by Shannyn Leah
That was another thing that stumped her, the relationship between Riley and Mrs. Calvert. It wasn’t employer and employee, it was more like mother and son. Mrs. Calvert had one daughter Adrianna, who died in a car crash years back along with Mrs. Calvert’s newborn granddaughter, Jenny. Since neither Riley nor Mrs. Calvert talked about how they knew each other, Abby was left in the dark.
“Hello? Earth to Abby?” Kate snapped her fingers in her face.
What? Oh the soap. “No.”
“The trade show is in September and I want to get started on designing the labels for the soap line. Plus, we have to make the soap at the end of the month so it’s ready for sampling in mid-September.” Abby felt the same speech coming on. “We need the designing and product different from our line for wholesaling purposes. We want to market our store with our own product for the purpose of keeping our store unique. When we offer other stores our products, the packaging needs to be different and not have our store label on it.”
Abby already knew the drill, she’d heard it a hundred times. Her sister’s had wonderful plans, but they were also overwhelming, and sometimes it felt like Abby was just along for the ride.
Kate flipped open her iPad, scrolled it, and then turned it, showing Abby some package designs she’d been working on. “I’ve finished designing the bath bomb signage as well as I finished the new packaging design for the men’s line, facial and body line.” She swiped the screen for each new design. “So the new soap line is the product we will be offering, besides the regular soap line for which I have already designed new labels. That soap line is a lot of basics and we need a line of soap that is fun and exciting and will intrigue people to invest their money into our product.”
There it was, that nice long guilt speech. “Aren’t we discussing all this in the meeting?”
Kate folded her hands on her desk. “Can you give me an idea of what’s in them? Ingredients? Then I could start throwing around some names...”
Abby stared at her, the frustration beginning to bubble inside of her.
Kate wanted ten pieces of a new line of soap in two weeks. She was pushing it. Okay, well she had given Abby three months, but Abby still wasn’t inspired to create magic.
“Anything?”
Abby shifted herself up straighter and tossed the apple core beside her into the trash can. “I went skinny dipping with Riley this morning at the beach.”
Kate’s hoping, anticipating, and waiting face dropped into confusion. “What?”
“What?”
“What do you mean what?”
Abby repeated the word, getting a rise out of Kate just like she’d planned. Then uneasiness escalated within her immediately pushing regret through her body for bringing it up.
Abby didn’t have to fear her time spent with Riley being wound around Willow Valley’s gossip yarn winding wheel. He was private and she liked that about him. There was enough being said around town about her and her family, even if it was no longer that they were the drunk’s children. They had added their own fair share of drama to gossip about.
If there was a front page to Willow Valley’s gossip line Kate and Marc would have made it when they rekindled their love and were reunited with their lovechild Rosemary at the beginning of the year. Peyton would have been the following page after her fling with retired pro-star hockey player Colt Patterson that landed her pregnant, in an accident and eloping with the man all in only a month’s time. Plus, adding a sideline about their recovering alcoholic dad marrying his next door neighbour, Elaine who was also Colt Patterson’s mother in the very same week! Finally, most recently, Sydney was making the rounds of news after Jake Stow, her best friend forever, closed his bar for a day without telling the town why. That sent the gossipers into overload, irking them to the very core and started a whole new gossip about the possibilities of the reasons why. Then before the two got hitched, news exploded that Haylee was Jake’s daughter. Abby wasn’t sure why she hadn’t seen that one coming. She knew Jake and Sydney had always loved each other and were destined to become one, but Jake being Haylee’s dad...she’d been in the dark for that one like everyone else.
Abby shook her head replaying her family’s lives in her head. Lastly there was herself. The center of the gossip column forever and known for her wild ways: drinking, drugs, fights, out late every night, and arrested for mischief. You name it and Abby likely did it all until four years ago, two years before Riley showed up and Gran moved her into her house and laid down the rules of Gran’s Law. Abide...the end. Abby had needed the rules and structure and they had stuck, even after Gran’s death, leaving Abby no desire to run wild through the town causing trouble. Sometimes when she saw the little old ladies sitting around Mrs. Calvert’s bakery Abby stopped to share stories about herself with them, just to get a rise and keep them guessing. She never said a single word about Riley. Abby wasn’t sure what it was about him, but she felt safer then she had with any man, and she didn’t want the town to know what their relationship was...even if it was only a friendship. Abby was tight lipped when it came to Riley...until now.
Why did she say this? And to Kate of all people? That had to mean something. After her mom died when she was young, Kate raised her and Avery until she left for college. Kate had always been there for Abby as her sister, her friend and her second mother.
Kate leveled her motherly look at her. “Did you cross the line and have sex with him?”
“What? No!”
Kate sat back, taking a deep breath and abandoning her work while she eyed Abby up.
Abby wanted to tell her to bugger off. She wasn’t ten years old, but she didn’t, because she didn’t know what to do about Riley and she brought it up so Kate would tell her what to do.
“Do you want to?” Kate didn’t ask with the dangerous excitement Peyton would have, but instead with concern and debate.
“We are friends.” Why was she making it so difficult for Kate to help her by avoiding the questions?
“Friends don’t skinny dip with each other.”
“Yes they do.”
“Not the friends I know.”
“That’s because you’re a prude.”
Kate shook her head, allowing a partial smile to find the concerned lips. “So you don’t want to sleep with him?”
“It’s not about sleeping with him.” There, she’d said it. It was about something much more and she didn’t know what it was.
“What’s it about?”
Seriously? That’s what she was hoping Kate would tell her. She’d never experienced these strange little annoying feelings that were creeping around inside her, stronger the more time she spent with Riley and they were latching onto the lust pulling it out of the closet and making a confusing combination of...what? That was it exactly. She needed a candy apple
“I don’t know,” she finally answered.
“Does he know?”
Abby grunted. Even if he did know he wouldn’t tell her. Besides, he wasn’t interested in her. Sure he looked at her boobs and her butt and sometimes her legs, but he was a guy. Right? That was all it was...wasn’t it?
Did he look at other women’s boobs, butts and legs? She had no idea because until these stupid feelings started annoying her she hadn’t cared. But if he had looked, wouldn’t she have noticed and been inclined to harass him? In that case it’s never occurred...What did it mean!!!
“I doubt it.”
“Have you talked to him?”
Abby hadn’t mentioned the skinny dipping to be directed back to discussing it with Riley. She needed to decipher what all these feelings were and how to cut them away. “I’m not talking to him.”
“Maybe that’s where you should start.”
“That’s a great idea. Talk to him about something I don’t even know what I’m talking about. Brilliant Kate.”
“At least it gets it out there.”
“Gets what out there?”
Kate shrugged. Kate was not being as helpful
as she had expected.
“Exactly.” Abby stood up. “I’m going to create your soap.”
“It’s your soap,” she called after her.
Abby waved her hand. “Just for the record I sleep with him all the time.” Just for the record they’d fallen asleep together on the couch a couple times.
“Talk to Riley!” Followed her right into the warehouse.
That would go over well. Oh hey Riley, I have these annoyingly, wonderful and weird feeling about you and I don’t know what they are...do you get those too?
Just brilliant Kate.
More like avoid him until these stupid annoying feelings buggered off. Today was going to be one of those days, she could feel it already.
Ugh.
Chapter Six
THIS WAS ONE of the longest days of Riley’s life and that was saying a lot since he’d had extremely long days in the past.
He hadn’t seen Abby since they’d parted ways in the alleyway that divided her soap shop from Mrs. C’s bakery. The property also touched the white picket fence of Abby’s backyard.
After their swim that morning, he’d watched her walk across the lawn, waited for the automatic lights to flash on when she reached the porch and he’d listened for the door to shut behind her before he went inside to discover it was getting close to five. That meant Mrs. C would be arriving in the bakery. He’d quickly showered, dressed and met her down there for kitchen prep work.
Riley had tried to keep his mind in the work zone all day, mixing the fresh ingredients together, baking them to perfection and sending them to the front for customers to enjoy home baked, non-preservative alternatives. He’d been surprised after a lifetime of never putting on an oven mitt on that he enjoyed combining ingredients together delicately with patience for a delicious outcome.
Today however, his mind wandered to Abby and the dream that was bothering her again. The nights she howled in her sleep led her into a day of strange Abby moods that she masked with even more jokes and humor. Wasn’t it healthier to deal with the cause rather than mask it? That was likely the reason why she hadn’t stopped in on Riley’s lunch to harass him or knocked on his door after she closed the soap shop: she was in a mood.
Now it was past ten that evening and still no word from Abby. That was unusual. Even the nights she spent at home, she popped in at least once to drive his nerves around the bend. He was noticing the straight line his nerves were gliding on tonight weren’t nearly as satisfying, and even anticipated the bend.
Riley didn’t have a cell phone anymore. He’d left that the day he walked away from the life he’d created. The life he’d wanted. The life he no longer deserved. He didn’t want to get in touch with those people and he’d cut all contact because it was too hard to listen to, it’s not your fault and, don’t blame yourself. It was completely his fault and he one hundred percent blamed himself.
He wondered what Abby would think of him if she knew the truth. Would she go down the, It’s not your fault path? Or would her bold truthfulness tell him what he already knew and no one had the guts to say? It IS your fault.
Having a cell phone would have made his life easier at the current moment and instead of walking to the fence and checking to find the light off at Abby’s house, he could have shot her a quick text and confirmed she was okay.
Abby was still struggling with Grace’s death after all these months and hardly able to go home. She spent more nights at his house then she did at her own and it wasn’t because they were shacking up. Why was that idea pleasing to him? It was because she wasn’t dealing her loss.
Who was he to give her advice on how to deal with life and loss when he’d run away from it, and instead burrowed his sorrows in white healing powder, snorting the mixtures that were easily accessible to him? When people wanted to talk, he shut them out. All of them except Mrs. C. But she didn’t push like the rest of them, wanting him to open up, talk and erase the guilt. Why did he deserve to lessen the guilt? Why did he deserve to continue living his life when they couldn’t live theirs?
Riley didn’t want Abby to end up like him, alone and with guilt rendering her every decision. He deserved it, she did not. When Grace’s death had been fresh, Abby had confided in him that her own blame ran deep because she had not been home the night Grace had passed away. There was nothing Abby could have changed. Even if she’d been home, and hopefully in time, she would come to terms with the truth that it wasn’t her fault. Calling out to Gran in the night, screaming like a terrified child last night, had sent his own body into convulsions. He’d never seen her have such a serious nightmare. Were they getting worse? He wouldn’t know because she didn’t talk about it.
Riley stopped at the propped open back door of the soap store. Anger and protection marched through his body seeing she purposely left the back door open facing the dark alleyway and parking lot after ten at night while she was working inside. She would be alone too. She enjoyed working the crazy hours when the town died and she was unaccompanied.
Riley knew more about her then anyone he’d ever crossed paths. It wasn’t hard when the two would sit together in silence until she broke like those wind-up chattering teeth that never stopping talking.
He should have glanced in the soap shop, confirmed she was good then gave her the space she needed and went home. What he should do was so different then what he wanted to do.
Riley pulled the door open and even before he stepped inside the strong aroma of essential oils blanketed him, suffocating his every sense. The smell was overwhelming, but he’d grown accustomed to them always attached to the saucy blonde.
The back manufacturing section of the store was reconstructed commercially opposite of the antiques, woods, soft country feel they had in the retail store area itself.
At the far end of a long steel table in the middle of the room and surrounded by walls of steel shelves, was that bubbly little blonde so deeply concentrating on the drops she was adding to a mixing bowl that she didn’t even notice he’d entered.
Exactly. Point proven. Anyone could enter unnoticed. He was going to talk to her about the door and not allow any of the dismissive waving hands she did so often.
Another pair of jersey short shorts showed off her long, tanned, toned legs. This was her regular pajama attire which meant she’d gone home before starting her late shift. Did she plan on going home tonight or staying at his apartment? The fact he was leaning toward the latter told him it was a good idea she go to her own house. No more early morning skinny dipping. The memory sent jolts of thunder through his body.
Abby’s long hair was piled again directly on the top of her head in a messy bun with long pieces falling down her neck and onto the bare spots of her shoulders. She wore another one of those cut-up band t-shirts too.
Avery’s music was a new staple in Riley’s apartment, usually through Abby’s phone. She was so proud of his band. Riley strayed away from listening or noticing music, especially indie bands looking to cut a deal, but Abby had forced his hand playing the rock with the slightest folk mixed in. The folk definitely made their sound unique, setting them apart from other bands. Even against not wanting to notice, Riley had come to the unwanted conclusion that Avery’s band was good and Riley was absolutely not going to do anything about it. Travelling across the country playing in small venues told him the band didn’t have a record deal and again Riley wasn’t going to do anything about it. And travelling for ten months straight touring...something didn’t seem right there, but again it wasn’t his business and he wasn’t getting involved. That was his past.
Riley stood back now, with his arms crossed not wanting to interrupt her while he watched Abby squint her gorgeous dark eyes, concentrating on the measurements in the bowl. It was about time she started working on this line instead of always complaining about her sisters rushing her. What was holding her back?
Abby precisely mixed the solution but when she brought it to her face, anticipating the scent she’d just created, a f
rown deepened her usual smile. She set the bowl down hard, with clenched fists, looking ticked as all hell. Then in a quick motion, that almost made him jump, her arm sliced through the air and hit the bowl off the counter sending it flying to spill all over the floor. This was a side of her he hadn’t seen before.
“Damn it!” she yelled, her fists finding the counter and slamming them down. Hard. Her face twisted in pain and she rubbed the bottom of her hands, blinking away the tears. Tears that tugged at his heart. His heart? No, he didn’t have those emotions. That’s when she saw him, while he was arguing with heart tugging emotions.
She flushed, embarrassed. Another unusual Abby feature.
“I didn’t hear you come in,” she said.
That was another topic entirely, but it wasn’t the moment to bring it up.
Her eyes darted to the bowl lying spewed across the floor beside her then back up to him, catching her bottom lip between her teeth like she was waiting for him to scold her. Even her anger was driven with the same passion as her other emotions. This woman had strong passion, it just fluttered in every direction.
“Bad batch?” He tried to sound less serious, but he wasn’t sure it worked. He hadn’t tried comforting in years or ever if he truly thought about it. He’d been selfish.
“Yeah. What are you doing here?”
He wasn’t sure.
“You didn’t stop by today.” At all.
“You missed me.” He would expect her smug know-it-all smile with that comment, but it came out more a question.
“Do you need help?”
Why are you offering her help? She’s fine, you can see that. Maybe not fine but she’s safe. Tell her off about the door and shut it on the way out to your apartment...alone. You actually have to get up at five while this one sleeps until noon.