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“You pretty much hit the nail on the head.” It wasn’t a phrase Marcus used often, but they were parked in front of a hardware store so it felt appropriate.
“Have you ever thought of opening your own ice cream shop?”
“Nope.” He couldn’t say that ever occurred to him. Making different flavors for a restaurant he worked at, sure. But opening his own? Never.
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t know how to do that. I’m a chef, not a businessman.”
“You’re a smart guy. You could figure it out. You pretty much just did market research right here in Nestled Hollow and found out that you’d have a very enthusiastic customer base. Tourists love ice cream, and we get plenty of tourists here. An ice cream shop is something Nestled Hollow has been lacking.”
Marcus just stared at his friend. He had seen the work it took to keep the restaurant running and was always glad none of that fell on his shoulders. But as much as he hadn’t ever been interested in exploring something like this before, the idea was working its way inside his mind and was exciting him as nothing else had in a while.
Running an ice cream shop could be much more of a daytime thing than his current job. He could make all the ice cream during the hours he set for himself and he could hire employees to take the night shifts. There were probably plenty of high school students who would love to work a few nights a week at an ice cream shop.
“And open this ice cream shop where exactly?” he asked. “It’s not like Nestled Hollow is flooded with empty buildings, just waiting for a new business to move in.”
A smile crossed Everett’s face, then he spread his hands wide toward the building that his headlights shone on. “Hannah told me earlier today that Larry is retiring and closing the hardware shop. It’ll be available to rent in two months. You can spend another month after that in construction and be open in three. That’d be plenty of time to get all the details worked out.”
“You think it would?”
Everett nodded. “Totally.”
Marcus got out of the vehicle and walked up to the closed hardware store. He had been in the store a few times over the years, but until now, he had never looked at the place as though he might one day turn it into an ice cream shop. Dim lights were on in the store, but the bulk of the light came from Everett’s headlights behind him. He cupped his hands at the sides of his face and pressed them against the glass, looking inside. He could already picture what it would look like to not have all the shelves of building supplies and instead have tables, chairs, and a counter to order ice cream, right next to a case filled with his own unique flavors.
When he had decided to go to culinary school, he’d imagined plenty of times what it would feel like when he was a chef. The emotions he was experiencing right now were exactly what he had been hoping for back then. Never had he imagined that an ice cream shop would be the thing to give it to him, though. But it felt right. Exciting. Full of possibilities. And with the different schedule it would require, maybe it would even lead him to a place where he could one day get married and have a family of his own.
He heard Everett get out of the car behind him, but he still kept looking, unable to take his eyes off this perfect dream that he’d never dreamt of before now. Everett clapped him on the back. “What do you think?”
Marcus knew exactly how off-limits Joselyn was and how many feelings he still had for her. If she lived in Nestled Hollow, it would be a solid no. He wouldn’t be able to see her so often, knowing they could never be together. But she lived in Denver just like he did now, so his heart would actually be safer being here than in the same city as her. Not that he ever saw here there—Denver was a big place.
And the Zimmermans had always been family. It would heal a part of him that had been longing for family to be back near them again. Not all of the Zimmerman clan still lived in Nestled Hollow anymore, but the oldest four had come back and built homes on the family block. Being around them more might make him feel whole again.
As long as Joselyn didn’t move back before he could manage to not only get over her but find someone just like her that he could marry, everything would work out exactly right.
“I think it’s perfect.”
He could hear the smile in Everett’s voice when he said, “My mom just texted—dinner should be ready in fifteen minutes. How about we head over and let my family hear the good news?”
three
JOSELYN
Joselyn chopped vegetables for the salad in her mom’s kitchen, surrounded by family members, her laptop on the counter with her spreadsheet open.
“What about a Laundromat?” Hannah asked. “I know that All Nestled Inn has one for public use, but it would be nice to have one that isn’t also used for hotel linens.”
It didn’t feel right, though. “It would be a huge expense to get plumbing and electrical wired, and then to get all the equipment. And what would I do after I got the business going? It wouldn’t take much at all to run it. I think I would get bored too quickly.”
“Yeah,” her dad said from where he was helping her niece and nephew set the table. “It would be a shame to spend all that knowledge and experience you’ve gained on something so small.”
“How about a bookstore?” her sister Nicole asked. “You liked working at Bookies while you were in college.”
Joselyn nodded, stopped cutting the cucumber she was on, and clicked on the tab in her spreadsheet for the bookstore. “It was a lot of fun.”
Her mom shook her head. “I don’t know, though. Our library here is used so much—I’m not sure there are enough people in town who would change their habits and switch to a bookstore.”
“That’s true,” Joselyn said. It might not even be worth doing market research for that. They’d been talking about building a bigger library for quite a while because of how many books were constantly being checked out. This townreallyloved its library.
