Read Online Bookends by Liz Curtis Higgs - Free Book Online

“Won’t prissy Miss Emilie love you? Be sure you rub up against her all day long and shed like a … well, like a golden retriever. Got that?” He scratched her behind the ears, a fresh wave of affection washing over him. “Good dog.”
    That’s when the front seat caught his eye. Paraphernalia from Carter’s Run covered the seat, the floor, and most of the dashboard of his two-week-old Explorer.
Not good.
Not when he had a passenger who probably didn’t know a fairway from a freeway.
    The municipal golf course had been his baby from the moment of conception. When he moved to town five years ago to oversee the building of the new Lititz Public Library, he’d taken one look at the rolling acreage that stretched behind the proposed library site and visions of perfectly groomed #419 Bermuda grass danced in his head.
    He wasn’t the golfer Nate was—few mortals were—but he’d spent enough time on the links to know what an ideal golf course might look like. The thought of developing one, then watching tourists and locals enjoy themselves at a reasonable price, all the while boosting the borough’s bank account, made his developer’s heart pound with anticipation.
    It had taken a year to convince the property owner to sell her verdant farmland, especially when she wasn’t willing to give up the 1813 farmhouse that went with it. Perched on a high bluff, its long back windows looked down on an undulating one-hundred-fifty acres and the prosperous town that had grown around it.
    Since he didn’t need the woman’s house, his main bargaining point was obvious: the prettiest backyard she could ever hope for. When he pointed out that another developer would be more likely to scatter three hundred ticky-tacky homes across her valley, she’d caught his vision for par-four holes and sparkling man-made lakes and agreed to sign the dotted line.
    But that was only the beginning. Then he had to stand before the Borough Council and convince them a municipal golf course was in their best interest. No sweat. His personally financed feasibility study and profitprojections for the borough had them dancing in their seats. The loan managers at Penn Bank were less dramatic, but equally convinced he could make it work and put up millions to prove it.
    Once the USGA consultant gave the committee’s plans his nod of approval, a steady stream of surveyors, clearing contractors, and ground-chomping dozers came and went through the construction entrance on Kissel Hill Road. Determined to keep his promise to the good folks of Lititz, who worried about a potential eyesore in their historic community, Jonas made sure the architectural team from New Jersey altered the lay of the land as little as possible. The clubhouse was designed in much the same style as the elegant new library he was building, its classic lines echoing the stucco-and-stone Moravian Church.
    The golf course would open in April, the library in June. By the Fourth of July, his life would be back to normal, whatever that was. In the meantime, he needed to be on site today—walking the grounds, checking things out—not standing around in a twenty-degree windchill with an ice princess.
    Remember why you’re doing this, man.
    Why
was
he doing this? Because she needed cheering up, right?
Great, Fielding. Another project.
    Except that wasn’t fair. Emilie Getz was a woman, not a project. Truth was, he could use a day away from Carter’s Run. It wouldn’t kill him. Might even be fun watching
Fraulein Doktor
pretend to know doo-doo about birds.
    First, though, she’d need somewhere in the Explorer to sit.
    With a grunt, he gathered up an armload of notebooks, rumpled architectural drawings, four empty bank bags, and a year’s worth of
Golf Digest,
then made his way toward the back door. Nudging it open with his knee, he tossed the contents onto the kitchen floor in a jumbled heap, with good intentions of sorting out the whole mess later.
    Much later.
    Jonas locked the door