Page 5 of Hunted in Hope Town

“Lane did a great job with all that advertising. Hopefully we’ll see all of Bent County today.”

“Here’s hoping,” Faith said.

When they opened the doors, Jessica thought maybe she was right. For a solid two hours, there were streams of people. Not everyone bought stuff, but the store was always packed.

When their usual delivery driver arrived with a couple packages, Faith was deep in a conversation with a family, so Jessica motioned him over to the counter. He dumped the boxes on top.

“Can you sign for this stuff, Jessica?” Steve asked, handing her his little machine.

“Of course.” She took the little stylus he offered and touched it to the screen—she wasn’t thinking about what she was doing, she was mentally calculating how many people had gone through the doors.

Until she’d written out her first name. Except… She blinked down at the screen.

That wasn’t her name.

She stared at the signature. Kirsten. What the hell had prompted her to write that in looping cursive? Was that her middle name maybe? Someone she knew from her mysterious life before?

Kirsten. It had just felt like second nature, but she’d signed for a bunch of packages over the last year and never once…

“Uh… You okay, Jessica?”

She nodded jerkily, coming back to the moment. “Sorry, Steve. I had some kind of…brain fog.” She managed a smile and lied outright to the man. “We’re just so busy. Signed my middle name instead of my first name.”

“That’s okay,” he replied cheerfully. He clicked a button on his little machine. “Just start over.”

This time she signed Jessica Smith very forcefully.

But the idea of someone named Kirsten stuck in her head no matter how busy the store got.

THE SNOW WAS HOLDING, and cars were parked all along Main thanks to the efforts of Lane Webb and the other business owners here in Hope Town advertising their Small Business Saturday events and sales.

Ellis couldn’t help but smile. Jessica would be thrilled. It was obvious she’d come to love working in the bookstore, and it suited her. She’d always loved to read. She’d always loved people.

She’d been a great teacher, but with her soft heart, those tougher case kids had always weighed on her. And she’d been constantly starting over, taking new teaching certification tests when they had to move states for his job.

Why she’d ever agreed to that, he couldn’t understand these days.

He’d ruined her life.

Pushing that depressing thought away, he stepped into the store. Inside it was warm, the buzz of conversation everywhere. Packed. It lightened his mood some. Jessica would be happy. She loved this store, put everything she was into it, and even if she didn’t remember who she’d been, she’d bloomed here.

Maybe he’d live the rest of his life just a spectator to her life, but if she was happy, if she was settled, he didn’t care. He probably deserved it anyway. And she deserved everything good after what she’d put up with, then suffered.

He spotted the shiny halo of her blond hair behind the counter, checking people out, so he pretended to browse even though he spent so much time in here he had every title practically memorized. Hell, he’d read at least half of them too.

Ellis tried to stay out of the way, but the store was small and the crowds were big for the cramped space. He found a little awkward corner to stand in and picked up a random book on Wyoming history he hadn’t paged through before.

It was easy to lose himself in the book. He was an old pro at biding his time, entertaining his mind while keeping a low-level awareness of what was going on around him. Which was why, even though he was reading a passage about Esther Hobart Morris, he was very cognizant of the fact Jessica was just a few feet away helping an older gentleman find a title he was looking for.

When she was done with that, she moved toward him, and he looked up from his book at the same time.

“Oh, Ellis. I’m glad you’re here.” She didn’t smile at him though. There was something…strange about her expression, about the way she was talking to him, even though she’d clearly sought him out. “Give me just a minute.”

She disappeared into the back room then returned—waylaid by Faith, then a customer before she finally made it back to him, standing awkwardly in a corner trying not to get into shoppers’ ways.

“I think this must have been delivered to me by mistake,” she said, handing him an envelope.

Frowning, he took it. What could have been delivered to her—