Page 93 of Hometown Girl

“I worked there in high school, just in the office, so after college, I took a very temporary position. That was seven years ago.”

He didn’t respond, not that she thought he would. What was he going to say—“Wow, that’s kind of pathetic?”

“I was the office manager.”I almost destroyed the whole business.

“Was?”

“I haven’t told anyone, but they asked me to resign just after Molly bought the farm.”

More silence.

“The truth is, if this Fairwind thing hadn’t come along, I don’t know what I would’ve done.” She stopped at a game booth, the one where she could throw baseballs at jars and win something if she knocked them over. It was humiliation, not a desire to play the game, that compelled her to stop there.

She gave the kid at the booth a dollar in exchange for three baseballs.

“Miss Whitaker, let’s see that arm,” he said.

She squared off with the jars, drew in a breath and threw the ball as hard as she could. It smacked against the back curtain with a thud, leaving the tower of milk jars standing perfectly still.

Sighing, she lined herself up again, threw the second ball and got the same result.

She glanced down at the third ball in her hand, turning it over. As she stood there, she replayed the day her father had learned that she’d gone against his wishes and it would cost them dearly, and her eyes clouded with fresh tears. She blinked them back, determined not to let herself cry again in front of Drew.

He put a hand on her back and wrapped his free hand around the baseball she held. “Let me.”

She stared at his strong hand wrapped around hers, their skin touching on the edges around the ball. She didn’t know how to let anyone do anything for her—but standing there, next to him, she wanted to try.

She released her grip on the ball, and he inched it out of her hand. “Here, take Roxie.”

He handed her the leash, and the dog sat at her feet as Drew stepped up in front of the booth. He lined up with the jars, threw one pitch and knocked all of them down.

“You’re not as alone as you think you are.”

Her mother’s words rushed back at her, but she didn’t know how to make sense of them. Shewasalone.

Drew took a small stuffed-animal prize from the kid manning the booth and handed it to Beth.

“Thanks,” she said.

As he took Roxie’s leash from her, her fingers brushed against his, and her whole body was aware of the touch.

He continued walking in the direction they’d been going before she’d stopped. “What happened? With your job, I mean?”

She looked away. She’d sworn she’d never tell a soul.

Why, then, was she actually figuring out how to put it into words?

Beth weaved in and around people walking in the opposite direction until finally Drew took hold of her hand and pulled her off the path and toward the band shell, where only a few other people sat.

He sat down and ordered Roxie to do the same.

“It’s nothing, really,” she said.

“It’s not nothing.”

She let out an exhausted sigh. “I was wrong.”

His eyebrows shot up.

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