“I am.”
My phone rang.
She handed me back my card and looked at my pocket as if to ask, “Are you going to answer that?” Why the hell wasn’t my phone on silent, like usual? I wanted to ignore it. Keep talking to her. But since our transaction was over, there was no good excuse to stay, especially with my phone being really fucking annoying.
Grabbing it from my pocket, I mumbled a “thank you” and headed back out of the pharmacy.
Not surprisingly, it was my father.
“I’m in my snow pants,” he said, “sweating my balls off.”
Rolling my eyes, I headed out of the pharmacy and back toward the inn. “I’m on my way,” I said, feeling even more like a teenage kid than I had inside the store. My father had a way of putting me on the defensive, as if I weren’t a thirty-two-year-old man. “And why the hell are you wearing your snow pants?”
Thinking better of it, I added, “Never mind. I’ll be there in five.”
“Good,” he said. “Oh, and Beck just woke up. Wanted me to ask you about grabbing a sausage and egg sandwich from The Coffee Cabin.”
“Tell him I’m already running late and to eat a piece of fruit.”
“He said to eat a piece of fruit,” my dad told Beck, who was apparently with him still. “I won’t repeat what he said.”
Beck. What a piece of work.
“Fair enough. I’ll be there in five.”
Hanging up, I turned off my ringer and headed back down the hill, thoughts of a certain redhead floating through my mind.
Who was she?
It wouldn’t take much to figure out. I’d ask Mason or Beck. Between the two of them, they knew every single person in Cedar Falls, especially the women. Hell, chances were that one of them had even dated her, judging by her age, unless she was an implant, like me.
Please, just don’t let it be Beck.
5
DELANEY
Finished counting the pills, I placed them in their container along with the label, checking the information three times. It was monotonous work, and for the millionth time I wondered what had possessed me to become a pharmacist. Aside from an offhand comment from my college advisor, it had never been on my radar. Medical school? Sure. A marine biologist? For the longest time, that had been my dream. And of course, an artist would have made total sense. Instead here I was, back home, counting pills.
Stuck.
Reminding myself I was a glass-half-full, and not glass-half-empty, kind of girl, I shook off the self-pity. I’d just decided last night to stop wallowing in the post-breakup blues and wasn’t going to start up with this train of thought. I’d picked my career path and had been lucky enough to land this job in a town where my parents both still lived along with old friends, and new ones too.
Count your blessings, Delaney.
The bell startled me. It was a quiet late-January day with very little foot traffic. Not that Lakeside was a huge drug store and most people only came in for prescriptions, but we did have a few aisles of odds and ends and, in warmer months, had a steady stream of customers.
“Hey,” I said, walking to the counter to find Pia there. “What’s going on?”
“Surprise!” She held up a bag.
“That looks suspiciously like…” I leaned in closer. “No, you didn’t?”
“Yep, I did. Mason and I went for dinner and knew you were working late.” She handed me the bag. “There’s a fork in there too.”
“Stop,” I said, peeking inside. “What do I owe you?”
“Dinner. When’s your next night off?”
