He should have been on his laptop, looking at his business, instead of watching Summer like some lovesick schoolboy dreaming out the school window.
She came to the back door, and he was there to meet her, opening it as she had her hand raised to knock.
“I’ve been watching for you,” he said, thinking that was a major understatement. He’d been standing at the window watching her every move.
“I’m sorry I’m a little late. It was busy at the shop this morning, and I threw on an apron and stood behind the counter for a bit to give Sunny a break.”
“She needs to hire someone.”
“She’s trying. She really is. She has someone starting tomorrow, but it’s just so tough. People either don’t want to work, or they can’t do something as simple as showing up to work on time, let alone actually being able to physically do the job.”
“I would think it wouldn’t be that hard to sell muffins and scones.”
“You wouldn’t think so, but you’d be surprised. It’s tough, and I’m not sure what the solution is.” She lifted her shoulder. Then she sighed. “I know for me, it took a little bit of time for me to figure out how to make the different coffees. Since I don’t drink my coffee anything but black, it was kind of unfamiliar territory, but the directions are right there. All you have to do is read them and follow them. And that seems to be too hard for some people.”
“Maybe it’s a reading problem?” he asked, only being half serious.
She recognized that right away and laughed. “You know what, it could possibly be. Maybe I should suggest to Sunny that she should have the directions on audio. Her employees would just have to push a button to have the directions read to them on how to make it.”
“Something tells me that the customer wouldn’t enjoy that experience quite as much.”
“It would ruin the suspense, right?”
They laughed together, and then he said, “Do you want me to take you upstairs? I can show you which bedrooms we’ve chosen, and then you can decide what you want?”
“Sure. I’ll take whatever. I can carry a load of things up with me. I honestly just have pillows and some sheets, and I do have a stand that was my grandmother’s that I took with me as well.”
“I remember it. I missed it from the library. It was between the two chairs.”
“Yeah. I’m kinda surprised you noticed it.”
“I thought it was an antique, and it was pretty.”
She smiled, and he could tell that his words pleased her. He hadn’t realized it was her grandmother’s, but that made sense to him now.
“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll run out to the truck and grab something, and that will halve the time we have to spend carrying stuff in.”
“I appreciate it. Actually, you can carry the stand in if you’d like. It’s pretty, but it’s also very heavy.”
“Sure thing. It is in the back?”
“Yeah. Right up next to the cab so the trailer didn’t knock it over while I was driving.”
“I saw you brought it and unhooked it by the barn. Where’d you have it?”
“I parked it in the pool parking lot. It’s closed for the season, and Mrs. Tucker told me it was okay.”
“Mrs. Tucker has her fingers in everything,” he said, and then as he walked to the back of the truck and she opened the door to grab some things, he said, “I was flabbergasted yesterday in church when she asked me to show some stranger around town.”
Summer didn’t answer right away, and when she pulled back out of the truck, she had her hands full of several bags of clothes. She closed the door with her arm and shrugged a shoulder. “But it was nice of you to say yes. After all, Mrs. Tucker can be a little bit overbearing, but it takes people like her to keep the town running so well. If she wasn’t running around asking people to do things, our town wouldn’t have the good reputation that it has as being friendly and helpful, and goodness, the festival wouldn’t get done, and one ortwo people would end up doing everything and then burn out so fast it wouldn’t be funny.”
They started walking toward the door, and she was right. That stand was extremely heavy.
“This thing looks like solid wood, but I think it might be filled with rocks.”
Her laugh rang out. “Right? I had to stop three times while I was carrying it out just to sit down and take a break. My goodness, it’s like carrying a little whale around.”
“I think a whale would be lighter,” he said, opening the door, and she caught it with her foot, holding it with her arm while he used both hands to carry the stand in.
