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So theby Bailey, Jess, and To a riot at the bar with Old Archie as they celebrated Jess’s decision to stay in Hartwell

“Ooh, I just had a thought!” Bailey clapped her hands together excitedly “You’ll be here for the pumpkin festival—we have a mini punkin-chunkin’ world championship, and—”

“Wait” Jess held up her hand, grinning “What on earth is punkin chunkin’?”

“You’ve lived in Delaware how long and you’ve never heard of a punkin chunkin’?”

Cooper chuckled at Bailey’s shock and explained for Jessica’s sake, “It’s a sport where people see how far they can hurl pumpkins They can use all kinds of devices to do it There is actually a world championship”

“Huh” Jess nodded “Can’t wait to see that”

“Oh, there’s more than that,” Bailey continued excitedly “We have a chicken festival, too, to celebrate our majestic state bird—the blue hen”

“And what exactly is involved in a chicken festival?” The doc looked genuinely interested and excited by the prospect of a chicken festival

He guessed she was just excited about being part of so

Cooper wanted to kiss her

“It’s really just an excuse for us to take over Main Street at the beginning of October,” Tom said “Locals enter a coet a band for the bandstand We sell crafts and hooods”

“It sounds fun,” Jess said wistfully

Bailey threw her arave her a squeeze “It is fun You knohat else is fun? The gay pride parade at the end of the summer”

“I thought gay pride parades usually hit the bigger cities”

“They do This is little in comparison, but Hartwell is very popular with the LGBT coanized the parade about eight years ago and it’s gotten more popular every year It’s a blast I’m so excited you’ll be here for it!”

“Me, too You guys certainly have a lot going on here”

“Don’t forget the music festival,” Tom added

“Oh yes! Next et bands from all over Kell Summers is actually a councilanizations so he’s, like, the official event planner for the town Ooh, and you should probably know that our mayor is Jaclyn Rose—she’s a friend of an, the doctor I h, Ian Devlin is a councilman—”

“Bailey, give the doc a chance to take it all in,” Cooper said, arips with town politics”

“Right” Bailey laughed “Sorry”

“It’s fine I’,” Jess cracked

“Speaking of” Tolanced at his watch “I need to head back, babe”

Bailey took hold of his wrist and squinted at the time “Ah, hell” She turned frolad you’re staying”

Jess squeezed her and then pulled back “We’ll talk in the ”

“Yay,” Bailey said softly

They said good night and To the whole tile in an adorable way that held Cooper transfixed There were so many layers to this woman and he’d only spent just a little ti about her She was co

“I should really go, too,” Jess said, turning back to hih”

He glanced over as the last of his regulars called out good night as they left the bar There were only a couple of tourists and Old Archie still sitting there It was final call in fivehi”

She raised an eyebrow

“No funny business” He grinned, reading her mind “I’ll make you a decaf coffee and you can talk it out”

Because, as much fun as she’d had with Bailey and Tom, they hadn’t really discussed why she’dto do here This was a huge ht say it was quite impulsive after so short a time here It couldn’t have been an easy decision and Cooper wanted to ht place

Twenty minutes later the bar was closed, and he’d sent Lily and Riley home early

He locked up and made decaf coffee for himself and Jess and led her over to a booth at the back of the bar

They sipped at their coffee in silence for a moment and then he finally said, “Sowhat happened today?”

She heaved a huge sigh and relaxed back into her seat “Today was a culht abouthappy II convinced myself that I was content with the situation I’d carved out for ton It was easy to convince myself while I was there because I didn’t really knohat I wasout on I’ve spent so much of my life wrapped up in the world of medicine that I didn’t have time to notice

“And then I get here and the pace is so differentyou guys love your jobs and you work hardbut it feels slower and ht, it was fun, and it was helped along by Bailey, Jess, and To a riot at the bar with Old Archie as they celebrated Jess’s decision to stay in Hartwell