Page 8 of Hometown Girl

“Make sure everything is lined up here, and we’ll see you when you get back.”

Drew threw some clothes into an old duffel bag. It had been years since he’d packed to go anywhere—most of his journeys only led him the few miles into town or, occasionally, down to Denver. Usually, though, he just stayed here. Elkhorn Ranch was his home now, and he was fine with that.

After he finished packing his things, he went outside and slung the bag into the back of his truck along with a half-eaten bag of dog food for Roxie. The dog had followed him outside and now sat just below the front stoop, staring at him with a tilted head.

“Come on, Rox.” He opened the door of his pickup truck.

She stood and barked but didn’t move.

“You’re riding shotgun, girl,” he said. “Let’s go.”

She barked again, then finally jumped inside the truck, turning around once before sitting on the passenger-side seat. She stuck her head out the opened window, and he gave her snout a rub.

“You ready for this, Rox?”

She whined. He moved around to the driver’s side, got in and inhaled a very deep breath.

This was going to hurt a little.

Who was he kidding? This was going to hurt a lot.

Chapter Three

The following day, Beth arrived at work promptly at 8:00 a.m., same as always.

She’d worked at Whitaker Mowers throughout high school, but she’d never expected to stay around Willow Grove after college. After she’d been passed over for a job in the city, she’d graduated and come back home to get her bearings. Then she’d found out about Michael.

Her dad had reluctantly made room for her at Whitaker—to proofread ad copy, get coffee and restock the office supplies. By all accounts, she was a glorified secretary.

He’d been against the idea from the start.

“She needs to move past this or it’s going to define her,” she’d overheard him telling her mother. “She should move into the city and find a job there. Willow Grove is too small for someone like Beth.”

He’d wanted so much more for her. More than struggling as a starving artist. More than a small, simple life. Never mind that he’d chosen this life after years of working in downtown Chicago himself. Somehow, he’d convinced her she needed the big-city experience to really learn what she needed to know.

But she was twenty-nine, and so far none of that had happened. What was she waiting for?

Still, she wasn’t miserable. Whitaker Mowers had been good to her. She’d moved her way up quickly. Little by little, her dad had begun to accept she could be part of the next generation at Whitaker—not Ben, and certainly not Seth. Her brothers had no interest.

Beth had a knack for running an office. With her dad’s help, she’d learned all she needed to know about this world—a world he’d all but conquered well before his death. Almost daily for the first two years, he’d asked if she was sure this was where she wanted to be.

“I think I could help, Dad,” Beth had said. “I think I’ll be great for Whitaker. I’m smart. I’m capable. I have a degree in business.”

“I just pictured you doing something different,” he’d said. “Something, I don’t know—bigger?”

“Maybe someday,” she’d told him. “But this is good experience for me for now.”

He let it drop—for a little while, anyway. Months later, he asked again. “You think any more about applying for a job in the city?”

“Are you trying to get rid of me?”

He laughed her off, but she could see the disappointment behind his eyes. “Just never thought you’d stick around Willow Grove. You couldn’t wait to get out of here.”

“Things change.”

She’d tried not to think about how much they’d changed or how she’d all but abandoned her self-confident, dream-seeking courage, leaving it sitting on a roadside somewhere between here and Chicago.

Months later, he checked in with her again, but by that time, she’d made herself indispensable to the company. She’d had a hand in rebranding their line of riding mowers. She’d even made several improvements to the machines over the years. Added a line of snowblowers and launched a successful ad campaign. Somewhere along the way, she’d stopped thinking about moving out of Willow Grove and fallen into a comfortable pattern of working and living in the town she’d always known.

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