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“That woman is more than capable,” Cooper declared. “She scares the crap out of me. She’s too efficient. It’s not normal.”
“Jane is amazing,” Lucy agreed. “I can’t wait to tell her that she scares you.”
“She’s probably doing it on purpose,” Cooper said.
Maybe. Jane liked to mess with Cooper whenever he came into the store. The two of them had a strange friendship that Lucy didn’t quite understand, but they seemed fine with it.
“You bought the bookstore?” Zack asked. “When did you come back into town? I thought you had moved.”
“I moved back about five years ago,” she laughed. “I guess I missed the snow. It doesn’t do that in Los Angeles.”
“No, it doesn’t. Get tired of the earthquakes?”
“Those didn’t bother me that much. I came home when Mom’s health had a bad turn. She’s fine now but I decided to stay.”
She didn’t mention out loud that she hadn’t had much to go back to. She had just ended a relationship with a guy that hadn’t wanted to grow up. He’d been a perpetual child, and eventually she’d grown tired of it. To be fair, he’d never made a lot of promises or pretended he was any different than what he was. She was the one who had fooled herself into thinking he’d grow up eventually. They’d parted on good terms, but she hadn’t spoken to him since she’d left Los Angeles.
Last she’d heard from her friends, Michael was divorced and already engaged - again. Her life had been mostly serene and peaceful since she’d moved back home.
She hadn’t noticed when it happened, but Cooper had drifted away to talk to some people at a table, and Tate still hadn’t returned from the kitchen. She and Zack were alone. That meant she needed to make small talk. It wasn’t her forte, but she could give it a try.
“Are you home for the wedding?”
It was a perfectly reasonable question for Lucy to ask considering, but Zack’s face told a different story.
“I’m guessing by your expression that I should have kept my mouth shut. Sorry, it’s none of my business.”
Clearly, she’d opened a can of worms. Jane was right. The Winslow siblings weren’t thrilled that Papa Winslow was tying the knot.
“It’s fine,” he replied, grimacing. “But I am a bit conflicted about it, I guess. But I came here because I thought I should. It seemed the right thing to do.”
“I can see why. This has got to be a difficult situation.”
“Lucy, difficult doesn’t even begin to describe it.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She didn’t have a clue as to why she’d offered that. It wasn’t like she and Zack had been best buds in high school. They’d been acquaintances at most. Friendly, but not friends. They hadn’t shared any deep thoughts with one another.
It might be because she could see that he was truly conflicted. She’d always thought of him as a person who had it all together, but he might just be a mere mortal like everyone else. And she felt for him. Family squabbles weren’t fun, and the Winslows had more than their share.
“I mean…sometimes a stranger can be helpful. We’re not as invested.”
“You’re not a stranger, Lucy.”
Chuckling, she shook her head. True, but they weren’t old friends either.
“We haven’t seen each other since you graduated high school. We may not be complete strangers, but we don’t know one another well, do we? We just knew each other as kids, and we weren’t close back then either. I was a year younger than you, after all.”
“You’re still not a stranger.”
“Okay, think of me as a non-biased person then. I don’t have any skin in this game although I’m also going to the wedding.”
“You’re going?”
“Your aunt is a good customer, and she goes to the same hair salon as Mom, and the same dentist as my dad. In this town, that makes us practically family.”
“I guess it does. Six degrees of separation and all that. Or in this town, we probably only need two degrees at most.”
