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“Oh yes,” Alaina said. And she smiled smugly. While she was enjoying this. “Crashing waves. Thunderstorms. Whole wildfires. At least three times a night.”
Fia looked aggrieved. “You are my younger sister, and I consider him kind of a friend, so I would rather we cease with the conversation.”
“You should be happy for me,” Alaina said, grinning.
“Super happy for you,” Fia said. “Super happy.”
“And not at all jealous?” Quinn asked Fia, smiling sweetly.
“If I felt like it, I could hook up with a cowboy,” Fia said, turning around and tapping her finger on her younger sister’s nose. “I just don’t feel like it.”
“Then don’t sound so salty,” Quinn said.
“I’mnotsalty,” Fia said.
“You and Landry would...” And then Elsie shut her mouth very quickly because Fia rounded on her like an outraged cat.
“Take my name and his out of your mouth,” Fia said. “I do not have a thing for Landry King.I never did. This has to stop.”
“Thetennnnsion, though,” Alaina said.
Fia looked at Rory, as if demanding she pick her side.
“Sorry,” Rory said. “I agree.”
“I didn’t ask,” Fia said. “I didn’t ask. Buy your dumb TV cabinet.”
By the time they left the store they had the TV cabinet, the decanter, the books, several floral teacups, and a rocking chair that Alaina was intent on putting in the nursery.
They stopped in at a little seasonal decor store run by a woman named Rebecca, and Alaina bought quite a few polished knickknacks, because she was feeling the need in her bones. Then they went to a specialty food store and it didn’t take her long to strike up a conversation with the owner of that store, and realize that she was Violet Garrett’s aunt by marriage. The whole area was in fact small, and you were pretty likely to run into people you had connections to no matter where you went.
They were referred to the bakery that Violet used to work at, which was run by her stepmother, and when they walked in, there was a pretty woman with red hair behind the counter, and Alaina was certain that there were almost never this many redheads in one shop in town all at once.
Once Fia explained the Four Corners connection, Allison started plying them with free baked goods.
“So you’ve all known my son-in-law since he was in diapers,” she said.
“Yes indeed,” Fia said. She was fairly close in age to Wolf Garrett. “He’s a good guy.”
“He is,” Allison agreed. “Though, I’m a little bit jealous you get to see them more often than we do. But it’s not a terribly long drive.”
They chatted to her for a while as they ate glorious pieces of pie. Then continued on in their shopping hunt, on a tip from Allison, who told them to drive to a new space on the outskirts of town that had antiques, secondhand furniture that had been upcycled and little booths inside the building where people sold their handmade wares.
Once they were there, Alaina might have gone a little bit overboard. She found the perfect crib, another rocking chair, a new dining table, a new couch and coffee table...
“You know, Gus could be spending this money on not ruining my life instead of on this,” Fia remarked.
“I am making my house a home,” she said archly.
“Right. Right.”
“And he does have money to spend—he’s looking into that. Remember?”
Fia grumbled.
At that point, they had pretty much topped out the trailer, but they stopped at the local coffee shop in town for some lunch, and then took the drive back to Four Corners.
There, scrambling and huffing and puffing to unload everything was amusing. And once they got all of the nursery things up the stairs, she turned and looked at the doors, not quite sure what to do.
