He threw her another careful look and took her hand, squeezing gently. She felt as if he had reached all the way into her heart. The lines around his mouth and under his eyes had grown deeper, veritable grooves now and his hand on hers was bonier, thinner.
Pru turned hers palm up and interlinked their fingers, trying to give as much comfort as she could. She and her father had been butting heads lately, but he was still her only blood.
She could almost feel her heart split, her love and her loyalties. To her family. To her own principles.
In the distance, rolling thunder boomed loudly in the clear sky. Her skin was warm, tingly. Her father’s face was impassive, devoid of all emotion, all trace of reaction. The only evidence of his awareness were his eyes scorching her hand, held roughly in his.
Desperate to escape the awkwardness of the situation, Pru murmured, “I don’t know what’s happening?—”
This time the door jingling open felt like a blessing. Pru jumped, stopped speaking, and hurried toward the front to greet… Rhiannon Crowhart, in a long green dress, her hair down her back almost reaching her waist, the silver twinkling in her ears and on her wrists, was a vision. The sun shone behind her, framing her in all its glory, and Pru’s breath caught in her throat. The memory from yesterday intruded. A memory that she had relived over and over in her dreams all night. The way Rhiannon looked at her, the way Pru could read her mind, the scenes projected there… The store was suddenly very hot. Pru wanted to fan herself, she wanted to run away, she wanted to get on her knees and worship with her hands and her mouth…exactly like she did in the vision.
Wait! Was I saying something?
Her father’s polite cough brought her back to the present. Rhiannon’s face, pensive as she entered the shop, transformed. A bright smile lit up the room.
“Mayor Fowler, as I live and breathe!” The fake note in the greeting jarred Pru out of her stupor. No, she did not know Rhiannon at all. But the artifice in the voice was unmistakable. And it made Pru even more curious about Rhiannon’s presence this early in her store.
“Little Rhiannon! Not so little anymore!” her father boomed in response, taking a few steps before enveloping the newcomer’s hand in his. Pru held her breath. For a spark, a sound, a change in the air, but nothing happened. Nothing at all. She chewed on the inside of her cheek, standing quietly and observing the exchange.
Rhiannon extricated herself from the handshake and gave Pru’s father a light pat on the shoulder.
“Not locked up in the town hall, are you? For some reason I always remember you there, at your window, overseeing the Square, day and night. Has it really been twenty years?”
Her father’s voice was just as fake as Rhiannon’s when he answered.
“I think you are exaggerating my workaholic habits, but then twenty years is indeed a long time. I’m afraid there is even more work now than before, the town has grown, everything is flourishing as you will no doubt see for yourself, being as you are now a member of the Crow’s Nest Chamber of Commerce as a business owner.”
Rhiannon’s smile was all sugar substitute, but she said nothing as Pru’s father went on.
“Oh, we were all so pleased when the last Market Square property finally found itself used again, and what kind of use! An antique bookstore, you say? It feels like it is all coming full circle.Rhiannon Crowhart back on Dragons and giving life again to the once-famed Atelier.”
Pru’s mouth fell open. Had she been so deep in her thoughts she missed the most interesting part of the conversation?
Something tugged at the corners of her memory, something familiar and important. Vital, yet just out of reach. So Pru asked the question that had an obvious answer.
“You’re opening a bookstore too?”
Rhiannon’s grin as she turned toward her felt genuine and warm, so unlike the one she had been bestowing on her father. Pru wanted to pinch herself. The dichotomy was giving her whiplash. Especially after their encounter on the balcony. Pru wanted to preen under the warmth of the gaze. And yet the stark contrast of it to how Rhiannon was behaving with her father was putting her on edge. Still, when Pru lifted her eyes to the forest-green ones, they shone with kindness and not a little mischief.
“I thought surely either my aunt or my sister had already spilled the beans?” Pru frowned, but Rhiannon’s smile did not waver, and it smoothed the jagged edges of the implication that she was aware people gossiped about her. “It has been a passion of mine for decades, restoring old books. I want to say I was even somewhat successful at it back on the West Coast when time allowed. So, when the return to Crow’s Nest became an unavoidable reality, it felt natural to fall back on what I’ve always loved doing.”
“You’re talking about Crow’s Nest as if it was a punishment, Rhiannon dear. Sure, it doesn’t have the allure of LA or even Europe. Though I confess nothing quite has the allure of Europe, the French croissants alone are to be tasted to be believed.” He laughed, and as Rhiannon joined him, Pru could feel the sudden change in the air. A chill that not even the warm morning sun could chase away.
“Oh, you know how it is. Once you fly the Nest, pun intended, returning is not always a pleasant opportunity or an option.” She extended that fine-boned hand and laid it conspiratorially on his as they shared a moment of false camaraderie Pru could not understand. It abraded her nerves, making her wish for an ability to pry back the invisible curtain of the secrets that were discussed right in front of her and glean behind the dance the two were performing.
When her father finally turned to her, she knew it would have to be done another day.
“The town hall is calling my name, Prudence. I shall see you at the Mansion on Sunday after church.” With a quick sideways hug, he was gone, leaving Pru standing in the middle of the Fiction aisle, her words slowly dying on her lips.
As if witnessing their demise, Rhiannon carefully picked up their thread.
“You don’t go to church, Prudence. In the weeks since I’ve arrived, I’ve never seen you leave this place earlier than noon on Sundays, and even an entrenched heathen such as myself knows that is too late for whatever sanctimonious fare they are serving in those pews these days at those hours.”
“My father is a deacon. He keeps trying to get me to go. I stopped going when I turned twenty-five.”
Suddenly Rhiannon was too close, and Pru hadn’t even noticed she had moved. Leaning on the third shelf, her bracelets jingling as she ran her fingers through her mass of auburn curls, she might as well had been something out of a romance book. Beautiful, charming, dangerous. And not at all real. Pru blinked and expected to be alone among the books when she opened her eyes.
Except she was met by Rhiannon and her knowing smirk.
