Page 40 of Feels Like Falling
Fatigue settles over me as I pull up to the Kettle and Kiln looking for my third cup of coffee before heading over to Sundown Realty. I need to check on Bea’s progress and see what kind of manual labor needs to be done. The woman has proven herself a hundred times over, and I need to make sure Archer and I do our part too.
Opening the pressed-tin door, I step back and hold it wider as a woman walks toward me juggling a messenger bag, a coffee, and a pastry box. I want to ask her if she needs help, but she rights herself just before the threshold and looks up at me and smiles.
Her auburn hair is loose around her shoulders, and glasses frame her pretty face. She looks familiar.
Oddly familiar.
But I can’t place her. The glare of the sun reflects off her dark frames, and she says a quickthank youbefore hurrying to her car.
Brows furrowed, I make my way inside and meet Karina’s narrowed gaze.
“Don’t you have a girlfriend?” she asks accusingly with a hand on her hip, and I hold up my hands in surrender. I also don’t correct her that Ellison had kind of dodged that label conversation.
“She just looks familiar is all. Like she reminds me of someone, not that I’ve met her before.”
“Uh-huh,” Karina says, unconvinced as she continues to watch me.
“Do you know her?”
“Sure, that’s Arden James,” she replies, pointing to a framed article on the wall. “She came in here a couple of weeks back and talked to Nicolette and me about opening the Kettle and Kiln—sweet girl.”
Arden James, the new reporter for theBlackstone Gazette. I’d read her last article this morning about the pros and cons of changing the stop sign to a yield at the turnoff for Cedar Lake, the lake that sits on the Clementine Creek-Blackstone Falls line.
It was a fairly riveting collection of testimonies, and I found myself heavily invested in the debate. The thought makes me smile, because if that’s not a small-town problem I don’t know what is.
“Maybe I saw her picture in the paper then.” I nod, my curiosity sated, and turn my full attention back to Karina. “Can I just get a coffee?”
Her eyebrows are somewhere in her hairline as she stares at me. I try for a smile but it’s half-hearted and tired.
“Oh honey.” She makes my drink without another word, all the while throwing sympathetic glances over her shoulder. “Should I make a cup for myself and you can tell me?—”
The shrill sound of my phone ringing cuts her off, and I pull it from my pocket. I mouthone minutebefore answering.
“Hey, Jensen, what’s going on?”
“You’re never gonna believe this…”
* * *
“I just want to clarify,”I say, pinching the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger and honestly afraid of what I’ll find when I open my eyes. “You took Grandad around town and terrorized the good people of Blackstone Falls with…”
“Baked goods,” she adds not so helpfully. “And little plastic cows.”
“Baked goods,” I repeat even though I’ve heard this story no less than ten times, “and little plastic cows?—”
She drops one into my hand, the black-and-white miniature no bigger than a nickel. It’s cute, and I can only imagine the look on everyone’s face as they discovered these things behind plants, hidden in sugar bowls, and generally just not where they belong.
Not that there’s aright spotfor a bunch of tiny plastic cows—but still. After hanging up with Jensen, my phone hadn’t stopped ringing with people callin’ to say they saw Ellison and Grandad all over town.
“I mean the article about Jamison’s cows was hilarious, and we thought that’d be the best way to honor them.” Ellison says this like it should be obvious and I’m boring her. It also means she and Grandadplannedthis. Pretty sure you can’t get these things in bulk around here.
“Blasting country music from the car while wearing,” I continue while ignoring her, “matching Hawaiian shirts.” Her grin is wide, and the mischief in her eyes almost has me cracking. But I don’t. I can’t.
“Technically,” she says rocking side to side, “I’m wearing a dress and it has pockets! Isn’t that fun? And Grandad looks so cute.”
My first reaction to seeing my grandfather was to laugh because in my entire lifetime I’d never seen him wear anything with quite so manycolors.It was comical, sure, but unease still weighed me down like a lead blanket.
Sobering, I run a hand through my hair. “Ellison, you took Grandad with you, causin’ a ruckus?—”
