locked the door and switched the sign to Closed. He turned to watch Gracie straighten shelves that had been ransacked by curious customers who had done a lot of business in the store that day. His best day yet.
Thanks to Gracie, the Bygones Runaway Bride. That was what he’d heard people calling her and he’d overheard Whitney, the local reporter, discussing the headline for Thursday’s paper. He needed to tell Gracie that she would soon be front-page news. He just didn’t know how to bring it up.
If today had been bad for her, Thursday would be a nightmare.
She turned, saw him watching her and smiled. He found it a lot easier to smile back than he’d imagined. He’d been surprised by several things today. First and foremost, her lack of tears over the marriage that wasn’t. Shouldn’t she be crying? Wouldn’t she be second-guessing herself?
He’d heard the ‘‘cold feet’’ theory floated by several people. Some said the wedding would take place in a month or so, after she had time to think about it.
“Hey, I’ve been thinking about something today.” She turned from the cans of spray paint and wiped her hands on the apron that came to her knees because it was meant for a person a lot bigger than she was.
“What’s that?”
“Workshops for women.” Gracie looked around, as if she was still thinking up the plan.
“Workshops for women? What is that?”
“What you should do. What we could do to draw in customers. I don’t know, I guess I’ve always had to do things for myself and I thought that all women—well, maybe not all, but most women—could figure things out for themselves. Today I learned that a lot of them don’t have a clue. They can’t even paint a cabinet with spray paint. One of them bought a precut bookshelf off the internet and she didn’t know how to put it together or if she even had the tools.”
“What are you getting at, Gracie?” Patrick slipped the apron off his neck and rolled up the sleeves he’d kept down and buttoned at his wrists during the workday.
“We could do workshops.” She gave him a look that said the name was self-explanatory. “For women. We can teach them how to build a bookshelf, make their homes more secure or more energy efficient. And in the process, we could bring in business.”
He looked around the little store that was his future, his dream, and then back to the woman who had maybe come up with an idea that would keep his future in the black. Lately he’d been taking on more handyman jobs just to keep things going. He’d also been considering going online with the store and with the rocking chairs he’d been building. Her idea would be one more thing to help make his store profitable.
“I like it, and I think you’re definitely my new assistant manager.”
She laughed and he was taken by surprise that her laughter made him smile. “You realize I’m your only employee, right?”
“I do realize that, but today you did the work of three people.”
“And I managed, through one little wedding scandal, to bring in dozens of customers you hadn’t expected.”
“I hate to say it, but yes, you did.”
Pink crawled up her neck into her cheeks. “I heard more personal stories today than I ever thought I’d hear. I never planned on being anyone’s hero or the person everyone shared their tales of heartbreak with.”
“I’m sure you didn’t. And did you plan on trying to fix me up with half the single women in Bygones?” More pink. He laughed because it served her right. “I overheard you tell at least a dozen women that I’m single and the nicest guy you know and they should maybe ask me to the social, or the singles meeting, or even out for a cup of coffee.”
“Oops. Well, you are single and nice, and if you’re going to stay in Bygones, you should go out once in a while, not work all of the time.”
“Thank you for thinking of me, Gracie, but I’ll be fine. I can cook, do my own laundry and even put a bookcase together.”
“I’m sure you can.”
“Let’s grab some coffee. We could both use a break.”
“I should go home.” She pulled the cell phone out of her pocket and glanced at the time. “I need to cook dinner, and my little brother has a load of laundry that he can’t wash on his own.”
“I think they’ll be fine without you for a little while. Who would have done those things for them if…”
He sighed and wished he’d kept his thoughts to himself. He didn’t need to get this involved. What Gracie did for her family was none of his concern.
“If I’d gotten married?” She folded up her apron but held it in her hands, staring at it rather than looking at him.
“I imagine your little brother can do a load of laundry.”
“I’ve been taking care of them for years, you know. I mean, I’ll be twenty-five in October, and for almost fifteen years I’ve been cooking, doing their laundry, mending their clothes and stopping their fights. It’s hard to let go.”
He knew all about letting go. The words reminded him of the day he’d watched all the stock from the Fogerty Hardware store being loaded into a truck and shipped to a large store in a nearby community. He’d signed the building over to the new owner and he’d let go of a family business that he’d invested his life in. The same business his father had died in.
Until that day, he hadn’t seen that he’d been heading down the same path as his father. The path of long hours, at least.
“Let’s have that coffee.” She looked up from the apron she was still holding. “And maybe something to eat. I’m starving. My boss is a nice guy, but I barely had time for lunch today.”
“That would be your fault. You’re the one that left the groom at the altar and caused all this notoriety for yourself.”
“True, very true, but you’re the guy all the women in town are mooning over.”
“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
