Page 17 of The Hermit on the Hill

Carrie grimaced. "They tried their best, they really did, but they somehow made it worse. I was lying on the couch with Cody last night and saw glitter on the ceiling."

I laughed with the others, warmed by the way Carrie and Aubrey accepted me into their circle even though I didn't know either of them well.

The server took our orders and brought out drinks.

"What do you think of life in Catalpa Creek so far?" Aubrey asked.

"Wally, from the cheese and wine shop on the corner, stopped by two days ago with homemade soup and told me he was very sorry for my loss. I nearly burst into tears, because I was sure something had happened to Mom, but he explained it was my cat that had died. I showed him Mistletoe in perfect health and he shook his head like I'd let him down, took his soup, and left. Is that normal? Or did I do something to piss him off I don't remember?"

"That's just Wally," Carrie said. "He does psychic readings on the side, but he's terrible. He's always trying to bring in new customers by doing what he calls cold reads."

"He told me a bird had just flown into my windshield and cracked it," May said. "I ran outside and sure enough, he was right."

Carrie gasped. "He got one right? That's never happened before."

May held up one finger. "Turns out he'd put up cameras outside his store to help with his predictions. Milton at the hardware store let me in on the secret. Not that I would have gone back to ask Wally for a reading. The fun of life is discovering what's going to happen next."

"Is it like that with everyone?" I kept my smile plastered on, so as not to give away my discomfort, even as I freaked out internally. "If I bought medicine for a sour stomach at the grocery store, would Mom show up on my doorstep with crackers and toast?" Or if I bought prenatal vitamins, would my mother and sisters show up with questions I wasn't ready to answer? Damn it, I should have ordered the vitamins online.

"Probably." Aubrey laughed. "I bought Noah some allergy medicine last spring. When we went out to dinner, the server reminded him it was a bad idea to mix allergy meds with wine."

My face cooled as the blood drained from it, but I forced my smile wider. "Why would anyone gossip about allergy medicine?"

Aubrey patted my hand, making it clear she'd seen right through my smile. "That's an extreme case. Natalie rang up my order at the grocery store and Noah was doing a big landscaping job for her father at the time. She was probably worried the allergies would interfere with his work, or maybe she worried the work was causing his allergies, so it would make sense for her to mention it to her dad."

I glanced around at the other diners. Were they watching me, sizing me up? I pulled my shirt away from my belly and used the opportunity to pop the button on my jeans. "How did it get back to the server at the restaurant?"

Aubrey shrugged. "One of the many mysteries of small town life."

"Catalpa Creek is too big to truly be considered a small town, isn't it?"

"The university increases the population. But the true locals are a tight-knit group and always in each other's business," Carrie said. "It was worse when I was a kid. I couldn't go five miles over the speed limit without someone calling my mother and ratting me out."

"Wow," I said. "And I just thought I had to worry about my brothers butting into my life."

"I'm so sorry about that. I tried to talk them out of it, but knowing you and knowing the little we do about Sam, they assumed you were the wronged party."

"Did you know Sam when you were kids?" I was insatiably curious for information about the father of my child.

Carrie frowned. "Vaguely. He was a year older than me and he moved away when I was still in elementary school. His grandmother was a midwife, I think? Some people called her a witch."

I'd been sure Sam had lived his whole life in Catalpa Creek, but I couldn't remember what had given me that idea. It must have been a feeling I'd had and clearly my instincts when it came to Samuel Oakley were way off base. "So he moved back to town recently?"

"He moved to town a few years ago. It was big news when he bought all that land up in the mountains and built that gargantuan house where his grandmother's house had been. He had tons of equipment going up and down the side of the mountain for months."

"Do you remember anything else about his grandmother?"

Carrie pressed her chin into her hand and stared out the window. "I was a kid when she passed, but her name was Rosie, I think. Rosie Oakley. A friend of my sister's claimed she got a love potion from Mrs. Oakley and it actually worked." She focused back in on me, her eyes widening. "I'd forgotten all about that."

"I believe she was a practitioner of old Appalachian folklore spells and healing. She would have been known as a healer in a community that shared her ways." I paused, not sure why I was telling her all this. Maybe I just wanted Carrie to understand how wrong it had been for anyone to call Sam's grandmother a witch. "It's common in Appalachian communities that a local healer would also deliver babies."

"What's the story about you and Sam, anyway?" Aubrey propped her elbows on the table, her grin just a touch wicked. "May said you recognized him from that photo of his…" she glanced around and lowered her voice, "butt."

"Ooh, yes, please," May said. "I want all the details you left out. George told me he saw Sam naked. Said he is one very fine-looking man."

We all stared at her.

She grinned. "What? George isn't afraid to admit when a man is good-looking."

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