2:9<\/p>\n
Meredith glanced in her back mirror to see whether Barney was still following her. She’d invited him to use one of her spare rooms on the third floor while he was in town. He was a man of great passion and grand ideas, and she would be glad for the company for a while.<\/p>\n
It was a bit odd, though, that he seemed to already know so much about her, but it was a small town and people did talk, didn’t they. The town was feeling a bit better the last little while. The dollar was up and lots of people had been traveling south to shop in Great Falls. Everything seemed more prosperous, and it was time to check whether there was any interest in outside investment. Hunting was good around here, too, and the gas industry was booming. There was no reason that Magrath couldn’t see an influx of people, and of much-needed money. Meredith mused that she might even rethink her long-deferred B&B idea if there was enough traffic.<\/p>\n
Barney certainly was a godsend if he could do half of what he thought he might. And if not, well, no harm done. Nothing succeeds if nothing is started, her father used to say.<\/p>\n
Meredith turned off the gravel road and bumped over the washboard that had been forming all summer. Time to get that graded before I bounce myself into the ditch<\/em>. She slowed in front of the house and stopped by the old outhouse. Barney\u2019s old land yacht stopped behind her. He stepped out and turned 360 degrees, eyeing up the house, yard and outbuildings.<\/p>\n Meredith shut the rusty door of the pickup, leaving the keys inside, and called to the gawking man in her front yard. \u201cCome on inside and make yourself comfortable. I’ll put on a pot and make up your room. And then you can bring your things up whenever you want. No standing on ceremony; make yourself at home.\u201d<\/p>\n Barney smiled at her and nodded. \u201cMake myself at home,\u201d he repeated.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 2:9 Meredith glanced in her back mirror to see whether Barney was still following her. She’d invited him to use one of her spare rooms on the third floor while he was in town. He was a man of great passion and grand ideas, and she would be glad for the company for a while. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3835"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3835\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}