Page 70 of Hometown Girl

While a loan was just about the last thing in the world Beth wanted, she’d owed it to herself to at least explore the possibility—only she’d discovered it wasn’t one at all.

Drew had been working at the farm for two full weeks, and he’d done just about everything he could on his own. They’d had a steady stream of volunteers, but he’d politely asked for skilled help. She’d agreed, and as with everything else he did, Drew wasted no time assembling a crew of possible workers, many of whom she knew.

But she had no idea how she would pay them. And no idea how to break it to Molly that while Jerry had givenhera loan, Beth couldn’t get another one for the same project. “Too risky,” Linda had said. “We just don’t see it as a good investment.”

Beth’s heart had plummeted as Linda spoke her greatest fears aloud.

To make everything worse, Beth seemed to have been bitten by the frivolous-dreamer bug. (Too much time spent with Molly, perhaps?) Instead of coming up with easier and quicker ways to raise money, she’d become obsessed with the idea of bringing back the Fairwind Market.

She drove to the farm and knocked on the kitchen door, the same way she had every day since Drew had moved in, but when she pushed it open, she found him standing at the refrigerator wearing nothing but a pair of jeans frayed at the bottom.

“Morning.” He pulled a carton of orange juice out and shut the door.

She tried not to notice that his hair was still damp and he smelled clean, like soap. Nothing fussy about this man. He hadn’t even shaved. Probably in a couple of days.

It suited him.

“Morning.” She handed him the coffee. It had become a ritual.

“You know you don’t have to bring me coffee every day.” He set it on the counter. “But thanks.” He picked up a soft gray T-shirt that was draped over one of the kitchen chairs and pulled it over his head, covering his muscular torso and tanned skin.

She was relieved—seeing him shirtless was incredibly distracting.

She set her slouch bag down on one of the kitchen chairs and found her idea notebook lying open on the table. Somehow in the last two weeks, her portfolio had been replaced by an old sketch pad. Somehow in the last two weeks, her usual thoughts had been replaced by daydreams. She’d tried to deny it, but her mother wouldn’t let her.

“I never thought I’d live to see the day when you were researching how to build a chicken coop,” she’d said, reading Beth’s computer screen over her shoulder.

“I don’t seem like a chicken kind of person?”

Her mom had laughed and made her way to an armchair on the other side of the living room. Beth half watched until she was settled, content that her mom didn’t need her, and went back to browsing about coops.

“It’s nice to see you passionate about something again,” her mom had said, as if it were just a simple observation.

“I’m not passionate about chicken coops, Mom.”

“That notebook begs to differ.”

Beth glanced down at the pad, full of plans and ideas. She wasn’t sure when it had happened, but these days, instead of spending her evenings poring over market research, she was tearing photos out ofCountry Livingmagazine and stapling them into her sketch pad.

The notebook was more than a place to record facts and figures about their renovation—it was a place to dream about Fairwind. And she’d carelessly left it here over the weekend.

She’d mostly saved magazine cutouts and Pinterest links of things she eventually wanted to do at the farm. The picnic area she wanted to create underneath the old oak tree, with white lights dangling in the soft spring air. The quirky hand-painted wooden signs to direct their visitors around the property. The garden she dreamed of tending in the large open space behind the house.

A few of the articles she’d torn out were spread out across the table—“What to Plant and When.” “Raising Backyard Chickens.” “How to Build Raised Garden Beds.” She picked them up and tucked them back inside the book, wrapping the attached elastic around it to hold everything in place, feeling a bit exposed knowing that he’d likely leafed through her ideas.

Even admitting she wanted to learn about something so far out of her comfort zone was hard for her. All it did was take her further away from her life plan. And yet, she couldn’t help herself.

“I was looking for this notebook yesterday. It’s not like me to leave something like this behind. Sorry about the mess.”

“If you call a notebook with a stack of magazine articles in it a mess.” He leaned against the counter and took another drink.

“Well, it’s nice of you to let me work in here. I don’t want to take advantage of your kindness.”

He raised a brow. “You own the place, and I stay here for free. You can leave a notebook on the table.” He pushed himself away from the counter. “Hey, can I show you something?”

“Of course.” She followed him out the side door, across the patio and into the yard. It still amazed her that all this land was partly hers. Never in her wildest dreams had she ever expected to be part owner of a farm.

He led her out toward the huge old oak tree, the one practically begging to be strung with white lights. On the other side of it, next to the shed where they kept the mowers and other small lawn tools, he stopped.

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