“Lucy’s Helen’s granddaughter. She’s visiting for a while and wanted to get out of the house.”
“Ah.” Don nodded slowly, but his expression when he looked at Lucy told Nick he’d heard all about it already. “Welcome back.”
“Thank you.”
Before Don could ask any not-so-subtle questions that might earn him some gossip currency, Nick slid the list across the counter. “I just need to grab a few things.”
* * *
It felt good to be out and about, Lucy admitted to herself while Nick dropped the tailgate and threw his purchases in the bed of the truck.
It was so easy to put on the TV or pick up a book and sink into the comforting pile of throw blankets. Being disconnected from social media left a lot of open space in her time, but she needed to find better ways to fill it than napping.
As she looked around, she could see the corner of the market down the block. “I know you have to get back, but would you mind if I walk over to the market really quick and grab a few things?”
He closed the tailgate with a thud that didn’t mask his exasperated sigh. “Be quicker to drive over.”
“True. But it’s not as windy today and it’s almost warm.”
“Fine. We’ll walk.”
“I can find my way, seeing as how I can literally see the building from here.”
He looked at her in a way that suggested he was considering how to phrase what he wanted to say. “It’ll be faster if we both go.”
Lucy laughed because it was very clear he thought she’d wander off to window-shop or take too long squeezing the produce.
Nick didn’t hurry her, though, as they walked down the sidewalk side by side. She noted the businesses they passed, but soon became distracted by a large ginger cat shadowing them on the other side of the street. Every time she stopped, the cat stopped.
“What are you doing?” Nick demanded the third time she stopped walking to test her theory.
“Playing with that cat over there. It’s stalking us, and every time I stop, it stops.”
When she pointed across the street, he nodded. “That’s Dolly. She’s the town cat.”
“She belongs to the whole town?”
He considered that for a moment. “I wouldn’t say she belongs to the whole town. It’s more like the whole town belongs to her.”
“Who takes care of her, though?”
“Everybody. She’s spayed, and there’s always a collection jar at the market for people to drop in change. It adds up pretty quickly and takes care of her routine medical care. If she needs a little extra, more jars go out with a note from the vet detailing what she needs. Like, recently she had a procedure to have a lump checked out, which is expensive. And there are folks who feed their own cats on their porches and Dolly has a rotation of who she visits, and she gets her preventatives every month with a little tuna from old Bob.”
“What about during the winter?” She started walking again—Nick really did have to get back to work—and so did Dolly.
“She’s got plenty of places to go, and during a bad cold spell, she usually goes to the Bergeron house. They’ve got a dog door for their pair of goldens, and the Bergerons will wake up to find Dolly curled up with the dogs.” He nudged Lucy with his elbow and took her attention away from the cat in time to keep her from walking into a sign.
“And in the summer,” he continued, “you can tell when a storm’s going to be a bad one because she always goes to Edna’s. She lost her husband years ago when a tree fell on him during a wicked storm, and I think Dolly knows she needs the comfort.”
“She’s a lucky cat.”
“We’re a lucky town. Dolly has some kind of relationship with almost everybody here, and if she doesn’t like you? You might not be our kind of people.”
Lucy stopped at the edge of the market’s parking lot. “So if I don’t pass the scrutiny of a stray cat, the good people of Wayward Harbor won’t like me?”
“I wouldn’t lead with calling her a stray.”
“I’m already Iris Macauley’s daughter. What chance do I have if Dolly doesn’t like me?”
