The Boss's Bride (The Heart of Main Street)

by Minton, Brenda

“I’m starting to think they need more single men in Bygones.” He opened the door to the stockroom and watched as she gathered her purse and the lunch she hadn’t eaten. “I have leftover chili if you’re hungry.”

  “Chili that I didn’t cook? That sounds great.”

  Great. He had offered. She had accepted. He led her outside and up the back steps to his apartment.

  Gracie walked up the steps and through the door into the apartment over the hardware store. Her mouth dropped, seriously dropped. Patrick Fogerty was a genius. She knew how to repair a wall, build a porch and fix a roof, but what he’d done with that decades-old apartment was amazing.

  “It’s beautiful.” She had seen it before he started working on it. It was a typical apartment from a building that had seen its heyday in the 1920s or earlier. The rooms had been small, the floors covered with teal carpet, and the plaster walls had been cracked and chipped.

  Patrick stood back, pride evident on his ruggedly handsome face as she wandered through what had become a loft-style apartment. The rooms had been opened up, wood floors put down. The windows were open and a breeze blew in. The kitchen had sleek

  European-style cabinets in deep mahogany, and the lights were bar lights that focused on different areas of the open living room and kitchen area.

  “I’m impressed. How did you come up with all this in Bygones?”

  “I made a trip to Manhattan, Kansas, obviously, not New York. Or several trips. I found surplus cabinets and flooring for a great price. Since I do the labor myself, it didn’t cost much.”

  “You could forget the hardware store and do this for a living.”

  “I enjoy the hardware store.”

  Gracie wandered into the kitchen and thought she’d love to cook in a kitchen like this one, with new appliances and sleek, modern fixtures. The kitchen at the farm hadn’t been updated in years. The cookstove had to be lit with a match each time she used it. She had installed a new faucet and kept the oven working.

  “Coffee?” Patrick pushed a button on the single-serve coffeemaker.

  “Please.” She wandered back to the living room. “I’ve lived on the farm my whole life and thought I’d always live on a farm until I met…” She sighed and turned to face Patrick, “Trent. We were going to live in Manhattan.”

  “I see.”

  He handed her a cup of coffee, and she took it and sat at the bar that separated the kitchen from the dining area and living room.

  “I don’t think I’d make a good lawyer’s wife. It’s too much pressure.”

  “I think you’d be fine.”

  She smiled at that and at the tone of his voice that said he was uncomfortable with the conversation. She understood. Two days ago she’d been engaged. Now she was sitting in Patrick’s apartment discussing what would have been.

  “I’m always fine, Patrick. It’s how I’m wired. I deal with life and move on.”

  He sat down next to her, a steaming cup of coffee in front of him. “It isn’t always that easy.”

  “No, I guess it isn’t. But it makes people more comfortable if they think you’re fine. If you smile when they ask how you are and tell them you’re great, it makes them happy.” She lifted the cup and took a sip because she was saying too much and no one really wanted to hear it. And she was too embarrassed to tell the whole truth.

  She hadn’t been good enough for Trent Morgan. No matter how she dressed up, fixed her hair and did all of the other girl stuff that Trent seemed to think was important, it hadn’t been enough. He’d always been trying to change her, to make her fit the mold of who he wanted her to be.

  She held the coffee cup in her hand and thought about how much she wanted to tell someone other than her dad what Trent had done to her, that he’d tried to change her, that he’d cheated on her. He hadn’t loved her enough.

  Someday she wanted to be loved enough.

  “How about that chili?” Patrick left the seat next to her and she smiled as he opened the fridge door to pull out a bowl.

  “I could make something if you don’t want leftovers.”

  “I thought we’d agreed that you don’t always have to take care of everyone?”

  She started to nod but her phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket and groaned. “Yes, that’s what we agreed, but I have to take this.” She answered. “What is it, Evan?”

  Her younger brother responded, “Shouldn’t you be home by now?”

  “I should, but I’m still in town. What do you need?”

  “There’s nothing for supper and you said you’d throw my laundry in for me. I have to go to Oklahoma tomorrow.”

  “You can do laundry. I taught you how, remember? And there’s a casserole in the freezer. Preheat the oven to four hundred degrees and bake it for an hour.”

  “Seriously? Where are you? Everyone is saying you flipped out Saturday. I’m starting to think they’re right.”

  “Maybe I have. And maybe it’s time you learned to take care of yourself.” She wanted to tell him that if he’d bothered showing up for the wedding he wouldn’t have to get secondhand information.

  He hung up on her and she didn’t know what to do. The microwave dinged and Patrick pulled a bowl out and set it in front of her.

  “See, that wasn’t so hard, now, was it?” He reached into a cabinet and handed her a package of crackers.

  “It wasn’t easy.” She took the crackers and the spoon he handed her. “He really can’t take care of himself.”

  “I’m sure he can, if he has to.”

  “Maybe.” Gracie crunched a few crackers into her chili and leaned in to inhale the lovely aroma. “Do you have family, Patrick?”

  “I have an older brother in California. My dad passed away several years ago. My mom remarried and lives in Georgia.”

  “I see.” She watched as he moved around the kitchen, a confident man, terribly handsome. She focused, for some reason, on the sleeves of his plaid shirt that he’d rolled up to reveal strong, deeply tanned forearms.

  He sat down next to her and she refocused on the bowl of chili.

  “My family has a tendency to do their own thing,” he said, handing her a package of shredded cheese.

  “Mine like to be very involved in each other’s lives.”

  “Isn’t that part of being in a small town?”

  She shrugged. “I guess. I don’t know because it’s all I’ve ever known. And taking care of my family is all I’ve ever known.”

  His hand settled on hers. “Eat your chili before you go rushing off to rescue your brother.”

  She closed her eyes and tried to find a reason why his command, the softness of his voice, would make her want to cry. Maybe it had to do with exhaustion catching up with her? The past six months of planning the wedding had felt like being tied to a race car and dragged around the track with no way to escape.

  “It will get better,” his voice continued, smooth and reassuring.

  Gracie looked up at him, studying the handsome face, brown eyes the color of coffee with just enough cream. She blinked a few times to clear her thoughts. She somehow convinced herself it was that exhaustion thing again.

  “Yes, it’ll get better. But I should go.”

  “Of course.” He started to say something but a knock on the door interrupted.

  “And you have company.”

  “I wasn’t expecting company.”

  “Another perk to living in a small town. Always expect company and usually when you least expect it.” She finished the last bite of chili and carried the bowl to the sink.

  Patrick watched her for a brief second and then he answered the repeated knock on the door. Gracie grabbed her purse and keys. When she walked around the corner, Patrick was standing in the doorway. Willa Douglas, single and pretty, stood on the la
nding with a casserole dish in her hands. Her eyes widened when she saw Gracie.

  Gracie smiled at Willa and then at Patrick. “See you tomorrow, boss.”

  As Gracie hurried down the stairs, she told herself that what she felt wasn’t disappointment or even jealousy. She’d had enough of men in her life. She definitely wasn’t the type of person to have a rebound relationship just days after ending an engagement.

  Patrick Fogerty was a decent man. Maybe even a friend. She liked that idea. He could be her friend. Friendship was easy and uncomplicated. A friend wouldn’t break her heart.

  Chapter Four

  Early Wednesday morning, Patrick walked down the sidewalk with a steaming cup of coffee from the Cozy Cup Café. He’d been the first customer, and he and Josh Smith had talked shop. Josh needed some repairs to a door that someone had tried to open during the night. Patrick had questions about his store computer. Everything these days was computerized, even the cash register. For a guy that liked to hit a few buttons, have a drawer pop open and be done with it, it was hard to adjust.

  The two of them had also talked about the upcoming block party that the store owners were organizing with Gracie’s help. They would have door prizes and other programs to draw in business. But lately the biggest draw was one Gracie Wilson. The Bygones Runaway Bride, as she’d been renamed, was bringing in more business than anyone could have expected.

  Who knew that people would be that curious about a woman standing up a man at the altar?

  He paused as he crossed Bronson Avenue. Of course, there was no traffic at this early hour. In the distance he heard trucks at the Wilsons’ granary and he could see a car or two coming up Main Street, probably to get something at the Sweet Dreams Bakery. He had considered stopping in but he needed to get down to his store and do some last-minute stocking before he opened the doors.

  As he continued down the sidewalk, past the freshly painted brick buildings that the town seemed to be having a hard time accepting, he thought about the conversation he and Josh had just had about the benefactor of the town, the person responsible for funding the face-lift of the downtown area and the money for the new businesses.

  The speculation had turned to Robert Randall, owner of the recently closed Randall Manufacturing. Maybe the old guy had felt guilty for what he’d done to the town, closing the plant and all. That had been Patrick’s thought lately.

  Patrick sipped the best cup of coffee he’d had in a long time and slowed to look in the store windows. He passed his shop and looked in the window of the Fluff & Stuff pet store. He’d been thinking lately that it would be nice to have a dog. He hadn’t had a pet since his teen years. He’d just been too busy for anything other than himself.

  His family hadn’t been pet people, anyway. They’d traveled. They’d worked. His parents had ignored each other.

  Behind him he heard a shrill voice calling, “Yoo-hoo, Patrick.”

  He turned and smiled at Ann Mars as she crossed the road, her long white hair stacked on her head in a knot that seemed to continuously slip to one side. She was a tiny thing, and he always had a strange urge to pick her up and set her on something so he wouldn’t have to lean to talk to her. He smiled at the thought. She was a dynamo and would probably swat his hands if he tried anything like that.

  “Miss Mars, good morning.”

  “Hello to you, too, Patrick, and don’t call me Miss Mars. My goodness, you are a tall drink of water.” She craned her neck to look up at him.

  “I am?” He took a sip of his coffee and waited.

  “I thought I’d check with you to see how our Gracie is doing.”

  Our Gracie? He cleared his throat and started to object, but he didn’t. He was learning to be small town, and he knew that if he tried to deny Gracie, he’d be in serious trouble. She might have left Trent Morgan at the altar, but to these sweet ladies, both Ann Mars and Coraline Connolly, Gracie seemed to be the victim. They probably knew more about the situation than he did.

  “She seems to be surviving the uproar, Ann.”

  “That’s because she survives, Patrick. She’s survived everything.” She hooked her arm through his. “Walk with me.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “She’s survived losing her mother. She has survived that rowdy bunch of men in her home. She’s cooked, cleaned and taken care of everything since she was just a little girl. She’s going to handle this situation, too. She’s going to do what she always does. She’s going to hold her chin up and take care of everyone. And she isn’t going to let on that she’s hurting at all.”

  “I see.” He pulled the store key from his pocket as they made their way back up the street to his store. His store. He admired the light-colored brick, the windows painted simply with The Fixer-Upper and the green awning over the wide glass-and-wood door. He turned his attention back to the tiny woman at his side, smiling down at her. “She has good friends. I know you and Miss Coraline will help her through this.”

  “And so we will. But you’re going to have to keep an eye on her while she’s here. People are circling like buzzards after roadkill, and if that Morgan woman hasn’t showed up, she will.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  He unlocked the door, and Ann Mars stared up at him, her mouth twisted and her eyes scrunched nearly closed. “Patrick Fogerty, you’re a gentleman and I’m counting on you.”

  He thought that this was the place in the conversation where someone would hand him a manila envelope and tell him his assignment, should he wish to accept it, was inside. But Gracie Wilson wasn’t his assignment. He had a business that needed his attention. He had a new life here in Bygones, and it was already complicated enough without the SOS committee becoming the Save Gracie Foundation.

  He doubted very seriously that Gracie Wilson wanted him as a bodyguard. He’d been around town long enough to know she had five overprotective brothers who took their duties seriously. Shed complained in the past that they could be a little overwhelming at times.

  “Ann, I’m not convinced that Gracie and Trent won’t work things out. Maybe the wedding will still take place.”

  “Why in the world would you think that?”

  “Because people get cold feet.”

  Ann pursed her lips again, a sure sign that he wasn’t saying what she wanted to hear. “Gracie doesn’t run from anything.”

  He pushed the door open. “I should get in here and get things ready to start the day.”

  “And I need to get back up the street to my place,” Ann Mars replied.

  “I’ll see you later.”

  He watched as she marched away, her arms swinging as she hurried off toward This ’N’ That. For a woman in her eighties, she had a lot of energy. He smiled, shook his head and stepped inside the hardware store.

  As he walked through the store, he stopped to flip on lights. He turned on the cash register and checked to make sure the coffeepot had started brewing. A car honked outside. He turned and watched as a dog walked slowly across the street and then down the sidewalk. The animal, a medium-size brown mutt with wiry hair, had been around for a few days. He thought maybe someone had dumped it in hopes the Fluff & Stuff pet store would take the animal in.

  He liked dogs as much as anyone, but the mixed breed with wiry brown hair and floppy ears seemed to think the best place to hang out was the front door of The Fixer-Upper. Since it had started hanging around Bygones, he would often find it curled up on the sidewalk in front of his store.

  The front door opened and the bell chimed to announce a customer. He glanced at his watch and started to tell the woman entering the store that he wasn’t open yet. But she didn’t look like a woman he wanted to argue with. Her short hair was perfectly cut. Her suit, a skirt, jacket and blouse, looked expensive. And she looked angry.

  “Where is she?” The woman marched
down the aisle between the saws and drills, her mouth a tight line of disapproval.

  “I’m sorry?” He reached for the dark green work apron he wore in the store.

  “Gracie Wilson. Where is she?”

  And then it hit him. Mrs. Morgan. Lovely woman. He wondered why the dog hadn’t barked. A good dog would have barked a warning.

  “She isn’t here yet.”

  “When do you expect her?”

  He glanced at his watch and caught the groan before it slipped out. “Soon.”

  “Then I’ll wait.”

  He caught sight of an old farm truck and he knew that Gracie would soon walk through the back door. The dog out front seemed to be waiting for her. It stood, wagging a wiry brush of a tail. That confirmed his suspicions that the dog might be getting fed here at the store.

  “Maybe if you come back later it would be better.” He took the woman by the arm, nearly choking on the cloud of perfume that clung to the air around her.

  “I need to speak to Miss Wilson because there is the small matter of what she owes me.”

  The front door opened again. Patrick didn’t know if he should breathe a sigh of relief or pray for mercy. A hardware store, at least the one he’d grown up in, was a man’s world. He knew about building things, fixing things. He didn’t know about small-town politics, drama and what appeared to be women on the warpath.

  Coraline Connolly marched down the aisle, her nose in the air and her pace brisk. She wasn’t a big woman, but she walked with the authority of a woman who had been a school principal and knew how to handle problems.

  “Mrs. Morgan, my goodness, imagine seeing you here.” Coraline smiled a frozen smile that Patrick was pretty glad he wasn’t the recipient of.

  “Coraline, this has nothing to do with you.”

  Coraline moved Patrick aside. “Oh, I know that. I just thought the two of us could take a little walk. We have some fund-raisers coming up in town and I’d love to be able to put your family name on the list of benefactors.”

  “I need to speak to Gracie.” Mrs. Morgan pulled her arm from Coraline’s grasp.