Page 34 of Hearts on the Line

“I’ve got to go…”

“Staying in town long? What about your brother?”

I swallow, even as a chill races down my back. “What about Branden?”

“Is he back in town for the summer too? Getting everyone back together?”

Sean is such a small-town cop, almost worse than the granny network.

“I’m starting to think you like running into me.” This I say with a freakishly large smile to put him on edge. Judging by the way he nervously swallows, it works.

He nods, waving me on through the door. I’m in such a rush, I barely make out Ruth barreling down the street with a trolley of newspapers before it’s too late.

She rams the metal cart, weighed down with newspapers, straight into my shins, and my coffee, the one I so desperately need, explodes all over me, the papers, and the sidewalk.

“I’m so sorry, Ruth.”

I don’t know what I’m apologizing for when she’s the one who hit me, but that’s Ruth LeBlanc. She terrified me in high school when I worked on the newspaper, and I’m more than a little terrified now as she glares at me. Her thick North Shore accent has a slight wobble to it now from age. Or maybe from yelling at everyone in Merritt Point all the time.

“I spent all morning collecting these papers. And now—” She picks up the top stack, now soggy, then drops them. “Ruined!”

I bite my tongue over the seven-dollar coffee I just purchased. Not that I’ve shown it lately, but usually I can read a room.

“It was an accident.” I brush the coffee from my face, then wipe off my shirt, but it’s no use. I look like a wreck again. “How can I help?”

“How can you—” Ruth pulls down her gold-rimmed glasses. I’m not sure how she can ever see out of them because they’re always dusty and smudged. “I heard you were back.”

“Just a quick stop.” I reach for the trolley. “Let me help you bring these to the office. Least I can do.”

“Wait until I have to call in to notify the office that the returns are soaked in coffee.” She’s wearing a gray turtleneck in July and a worn blue newsboy cap, her white hair cut short to her chin, curling up over the paisley silk scarf she has tied loosely around her neck. To a stranger, she might appear fragile, given her small stature and the wrist brace on her left hand, but I know from experience she’s lethal with a red pen and has a tongue to match.

“Fine, come on. The news never stops, you know.”

I resist the urge to salute and instead grab the cart and push it down the sidewalk as she power walks through the plod of tourists. Ruth is also the kind of woman who delights in terrifying poor, unsuspecting souls. In her mind, no one moves quickly enough. That may be a side effect of being on deadline for more than half her life.

At the end of Main Street, tucked around the corner from the small market and a pottery studio, is the office of the Merritt Point Herald. Unlike the other buildings surrounding it, the shingles haven’t been repaired in some time, and the navy awning is frayed around the edges and more than a little sun-bleached.

It’s been years, but I swear I was just here yesterday, nervously walking inside after school to help with the phones and typesetting.

Ruth takes the awkward step up onto the granite stair into the building, opening the pine-green door. Giant flakes of paint fall off when it sticks, and she has to yank it open.

“Careful, she bites.” She waves me in, huffing as I wrestle it up the enormous step.

“Who?” I maneuver it inside, but it’s not easy. “You don’t have anyone to help you with this, Ruth?” I bring the cart out back, where each week’s edition is stored not so meticulously. It’s something that should have been digitized years ago.

“Help? Ha! I heard you hit your head last night, but I didn’t think you’d be so delusional. Newspapers are dead.”

I freelanced for a while, then worked for a news magazine, but I always knew journalism wasn’t the path to financial success.

I grin and bring my hands to my nose, inhaling the smell of newspaper ink. A wave of homesickness sweeps over me before a furry black mass screeches and flings itself in my direction from a dark corner of the room.

I scramble backward, slamming into the doorway, before Ruth laughs again.

“No help,” she says quietly as the newspaper office falls to a hush and a shaggy three-legged cat skirts between my legs, flicking its tail in a satisfied swish. “Lucy Fur and I manage well enough.”

Before I can say any more, she picks up the phone and wiggles the mouse to the ancient desktop computer at the front desk to wake it up. She swings a giant magnifying glass over the screen and barks out a rough hello to someone named Linda.

Her back is turned to me, and it’s clear I’ve been dismissed. I peek at the clock on the wall, still crooked after all these years, knowing she’s hard at work on next week’s edition.