The Boss's Bride. Brenda Minton

chili if you’re hungry.”

      “Chili that I didn’t cook? That sounds great.”

      Great. He had offered. She had accepted. He led her outside and up the back steps to his apartment.

      Gracie walked up the steps and through the door into the apartment over the hardware store. Her mouth dropped, seriously dropped. Patrick Fogerty was a genius. She knew how to repair a wall, build a porch and fix a roof, but what he’d done with that decades-old apartment was amazing.

      “It’s beautiful.” She had seen it before he started working on it. It was a typical apartment from a building that had seen its heyday in the 1920s or earlier. The rooms had been small, the floors covered with teal carpet, and the plaster walls had been cracked and chipped.

      Patrick stood back, pride evident on his ruggedly handsome face as she wandered through what had become a loft-style apartment. The rooms had been opened up, wood floors put down. The windows were open and a breeze blew in. The kitchen had sleek

      European-style cabinets in deep mahogany, and the lights were bar lights that focused on different areas of the open living room and kitchen area.

      “I’m impressed. How did you come up with all this in Bygones?”

      “I made a trip to Manhattan, Kansas, obviously, not New York. Or several trips. I found surplus cabinets and flooring for a great price. Since I do the labor myself, it didn’t cost much.”

      “You could forget the hardware store and do this for a living.”

      “I enjoy the hardware store.”

      Gracie wandered into the kitchen and thought she’d love to cook in a kitchen like this one, with new appliances and sleek, modern fixtures. The kitchen at the farm hadn’t been updated in years. The cookstove had to be lit with a match each time she used it. She had installed a new faucet and kept the oven working.

      “Coffee?” Patrick pushed a button on the single-serve coffeemaker.

      “Please.” She wandered back to the living room. “I’ve lived on the farm my whole life and thought I’d always live on a farm until I met…” She sighed and turned to face Patrick, “Trent. We were going to live in Manhattan.”

      “I see.”

      He handed her a cup of coffee, and she took it and sat at the bar that separated the kitchen from the dining area and living room.

      “I don’t think I’d make a good lawyer’s wife. It’s too much pressure.”

      “I think you’d be fine.”

      She smiled at that and at the tone of his voice that said he was uncomfortable with the conversation. She understood. Two days ago she’d been engaged. Now she was sitting in Patrick’s apartment discussing what would have been.

      “I’m always fine, Patrick. It’s how I’m wired. I deal with life and move on.”

      He sat down next to her, a steaming cup of coffee in front of him. “It isn’t always that easy.”

      “No, I guess it isn’t. But it makes people more comfortable if they think you’re fine. If you smile when they ask how you are and tell them you’re great, it makes them happy.” She lifted the cup and took a sip because she was saying too much and no one really wanted to hear it. And she was too embarrassed to tell the whole truth.

      She hadn’t been good enough for Trent Morgan. No matter how she dressed up, fixed her hair and did all of the other girl stuff that Trent seemed to think was important, it hadn’t been enough. He’d always been trying to change her, to make her fit the mold of who he wanted her to be.

      She held the coffee cup in her hand and thought about how much she wanted to tell someone other than her dad what Trent had done to her, that he’d tried to change her, that he’d cheated on her. He hadn’t loved her enough.

      Someday she wanted to be loved enough.

      “How about that chili?” Patrick left the seat next to her and she smiled as he opened the fridge door to pull out a bowl.

      “I could make something if you don’t want leftovers.”

      “I thought we’d agreed that you don’t always have to take care of everyone?”

      She started to nod but her phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket and groaned. “Yes, that’s what we agreed, but I have to take this.” She answered. “What is it, Evan?”

      Her younger brother responded, “Shouldn’t you be home by now?”

      “I should, but I’m still in town. What do you need?”

      “There’s nothing for supper and you said you’d throw my laundry in for me. I have to go to Oklahoma tomorrow.”

      “You can do laundry. I taught you how, remember? And there’s a casserole in the freezer. Preheat the oven to four hundred degrees and bake it for an hour.”

      “Seriously? Where are you? Everyone is saying you flipped out Saturday. I’m starting to think they’re right.”

      “Maybe I have. And maybe it’s time you learned to take care of yourself.” She wanted to tell him that if he’d bothered showing up for the wedding he wouldn’t have to get secondhand information.

      He hung up on her and she didn’t know what to do. The microwave dinged and Patrick pulled a bowl out and set it in front of her.

      “See, that wasn’t so hard, now, was it?” He reached into a cabinet and handed her a package of crackers.

      “It wasn’t easy.” She took the crackers and the spoon he handed her. “He really can’t take care of himself.”

      “I’m sure he can, if he has to.”

      “Maybe.” Gracie crunched a few crackers into her chili and leaned in to inhale the lovely aroma. “Do you have family, Patrick?”

      “I have an older brother in California. My dad passed away several years ago. My mom remarried and lives in Georgia.”

      “I see.” She watched as he moved around the kitchen, a confident man, terribly handsome. She focused, for some reason, on the sleeves of his plaid shirt that he’d rolled up to reveal strong, deeply tanned forearms.

      He sat down next to her and she refocused on the bowl of chili.

      “My family has a tendency to do their own thing,” he said, handing her a package of shredded cheese.

      “Mine like to be very involved in each other’s lives.”

      “Isn’t that part of being in a small town?”

      She shrugged. “I guess. I don’t know because it’s all I’ve ever known. And taking care of my family is all I’ve ever known.”

      His hand settled on hers. “Eat your chili before you go rushing off to rescue your brother.”

      She closed her eyes and tried to find a reason why his command, the softness of his voice, would make her want to cry. Maybe it had to do with exhaustion catching up with her? The past six months of planning the wedding had felt like being tied to a race car and dragged around the track with no way to escape.

      “It will get better,” his voice continued, smooth and reassuring.

      Gracie looked up at him, studying the handsome face, brown eyes the color of coffee with just enough cream. She blinked a few times to clear her thoughts. She somehow convinced herself it was that exhaustion thing again.

      “Yes, it’ll get better. But I should go.”

      “Of course.” He started to say something but a knock on the door interrupted.

      “And you have company.”

      “I wasn’t expecting company.”

      “Another