I stepped forward. “Café mocha, please.”
Marjorie’s smile brightened. “Carina? That’s such a pretty name.”
I bit back my wince. “Thanks, but please call me Cari.”
“No problem,” she said. “What are you doing in town?”
Before I could open my mouth and tell her that the town mayor kidnapped me, Daniel’s hand clamped on my shoulder, and he answered for me.
“Bethany Foster was her great aunt. She left the grocery to her.”
Marjorie’s face fell. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Cari.”
Just like that, in the face of her open sympathy, my throat slammed shut.
I swallowed hard. “Thanks.”
She turned to get our order and I reached up to dig my nails into the back of Daniel’s hand.
He jerked and cursed beneath his breath before he jerked his fingers away.
“Harpy,” he muttered.
“Asshole.”
He scoffed but didn’t say anything else.
4
After I got my coffee and Daniel got a huge box of pastries, we walked out of the bakery, but he didn’t head back to his car as I expected. Instead, he walked two storefronts down and pushed open a heavy wooden door.
I sipped my coffee, which was amazing, and tried to be discreet as I looked around. There was a reception desk out front with a steaming mug of coffee sitting on it and a short hall that had three doorways, one on each wall. And another door just behind the reception desk, but it was shut, so I couldn’t see what kind of room it was.
I figured it was his office, but I wasn’t about to ask.
I was still fuming about the little skirmish we’d had at the counter at the bakery when I’d tried to pay for my coffee, and he wouldn’t let me.
Marjorie looked like she was about to burst into laughter the entire time and had completely ignored the cash I’d tried to hold out to her. Instead, I’d stuffed it into her tip jar and sneered at Daniel. Who only sighed.
Again.
“What is Marjorie?” I asked suddenly as he headed down the hallway toward the farthest door.
He kept walking without responding, so I followed him.
Daniel opened the door at the end of the hall, revealing an office that was much smaller than I expected for a mayor, no matter how tiny Devil Springs seemed to be.
I followed him, watching as he walked around the messy desk to turn on the computer.
“Well?” I asked.
“What?”
“What is Marjorie?”
He looked at me then, his emerald green eyes glittering in the morning light pouring through the huge window to our left.
“She’s a banshee, but it’s extremely rude to ask.”
