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He doesn’t respond—rude—so I go to the fridge anyway and pull out the variety of leftovers from last week. I try some stale crackers, but he doesn’t even move an inch. I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t eat anything of Jack’s here either; God knows where his hands have been.

Then I pull out a piece of my sandwich from yesterday and set it close enough for him to grab. The groundhog sniffs the sandwich…then turns around and sits with its back to me.

Seriously?

“Right. Fine,” I mutter, rubbing my face. “Stay. Haunt the place. Possess the shop. Whatever, I don’t care.”

The groundhog closes its eyes like it has already accepted this. He gets all comfy and curls up right next to my feet.

I grab my wrench, drop back under her car, and get right back to what matters at the moment.

I have work to do. Feelings to avoid. Groundhogs to ignore.

Chapter Ten Flick

This morning I had no idea where to start my search for this guy that used to date my mom, but I do know there’s one business owner in town who knows everything about everyone, so she had to be the first person I ran to as soon as my shift with Rowen was over.

The bell above Glazed and Confused jingles when I push open the door, letting in a gust of warm cinnamon air. It smells like apple fritters and clove and nostalgia, which is perfect because I am on a mission that requires nosy Southern women with good memories.

Sheila from the bakery, who practically lives off the gossip from this town, is exactly the girl I need.

She spots me instantly from behind the counter. “Felicity, hon,” she says, wiping her hands on her apron. “You lookin’ for trouble or pastries?”

“Pastries, probably,” I say. “But also…information?”

Sheila squints at me over the counter, her cat-eye glasses reflecting a tray of steaming kolaches. “Mm-hmm. Go on, then.”

“I’m…trying to track down people who knew my mom at sixteen,” I explain. “I’m doing this—uh—family project.”

Sheila snorts. “Sixteen? Lord, honey, I barely remember this morning. But let’s see…” She taps a fingernail against her temple. “Her and that one girl were always in here gigglin’ about boys.”

My eyebrows shoot up. “What girl?”

What boys?

“Oh, what did they call her? Something bizarre. Something like…Pickle? Midge? Grasshopper? Something that sounds like what you’d scrape off the bottom of your shoe.”

“Cricket?” I offer under my breath, remembering the little cricket pouch in Mom’s nightstand. She never kept anything in there except that pouch and an old matchbox that was barely held together. She took both with her when she left a few years back.

I thought maybe she just liked bugs, but now I realize the embroidered cricket must have stood for a name.

Sheila snaps her fingers. “That’s it! Cricket Langsley. Pretty sure she and your mama were in the same youth group ages ago. That child was a firecracker. Those two came in here all the time, gigglin’ and whisperin’ and plannin’ something. I remember thinking the whole town better buckle up.”

Cricket Langsley.

I tuck the name into my pocket like something fragile.

***

My aunt Riley’s house is on Lover’s Lane. I used to hate that name. Actually, I hated the word Lover’s. Something about it felt awfully…sticky?

But now I love that street name. I imagine the neighborhood like the little plastic homes in Mister Rogers’s intro. Yellow and pink and light blue pastel vertical siding, and wraparound porches. Long backyards that stretch out to free fields and distant views of the Willow Creek cows munching on grass.

Wooden front doors with golden yellow wreaths. Orange pumpkins and purple mums by the brick steps. Some of them go all out for Halloween, giant blow-ups of cute ghosts and Snoopys and “talking” pumpkins to go with the lights projected onto their houses, while others just toss a fall wreath on the door and call it a day—others being Riley.

My aunt reheats last night’s chicken and dumplings, courtesy of our next-door neighbors—it’s definitely not something she or I could cook up—and I keep running a specific name through my head, waiting for recognition to hit.

“So,” she says between bites, “what’d you get done today? You look extra thinky.”