Brenda Minton - The Boss's Bride

Behind him he heard a shrill voice calling, “Yoo-hoo, Patrick.”

He turned and smiled at Ann Mars as she crossed the road, her long white hair stacked on her head in a knot that seemed to continuously slip to one side. She was a tiny thing, and he always had a strange urge to pick her up and set her on something so he wouldn’t have to lean to talk to her. He smiled at the thought. She was a dynamo and would probably swat his hands if he tried anything like that.

“Miss Mars, good morning.”

“Hello to you, too, Patrick, and don’t call me Miss Mars. My goodness, you are a tall drink of water.” She craned her neck to look up at him.

“I am?” He took a sip of his coffee and waited.

“I thought I’d check with you to see how our Gracie is doing.”

Our Gracie? He cleared his throat and started to object, but he didn’t. He was learning to be small town, and he knew that if he tried to deny Gracie, he’d be in serious trouble. She might have left Trent Morgan at the altar, but to these sweet ladies, both Ann Mars and Co­raline Connolly, Gracie seemed to be the victim. They probably knew more about the situation than he did.

“She seems to be surviving the uproar, Ann.”

“That’s because she survives, Patrick. She’s survived everything.” She hooked her arm through his. “Walk with me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“She’s survived losing her mother. She has survived that rowdy bunch of men in her home. She’s cooked, cleaned and taken care of everything since she was just a little girl. She’s going to handle this situation, too. She’s going to do what she always does. She’s going to hold her chin up and take care of everyone. And she isn’t going to let on that she’s hurting at all.”

“I see.” He pulled the store key from his pocket as they made their way back up the street to his store. His store. He admired the light-colored brick, the windows painted simply with The Fixer-Upper and the green awning over the wide glass-and-wood door. He turned his attention back to the tiny woman at his side, smiling down at her. “She has good friends. I know you and Miss Coraline will help her through this.”

“And so we will. But you’re going to have to keep an eye on her while she’s here. People are circling like buzzards after roadkill, and if that Morgan woman hasn’t showed up, she will.”

“I’ll do my best.”

He unlocked the door, and Ann Mars stared up at him, her mouth twisted and her eyes scrunched nearly closed. “Patrick Fogerty, you’re a gentleman and I’m counting on you.”

He thought that this was the place in the conversation where someone would hand him a manila envelope and tell him his assignment, should he wish to accept it, was inside. But Gracie Wilson wasn’t his assignment. He had a business that needed his attention. He had a new life here in Bygones, and it was already complicated enough without the SOS committee becoming the Save Gracie Foundation.

He doubted very seriously that Gracie Wilson wanted him as a bodyguard. He’d been around town long enough to know she had five overprotective brothers who took their duties seriously. She­d complained in the past that they could be a little overwhelming at times.

“Ann, I’m not convinced that Gracie and Trent won’t work things out. Maybe the wedding will still take place.”

“Why in the world would you think that?”

“Because people get cold feet.”

Ann pursed her lips again, a sure sign that he wasn’t saying what she wanted to hear. “Gracie doesn’t run from anything.”

He pushed the door open. “I should get in here and get things ready to start the day.”

“And I need to get back up the street to my place,” Ann Mars replied.

“I’ll see you later.”

He watched as she marched away, her arms swinging as she hurried off toward This ’N’ That. For a woman in her eighties, she had a lot of energy. He smiled, shook his head and stepped inside the hardware store.

As he walked through the store, he stopped to flip on lights. He turned on the cash register and checked to make sure the coffeepot had started brewing. A car honked outside. He turned and watched as a dog walked slowly across the street and then down the sidewalk. The animal, a medium-size brown mutt with wiry hair, had been around for a few days. He thought maybe someone had dumped it in hopes the Fluff & Stuff pet store would take the animal in.

He liked dogs as much as anyone, but the mixed breed with wiry brown hair and floppy ears seemed to think the best place to hang out was the front door of The Fixer-Upper. Since it had started hanging around Bygones, he would often find it curled up on the sidewalk in front of his store.

The front door opened and the bell chimed to announce a customer. He glanced at his watch and started to tell the woman entering the store that he wasn’t open yet. But she didn’t look like a woman he wanted to argue with. Her short hair was perfectly cut. Her suit, a skirt, jacket and blouse, looked expensive. And she looked angry.

“Where is she?” The woman marched down the aisle between the saws and drills, her mouth a tight line of disapproval.

“I’m sorry?” He reached for the dark green work apron he wore in the store.

“Gracie Wilson. Where is she?”

And then it hit him. Mrs. Morgan. Lovely woman. He wondered why the dog hadn’t barked. A good dog would have barked a warning.

“She isn’t here yet.”

“When do you expect her?”

He glanced at his watch and caught the groan before it slipped out. “Soon.”

“Then I’ll wait.”

He caught sight of an old farm truck and he knew that Gracie would soon walk through the back door. The dog out front seemed to be waiting for her. It stood, wagging a wiry brush of a tail. That confirmed his suspicions that the dog might be getting fed here at the store.

“Maybe if you come back later it would be better.” He took the woman by the arm, nearly choking on the cloud of perfume that clung to the air around her.

“I need to speak to Miss Wilson because there is the small matter of what she owes me.”

The front door opened again. Patrick didn’t know if he should breathe a sigh of relief or pray for mercy. A hardware store, at least the one he’d grown up in, was a man’s world. He knew about building things, fixing things. He didn’t know about small-town politics, drama and what appeared to be women on the warpath.

Coraline Connolly marched down the aisle, her nose in the air and her pace brisk. She wasn’t a big woman, but she walked with the authority of a woman who had been a school principal and knew how to handle problems.

“Mrs. Morgan, my goodness, imagine seeing you here.” Coraline smiled a frozen smile that Patrick was pretty glad he wasn’t the recipient of.

“Coraline, this has nothing to do with you.”

Coraline moved Patrick aside. “Oh, I know that. I just thought the two of us could take a little walk. We have some fund-raisers coming up in town and I’d love to be able to put your family name on the list of benefactors.”

“I need to speak to Gracie.” Mrs. Morgan pulled her arm from Coraline’s grasp.

“I’m sure you do, but I have other appointments and you are so great at organizing events. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee,” Coraline offered. “I’m sure Gracie will be here by the time we’re finished.”

Mrs. Morgan glanced around the store and finally sighed, giving in to Coraline. Patrick watched as the mother of Trent Morgan was escorted from the store.

“Is it safe?” Gracie walked through the door, peeking around the store for any sign of the woman who, had things been different, would have been her mother-in-law.

Patrick walked to the front of the store and looked out the window. “For now.”