Free Out in the Country by Kate Hewitt

rolled her eyes.
    “He’s been trying to get the doctors to release him a day early, but they insist--and so do I--that he needs to stay the full forty-eight hours. Better safe than sorry.”
    “I’m not sure that’s how I want to live my life,” Graham groused, but his eyes were twinkling. He patted a space next to him on the bed. “Tell me how the meeting with the zoning commissioner went, Lynne. Anne Jeffries, isn’t it? I remember when she was in grade school.”
    John raised his brows. “You had a meeting?”
    “Yes, yesterday,” Lynne replied, slightly discomfited and even nettled. His tone suggested that she should have told him, and worse, the whole exchange caused guilt to slice through her. She didn’t like keeping secrets, but she couldn’t spoil everything now, not when Graham was feeling so much better, and Jess looked happy and alive for the first time in weeks... “It was fine.” That was too much of a boldfaced lie for Lynne to stomach, so she added, trying to keep her tone flippant, “Naturally there are a few wrinkles, but nothing we can’t iron out.”
    “Wrinkles?” Graham said, his tone sharpening with worry, and Lynne patted his hand.
    “Not for you to worry about,” she said with a smile. “That’s my job.” Yet somehow instinctively she raised her gaze to John’s, and found he was looking at her with a sort of compassionate curiosity that had her looking down again.
    He wasn’t that easily dissuaded, however, and after the hospital visit, he dropped them back at the house, accepting readily when Lynne offered coffee and a fresh batch of Jess’s scones in the kitchen.
    “These are delicious,” John remarked, biting into one of the scones. “Do they have apple in them?”
    “Yes, I’m experimenting with the local produce,” Jess said with a little smile. “It’s really quite interesting, actually.”
    “I can’t wait to try more.” John accepted a mug from Lynne. “Graham was looking a bit more chipper,” he continued. “I think this whole bed and breakfast idea has given him a new lease on life.”
    “Yes...” Lynne heard the hesitation in her own voice and glanced down again. After a few minutes of idle conversation, Jess excused herself--Lynne half-wondered if it was a pretext to leave her alone with John--and John asked if she wanted to take a stroll outside.
    Lynne accepted, and as the late afternoon sunshine slanted through the maples, they walked down the lawn which sloped gently down towards a burbling stream half-hidden by a copse of yellow birches.
    “You’re sure everything’s all right?” John asked, his voice low, melodious, comfortable.
    Lynne opened her mouth to say of course she was--she always said she was all right. She was always all right. Yet right now she felt discouraged and alone and tired of keeping secrets, so instead she found herself shaking her head.
    “Lynne?”
    She bit her lip, suddenly, ridiculously near tears. “It’s just... it’s so silly, I knew there was going to be difficulties. I didn’t expect it to be easy...”
    John laid a hand on her shoulder, and Lynne found she liked its solid, comforting weight. “What happened?”
    “The zoning commissioner told me it was a no go,” Lynne confessed flatly. “This area of Hardiwick isn’t zoned commercially.”
    John was silent for a moment, and when Lynne looked up at him she was surprised to see a little smile quirking the corner of his mouth. “So?” he finally asked, shrugging, and Lynne stopped mid-stroll to stare at him.
    “ So ?”
    John stopped as well, so he was facing her. “You just said you knew there were going to be difficulties. This is just one of them.”
    “But if the area isn’t even zoned properly--”
    “That can be changed. Didn’t she mention the possibility of an appeal?”
    “Yes,” Lynne admitted slowly, “but she didn’t sound very optimistic--”
    “That’s just Anne. The Board of Appeals is made of up of townspeople, Lynne,