“Broody,” she repeated, like it was an accepted medical diagnosis. “Silent. Thoughtful. Hard to crack.”
I didn’t respond. Mostly because it was, well,accurate.
Millie folded her arms, clearly not thrown by my lack of defense. “You’ve got a quiet sort of gravity. A man with weather behind his eyes.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means you’ve seen things,” she said, voice softening slightly. “Which is fine. We all have. But some people wear it like armor.”
I exhaled, fighting the instinct to retreat again.
“Is this part of the matchmaking algorithm?” I asked dryly. “Psychological profiling via antique store interrogation?”
Her smile was positively wicked. “Oh, honey. This ismild.You should’ve seen what I put Grace’s husband through before he proposed.”
I tried not to smile. I really did.
But Millie? Millie wassomething else.
Still, her gaze shifted with less mischief and more meaning.
“Fifi’s a good girl,” she said. “Too good, sometimes. She gives more than she gets. Pours herself into everyone else’s teacup and forgets to fill her own.”
My chest tightened.
“She says you’re just a guest,” Millie went on. “And maybe you are. Maybe you’ll be gone before the butter even cools on your last breakfast biscuit. But if youseeher, and I meanreallysee her, don’t pretend youdon’t.”
I met her gaze. Steady. Honest. A little raw.
“I’m not sure I know what I see yet,” I said.
“Then take the time to figure it out,” she replied. “And don’t let fear keep you from asking the questions worth answering.”
Before I could respond, Millie patted my arm once, gently and decisively, and turned back toward her tea.
She was done with me, and I felt slightly…used, but I stood there for a minute longer, surrounded by forgotten treasures and half-buried truths.
And for once, I didn’t want to run.
Not yet.
The bell over the antique store door jingled as I stepped outside.
Sunlight hit me square in the chest, warm and full and unrelenting. It had been gentle earlier, filtered through trees and clouds. But now it was high and hot, pressing down on the pavement, baking the sidewalk until the air shimmered just a little.
I shoved my hands in my pockets and stared down Main Street, although technically it was Buttercup Lane.
Buttercup Lake was coming to life. A delivery van idled near the bakery. A pair of kids zipped by on bikes, all helmets and legs. Someone hung flower baskets on a storefront awning, humming like the world had never been anything but kind.
The heat soaked into my skin, but it was the kind that did more than warm you.
Itunsettledyou.
Made you feel things in the places you’d worked hard to keep quiet.
No wonder Fifi looked ready to crawl out of her own skin when she saw Millie. The woman was a force, sparkle-eyed, sharp-tongued, all-knowing, and all in your business. The kind of woman who made you question everythingandhand you a cookie afterward.
She wasn’t cruel, but she didn’t blink, either.
