Page 8 of Where Roads Lead

“Excuse me!” I called, waving a hand out to get her attention.

She turned, looking around perplexed until her gaze landed on me, half-jogging toward her.

“Hi, sorry.” I stopped, breathless in front of her. “I was just wondering where you got that coffee.”

Please say somewhere else besides Will’s. Please. Please.

“Oh, hi,” she said, smiling at me. “You must be the new girl.”

“Yes, I am,” I confirmed, not even caring how fast word spreads in this town anymore. “Lovely town you have here. But, a surprising lack of establishments that serve coffee.”

She let out an easy laugh, pointing to something behind me.

“I’m not sure if you know, but you’re about a minute walk from one.”

I turned, staring at the coffee shop with a frown before looking back at her.

“Yeah, see, the thing is—Will and I didn’t really hit it off…” I told her.

“Hit it off?” She arched a brow, and I had no choice but to grin sheepishly.

“I may or may not have gotten banned from going there. Hard to tell. But either way, it would be preferable to find somewhere else to get coffee.”

“Let’s see.” She tapped her chin. “The bakery has decent enough coffee.”

“Great.”

“But not as good as Will’s.”

I sighed.

“And, the gas station has…something resembling coffee. But sometimes it tastes like tar.”

I guess it was pretty ridiculous to avoid the coffee shop completely. It would be paying more attention to Will Hughes than he was worth, going out of my way to avoid him. I should just bite the bullet and put it all behind me. It wasn’t as if he’d turn away a paying customer.

I stared down at her coffee longingly, noticing the not-so-subtle rock that had made itself at home on her ring finger, tightly snug against a silver wedding band. I stared at it a beat too long, feeling unease churn in my stomach.

I’d had one of those once.

The engagement ring. Though obviously I didn’t get to the whole wedding band part of the deal.

I stared down in envy as images of Andrew flooded my head.

She flexed her fingers, no doubt thinking I was some type of deranged weirdo who had a concerning fascination with her hands.

Hopefully she’ll assume I was just staring at the coffee—not that it would make my hyperfixation any more normal.

“Will’s just a grump sometimes.” She cleared her throat, the tension of the moment passing away as if it hadn’t happened at all. “Don’t take it personally. Come on, I’ll walk you in.”

“And if he bites my head off?” I said a bit airily, still trying to recover from the taunting sight of the diamond engagement ring.

I needed to get a grip. If I had a meltdown every time I saw an engagement ring, then I might as well board up the windows of Mr. Briggs’s house and become the town recluse, because clearly I wasn’t fit to be walking around the world with such a fragile sense of self.

“I won’t let him.” She winked, already crossing the street, clearly expecting me to follow. “I happen to know him pretty well.”

I’m sure everyone in this town knew each other ‘pretty well.’ Heck, in the short amount of time I’d been here, I already had an enemy and multiple acquaintances. I could only imagine the bonds between people who had lived here their whole lives.

“Sorry if I offended you, then—” I paused, frantically looking back and forth before we crossed the road. But shockingly, there wasn’t a single car in sight. “I really have nothing against Will. It’s just—”