Page 91 of Hometown Girl

“I think it might’ve been the other way around,” Callie said. “But she left me some postcards for the Fairwind Farm Market.” She patted the stack on the counter. “I’ll make sure everyone gets one, and I’ll talk to the vendors I know—some of them came out for this.”

“Thanks, Cal.”

A man walked up behind them, and Drew moved out of the way.

“I’ll stop back before I leave,” Beth said.

Callie smiled, waved goodbye to Drew and then waggled her eyebrows at Beth.

“You guys seem like good friends,” Drew said.

“The best.”

Drew followed her to one of the many picnic tables set up all around the park, opened the bag and took out the apple fritters, setting them on the paper between them.

“You’re lucky.” Drew took a swig of coffee.

She picked at the glaze on the fritter. “You must have some good friends back home.”

“Well, let’s see. There’s Mabel. I guess I’d call her a friend.”

Beth swallowed the bite in her mouth. “Oh.”

“Course, she’s a horse, so I don’t know if that counts.”

She glanced up just in time to see his smile skitter away. “Funny.”

A quiet lull fell between them.

“I feel like you know a lot about me,” Beth dared. “But I know almost nothing about you.”

“You know plenty about me.” He tossed a piece of apple fritter in his mouth.

“You worked at a ranch in Colorado—a ranch that has a web page that doesn’t list its staff, by the way.”

“You checked?”

“Course I checked. The only reason I didn’t call your boss is because I didn’t want to get you in trouble.”

“You’re thorough, I’ll give you that.” He smiled.

Oh, that smile. It was something.

“There’s really not much to tell,” he said.

“Did you go to school?”

“I did.”

“For what?”

“Agricultural sciences.”

“For real? No wonder you know how to do everything.”

He laughed. “Well, working at the ranch taught me most of what I know—more than school in a lot of ways.”

“So you have a degree from ... where?”

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