AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Not like Dusty loved the vet clinic, either.
She worked for Matt at the clinic three days a week, five hours each day, and did check-ins on any animals boarded there, on Sundays, as she lived the closest to his office. But he’d offered her the nine to four, five days a week now. And would pay for her to take classes to become his assistant. If she wanted it.
She just had to decide. Matt was expecting her answer after Thanksgiving—her new hours would begin after the first of the year. They could give Junie Dusty’s hours at the diner. And give their second cousin Jacy more hours at the inn. They could make it work.
She had a nice routine, and she didn’t deviate from it much at all. She had family who loved her and she adored in return. And she had good friends. Close ones. Friends she would do anything for, and she knew would do the same for her.
So why did she feel so adrift lately? Like her life had just become monotony now? One day blending into the next. With nothing really to work toward.
Maybe that was it. She lacked defined goals for her life now.
Dusty sat behind the front desk and tried to figure that out. It was a Wednesday. It should be slow. She’d have plenty of time to think.
“Something is going on in that complicated Dusty brain of yours,” Marin said quietly around seven thirty. “Care to share what’s been bothering you for a while?”
Dusty ran her fingers over Kody’s big yellow head as she tried to put how she felt into words. “I’m not sure. I think what happened to Sage and Junie and Claud and Gil has me thinking again. Just…do you ever wonder if there ismorefor you out there?”
“You mean besides running hotel credit card receipts at midnight, and trying to decide which of the seven menu items we carry in the dining room to request for dinner?” Marin asked almost drily. Then she sobered, too. “Sometimes, Iknowthere is. Something dark and evil and dangerous is out there, Dust. And it’ll come for me eventually. I…feel…that. Probably sooner than I want to think about. I have never really been able to put it into words, though. Just a vague apprehension. I know it sounds crazy. But it’s how I feel. And don’t tell anyone, but…it’s been growing lately. It’ll be soon. I don’t know if I am ready.”
Marin had nightmares. Still. The entire family knew. They’d started after the former mayor of Masterson—Claudia’s father—had held her and Maggie—Kody’s owner’s wife—and another man hostage. Marin had ended up shot, the man they’d been with had almost died from multiple gunshot wounds, and Maggie had ended up going into early labor with her baby Barratt.
The trauma had changed Marin in so many ways. Just like Dusty had changed after… “I think it has to do with what happened that night with Nikki. For me anyway.”
“I know,” Marin hugged her quickly. “How could it not? You changed that night. Just like I did after Jasper Grady. Change after trauma is inevitable. People we really care about just had massive traumas heaped on their shoulders. Worry for them has us unsettled. And brings our own hurts to the surface. It reminds us how out of control we really are. Of our lives…our destinies. I know I struggle with that. A lot. Therapy has helped me. Since Jasper Grady.”
“I just feel off tonight, for some reason, I guess. Itchy, raw.”
Marin shot a worried look toward the front doors of the inn. “Something happened today. Or will. Something that will change your life, I think.”
Dusty laughed. Marin really took the entire I-can-feel-things thing she had going on to the extremes. “You know I don’t believe in your brand of magic.”
“I know you are the logical, skeptical, grounded in factDestinyTalley. Talk about a total misnomer there. But…”
But, Marin was right more often than she was wrong. Dusty had to admit that. She shivered. “Sometimes you are just too spooky.”
Dusty stood when a man approached the counter. She gave her best “Welcome to the Inn” smile. It took her a moment to realize where she’d seen him before. The man who had found Kody. “Hello, again. Welcome to the Talley Inn.”
“What a pleasant surprise,” he said in an almost-too-formal tone. “You work two places?”
“My family owns the inn, and the diner in town. I work several shifts here, and there, and the vet clinic as well. How can I help you tonight?”
“I am in need of a room.” He had a bag over his shoulder. He had that rumpled traveler appearance, even though the suit had probably been pressed that morning and his distinguished slightly graying hair was ruthlessly combed. Dusty studied him a moment as Marin stepped closer.
He wasn’t unattractive, at all, she realized. Just reserved and…very formal. Businesslike. He had had a nice smile—when he’d been laughing at Kody’s antics.
He was just a quiet kind of man, she thought. The exact opposite of those wild man Tylers that were all over the place lately. She’d seen three of them in the dining room tonight, wooing their wives with romantic dinners for two. Marin had been pushing Wednesdays as the night for lovers each week—with a special menu and romantic themed desserts—since July. It had picked up their slowest night of the week by over ten percent, Marin had told her. Phil, Nick, and Chandler were as beautiful as the rest of the Tyler men, no denying that. Their wives were very lucky women. This man was as tall and well-built as a Tyler, but he would blend in to the background of wherever he was, she suspected.
“For how long?”
“Just tonight, as far as I know, I’m afraid. I’m just passing through. I was on my way to the hotel by the interstate, but my buddy there found me and brought me into town. Your inn is rather hard to miss. Maybe it’s fate. And with the storm coming, I thought better safe than sorry. But with Mother Nature, I may be here longer. I don’t know yet.”
“Well, I hope you enjoy your stay.” Dusty had never found it easy to do the whole chit-chat-the-guests thing that was so easy for Marin, Darcey, and Dixie. He seemed like a perfectly nice man, in his late thirties or early forties. He was tall and lean and in good shape. He was clean and well-kept. He was kind of bland, really.
Almost like he worked at it.
Hewas the only thing different about her day today at all. Marin’s words from earlier had her spooked. That was all it was. Dusty was sure of it.
14
