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“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No,” I said. “You don’t. It’s yours. It’s a gift. I wasn’t selling it—I was just waiting for a minute to give it to you.”
“Really?” She threw her arms around me. “I love it so much. Thank you.”
I returned the hug, squeezing her tightly. “You’re welcome.”
When she pulled away, she leaned back in the chair and looked at the octopus. “This is truly amazing. Have you sold many of the others?”
“I had thirty when we opened this morning.” There were only ten or so left.
“You’re going to have to turn Stitchery into a stuffed animal shop. You know that, don’t you? Repairing, restoring, and creating them.”
My heartbeat picked up at the thought of it. “We’ll see. Did I hear that you matched a curiosity this morning?”
“Did Estrelle tell you? She saw it all happen. I swear, she’s the biggest source of gossip in town.” Maggie looked toward the cart, found Estrelle scowling at her, and grinned. “I said what I said.”
Estrelle waved a dismissive hand and turned her back on us but not before I’d seen affection shining in her eyes. It was clear to anyone who paid attention just how much she adored Maggie.
I laughed. “What did you match?”
“The hand-carved spoon with the curly handle? It went home with the lawyer from northern Alabama who took over Donovan’s lease.”
Donovan had recently moved in with Maggie, and it had set tongues wagging about Maggie acting just like her father, living life backward. She took no offense. In fact, she grinned at the comparison.
She had been taking more time off now that she had steady help at the shop, and hadn’t joined any new clubs, though she’d been sorely tempted by the scrapbooking club Misty Keith had started in addition to running the book club. I swore Donovan moved in with her just to nip that in the bud and give her something else to focus on.
“Did you find out what he’s doing down here, the lawyer?” The man’s arrival in Driftwood was the latest town gossip to make the rounds, which had come hot on the heels of Dodge Cunningham and Ernestine Aiken being caught gettingreally friendlyon the beach late one night. Much to everyone’s disappointment, no garden gnomes had been nearby.
Everything that had happened with me was old news now. Soon, though, I would be the hot topic once again.
“No, but maybe you can get it out of Estrelle. She always seems to have the inside scoop.” She glanced over at the coffee cart, saw a line forming, and stood up. “I need to get back. Are you ready for the concert?”
“More than.”
She grinned. “Me too. Keeping the secret has been killing me.”
She wasn’t talking about Sam’s music. She was talking about how two weeks ago, a dozen of Sam’s and my nearest and dearest had gathered in Gatlinburg to watch us get married in a little chapel in the mountains. Sam was going to share the news with the town today before he started his set.
Life’s short,he once said. Too short to be unhappy, living apart, when we knew we were supposed to be together. It felt more like destiny than a whim.
We’d bought our last scratch-off ticket on the day of our wedding. When we hit it big with a hundred-dollar win, we decided that it was time to pass our luck on to someone else. We eventually dropped the ticket in the donation bin at the church on the day we signed the papers to buy Dez’s house—Sam finally getting the beachfront property he’d wanted all along. Molly and Norman might be happier living together than we were, and that was saying something.
Maggie gave me another squeeze and took her octopus, hugging it close as she walked away. When she crossed paths with Estrelle, the older woman said, “It’s not gossip if it’strue.”
Maggie laughed and kept on walking.
Estrelle sat down next to me, holding her cup of hot chocolate. “He almost forgot the cinnamon.”
I smiled. “He’ll learn soon enough.”
Norman stirred and I refilled his dish of water and rubbed his ears, which suddenly perked up. He startedquabarking as Hannah Smith barreled up to the table. She’d moved on from Cinderella and was now in aToy Storyphase. She was dressed like Woody, complete with hat (which covered the part of her head that had needed to be shaved for her surgery), cow-print vest, and cowboy boots. Personally, I missed her light-up sneakers.
“Miz Ava! Miz Ava! Reach for the sky!”
I threw my hands in the air.
