It was my mom who got me speaking to him again after the third affair. My brothers had no choice since they both worked at the dealership, but Dad and I had a rocky go of it for a while there. Things still weren’t back to “normal,” whatever that was, but I supposed this weekend was a good thing, even if he was skipping out on part of it. Him taking two days off from the dealership was a big deal, so I’d at least make an effort.
Grabbing my jacket, I stepped out onto the thin layer of snow that had fallen last night. When I’d get back, I’d toss some rock salt on that. Mason hadn’t left the inn and probably had no idea it had even snowed.
Walking up the hill, I ran to the hardware store first. Cedar Falls town center was a perfect square, its trees and gazebo now barren. In warmer weather, tourists would fill the square and blocks of shops and restaurants around it, but today there were only a handful of stragglers, mostly locals.
“Millie.” I ran up to an older woman trying to open the door of a coffee shop. “Let me get that.” I took her grocery bag. “Why didn’t you have these delivered?”
Escorting her inside, I walked the widow to the counter.
“Walking keeps me young,” she said, pulling the scarf around her neck tighter.
“Understandable, but you have to be careful. Let me bring these to your house while you get coffee,” I said, already knowing she would argue with me.
“Oh, no, no,” she started, but I wasn’t listening.
“I’ll put them by your door. Enjoy your coffee,” I said as Millie chastised me until I was outside. She was a staple at The Coffee Cabin and I’d had more than one cup with her since moving here.
It was only a few blocks out of my way to Millie’s house. Hers was one of my first construction jobs when I’d moved to Cedar Falls, her husband having hired us to tear down and rebuild their front porch. By the time I headed back to the square to hit the pharmacy, forgoing another coffee, my dad had texted, asking if we were leaving soon. Patience was not one of his virtues.
Opening the door of Lakeside Pharmacy, I tried to remember the last time I’d been inside. It wasn’t long after I’d moved to Cedar Falls, though I couldn’t remember what I’d needed a prescription for.
It was a small place with a few drug store-type items with the check-out counter and pharmacy in the back. A long, empty counter greeted me. Not completely empty, actually. A bell with a small index card with the words “ring me” scrawled on it was apparently my signal.
I rang the bell.
A woman stepped out from behind the rows of medications. I’d never seen her before.
Her red, medium-length hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She looked like an actress, though I couldn’t remember the woman’s name. Very little makeup and a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks gave her a very wholesome look.
Wholesome. And very, very pretty.
Her white lab coat gave the woman away as a pharmacist. A young one, late twenties maybe? As she approached, it was her smile that enraptured me most. That and the unusual blue-gray color of her eyes.
“Can I help you?”
Her voice was sweet. Peppy. Endearing. Like the woman herself.
“Yeah,” I managed, not used to being tongue-tied. “I’m picking up a prescription for Parker Scott.”
She moved to a box of bags behind her, rifling through them. “Sorry about the service,” she said. “Our clerk called off, and no one was available last minute.”
“You’re the pharmacist?” I asked, silently kicking myself for such a dumb-ass question. Obviously she was.
“I am.” She turned back around, punched something into the register and looked up as I handed her my credit card without asking the price. “Do you have any questions about this?”
Her expression was unreadable, but I was sure mine was anything but. I probably looked like a lovesick teenager or someone who’d never seen a pretty woman before.
But damn, there was something about her. It was the smile.
Lip gloss and mascara. That was all she wore, lip gloss and mascara. Why bother with anything else if you were that naturally pretty?
“No,” I managed. “No questions.”
It’s for my dad.
Thankfully, I didn’t say that out loud too. She probably already thought I had the emotional maturity of a fourteen-year-old.
“Are you from Cedar Falls?” I asked. “I don’t remember seeing you around.”
