I am heading back to the truck when I hear someone call my name.
"Bo Gates? It can't be."
I turn around, looking at the people on the street. No one jumps out at me, so I pull open the truck door.
"Bo," she says again. I turn, and there she is. Standing outside Jordan’s garage with a camera bag over one shoulder and a coffee cup in her other hand, I can't place her for a second. Brown hair, shoulder-length, curled waves. She is smiling like she expects me to know her, which I clearly should, and then it clicks.
"Oh, now don't go on pretending you don't know me." The woman has a thick southern drawl.
"Veronica Eden." I should have known by the accent. She'd moved here from Georgia when we were in the eleventh grade. I'd dated her for a month or two our senior year, then she’d gone off to college back in Georgia, so we broke it off. Well, I broke it off.
"In the flesh." She crosses the sidewalk toward me. She isn't dressed like she belongs here in Everwood on a Tuesday morning. More like a meeting with a CEO than coffee from Ethel's. She walks up to me and hugs me like we are old friends. But as I remember it, she and I didn't exactly part on talking terms. She has on more makeup than a painting trowel, but that had always been Veronica. Even inhigh school, she'd shown up to the county fair looking like she was headed to a gala. "I wasn't sure you'd remember me."
I almost didn't, but I am not going to tell her that. "How could I forget? What are you doing back in Everwood? I thought you went back to Georgia?"
"I did, but I'm back for a photography project." She holds up the camera bag. "Landscapes, mostly. Montana light in summer is something else. I'm here for a week or two." She tilts her head. "You're back too?"
"Been back since April."
"Staying?"
I think about Falon at the kitchen table with her binders. The chandelier in the entryway. Rowdy's bed was wedged between the couch and the wall. The fence line we'd finished together last week. Frank the rooster is currently being argued into submission somewhere back at the ranch.
"Yeah," I say. "Staying."
Veronica smiles. It is a nice smile. Genuinely warm. "That's good. Everwood's a good place to stay." She glances at Rowdy, who is watching her from the passenger seat with polite disinterest. "Yours?"
"His name's Rowdy."
"He doesn't look very rowdy."
"That's what everyone says." Rowdy blinks at her and looks away, which is much less enthusiasm than he offers most people. Unless you were Falon. For Falon, he'd do anything for kisses. But then again, so would I, I thought to myself.
Veronica shifts her camera bag to her other shoulder and says, "I don't suppose you'd want to grab dinner sometime this week? Catch up. I don't know many people in town anymore, and you're the firstfamiliar face I've seen."
I look at her. The same people are in Everwood now as they were back then. There are a few fresh faces, but if she just came from Ethel's, then she most likely saw half the town, and chances are they know exactly who she is. I am half tempted to look back and see if they have their faces pressed against the window.
She is being friendly and polite, which is more than I could say for the last time I’d seen her. And by the look on my face, she must be thinking the same thing.
“Shall we let bygones be bygones? Or are you still stuck in the past?” Her accent is broader than it had been in high school.
Normally, I would have taken her up on the offer, but now I had absolutely no interest.
I’m not cold-hearted, but when you have the real thing at home, then second best isn’t really a choice. Veronica places her hand on my arm and squeezes to get my attention. She threads her arm through mine and tries to tug me along with her. She really hasn’t changed a bit. She is just as forward now as she was back then.
“Thanks for the offer, but I’m headed the other way. I’m going to the pharmacy.”
“So, you’re not even going to take a girl up on dinner?” She smiles, but when I see the time on the old clock tower, I groan.
“No, sorry. I don’t want to cut this short, but I’ve got a few more errands to get done, and I’m on a time crunch. I have a bet on the line.” I’d bet Falon that I could get the errands done before she finished her meeting with Rusty and Dane.
“Well, are you too busy to give a girl a ride to the Inn?” She moves in closer, and I took a step back.
“Let me get these two errands ironed out first,then I’ll take you,” I say, pulling out of her reach. “Do you want to wait in the truck, or would you like to wait here?” She pulls a sour face, then puts her hands up to block the sun.
“It’s a little warm out. Mind if I wait in the truck? You’ll put the air on, right?” she asks in her sweetest Georgian drawl. I nod, and she furrows her eyebrows.
“You’re really making a girl work for it, aren't ya?” she says as I open the truck door for her.
