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“All right, if you say so. Let me know if you change your mind.”
Nicole pressed her lips together in what Brendan was starting to see as her “begrudging acceptance” look and said nothing more. They lapsed back into a surprisingly comfortable silence for the remainder of the drive, allowing Brendan to think over what had just happened.
People usually weren’t squeamish about taking his money. More often than not they were downright giddy about it — behind thinly veiled and halfhearted refusals, of course. He’d gotten used to it over the years and by now was almost instantly able to spot the people who were only interacting with him to try and get something from him. Which, unfortunately, was most people. It was why none of his relationships lasted all that long, why his friends were really more just colleagues or acquaintances. Even the failed deal was an example of a last-minute money grab, even if it was an extreme one — that representative of the seller seeing how much more money they could get out of him. Brendan had learned to distance himself from it all over the years, telling himself it didn’t matter. But it did.
Here was Nicole, who barely knew him — she was quite literally an employee of his — point-blank refusing the offer of a gift. Once again she had surprised him. It seemed that there were more layers to her that he had yet to discover.
Silver Ridge turned out to be exactly what you would picture when told to think of small-town America. The main stretch of stores and businesses was only a few blocks long. There was a library and a hospital, an elementary and high school, and clusters of houses around the outer edges. Compared to Houston it was tiny, but having spent time out at the farm where there was not another soul for miles around, the place seemed busy in comparison. Nicole pulled up right in front of a store with a faded sign declaring it as “Janet’s Country Clothing.” The only time Brendan had felt culture shock this severe was when he’d traveled through Thailand as a younger man. Silver Ridge felt just as alien compared to his recent life in Houston. He opened his door, trying to take it all in.
“You’re going to get stared at, by the way,” Nicole said, jumping out of the truck.
“What? Why?” He looked down at himself and ran a hand over his hair. Did he walk through a spiderweb or something? Was there dirt on his face?
“Because you’re a stranger,” Nicole explained. “It’s Silver Ridge; everybody knows everybody. You’re going to be the talk of the town.”
“That doesn’t sound like a good thing?” he said.
Nicole grinned. “Only if you don’t like attention.”
“Well, then, I should be fine.”
“Yeah, I thought so.”
They entered the store, the light bright thanks to the big windows. It smelled of leather and that odor you only get in very old buildings. There were racks of clothes lined up neatly but with no real decorative touches, and shelves along the walls filled with shoeboxes and folded jeans. It was very much practicality over style here, which Brendan supposed was the whole point. He wandered through the racks, not really knowing where to start.
“Can I help you?” Brendan spun around and found a very small, very ancient-looking woman peeking up at him through some of the thickest eyeglasses he’d ever seen. She seemed kind of confused at his existence, looking him up and down as if he’d stumbled out of a forest and into her store by accident. Well, Nicole certainly wasn’t wrong about the staring thing, then…
“Uh, yes, hi,” said Brendan, trying desperately not to look like he was just some idiot from the city and probably failing. “I was—”
“You’re new here,” the woman interrupted in a crackly voice, her southern accent thick as molasses, squinting up at him.
“Um, yes ma’am, I am. I was—”
“What you in town for, then?”
Under different circumstances, in a different part of the country, Brendan would have probably been well and truly offended by this point. But the world seemed to run on a different set of rules here, and the woman had pinned him with such a piercing glare through those thick lenses that Brendan felt like he was four years old being questioned by the strictest teacher in school.
“I’ve just moved here. Well, close by. Not all that close; it’s forty minutes away…”
She blinked at him, waiting for him to elaborate.
“I just bought Green Acres farm…”
“Oh…” she sighed, looking him up and down. “You— really?”
“Me. Really.”
“Well, what have you come to my shop for, then? What d’you need?”
She pushed her glasses up her nose, curiosity sated for now and apparently down to business.
“Well,” said Brendan, “as I was trying to say, I’ve been told that I need new boots.”
He gestured at his feet, still not entirely sure what was wrong with the ones he had, but by the way the woman stared at them for a solid ten seconds in perfect silence, apparently she could find plenty that was wrong.
“You’ve been working a dairy in those?” she asked, pointing skeptically at his feet.
“Yes.”
