“Oh, there’s a lot you don’t know about her yet. But you’re learning.” She sits down on a wooden bench at the edge of the garden. It looks handmade. “She talked about you, you know, before she died.”
“Yeah, everyone keeps telling me that.”
“Well, it’s true. She had a feeling about you. Said you were lost, but you didn’t know it yet. That you needed something to shake you loose from whatever was holding you back.”
I sit beside her on the bench and look out at the garden. Rows of vegetables, beds of flowers, fruit trees. A lifetime of growing things.
“I think she was right,” I admit. “I was lost. I just didn’t know how to name it.”
“And now?”
“Well, I’m probably still lost,” I say, laughing. “But at least I know it. I’m starting to find my way.”
Meredith pats my hand with her soft, weathered, wrinkled fingers. “That’s all any of us can do, dear. Find our way. One step at a time.”
Friday afternoon, Dolly corners me in the office.
“We need to talk,” she says, closing the door behind her.
“Yikes, that sounds ominous.”
“Well, it might be.” She sits in the armchair across from Mavis’s desk, which is my desk now, I suppose, and crosses her arms. “I’ve been hearing some things about Gary Allen.”
My stomach tightens into a knot. “What kind of things?”
“Well, he’s been busy since you turned him down. Talking to all kinds of people around town, making offers on other properties.”
“Which properties?”
“The building next to Grits and Grind, the old hardware store that’s been sitting empty for two years, and now there’s a rumor he’s sniffing around the church, too.”
“The church? Why would the developer want a church?”
“Well, not the church itself, but the land behind it. The big field where they do the fall festival every year. Apparently, it’s prime real estate for a hotel.”
I lean back in my chair. “So he’s trying to build around The Rusty Spur. If he can’t have this property, he’ll develop everything else and just squeeze us out.”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“And if he does that, if he turns Copper Creek into some kind of luxury resort, property values will skyrocket, and property taxes, too. Which means people who’ve been here for generations won’t be able to afford to stay.”
“Exactly.” Dolly’s expression looks grim. “You know what happened before. Different developer, but same playbook. I told you they bought up half of Main Street, raised rents, and drove out local businesses. It took years for them to recover, and some folks never did.”
“Why didn’t anybody stop them?”
“Because they came in with money and promises. People wanted to believe it would be different. By the time everybody realized what was happening, it was just too late.” She leans forward. “I’m not saying Gary Allen is definitely going to do the same thing, but I’m saying we need to be careful. We need to pay attention.”
“Well, what can we do?”
“Right now, not much. He’s not breaking any laws. He’s just making offers on property and making plans. But if things start moving faster, well, we just need to be ready.”
“Ready how?”
“I don’t know yet, to be honest. But I do know one thing. You turning him down was the first step. You showed people it was possible to say no.”
CHAPTER 17
That evening, the bar fills up like it always does on Friday nights. Music plays from the jukebox, couples dance around the floor, and families crowd into booths. The mechanical bull sits in the corner. It’s a permanent fixture now, since it was so successful last month, and there’s a steady stream of brave souls taking their turns getting thrown into the air and onto the mat.
