always ordered three po’boys per guy.

      “We get compliments on your po’boys and cannoli all the time at the restaurant,” Clementine said. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say, ‘I could be in the worst mood, have one of Olivia’s cannoli and suddenly have a skip in my step.’ Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it. Gram is thrilled with the success you’ve made of the truck.”

      “I’m so happy to hear that,” Olivia said. “I don’t know what I would have done without this new venture to focus on and throw myself into. I owe you and your sisters and grandmother everything.”

      “We’re even, then,” Clementine said, taking another bite of her cannoli. “Ooh, hot construction workers coming your way,” she said, upping her chin at the group of six men walking toward the truck. Olivia laughed. “Well, I’d better get to work myself. See you later.”

      By two o’clock, Olivia had made over a hundred po’boys and seventy-five cannoli, which was up since she’d started offering the mini cannoli.

      “Excuse me, but I was here first!” a grumpy female voice snapped.

      “Actually I was, but please, go ahead,” responded a familiar deep voice.

      Olivia peered out the window, setting aside the head of lettuce she was about to rip apart. A thirtysomething woman was elbowing Carson out of her way, jockeying for position in front of him at the food-truck window. Carson moved behind the sourpuss, who was busily texting so fast, with such fury on her face, that Olivia was surprised the phone didn’t explode from the sparks.

      “May I help you?” Olivia asked the woman. She glanced past the woman at Carson. He wore cop-like sunglasses and his leather jacket.

      No response.

      Olivia cleared her throat. “Next!” she called out, which always woke people up.

      “Meatball-parm po’boy with extra parm,” the woman grunted without looking up from her phone. “And two mini cannoli, one chocolate with chocolate chips on the ends and one peanut butter.”

      There was anxiety under the woman’s anger, Olivia knew suddenly. Someone close to her—a boss? A teenager?—was driving her insane.

      “Do you want me to take the test for him?” the woman screeched at the phone, shaking her head. She seemed to be yelling at a text she’d received. “Never get married,” she said to Olivia, fury on her face. “Then you’ll never have to deal with an idiot ex-husband who blames you for your fifteen-year-old’s F in chemistry and D in Algebra Two.”

      Olivia tried for a commiserating smile. “Your order is coming right up,” she said, heating the meatballs in the sauté pan. She scooped them out onto the baguette and layered the sauce—her aunt Sarah’s old recipe—and then added the Parmesan cheese, then another layer, per the request. She could feel a shift in the air around the po’boy and knew her abilities were at work. Exactly how the woman would be affected was a mystery.

      Olivia handed over the order in a serving wedge and the woman stalked over to the pub table a few feet away.

      “She practically ran me over since her face was glued to her phone,” Carson said, stepping up to the window. “She even stepped on my feet with those clodhopper cowboy boots.”

      Olivia smiled. “How are your toes?” She bit her lip. Was she flirting? She didn’t want to flirt with Carson Ford.

      He smiled back. “They’ll survive.”

      “Oh, God,” the grumpy woman said from her table. She held up the po’boy and examined it, taking another bite, letting the Parmesan cheese stretch high in the air before gobbling it up. “Oh, my God, this is good.” She inhaled the rest of her po’boy, then sipped her water and took a very deep breath, exhaling as though she was meditating. She held up one of the cannoli. “This almost looks too pretty to eat, doesn’t it?” she said cheerfully to Carson.

      “It looks very edible, actually,” he said.

      The woman laughed as though that was hilarious. She took a giant bite of the chocolate cannoli. Then a bite of the peanut-butter one. “Scrumptious. Absolutely scrumptious!” She grabbed her phone and pressed in numbers. “Donald Peachley, please. I don’t care that he’s in a meeting. Tell him it’s an emergency.” Olivia eyed Carson. “Donald, your ex-wife here. I have an idea. Let’s get DJ a tutor and we’ll split the cost. Since I make twenty percent more than you, I’m even willing to pay twenty percent more...Great...Bye now.” She then popped the rest of the chocolate cannoli in her mouth, quickly followed by the peanut-butter one.

      Olivia smiled at Carson. An innocent smile. An I-told-you smile.

      “Excuse me,” Carson said to the woman. “But I’m curious about something. You seemed very upset five minutes ago. But you came up with a good solution to your problem and handled it very well,” he said in a fishing tone.

      “Well, I know what a cheapskate tab-keeper my ex is, so I figured if I offered to pay a little more for the tutor he’d go for it. It’s funny, though—before lunch I never would have been so...reasonable or generous. I’ve been accused of being my own worst enemy. Can you believe that?”

      Carson didn’t answer that. “So you probably had low blood sugar, had some food and felt better, which got you thinking clearly.”

      “Low blood sugar? I had two slices of pizza at Pizzateria ten minutes before I came over here. When I’m furious, I eat.”

      Carson scowled.

      “Something about these cannoli always peps me up,” she said. She glanced at her phone. “Back to the grind. See y’all.”

      Carson crossed his arms over his chest. “People like cannoli,” he said to Olivia. “It’s a pick-me-up. That’s all there is to it.”

      “I

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