9
GWEN
As I drove to work, the windows rolled down, I focused on the cool Montana wind biting my cheeks. Rather than the memories, I flicked my eyes over pine trees and the yellow lines through the center of the asphalt and the blue sky.
If it got warm enough, any blood I had missed in the snow would melt. Once it dissolved into the soil, there’d be less evidence to?—
No. Stop that.
Pretty blue sky. Look at the pretty blue sky.
If I didn’t shove it all away, I wouldn’t be able to work. I wouldn’t be able to function. I had to think about the trees or the sky or anything else. Anything thatwasn’twhat I’d done beneath it last night.
I made it to my usual parking spot in the rear of the bakery at 1:54 p.m. Six minutes to spare. Six minutes I did notwantto spare. If I stared at the sky any longer, my neck was going to get stuck like that.
Keys in my pocket, I stepped from the car and pushed the door shut with my hip. My legs still felt like gelatin and mystomach rumbled as I continued down the sidewalk. A bit of snow stood in a mound at the street corner, but the cobblestone sidewalks were clear.
Black Pines wasn’t much of a town really. Just a strip of small businesses in the middle of nowhere. Still, all the buildings on each side were unique. The first one on the left was comprised of red brick with a green awning and housed Maple & Thyme. In the spring, a dozen potted plants accompanied the handful of wrought iron dinette tables we carted out there.
Straight ahead stood a stone structure topped with pretty gargoyles. The fire escape on the right was the entrance for the tenants who lived above the butcher shop. It had a classic, 1950s feel with a red retro sign overhead that readBob’s Butchery.
The other dozen businesses that lined the street were just as quaint and cozy. The flower shop at the end by the gazebo, the church Sebastian had remodeled into his veterinary office, the diner across the street from it. Even the tavern at the end of the line.
Usually, walking down this street made me feel alive. I could see myself growing old in a place like this. The kind my kids would trick-or-treat at on Halloween and catch sweets and trinkets from the firefighters during the Christmas parade. It was somewhere I wanted to call home.
Today, it was just another pretty sight.
At the entrance to Maple & Thyme, I pounded my snow-covered tennis shoes on the rug before stepping inside, the bell jingling when I opened the door. Beyond the glass, only a few customers sat inside. One stood at the counter, chatting with Molly who rang up their order at the register. She wore her usual uniform: black slacks, a black shirt embroidered with her name, and sneakers.
I closed the door behind me and unzipped my jacket. The usual scent of yeast and cinnamon filled my nose, floating fromthe pastry cases at the checkout counter and the length of them against the right wall. One step off the entry rug had me slipping across the mahogany laminate underfoot. I grabbed the corner of one of the white Formica tabletops to keep from falling.
“We need a wet floor sign up here,” I said, carefully continuing toward the checkout counter. “Someone’s gonna bust their head open.”
“Get the mop and clean it up.” Andrew’s voice carried from beyond the swinging stainless steel door. “Then I need you on this cake. I gotta do payroll.”
Neither task was all that difficult or daunting. But I would’ve preferred to be up front today. Working on a cake alone in the back gave my mind too much time to wander. At the register, I’d be too busy talking to customers to think.
I’d be off at 6. Just needed to make it through four hours.
“On it, boss,” I said under my breath.
As I clocked in at the register, Molly leaned against the counter. She spoke barely above a whisper. “He’s in a mood today.”
“Isn’t he always?”
She snorted, tucking a blonde tendril behind her ear. “Usually. But this is so much heavier.”
I stopped tapping the keys. “Do I smell drama?”
“Julia left him.” A devious smile tilted the corners of her cherry red lips. “Engagement’s off. My sister drove past their house last night, and Julia was screaming bloody murder. She was throwing all his clothes into the yard. I don’t know what happened, but I know it’s juicy.”
“Probably got tired of him looking down our tops all the time,” I said under my breath.
“Had to have been bad,” Molly said. “You know why they were engaged, right?”
I’d only met Julia the handful of times she’d come into the bakery. She and Andrew were about even on the attractive scale. If anything, she was a few points higher. She was sweet though. Andrew was anything but.
“Because they loved each other and wanted to spend the rest of their lives together?” I shrugged off my jacket and tucked it on the shelf beneath the register. “Or used to, rather.”
