What if she couldn’t paint again? She felt like she was fighting for her artistic life here.

Having this body of work to look at gave her courage that she could do it. That this wasn’t a flash in the pan. That she could find her own voice. Yes, her muse needed to stop being such a tyrant and let Suzanne stretch her wings. And Suzanne needed to stop playing it safe by falling back onto the crutch of other people’s art. But right now she was painting again, and she needed to trust that this was all part of the process and that she’d find her true artistic self in there somewhere.

So yeah, these paintings were priceless. To her. Grady might not be a fan, her mother certainly wouldn’t be, but how did she put a price on getting her mojo back?

She had these paintings to thank for that. And Joshua Grady.

…

Grady walked into The Lumberjack, or Jack’s, as it was known, about three in the afternoon. He was still ticked off from his encounter with Suzanne, despite trying to exorcise his anger through hard physical labor. Jack’s was at least a distraction. Grady usually drank alone, so it was a measure of how desperate he was right now that he was seeking out company.

“Hey, Grady.”

Tucker Daniels greeted him. He’d taken over running Jack’s from his daddy quite a few years back, before Grady had returned to Credence, and was the kind of bartender who could tell when a customer wanted to talk and when they wanted to be left the hell alone.

Grady usually always wanted to be left alone. Not today.

“Tucker.” Grady nodded. “I’ll get a Bud Light, please.”

Tucker grabbed the requested bottle of Bud and opened it, setting it on the bar. When Grady sat his ass on a stool, Tucker cocked an eyebrow. Grady normally took his beer to a booth and drank it, because he didn’t do chitchat.

Sometimes Burl, who was king of fucking chitchat, joined him. His uncle was Grady’s self-appointed are-you-okay person, appearing regularly for welfare checks and always seeming to know just where to find him.

“Business looks good.” The whole single-women thing from the summer had definitely helped out Jack’s customer base.

Tucker shot a puzzled look in Grady’s direction before glancing around at the mostly full booths and the group of women crowding around the jukebox. “Yup.”

Grady took another swig of his beer as the Backstreet Boys sang about wanting it that way. He winced as he placed his beer down. “Shit music, though.”

“It’s an acquired taste,” Tucker agreed with a laugh.

“Thought it was illegal to play anything but country in Credence?”

“I’m being inclusive.”

Grady barked out a laugh. “Boy bands?” As far as he was concerned, boy bands had always been a bad idea and should definitely have stayed in the nineties.

“Sure, why not?” Tucker shrugged, then grinned as he indicated the women by the jukebox with a lift of his chin. “Frankly, if they’d asked me to load up hardcore thrash metal, I’d have done it. Don’t worry, you can still find Dolly and Waylon. Come back next week and the Christmas songs will be loaded.”