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“I see, well, yes.” Heat crawled up her cheeks. “Let’s see. Do you want the plastic? It’s easy to put it up. A few tacks, a hair dryer and you’ll save yourself a lot of money this winter.”
“I think that’s perfect. Do you think I can put it up myself?”
“I put it up every winter on our old farmhouse.”
“That’s great.” The young woman gave her a hug and then hurried away with plastic and two children.
Gracie started to turn but a woman grabbed her arm and gave her a big hug. Gracie squirmed away and saw that it was a friend she’d gone to school with.
“Gracie, I don’t know what happened, but we’re behind you.”
Gracie opened her mouth, but she couldn’t explain. It was private and it still hurt too much to think about. She wasn’t a hero. She wasn’t suddenly wild and crazy, breezing through life without thinking.
“Is it because your boss is such a hunk?” Lacey Clark asked. Lacey ran a day care but she’d lost half her clients when Randall Manufacturing closed.
She wondered if Mr. Randall hadn’t realized that closing his business would hurt more than just his own employees. The closing of Randall Manufacturing had affected the entire town. But some things couldn’t be helped, and Gracie knew that the economy had played a role in Mr. Randall’s decision.
Gracie coughed and searched quickly to make sure Patrick hadn’t heard Lacey’s question. “No, of course not. Listen, Lacey, I’m really busy. Can I help you with something?”
“Oh, yes, of course. I have these old cabinets that I want to spruce up.”
“We have a textured spray paint that works great. Let me show you what I mean.”
Lacey followed her to the paint section. “Can you show me how to use it? I can paint my nails, but anything more than that and I’m at a loss.”
“Sure, I’ll get plywood and show you how it works.”
“You’re a lifesaver, Gracie. And really, if I was you, I’d be head over heels in love with that Patrick Fogerty. If I had half a chance, I’d ask him over for dinner.”
“Since you’re single, Lacey, maybe you should invite him to the church social next week. He’s a great guy. I can introduce you.”
She looked around for her boss and saw him heading for the back room. If she didn’t know better, she would call it running. Surely he hadn’t heard her weak attempt to fix him up with Lacey?
Patrick was a great guy and he deserved to marry someone nice, settle down in Bygones and raise a few kids. As for Gracie, she was done with everything white. It would be a long time before she decided to try romance again.
Chapter Three
At five-thirty, Patrick locked the door and switched the sign to Closed. He turned to watch Gracie straighten shelves that had been ransacked by curious customers who had done a lot of business in the store that day. His best day yet.
Thanks to Gracie, the Bygones Runaway Bride. That was what he’d heard people calling her and he’d overheard Whitney, the local reporter, discussing the headline for Thursday’s paper. He needed to tell Gracie that she would soon be front-page news. He just didn’t know how to bring it up.
If today had been bad for her, Thursday would be a nightmare.
She turned, saw him watching her and smiled. He found it a lot easier to smile back than he’d imagined. He’d been surprised by several things today. First and foremost, her lack of tears over the marriage that wasn’t. Shouldn’t she be crying? Wouldn’t she be second-guessing herself?
He’d heard the ‘‘cold feet’’ theory floated by several people. Some said the wedding would take place in a month or so, after she had time to think about it.
“Hey, I’ve been thinking about something today.” She turned from the cans of spray paint and wiped her hands on the apron that came to her knees because it was meant for a person a lot bigger than she was.
“What’s that?”
“Workshops for women.” Gracie looked around, as if she was still thinking up the plan.
“Workshops for women? What is that?”
“What you should do. What we could do to draw in customers. I don’t know, I guess I’ve always had to do things for myself and I thought that all women—well, maybe not all, but most women—could figure things out for themselves. Today I learned that a lot of them don’t have a clue. They can’t even paint a cabinet with spray paint. One of them bought a precut bookshelf off the internet and she didn’t know how to put it together or if she even had the tools.”
“What are you getting at, Gracie?” Patrick slipped the apron off his neck and rolled up the sleeves he’d kept down and buttoned at his wrists during the workday.
“We could do workshops.” She gave him a look that said the name was self-explanatory. “For women. We can teach them how to build a bookshelf, make their homes more secure or more energy efficient. And in the process, we could bring in business.”
He looked around the little store that was his future, his dream, and then back to the woman who had maybe come up with an idea that would keep his future in the black. Lately he’d been taking on more handyman jobs just to keep things going. He’d also been considering going online with the store and with the rocking chairs he’d been building. Her idea would be one more thing to help make his store profitable.
“I like it, and I think you’re definitely my new assistant manager.”
She laughed and he was taken by surprise that her laughter made him smile. “You realize I’m your only employee, right?”
“I do realize that, but today you did the work of three people.”
“And I managed, through one little wedding scandal, to bring in dozens of customers you hadn’t expected.”
“I hate to say it, but yes, you did.”
Pink crawled up her neck into her cheeks. “I heard more personal stories today than I ever thought I’d hear. I never planned on being anyone’s hero or the person everyone shared their tales of heartbreak with.”
“I’m sure you didn’t. And did you plan on trying to fix me up with half the single women in Bygones?” More pink. He laughed because it served her right. “I overheard you tell at least a dozen women that I’m single and the nicest guy you know and they should maybe ask me to the social, or the singles meeting, or even out for a cup of coffee.”
“Oops. Well, you are single and nice, and if you’re going to stay in Bygones, you should go out once in a while, not work all of the time.”
“Thank you for thinking of me, Gracie, but I’ll be fine. I can cook, do my own laundry and even put a bookcase together.”
“I’m sure you can.”
“Let’s grab some coffee. We could both use a break.”
“I should go home.” She pulled the cell phone out of her pocket and glanced at the time. “I need to cook dinner, and my little brother has a load of laundry that he can’t wash on his own.”
“I think they’ll be fine without you for a little while. Who would have done those things for them if…”
He sighed and wished he’d kept his thoughts to himself. He didn’t need to get this involved. What Gracie did for her family was none of his concern.
“If I’d gotten married?” She folded up her apron but held it in her hands, staring at it rather than looking at him.
“I imagine your little brother can do a load of laundry.”
“I’ve been taking care of them for years, you know. I mean, I’ll be twenty-five in October, and for almost fifteen years I’ve been cooking, doing their laundry, mending their clothes and stopping their fights. It’s hard to let go.”
He knew all about letting go. The words reminded him of the day he’d watched all the stock from the Fogerty Hardware store being loaded into a truck and shipped to a large store in a nearby community. He’d signed the building over to the new owner and he’d let go of a family business that he’d invested his life in. The same business his father had died in.
Until that day, he hadn’t seen that he’d been heading down the same path as his father. The path of long hours, at least.
“Let’s have that coffee.” She looked up from the apron she was still holding. “And maybe something to eat. I’m starving. My boss is a nice guy, but I barely had time for lunch today.”
“That would be your fault. You’re the one that left the groom at the altar and caused all this notoriety for yourself.”
“True, very true, but you’re the guy all the women in town are mooning over.”
“I’m starting to think they need more single men in Bygones.” He opened the door to the stockroom and watched as she gathered her purse and the lunch she hadn’t eaten. “I have leftover chili if you’re hungry.”
“Chili that I didn’t cook? That sounds great.”
Great. He had offered. She had accepted. He led her outside and up the back steps to his apartment.
Gracie walked up the steps and through the door into the apartment over the hardware store. Her mouth dropped, seriously dropped. Patrick Fogerty was a genius. She knew how to repair a wall, build a porch and fix a roof, but what he’d done with that decades-old apartment was amazing.
“It’s beautiful.” She had seen it before he started working on it. It was a typical apartment from a building that had seen its heyday in the 1920s or earlier. The rooms had been small, the floors covered with teal carpet, and the plaster walls had been cracked and chipped.
Patrick stood back, pride evident on his ruggedly handsome face as she wandered through what had become a loft-style apartment. The rooms had been opened up, wood floors put down. The windows were open and a breeze blew in. The kitchen had sleek
European-style cabinets in deep mahogany, and the lights were bar lights that focused on different areas of the open living room and kitchen area.
“I’m impressed. How did you come up with all this in Bygones?”
“I made a trip to Manhattan, Kansas, obviously, not New York. Or several trips. I found surplus cabinets and flooring for a great price. Since I do the labor myself, it didn’t cost much.”
“You could forget the hardware store and do this for a living.”
“I enjoy the hardware store.”
Gracie wandered into the kitchen and thought she’d love to cook in a kitchen like this one, with new appliances and sleek, modern fixtures. The kitchen at the farm hadn’t been updated in years. The cookstove had to be lit with a match each time she used it. She had installed a new faucet and kept the oven working.
“Coffee?” Patrick pushed a button on the single-serve coffeemaker.
“Please.” She wandered back to the living room. “I’ve lived on the farm my whole life and thought I’d always live on a farm until I met…” She sighed and turned to face Patrick, “Trent. We were going to live in Manhattan.”
“I see.”
He handed her a cup of coffee, and she took it and sat at the bar that separated the kitchen from the dining area and living room.
“I don’t think I’d make a good lawyer’s wife. It’s too much pressure.”
“I think you’d be fine.”
She smiled at that and at the tone of his voice that said he was uncomfortable with the conversation. She understood. Two days ago she’d been engaged. Now she was sitting in Patrick’s apartment discussing what would have been.
“I’m always fine, Patrick. It’s how I’m wired. I deal with life and move on.”
He sat down next to her, a steaming cup of coffee in front of him. “It isn’t always that easy.”
“No, I guess it isn’t. But it makes people more comfortable if they think you’re fine. If you smile when they ask how you are and tell them you’re great, it makes them happy.” She lifted the cup and took a sip because she was saying too much and no one really wanted to hear it. And she was too embarrassed to tell the whole truth.
She hadn’t been good enough for Trent Morgan. No matter how she dressed up, fixed her hair and did all of the other girl stuff that Trent seemed to think was important, it hadn’t been enough. He’d always been trying to change her, to make her fit the mold of who he wanted her to be.
She held the coffee cup in her hand and thought about how much she wanted to tell someone other than her dad what Trent had done to her, that he’d tried to change her, that he’d cheated on her. He hadn’t loved her enough.
Someday she wanted to be loved enough.
“How about that chili?” Patrick left the seat next to her and she smiled as he opened the fridge door to pull out a bowl.
“I could make something if you don’t want leftovers.”
“I thought we’d agreed that you don’t always have to take care of everyone?”
She started to nod but her phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket and groaned. “Yes, that’s what we agreed, but I have to take this.” She answered. “What is it, Evan?”
Her younger brother responded, “Shouldn’t you be home by now?”
“I should, but I’m still in town. What do you need?”
“There’s nothing for supper and you said you’d throw my laundry in for me. I have to go to Oklahoma tomorrow.”
“You can do laundry. I taught you how, remember? And there’s a casserole in the freezer. Preheat the oven to four hundred degrees and bake it for an hour.”
“Seriously? Where are you? Everyone is saying you flipped out Saturday. I’m starting to think they’re right.”
“Maybe I have. And maybe it’s time you learned to take care of yourself.” She wanted to tell him that if he’d bothered showing up for the wedding he wouldn’t have to get secondhand information.
He hung up on her and she didn’t know what to do. The microwave dinged and Patrick pulled a bowl out and set it in front of her.
“See, that wasn’t so hard, now, was it?” He reached into a cabinet and handed her a package of crackers.
“It wasn’t easy.” She took the crackers and the spoon he handed her. “He really can’t take care of himself.”
“I’m sure he can, if he has to.”
“Maybe.” Gracie crunched a few crackers into her chili and leaned in to inhale the lovely aroma. “Do you have family, Patrick?”
“I have an older brother in California. My dad passed away several years ago. My mom remarried and lives in Georgia.”
“I see.” She watched as he moved around the kitchen, a confident man, terribly handsome. She focused, for some reason, on the sleeves of his plaid shirt that he’d rolled up to reveal strong, deeply tanned forearms.
He sat down next to her and she refocused on the bowl of chili.
“My family has a tendency to do their own thing,” he said, handing her a package of shredded cheese.
“Mine like to be very involved in each other’s lives.”
“Isn’t that part of being in a small town?”
