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I laughed at his straightforward assessment. “She seems happy, but yeah, fucking Whitney.”
CHAPTER4
Thea
I floated down Main Street,a smile on my face and wearing my favorite pair of pumps: bright pink with a darling white bow.
I normally would sock them away until spring, but I woke up in a great mood.
I’d paired the shoes with a peplum pink dress with a sweetheart neckline. One I’d sewed myself two years ago from a bolt of vintage fabric I’d found buried in the back of a closet at an estate sale. I’d immediately fallen in love with the fabric, determined to make something for myself. Something perfect that made me walk on air.
And this morning, I was walking on air.
I stopped at the coffee shop, grabbing a coffee for Mrs. Evans and a cappuccino for me, plus two donuts as a little treat.
Besides Benny and my birthday, there wasn’t normally much to celebrate in mid-January. The holidays were over and the snow seemed more obnoxious than magical this time of the year. The older folks who could afford it had fled for the south and everyone left hunkered down, praying for spring.
But not me.
My birthday celebration had revitalized me. I had a mission. A purpose. For the first time since I’d launched my clothing line, I felt a spark of something special. Now, I just needed to convince Chase to feel the same.
I pushed open the door to my shop, the bell jingling above me. “Mrs. Evans! I brought breakfast!”
I didn’t find her perched on the cloth seat behind the counter. I scanned the overstuffed aisles and found her at the far end of the store, duster in hand. “It’s awful early for cleaning, don’t you think?”
Truth be told, I didn’t think I’d ever seen Mrs. Evans clean the store. My brow furrowed as I delved into my memory of her cleaning when my grandmother was alive. Nothing.
“Oh, Theodora! You surprised me!” Mrs. Evans jumped. She had her hair pulled back into a low bun, silver gray hair turning almost white with age, no hearing aid.
“Good morning, Mrs. Evans,” I said, raising my voice so she could hear me. “I brought some breakfast.”
I lifted the bag of donuts.
“Thank you, dear,” she said, placing the duster down on an oak buffet. “I woke up early and couldn’t settle back down, so I came to the shop to clean. When’s the last time we gave this place a top-to-bottom clean?”
She shuffled down the aisle, her eyes avoiding mine and her energy oddly nervous.
“Over Christmas. Remember? I hired a cleaning crew?”
Twice a year, I closed up shop for two weeks: once for Christmas and again in July. The time off gave me a chance to travel, Mrs. Evans a chance to visit her daughter in Ohio and the store a chance to get clean. While I felt confident Mrs. Evan’s original job responsibilities included cleaning the shop, at eighty years old, I wasn’t about to ask her to mop the floor.
“Right, Christmas…”
“But if it looks dirty to you, why don’t we eat breakfast and I’ll help you,” I offered with a smile, angling toward the break room in the back.
Mrs. Evans shuffled past me, and I shot her a worried look. She’d been slowing down over the last few years, a fact I’d shared with her daughter during our monthly phone call. Her mind might have been intact, but her body had slowly been failing. She’d had a nasty spill last winter, fracturing her hip, and her eyesight was atrocious. She’d plowed into the side of the building that summer, mistaking her gas pedal for the brake.
Her hearing was harder to gauge, thanks to her inability to keep her hearing aid in for more than an hour or two. I felt a pang of sadness and wondered whether I shouldn’t be doing more to help my grandmother’s closest friend and a woman who’d always been a grandmother to me.
“I got blueberry donuts,” I said, setting the box down and opening it up.
“My favorite.” She groaned as she eased herself into a seat. “How do you always remember?”
Her wrinkled fingers gripped my cheek before I could duck away. I sat beside her, placing a donut on two paper plates.
She didn’t reach for her drink. Or the donut. She frowned, chin shaking, tears threatening to spill from her eyes. Panic gripped me.
“Are you okay, Mrs. Evans?” I asked, setting down my drink and covering her hand.
