Page 15 of Home Town

“Yes. Why?” She glared.

One glance at her clenched fists at her sides had him wondering if she was mad enough she’d actually hit him and what that blow might do to his already damaged brain.

He shook his head. “No reason. Mom just didn’t mention you were, uh, on it.”

“If I’d known you’d be here I would have offered to host at my parents’ house,” she grumbled, seemingly more to herself than to him.

Again, why? What had he done to her to warrant this?

“Josie, did you find the printer in the den?” his mother called before appearing behind Josie.

“Not yet. I got waylaid,” she answered while still pinning him with a glare.

His mother came around the corner. She stepped up to Corey and grabbed his arm as she faced Josie.

“Isn’t it great?” his mother asked. “My baby boy is home. For a whole month!”

“It is. Just great,” Josie repeated in a jovial tone accompanied by a forced smile. His mother would never guess Josie’s true feelings about his presence but it was obvious to him.

“And why are you home for a whole month?” Josie asked, overly brightly.

“It’s actually closer to three weeks,” he said to divert the conversation from her question. He was due back on base August first.

At the same time, his mother began to answer it with, “He was?—”

“Injured,” Corey jumped in to finish his mother’s explanation. “Got hit by a blast. But I’ll be fine.”

He stared wide-eyed down at his mother, hoping she got the hint. She frowned, but nodded and said slowly, “Yes. That.”

“Oh, what a shame,” Josie said with an edge in her voice that had him wondering which part she was commenting upon. What was a shame in her opinion? That he’d been injured? Or that he’d recover?

Maybe being home wasn’t going to be as restful as he’d anticipated.

Chapter Eight

Corey Jacobs.

Just thinking his name had Josie’s jaw clenching. Her heart pounding. Her stomach churning.

So running into him—literally, physically, unexpectedly—was almost more than she could take.

It was her own fault. She’d seen him in the yard of his mother’s house earlier. Of course he’d be in the house when she got there. Where else would he be?

She supposed she’d assumed—hoped—he’d avoid the committee meeting his mother had volunteered to host just like she and Quinn always had when their mother hosted at their place.

At least that’s what she used to do. Now it seemed avoidance was impossible since the committees realized she had skills they needed.

The old ladies of the tri-town area had finally entered the age of the internet and embraced social media. Don’t ask them to use a QR code—Mrs. Jacobs had looked at her with horror when she’d suggested that—but at least as far as having an online presence they were on board. And they knew she was the one who could do that for them.

Lucky her.

Not that she minded. She lived to analyze target audiences and engagement rates. Yes, she was still a nerd…

“I think we need to do a direct mail campaign to all the residents, like we did for the two-hundredth anniversary,” Sadie Simmons suggested to the small group of ladies assembled in the Jacobs’ living room.

The frightening part was not that Sadie, at eighty-four, had been around for both the current two-hundred and fiftieth anniversary celebration but also for the two-hundredth, but rather that she was trying to use the same publicity methods.

Josie glanced around, waiting for someone—anyone—to raise an objection. An alternate suggestion. Anything at all.

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