I shot her a glance. “What?”
“You’ve had that look on your face ever since we left. A distracted one.” Her lips quirked, and she gave me a considering look. “Don’t think I didn’t see you staring at our Lila tonight.”
Heat crept up the back of my neck. “I wasn’t staring.”
“Oh, you were.” Maggie chuckled, then leaned her head back against the seat. “She’s a bright one. Reminds me of her grandmother. Nora always had the whole town wrapped around her finger, and now Lila’s carrying the torch. She makes people feel welcome.” She hummed a little, thinking. “Nora and I were friends, you know. Way back when we were girls. We went to school together and everything.”
I shot a look over at Maggie for a minute. This wasn’t something I’d ever heard about before, or been interested in. “Really?” I offered, trying to inject just the right hint ofcuriosity in my tone, even though I was dying to dig into what made Lila who she was. “I didn’t know that.”
“That’s right. We were thick as thieves growing up. She and her husband had a little boy, but he struggled.” She shook her head a little on the headrest. “Never was able to take on responsibilities even after he grew up and had a family of his own. Nora was beside herself. She and Frank had tried so hard with him, poured everything they had into making him a good man, but in the end, he took off. Left his wife and little Lila.”
“What happened to her mother?” I had to ask. Our stories weren’t similar, but they weren’t dissimilar either. It made me wonder if that was one of the reasons she called to me.
“She passed away when Lila was just around four or five. Cancer. They lived over in Alder Valley, but she didn’t have any family other than Nora. That was that. Nora raised her. Did a good job too.”
“Seems like it.” More than a good job. Lila was pretty awesome. Even I could admit it. “She’s good with people,” I admitted grudgingly.
Maggie patted my arm. “That’s one way of saying she’s got you tongue-tied.”
I didn’t answer, which was answer enough.
The road stretched ahead, slick with the moisture that leeched from the sky, making the pavement dark and wet. It wasn’t anything I was uncomfortable driving in, but you needed to pay attention and watch for deer that might dart onto the road. It was the accident that took Levi’s life.Nothing that any of us had anticipated, just a deer darting into the road on an icy night that he’d tried to avoid. There had been clear skid marks showing that the truck had gotten away from him.
You always had to stay alert when driving around here. Sometimes livestock could be loose, and cows might wander now and then. That was just part of living out in the sticks. Sighing to myself, I had to admit I still loved every damn part of it.
Normally, coming back into Wildwood Meadows made me itch to leave again. The stares. The whispers. The feeling of not quite belonging, no matter how many years had passed since Maggie and Levi took me in.
But tonight, driving home from book club with Maggie humming beside me and the taste of cinnamon still clinging to the back of my throat, I didn’t feel that urge. I felt… steady. The feelings weren’t chewing me up the way they always had. Normally, it was Levi who would find me in the barn and calm me down, but now maybe … I could breathe here again.
I slowed as we pulled into the gravel drive, headlights sweeping over the white farmhouse. It looked tired in the drizzle, paint peeling a little more every day.
Maggie sighed contentedly, watching the porch come into view. “See? It isn’t so bad, being back.”
I cut the engine, sitting with her words hanging heavy in the cab.
She wasn’t wrong.
It wasn’t so bad.
Especially not with Lila’s laugh still echoing in my head. “No. It’s not. House needs painting,” I murmured. “I’ll get on that in the spring. Me, Wade, and Kipp.” And that was that. I was staying.
21
Lila
I still wasn’t one hundred percent after the home invasion. Hell, I wasn’t even sleeping at the cottage, and now Mia had handed over something from the post office that had raised even more of an alarm. It had just been a single card in a mail envelope from our PO Box for the shop, with the single word typed on it.
LEAVE
I wasn’t going to make a big deal about it, but next time I saw Wade, I’d pass it along. The card was sitting on my office desk right now in a plastic baggie, not that I thought there were any fingerprints on it. Honestly, I felt like I was about two steps from a nervous breakdown.
Giving another shiver, I locked up the store, the jangling bell over the door echoing against the wood as I yanked it shut. My hands still smelled of cinnamon and vanilla, even after I wiped every counter and scrubbed the bakery trays. There was comfort in that scent, but lately even the familiar had started to feel unsettled.
I tucked the keys into my pocket and looked down the street. Most of the stores were dark, except for the glow from a few streetlights. Usually, that was enough to make me feel safe, but tonight I still felt uneasy about walking the few blocks home, and that made me mad. I wrapped my jacket tighter as if it could serve as protection, trying to hold on to the anger instead of the fear.
“Leaving late again?” The voice came from across the street, low and steady. I flinched before I recognized the shape of him leaning against his truck. His arms were crossed, jaw set, like he had been waiting.
“East?” I swallowed hard. “What are you doing here? You spying on me now? Going full-on stalker? I could be into that.” I kicked in a little smile and made my way over to him, making sure to take my time to give him a long, admiring look.
