They pulled into his driveway after dark. She stopped with her hand on the door handle. “Come over for dinner?”
The idea sounded so good. He could sit in her kitchen and watch her cook, find some of the ease and comfort he felt with her. But the reality was that before she kissed him, he hadn’t needed any of what she offered. Being with her made him need to be with her, and there was only one solution to that: cold turkey. They’d said their good-byes in San Diego. Mitch’s phone call might keep her in town for a couple of weeks, but it didn’t change things between them.
But cold turkey was coming in a couple of weeks, when she went home to her life in Chicago. He’d never binged on anything before, but if all he could get of Alana was the next two weeks, he’d take it.
“Yeah,” he said.
And if after dinner he took her to bed and made her shudder and clutch him and beg, well, that was just grabbing what he had left in great big, greedy, dripping handfuls.
12
AT SUNSET THE next evening, Alana’s house was near to bursting at the seams with the Walkers Ford library board, and a few more “interested parties” who stopped by to listen in and offer opinions.
Mrs. Battle, Mrs. Walker, and Delaney Walker-Herndon sat on the sofa, a laptop open on Mrs. Walker’s lap as they browsed industrial furnishings websites and considered seating arrangements for the children’s section as well as tables already wired for laptops. Alana sat on a folding chair in a small group focusing on the specifics of the interior renovation. The request for bids had to be as detailed as possible to ensure the project didn’t encounter lengthy delays and cost overruns. So far the document ran thirty-eight pages and counting, and they hadn’t even gotten to the electrical and fiber-optics requirements, much less the diagrams. Alana’s laptop rested on her knees, heating her legs while the fan whirred. They’d opened the windows and the doors to get a cross breeze two hours ago, when people started showing up with food and drinks, and a hundred competing ideas. The sheer number of bodies strained the tiny house’s capacity, and an infectious energy surged in the room.
“I’m listening, Billy,” she said absently as she entered the details for the high-speed Internet connection.
Billy Olson had enough construction experience to help her with the details, but wouldn’t be bidding on the job. “Once that’s done, they’ll sand and stain the floors. Keep your fingers crossed for a dry stretch. If we get one, they can open the windows. That’ll clear out the stink and the plaster, and the polyurethane will dry that much faster.”
Alana worked all of this into the calendar and added the tasks to the action plan, then took the pieces of wood stained to different darknesses from Billy and considered them. “What do you think, Mrs. Battle?” she asked as she offered them across the room.
“I like a natural look myself,” she said, looking to Mrs. Walker for confirmation. “Stain might make the room darker and smaller.”
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Walker said. “Let’s keep it as bright and clean as possible.”
She had the right people, the decision makers in the room. There were a dozen other people, including Pastor Theresa who appeared to be Mrs. Battle’s and Gunther’s pastor. In addition to making decisions rapid-fire for the library, a fair bit of gossip was being traded.
“Alyssa’s planning to go to the summer program. Her scholarship won’t cover it, but her father insisted—”
“Jeannie’s pregnant again. Fourteen weeks. Little Evan’s only ten months old, but she wanted to keep them close—”
“—Thought he got snipped, but I guess it didn’t take—”
“—Hired me to build four one-room cabins in the meadow behind Brookhaven, and a shelter. I guess she wants to hold yoga classes out there. The cabins are for people who want to do longer, private retreats.”
“That sounds interesting,” Alana said.
“I never thought she’d get enough business to make a go of it,” Billy said. “But Lester down at the market says her grocery orders have doubled since she opened in November. That’s a good sign. Lucky for us I helped Marissa when she redid the plaster out at Brookhaven. I didn’t know I’d get a chance to use the skills again so soon.”
The room went a little bit quiet at Marissa’s name. Delaney Walker-Herndon covered smoothly. “Mom, can I get you some more coffee? Lucinda? Anyone else?”
Alana set her laptop aside and stretched, then gathered plates and napkins. In the kitchen, Delaney poured out the old coffee, then started making another pot. Every available inch of counter space was crowded with veggie trays and ranch dressing, a coffee cake, and cookies. Alana looked around for a place to set the plates and silverware. Delaney combined two half-empty plates of cookies, giving Alana the space she needed.