“I’ll go let the movers in,” he says gallantly, and my eyebrows raise.“You take the call and I’ll give you some privacy.Meet me at the alley door when you’re done and we can head out.”
“Oookay,” I say slowly, smiling in spite of myself.
Maybe it won’t be so bad to have a chauffeur today after all.
At least I won’t be at the mercy of the GPS trickster gods, who I suspect direct me to U-turn at inopportune times out of sheer malevolence.
I press the answer button on the phone, and Ivy’s frantic voice immediately blares through the speaker.
“You were supposed to call me as soon as you got there!”
She sounds stressed, which on its own isn’t all that unusual.The oldest of four sisters, Ivy often assumed the role of mom to her younger three, and shouldered as much of their worries as she was able to, as well.
Though they certainly didn’t ask her to—nope, she took that on all by herself.
“Hi, Ivy,” I say, brushing a finger over the molding around the bay window.It’s mildly dusty, and for some reason, that comforts me.
Like if I can scrub it all away, this place will really feel like home.
Or if I paint it…
“Did you meet her?”Ivy asks excitedly.
“Huh?”I say inelegantly, all thoughts of French blue paint fleeing my head.“Meet who?”
“Oh,” she says, dragging the word out.“I thought it looked like you’d met her?—”
I frown.Ivy’s always acted like she could see the future, she’s into all kinds of stuff that never really appealed to me, but this is a bit weird, even for her.
At almost that exact moment, the black cat, who’d been chasing a dust mote across the wood floors, yowls, jumping straight up in the air.
“Oh thank god,” Ivy says all in one breath.“Okay, for a minute there, you had me worried.I thought something really terrible had happened.You can’t let anything happen.”
“I’m sorry,” I say slowly, completely at a loss.Not that that’s a new place for me to be where Ivy is concerned.
“Listen, don’t worry about it, ha!”The laugh explodes out of the phone so loud I have to hold the speaker away from my ear.
The cat’s staring up at me, or the sound, more likely, with big green luminous eyes.
“Was that a cat I heard?”Ivy continues, and I swear I detect a smug note in her voice.“You know I love cats.You got there okay?”
“Uh, yeah, I got here fine, no problems.And yes, that was a cat, it seems like he—” A hiss has me quickly amending that hypothesis.“—she lives here.So she’s mine now.And the bookstore, oh my gosh, Ivy, the bookstore.”I pause, trying to pin down all my thoughts about the place.“It’s gorgeous.It’s disgustingly filthy, of course, but the bones, Ivy, the bones.”
“Damn, you already found bones?”she asks, sounding awed.“That explains what I’ve been seeing.”
“What?Of course I did.The bookshelves are all still there, and there’s this amazing stained-glass window on the door that casts this light… It’s going to be stunning.”
A shout draws my attention outside, where the small moving truck is idling.
“I gotta go, though, okay?The movers just got here and this guy has promised to take me around town for some of the stuff I need to get settled in.”
“Oooh, a guy, huh?”
I shrug, like Ivy can see me, though if she could, she would definitely see the blush that’s spreading across my cheeks.
“Is he cute?”
“He’s just helping me because the small town, you know, New Hopewell, they like… assigned him to be my contact person.Or something.”I frown because I don’t really get it.I snap my fingers as a thought occurs to me.“I did meet someone else, though!A woman that owns a bakery or something nearby.Tea shop?I don’t know, I can’t remember.But I’m going to meet her for breakfast tomorrow.She seemed nice.”
