Chapter 3

ChapterThree

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.

She glanced at the door again. Nothing but a small gaggle of older women bustling in. They smiled at her as they took their seats.

It was for the best, really. Jeanie also wasn’t good at relationships that lasted longer than a few weeks, and a fling in a town as small as this one seemed like a terrible idea. Not that Logan wanted to have a fling with her. Not that he’d even wanted to have a cup of coffee with her this morning, before she forced him into it . . .

‘Hey.’ His gruff greeting startled her out of her thoughts as he slid into the seat next to her. He smelled like the outdoors, like fall leaves and woodsmoke. Jeanie resisted the urge to snuggle closer to his warmth in the drafty room.

‘Hi.’ Be cool, casual. She stole a glance at him as he settled in. Still handsome. Damn it. ‘How was your day?’ she asked. Just a casual question for a new acquaintance. No crazy, ghost theories here.

‘Uh . . . good.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Normal.’

Jeanie smiled. ‘Normal is good.’

Logan nodded. ‘If you like normal, you’re going to hate this meeting.’

Jeanie smiled bigger. Was that a little joke from the serious farmer? ‘Do things get wild at the Dream Harbor bi-monthly town meetings?’

‘Just wait.’ He’d leaned toward her and his low voice rumbled through her.

No time to dwell on that toe-curling sensation, though, because the meeting hall was filling in and Jeanie was busy taking in the sights.

People were starting to take their seats, the room warming significantly with the influx of bodies. A loud laugh drew Jeanie’s attention to a few rows ahead of them. The owner of the laugh was a woman, maybe in her forties – though if she was, she looked great for her age further justifying Jeanie’s small-town living plan. The people here aged so well! The woman laughed again, her sleek black bob brushing past her round face. She wedged herself in between an older woman with short, gray hair and a man in his twenties talking loudly, his hands punctuating every word.

‘Book club,’ Logan muttered in her ear.

‘Book club,’ Jeanie repeated faintly, watching as two other women, one with an infant strapped to her chest, joined the conversation from the next row. ‘They look like fun.’

‘Fun. Ha. They run this town.’ Logan’s ominous tone was completely at odds with the laughing, smiling group in front of them. Especially when the black-bobbed woman turned and gave him a big wave.

Logan groaned and waved back.

The rest of the group turned, and Jeanie could practically see their eyes light up, the whole group clearly pleased to see him.

‘Logan! What a rare treat,’ the older woman called.

‘Hey, Nancy.’

‘We miss you at our meetings,’ the younger man said with a wink. A wink?

Logan grumbled. ‘I never came to your meetings.’

The man laughed. ‘Well, maybe not on purpose, but we liked roping you in. Especially when we read Passion in the Fields – The Farmer and the Milkmaid.’ The man was talking so loudly that the entire room could hear. Several people giggled and turned to look at Logan.

‘Oh, that was such a good one.’ The woman with the baby clapped a hand to her chest and mimed a swoon in her chair.

Logan’s face, when Jeanie sneaked a peek, was bright red above his beard. She bit down on a smile.

‘Are you the new café owner?’ The black-haired woman asked her. ‘I’m Kaori.’

‘Jeanie. And, yes, I’m the new owner.’

‘Get that place up and running again!’ the lady with the baby scolded with a laugh. ‘I’m tired of meeting at Kaori’s house. It’s too cluttered in there. Cutesy vases and weird knick-knacks everywhere. It gives me hives.’

Kaori playfully smacked the woman’s shoulder. ‘Ignore Isabel. And welcome to Dream Harbor.’

The book club ladies then returned to talking amongst themselves.

‘Passion in the Fields, huh?’ Jeanie asked, unable to resist.

Logan cleared his throat and shifted in his seat, the chair creaking loudly in protest. ‘I didn’t read it.’

‘Too bad. Sounds like a good one.’ She stifled a laugh at the thought of Logan reading a book about a farmer and a milkmaid, and forced herself to stop casting herself in the role of said ‘milkmaid’.

‘I guess I need to get things opened up again. I don’t want to anger the book club.’ She’d meant it as a joke but even she could hear the uncertainty in her voice, the stress of not being ready to open creeping in.

‘Don’t worry about them. They’re just looking for a place to peddle their pornography.’

Jeanie looked up just in time to catch the small smile on his face. Another joke.

‘Well, we wouldn’t want that. And we certainly wouldn’t want to objectify farmers.’

Logan’s smile hitched higher. Oh, damn, she might need to go check this book out later. Satisfy her new appreciation for farmers in a safe way.

‘Did I miss anything?’ A woman with curly brown hair dropped into the seat on the other side of Logan.

‘Nope.’

‘Actually, you missed a pretty interesting literary conversation,’ Jeanie chimed in, reminding Logan of her presence.

‘It was not interesting. Jeanie, this is Hazel. Hazel, Jeanie.’

Hazel extended her hand across Logan’s lap and Jeanie took it. Hazel’s fingers stuck out of her fingerless mittens, and they were cold in Jeanie’s hand.

‘Nice to meet you.’

Hazel’s gaze flicked from Jeanie to Logan and back again. ‘Nice to meet you, too. I run the bookstore next to your café.’

Jeanie’s smile grew. ‘Oh, it’s so cute!’

Hazel’s cheeks colored. ‘Thanks.’

Jeanie was busy wondering if Hazel kept any farmer romances stocked and nearly missed the woman’s next question.

‘And how do you two know each other?’ she asked.

‘Oh, the usual way,’ Jeanie said. ‘I nearly knocked his head off with a baseball bat because I thought he was an intruder on his way to murder me, but he was actually just dropping off adorable little pumpkins . . . er . . . gourds. And then I mentioned the café might be haunted so he suggested I come here for some . . . uh . . . help.’

Hazel’s eyes widened behind her glasses. ‘Uh . . . wow.’

Jeanie tried for a smile that made her seem slightly less unhinged, but she didn’t think it landed. Hazel sat back in her seat with a small smile of her own. She whispered something to Logan, which made Logan give a fierce shake of his head. Jeanie didn’t have time to overthink that before another woman landed in a chair in the row ahead of them.

‘Do you see him over there? He’s clearly plotting something,’ she said, launching straight into a conversation Jeanie didn’t know they were having.

‘He looks like he’s just talking,’ mumbled Logan, and the new woman narrowed her eyes at him.

‘Yeah, talking to the mayor. He’s probably got more crazy plans to ruin this town.’

‘It’s just a trivia night, Annie.’

‘A trivia night on the same night as my Baking for Beginners class! He planned it like that!’ She glowered at the man across the room and Jeanie followed her gaze. The trivia-planning, town-ruining man in question was tall and handsome. Not like farmer handsome, but definitely attractive. Dark hair, bronze skin. His smile was more of a cocky smirk. What was in the water here? Were all the town’s men sexy? Was that the dream of Dream Harbor? Jeanie couldn’t say she was mad about it.

‘You act as though we haven’t known Mac since kindergarten,’ said Logan.

Annie frowned. ‘That’s exactly the problem. You remember how mean he was. He stole your chocolate milk every day of second grade! You of all people should understand!’

Logan let out a low laugh, a soft puff of air. ‘I’m over it.’

Annie crossed her arms over her chest. ‘Well, I’m not.’

She finally glanced in Jeanie’s direction, who smiled and gave a small wave.

‘Oh, my gosh! You must be the mysterious new café owner! I’m Annie, owner of The Sugar Plum Bakery. Nice to finally meet you.’

‘Am I mysterious?’ Jeanie asked, sneaking a glance at Logan. His face was grim, but he didn’t offer up an answer. ‘Nice to meet you, too. Your bakery smells delicious every morning.’

‘Then, come by! Oh, and also, I usually deliver scones to the café on weekend mornings. Spare me the greeting you gave Logan.’

Jeanie’s cheeks heated in embarrassment, but Annie was laughing like it was all in good fun.

‘It really wasn’t personal––’ she started to explain, but Annie waved a hand to cut her off.

‘If I saw this big oaf skulking around the back alley and I didn’t know him since birth, I’d probably try to hit him on the head, too.’

‘I don’t skulk.’

‘You were a little skulk-y,’ Jeanie added.

Annie jabbed a finger at Logan. ‘See, you do skulk. I like her,’ she said, pointing at Jeanie.

‘When is this damn meeting going to start?’ Logan’s voice was an adorable mix of exasperation and despair.

Hazel patted his knee with her still-mittened hand. ‘You know Mayor Kelly never starts on time.’

‘Why do you call him that? Just call him Dad.’

Hazel shrugged. ‘He’s at work. I’m trying to be respectful.’

Logan rolled his eyes, but Jeanie couldn’t help the smile on her face. She liked these people already. She liked this town. She liked this grumpy farmer. Was it too much to wish that she could fit in here? That Annie could actually like her, that the book club might ask her to join, that Hazel might introduce her to her dad, the mayor?

The pressure to make things at the café work was building. But if Jeanie had made sure Marvin was ready for his weekly meetings with billion-dollar investors, then surely she could run a small café. Right?