Chapter 13
Take it on the chin – to suffer all the blows thrown at you because you’re a complete idiot
“Where are we going?” I ask Rowan as we travel in his golf cart toward Main Street.
This morning, I woke to a tray of red velvet pancakes sitting outside my bedroom door. I may be mad – no, furious – at the man, but I’m not an idiot. Besides, we don’t waste food in Winter Falls. I gobbled down those pancakes before showering and taming my hair.
An hour into recording, I realized I needed some herbal tea to soothe my throat if I was going to be able to narrate without resembling a croaking toad. Let me tell you, croaking toads are not sexy. The minute I entered the kitchen, Rowan herded me outside toward his golf car.
He grunts instead of answering my question, but I’m getting to the point where I can interpret his grunts. This one means I’m not telling you. Figures.
The golf cart slows before coming to a stop in front of the brewery. “Oh, hell no,” I announce before jumping from the cart and crutching my way toward the brewery, which I’m positively certain is not our end destination.
Rowan steps onto the sidewalk in front of me and bars my movement. “Wrong way.”
I feign surprise. “What? You’re not treating me to lunch at the brewery?” I curl my bottom lip in a pout. “But I’m hungry.”
“You can’t possibly be hungry. You literally ate six pancakes less than an hour ago.”
I know. My stomach is bloated, and the idea of food makes me want to barf, but the idea of discussing building a recording studio business with anyone – let alone Mr. You’re a Mistake Hansley – makes me want to projectile vomit. I’m choosing the lesser of two evils here.
“Come on. It won’t hurt to survey the building.”
Wrong. It will hurt worse than breaking my ankle to discuss working on a business with the man who thinks I’m a mistake. Grrr… How can something, which felt like heaven be a mistake? Unless it didn’t feel like heaven to him. I’d rather take a dagger to the heart than hear him air those thoughts.
“I don’t know why you’re involved with this,” I scream at him.
“Good question,” Eden says.
I survey the area to discover the entire town watching us. Great. Every single resident of Winter Falls is here to enjoy my confrontation with Rowan. At least, there aren’t any tourists around. Tourist season is mostly over, although Winter Falls continues to get a fair amount of tourists during the mild weather weekends.
Rowan raises an eyebrow and nods toward the empty storefront. I glare at him even as I begin moving in that direction. Jerk. He knows I don’t want everyone knowing about my business. As in my money-making business, not my personal business. I know better than to expect the people of Winter Falls to keep their noses out of my personal business.
Rowan fishes a key out of his pocket and unlocks the door with it. I enter the store and study the interior. The swap shop used to be located here, but it shut down because it didn’t make enough money to pay the lease. Big surprise. Not charging any money for people to swap clothes doesn’t exactly earn any cold, hard cash.
Winter Falls may have commenced life as a hippie commune, but the chamber of commerce won’t let someone occupy a storefront on Main Street without paying the monthly rent. They’re not ruthless about it. They’ll barter and let people fall a few months behind on their payments, but even hippies have a limit to their patience.
“The clothing racks are easy to deal with.”
“They are? You know you can’t throw them away.”
“Yes, Ash, I’m aware. I grew up in Winter Falls, too, you know. I found an online website for store supplies. We can sell the clothing racks and all the rest of it there.” He motions to the dressing rooms and check-out counter.
He slaps a hand against the outside wall. “The structure is sound. You don’t need to worry about the bones of the building.”
I snort. “Just soundproof the entire thing and build recording booths.”
“I already talked to Orion. He said soundproofing doesn’t have to be expensive.”
I glare at him. “You talked to Petal’s husband without consulting me?”
“Who else was I going to talk to? Orion is the only handyman in town. I can help since I did a lot of the reconstruction in my house myself. And I know Lyric is pretty handy, too.”
“Don’t ask my dad to help out. I still trip on the kitchen floor every time I’m in there.”
He nods and rubs his hands together. “Great. The plan is set. We’ll start with sound—”
I throw up a hand to stop him. “No, you big oaf. We do not have a plan.”