Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

Fox

“Jesus Christ,” I mumbled to myself. “What the hell is she doing now?”

I should’ve never looked to my left as I drove past, should’ve never let curiosity get the best of me. But I did. And I stopped the damn truck too, watching through the big bay window at the front of my nutty new neighbor’s house. The little spitfire blonde was balancing on a chair, which was on top of another chair, while doing something to the kitchen light. I should’ve taken my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed 9 and 1, just to be ready for what was about five seconds away from happening.

She wobbled as she stretched up, and my heart did the same. I ripped open my truck door, about to jump out, let myself into her house, and physically remove her from the unstable setup. But then the light she was fumbling with flickered on, and she fist pumped into the air. She climbed down, and I blew out a hot stream of breath, yanked the door back shut, and hit the gas before I could witness any other stupid shit happening over there.

On my way to the jobsite, I made my usual stop at Rita’s Coffee Beanery. It used to be called just Rita’s, but she’d added the yuppie-sounding Beanery when she gave the place a facelift a few years back. The Airbnb yuppies who came down in search of something that doesn’t exist because of the dumb America’s Friendliest Townmoniker were more than willing to pay an extra buck fifty to buy overpriced coffee from a beanery.

“Morning.” I nodded.

“How you doing, cutie pie?” Rita said. “You want your regular?”

“Yep.”

“One black coffee and boring whole-wheat toast, coming right up.” She punched some buttons on the register. “When am I going to be able to talk you into changing things up? My power shakes are pretty delicious. I’m like a magician. You won’t even taste the kale in my cucumber and apple power smoothie.”

“Not big on change.”

She disappeared and came back with my usual foil-wrapped toast and large coffee. “I heard you got a new neighbor. Maybe you can make a friend.”

This town should’ve been named America’s Nosiest, not friendliest. I shook my head. “About as interested in new friends as I am your power smoothie.” I held out my hand. “Now can I have my breakfast?”

Rita tsked. “You’re lucky your mom’s so sweet and you’re such a looker, or no one would be nice to you at all, Fox Cassidy.”

I offered a curt nod and dropped a five on the counter. “You have a good day, too, Rita.”

At the jobsite, I found my motley crew inside the air-conditioned trailer. I pointed to my foreman, Porter, who was sitting on the corner of my assistant’s desk, and scowled. “Why are you in here instead of out there doing your job?”

He flashed a cocky smile that got him a lot of tail, but didn’t do shit for me. “It’s not eight o’clock yet. I’m telling Opal about the future Mrs. Tobey. Went out on a date last night. I’m in love, I tell ya.”

I walked past him and took a seat at my desk. “Are we still on nurses?”

Porter Tobey had worked for me for three years now. Year one he’d been on a teacher kick, dating only elementary-school teachers, said they were motherly and doting. Year two he’d moved on to flight attendants, which wasn’t an easy thing to do considering our little town was forty-five minutes from the nearest airport. But he’d been dedicated and spent a lot of time at the airport bars, with an empty suitcase to look like a traveler and all. He liked flight attendants because they weren’t doting—said he found their independence refreshing. Now it was nurses. There were more than a handful of those in Laurel Lake, and I wondered if the switch had anything to do with the long drive to the airport and skyrocketing gas prices.

“Nurses are so warm and caring.” He sighed.

“How about the ladies at the unemployment office? How are they? Because that’s where you’re going to be spending your time—” I motioned to the door with two fingers. “—if you don’t get your ass out of my office.”

Porter stood. “You know, my lady nurse has a lot of friends. Maybe I can ask her to fix you up and we can double date. Might help get rid of the bad mood you’ve been in lately, you know, for the last three years.”

“Out!”

Porter scurried out of the trailer, leaving just me and Opal. She shook her head. “You should be nicer to that boy. He looks up to you.”

“He’s twenty-seven, only six years younger than me. So he’s not a boy. And he looks up to me because I got nine inches on him.”

“He lost his father at a tender age. You’re a role model.”

“Then I’m helping by teaching him a solid work ethic.” I pointed to the printer. “Speaking of work, think you can print me out the specs for the Franklin job?”

She looked at her watch. “After I call my mother. You might be able to bully Porter into starting before his shift begins, but you don’t scare me.”

I had the pleasure of listening to Opal discuss her mother’s bunions for the next ten minutes. At promptly eight, she hung up, punched a few keys on the computer, and paper started to spit from the printer. Our desks were maybe ten feet apart, max. Opal walked the stack over. “Good morning, boss. Here are the Franklin specs.”

“Thank you,” I grumbled.

I read what she’d handed me, but Opal didn’t move. Instead, she waited for me to look up again.

I sighed and lowered the papers. “Yes?”

She smiled. “I heard you have a new neighbor. Name’s Josie.”

“Jesus Christ. Is there anyone who doesn’t know?”

“Reuben at the gas station said she’s very pretty.”

Blond hair, light blue eyes, and skin that made me wonder if it was as soft as it looked. But I wasn’t about to give the town gossip anything more to talk about by sharing my opinions. I shrugged. “Didn’t notice.”

“She’s a scientist, you know.”

“You sure you got the right neighbor?”

“Lives in Mrs. Wollman’s place—the old hoarder.”

My brows pulled tight. “How did you know Mrs. Wollman was a hoarder?”

“Everyone in town knew that.” Opal’s eyes swept over my face. “Except you, apparently. Anyway, pretty girl’s a doctor—not the kind you go to when you’re not feeling well or break a bone, but one of those researcher types. Got a big job, develops new drugs for some pharmaceutical company.”

Well, I hoped she was better at making pills than she was managing a construction project. “Good for her.”

“And Frannie at the post office said her mail is forwarded for sixty days, not permanently.”

“Doesn’t the government have privacy rules Frannie should be following? Or does she open people’s bills and letters and spread gossip about that, too?”

“She also gets holiday cards from Josie—Frannie, not the post office. Though obviously it must come through that channel to get to Frannie.”

My brows drew together. “They know each other?”

“Nope. First time Frannie met her was when she came in to pick up her forwarded mail a few days ago.”

“Yet she gets Christmas cards from her?”

“Not just Christmas, but Easter and Thanksgiving, too. They exchange cards for every holiday.”

“What am I missing here? They don’t know each other yet they swap holiday cards?”

“Yep.”

“How does that work?”

“Don’t quite understand it myself. But Frannie said they started exchanging cards a decade ago. Apparently a few hundred come through the post office with the same return address a few times a year. Dr. Josie sends a lot of cards to the people of Laurel Lake.”

I figured Opal had to be missing a piece or two of the puzzle. The gossip chain had a chink in its links somewhere. Whatever, I had shit to do anyway. “What time is the tile delivery coming today?”

As usual, Opal ignored me. “Rachael at the supermarket said Josie stocked up on a lot of food. Apparently, she’s not gluten free and eats plenty of carbs.”

I tossed the papers in my hands into the air. “Seriously? What the fuck? Do you people all get together for a secret meeting to discuss the comings and goings in this town? Is there a camera you have hidden somewhere to tell you when someone enters?”

“Unlike you, some of us are friendly and like to get to know a bit about the new people who come around.”

“I think it’s more like you’re all discussing other people’s lives because you don’t have one of your own.” I moved my fingers to simulate walking. “Now, find out what time the tile is coming.”

***

It was almost seven thirty by the time I stopped on my way home to pick up some dinner. The Laurel Lake Inn was a fancy restaurant by this town’s standards; you didn’t eat there dressed in dusty jeans and dirty work boots like I had on. But they made a bacon-wrapped pesto pork tenderloin that had me salivating even thinking about it, so I stopped in for takeout once a week. Usually I called in my order, but I’d forgotten my cell in the office and come straight from a jobsite.

“Hey, Syl. Can I get an order of the pork and mashed potatoes, please?”

“You got it, Fox. We’re a little busy tonight. But I’ll see if anyone else ordered the pork recently, and I’ll pull their order for you. They can wait a few more minutes.” She winked.

“Thanks. Appreciate that.”

Sylvia disappeared into the kitchen, so I figured I’d step into the bar and have a cold beer. I made it three steps inside before I locked eyes with a certain blonde. Josie was a shit driver and couldn’t carry more than five pounds, but damn, she was hard to look away from. She frowned when she saw me, which made me smile.

The restaurant might have been busy, but there were only two other people in the bar besides Josie and me. She had a plate of food in front of her and what looked like a glass of wine. I moseyed up and ordered a beer, trying my best not to look over, but that didn’t last long. My eyes snagged on her hand on the glass, her left ring finger, in particular. It was bare. I’d noticed that the other day, too.

Josie spoke without looking up. “Heard a rumor you used to play in the NHL. Is that true?”

“Who’d you hear that from?”

“The nice lady at the post office.”

Figures. That was how Frannie operated. She’d get you talking by offering information and then pry out bits and pieces of your life without you even realizing. I’d learned it long ago.

“The nice lady at the post office is a busybody who tells everyone’s business out of turn.”

“So does that mean you didn’t play hockey?”

“I did.”

She looked over and smiled. “I know. I googled you after she mentioned it.”

“Why’d you ask me if you already knew the answer?”

She shrugged. “Were you any good?”

“Didn’t Google tell you that?”

“The article I read said you were on the Olympic team.”

“You know a lot of shitty professional athletes who make an Olympic team?”

“I don’t know any shitty professional athletes at all.”

I had to crack a smile at that. She was a wiseass. And pretty. But she also seemed like a lot of work. And that was the trifecta combination I kept far away from these days. So I sipped my beer and kept quiet.

“Are you ordering food, or did you just come for that beer?” she asked a few minutes later.

“I’m picking up takeout.”

“The food is really good here.”

I nodded. “The best Laurel Lake’s got to offer. Trust me, I eat a lot of takeout.”

“You don’t like to cook?”

“Hate to clean up when the cooking’s done. Easier to pick up something on the way home.”

“I love to cook. I find it relaxing. But the oven at my house is broken. It was filled with newspapers from eight years ago, so I don’t think Mrs. Wollman was much of a cook either. I’m getting a new one delivered tomorrow.”

Sylvia walked in and put a hand on my shoulder. “Food’s ready, Fox.”

“Thanks. I’ll be right there.”

I would’ve liked to stick around, find out what else the good doctor liked to do, but that meant it was definitely time to go. Pulling a ten out of my pocket, I tossed it on the bar and waved to the bartender.

“Enjoy your meal,” Josie said.

“You too. What time should I expect the delivery people tomorrow?”

Her cute little nose wrinkled. “Delivery people?”

“The new stove. Unless you managed to give the correct address this time.”

She squinted at me. “Funny. But I think you’ll be spared having to carry over an appliance.”

I took one more look at her almond-shaped eyes and pouty pink mouth and thought to myself, Shame. I nodded. “Have a good night, doc.”

“You, too. Wait. How did you know I was a doctor?”

I winked. “Rumor train runs in two directions.”