the stick shift to Reverse. She stepped through the door of Kat’s. Immediately, the sun sneaked into the blue-black curls of her hair.
Holding his breath, he watched as she slipped the receipt into the small athletic bag at her waist. She zipped it closed and lifted her head. Wide, violet eyes pinned him where he sat behind the windshield. Then she smiled.
Inside his chest, his heart did a goofy, schoolboy somersault. Ah, hell.
A brief clip of his head and he released both clutch and breath. Fast as the speed limit allowed, he fled Main.
Chapter Three
Memo To Self:
Memories are not always what you want them to be.
Sometimes you have to improvise for survival.
Breena studied the note she’d written in her personal agenda prior to dialing her father this Sunday afternoon.
“Good God, child,” Arthur Quinlan boomed. “I’ve been worried sick. You tell me you’re leaving town, but won’t say where. They tell me at your office you’ve taken a leave of absence. A month goes by—”
“I’m fine, Daddy. Honest.” Cradling the receiver against her neck, she sank onto the lumpy cot that served as her bed and relieved her sore feet of their Reebok Classics. Four hours of walking, of checking out apartment ads from the Misty River Times. Paige would scold her if she knew—and double the argument about sharing her tiny house. Breena shoved aside weariness, offered truth. “I needed some time alone.”
His sigh rattled the air waves. “I suppose you’re right. So…where are you?”
“In Misty River.”
Pause. “I’ll be damned. It’s been years since—well. Misty River, huh? Why there, honey?”
Because it’s the one place we were a true family. “I remembered the bullfrogs at night.”
“The bullfrogs.” She visualized his grin. “They could croak up a storm there, couldn’t they?”
In peaceful, star-scattered nights.
“You seen Aunt Paige, yet?” he asked.
“I’ve seen her.” And bought part of her business.
“How is the old girl? Must be pushing ninety, if a day.”
“Eighty-four.” Why haven’t you been back to visit, Daddy? You could have phoned once in a while over the years.
The brother Paige lost two and a half decades ago had been Arthur’s dad.
For five days Breena, Arthur and Lizbeth had stayed in the old man’s house. Five days, while birds chirped in Grandpa’s backyard and ten-year-old Breena walked each morning to Aunt Paige’s little country shop. While balmy evenings met the night and Arthur sat in the willow rocker on the porch, smoking his one cigarette of the day.
Remembering boyhood days.
A real family in real grief.
Among casseroles and condolences, Paige had taken charge of Breena and Lizbeth, made cookies, walked to the little post office each day and concealed her pain.
Breena cried at night for the grandpa she would never see again. Even sixteen-year-old Lizbeth spent a night secreting tears under the covers. For Paige it had been longer. A quarter century of no family visits.
“She remember you?” Arthur asked, shooing off the memories.
“I’ve phoned her off and on over the years.”
“You have? Why didn’t you say?”
“I didn’t think you were interested, Daddy.”
“Aw, Bree…”
“Anyway, she recognized Great-Granny’s black hair.” Breena freed its likeness from a scunchie.
“And likely her violet eyes.”
Her heart warmed. “Yeah.”
“Hmmph. What did she do?”
“Just stared, then gave me a huge hug. Or, as huge as a woman in her mid-eighties can.” Yet Paige, suffering from arthritis, kept her independence, tackling the narrow, wooden stairs to the second floor daily with the aid of a cane. It hurt Breena to watch her aunt struggle up each step but the old gal would not sit or rest.
“I’ll rest enough when I’m dead,” were her exact words.
“What’s she selling now?” Arthur asked.
“This and that. Some antiques. Mostly knickknacks, birch wreaths, candles, that sort of thing. There’s even an old toilet stuffed with dried flowers. Quite artistic and unique.”
Arthur chuckled. “I can imagine. Any artwork?”
“Some homegrown stuff.” Clay pots, tobacco lath totes. Birdhouses.
“I mean paintings.”
She knew what he meant. “Yes. Oils, acrylics. No watercolors.”
“Get yours in there, then.”
“Maybe someday.” She fingered the hoop of embroidery—a field of prairie grain she’d brought into the bedroom—studying the intricate stitches. She took a breath, plunged ahead. “I bought into her store, Dad.”
“Good God. Why?”
His thunder had Breena holding the phone six inches from her ear. “I need a change.”
“A change? Breena! What about your practice?”
She rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I don’t know that I’ll ever do therapy again. My heart isn’t in it anymore.”
Silence. “You’re letting them win, you know.”
“It’s not a case of win or lose. It’s a case of happiness. This shop makes me happy. I like meeting and talking to the customers. I like ordering merchandise, displaying it. I like the feel of the place, Daddy.” And I like the way Seth Tucker makes my heart thump.
“Does this mean you’re relocating?”
“Possibly.”
“Ah, Bree.” Pain in his voice.
“I’ll be fine. Aunt Paige is wonderful, a darling, really. As a matter of fact, I’m having supper at her house tonight.”
He grunted. “Well, at least you’ll have family around. If I could get away, I’d come up myself.”
“I know you would,” she said, knowing he wouldn’t. Dear as he was, Arthur Quinlan liked his home and his garden too much. “I’ll be fine.” After about a hundred years.
“I
