Chapter Three
Hello, I’m Jeanie Ellis, Dorothy’s niece, and the new owner of The Pumpkin Spice Café. I’ve been having a little issue with a nocturnal disturbance...
Nocturnal disturbance? That made her sound even crazier than she had this morning. Jeanie’s knee bounced up and down despite her attempts to stop. She was nervous. She wanted to make a good first impression at this meeting, and she’d gone over her little speech in her head at least a dozen times since she got here. Twenty minutes early, apparently.
She sat at the back of the room; the old floors and possibly even older chair creaking beneath her. There were only a handful of other people milling around the room, greeting each other with the easy familiarity she hadn’t found since she was a kid. She’d missed it. The sense of belonging, of home. She hadn’t realized she’d missed it. In fact, she’d run from the little town where she’d grown up as soon as she graduated high school, so ready to be free of its constraining borders. But somewhere along the way, the thrill of the city, the crowds, and the concrete had lost its allure.
She shifted in her seat and the chair groaned ominously. An older gentleman offered her a friendly smile and a salute as he walked by to join a group gathered near the podium. Jeanie raised a hand to return it, but he was already gone. Tucking her hands between her thighs in an effort to warm them and to keep from fidgeting, she watched the group greet the man with good-natured teasing about his bright-green tie. Jeanie couldn’t remember the last time she’d joked around like that. The last time she had people like that to joke with. At least not in person. Somehow in the last several years, her closest friend had become her brother. And their relationship consisted of random texts, memes, and the occasional FaceTime chat.
Jeanie pulled her coat around her shoulders. It was freezing in here despite the rattling efforts of the radiators lining the walls.
The town meetings were held in the original town hall building, which according to the engraved brick out front was built in 1870. Jeanie couldn’t really imagine what it looked like in 1870, but tonight it looked like a small auditorium with several rows of metal folding chairs and a podium up front. The stage behind the podium was decorated for what Jeanie imagined would be an upcoming fall performance. Hand-painted scenery with pumpkins and apple trees lined the back of the stage with hay bales scattered in front. Jeanie pictured kids in costumes dancing around up there, waving to their parents in the audience. It would be adorable, she was sure. Although she did question the safety of putting children on a stage that old. Would those old wooden planks support them?
She shook the thought from her head and glanced back toward the double doors that led to the meeting space. Still no Logan. Maybe he’d just agreed to come to get her to stop talking. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had agreed with her just to get her to shut up. She’d come on too strong, as per usual. Laying out all her problems and sleep-deprived theories right at the quiet farmer’s feet. The very handsome, very quiet farmer.
Jeanie smoothed her hands down her thighs, trying to wrestle her bouncing knee into submission. It didn’t matter that Logan was handsome. Like, very, very handsome. Like, if there was a Sexy Farmer Weekly, he would be on the cover.
It didn’t matter because getting involved with handsome farmers was not a part of her New Jeanie plan. She had agreed to her aunt’s crazy idea to take over the café so she could have a fresh start.
Jeanie had spent the last seven years as the executive assistant to the CEO of Franklin, Mercer & Young Financial. Until he had a heart attack and died at his desk one night. Jeanie had been the one to find him the next morning, his vacant eyes staring at her as she entered his office, coffee in hand. The coffee stain on the carpet from where she’d dropped the mug in shock was still there when she quit.
The doctor said the heart attack was stress-induced. That and Marvin’s atrocious diet of mostly bacon and late-night takeout. But it was the stress-induced part that stuck with Jeanie. Was that her future? To work and work until her heart just gave out? Gave up?
Jeanie had a tendency to overthink. To over-talk. To overwork. She didn’t do rest and relaxation very well. She didn’t do calm or cool. But she was determined to try. For her health, she was determined to try. Suddenly, the fact that her life consisted only of work, a few office acquaintances she got drinks with on Fridays – when she wasn’t too exhausted to join them – and her pitiful and sporadic attempts at dating, seemed like a very big problem. A deadly problem.
When, only a few weeks after Marvin’s death, her Aunt Dot had devised this plan for Jeanie to move to Dream Harbor and take over the café, it had seemed like the perfect escape. Except now Jeanie was certain she was failing already. Especially after her little performance with the handsome farmer this morning. She’d nearly taken his head off, and then she’d talked his ear off at a thousand miles per hour. She’d seen the horrified look on his face. He’d wanted nothing more than to escape.