Page 80 of Not Exactly a Small-Town Romance

KELSEYMEETS THEWRONGCUTE

I hate when Zachery’s right.

My car chugs for a second as I pull up to the Crater Inn, almost as if it doesn’t want to approach the sad, sagging building that stretches along the back side of a cracked asphalt lot.

The sign over the glass doors near the front reads OFF!, and I can see Zachery snort-laughing in his Jaguar as he parks beside me.

I slam my door as he rolls down his window.

“It’s supposed to say OFFICE!”

Somewhere along the way, the rest of the word went black.

“When you said Crater Inn,” he says, his face bright with laughter, “I didn’t think you meant Cratering.”

“Very funny.”

“Come on. Stay at the house. The manager is already there to meet us.” He turns his phone to me. “Just look at him.”

I lean in. The man has curly black hair, a jaw that could rock a movie poster—and is that ... I take the phone for a closer look.

“Yes, he’s in a flannel shirt,” Zachery says.

“Is he single?”

“Only one way to find out.” Zachery waggles his eyebrows, and I’m in awe that he can be so casual about sending me off to find some other man after last night.

He’s a true professional.

“What’s his name?”

“Jack.”

God. A short, strong name. It could be my ownVirgin River. Based on the scenery around here, it works.

“Okay, I’m in. Text me the address.” I pass him his phone.

By the time I’ve hopped back in the car, Zachery has sent a Google pin with the location of the house.

We’ve driven all day, but since hitting Wyoming, I’ve fallen in love with the countryside. There are miles of sweeping fields, rolling hills, and so much unspoiled land. We’ve driven through plains, pine forests, and mountains. It has everything.

It’s nothing like LA, of course, but it’s not like the dairy farm in Alabama, either. I roll down my window and take in the air.

Heaven, that’s what it is.

Signs that we’re nearing a small town spring up. I’ve begun to recognize them. A smattering of houses, loose at first, but then getting closer together.

A bar appears, usually, off on its own, as if a hundred years ago when the town formed, it wanted the drinking done well away from the church.

A water tower rises up, a silver cylinder breaking the line of trees and the view of the buttes.

Then the brick buildings begin, crumbling but stalwart, leading to the center of town.

Before we get to actual streets, Zachery signals to turn left.

We bump along a less fortified road until it forks. We pass a lone house, then another a quarter mile later. Then we reach a dirt driveway. I follow the Jaguar almost to the tree line, where a gorgeous two-story redbrick house stands before the wall of great pines.

It’s colonial, with tall white columns on either side of the door holding up a balcony with white rails. When we pull up onto a concrete pad next to the white garage doors, the front door opens.

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