“It’s fine, Liam.” She blows a lock of blue hair off her face with a huff. “I know where my strengths lie, and it isn’t there.”
Maybe it’s here…
That makes me realize I’m still blocking her path into the store where she needs to set down the candles in her hands. I retreat a few steps, allowing her to move past me into the main sales floor and unload the jars on the top of the display counter.
“What did Elaine say?”
Another little laugh filled with disbelief slips from her lips as she arranges the various candles. “Well, I’m not entirely sure what Willow said to her, but Elaine came out from the kitchen and gave me a hug, told me that she wished me well, and that she didn’t need me to finish my shift. She insisted I help Willow instead.”
I lean against the edge of the counter as she slips behind it and starts peeling price tags off a piece of paper and slapping them on the bottoms of the jars. “And here you are.”
She bobs her head, her loose hair falling to partially cover her face. “And here I am.”
Alone, apparently.
“Where’s Willow?”
“Oh”—she glances up—“she left about twenty minutes ago. Niall was really fussy and didn’t want to take a nap in the Pack-n-Play she has set up in the back, so I told her to just go home and I would do what I could without her here.”
“That was very kind of you.”
Her cheeks pinken beneath the smattering of freckles, and she tips her head down, continuing to work and hiding her face behind the long flow of blue that looks like the falls on a summer afternoon.
I force myself to look away from her and to examine everything in the space. “Well, I was supposed to help her get the shelves up today…”
“Oh.” Lucky peeks up from behind the veil of azure. “She told me she laid them out where she wants them. So, I kind of have some idea, if you want to do them. I don’t know how much help I’ll be, but?—”
“All I really need is a second set of eyes to check the placement because I’m definitely not an interior designer and have absolutely no idea what that woman wants.”
Lucky laughs, shaking her head. “Well, I’m not either, but I’ll do my best.” She gets quiet suddenly, stilling and staring down blankly as if she’s trying to gather her words. “I really appreciate everything everyone has done for me since I got here.”
The ache in her words places one squarely in my chest. There’s a lingering disbelief there that tells me everything about the type of people she’s encountered in her life before coming here.
“I told you, that’s just McBride Mountain.”
“But people aren’t like that.” Her gaze shifts up to meet mine, and the pain in her eyes matches one I’ve felt since the day I looked into Earl’s eyes and saw my own. “You know…out there.” She waves her hand vaguely toward the street. “People don’t do things just because it’s the nice thing to do. They usually want something in return.”
I shake my head. “Not here.”
The only way a town like McBride Mountain survives is by people helping people. By being generous. By being selfless. By looking out for each other and knowing it will come back to you when you need it.
Her lips press into another tight smile, then she shifts away from the counter and moves over to the shelves leaned against the wall, effectively ending any additional conversation on that topic. “Willow told me she wants one here and one here.” She motions vaguely toward the wall—one hand higher and one lower. “The higher one more for display and storage of stock. And then over here”—she moves down a few steps—“she wants them staggered, not at exactly the same height as the other two. That’s the layout she wants repeated the whole way down. She thinks they’ll look better that way.”
I stand back and examine the wall, trying to picture what Willow was seeing when she described it to Lucky, then nod. “I see what she’s going for. That’s doable. Killian said he was also leaving my toolbox for me when he dropped off the shelves.”
She nods, motioning toward the room she came out of when I arrived. “Yeah, it’s in the back.”
“Great. I’ll go grab it.”
And give myself a minute to snap my focus back to the task at hand instead of on that woman.
I make my way into the small office, where Willow has a desk, a Pack-n-Play, and more boxes stacked, and snag my toolbox and the ladder that’s leaning against the wall, then step back out into the main room.
Lucky’s on her knees, digging through one of the boxes, humming idly to herself. I don’t recognize the tune, but I’m immediately immobilized by it. The soft, light melody floats through the air, and I watch her for a moment.
It’s the calmest, most content, dare I say the happiest I’ve seen her since she got to the mountain.
The diner was too stressful for her. Too busy. Too many ways she could mess up. And she’s right—she did suck at it. I never would have used those words, but Lucky certainly wasn’t meant to be waiting tables. Already, she seems more at home here, and she couldn’t have left the diner more than a few hours ago.
