Now that Hayden was back in Maple Falls for good, he’d started noticing things. Like how the Sunshine Diner was only open for breakfast and lunch, instead of all day. How Petals and Posies, the floral shop, only operated from Tuesday to Saturday, instead of six days a week like it used to. Erma’s operating hours were sporadic at best, and he wondered if she would have to close the shop until her leg healed.
He was most concerned about the hardware store. His father had run it the same way his father had, and other than having updated supplies and a computer instead of a cash register, not much had changed in sixty years. Neither his father nor mother seemed to be concerned, but Hayden was.
The bell over the door jingled, and he turned to see who their first customer of the day was. He lifted a surprised brow. Riley McAllister.
***
When Riley walked inside the hardware store, she felt like she’d been transported to the past. She usually hadn’t needed to buy anything hardware related unless Mimi sent her for something, so she’d only been in the store a few times in her life. Usually her grandmother visited Price’s herself and made the purchases, while passing the time talking with Mr.Price, who, like Mimi, never met a stranger and loved to gab. Occasionally Mimi had sent Riley to fetch a part or garden supply, but she never saw Hayden working back then. He’d always been wrapped up in baseball.
He was here now, wearing a navy-blue short-sleeved shirt with the Price’s Hardware logo above the shirt pocket, the bottom hem tucked snugly inside a pair of khaki cargo shorts that showed off his sculpted calves.Focus on his face, not his body.But then he flashed her a grin that threatened to weaken her knees.
Who was she kidding? Her knees were weak.Snap out of it.She should be focusing on the reason she came to see him. Telling herself she needed to apologize for her snippy behavior last night and thank him for picking her up didn’t erase the fact that Hayden Price was flat-out gorgeous.
“Hey, Riley.” He strolled up to her and slipped his hands in his pockets. “Long time no see.”
She tried to smile, but she wasn’t in a jovial mood. When she finished sobbing in her grandmother’s arms last night, she discovered Hayden had brought the suitcases inside and placed them by the door, then left without her knowing. She hoped he hadn’t seen her crying. She rarely cried, and the sudden tears last night had shocked her. Seeing her grandmother laid up, in addition to the stress of flying and having to return to Maple Falls under duress, had cracked something inside her. Now her emotional walls were back up, and she wasn’t going to let them crumble again, especially not in front of Hayden.
“How’s Erma this morning?” he asked.
“Good.” She tried not to notice the concerned kindness in his gray eyes and shifted her gaze to the carousel of batteries behind him. Why couldn’t she just say she was sorry, thank him for the ride, and dash out of the store like she’d planned?
“Is she getting around all right? How is she managing those two front porch steps?”
“She goes through the back. There aren’t any steps there.”
He nodded. “That’s good to hear. If y’all need me to build a ramp for the porch, I’d be happy to do it.”
“We’ll be fine.” She faced him, not wanting to linger any longer. “Thank you for the ride last night.”
Frowning, he pulled his hands out of his pockets. “You don’t have to thank me, Riley. I didn’t mind doing it.”
Would he have been so eager to pick her up if he hadn’t been responsible for Mimi’s broken leg? Probably not, although she could tell even from their short interactions that he was far too nice to refuse if her grandmother had asked. She glanced around the hardware store again, her thoughts derailing her purpose. Price’s Hardware was as empty as Mimi’s yarn shop had been all morning. Mimi had insisted on going in to work today, even though Riley tried to talk her out of it.
“Riley?”
Riley blinked and looked at Hayden again.Apologize to him already.“I’m also sorry that I was so short with you last night.”
His expression relaxed. “No sweat. I could tell you were tired. Long flights can do that to you. It took me a while to get used to jet lag when I was traveling to away games.” Shrugging, he gazed at her. “Lately the farthest place I’ve been is Little Rock.”
A shiver went through her. They were just making small talk. But somehow he had moved closer to her without her realizing it, and for a split second she allowed her mind to go back to high school. She suddenly remembered all the times she had noticed him, either sitting at the table across the room from her in art class or walking the halls in school with his fellow jocks and their pretty girlfriends. She remembered all the times she’d wished she had the courage to talk to him. She never saw him with a girlfriend, which only fueled her silly fantasies about the two of them together, and more than once she had pretended she and Hayden were holding hands as he walked her to her next class.
Quickly she gathered her senses again. This wasn’t high school.Thank God.“Uh, that’s all I wanted to say. Bye.”
“Riley—”
She ran out of the store before he could say anything else, then hurried down the sidewalk toward Knots and Tangles. When she was a short distance from Price’s, she stopped, surprised she had to gasp for air. Her face was heated, and not because the morning sunshine mixed with 85percent humidity made her feel like she was standing in a swamp instead of on the deserted Main Street.
“That was smooth,” she muttered, keeping her head down as she crossed the street.
She opened the door, and the small bell hanging from the glass door announced her arrival. As soon as the door closed behind her, she bumped into a wobbly old shelf filled with alpaca wool. She reached out to steady the shelf, missed, and could only watch as the shelf tipped over and fell against another shelf. To her horror she saw all the shelves fall like dominoes, until the last one hit the opposite wall.
“What in the world is that racket?” Mimi shouted from the back of the store.
“It’s just me.” Riley cringed and went to set the shelving units upright. Balls and skeins and hanks of yarn littered the floor. The shelves were so old and unstable that she had to steady two of them a second time before she could start picking up the yarn. She scowled. So far the morning was off to a great start.
“Land sakes! What happened?” Bea bustled to the front of the store, her wide hips narrowly missing bumping into other shelves and storage units. Unlike Riley, Bea seemed to know the right path to get through the store unscathed.
“I knocked over some yarn,” Riley muttered, picking up a brown-and-orange commercial skein. She glanced at the label. The production date was from the 1980s, and the colors looked straight out of the seventies.
