After a few moments of standing in one place, hands on hips, wondering how he could get out of this situation with the woman who would ruin his vibe here, Harrison went back inside. “Angels We Have Heard on High” was piping overhead.
He went into the kitchen to look through the window at Amy. He could still see her in there, but the easel had moved to the other side of the studio. She was looking away from the pool area now. He wondered if he and Hillary had disturbed her.
Duchess, on the other hand, was on the pool deck, facing away from the pool, sunbathing. Except there was no sun.
He sat at the bar and scrolled his phone, debating whether to call Clay and give him a piece of his mind—the debate somewhat muted by the fact his knee actually felt much better, but the principle and all that—when he heard a knock on the door.
Hillary? He got up and made his way to the foyer. Through thesidelight, he could see the front end of an older model of pickup truck. A giant wreath had been attached to the grille.
Harrison opened the door to find a man wearing a trucker hat and a dirty puffer jacket. “Amy Casey?” he said to Harrison.
Harrison sincerely hoped he didn’t look like an Amy Casey. “Nope. She’s out back.”
“No problem. You can sign for her.” He held up a clipboard.
“Sign for what?” He took the clipboard the man offered him and glanced down. A delivery from Bellah’s Grocery Store. Amy had ordered groceries? After yesterday? She must be really worried about the snowtastrophe. But the fridge was full. He remembered seeing another one in the garage, so he shrugged and signed.
The man took the clipboard back, lifted a few pages, then tore out a pink page and handed it to Harrison. It was a triplicate of the order and his signature. He walked back to his truck, tossed in the clipboard, then reached into the bed of the truck and lifted a box. He brought it to the porch and set it down, then made two more trips with two identical boxes. When he’d put the third one down, he said, “Looks like you’re all set for the snowtastrophe.”
“They’re really calling it that?” Harrison asked.
“They say we could get up to six inches. That much is unheard of here. Have a good day,” and went back to his truck, climbed in, and drove away.
Harrison began to haul the boxes inside. It was strange that Amy had ordered so much food. But he wasn’t going to complain—he could see more chips and some beer in one box. Ooh, and his favorite—a box of Santa-shaped sugar cookies with red icing.
When he’d brought the groceries in, he figured this had given him a reason to knock on the studio door. Didn’t everyone want to know when their groceries arrived?
He walked down the path to the studio and rapped lightly on the door. He heard her muffled voice, and would have sworn she said to come in,but when he opened the door, she lunged for her canvas like she’d painted something obscene and twisted the easel around so he couldn’t see it.
“Sorry,” he said, as Duchess appeared from nowhere and waddled past him, sniffing her way to her bed under the window. “I thought you said to come in?”
“What? Oh.” She straightened her smock and smiled. “I said I’d be right there. What’s up?”
She seemed nervous, and Harrison could feel the tension of invading her space. He felt like an idiot. “Nothing. I just thought…” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Your groceries came.”
“My what?”
“Groceries.”
Her brows dipped into a frown of confusion. “Mygroceries? I’m not expecting groceries. We just bought groceries.”
“That’s what I thought,” he said. “But the guy asked for you, then unloaded three huge boxes.”
“But who…” She didn’t finish her question; she swooped up Duchess, brushed past Harrison, and headed for the main house.
Harrison should have followed her straightaway, but he couldn’t help himself—he took two steps into the room, leaned to his right, and glanced at her painting. It wasn’t what he thought it would be, but he liked what he saw. It was a view of the lights across the lake, shimmering on the water’s surface, as seen through a rain-spattered window. Not unlike the view they’d had last night. And then, in the corner next to the window, was a spindly little Christmas tree with a red bird on top, a single red ball hanging from a bough, and a gingerbread man.
Harrison didn’t know how appealing this painting would be to art lovers because he knew nothing about art. Buthewould very much like to have it to remind him of this week. The only problem was, he had no place to hang it. Haul it back to Florida? Sure…but he would never see it if he hung it there.
Something was terribly wrong with that picture. It made him feel a little ill.
He left the studio and closed the door behind them, then hurried to catch up to Amy. He found her in the kitchen, pulling items out of the boxes, staring at them, muttering under her breath, and looking more and more confused. “What is all this?” she asked. “Where did it come from?”
If she didn’t know, he was just as confused. “You sure you didn’t order it? Maybe before you came?”
“No. What would I do with a giant box of Cheez-Its? I mean, besides the obvious. Was there a receipt or something?”
He had forgotten about the pink page and looked in the third box where he’d stuffed it. He pulled it out and handed it to her. He withdrew several bottles of wine from that box as Amy studied the receipt.
