Don’t forget Mother’s Day is this Sunday! Dearborn’s Market has everything you need to make breakfast in bed for that special woman in your life. They also have a variety of cards, cakes and boxed chocolates to make the day extra special for her. If you want to give her flowers that will last, stop by Wilson’s Garden Center before 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, or Bob will have flowers that won’t last on sale at the gas station for those last-minute shoppers.
—Stonefield Gazette Facebook Page
“Sit down for a minute.”
This was one of the rare times Molly was in the taproom and did not want to sit with the woman who was like a second mother to her, but Ellen Sutton had spoken. Molly sat.
She was across the table from Ellen and her best friend, Laura Thompson—Evie’s mother-in-law—and Molly felt their eyes on her like an interrogator’s spotlight. They were very smart ladies who’d known Molly her entire life, and in the time it took her to put her butt in the chair, she reminded herself to keep it simple. Having been talking online since Callan’s interview wasn’t that big of a lie, but if her anxiety pushed her to word-vomit to fill silence, she was going to end up telling too many tall tales to track.
“You haven’t sat still long enough to talk to in ages,” Ellen said.
“We want to hear all about you and Callan,” Laura added. Of course they did. “I finally got a chance to chat with him at the library today and he seems to have survived his first full week without Mrs. Denning.”
He’d actually had a much better week without her than last week, when she’d been looking over his shoulder, but Molly kept that to herself. She was much more curious about what Callan and Laura had talked about. Hopefully he hadn’t looked as anxious about their story as he had during their dinner with her parents.
“He’s still settling in,” Molly said. “But he really likes it here. No regrets or anything.”
“I can’t believe none of the girls told me you were seeing our new librarian,” Ellen said. “Or not seeing, I guess, since you were chatting online until recently.”
“We didn’t tell anybody because my mom was on the hiring committee and how that might look.” Maybe she could distract them away from her Callan situation with one of their favorite topics of conversation. “I saw Becca the other day. She’s getting so big!”
Laura’s face lit up. “Isn’t she? It’s hard to believe she’s almost four months old already.”
“It goes by so fast,” Ellen said, and the two women exchanged a sappy look that made Molly smile.
Two best friends sharing a grandchild was the sweetest thing, she thought. They’d all assumed it would happen when Evie and Lane—who were high school sweethearts—had gotten married after college. Then Lane’s dad had died, they’d gotten divorced and Evie had left Stonefield. Now, years later, Ellen and Laura reveled in finally sharing a granddaughter.
As she’d hoped, Laura and Ellen got sidetracked talking about the baby and showing her pictures on their phones. It killed enough time so Molly didn’t feel bad when she pushed back her chair and stood.
“It was nice to finally get to chat, but I should see if they need help. It’s pretty busy.” It really wasn’t, but there were enough customers to make it believable. She just wanted to get away from their table before they circled back to Callan.
“Did they get the truth out of you?” Evie asked when they crossed paths at the bar.
“Nope. I distracted them by asking about your daughter.”
Evie laughed. “That’s guaranteed to work. They’re here tonight because Lane talked them into it so he could have some quiet time with Becca. Between Ellen and Laura, they hardly ever put her down.”
“On the plus side, you don’t have to pay for babysitting.”
“True. Though we’ll see what happens when Mallory pops.”
“When Mallory what?” Mallory asked, making Molly jump. She hadn’t seen her come in, and she had Gwen with her.
While they hadn’t talked about it directly, Molly had heard from Mallory that Gwen’s opinion of the save-Callan’s-job ruse hadn’t been positive. But Molly hadn’t really thought it would be. Embracing a wild idea that hadn’t been thought through wasn’t really Gwen’s style.
“When you pop out that kid,” Evie said, nodding at her belly. “I was telling Molly I might lose my free babysitter when your little one’s born.”
“You’ll still have Laura,” Molly pointed out. When Mallory’s baby was born, Ellen would be the grandmother, but Laura would be the great-aunt, so Becca would still be her number one.
Gwen shook her head. “You know those two. They’ve already decided Evie and Mal’s babies are going to be the best of friends as well as cousins, so they’re going to have them in a playpen together.”
Irish appeared at their end of the bar, his eyes on his wife. “I thought you were going to relax with your feet up.”
“I was relaxing with my feet up, but I was getting tired of listening to the boys yell at their friends over their gaming headsets and Gwen came over, and... I can’t sit with my feet up for another month and a half, Irish. I know this is your first baby, but it’s my third, so you need to trust that I’m listening to my body.”
Molly could tell he wanted to argue—he was so anxious about the baby—but then he gave Mallory a warm smile. “Okay. Do you want a water?”
“In a few minutes. We’ll probably sit with Mom and Laura and make Evie wait on us.”
“Good luck with that,” Evie said, and they all laughed as Irish went back to his other customers.
“Okay,” Mallory said, turning to Molly. “It’s been like a week and half since you started this nonsense. What’s going on?”
Molly shrugged. “Nothing but what I told you. We’re pretending to date and it’s going well. People are warming up to him at the library and I’ll have a date to Gwen’s wedding. As planned.”
“And that’s it?” Evie asked, clearly disappointed.
She wasn’t alone. Fake dating wasn’t nearly as exciting as Molly had imagined it would be. So far it consisted of walking to the café, where they took turns paying for their morning coffee. She’d pop into the library. And she’d gone shopping at the market with him once.
So far, she was highly caffeinated and reading more books, but as an adventure, pretending to be a girlfriend was a bit of a letdown.
“All three of us are worried about this, you know,” Gwen said. “You don’t do things in moderation. Everything you do, you do with your whole heart and this...this can’t be done that way, Molly. Not without it being a disaster.”
Molly’s skin tingled with heat, and she tried not to let it show on her face. There was something about concern coming from Gwen that sounded more like judgment or condemnation than when it came from Mallory. Maybe it was because she’d been gone for so long, but Evie had been, too. More likely it was that Gwen was the oldest, and she and Molly just had radically different personalities.
“Everything’s going according to plan,” she said, trying not to sound defensive.
“Speaking of,” Mallory said, nodding her toward the door.
Molly turned to see Callan walking in, and her pulse quickened. He scanned the room and when his gaze finally landed on her, a warm smile softened the lines of his face. Heat rushed through her and she couldn’t help smiling back as he started toward her.
“Sure,” Gwen said. “Totally according to plan.”
Callan felt the already familiar jolt of warmth and anticipation he felt whenever he saw Molly, which was probably why it took a moment to realize she was with Mallory and Gwen Sutton, and Evie was there, too. So much for his hope of sitting at the bar, reading a book and stealing moments with Molly in between customers.
After closing the library, he’d eaten a light dinner and spent some time sanding living room walls he was prepping for paint. He wanted that done as quickly as possible because he’d had to move the TV and pretty much everything else into his bedroom until he was finished. But he’d only worked a couple of hours before he couldn’t resist stepping outside to see if the lights were on in Molly’s apartment. It looked dark, so he’d showered and walked to the tavern. He could tell himself he wanted a Friday-night beer after a long workweek, but he really just wanted to see Molly.
And what was the point of pretending they were dating if they weren’t seen in public together beyond morning coffees and a trip to the market? It was a strategic move, really. Or it had seemed that way until pretty much all the important women in Molly’s life turned their heads to look at him when he walked in.
“Now, see, I like a guy who brings a book to a bar,” Gwen said. “There should be more reading in bars.”
Callan slid his arm around Molly’s waist and kissed her cheek for the benefit of the other customers. He felt her shiver when his lips touched her skin and his body tightened in response. He had to clear his throat before he could speak. “I thought Molly might be working, so I’d need something to keep me occupied while she was busy.”
“It’s too bad Nichole isn’t here tonight,” Mallory said. “She’s always reading and you guys could probably talk about books for hours.”
Judging by the way Molly scowled, he surmised that Nichole was a bar patron, and he had to admit Molly did fake jealousy well. So well he thought veering the conversation away from Nichole seemed like a good idea. “That reminds me, does this town have a book club?”
“Not really,” Molly said. “There used to be one that met at the library, but Ronnie said something was an allegory and Suzie said she was using allegory wrong and it escalated. Ronnie threw her large fountain drink at Suzie and missed, and she ended up soaking half a shelf of European history books with orange soda. Mrs. Denning canceled book club and Ronnie’s library card that day.”
The idea that somebody had brought a large fountain drink into the library made Callan’s skin crawl. “That’s why one doesn’t bring food or beverages into a library.”
Molly rolled her eyes. “If you’re going to sit and talk about allegories—or not allegories—in boring books for two hours, sometimes one gets thirsty.”
He chuckled. “If you’re going to talk to me about allegories for two solid hours, my beverage better be alcoholic.”
She gasped. “Oh! We should host a book club here! And call it something fun, like... Books and Beer.”
“Books & Brews,” Callan said.
Molly slapped his arm as her face lit up. “Yes! Books & Brews. That’s perfect.”
The way she couldn’t restrain herself when she was excited was starting to grow on him. Not the slapping so much, but it wasn’t as if it had been a hard hit. She just had these bursts of I need your attention right now and that was how she got it.
“Gwen!” Before he could do anything to stop it, Molly waved her friend over. “We want to have a book club that meets here and we’ll call it Books & Brews.”
“Do not even think about using one of my books,” Gwen told her. “I mean it.”
Callan knew who Gwen Sutton was. The hold list at his old library in New York had been out of control when it was announced her first book, A Quaking of Aspens, was being turned into a movie. It had also been the choice for one of the book clubs he’d been in at the library and the conversation had been lively, but he didn’t think he’d share that little tidbit of information right now.
Mrs. Denning had filled him in on their famous local author, of course. Apparently she’d moved away for many years. Some said it was out of shame for using the residents of Stonefield as fodder for her book—apparently Mrs. Bickford thought the character who’d died in a horribly tragic accident on the page was her son, Tony. And others said she’d left because she was sick of explaining to the people of her hometown that the book was a work of fiction and none of them were in it. When she’d come back to town to help her family open the brewery after her father died, she’d fallen in love and stuck around, but old annoyances died hard, apparently.
Molly was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. “We can put a box on the end of the bar and at the library introducing the book club and asking for suggestions for the inaugural Books & Brews read.”
“I wonder if Irish and Lane could brew up a special edition beer,” Mallory added.
Callan was on a runaway train—the Cyrs & Sutton Railroad, he thought—and it was going to derail if he didn’t regain control of the situation. “Asking for suggestions is going to end up with a list of as many books as people signed up and some of those people will feel put out their book wasn’t picked.”
“I don’t know,” Molly said, frowning at him. “People will be more excited if they get a say.”
“I do know. I know book clubs because I’m a librarian.”
“Yeah, well, Gwen’s an author. Tons of book clubs have invited her to visit them.”
“I want no part of this,” Gwen said, holding up both hands as she backed away. “But Callan’s right.”
Molly rolled her eyes. “Fine. But you’re not the sole picker of the book. We’ll decide together so you don’t pick one of those super-boring book club books.”
Callan struggled to keep a straight face. “I’ll do my best not to pick a book club book for book club.”
When she realized what she’d said, she laughed and he laughed along with her. He loved that she could laugh at herself like that and then move on.
“No nonfiction. No dust bowls. Nothing bad can happen to animals. And definitely no male protagonists looking at their belly buttons.”
“I’m sorry, no what?”
“She means navel-gazing,” Mallory said. “Sometimes her mouth moves faster than her brain and if she’s missing a word, just fills it in with something close. We’re pretty fluent in Molly-ese.”
Callan nodded and smiled at Molly. “Okay, what about female protagonists looking at their belly buttons?”
Molly crossed her arms. “Now I don’t know if you’re talking about navel-gazing or if you have a fetish we don’t know about yet.”
“Speaking of fetishes,” Mallory said. “Did you come to an agreement on the exhibitionist thing?”
“I’m not an exhibitionist,” Callan said, because he didn’t see any way out of it. “Nor am I a voyeur.”
“No comment on belly buttons?” Molly asked, giving him a look that could only be called saucy.
“While I might occasionally be guilty of navel-gazing, I do not have a belly button fetish. And before you ask, no, I’m not going to tell you what—if any—fetishes I do have.”
“I guess she’ll have to find out for herself,” Mallory said, and then she pressed her hand to her mouth before looking around to make sure nobody was paying attention to them. “Sorry,” she whispered. “Sometimes I forget you’re not actually a couple.”
Sometimes he forgot, too. Not for very long, but he liked when that happened. He liked it less when he remembered. “I guess we must be good at it.”
Mallory’s eyebrow arched. “Pretending or being a couple?”
He and Molly both laughed, but he thought they both sounded as fake as their relationship. And also, the C&SRR train was running away from him again.
“Back to the books,” he said, trying to get them back on track. “We’ll pick one and then I’ll put in the interlibrary loan requests to get enough copies.
“It’s too bad we can’t use one of Gwen’s books,” Molly said. “Her publisher sends her boxes of author copies.”
“No,” Gwen called across the taproom, and Callan realized they’d all turned to look at her when Molly said that.
“I’m going to go sit with Mom and Ellen for a few minutes,” Mallory said, giving Irish a wave before walking away.
Callan thought maybe he was going to get a minute alone with Molly, but Evie called her name and waved her over to a table by the back of the room, where the taproom was separated from the stairs down to the brewing cellar by a glass wall. A lot of personal and brewing memorabilia that had belonged to the Sutton sisters’ dad was hung on the other side of it, and family photos hung behind the bar. There were also shelves of glasses with the taproom’s logo and the regulars had their names etched into the glass. As he slid onto a stool, he wondered how many times a person had to visit to get their own glass.
Irish set a coaster in front of him. “What did you get them all riled up about?”
“I asked if there was a book club in town.” Callan shook his head. “Somehow that led to a plan to host Books & Brews events here in the taproom.”
“Huh.”
“Although none of the people involved in the discussion actually own the place, so I guess somebody will have to run that up the ladder.”
Irish chuckled. “Well, there’s whose name is on the legal documents, and then there’s who runs the place. It’s very much a family business in all the best—and worst—of ways.”
“They seem like a force to be reckoned with.”
“There’s a reason why, when we were talking about Case’s bachelor party, the most popular option was renting a bunch of hotel rooms, turning our phones off, hanging do-not-disturb signs and sleeping for a solid twenty-four hours.”
“Sounds like a helluva party.”
Irish nodded and pulled a glass off the rack. “What’ll you have?”