Chapter 40 The Summary #2
Further, we made a deal with Jenna, who owned Mistery Flowers and Gifts, and she sent a big bouquet for our counter every Monday that we placed a card under so people knew it came from her.
We sold boxes of the candy store’s homemade fudge.
Made more deals with artists at the Art Center to sell their stuff, along with pointing people to the shop at the center where they could find more.
And I was pretty proud of the leaflet I designed on my laptop over a map of the town that looked like a (prettier) legend of a mall that explained what you could find where in terms of shopping, food and entertainment in Misted Pines.
And everyone carried them.
It was rad.
However, I had no idea what I was getting into when I made my deal with Kimmy, considering she took it as carte blanche to decorate my store for every holiday.
Even so, as noted, she was good at it.
And the Christmas look she gave The Groove?
It was off the hook.
Slowly, I made my mark on Hutch’s cabin.
I didn’t girlify it or anything.
But some of the buckshot hit Hutch’s couch, and since mine was newer, longer and comfier, we sold his online and moved mine in.
Before I returned the pictures of Clementine and Chisolm to Jill, I had copies made (with her permission), and I framed the one on their wedding day and hung it in the kitchen.
I did my thing with baskets, pottery, throw blankets, toss pillows, art and lamps, but I didn’t fill the place with knickknacks and clutter.
It looked like what it used to look like.
Just…homier.
Hutch could do homier too, though in his way.
For example, I came home one day and found an attractive wine rack in the living room, and it was filled with wine.
Then, he’d been out on the errand for me of picking up some stuff I won in an online auction, and when he was there, he bought a load of copper cookware that hadn’t sold, but I’d told him while I was bidding that I’d fallen in love with it.
I didn’t get it because I didn’t think it would sell in the shop since the reserve price was so high, thus my price would need to be higher.
But I told him I wanted it for us because it would be absolutely perfect in the kitchen (it was so gorgeous, we didn’t have to put it away, and cooking with it would be a dream).
But again, I couldn’t buy it, yeah, because the reserve price was so high.
Hutch didn’t agree.
I came home to that cookware.
He was a man who did those kinds of things.
And I was a woman who was lucky to have that kind of man.
Hutch had one more soul-baring session in him.
It came close after the night Enstrom and his boys stormed our log cabin.
He shared he’d had his PI friend look into me.
I could tell he thought I’d be pissed.
But I was not.
It just proved how much he liked me from the very beginning.
I still gave him shit, but I knew he knew with the way he grinned at me through it that I didn’t mean it.
But a girl’s gotta keep up appearances.
Though open communication with your guy would inevitably lead to some disagreements.
And this happened when Hutch sat me down in the kitchen and told me he’d made a decision about said kitchen.
He was going to have it dismantled and auctioned so he could donate the proceeds to the sanctuary. He was then going to have whatever kitchen I wanted installed.
After he shared that, I shared, if he auctioned that kitchen, I’d be buying it and reinstalling it.
And I countered with us having a look at the money I’d saved from unloading my life in Orlando, as well as the money Frank gave me. We would decide what we needed for our lives and our futures, set that aside, and give the rest to Stony Bluff.
I thought Hutch would push back, but instead, he asked me to show him my accounts.
And thus, we sat in our comfy, warm kitchen and decided how much to set aside to pay for adding onto the house (we’d need more room for kids), updates of the bathrooms (because they were not vintage-fun old, they were just out of date), future college and wedding funds, along with an account to add to our retirement and a little more just in case something crappy happened.
In the end, we’d be keeping a lot.
But that didn’t mean Stony Bluff didn’t get a huge-ass check.
During this discussion, the only dissension we had was that, for some reason, Hutch was adamant about personally paying for my workshop.
This dissension started because I didn’t know that reason.
It seemed logical—since I had the money (we had it), and it would be me who was using that workshop, not Hutch—that I could pay for it.
Not to mention, bottom line, it was half a dozen of one, six of the other.
I was not a woman who would make my own money and do a joint account with my man.
Make no mistake, I trusted Hutch implicitly.
But we were both individuals, and I wasn’t going to ask him to lose that part of his individuality, and I knew without any discussion he wouldn’t ask for the same.
Even so, regardless of what account it was in, it was our money, so who cared what part of it was used to build the workshop? (Yeah, yeah, I know, if this was the case, why was I arguing?—but I just didn’t get where he was coming from.)
Thus begun bickering, bickering that got heated, and finally, Hutch exploded, “I will not have you spend your days doing something you love in a place that man built!”
I immediately acquiesced.
I did this not reminding him that Frank Groove’s money would be building our future children’s bedrooms and be the basis for paying for their college and weddings.
I got him.
The workshop would only be mine.
And that, Hutch couldn’t tolerate.
So Hutch paid for my workshop.
Just to say, when it came down to it, Hutch designed an epic workshop that had everything I needed, along with everything I could dream, including a lounge area with a couch and comfortable chairs, a fridge and well-sealed (so the critters wouldn’t smell it and come looking) cabinets to hold snacks.
Like I said, it had everything.
We put my TV out there, and as such, the cabin remained television free.
Tell you what, I didn’t miss it, and after the workshop went up, I rarely used it.
I much preferred spending my time doing chores and getting the shit out of the way, so I had more of it to hang with Abigail and her family, go to yoga and meditation with just Abigail, grab a meal with Kimmy, go to dinner at Mrs. Matthews’s house, get a coffee with Lillian, Nadia, Cin or Delphine (Cade’s partner, I nearly bricked it when I met someone that famous, it was so cool, then I found she was down to earth, and I chilled out), at the rescue scooping poop or cleaning litterboxes or at the sanctuary, learning how to feed owls and baby moose.
But mostly, I used my added time spending my evenings in a cuddle with my guy on the couch in front of a fire while we both read.
Or with me stretched out on it, again reading (some of the time), while Hutch sat in his chair and strummed his guitar (cuddle time was number one, but it was a close second, being there to witness the miracle of how Hutch wrote his songs).
We didn’t shut out the real world.
But we didn’t let it intrude on the quiet and peace of our patch of land on the mountain.
There was always going to be pain, tragedy, atrocities and discord, and we could feel it, we could care about it, we could do what we could about it.
But not on our patch.
Not on our mountain.
Hutch would pick a night at The Link when I was sitting at a table with Stormy and Jaeger to unveil the song he wrote for me.
It wasn’t like any of his other songs.
It reminded me of “Bloom” by The Paper Kites.
It was gentle. And sweet. Mature. Longing. Loving.
Hopeful.
I sat at that table months after I met my guy—a table I sat at back then with strangers, but sat there right then listening to his song for me, doing it among friends—and I didn’t know whether to throw my beer at him for giving me that extraordinary gift in public, or throw myself at him and kiss him all over… in public.
In the end, I just sat there, mesmerized, as silent tears fell down my cheeks, and my man, my guy, my Hutch sang my song with his eyes never leaving me.
And when it was over, he gave me the most beautiful smile in the world.
It was gentle.
Sweet.
Mature.
Longing, loving.
And hopeful.
By the way, I indulged in that “kiss him all over” when we were in private.
It was worth the wait.
But I’m kinda getting ahead of myself.
So let’s go back a bit.