“On what grounds? They’re customers. They’re behaving themselves. They’re just…” I look over at the table, watching.
“I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I. But making a scene is what he wants. He’s waiting for us to give him a reason to play the victim.”
Wyatt takes a breath and forces himself to relax. “You’re right. I know you’re right. It’s just…”
“I know.”
He moves behind the bar and starts helping, pouring beers, wiping down the counter, doing the familiar work he doesn’t need to do but that gives him something to focus on besides Gary Allen’s smug face, which he desperately wants to punch.
Around ten, the group finishes their drinks and stand to leave.
Gary makes a point of walking past the bar.
“Thank you for your hospitality, Ms. Whitfield. We’ll have to do this again sometime.”
“Good night, Mr. Allen.”
He pauses, then leans in slightly, lowering his voice so only I can hear.
“You know, this doesn’t have to be adversarial. We could work together, the two of us. You could be part of what’s coming instead of fighting against it.”
“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do.” His smile is cold. “Copper Creek is going to change, Eleanor, one way or another. The only question is whether you’re going to change with it or get left behind.”
He walks out, his colleagues trailing behind him.
Wyatt appears next to me. “What did he say?”
“Nothing important.” I turn back to the bar, to the customers, to the music and laughter. “Nothing important at all.”
But I can feel Wyatt watching me. I can see the worry in his eyes, and I know we’re both thinking the same thing.
Gary Allen isn’t going away.
Whatever it is that he’s planning, we’re not going to like it.
Saturday morning, I arrive at Meredith’s house at nine o’clock with gardening gloves, a new pair of boots, and a determination to learn everything she’s willing to teach me. Wyatt is already there, sitting on the porch with his grandmother, drinking coffee from mismatched mugs.
“You’re early,” he says, standing as I walk up the steps.
“I’m punctual. There’s a difference.”
“Punctual people are early people who pretend they’re not.”
Meredith laughs. “He’s got you there, dear. Come sit and have some coffee before we start.”
We drink coffee on the porch, the three of us watching the morning sun climb over the mountains. Meredith tells stories about her garden, including which plants have been there the longest, which ones she struggled with, and which ones her husband Frank planted before he died.
“The roses were his,” she says, gesturing to the climbing roses on a trellis nearby. “I wanted to rip them out after he passed because it was too painful to look at them, but Wyatt talked me out of it.”
“I told her Grandpa would haunt her if she touched his roses,” Wyatt says.
“He probably would have. That man loved those roses more than he loved me some days.”
“That’s not true.”
