Second Chance on the Corner of Main (A Nestled Hollow Romance Book 1) Read online

  Second Chance on the Corner of Main

  A Nestled Hollow Romance, Book 1

  Meg Easton

  Book One in the Nestled Hollow Romance series

  Copyright © 2018 by Meg Easton

  ISBN 13: 9781723911873

  ASIN: B07HKR7PHZ

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction and names, characters, incidents, and places are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, incidents, and places is coincidental.

  Cover Illustration by Blue Water Books

  Interior Design by Mountain Heights Publishing

  Author website: www.megeaston.com

  For my husband, Lance

  Contents

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  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  COMING SOON: NESTLED HOLLOW ROMANCE BOOK 2

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  ABOUT MEG EASTON

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  Chapter One

  Whitney sat at her desk in the Nestled Hollow Gazette, moving each of the day’s articles into their place in the layout. She glanced up at one of the other occupied desks in this three-desk office. “Scott, how is the business spotlight coming?”

  “Still working on it,” Scott said, not taking his eyes off his computer screen.

  “Kara, how close are you on the repaving article?”

  “I need three minutes.”

  The door burst open, and a red-faced third grader ran in, clutching a paper in his hand.

  Whitney stood up. “Lincoln— did you run all the way here from school?”

  Lincoln bent over, his hands on his knees, panting. Between heaving breaths, he said, “Yep. I had to stay after to finish my math, so I ran to get here at the normal time.”

  “You don’t have to hurry over here so quickly,” Whitney said, grabbing a water bottle from their mini fridge and handing it to him. “It’s okay if you come later, or even if you have to miss a day.”

  He handed a paper to Whitney and opened the water bottle, taking a few gulps. “Nope, a junior reporter always meets his deadlines.” And then he saluted her, and she saluted him right back.

  As Whitney turned, Lincoln grabbed her arm. “Wait. I didn’t see what your shirt said today, and it’s a new one, right?” Whitney turned back around as Lincoln read it out loud and laughed. “‘I’m a superhero dressed as a reporter.’ That one’s my new favorite.”

  Whitney grinned. At the beginning of the school year, Lincoln had stopped in every single day for a week, begging to be a “junior reporter” and bring her the articles he wrote during recess at school. She hadn’t wanted to squash the dreams of someone so passionate about journalism, so she’d told him yes. She could tell that he tried so hard on his handwriting that she decided to scan his article and print it exactly as he wrote it instead of typing it out like a normal article, and his feature was an instant hit. It had prompted her to talk to the teacher of the journalism class at the middle school, and they started a “journalist for the day” program in their class. Whitney would’ve killed for the opportunity to have a by-line in elementary school or middle school.

  Just as Lincoln was walking out the door, he held it open for Evia, an older woman with extra fluffy hair, as she stepped inside. “Hello, Whitney. I’m just stopping in on my way to market and wanted to tell you that apparently that storm last night blew a giant branch clean off the Amherst’s tree. And you know they’re both too old to be cleaning up a mess like that. But on my way, I saw a den of Cub Scouts gathering to haul off the mess. I snapped a picture with my phone,” she held it out as evidence, “but I don’t know how to get the picture off this blasted thing and over to you.”

  Whitney helped her to email the picture to Whitney’s email account and thanked Evia for the story. As Evia was walking out the door, Whitney smiled. She had lived in this town for her entire life, so they’d seen every awkward phase she’d gone through and every mistake she’d made. And she’d had some incredibly awkward phases and made some pretty big mistakes. She didn’t pause nearly often enough to think about how far she’d come, and how great it was to have a town who trusted her. When Mr. Annesley had retired and left the newspaper to her, and then died in a car crash that same weekend three years ago, Whitney would’ve never guessed that so many people would stop in and give her every story idea they had. She was actually successful at publishing a small town newspaper, when most print newspapers in the country were a thing of the past. The Nestled Hollow Gazette succeeded because it kept its focus on showcasing all the people in the town.

  Kara clicked her mouse with a flourish of her hand and called out, “Sent!”

  At sixteen years old, Kara was the same age now that Whitney was when she first started working at the Gazette. They both made their way to Whitney’s desk and Whitney switched over to her email and opened the file. She read as Kara hovered. The article told about all the potholes on Silver Mine Street, and how unsightly it was and how difficult to drive on, and how beautiful it was going to look when finished.

  Whitney looked up at the girl and remembered how eager she had been to please Mr. Annesley when she was first learning the business. She hoped when she was training her young staff that she had the same determination to get it right while still showing a kind sparkle in her eye, just like Mr. Annesley’d had.

  “What’s the lead on this?”

  “Fixing the road,” Kara said, like it was the only possible answer. Then her brow crinkled and she paused for a moment before Whitney saw her eyes travel up to the big vinyl letters on the wall behind Whitney’s desk— The lead is the people. “Wait, it’s not the road. But how do I make the people the lead on this?”

  Whitney lifted one shoulder. “Who does the damaged road affect? Who will construction affect?”

  Kara’s eyes looked off into the distance, not really focusing on anything. “Elsmore Market is right on that corner. It won’t really affect their customers, but they get access to their employee lot from Silver Mine. Mrs. Davenport lives on Silver Mine, and she has a hard enough time pulling out of her driveway onto a regular road. She might need some help. Oh! And there’s a whole neighborhood of kids who ride their bikes down that street to get to the elementary school.” With each person she mentioned, Kara’s smile grew wider, and Whitney’s grew wider right along with it. “I’ve got a lot of people I need to talk to. Can I get you this article after your Main Street Business Alliance meeting?” Kara glanced at
the clock on the wall. “Hey, shouldn’t you have already left for that?”

  Whitney looked up at the clock that read 3:55, and made a sound like a choked hyena. She smoothed down the front of her t-shirt and dark jeans and grabbed her black blazer off the back of her chair, pushing her arms into the sleeves as she walked to the door. “I’ve got to run.”

  “My article will be in your email when you get back,” Scott called out as she waved and walked out the door.

  She rushed down the street to the old library, followed the sidewalk around to the back of the building, and went down the cement stairs to the basement door and hurried inside.

  Yes! There was still a seat on the front row. Whitney sat down next to her friend Brooke. There was a time not that long ago where Whitney would’ve felt pangs of inadequacy sitting next to someone as fashionable and put together as Brooke, but apparently Whitney had come a long way on that front, too. She liked the outfit she’d adopted as her uniform when she became the owner and editor-in-chief of the paper. It honored the old newspaper pun t-shirt and jeans-wearing version of herself, yet gave the impression that maybe she had a clue what she was doing when she’d swapped out the stylish jeans of her teenage years for the darker, nicer looking ones and added the blazer.

  “I’ve got a headline for tomorrow morning’s paper,” Brooke said. “The World Ended at,” she glanced down at her watch, “three fifty-eight on Thursday.”

  Whitney laughed and then rolled her eyes. “Just because you beat me here for the first time in history doesn’t mean—”

  Brooke held up a finger. “I beat you here for the first time in history and you were very nearly late. I’m pretty sure both are signs of the apocalypse.”

  Tory, a woman sitting in the row behind them who lived in a house next to Whitney’s apartment building, leaned forward. “I’ve got some leads on an article for you. Are you going to be home tonight?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  The woman chuckled. “Yeah, you’re definitely a busy one. Should I just bring it by the newspaper then?”

  Whitney nodded. “I’ll be there until probably eight.”

  Whitney turned back to face the front, and Brooke folded her arms, giving Whitney a knowing look. “What?”

  Brooke raised an eyebrow. “You know, normal people aren’t gone this much. Normal people actually like to go home at the end of the day, relax a bit after working so hard.”

  “My house isn’t relaxing; it’s boring.”

  “Because there’s no one there, and you’re addicted to being around people?”

  There were very few people other than Brooke who could pull off a question like that and not sound rude. But it still stung. Whitney just shrugged and didn’t answer.

  “When was the last time you went on a date?”

  “You know I don’t date.”

  “I know I care about my friend who loves people, and want her to be able to go home at night and not be alone. And the only way that’s going to happen, my friend, is if you date.”

  “I don’t need to go on a date to not be alone.” She spread her arms wide. “I’ve got this entire town to keep me company.” When Brooke opened her mouth to say something more, Whitney added “Shush. The meeting’s about to start.”

  Chapter Two

  Eli shielded his eyes as the mid-morning sun shone down on all twenty-two people at the TeamUp training grounds. He switched his headset mic to on. “It looks like teams one and three have managed to get their ropes through the bucket handle without touching the bucket. A hearty high five to you both!”

  “And now team three has their rope through their bucket handle,” Eli’s business partner, Ben, said from the other side of the playing field.

  Eli chuckled as team four still strategized in a huddle, arms interlocked, heads down in the middle, looking more like a rugby scrum than five tech development and sales team members. “Team four— how you doing over there?”

  One head poked up, and he freed an arm long enough to give him a thumbs up.

  The three other teams each had a team member at either end of their rope, the bucket swaying in the middle, carrying their bucket of water, or “toxic waste,” to the waste site.

  When Eli and Ben made their way to each other, watching the teams’ progress, Ben switched off his mic and said, “Shouldn’t you have already taken off?”

  Eli glanced over at the open grassy space where they’d set up all the inflatable obstacles for arrow tag— the next challenge, and his favorite one to facilitate. Maybe if he just planned to drive late into the night, he could stay here until late afternoon.

  “Avert your eyes,” Ben said. “You know you can’t stay for that.” He switched back on his mic. “Whoa! Team four has left their huddle in a burst of energy. Look at that speed! They’re catching up!”

  Eli and Ben both moved to the edge of the playing field, where four “waste reclamation facilities” stood, each with a six foot wide circle painted on the ground, and in the center of each circle sat an empty bucket on top of a stool. All four teams reached their circles at nearly the same time, their buckets hanging from the middle of the rope strung between at least two players.

  “Remember,” Eli said, “that circle represents the radiation zone, and that zone goes all the way up to the sky. Don’t let any part of your body cross over into the radiation zone, or you lose it.”

  “Your dad’s going in for surgery tomorrow morning, right?” Ben said, covering his mic. “Nestled Hollow is in the center of Colorado so that’s like, what, a fifteen-hour drive?”

  Eli shook his head and covered his mic. “More like eighteen or nineteen.” He adjusted his mic and said, “Teams, have you figured out how to use that second rope to help dump that bucket, since you can’t go inside the circle or touch it? Time to get that rope out!”

  “So I guess you won’t be there before your dad goes into surgery, then,” Ben said. “Watch your hands! Don’t let it go over the edge of the circle! When do you have to report in at the family business?”

  “I have to be in town for a meeting at four o’clock. Cindy, you reached over the circle with that last adjustment! You just lost that hand— you’ll have to keep it behind your back from here on out. Team three, she’s struggling to keep that bucket from tipping— help her out!”

  Eli watched in silence as all teams stood with two members each standing on opposite sides of their circles, the rope stretched between them, the bucket hovering in the middle, near the bucket they needed to dump it into. Two more players from each team were stretching the second rope out between them, and each moving into place.

  It was amazing how well StylesTech had improved since the beginning of the week. StylesTech management had sent two departments to TeamUp— sales and development, because they couldn’t stop arguing and blaming each other. Eli and Ben had mixed up the teams for each challenge and only two and a half days later, both teams were working together like pros.

  Man, he loved his job. It was ridiculous how much he was going to miss it while he was gone.

  All four teams guided the second rope to push against the bottom portion of the bucket, while the two team members with the rope through the handle were pulling forward, causing their buckets to tip, pouring the water into the empty bucket on the stool.

  “And team four has finished!” Eli called out, while team four celebrated.

  “And team two!” Ben said. “Oh! Bad news, two, Frank just cheered a little too close to the radiation and just lost an arm and a leg. Bummer, Frank. Looks like you’ll be hopping for a while.”

  “Team three finished!”

  “And team one!”

  Eli made a show of putting on an invisible radiation suit, complete with helmet, and went inside each circle to see which teams had managed to get enough of their toxic waste into the reclamation facility.

  He stepped out of the last circle, pretended to take off the radiation suit and announced, “All four teams completed the challe
nge. TeamUp—”

  All twenty StylesTech employees shot a fist into the air and yelled, “To triumph!”

  Eli glanced over at the dirt parking lot at the edge of the training fields, where his car sat packed with everything he’d need to stay in Nestled Hollow for the next four to six weeks, and sighed.

  Ben clapped his hands together. “We’ve got cold water and Gatorades and fruits and other snacks for you before we head into arrow tag. But first, we’ve got one more team activity.”

  Eli’s attention shifted to Ben. This wasn’t in the schedule. Ben didn’t look at him, though; he just kept his eyes on the twenty team members of StylesTech.

  “You all know that Eli here isn’t going to be here for the rest of the week, because he’s got to head to Colorado. You’re all so much fun, though, that Eli doesn’t want to leave. What do you think, StylesTech? Can you TeamUp to get him to his car?”

  Eli laughed a big hearty laugh as they swarmed him, lifted him up in the air, and carried him to his car, setting him down by his car door.

  “Well, that was a first.” Eli laughed again. “You all really are rock stars. Remember that first challenge where you were supposed to lead the blindfolded person through the mine field of plastic cups filled with water, but instead you led the blindfolded to step right on every one? And now, not even midday on Wednesday, and you all pretty much just saved the world from an apocalypse with that Toxic Waste challenge. I think I got a little dust in my eye.” He wiped his eye like he was wiping away a tear, and everyone laughed.