Page 5 of Her Hometown Man
When she turned to face him, herare you kidding me?look was clear in the harshness of the temporary work lights, and he couldn’t really blame her. “That’s it? That’s not a very big kitchen.”
“It’s not a full restaurant menu, though. No burgers or steaks or any of that, so no commercial grill equipment, with the exhaust hoods and expense all that entails.” He found it a little odd she hadn’t been in the carriage house. It had to have been almost a year before David passed that they started gutting it. “Your dad worked on this for a long time. You never got a tour or saw plans?”
“No, I didn’t. Dad wanted us to stay out until the big reveal, when it looked like his vision. And we were busy celebrating holidays or...”
The words trailed away, but Case knew how that sentence ended.Burying my father.
“Is the upstairs cleaned out, too?” she asked instead. “I’m surprised he didn’t open up the ceiling some.”
“It’s pretty rough up there. Your parents have stuck a lot of stuff up there for storage over the years. They decided it would be easy to regulate the temperature in a space this big and open if they kept the existing ceiling, and the plan is for it eventually to be turned into the office.”
“What about the addition my dad put on the back?”
“That’s where the grain and a bunch of other stuff is being stored because it has the big garage door. I don’t have the code on the door to the cellar or I’d give you a tour. Mostly it’s a lot of big metal tanks that do different things, and part of the space was sectioned off as a cold room.”
“Do they expect a server to run up and down those stairs a hundred times a night, getting beer?”
The sharpness in her tone made him want to tease her. Tell her that now she knew why Mallory had asked her to come home—somebody had to carry mugs of beer up and down the stairs. But he restrained himself for now because this was a lot for her to process and he didn’t think she’d appreciate the humor right now. “The beer will go into kegs, and lines run from the kegs to the taps the server at the bar will use. I guess you don’t spend a lot of time in taprooms.”
She just shook her head as she looked around the carriage house, and he wasn’t sure if she was trying to imagine what it might look like finished, or if she was silently fuming. Knowing Gwen as he did, probably a little of both.
“Tell me something, Case,” she said, fixing her pretty blue eyes on him. “What made my dad so sure this could work?”
“Maybe because there’s nothing like it in Stonefield. It fills a need.”
She tilted her head and Case had to bite back a smile because Boomer did the same thing when he was confused. “What do you mean?”
“We have the diner, of course. It’s pretty much the culinary hub in this town, but they don’t serve alcohol. The pizza house doesn’t have a liquor license anymore. There’s the new breakfast café, but I’m not sure how long that’ll last because it’s the kind of place where it takes five minutes just to read the fancy coffee options, and they definitely don’t have beer. Aunt Daphne said she had to do a Google search for half the menu items because she’d never heard of them. And we do technically have a bar, but it’s like eight seats in the middle of a chain restaurant, so you’ve got a family celebrating a kid’s birthday on one side of you and the pastor and his wife sharing appetizers on the other. There’s no place to go and just have a beer with your friends. Maybe let loose a little.”
“But not too loose, since it’s literally in my mother’s yard.”
“You don’t sound very happy about that.”
“Are you happy about it? It’s going to be across the street from your bedroom window.”
A memory from a long time ago surfaced in Case’s mind, making him chuckle. Back when he’d been dating Mallory, she’d complained that Gwen had the street-facing room because if Mal’s bedroom windows had faced his, she could have drawn hearts on the glass for him. Instead, his window faced Gwen’s and if she was going to be in town for a while, he should probably start closing his curtains.
He wondered if Gwen would close hers and then wanted to kick himself. Whether she did or not, he wasn’t going to try to peek. One, that would be creepy as hell, and two, it was Gwen. He’d never been into Gwen that way.
“The plans deliberately keep it small,” he said, determined to get his thoughts back on track, “so it shouldn’t be too rowdy, except maybe during sports playoffs. And your dad and Lane spent considerable time talking about the balance between being affordable in this area versus keeping the prices high enough to keep out the people just looking to get drunk.”
“And the parking?”
“The back lawn, behind the carriage house, is being turned into a parking lot. You guys never use it, anyway, and it will connect with the other street, so cars won’t be going in and out of your mom’s driveway.” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I know it’s probably a lot to take in, but they really put a lot of thought and care into it. Once you’ve seen all the plans and talk to Lane, I think you’ll feel better about the whole thing.”
“If they were bound and determined to do it, I guess it wouldn’t have made sense to buy or lease another property when Dad had this, but it’s weird to have it so close.”
“How come Ellen never moved the thrift store into the carriage house? It seems like it would have been easier, especially when you were kids.”
“She inherited the business—and the building—fromherparents, even though she changed the name to Sutton’s Seconds after they passed because she hated the wordjunkin the original name. My grandparents chose that location because it’s in the sight line and easy walking distance of the market, which has the highest foot traffic in town. And I think she liked the distance. When she was at work, she wasat work. If the thrift store was here, she probably would have spent half her time running between the shop and the house.”
“She’s a smart woman.”
“She is.” Gwen sighed. “Which is why I can’t believe she let Dad get in this deep. How could she let him do this?”
“Because it was his dream and I loved him.”
Case winced when Ellen’s voice echoed through the space. He hadn’t heard her come in, and obviously Gwen hadn’t, either. The carriage house was suddenly the last place he wanted to be, but Ellen was between him and the door, so all he could do was give Gwen what he hoped was a sympathetic look and pretend to be interested in the electrical wires.
