“A little birdie told us you and Miss. Banks hit it off at the Witches’ Ball,” Dorothy explained, her tone somehow both conspiratorial and grandmotherly.
Great. The Hartley triplets knew Nellie came home with me after the Halloween party.
I snapped my fingers. “That’s who that was!” I was kidding, obviously, but I really didn’t want to encourage their antics.
Betty’s lips twitched, like she was repressing a smirk. The three of them exchanged a look that said a thousand things without any of them uttering a word. I knew they didn’t buy my nonchalant brush off, but they thankfully picked up on the hint that it wasn’t up for discussion either way.
“We won’t keep you. We were on our way to lunch. Say hi to the family!” Dorothy said, and as suddenly as they appeared, the Hartley triplets went. A whirlwind of bangles and pantsuits and knowing smiles.
Shaking my head, I resumed the task at hand, trying to put aside their comments.
The Hartley sisters’ interest in me wasn’t new, by any means. They were oddly fascinated by any of the single folks in town, and always trying to play matchmaker. Their mission was to ensure that every single person in Hartwood Creek found true, everlasting love. The number of relationships they’d interfered with was so vast, I would even go as far to say that every relationship in town had seen some variation of their meddling.
But they seemed doubly interested in the romantic happenings of my brothers and me. Probably because they were distantly related to us.
Out of our branch of the Wood family tree, the Hartley sisters had meddled with my parents’ relationship early on, and with Damien and Charlotte’s relationship, and I knew they had their sights on Easton and me.
I’d better watch my step.
After birthday shopping for my nieces and deciding on both the magic potion kit and the karaoke machine, I found myself doing the dreaded grocery shop.
I pushed my cart around, leisurely grabbing items of interest off the shelves. I’d come in with a list but barely glanced at it, sticking to my usual shopping habits and tossing whatever looked appealing in the cart.
I found her in the chip aisle again, stocking up on dill pickle chips.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” I said when I caught sight of her dark hair.
Nellie didn’t even seem surprised. “Ha,” she said, tossing me an unamused glance over her shoulder. She looked tired, and a little sad.
“How’s your weekend been so far?” I couldn’t help but move toward her, wanting to be closer.
“It’s been good,” she replied. Her expression was more open than it’d been in a while. She seemed like she wanted to talk to me. “How’s yours been?”
“Pretty good. Ran into the Hartley triplets.”
“Huh, I did too. They seem to be everywhere all the time.”
“It’s how they keep a finger on the pulse of this town,” I said, earning a small smile from her. “Did they say anything to you?”
Nellie’s cheeks heated. “Not really.”
I could spot the lie in how she shifted her gaze back to the shelves of chips, as if she was considering adding another few bags to her cart, although she didn’t make a move to grab any more.
For some reason, her cageyness made me want to be upfront about my interaction with the Hartley triplets.
“Ah. Well,” I pretended to look at the chips lining the shelves. “They mentioned you to me,” I added casually. I could see Nellie’s head whip toward me from the corner of my eye.
“What did they say?”
I looked back at her, trying to keep my expression neutral.
“Nothing much, just that they’d heard you were working for the resort now.” I answered. “I found it a little strange that they were talking about you. Are you sure they didn’t say anything to you about me?”
“Oh, well.” her cheeks went a darker shade of pink. “I mentioned it when they cornered me outside the drugstore. They asked if I’d found a job yet, so…”
“They’d find out whether you told them or not,” I chuckled. “They seem to think there’s a romantic possibility between the two of us.”
I tried to say this part casually and not watch too closely for her reaction, but I was tuned in to her every breath.
