TWENTY-SEVEN

Stone

“You heading to the Zoning Board Meeting?” Cash asked.

Fuck. I’d forgotten that was tonight. I glanced around the mess of tools and sawdust.

We were building a wooden scaffold to display a couple of hundred jack-o-lanterns—the newest brainstorm from the Rotary. Apparently it would be Instagrammable, which now seemed to be our goal for everything we did.

“I don’t know. We’ve got so much to do still.” I shook my head and glanced at the time on my phone. It was just going on six.

Yup. That meeting was about to start.

I could make it before anything important happened if I left right now.

Boone watched me as I waffled. “I think you should go.”

“Why?” I frowned.

“Because you love those damn meetings,” Boone said.

“They always get me pissed off.”

“Yup.” He nodded. “Then you come home and work like a demon because you’re mad.”

“Boone’s right.” Cash put down his hammer to run the back of his hand over his forehead. “I say you go, get good and angry, and then come back and finish this damn pumpkin scaffold so Boone and I can go eat dinner.”

 I considered going, not because I cared all that much if Boone and Cash were hungry, but more because I hated the idea of missing a meeting where something important might happen. “All right. I’m going. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

The two idiots grinned as if they were getting away with something. I shook my head. My leaving just meant nothing more was going to get done for hours and Dad would be even more annoyed, but whatever. Not my problem. I wouldn’t be at that dinner table to hear it.

I’d grab something quick to eat later. For now, I brushed the sawdust off my jeans and shirt and hopped up into the cab of my truck.

I might have slowed a bit to check out Agnes’s house as I drove by but it was still daylight so there weren’t even any lights for me to see in the windows. Maybe on the way home.

Hitting the accelerator I sped to the Community House and parked along the road. There was the usual number of cars for a zoning board meeting. Less than for the town meetings. More than for the library board meetings.

 I considered that this town sure did have a lot of meetings as I sprinted up the few stairs and pushed open the door to the building. I slipped into the meeting room and stood in my usual spot, in the back near the door.

“There’s been an interesting development. It’s not on the agenda since it literally happened this afternoon,” the head of the zoning board began. “Someone put in an offer on the old train depot. Asking price.”

“Who?” I asked, probably speaking out of turn but as my stomach clenched with dread I couldn’t stop myself.

“Out of towner,” the local real estate agent said. She stood and turned to address the room. “It was a New York City area code that I faxed the contract to.”

I mouthed a curse and shook my head. “They’re going to tear it down,” I mumbled, mostly to myself.

A few people nearby nodded, grumbling right along with me.

“Now, we don’t know that,” the mayor, also up on the dais, said.

Apparently I’d spoken louder than I thought. But what he said didn’t change my opinion. I’d seen it happen before, all too often.

Just like Harper had said as she took all her pictures, that train depot was an architectural gem. A throwback to a long gone era. And now it would be just that—gone. As soon as this city person closed on that contract of sale.

I scowled my way through the rest of the meeting, not wanting to stay, but afraid to leave lest I miss something important.

True to Boone’s prediction I arrived home pissed off and wound up enough to build a dozen pumpkin scaffolds by myself.

I knocked out the rest of what was on the to-do list from Dad, finishing well after dark. I showered quick and fell into bed exhausted but with my mind still racing.

At least I knew my bad mood and Dad’s list hadn’t cost me a night of hot sex with Harper. When I’d driven past on the way home after dark the attic was all lit up. I could picture her up there covered in dust and buried in books.

Of course, I had managed to distract her from those journals before. I had no doubt I could do it again.

Maybe tomorrow. Even thoughts of Harper didn’t fix my bad mood or calm me down.

I should have put in an offer on the train depot myself. 

Maybe I could have convinced my parents it would be good to have a stand in town. A long shot but I should have at least tried.

Now, it was too late. Some outsider was going to tear it down. Just like they were gonna tear down the old silo.

Slowly my town was being ripped apart all around me. 

Fucking city people.