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“I don’t doubt you do.” Trenton leaned down, brushing his lips over her cheek. When he stepped back, she lifted her frail hand to fan her face.
“Whew! I’m going to think about you later tonight. Don’t you worry.” She looked up at the sky. The clouds had started to spread thinner, and an orange hue from the setting sun broke through. “Look at that. It’ll definitely be a good evening.” With one last saucy wink, she gripped her walker again and turned from him.
Trenton watched her for a moment, shaking his head at her retreating figure. She’d been flirting with him a bit, he realized. He hadn’t recognized it at first.
Walking back to his wife’s grave, he bent to retrieve the garbage and the umbrella he no longer needed. The old woman was right. It had been so long he likely wouldn’t have the stamina to keep up with her.
He looked down at the grave again. Still, he’d been keeping his promise.
Not feeling the usual satisfaction from the reminder, he strode toward his waiting car. A drink at The Last Shot, the tavern his friend ran, would help him to get his head on straight again.
Chapter 3
Steppingoutontothesidewalk, Celia had never been so relieved to leave a building before. The weight of her duffel bag dragged at her shoulder as she took in the fancy supermarket on one corner and the way too expensive coffee salon—literally the sign said “salon”—on the opposite. If she had caught the woman’s name, she’d be tempted to thank her properly. The crazy blonde had saved her from a fate she wouldn’t have wanted. Though the woman had also slept with Celia’s fiancé, so maybe they were even after all.
“How do you get yourself into these messes?” she muttered to herself.
In the fading light of the sky above, thunder rumbled. Between one moment and the next, rain began pouring down.
“Seriously?” She shifted the bag again. At least there wasn’t anything inside that would suffer from being a little wet. Clothes could be dried. And her phone was fancy. Daniel had bought it for her, with all the bells and whistles, despite her protests. She was thankful for the waterproof casing.
They really had been nothing alike. That was why she’d said yes. His normalness was supposed to counteract her inner crazy.
A passerby clipped her shoulder with a shouted, “Watch it!” thrown back as they darted on.
Grabbing the strap of her bag to help steady it, Celia told herself there was no use standing around. She started down the sidewalk in the direction of the supermarket. She didn’t bother stopping inside for an umbrella. There wasn’t much good it would do at this point.
A few blocks down the road, she ducked beneath the overhang of a bus stop. In this ritzy part of town, no one else waited. There wasn’t even any graffiti inside, or gum stuck under the bench. She sat, letting her bag rest beside her. She’d thought she’d known her hometown, but when Daniel had given her the address, she’d had to look it up. Seeing the condo in person, it figured. Her family wouldn’t have been able to afford the neighborhood, not with all her mother’s hospital bills to pay. Even after everything, when she’d gone to live with her aunt and uncle, they hadn’t been that fancy. More middle class than she was used to, but still with paper napkins.
“What was I thinking?”
The pattering rain didn’t answer her.
She peeled her phone out of her damp, denim pocket, holding it in her hand. The movement lit up the screen, telling her the time with a cheery glow and asking for a passcode to unlock it. She considered calling her cousin. Malcolm would be furious, though, and would likely rope his sister, Katie, into letting Celia stay with her. Celia frowned at the thought.
The squeal and swoosh of brakes sounded, and a bus stopped before her. The door creaked open, an older man holding on to the mechanism with a friendly smile. “You coming, miss?”
Water dripped down her forehead, and she lifted a hand to wipe it away, staring at that open door.
The bus driver looked through the large windshield, wiper blades working back and forth to shove puddles of water into different views. “It’s a wet one out there.”
Celia stood, moving into the rain before stepping inside the bus, her damp duffel bag brushing the wall before the first seat as she climbed the steps. In front of her, a green light glowed on some machine.
“You got you one of those new cards?” the driver asked.
She shook her head. “I’m new to town.”
The driver nodded. “Go on back and take a seat, anyway. You could use some shelter from the rain, and there isn’t anybody to notice.”
It was true none of the seats were occupied. “Thank you,” she told him.
He pulled the mechanism toward him, and the door behind her slid shut. “Just don’t tell anyone.” He offered her a wink.
Celia gripped her phone in her hand, glancing down at it and then up at the “No Phone” sign above.
The bus driver waved his hand. “Never you mind that. You call whoever you’ve got to call. A pretty thing like you shouldn’t be out in this weather.”
She blinked at the compliment, then gave him a half smile. “I must look worse than I thought for you to be so nice.”
