Her grandmother sounds like my mother’s kind of woman.
“Are you off to the bakery?” Ash asks.
“I am.”
“You should call ahead and have Ryder prepare your order. The line was all the way to the toy store when we passed.”
Meg groans and hurries a little faster, pulling her phone from her pocket.
Ash peeks into the shop and shakes his head when he sees the patrons. “We had best not disturb Willow right now. You can meet her later.”
“It’s a zoo in there,” I agree, moving away from the door as another couple goes inside.
“I’ll take you to Town Hall and introduce you to my family.” He directs me across the square, to the large brick building that’s catty-corner from my tea shop.
The landscape surrounding it is pristine, with several crabapples spreading their flowering canopy over beds of white irises and peonies.
“Does your entire family work at Town Hall?” I ask Ash.
“My immediate family, yes—except my mother. She’s retired.”
“Do you have any other family in town?”
“We’ve lived in the area so long, I have lots of family in the county, but only one other relative works on Main Street. Magdalene, my cousin, and her husband own the music store. You might meet them today.”
Just before we reach the steps, Ash’s cell phone rings. He frowns at the screen and then says, “I’m afraid I need to take this. Please excuse me.”
Ash walks away, greeting the caller. I wait for him in the shade of a crabapple, enjoying the buzz of dozens of bees as they congregate around the soft pink blooms. There are fewer people here, which is nice.
“Having a pleasant morning, Kit?” a voice says from inside the tree.
I yelp and stumble to the side. When I peer into the frothy pink branches, I find two golden eyes staring back at me.
“Rowan,” I breathe, a little irked. “You startled me.”
“I noticed,” the owl responds.
“Aren’t you supposed to sleep during the day?”
“Aren’tyousupposed to be opening your tea shop, not going on a day-date with Moss Hollow’s most arrogant councilman?”
“Ash is introducing me to people,” I hiss, keeping my voice low, hoping no one sees me talking to the tree. Having an idea, I pull my phone from my purse and hold it to my ear. “We’re not on aday-date.”
Whatever that is.
He peers at me with his judgy owl eyes. “What are you doing?”
“With my phone, you mean? It’s so people won’t assume I’m crazy when they see me talking to myself.”
“You’re putting a lot of pressure on your mobile device.”
I glare up at him. “What do you want?”
“I don’t want anything. You came over tomytree.”
I can’t say anything else because Ash has finished his call and is walking back. I rip my eyes away from Rowan and paste a smile on my face.
“Sorry about that,” he says. “Shall we?”
