A Town Called Valentine(33)
“Good thing you corrected yourself. I can’t hear naughty words.”
He didn’t want to like her, but he couldn’t help himself. “I was a teenager at the time, but I can still remember Mrs. Ludlow calmly setting her walker to one side and putting manacles on her wrists.”
She laughed aloud, and he saw more than one man look her way appreciatively.
“So what happened to the building?” she asked. “Surely they didn’t drag three old women away.”
“Nope, they came up with a grant that enabled the building to be renovated into a B&B down by Silver Creek. It’s called Connections now.”
“Connections?”
“The B&B is one of the ways we’re connected to Valentine’s past.”
They smiled at each other, and he felt his own begin to fade as he contemplated the joy in Emily’s eyes. A man could look at that every day.
She slapped her hands on her thighs as she rose to her feet. “I think it’s time for you to go, cowboy. I have work to do, and I suspect those cows need you, too.”
He followed her back inside the restaurant and through the kitchen. He saw again the holes in the walls. “You going to hire someone to repair all this?”
At the back door, she turned and put her hands on her hips. “Why does everyone ask that? I’m a hard worker.”
“No offense, but there’s some skill involved.”
“What I don’t know, I’ll learn, so thanks for your concern.”
He passed her to go out into the rear hall. Without even touching her, he could feel the warmth of her body, smell the faint hint of floral perfume beneath the odor of Spic and Span. Whatever he told his brain, his body was paying attention to other signals.
“Tell Scout I missed seeing him,” Emily said, holding open the door to the alley.
She was a dog lover, too. Nate took the steps down to his truck before he could linger, but Emily had already shut the door.
Emily locked the alley door behind Nate and locked away any more thoughts of him. She was glad the awkwardness was finished. Well, most of it. She returned to the front of the restaurant and stood near the door’s glass window. Though she still kept the shutters drawn because of the mess, she could see out enough to admire how the town had made the best of its location and history. The perfect example was the Hotel Colorado just across the street, where a steady stream of cars loaded and unloaded near its front door. She imagined that the preservation-fund committee might have had an active part in that, too. Except for her own building, she hadn’t seen a business on Main Street that looked in need of repair; but then again, she hadn’t walked the side streets, something she’d have to rectify. It was hard to make the time when she needed to finish the building before she could get on with her life.
She idly wondered about the donors to the preservation fund and their opponents, the people against bringing in tourism. Which side did Nate really come down on? His family was well entrenched, and it would be easy to imagine that they didn’t want things to change.
Thoughts of Mrs. Ludlow’s fund made her remember the lady’s granddaughter. Seeing the little girl with her curly pigtails had made Emily’s heart just about tighten up in her chest. It used to hurt every time she walked past a stroller or a school bus or a ball field. But she couldn’t keep living in that constant state of depression, or she might never come out of it. She had a future, a good one. She was doing something about her wish for a family, beginning with the repairs on the building. It wouldn’t happen overnight, but she could be patient, waiting for the day she had enough money to adopt. She’d spent too many weeks and months of her life wallowing in the wreck of her marriage and dreams, as if she didn’t have the power to change things.
Just looking around at the restaurant made her realize she’d already made a dent in the chaos. And she was doing her Internet research each night on putting up drywall and ripping up damaged flooring. It didn’t look too hard, she told herself. Nate might be unconvinced, but she would show him what she was capable of.
No, he wasn’t her motivation. She would show herself.
Over the next few days, Emily spent most of her waking hours focused on the building. Occasionally, the widows dropped food off to her at midday, as if they didn’t trust her to remember to feed herself—or if they thought she wasn’t spending her money on that.
And they were right. The longer Emily remained in Valentine, the more she realized she was going to have to look for part-time work soon. Yet she took the time to put flowers in the planters out front, so that her bare building wouldn’t hurt any of the other businesses nearby.