Flannel and Frost
Copyright© 2026 by Art Samms
Chapter 4
Morning light pooled across Ryan’s latest makeshift desk, casting long gold stripes over the scattered papers. The battered card table had mercifully given up the ghost, and he’d fashioned something semi-suitable from a reclaimed door propped on sawhorses. His little apartment above the barbershop was unusually quiet, even for Willow Creek. No clippers buzzing below, no customers laughing. Just the soft scrape of Ryan’s pencil as it drifted across the page.
He bent over the notebook, sketching rough rectangles that represented aisles. Lumber here. Fasteners along the east wall. Paint chips near the window. He frowned at his own handwriting—clean but uncertain, as though even the pencil doubted the plan.
A mug of lukewarm coffee sat untouched beside him.
He drew another line, then paused, tapping the eraser thoughtfully. Hardware stores he’d known back East were sprawling, fluorescent-lit places with signage that practically shouted at you. This one ... this one needed to be different. Smaller, warmer. More personal. A place people trusted. A place where they’d come for advice, not just purchases.
A place he would want to walk into.
He exhaled through his nose and reached for the next page, flipping it open just as his phone buzzed with a text from his sister—another short, polite message that said very little. A ripple of old guilt skimmed through him. He set the phone face-down, pushing it away.
He needed to stay focused.
A knock rattled the apartment door before he had the chance.
Ryan blinked. “Uh—yeah?”
“It’s Caleb!” came the voice from the hallway. “You dressed, or should I give you a minute to panic?”
Ryan scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m dressed,” he called, stepping to the door and opening it.
Caleb stood there in worn jeans and a faded red hoodie, sawdust already clinging to his sleeves like it followed him everywhere. He held a steaming paper cup—coffee from The Hollow Bean—and a rolled-up set of blueprints in his other hand.
“Mornin’, sunshine,” Caleb said with a grin. “Thought I’d check if you overslept or skipped town.”
“Not yet,” Ryan muttered dryly. “Come in?”
“Nah,” Caleb said, jerking his thumb toward the stairs. “Let’s head down. You can show me your layout ideas.”
Ryan grabbed his notebook and followed the carpenter down the creaky steps, out onto the sidewalk. The air carried that crisp pine scent Willow Creek seemed to exhale each morning. A few locals were out already—walking dogs, opening storefronts, chatting in small clusters. Ryan instinctively tucked his chin slightly, hoping not to draw attention.
Caleb noticed. He always seemed to.
“Relax,” he said as they reached the front of the future hardware store. “Town’s not starin’ at you. They’re just checking who survived the night.”
“Comforting.”
Caleb chuckled and pushed open the paper-covered door. Morning light filtered through the edges of the taped sheets, casting a diffused warmth over the empty, echoing space. Ryan moved to the counter and spread out his notebook.
“So,” he began, flipping to the best sketch he had, “I thought maybe the lumber should go here, along the west wall, and the paint toward the front. And maybe the tools—like hand tools and smaller items—should line the center aisle?”
Caleb leaned over, arms crossed, studying the sketch with a thoughtful hum. “Not bad,” he said. “You’re thinking like someone who’s shopped in a hardware store.”
“I’ve been in one or two.”
“Oh, I know. But running one’s different.” Caleb tapped the notebook with the blunt end of his pencil. “People need space to move around. Room for wheelbarrows and carts. And don’t forget—old man Dunhill’s gonna come in here with his hunting dog half the time, so make sure nothing delicate sits at tail-height.”
Ryan blinked. “People bring dogs inside?”
“Buddy,” Caleb said, giving him a look of pure amusement, “you’re in the mountains. Half the time dogs come in before their owners.”
Ryan found himself smiling despite the knot still lingering behind his ribs.
Caleb moved to the far wall, testing the sturdiness with his palm. “We can build shelving here. The bones are good. Old, but good. Kinda like me.”
“Old?” Ryan asked lightly.
Caleb shot him a playful glare. “Watch it. I’ve got a nail gun and no supervision.”
Ryan let out a small laugh—the first one that felt easy in days.
Caleb stepped back toward him. “Show me the rest of your sketches. We’ll go through ‘em. No rush.”
Ryan hesitated, fingers brushing the notebook edge.
“Look,” Caleb said, seeing the pause. “You’re doing fine. You showed up. That’s half the battle in this town. People are still warming up to you, but that’s normal.”
Ryan nodded, though uncertainty flickered across his features.
“And hey,” Caleb continued, lowering his voice with an amused rumble, “don’t sweat the library thing too much. Folks here like their stories dramatic. You’ll get another chance.”
Ryan’s cheeks warmed. “Great.”
Caleb clapped him on the back. “C’mon. Let’s make this place look like a hardware store before the town decides to turn it into another bakery.”
Ryan opened the next page and spread out the sketches. The two men stood over them, morning light creeping across the floor as Willow Creek slowly came alive outside.
For the first time since arriving, Ryan felt the faintest thread of purpose pulling taut—thin, but real. Not much, but it was a start.
Soon, they put the sketches away. Dust motes drifted lazily in the air as Caleb ran his hand along one of the exposed beams near the back of the shop. The wood was dark—nearly black in places—with the over-polished sheen of age. Ryan watched the way Caleb’s fingers traced the grain, as if reading something written there.
“This place has been standing longer than half the folks in Willow Creek,” Caleb said. “Older than me, even. And that’s saying somethin’.”
Ryan set his notebook aside. “How old are we talking?”
“Turn of the century,” Caleb replied, stepping away from the beam. “Early 1900s. This whole block used to be a row of repair shops. Cobbler, mechanic, woodworker. Folks fixed things back then. Didn’t replace ‘em every other year.”
He walked toward the front windows, still covered in butcher paper, and tapped the narrow molding with his knuckles. “You see this trim? Hand-cut. Back before power tools were common around here.”
Ryan followed, examining the molding. It was slightly uneven, almost charmingly so, as if shaped by someone who understood materials better than straight edges.
“This whole building’s got history in its bones,” Caleb said. “Evelyn’s dad, Henry, used to do patch work on this place when he was younger. Before he got real busy with the lodge renovations.”
Ryan straightened slightly. “Evelyn’s dad worked here?”
“Mhmm. Not in the shop, but on it. He had a knack for figuring out what old buildings needed.” Caleb smiled faintly. “Could fix anything. Windows, floorboards, stubborn doors. If something groaned, Henry knew why.”
A small pulse of interest warmed Ryan’s chest. He tried to picture a younger version of the composed, steady librarian he’d met—one who had grown up among people whose hands worked with wood and history.
He realized, with a quiet pang, how little he actually knew about the town or the people in it. He’d stepped into Willow Creek thinking he could just ... start over. As if the town were a blank slate waiting for him to sketch his new life onto it.
But it wasn’t blank at all.
“How do you know all this?” Ryan asked.
Caleb laughed. “Buddy, you live in a small town long enough, you don’t get a choice. History ends up in your pockets whether you want it there or not.” He wandered toward the back doorway that led to a small storage room. “And people talk. Stories stick. Buildings remember.”
Ryan walked slowly through the center of the shop, taking in details he hadn’t bothered to notice before—the uneven floorboard near the entrance, a patch of faded paint where a sign once hung, the lingering smell of old machine oil that never fully left.
“This was someone’s life,” Ryan murmured. “Someone spent years in here. Decades.”
“More than one someone,” Caleb said. “Generations, really. Places like this don’t stay empty long. Willow Creek doesn’t let buildings die easy.”
Ryan folded his arms, feeling suddenly inexperienced, like he’d tried starting a conversation mid-sentence without knowing what came before.
“I don’t know anything about this town,” he admitted quietly.
Caleb shrugged. “And why would you? You just got here.”
“Still. Doesn’t feel great.”
Caleb leaned a shoulder against a support beam, studying him. “That’s the thing, Ryan. Nobody’s askin’ you to know everything. They just want to see who you are. If you’re stickin’ around. If you care enough to learn.”
Ryan looked around again—really looked this time. The place wasn’t just four walls and floorboards. It was a layer cake of stories. People who’d worked, fixed, built, and lived between these beams. It made his carefully drawn sketches feel ... thin. Temporary.
“I want to get it right,” he said.
“You will,” Caleb said simply. “Just takes time.”
One of the papered windows fluttered as a breeze pushed through the warped frame. A sliver of sunlight widened, casting a warm stripe across the old wooden floor.
Ryan stepped into it without thinking, the light warming his shoes, his breath easing a little.
Maybe this wasn’t just a building he’d chosen. Maybe it was choosing him back.
Evelyn worked in silence, the kind she preferred—the thick, warm hush of her living room where the only sounds were the whisper of tissue paper and the soft clink of book spines as she handled them. Afternoon light angled through the window over her shoulder, striking the long table she’d set up as her makeshift shipping station.
Laid out before her were three rare volumes awaiting their journeys: a well-preserved 1923 children’s adventure novel with a forest-green cloth cover; a slightly frayed but still stately Victorian poetry collection; and, her favorite of today’s batch, an early printing of a regional folklore compendium from the 1950s.
She touched each one with a kind of reverence. Not sentimentality—though she felt that, too—but familiarity. She knew the weight of these books, the stiffness of their bindings, the faint vanilla scent of aging paper. They were old friends whose quirks she’d memorized.
Evelyn slid the folklore book toward her, running her thumb over the embossed silver lettering.
“Don’t worry,” she murmured, mostly to amuse herself, “your new home claims to have humidity control. You’ll be spoiled.”
She opened a drawer and pulled out acid-free tissue sheets, smoothing them carefully. Folding corners sharp, wrapping edges neat. Her movements were deliberate, efficient—learned over years of handling fragile things.
A gust of spring wind drifted through the open window, carrying with it the faint scent of pine and distant chimney smoke. Somewhere down the road, a dog barked twice. Willow Creek sounds. Sounds she didn’t question or analyze.
She reached for the children’s adventure novel next, smiling faintly as she flipped it over. The previous owner had tucked a pressed wildflower between the last two pages—something she’d found upon acquiring it. She left it in place. History belonged to the stories, too.
Her laptop chimed with a new order arriving in her inbox. Evelyn glanced at it but didn’t open the message yet. She liked finishing one task before beginning another—her own small rebellion against the fast-paced expectation of instant replies.
The room around her was a mix of organized chaos: stacks of mailers, rolls of twine, piles of bubble wrap, labeled bins of inventory. And books everywhere—books creeping across every available surface. Her shelves bowed under the weight of them, and still she found space for more.
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