Wow, bitch much, Cassandra?
I didn’t mean for it to come out that way in my head, but Pelican Bay was my past, and it needed to stay there. Small-town life was not the place for me.
“It’s no problem, Mandy. I’ll take the box up first thing I can this week. It’s only an hour or so trip. It won’t take me long.”
“I thought you’d drive it right there,” she pressed. “You promise you’ll take it the first chance you get?”
The front door on the antique shop swung forward and the little bell above it rang. I ducked, trying to half hide behind the shelf. I bent my knees, making myself smaller, and made sure I had my face tucked in the shadows.
“Yes, the first chance,” I said, stopping behind another aisle and trying to remember the way the shelves were lined in the antique shop to find my way out of here without being seen. The smell of moth balls was strong in the new section and I held back a gag, not willing to risk my whereabouts.
Whoever purchased the business did a good job cleaning it up from what I remembered as a child, but items were still everywhere. The shelves were full of toys and collectibles from decades long forgotten. The glass cases lined the outer wall and held small trinkets, figurines, and brooches. Anything of value you had to ask to see. It was cleaner but still a store full of old stuff.
“Okay, just as long as you do it soon,” Mandy said, and I completely lost my patience.
“Yes, very soon,” I backed down the aisle, trying to listen to her with one ear while using my other to determine where the customer who’d walked in was in relation to my location. I didn’t know who they were, but there was a ninety percent chance I didn’t want to run into them. Make that a hundred and ten percent chance.
Sure, Mandy claimed the box was super important, but I figured her cousin could live a few more days without the extra baby clothing. No one needed a winter jacket and blankets that badly, even in northern Maine in July.
“Look, Mandy, I’ve got to let you go. I need to get back to my brother’s place,” I whispered into the phone, trying hard not to be heard.
I should’ve never come into the shop, but I only stopped in the old antique stores to see if they had any of the Red Rose Tea figurines. It had become a compulsion over the years. My great-grandmother had a big box of them when I was a child and she’d allowed us to play with them when we visited.
The tea company placed special tiny figurines in their boxes of tea. The design changed every few months or seasons. People collected them and often antique and thrift stores ended up with a supply of them, especially the ones that no one realized were valuable. I didn’t have my great-grandmother’s figures any longer, but I had a growing collection of ceramic poodles, circus animals, and woodland creatures to make her proud.
The habit had never led me to trouble before, but from how my stomach tightened, the trend was about to change. I hung up with Mandy and slipped the phone into my back pocket.
Stopping in the store was a horrible choice. It was the middle of the afternoon and people in Pelican Bay were awake and walking the streets. I needed to work harder to make sure I wasn’t seen by anyone. I’d avoided Pelican Bay like the plague for years and wasn’t overly happy to be back now.
Only my older brother and an unplanned two-week elopement brought me back to town. They were off living it up in the tropical islands of the Bahamas and I’d be here shoveling their cat’s poop from the litter box. My brand-new sister-in-law hated the thought of Whiskers being left alone.
Apparently, she considered me acceptable company.
In the last moments of my call with Mandy, I’d lost track of where the person who come into the store stopped. The antique shop wasn’t overly large. If I stood on my tiptoes and tried to look over the shelves, I’d give my location away. I wasn’t willing to risk it, so instead I backed up slowly, scanning the aisles and trying to make my way to the front door.
“Cassandra Cable, is that you?” a familiar female voice asked behind me.
Oh no.
I hadn’t been back in years, but that voice was one I’d never forget.
I turned around slowly, my actions seeming as though seeing her face meant a slow death. In ways it did. I never cared to see lots of the people in Pelican Bay again, but of course, the person who found me would be the highest on my list of “must avoid.”
Deep breaths.
She wasn’t alone and my brain short circuited. I cut my gaze to the shorter of the two people, pretending only she existed.
“Katy Kadish?” I asked, plastering on my best fake smile. I didn’t have a problem with Katy, just the fact she was from this town and knew my name.
She smiled and stuck out her hip. “In the flesh.”
It took all my strength not to look up and stare at the man beside her. I didn’t need to see his face to recognize him. Riley Jefferson.
I’d been in town two hours and had now run into the one man I’d successfully avoided since I was eighteen years old.
Fuck. I smelled him from my position even though feet separated us. His spicy aftershave would always have a place in my heart. He was the same large, wonderful presence of the person I’d left. Rather than his signature smile, he had a questioning expression on his face as he tilted his head and stared at me.
“Cass,” he said, not doing as good a job ignoring me as I tried to ignore him.
