Page 7 of Surrendering to the Grump

Halfway to my car, my phone buzzes one more time.

Unknown Number:

Half the lot. East side only. Three days. Nobody talks to me.

I stop walking. Look at the screen. Look back at the shop.

Through the window, Rhett Gallagher is eating a salted caramel with sawdust still on his hands, not looking in my direction.

Me:

Deal. Thank you.

Unknown Number:

Don't thank me. I'm doing it for the caramels.

I save his number under "Grumpy Parking Lot Man" and drive home grinning so hard my face hurts.

CHAPTER THREE

RHETT

Wednesday. Four days since Kennedy negotiated half my parking lot with salted caramels. She's been by every single day since.

Monday she needed help carrying boxes of corn maze signs from her car to the festival grounds. I told her to ask someone else. Then I carried the boxes because they were too heavy for her and the thought of her throwing out her back made me irrationally angry.

Tuesday she brought pumpkin cheesecake brownies from Ms. Shelly's counter at The Book Nook. Set them on my bench, told me the FALL IN LOVE sign needed a new support brace because the frame was rotting, and asked if I could "take a look." Three hours later I'd rebuilt the entire frame from cedar because the original was garbage pine that should have been replaced years ago.

Today she walks in at four thirty with flour on her elbow and a look on her face that tells me she wants something.

"Before you say no."

"No."

"Rhett." She sets a bag from Home Sweet Burgers on my bench. Their smoked apple cheddar burger. She remembered. "Hank needs someone to look at a support beam in the back room at his bar. He says it's been creaking and he doesn't trust anyone in town who isn't, and I'm quoting, 'that grumpy bastard who actually knows what he's doing with wood.'"

"Hank can hire a contractor."

"Hank won't hire a contractor because Hank is, and I'm quoting again, 'not paying some clown from Rockford two hundred dollars to tell me my bar is old. I know my bar is old. I was here when it was new.'"

Despite myself, my mouth twitches. She sees it. Her whole face lights up.

"Come with me. We'll go look at the beam, you'll tell Hank it's fine or it's not, and I'll buy you a whiskey."

"I don't need you to buy me a whiskey."

"Then buy me one. Either way, you're leaving this shop before six o'clock for the first time since I've known you."

Fifteen minutes later I'm in her passenger seat driving down Maple Lane toward Hank's. Her car smells like cinnamon. There's a stack of festival flyers in the back seat, a coffee cup from Maple Lane Cafe, a pair of kid's rain boots that probably belong to a student. The woman carries her entire life in this vehicle.

"Stop looking at my car mess."

"I'm not."

"You're judging. You organize your wood shavings by species. My car having loose papers in it is making your eye twitch."

"Both eyes."