Page 44 of Her Hometown Man
No matter howrightthis felt in the moment, there were two pesky facts he couldn’t just wave away because he liked being with her.
Gwen hated being in Stonefield and couldn’t wait to leave.
He loved his life in Stonefield and couldn’t see himself living anywhere else.
“I’m glad you’re finding the time—and peace—to write,” he said. “And there’s definitely a lot going on, so I’m not going to pressure you. I mean, I’m going to keep chocolate ice cream in my freezer on the off chance I can lure you across the street again, but you don’t need to worry about me. We’re just enjoying each other’s company. No pressure.”
Case knew he’d said the right thing when her face lit up and she gave him a smile that heated his blood before she bent to take the stick that Boomer brought her.
“He likes when you throw it in the river,” he told her, his voice sounding so rough he cleared his throat. “Sometimes he brings back a different stick than the one you threw, but we think it’s rude to point it out.”
“Good to know.” She threw the stick and it hadn’t even hit the water before Boomer was bounding into the river after it.
He lost track of how many times Gwen threw sticks into the river, but she was laughing and clearly enjoying herself, so he didn’t care. After a while, he sat on one of the flatter boulders at the river’s edge to watch them.
As much as some of the weight had been lifted off of Gwen’s shoulders—at least temporarily—he could feel it pressing down on him. This is what he wanted his life to look like, and he ached to join in their fun. To pull her into his arms and kiss her. To tell her he hadn’t been totally honest with her—that he wanted to be more than just friends enjoying each other’s company.
Maybe even to ask if she was softening toward Stonefield now that she’d been back for a while.
But that wasn’t why he’d brought her here. She needed room to breathe and he wouldn’t encroach on that space. Instead he watched the woman he was falling in love with throw sticks to his dog and kept his mouth shut.
Chapter Fourteen
We hear there’s been a lot of activity at the Sutton house this past week! There’s a lot of buzz about the new establishment in town, and we’ll announce their opening date as soon as we have it. Hopefully pictures, too, if they invite us over for a beer. In the meantime, we’ll be bringing you updates about Sutton’s Place Brewery & Tavern as we get them!
—Stonefield GazetteFacebook Page
“Ihate painting,” Gwen muttered to herself as she tried to pour paint into a rolling pan without getting it everywhere.
“So you’ve said,” Evie muttered back. “At least a dozen times since breakfast.”
Apparently, neither of them were very good at muttering to themselves. “Calling it a painting party doesn’t make it any more fun.”
“On that we agree. If you’re going to call it a party, it should involve gifts, cake, cocktails or bacon-wrapped hors d’oeuvres.”
“Or all of the above.”
“I did bring doughnuts, though,” Molly pointed out. “And some of them had sprinkles.”
“We can always count on you to make it a party, Molly,” Evie said, and they laughed.
Gwen took her rolling pan to her assigned wall and then grabbed one of the long rollers with the extension handles her mother had assembled. They were all there—they’d even barred Lane from escaping to the cellar—so hopefully it wouldn’t take long, but the loss of yet another day still irked her.
It had been over a week since the incident with the glasses and her trip to the river with Case and Boomer, and during the entire time, she’d managed to write maybe ten pages and she was probably going to have to scrap eight of them.
It had been going so well and then...nothing. The writing wheels in her head had ground to a near halt and she couldn’t figure out how to fix it.
Maybe, subconsciously, she’d been thrown off by her mother’s emotional outburst more than she’d thought. Or maybe it was because it was the last weekend in July and she didn’t feel any closer to going home to Vermont, despite her early resolve to be back by August at the latest. This—the carriage house and navigating her family’s emotions and trying not to let her feelings for Case get too messy—was beginning to feel like her new reality, and it wasn’t a reality of her own choosing.
Three days ago, she’d finally caved and talked to her agent—by phone, not email, which made it so much harder—and she’d been given another short extension. But he and the editor had made it clear that they were doing as much as they could because of her family situation, but if she didn’t hand in her manuscript by the new deadline, they would have to delay the book’s release, which would mess up production and flush the sales and marketing plan down the toilet.
She’d gotten off the phone relieved to have a reprieve and determined now that she’d straightened that out, to make the book a much higher priority in her life. Her family didn’t even have an opening date for the brewery yet, thanks to waiting on inspections and permits and whatever else Lane needed for his binder of paperwork. They could spare her for a few hours per day.
Then Mallory had called to ask her to throw the roast and veggies into the slow cooker because she’d forgotten. And then Evie called because she’d driven into the city to buy a new printer and some other supplies, so they wouldn’t have to outsource those things, but she’d misjudged all the box sizes and it didn’t all fit in her Jeep. She was standing in the parking lot with it all until Gwen drove the forty minutes to put some of it in her car.
And so it went, day after day, until she wanted to scream. She’d even been tempted to lock herself in the cellar and hide behind a big tank with her phone off, but she knew Lane would find her eventually and she’d have to listen to a lecture on the sanctity of the brewing process.
“Um, Gwen, honey.” She heard her mother’s voice and stopped rolling.
