29. Martha Stewart Broke In #2
It was working, it just hadn’t been plugged in correctly.
Gio looked like he had a lot more questions for Buddy as we pulled out of the parking lot.
I was sure Nonna would be getting the third degree, not that he would get any information out of her.
I had a feeling no one knew anything about Nonna’s life she didn’t want to reveal.
I thought about asking my own follow-ups, since the subject had been broached, but I figured he would tell me about her when and if he wanted to.
Buddy Shepard was a private man. It was something that he and Dawson always had in common.
Neither one of them liked people in their business, which in this town was pretty unavoidable.
Buddy was quiet for the first five minutes of the drive, arms folded tight, jaw set.
I kept my eyes on the road, the hospital receding in the rear view, replaced by rolling green hills and downtown Valentine Bay.
The silence made the clatter of the old truck’s engine seem louder, and I wondered if I should say something to fill it. But Buddy beat me to it.
“Y’know, you can just drop me at the farm and get back to your business.” His eyes fixed on the marshy fields rolling past. “Don’t need a babysitter.”
“Nobody’s babysitting. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
He muttered something under his breath. It sounded like, “Don’t need anyone making a fuss.”
My heart rate ticked up. I wanted to tell him that it was okay to accept help, that he’d done more than his fair share for the town, for my mom, for me. But I’d learned long ago that Buddy Shepard was a one-way street when it came to giving and receiving.
Silence returned, and I could see, in the harsh light of day, the dark circles under Buddy’s eyes. I knew he wanted to be home, but I worried, once again, if it was too soon.
He’d drifted off to sleep by the time we turned onto the long gravel drive.
The stones popping under the tires stirred him from his slumber.
When his eyes opened, Buddy’s head tilted, his brows stitching together as he took in the property.
The grass was mowed in crisp, even stripes, running parallel to the drive like the outfield at a major league stadium.
Both the house and barn had fresh coats of paint.
The battered fence that had been held together with baling wire and prayer for the last decade was now taut, the posts set true and plumb.
Even the battered mailbox at the end of the lane stood upright, the flag gleaming with new enamel.
Buddy whistled. “You been mowing the grass?”
“That would be Dawson,” I admitted.
He craned his neck to look at the house. “New porch light?” he asked, suspicion sharpening his words.
I kept my tone neutral. “Dawson put it in last week. The old one broke during that bad storm a few weeks ago,” I explained as I pulled the truck to a stop.
Buddy grunted, but I caught the twitch at the corner of his mouth, a smile in hiding, maybe.
He didn’t say anything else as I parked the truck near the ramp that now led to the side door.
He stared out the window for a long minute, like he was trying to memorize every detail that had changed or maybe trying to find fault with them.
I got out, circled to his side, and opened the door. Buddy made a theater of refusing help, but when he swung his legs out of the truck, he wobbled, and for a split second, his hand landed on my shoulder. He groaned from either pain or effort, and I quickly looked away, pretending I hadn’t noticed.
The ramp had been Dawson’s idea. He’d built it himself, after a long night of reading ADA guidelines and watching YouTube tutorials.
I knew Buddy would hate it—would see it as an admission of weakness—but as he shuffled up the new planks, he didn’t say a word.
He paused at the landing, put a hand on the polished newel post, and took a moment to scan the entire porch.
The flowers, the newly patched screen, the gleaming copper lantern.
He shook his head, but I couldn’t read the expression. “Since when is this place a Bed and Breakfast?” he muttered.
If he thought those were changes, I braced myself for his reaction to the interior.
I unlocked the door and held my breath as we walked inside.
The kitchen, once a museum of grease and outdated appliances, was now pristine.
Every surface gleamed. The farmhouse table was scrubbed clean, a mason jar of wildflowers in the center.
The outdated fridge had been replaced with a gleaming, modern stainless steel behemoth, covered in magnets spelling out “WELCOME HOME” and “SHEPARD STRONG.” The walls, which had once been a yellowed nicotine color, now glowed with a fresh coat of white paint.
Buddy hovered on the threshold, surveying the alien world within. His gaze darted to the recliner, the only piece of furniture Dawson hadn’t replaced or reupholstered. The whole house was set up for his comfort—low-slung handles, grab bars, every possible tripping hazard removed.
He gave me a look, half-accusation, half-bafflement. “Who did all this?”
“Dawson. Well, Dawson did most of it, and Damon pitched in,” I said, keeping my voice light. “I helped where I could.”
Buddy grunted. He walked stiffly through the house, touching surfaces as if to prove they were real.
He stopped at the wall of family photos, some ancient, some new.
I’d rearranged them, added some candid shots from the hospital, and printed out some I found on the town’s Facebook page. He stared at it for a long time.
“You shoulda just left it,” he said finally, voice cracking a little. “The place was fine.”
I shook my head. “It just needed a little TLC.”
He walked over to the couch, which had new upholstery. “Looks like Martha Stewart broke in and threw up on the place.”
I smiled nervously. “You hate it?”
He was silent for a beat. “No. Just not used to it.” He collapsed into the recliner and looked up at me, jaw set with the defensive pride of a man who’d never asked for anything.
“I’ll pay Dawson back for all of it, and you too,” he said.
“Every penny. You can let him know. It might have to wait till next season, because I don’t think I’ll be able to make much profit this season, but I’ll repay every dime. ”
“You don’t have to pay anyone back.” I wanted to laugh, or cry, or maybe both. Instead, I handed him an envelope. “But if you did, I think this season is going to do very well.”
He frowned, suspicious, then opened the folder.
Inside was the business plan I had written while he was in the hospital.
I’d run the projections, analyzed the competition, and even called in a favor from a friend at the university’s agricultural extension.
With the new upgrades, the farm was on track to break even by fall—and if we kept up the momentum, it might even be profitable by the end of the year.
He read the first few pages but stopped when he got to the employment portion. “What’s all this?”
“I hired a few people.” I forced myself to sound confident. “Part-time, just for the season. They’re good kids. Hard workers. The produce stand is open again, and we’ve added a delivery system and baskets, which is proving to be very profitable. I’m rolling out my marketing plan.”
Buddy looked up, incredulous. “Marketing plan?”
I nodded, pulling out my phone. “Watch this.”
I swiped through the TikTok page I’d created for Shepard Farms. The most recent video was a time-lapse of the barn being painted, set to an upbeat country song.
Another video showed a line of teens at the produce stand at the Grand Re-Opening, doing blind taste tests of heirloom tomatoes, their reactions exaggerated and hilarious.
There was a “guess the fruit” contest, and a “pie-eating challenge” that had gone semi-viral among the local high schools.
The comment section was a war zone of playful teasing and hometown pride.
Buddy watched, jaw slack, as I scrolled through the posts.
“People are coming to the stand just to try and beat the high score,” I explained. “If you guess the fruit right, you get a bundle for it and your photo goes up on the wall.”
He didn’t say anything, so I opened up the Instagram page. It was full of photos, tourists posing in front of the new selfie mural I’d commissioned, local kids with their arms full of apples. There was a shot of him at the hospital, flipping off the camera with surgical tape still on his arms.
Buddy’s eyes narrowed. “I told you, no photos in the hospital.”
I grinned. “It’s got over a thousand likes. You’re basically famous. Look how many people are rooting for your recovery.”
He scrolled through the page, then set the phone down, shook his head, and stared at the business plan again. “Produce stand’s never turned a real profit.” He cleared his throat, voice low. “Not since your GiGi Rose ran it.”
I took a breath, steadying myself. “That’s because you never charged enough.
Or advertised or diversified. Look, we’re selling out almost every day.
I’m running preorders for Thanksgiving pies.
We’ve got a waiting list a mile long for those preserves Gigi Rose used to make, the ones mom taught me. I even set up online orders.”
Buddy’s face twisted, skeptical, but not dismissive. He turned a few more pages in the plan, then looked up at me, question in his eyes.
“That’s not all,” I continued, heart pounding with anticipation. “I want to make Shepard Farms a real destination. For Halloween, we’re doing a haunted house in the old chicken coop, a maze in the cornfield, hayrides on weekends.”