Page 87 of Where Roads Lead

“How would you know?” She scoffed. “Apparently, you don’t even date.”

“How the hell would you know that?”

“Because the women in the grocery store told me. After they accused me of dating you.”

“Unbelievable,” I muttered, momentarily hating this town and everyone in it.

“Care to tell me why every woman aged eighteen to seventy is so interested in your romantic life, William?” She stared at me expectantly.

“Because this town is crazy,” I said, tapping a finger against my head. “They have nothing else going on in their lives and have to make shit up to pass the time.”

“Well, tell them to leave me out of it,” she said, as if it were that easy. “I can’t have any more women in this town out to get me.”

“No one’s out to get you,” I told her.

And if they were, I’d take care of it.

“They will be if they think I’m stealing you out from under them!” she exclaimed, shifting the weight of the bags in her arms.

“Here,” I said, reaching out to grab them. “And you can’t steal me out from anyone because I’m not with any of them.”

“Whatever.” She waved off the comment. “The point is, I don’t want to be involved in some weird town scandal, since apparently all you people do is stare out your windows and take note of other people’s coming and goings.”

I started to respond, but the sight of something in her bag made me pause. I looked down, examining its contents more closely.

“Elsie.”

“Will?”

“Why do you have cat litter?

“For my cat,” she answered simply.

“You don’t have a cat.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I’ve been to your house.”

“Well, as of today, I have a cat.” She beamed. “He’s cute, too.”

“Are you telling me,” I started slowly, “you woke up at the café this morning in a panic, shoved everything in your bag to leave, and what—ran to the shelter to adopt a cat?”

“No,” she bit out. “The cat’s visiting.”

“Visiting?” I gaped at her. “From where?”

“Well, I don’t know, Will,” she said, as if I were an idiot. “When they develop the world’s first cat-to-human translator app, I’ll make sure that’s the first thing I’ll ask him.”

“Does the thing have its shots? Vaccinations? Does it have fleas? You can’t just bring a stray cat into your house, Elsie.”

“He’s fine.” She waved me off, reaching forward to take the bags back. “He’s too cute to have fleas.”

“Not how that works, but—”

“If you don’t mind, I’ve got to get going before I see some paparazzi shot of this encounter on the frontpage of the Colbridge Gazette tomorrow morning.”

“How are you going to carry all these—”