Page 12 of Lovewell Lane

I smiled knowingly. “He’s cute.”

She scoffed at my declaration. “Most women in this town fawn over those brothers, and I have a daughter, so,” her sentence trailed off into silence.

Despite my piqued interest, I decided not to push. “A daughter? I’ll have to meet her. But in the meantime, can you get a babysitter for Friday?”

“A babysitter? What for?”

I smiled like a Cheshire cat. “We’re going out, and I need a friend to show me what’s fun to do around here.”

“Oh,” Lila stuttered. “There’s not much to do in Honeyfield.”

“There must be something around it,” I pestered.

She turned back to me slowly and nodded with a small smile. “There’s a bar, and I haven’t had a night off in a while. Let’s do it.”

I patted her hand that rested on the desk between us gently. “Yes, let’s. Can I meet you here on Friday around eight?”

“Sounds perfect.”

-

After dropping by the car shop to introduce myself, I decided I couldn’t possibly wait any longer to see the inside of my own store. Earlier that morning, I’d stopped by the quaint Town Hall building to meet the mayor in his office. He was a kind-looking old man that was very excited to meet me. He was the first person in my experience here so far.

It felt very official that the mayor of a town was giving me a key, but instead of the city, this key was for something even better– my own diner.

Shifting my tote to my left arm, I cursed myself for always overdoing things. I had only three places left to bring gifts to, yet the handles of the bag cut into my arm at the pressure.More for me, I guess.

The storefront had a classic small town feel to it. It looked like it was once well-loved. The old brick building definitely needed a pressure wash and the glass windows could use a good cleaning. Scrubbing even. The planters on either side of the door were abandoned long ago, and all that remained was dead shrubbery. The deserted sidewalk in front of the store desperately needed to be blown off. Leaves and dirt from the Dogwood trees planted throughout the sidewalk had built up over time and left quite a mess.

I had a lot of work to do.

But the bones were good. At least, they looked good to me. I wasn’t an archaeologist. Or an architect.

The key twisted in the lock and with a satisfying click, I was in. An overwhelming feeling of nostalgia hit as soon as I walked through the doorway. Which was confusing, because I had never been here before. But suddenly, I knew I was exactly where I needed to be.

The existing plain white walls and checkered floors were very traditional. There was already a counter along the back wall leading into the kitchen area. When the mayor recommended this place, I forgot to ask what it was previously. He assured me it had all the structure for a diner, without any of the appliances.

I walked through the front of the diner slowly, it was empty, so there wasn’t much to look at. But I wanted to take in every inch of it. This would be my fresh new start. A project that would, fingers crossed, never get boring.

When I reached the entryway of the kitchen, I found a big puddle on the floor. That wasn’t good. The checkered tile surrounding the puddle looked dirty and stained. Then my gaze floated upward to the ceiling. Oh no.

A discolored brown circle was directly above the puddle. Also, per my estimate, above where my stove would go.

I rented this place with a no-maintenance clause. Which meant I was on my own for anything that went wrong. In my defense, I didn’t have many other options for storefronts to rent in Honeyfield since the mayor insisted this was the perfect one for me. And also, it was dirt cheap.

Ignoring the glaring issue for now, I continued walking through the rest of the store and checked out the tiny office— correction.Mytiny office.

I turned around to face the leak again. Stumped on how to fix this problem, I meandered back to the front of the diner and hopped up to sit on a counter next to my bag filled with cookies, cake, and bread. I glanced over at it and saw a glaring loaf of sourdough staring back at me.

Ugh. Would it be stupid to ask Derek for help again? He did own a farm store, and from what I saw when I wasn’t running into his giant stupid chest, there were a lot of hardware-like supplies in there.

All morning while I was baking, I couldn’t help but think about his reaction when I would give him the bread. Would he look at it like I’d offended his family name like he did when I handed him cookies? Or maybe ignore my existence like he did while I was at his family dinner? Perhaps freshly baked bread would be his final straw, and he’d kick me out of his guest house.

I cut off my dramatic line of thinking and decided to just get this out of the way.

From the sound of things, Honeyfield wasn’t doing too hot money-wise. So why not support local businesses? It was the right thing to do.

And with that thought, I straightened my shoulders and pulled out the loaf of bread to march across the street. I’d already accepted an awkward conversation would be the best outcome, and the chances he didn’t speak at all were very possible.

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