Page 29 of Beachfront Pages

"Sally's right more than she's wrong." Jan capped the second cup. "What is it you write? Anything I'd have read?"

There it was. The same question, the one Fiona had a whole drawer full of answers for. "Probably not," she said. "Nothing you'd know. Some nonfiction and some pieces in magazines." Two pieces.

"You'd be surprised what I know." Jan set the second cup beside the first. "And the mister? He coming down to join you, or is he the leave-her-be-while-she-works type?"

The lie was already slipping out before she thought about it. "He's the leave-her-be type."

"Smart man." Jan said it easily, and the easiness was the worst part. "Most of them want feeding and fussing the second you sit down to do a thing for yourself."

"Most of them do." Fiona reached for her wallet. "What do I owe you?"

"First one's free. Welcome to town." Jan waved her off before the wallet was even open. "The other one you can pay me for next time, once I decide if I like you."

"And if you don't?"

"Then you'll owe me double, and I'll still serve you." Jan grinned. "Go on. His coffee's getting cold, and a cold cup of coffee is no way to impress a grumpy bookshop owner."

Fiona gathered both cups and pushed back out into the heat. Behind her, before the door had even closed, the corner table started up again, low and busy. She didn't catch the words. She didn't need to.

Marty looked up when she came through the door and looked back down again, then looked up a second time when he registered the cups.

"You weren't wrong about Jan," Fiona said, setting one on the counter in front of him.

"I was not. I always tell the truth." He took the coffee like it was evidence in a trial. "What did she get out of you?"

"How long I'm staying. What I write. Whether there's a husband." Fiona blew across her own cup. "She'd have had my blood type if I'd stayed another minute."

"The Harbor Brew toll. You pay in answers." He took a sip and made a small approving sound. "Black."

"You're not a cream-and-sugar man. It would ruin the whole grim professor thing you've got going."

"I'll have you know I'm multifaceted."

"You quote Faulkner and have a back room full of books no one will buy."

"Same thing," he said, and almost smiled.

She'd meant to drop the coffee and go. That had been the plan, the way five minutes had been the plan at the fire pit, the way one quick look at the bookshop had been the plan a week ago. Then she found herself easing onto the stool by the counter, the way she had the last two times.

That was how it started. The visits.

She didn't decide to make a habit of him. It just happened the way water finds the low spot. She'd surface from a morning of staring at Hank Carson standing in his alley, and the cottage would feel too small, and her feet would carry her into town. Coffee from Jan. The walk down the block. Stepping inside, and Marty glancing up over his glasses, and the slow roll out of an hour she never meant to give away.

Jan caught on fast. By the third visit she had the second cup poured before Fiona reached the counter.

"Tell him I said the lemon poppyseed came in," Jan said, capping it. "He pretends he doesn't have a sweet tooth. He's lying."

"Everybody in this town is lying about something," Fiona said.

"Now you're catching on." Jan slid the cup over with a wink.

Some afternoons there were customers, and she'd browse the shelves while he rang them up, watching him be patient with a tourist who wanted the new thriller everyone was reading. He'd order it for them without a word of complaint. He saved the complaining for her, once the door had closed and the buyer went back out into the heat.

"You're a fraud," she told him after one such transaction. "You smiled at that woman."

"I smiled at her money. There's a difference."

"You like people more than you let on."