I kicked a stray pebble on the sidewalk hard enough to make it skitter across the street. The sun was shining, birds were chirping, and I was stomping through this picturesque town like I’d been cast in the grumpy reboot ofFootloose.
She’d been trying. That was the thing. Fifi had been so open, so easy. She’d laughed and teased, and then I shut the whole thing down like flipping a switch, like Iwantedher to back off.
But I didn’t. Not really.
And now she was gone.
Back to the lodge.
Back to her world of honey soaps and lemon shortbread and people who didn’t bolt the second someone asked them what they were doing for two weeks.
I let out a sigh and slowed my pace as I passed a shop window filled with vintage books and lace curtains.
I stared at the sign for the antique store a second longer than necessary. Maybe because it felt like the right kind of quiet. Or maybe because I couldn’t keep walking around this town looking like I’d just lost a duel with my own emotions.
I pushed open the door and stepped inside.
A little bell jingled overhead, and the scent of old wood and lemon polish hit me immediately. Sunlight filtered through the dusty front windows, glinting off glassware and tarnished brass lamps. The store was packed in a charmingly cluttered way, like everything in it had a story it was just dying to tell.
A woman near the register looked up and smiled.
She was around my age, maybe a little older, with auburn hair twisted into a bun and a linen apron tied over a floral dress.
“Morning,” she said cheerfully. “Let me know if you’re looking for anything specific.”
“Just browsing,” I said. My default answer. Safe. Easy.
She nodded, then gestured toward a shelf of old maps and framed nature prints. “We just got a few new pieces in from a local estate sale, most of them mid-century. Fifi said you might like the older stuff.”
My eyebrows lifted. “Fifi? How’d she know I’d come here?”
“There are only so many places to go here. She’s good at the hospitality stuff. You know, it’s what she does for a living…meets her guests’ needs.” The woman smiled again and walked over, holding out her hand. “My name is Grace. And that,” she added, tilting her head toward the corner, “is my Grandma Millie.”
My stomach sank.
Sure enough, perched like a cat in a velvet armchair, sipping what looked like tea from a floral china cup, was Millie. She wasn’t even pretending not to watch me. Her bright blue eyes sparkled behind her glasses like she’dbeen waiting.
“Ah,” she said, setting her cup on a dainty saucer with the precision of a woman who knew her way around polite chaos. “The mystery man.”
Grace gave me an apologetic glance and ducked back toward the register. “Good luck,” she mouthed.
I turned back to Millie and gave her a tight, polite nod. “We’ve met.”
“Indeed, we have.” She stood, surprisingly spry, and approached with the slow, measured grace of someone who knew she was about to pounce. “I had a feeling I’d run into you again. Things like this tend toalign.”
“Right.”
She eyed me up and down, as if taking stock of both my soul and the cut of my jeans. “You were at coffee with Fifi this morning.”
“I was.”
“And you’re staying at the lodge.”
“I am.”
She tilted her head. “And you’re broody.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
