Hardly able to see through the deluge, she kept her head down. “I’m not in your way—go around me!”
“You want a ride?” The driver’s remark was clearer this time. He had stopped and lowered his passenger-side window.
Zoey came to a standstill, too. Squinching her face against the rain, she peered at him. There was something familiar about his thick eyebrows and angular features but it took a second for her to remember how she knew him: it was Nick. The good-looking guy from the funeral reception. From the park restrooms. She’d already embarrassed herself in front of him twice. Considering her current state of mind and the condition of her apparel, Zoey realized it was almost inevitable she’d do it again a third time if she got into his truck.
“That’s kind, but no, thanks.” She resumed hiking but instead of driving off, he coasted forward, matching her stride.
“I promise I’m a not a creep,” he called out. “Your aunt Ivy can vouch for me.”
Zoey had to give him credit; he was persistent, and she was soaked. She stopped walking as the car came to a halt, and tugged the door open.
“Wait!” Nick grabbed a cloth from his dashboard and wiped off the upholstery where the rain had come in. Zoey couldn’t help noticing he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.
“That’s very gallant,” she said, tongue-in-cheek. “But it’s going to get twice as wet the moment I sit on it.” She climbed in and discreetly pulled the carton out from under her T-shirt so she could buckle her seatbelt.
Nick grinned when he saw the eggs. “Incubation?”
“No. Breakfast,” she retorted, rolling her eyes. But inwardly she was laughing. Wittiness was one of her favorite qualities in a man and a shiver flicked up her spine and across her shoulders.
“Want me to turn the heat on?” he asked, reaching for the dial.
“No, thanks. My aunts—” Zoey caught herself. She still thought of her aunts in the plural. Aunt Ivy and Aunt Sylvia; their names went together in a pair, like salt and pepper. “My aunt keeps it really warm in the house. It feels good to be cold for a change.”
“Is that why you went for a walk in the rain, to cool off?”
“It wasn’t raining when I started out.” They had almost reached Ivy’s house and Zoey noticed Nick put his signal on. “You don’t have to turn into the driveway. You can just pull over here at the curb.”
“No I can’t. Street parking isn’t allowed on weekdays between nine and five. I’ll get a ticket.”
Parking? That meant he intended to stay. “You want to come in?” It wasn’t an invitation, it more of an expression of surprise. Not that it would have killed her to have a cup of coffee with him, but she needed to change her clothes and make breakfast before the meeting.
“Yeah, of course.” Nick gave her a quizzical look. “I have an appointment this morning with your cousin and aunt. Didn’t they tell you?”
“You’rethe Armstrong boy?” She was so thrown off that she accidentally used her aunt’s wording; Ivy referred to anyone under fifty as a boy or a girl. Zoey had long since given up trying to convince her that some adults might be offended by those terms.
“Actually, my son’s the Armstrong boy. I’m the Armstrongman.” Nick made a muscle, but Zoey no longer found him amusing.
“You’re the carpenter Mark is planning to hire to renovate my aunt’s kitchen?” She wanted to be sure she understood correctly.
“I hope so, yeah.”
Is that why he was at Aunt Sylvia’s funeral—to drum up business with Mark?Zoey got out of the truck and shut the door harder than she needed to. Nick got out, too, and followed her up the driveway, past where Mark had parked his convertible. Given the soaking she had just endured in pursuit of eggs forhisbreakfast, the sight of his car made her want to kick his tires.
Neither Mark nor Ivy was in the kitchen, so she told Nick he could have a seat while she went to look for them. She poked her head into the living room but it was empty, too. Zoey dashed upstairs. The doors to the bathroom and her aunt’s room were both closed, so she went to dry off and change into clean clothes.
When she came out of her room, she knocked on her aunt’s door. “Aunt Ivy? Are you awake?”
“Yes. Come in.” Her aunt was fully dressed but her silver hair formed a helmet of tight curls atop of her head, her locks holding the shape of the rollers she’d worn to bed. Ivy used to have hair as thick as Zoey’s, but after she lost it to chemo, it grew back baby-fine. Every evening she put it up in rollers so it would appear fuller the following day. “Look at me,” she fussed. “I can’t find my brush anywhere.”
Zoey scanned the vanity table. It contained a jar of moisturizing cream, two tubes of lipstick, a bottle of lily of the valley perfume and half a dozen pink and green plastic rollers. But the hairbrush was missing. Zoey lifted the table skirt; no brush there, either.
“Did you bring it into the bathroom with you?”
“I haven’t used the bathroom yet. Mark just came in and woke me up. He’s been in there ever since.”
Zoey checked beneath the bed and under the bureau. She lifted the quilt and overturned the pillows. “Is it possible you used it last night and it fell behind the headboard?”
“No, the last time I used it was when I was putting my hair up. I was so tired I fell asleep right after that.”
