Page 11 of Always in Watch Hill
“Ohio State, huh?”
I cocked my head. “That okay?”
“Yes.” She grinned. “I went to Illinois, so I mean, it’s not like we were big rivals or anything.”
“Good thing you didn’t go to Michigan.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Never there. Never.”
I raised my glass again. “To not wasting four years in Ann Arbor.”
Lynne broke into a full laugh.God, I could listen to her laugh all day.“I’ll drink to that, though I don’t think I feel that strongly about it.”
“Most people don’t.” I chugged another sip. “But what can I say? I’m loyal to the Buckeyes.”
“Noted.”
“Did you move to Chicago after college?” I set down my drink.
“Yes. I moved back. I grew up there too, then left for college, and traveled for two years afterward, working as a travel blogger. Then I came back and got a column at one of the magazines in town... and I’ve been there ever since.”
“But what brought you to Watch Hill?” I asked her. “I mean, this isn’t exactly on the list of places to go when someone wants to get away.”
“Actually, it was your listing that did it. You sold me on this town, and it seemed like the perfect place to go to finish my book.” She paused. “Edits are due Monday.”
“That’s not long.”
“Nope, but it’s going better than I expected it would.” She picked up a mozzarella stick from the basket and dipped it into the marinara sauce. “I completed forty pages today, so that’s better than I expected. Maybe the magic of this place is rubbing off, right?”
“Maybe. What’s the book about?”
“Hidden travel gems. People and stories that make a community unique. I pared the list down to the top fifty, and each one gets an extensive chapter.”
“That sounds pretty cool.”
“The publisher likes it. Thinks that we could eventually expand the books to specific niches, and maybe even an app. But of course, this book has to sell well first.”
“I’m sure it will.”
“No one hopes it will more than I do.” She bit into the fried cheese and set the remainder on the small plate she took from the stack by the condiments. “Enough about my work, though. How did you get into the rental business? I like to ask that of people because a lot of them have interesting answers. One family got into the hotel business back in the 1940s, or one guy wrote a blog about running a short-term rental...” She spread a hand and leaned closer to me. “One time, I talked to a bed and breakfast owner in Minnesota who lived in a converted brothel and believed that all the renters who passed through helped ward off bad spirits.”
“Tell me that made it into the book.”
She nodded and gestured at the cheese. “You haven’t eaten any.”
“Oops.”
I took a clean plate, dipped one of the sticks in the ranch, and took a large bite. The salty mozzarella burst into my mouth, surprising me with how much I enjoyed it. I could order as many frozen cheese sticks as I wanted in my grocery delivery order, but they would never taste as good as the ones severed at a place like this. Simple fact of life.
“Thank you,” I said after my second bite. “Thank you for getting me out.”
“You’re welcome.” Lynne cocked her head. “But you still haven’t answered my question.”
“Right.” I thought about it. “I suppose I got into it because I was bored.”
“Bored? There’s a new one.”
“When I bought the property, that cottage was advertised as mother-in-law suite. And I don’t have one of those. For a while, I considered converting it into a video game studio, or making it into a home gym...” I shrugged. “A friend in Las Vegas converted the space above his garage into a rental, and once I saw what he did, it gave me a few ideas.”
