Chapter 4
Sawyer waited at the curb for an antiquated Dodge with a loud muffler to pass before making his way to the other side of Main Street.
A quick glance inside The Jazzy Bean’s large windows showed him just how packed the coffeehouse and café was.
Even though today kicked off the weeklong festivities surrounding Gauthier High School’s Spirit Week, which culminated with the homecoming game on Friday, Sawyer knew from experience that it had nothing to do with the crowd at The Jazzy Bean.
This was a typical Monday for Gauthier’s hottest new eatery.
Since his return from Chicago a little more than seven months ago, Sawyer had been both stunned and encouraged by the changes in his hometown.
A lot of the credit went to the discovery of a small back room at the Gauthier Law Firm, which turned out to be an actual stop on the Underground Railroad.
Its finding had turned Gauthier into a tourist destination for history buffs.
That discovery had been the impetus the town needed to jump-start its growth.
Some were reluctant to allow Gauthier to grow too much, which Sawyer completely understood.
The homegrown businesses were a part of what made this town so unique, but change was necessary if the mom-and-pop shops on Main Street were going to survive the massive expansion taking place just twenty minutes west in Maplesville.
It seemed as if the business owners in Gauthier had struck just the right balance in encouraging growth while maintaining the small-town charm that was the hallmark of this area.
The Jazzy Bean was one such establishment. The quaint café drew a wide variety of patrons. From men and women in business suits who drove in from the accounting firm in Maplesville, to nurses in scrubs from the clinic on Collins Street, to men in hard hats who worked at his family’s lumber mill.
Even though Sawyer didn’t have much to do with the operations side of the lumber mill, he knew many of the workers by name.
Most of them had worked there for much of their adult lives.
There were now a number of second-generation workers, the sons and daughters of men and women who had been loyal to the company his father had founded more than thirty years ago.
Sawyer stopped to say hello to a few of them, and he was quickly sucked into a conversation about the new safety incentive program the current manager had instituted.
The safety incentive was the one idea Sawyer had pitched at the last board meeting.
He was happy to hear that it was being so well received by the mill workers.
He found Paxton standing at the counter and had to stop just a moment to appreciate the sheer exquisiteness of the way her clothes hugged her trim frame.
She was talking to Shayla Kirkland. No, she was a Wright now.
Shayla had married the town’s new doctor just before their class reunion this summer.
He and Shayla had shared a bunch of mutual friends back in high school, but Sawyer could never figure out a way to cross that bridge with Paxton, regardless of how hard he tried.
And he’d tried everything he could think of in high school to get her to see him as someone actually worth seeing. Nothing had worked.
“Hi, Sawyer,” Shayla greeted him.
Paxton looked over her shoulder and sighed. “Can I please have just a moment’s peace before you start hounding me again?”
“I’m not hounding you,” Sawyer said. “I’m trying to get you to see my side of things.”
She took the cup Shayla handed her and walked over to the station with the coffee fixings. Sawyer followed her.
Okay, so maybe he was hounding her. But he had a good reason this time.
“Look,” Paxton started before he could speak, “I understand your need to want everything to meet this perfect gold standard that you’re used to operating with, but again, you’re not taking my budget into consideration.
I have to balance what’s going to work for this project against how much it will cost. Everything will not be perfect because we cannot afford perfection. It will, however, be sufficient.
“And,” she continued after a breath, “just because it’s not perfect doesn’t mean we’re half-assing anything. I would never shortchange Gauthier. I’m as invested in this town as you are. More so, in fact.”
Sawyer’s head snapped back, his eyes narrowing. “Wait. More so?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “My mother’s livelihood is here.”
“And that automatically means you care more about Gauthier than I do? Give me a break, Paxton. This is my hometown, too. I care about this place just as much as you do.”
She let out another of those sighs, the kind that said she was tired of dealing with the insufferable human being standing before her.
“I don’t have time to fight with you right now.” She grabbed her glass of iced tea and returned to the counter. “Can I see the new menu?” she called to Shayla. “I want to grab some lunch and get back to working on the agenda for the town hall meeting.”
“When is it?” Shayla asked, handing her a laminated menu.
“A week from today. I’d really appreciate it if you would get the word out,” Paxton said. “This is the community’s chance to bring up any questions regarding the new flood-protection system before construction begins. I know people have questions.”
“You’re right about that,” someone said.
They all turned as Nathan Robottom, who owned the hardware store several storefronts down on Main, butted into their conversation. He, along with Harold Porter, sat at Shayla’s counter, his knobby fingers wrapped around a ceramic mug.
Nathan scooted off his stool and came to where they were all standing. “That new millage tax we approved is supposed to pay for this new levee you guys are putting together, right?”
“Actually,” Sawyer replied, “it’s a combination barrier and reservoir system, but alternatives are still—”
“Yes, it is, Mr. Robottom,” Paxton said. “The residents of Gauthier did a good thing when they voted to approve the new tax. We’re going to make sure the money is well spent.”
She peered at Sawyer over the rim of her cup, her brow pitched high.
Sawyer had worked on enough of these projects to understand her body language: Keep things vague for now.
If they got too specific this early into the project, everyone with an opinion would be pounding down the doors of the conference room, wanting their ideas on the best way to fix Gauthier’s flood problem to be heard.
“Yes, the money will be put to good use,” Sawyer said. “We’re not going to have another incident like the one that happened with Tropical Storm Lucy.”
“Good, because that storm didn’t do nobody no favors,” Nathan said as he climbed back onto the stool he seemed to occupy every single time Sawyer came into The Jazzy Bean. “You’ll see me at that town hall meeting. I want to make sure it’s all on the up-and-up.”
“Be there next Monday,” Paxton said.
She looked at Sawyer again, a knowing smile playing at her lips, a glimmer of relief in her eyes. That brief taste of shared camaraderie sank into his bones. Maybe now she could look at them as being on the same team instead of constant adversaries.
Sawyer scored yet another victory when he was able to convince her to eat at the coffee shop instead of bringing their meals back to the conference room.
They gave Shayla their food orders, then carried their sweet iced tea to one of the sidewalk tables in front of The Jazzy Bean.
They were the only ones available on this busy Monday afternoon.
Sawyer pulled out Paxton’s chair without even thinking about it. She stared at it for a moment, and Sawyer prepared himself for another lecture on sexism. But she simply said, “Thank you,” before taking a seat.
He rounded the small table and sat across from her.
Paxton gazed out over the street, idly stirring the straw poking out of her iced tea. “It’s a pretty day,” she said.
“Yeah,” Sawyer agreed. He looked up at the cloudless sky. “Maybe we’ll finally have a day without rain.”
“At least the rain showers haven’t been too heavy.”
He huffed out a laugh. “Are we really talking about the weather?”
She brought her gaze to his. “It seems like the safest topic. Anything else will probably turn into a fight.”
Sawyer’s eyes slid shut. He tipped his head back and released an aggravated sigh. “It doesn’t have to be that way, Paxton. For the most part, last week was peaceful. Why can’t we go back to that?”
“You don’t get to ask that question, not when you are the one responsible for creating the chaos.”
“Okay, first of all, chaos is a bit over the top. I made an observation, a valid one. I refuse to back down when it comes to the surveyors. You need to trust me on this. The very least you can do is consult with the engineering team at Bolt-Myer. Let them know my concerns and see what they think.”
She sat upright in her chair. “I—”
“Okay, here we go,” Shayla said, arriving at their tables with her hands full.
She set the first plate in front of Sawyer.
“One caprese with extra basil.” She turned to Paxton.
“And one roast beef po’boy with a bag of chips.
I’m out of those butter pickles you love so much,” she added.
“I forgot to order additional jars from Mrs. Blackwell before she went out of town. I’ll give you two spears the next time you’re here. ”
Shayla’s eyes darted between Paxton and Sawyer. “Um, is everything okay?” she asked.
“It’s fine.”
“Yes.”
“I totally believe you both,” Shayla drawled. “And I just won the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes. That blue van should pull up any minute now.”
“Shayla, please just leave it alone,” Paxton told her. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Fine,” Shayla said, giving Paxton a look that implied that they would certainly talk later. Maybe once Shayla got the full story about whatever was going on, she could clue Sawyer in. Just like old times.