When I presented the hat to Law, he seemed a bit stunned, but then… I don’t know. Something about the way he seemed to seedeeper into me than most people kind of made me freak out a little.
I was glad I had the excuse of covering for Charlie to use as an escape route. I made myself jog instead of running when I left them to get settled.
As I sat behind the front desk, I thought back to the gorgeous woman who had gotten out of the SUV with the kids and Law. She was stunning, model-pretty in that sort of unconventional way that made some people just pop even more.
Charlie had told me about her, about how brilliant she was and how it was incredibly rare that a woman her age would get to do the things she did at work. She was what my grandparents would’ve called a “fancy doctor” instead of a regular one. I was pretty sure Charlie had talked about her being some sort of a surgeon anyway.
The front door opened, and an older couple stepped inside. I went into customer service mode before I had time to wonder why I was analyzing Caitlyn so closely.
They were wonderful. Because it was snowing, they’d decided to stop here on their road trip from Poughkeepsie to Montreal, because he couldn’t drive anymore and she was careful enough to not take risks.
After checking them in, I put our little picture frame with a be right back notice on it on the desk and went back out with them to help them with their luggage.
At their small SUV, I grabbed a large suitcase from the back and rounded the car. My eyes caught on the cross hanging fromthe rearview mirror. Swallowing hard, I tried to not let it get to me.
The lady saw my smile fade and followed my eyeline. Before she had time to say anything, I soldiered on and carried their suitcase into their room. I left it on the floor by the bed and told them all the information they might need was in the folder on the table by the window and excused myself.
I power-walked to the lobby and into the office, then sat on Charlie’s chair in the back of the room. My heart was pounding, and I shook my hands out, trying to get them to stop tingling.
There were no crosses in any of the spaces I spent time in regularly here. Not at my uncle’s, not here at the Inn, and not at my grandparents’ place.
It wasn’t that nobody was spiritual, but they weren’t demonstrative about it. I also happened to know that there had been one cross on the wall in my grandparents’ hallway, but at some point, after I arrived in town and spent time there, it vanished without any explanation.
In my parent’s place, where most people would’ve mounted a TV on the wall, there was a blank, white wall. That was the wall we had to stare at if we’d been bad. We’d stand in the middle of the living room and stare at that wall until we learned our lesson or collapsed. Even having to go to the bathroom didn’t stop the punishments. You just peed yourself if you didn’t have the permission to move.
Then at college, I’d gotten into doing research into cults, and in one documentary I’d seen a similar wall, yet it was filled with crosses of different sizes and materials. Gradually my nightmares had evolved after that, and the blank wall now always had crosses on it, even if in the dreams I knew that had never been real in my home. The fact that my own brain decided to come up with a new trigger for me was a bit of a kick in the balls, if I was completely honest.
“Oak?” Dana asked, hovering by the desk, a couple of steps from me.
I raised a hand and tried to gesture dismissively.
She let out an annoyed little sound, came to me, and hugged me close. “Stubborn boy,” she said in a fond tone I would’ve expected from Nic, but not her. Dana was efficient, no-nonsense like her wife, but could also appear cold to people. She wasn’t, she was just not as demonstrative as her tiny wife.
The hug helped. I didn’t necessarily like being hugged by most people, especially those who weren’t immediate family, but I guess my psyche needed a hug more than I thought, because my breathing evened out and my heartbeat started to slow down gradually.
“Wanna talk about?” she asked, still petting my back while holding me close.
“New people. There’s a cross in their car,” I managed to push out.
Dana hummed understandingly. “Do you want me to go kick their asses?”
I let out an ugly giggle snort. “They’re like seventy.”
“So?”
The laughing helped, somehow.
She let go of me and tilted her head. “Do you want to take off for the day?”
I shook my head. “I think I’m fine. Besides, you have the dinner stuff to prep.” She gladly kept an ear on the front desk when needed, but she didn’t like being disturbed while she was working any more than the rest of humanity.
“Okay, if you’re sure.” The doggie door rattled in the lobby, and we both turned toward the half-open office door.
Steve lumbered in.
“I swear that dog is psychic,” I murmured, opening my arms so he could push his giant head into my lap.
“That, or just impeccable timing.” Dana pet him too. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”
