Page 67 of The Pretenders of Copper County
I still want to help you.
If you get this message, please write back and let me know how you are and what I can do to help, okay?
I love you,
Chris
I sent the email, then closed the browser, making sure to delete my search history because I’d seen enough John Ruffian—and heard enough Reed Sunday—to know how important that was. Then, I made my way upstairs.
I felt surprisinglygood. Lighter, kind of. Stronger, too.
I still didn’t know what was going on with Danny,obviously, but it felt good to dosomethingbecause I’d hated doingnothing.
Upstairs, an envelope was propped on Ms. Dorian’s desk with “Chris” written on the outside in pink highlighter, and when I opened the envelope and saw my new library card emblazoned with CHRIS SUNDAY in bold, black letters, I felt even better.
Gosh, I liked that name. And I really liked the person I’d become now that I had it. Chris Sunday felt like a person who took risks. Who made things happen and didn’t ask for permission. Who told people who he was and what he wanted—well, sometimes. Who was never confused with Christine Pritchard, the high school teacher, or Chris Marin, the mechanic. Who made out with the hottest man in the universe right in the middle of O’Leary on a random Tuesday morning and only blushed the littlest—seriously, just the tiniest—bit.
John Ruffian could learn a lot from Chris Sunday, just saying.
I traced my fingertips over my name and smiled. I knew on some level that the sooner I got this mess with my uncle straightened out—which I wanted to happen ASAP, obviously—the sooner I wouldn’t need protective custody, and the sooner my name, and this town, andReedwould be nothing but an amazing memory, but I refused to dwell on that… much. Everything had worked out so far, right? So I’d deal with all that when it happened, too.
I left the library and strolled down the street. The big clock in the window of the Books n’ More said I had another half hour before I needed to meet Reed, and I didn’t see him near his car, so I decided to stop into the bakery to thank Ash for my cupcakes… except I didn’t get quite that far.
Out on the sidewalk in front of Micah’sBlooms, the biggest RV I’d ever seen—the kind that looked like a huge tour bus, with a satellite dish on top and a car hauler hitched up behind—was double-parked. And on the sidewalk beside it, a man and a woman were having a spectacular argument.
“Well, I don’t know where the heck to park it, do I, Bob?” A middle-aged woman sporting vibrant red hair and a pink sun visor scowled at a thin, potbellied, older-looking man wearing very short shorts and very tall black socks. “Ihave never claimed to be an expert in these matters.Iwanted to take a cruise, like Raquel and Jerry. Let’s celebrate your retirement by taking a cruise, I said. It’s been twenty-two years of you focusing on business, business, business, I said, and now I want to have some fun. Didn’t I say that?”
“You said it,” the man agreed. The unbuttoned plaid shirt over his white T-shirt fluttered in the breeze.
“Butdid you agree, Bob? For once in twenty-two years, did you say, ‘Yes, Dolores, let’s do what you want?’ No you did not. Let’s cruiseon land, you said. It’ll befun, Dolores, you said. I’ll take care ofeverything, you said.” She set her hands on her hips.
The man swiped a hand over his thinning gray hair and sighed a long-suffering sigh. “Alright, Dolores, alright?—”
“Alright, he says!Alright. Is it alright, Bob? Is itreally? Because the next thing I know, you’re spending a big whack of our retirement savings on a camper because it’s aninvestment,Dolores. Andthink of the freedom, Dolores. Andpick anywhere you wanna go, Dolores. And what did I say, Bob?”
The man shook his head and rolled his eyes to the sky like the cloud patterns were particularly fascinating.
“I said I want to visit Fanaille. I said—and I remember this specifically becauseyou were watching your bang, bang, shoot-’em-up program at the time, and I said, ‘Bob, are you listening?’ and you assured me you were—I said, ‘Bob, my angel, my beloved, my delight, what I’d truly like is to go to the bakery that did Marissa Corcoran’s wedding cake. It’s called Fanaille. It’s out in O’Leary. And I want to stay there a week and eat every kind of cake on the menu.’ And you said, ‘Mhnnmh, sounds good.’ And then I said—do you remember me saying this, Bob? Because I certainly do—I said, ‘Okay, then you’d better book us a campground close by because I bet those places fill up fast in the autumn when the leaves are turning.’ And you said, ‘Yeah, yeah. I’m on it, Dolores.’ But were you on it, Bob?Were you?”
I bit my lip to stifle a laugh because Bob’s guilty expression suggested he had not been on it. Not even close.
“And now here we are.” Dolores threw up her hands and gestured around the picturesque center of O’Leary. “We have arrived in Mecca. The cake isright there, Bob. And do we have a place to park the camper?”
“No,” he muttered.
“No,” she repeated triumphantly. “No, we do not. The Pickett campground is completely full, just as I predicted. And the bed-and-breakfast is full. And the hotel in Baxter is full also. And we cannot keep that beast of yours parked here for very long. So I don’t know whatyouare going to do, Bob. I really don’t. But if we’d followedmyplan, we’d be in Aruba right now, sipping coconut-flavored alcoholic beverages while I worked on my tan and you pretended not to be watching ESPN on your phone. Instead, we are here.” She lifted her chin imperiously. “AndIam going to eat cake.”
With that, she marched toward the bakery and flung the door open, setting its string of bells ringing.
And I… well, I did something Reed Sunday might never forgive me for.
CHAPTER TWELVE
REED
After dialing Knox,I managed to pace a path up and down in front of the bench, waiting for him to answer. I was only distantly aware of where I was—of the sunlight shimmering through the trees and the cool fall breeze making the bare skin of my forearms tingle.
“Hey there, stranger!” Knox answered. His cheerful tone had me bracing my hand against the back of the bench in relief. “Good to hear from you.”
