Page 56 of Home Town

It was just the drive-in movie after all. Although the movie didn’t start until it was dark outside. And they’d be closed inside Kirk’s SUV, alone, together, in the dark.

Hmm. She’d have to think more about this later. Maybe she’d be able to think more clearly when it wasn’t the middle of the night and she wasn’t in this shitty room with Corey.

And speaking of Corey and this shitty room, he turned away from the screen that had held his attention since he’d sat and looked back at her.

“Look,” he said, triumph in his tone.

“What am I looking at?” She moved closer and frowned at the grainy image.

“That woman goes in right after the librarian does on the morning you found the compass missing.”

She frowned deeper when she saw what woman to which he was referring. “That’s Mrs. Forester. She’s on the board of the historical society.”

“And she volunteers at the library. I know. She’s a friend of my mother’s. She’s been over the house before.”

“She was in the library when the librarian let me inside that morning,” Josie said.

Mrs. Forester being there was not the big revelation that Corey was acting like it was.

“But more importantly than that, it was her son and daughter-in-law who donated the founder’s compass to the historical society to begin with,” she informed him.

Given her personal connection to the compass, if they couldn’t trust her, who could they trust?

“Yes, I know,” he said dismissively. “But look at this.” Corey pointed at the screen. “The librarian comes out of the building. My mother said she had a family emergency.”

“I know. And Mrs. Forester said she couldn’t stay so they closed the library early and locked up.”

“Yes.” Corey nodded. “That’s why my mother asked me to drive over with the key for you.”

“I still don’t understand why you’re so excited--”

“Just wait.”

She leaned closer and waited, and then saw what he must have.

Her eyes widened at the image and though in general she tried not to cuss, she couldn’t help saying, “What the actual fuck?”

“What the fuck, indeed,” Corey echoed.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“You two look awfully serious,” Corey’s mother said from her seat on the sofa in the living room where he had insisted she sit.

Of course, in true motherly fashion, she’d only agreed to sit down at all after she’d played hostess and had served him and Josie an obligatory morning coffee and tea along with yesterday’s blueberry muffins, for which she apologized profusely that they were not fresh baked that morning.

It was early still. He could faintly hear the sound of Good Morning, America playing on the little television in the kitchen.

Morning sunlight streamed into the room. Its beams highlighted the silver streaks that had cropped up in his mother’s dark hair over the years.

She glanced from Josie, seated in the chair opposite her, to Corey, next to her on the sofa.

“I haven’t been sat down like this since I was a little girl and my mother and father called me in for a talking to. Come on. Out with it. What is it? What’s so important it needed a sit down? Ooo, is it good news? Oh my. Wait. Are you two finally dating?” She clapped her hands together once, looking delighted.

“What?” Corey asked, surprised. What made her ask that? And what did she mean by finally?

At the same time, Josie looked taken aback as she shook her head and frowned. “Definitely not.”

He pivoted to frown back at Josie. She hadn’t needed to deny their dating quite so vehemently while looking so appalled.

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