Page 4 of The Pumpkin Spice Cafe
She shook the thought from her head and glanced back toward the double doors that led to the meeting space. Still no Logan. Maybe he’d just agreed to come to get her to stop talking. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had agreed with her just to get her to shut up. She’d come on too strong, as per usual. Laying out all her problems and sleep-deprived theories right at the quiet farmer’s feet. The very handsome, very quiet farmer.
Jeanie smoothed her hands down her thighs, trying to wrestle her bouncing knee into submission. It didn’t matter that Logan was handsome. Like, very, very handsome. Like, if there was aSexy Farmer Weekly, he would be on the cover.
It didn’t matter because getting involved with handsome farmers was not a part of her New Jeanie plan. She had agreed to her aunt’s crazy idea to take over the café so she could have a fresh start.
Jeanie had spent the last seven years as the executive assistant to the CEO of Franklin, Mercer & Young Financial. Until he had a heart attack and died at his desk one night. Jeanie had been the one to find him the next morning, his vacant eyes staring at her as she entered his office, coffee in hand. The coffee stain on the carpet from where she’d dropped the mug in shock was still there when she quit.
The doctor said the heart attack was stress-induced. That and Marvin’s atrocious diet of mostly bacon and late-night takeout. But it was the stress-induced part that stuck with Jeanie. Was that her future? To work and work until her heart just gave out? Gave up?
Jeanie had a tendency to overthink. To over-talk. To overwork. She didn’t do rest and relaxation very well. She didn’t do calm or cool. But she was determined to try. For her health, she was determined to try. Suddenly, the fact that her life consisted only of work, a few office acquaintances she got drinks with on Fridays –when she wasn’t too exhausted to join them –and her pitiful and sporadic attempts at dating, seemed like a very big problem. A deadly problem.
When, only a few weeks after Marvin’s death, her Aunt Dot had devised this plan for Jeanie to move to Dream Harbor and take over the café, it had seemed like the perfect escape. Except now Jeanie was certain she was failing already. Especially after her little performance with the handsome farmer this morning. She’d nearly taken his head off, and then she’d talked his ear off at a thousand miles per hour. She’d seen the horrified look on his face. He’d wanted nothing more than to escape.
She glanced at the door again. Nothing but a small gaggle of older women bustling in. They smiled at her as they took their seats.
It was for the best, really. Jeanie also wasn’t good at relationships that lasted longer than a few weeks, and a fling in a town as small as this one seemed like a terrible idea. Not that Logan wanted to have a fling with her. Not that he’d even wanted to have a cup of coffee with her this morning, before she forced him into it . . .
‘Hey.’ His gruff greeting startled her out of her thoughts as he slid into the seat next to her. He smelled like the outdoors, like fall leaves and woodsmoke. Jeanie resisted the urge to snuggle closer to his warmth in the drafty room.
‘Hi.’Be cool, casual.She stole a glance at him as he settled in. Still handsome.Damn it.‘How was your day?’ she asked. Just a casual question for a new acquaintance. No crazy, ghost theories here.
‘Uh . . . good.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Normal.’
Jeanie smiled. ‘Normal is good.’
Logan nodded. ‘If you like normal, you’re going to hate this meeting.’
Jeanie smiled bigger. Was that a little joke from the serious farmer? ‘Do things get wild at the Dream Harbor bi-monthly town meetings?’
‘Just wait.’ He’d leaned toward her and his low voice rumbled through her.
No time to dwell on that toe-curling sensation, though, because the meeting hall was filling in and Jeanie was busy taking in the sights.
People were starting to take their seats, the room warming significantly with the influx of bodies. A loud laugh drew Jeanie’s attention to a few rows ahead of them. The owner of the laugh was a woman, maybe in her forties – though if she was, she looked great for her age further justifying Jeanie’s small-town living plan. The people here aged so well! The woman laughed again, her sleek black bob brushing past her round face. She wedged herself in between an older woman with short, gray hair and a man in his twenties talking loudly, his hands punctuating every word.
‘Book club,’ Logan muttered in her ear.
‘Book club,’ Jeanie repeated faintly, watching as two other women, one with an infant strapped to her chest, joined the conversation from the next row. ‘They look like fun.’
‘Fun. Ha. They run this town.’ Logan’s ominous tone was completely at odds with the laughing, smiling group in front of them. Especially when the black-bobbed woman turned and gave him a big wave.
Logan groaned and waved back.
The rest of the group turned, and Jeanie could practically see their eyes light up, the whole group clearly pleased to see him.
‘Logan! What a rare treat,’ the older woman called.
‘Hey, Nancy.’
‘We miss you at our meetings,’ the younger man said with a wink. A wink?
Logan grumbled. ‘I never came to your meetings.’
The man laughed. ‘Well, maybe not on purpose, but we liked roping you in. Especially when we readPassion in the Fields – The Farmer and the Milkmaid.’ The man was talking so loudly that the entire room could hear. Several people giggled and turned to look at Logan.
‘Oh, that was such a good one.’ The woman with the baby clapped a hand to her chest and mimed a swoon in her chair.
Logan’s face, when Jeanie sneaked a peek, was bright red above his beard. She bit down on a smile.
