by Katie Ruggle
Dee gave her an encouraging smile and waved her forward. Grace almost groaned again. If a little kid was pitying her, then Grace was truly being pathetic. Stiffening her spine, she climbed into the SUV.
When she’d driven through town the first time, Grace had been hopped up on fear and gas station coffee, so she hadn’t noticed much. Now, with Jules driving, Grace could look her fill. What she saw made her heart sink.
“Wow.” Although she tried for an excited tone, her effort fell flat. “It’s…um…quaint.”
Instead of taking offense, Jules snorted. “You could say that. Or you could just say small.”
It was small. With the mountains circling the town, and the intentionally Old West feel of the line of Main Street shops, downtown Monroe looked like a movie set. An abandoned movie set.
“It’s so quiet,” Grace said, scanning for pedestrians and not seeing any. Except for a few parked cars, the street appeared to be empty. Instead of reassuring her, the lack of people felt eerie. Martin could grab her in broad daylight, and no one would see. Grace’s heart rate picked up.
“Theo told me that most of the residents are seasonal,” Jules explained as she pulled up to the otherwise empty curb. Apparently, parallel parking was not a necessary skill in Monroe. “I guess the winters here can be kind of brutal. A lot of people spend summers in Monroe and the cold months in Arizona or Florida or other warm places.”
Like California. Grace felt a pang of homesickness, but it was muted by her growing anxiety.
“It’s almost October, so people are starting to head south before the first snowstorm hits. According to Theo, this place is like a ghost town during the winter. A lot of the businesses shut down, too.”
The words jolted Grace out of her building panic attack. “Um…it snows in October? From what I remember, snow is supposed to be more of a December thing.” What kind of frozen hell had she fallen into?
Jules laughed. “This’ll be my first winter here, too, so I’m the wrong one to ask. Theo could tell you, though.”
Grace held back a grimace, and she rubbed her arm where the bruises from Martin and Officer Jovanovic still ached. As much as Jules trusted Theo, Grace just couldn’t do it. She was going to do her best to keep conversation between her and members of law enforcement as minimal as possible. Making a noncommittal sound, Grace forced herself to climb out of the SUV.
“I figured we’d go to the thrift store first,” Jules said, and Grace marveled that the woman could sound so cheery. Growing up, all of Grace’s clothes had come from thrift stores and garage sales. She’d been twenty-four before she bought something new for the first time. Now—well, before the dinner party from hell—Grace had donated to thrift stores, but she didn’t shop at them anymore. Owning clothes that had never been worn before was a wonderful luxury that she indulged in now that she could afford it…at least she had. In just a matter of days, her life had skidded off course, and she was right back to where she’d started.
Jules and the kids piled into the store. Reminding herself that she had to do what needed to be done to survive, Grace squared her shoulders and prepared to enter after them.
“Hey, there,” a deep, too-appealing voice said from behind her. “Grace…right?”
Her body jerked at the unexpected greeting, and her heart took off at a gallop. Because of her initial fright, it took several seconds for the words—and tone—to register. The heavy sarcasm made Grace frown as she turned to face Hugh.
Cocking her head to the side, she put on her best confused face. “I’m sorry, but have we met?”
His grin grew a predatory edge. “How could you not remember? It was only yesterday that our eyes locked and our souls recognized each other from hundreds of lives before.”
Keeping her expression as bland and uninterested as possible, she studied him for another few seconds before lifting her hands in a shrug. “Maybe your soul confused mine for someone else’s? Because I can’t imagine having to put up with you for one life, much less hundreds.”
He grabbed his chest as if she’d stabbed him. “Ouch! Not-Grace can be vicious. If I really were your soulmate, I’d be running off to write extremely bad, angsty poetry right now.”
“Why did you call me that?” she snapped, even as she warned herself to stay calm, to laugh it off and not make a big deal out of it.
That wolf-eyeing-his-prey look was back in his eyes. “Not-Grace? I guess you just don’t seem like a Grace to me.”
She stared at him, frozen. Could he know? The image of Logan Jovanovic rose in her mind, reminding her that Martin had at least one cop under his control.
“No comeback?” He leaned closer, watching her closely. “Trying to think of some new lies?”
He’s fishing, she told herself firmly. If he were on Martin’s payroll, he wouldn’t be trying to provoke a reaction. Instead, he’d have arrested her or had her shipped back to California or at least given the Jovanovics a call after he’d met her yesterday. Tossing her hair over her shoulder, she lifted her chin and tried very hard to keep her voice from shaking. “What? No, I just zoned out for a minute. What were you babbling about?”
Instead of looking offended, he gave a surprised-sounding laugh. It was incredibly infectious. The corners of her mouth started to lift, and she realized how close she was to smiling. She dug her fingernails into her palms until she was able to control her expression again.
“Nothing interesting, apparently.” Although he’d stopped laughing, his eyes remained crinkled at the corners, and there was a stupidly attractive dent in one cheek that flirted with being a dimple. “What are you all up to?”
“Shopping.” The word was out before Grace could remind herself that she couldn’t stand him, and that she didn’t need to answer his nosy questions. Apparently, Cheery-Hugh was a little too appealing for her safety.
He lifted his eyebrows while crossing his arms, making his biceps bulge. Grace clenched her fists even tighter, relying on the grounding pinch of her nails to keep her gaze on his, no matter how much it wanted to check out his muscles. “Good luck with that, unless you’re looking for groceries or nails. Not many places are still open.”
“Nails?” Her brain instantly took her to manicures.
“Hardware store.”
“Oh.” She deflated a little. Was it too much to ask for Monroe to have a spa? She gave herself a mental smack. Priorities, she reminded herself firmly. Life over facials. She realized that Hugh was still eyeing her with that annoying mixture of amusement and suspicion, and all her frustration at the unexpected and unwanted turn her life had taken coalesced into a hardened ball in her stomach. “Why are you here?”
“I went to the post office.” He lifted a handful of letters. “I heard they had free mail there.”
The practical answer made her building indignation collapse, and she wanted to laugh at herself. What had she expected him to say—that he was stalking her? She scrambled for a response that was witty or even halfway coherent, but she had nothing. The way he was holding back a smile, making his cheek crease in that too-adorable way, wasn’t helping matters.
“Okay.” Jules poked her head outside, interrupting Grace’s scattered thoughts. “Enough flirting with the new girl, Hugh. Go to the station and bug Theo and Otto for a while. I’m sure they’re missing you.”
Hugh turned his gaze away from Grace, and she was suddenly able to breathe again. “I’ve been banned from the station.”
“Then go to the viner.” Jules grabbed Grace’s hand and started towing her toward the store entrance.
“The what?” Hugh sounded like he was about to laugh again.
“Viner.” Jules was still moving away from Hugh, pulling Grace with her. “We got sick of saying ‘the diner at the VFW,’ so we started calling it the viner.” She hauled the door open and almost shoved Grace through, calling “Bye, Hugh,” right as the doors c
losed, leaving him outside.
“Thank you,” Grace said. All of Jules’s siblings were already scattered around in different sections of the store. Now that she was out of reach of his strange magnetism, Grace’s original fears about Hugh came flooding back. She lowered her voice to just below a whisper. “Do you think he knows something?”
“About you? Based on the month I’ve known Hugh,” Jules whispered back, “I’d say he’s fishing. If he knew something, he’d act on it.”
A flush of relief burned through Grace, and she put a hand on a nearby counter to steady her. “Good.”
“Now are you ready to shop?”
Grace looked around the store, and her heart sank. “No?”
With a laugh, Jules grabbed her hand again, this time pulling her to a rack of heavy coats. “Too bad. Winter is coming, as they say. What do you think of these insulated coveralls?”
“No.” Grace could deal with a return to thrift-store shopping, but she drew the line at insulated coveralls.
Still grinning, Jules exchanged the adult onesie for a down coat. “How about this, then?”
“You just showed me the coveralls to make the coat look better,” Grace accused, but she was fighting a smile as she accepted the jacket to try.
“It worked, didn’t it?”
Jules flipped through the rack, and Grace was vividly reminded of just a few days ago. When she and Penny had been looking through clothes, it was as if they’d been in a whole different world. The expensive, brightly colored fabric of the dresses, glowing like jewels in the sun, made the drab thrift store with its buzzing fluorescent lighting seem even shabbier and so very demoralizing. Grace had been so hopeful and happy and secure in her perfect future, and now… She glanced around the store, the familiar musty odor bringing her childhood back to life in full smell-o-vision, and bit back a sigh. Now she could only hope that she’d have a future.
Her face must’ve shown her thoughts, because Jules said softly, “Hey.” Grace met her steady, serious gaze. “It gets easier.”
Forcing a smile, Grace looked down at the coats to hide that her eyes had filled with tears. Setting her jaw, she forced them back. It would have to get easier. After all, how could it get much harder?
Except for a tiny, elderly woman sitting behind the checkout counter, they were the only ones in the store. It was eerie, this lack of people.
“What stays open?” Grace asked as Jules dumped an armful of clothes in her arms.
“What?” Jules added another pair of jeans to the stack. It looked like the pants were lined in flannel. That couldn’t be flattering. “Go try these on.”
Grace obediently started toward the dressing room, although she’d already decided the flannel-and-jeans was a no. Honestly, how cold could it get? “You said that a lot of the stores close in the winter. Which ones stay open?”
“Well, I’m getting this information thirdhand, so don’t quote me on this, but I think the grocery store and the gas stations stay open. Like Hugh mentioned, the hardware store’s year-round. The diner does, although it’ll be at the VFW for most of the winter. Um…this thrift store.” Jules sent her a sly grin. “Bet that makes you happy, huh? Let’s see… What else is open all year? The post office, the drugstore, the library, Grady’s General Store, the police department—although about half the cops are semi-retired and follow the hordes to Florida for the winter—the liquor store, the taxidermy shop… Actually, the liquor store and the taxidermy shop are one place.”
From what she’d seen of Monroe so far, this didn’t shock Grace at all. “One-stop shopping,” she said dryly, making Jules laugh.
“Indeed.” Jules gave her a push toward a curtained cubicle. “And I’m sure there are more, but that’s all I can think of right now, and you’re stalling. Get in there and start trying on clothes.”
Although Grace didn’t want to try on flannel-lined jeans—or really any of the practical secondhand clothes piled in her arms—a huff of laughter escaped her as she moved into the dressing room. After sorting through the clothes, she had to admit that they weren’t bad. She was just being stubborn because a part of her didn’t want to get new things. There were perfectly good clothes sitting in her condo that she couldn’t access because Martin Jovanovic had chased her out of her home, forcing her to share a bathroom with five other people and buy clothes at a thrift store that smelled ever so slightly of mothballs and mildew.
Stiffening her shoulders, she commanded herself to stop being a whiny baby. For now, she needed to suck it up. She was alive, and that was what mattered. Grabbing the jeans, she gave them a hard look.
“This isn’t going to be fun for either of us,” she told the pants, “but this is what needs to happen, so we’re going to have to make the best of it.”
She started to unbutton her hastily purchased Walmart jeans, but a sound made her freeze. The noise had been faint, just a slight hiss of breath, but it had come from the other side of the dressing room curtain—as if someone was pressed close, listening.
Without moving, she strained to hear more. There was only silence, but she swore she could feel someone’s presence. In her gut, she knew someone was right outside her dressing room.
It’s just Jules, she told herself, but she didn’t believe it. Jules wouldn’t linger like that, hovering so close and quiet. In fact, Grace was fairly certain that Jules was physically incapable of not talking for more than a few seconds. If Jules had been on the other side of the curtain, she would’ve been peppering Grace with questions about how the clothes fit and if she should grab a few more coats.
Grace’s thoughts began to jump around like popcorn. Had Martin found her already? Was it one of his lackeys, ready to take her out the second she emerged? She wasn’t sure if she could actually hear someone breathing, or if her imagination was determined to freak her out.
Buttoning the top button of her jeans again, Grace reached for the edge of the curtain. She had to look. It was far worse not knowing who—if anyone—was silently standing there, watching her. It annoyed her how pale and uncertain her hand looked as she extended it. Her fingers closed around the rough fabric, but then she paused.
Just open it, she ordered herself. Rip it open and get it over with. Taking a deep breath, she yanked the curtain to the side.
No one was there.
Her gaze scanned the open space, finding Jules on the other side looking at books with Dee. The three boys were in a huddle around a table covered with hand tools. The woman at the counter looked as if she might be taking a quick nap in her chair. Grace took several steps out of the dressing room so she could see the entrance to the store.
The door was closing. Grace hurried to the front, jerking open the door and rushing outside, only to crash into someone. With a startled yelp, she tried to stumble backward, but the person grabbed her upper arms. He’s here! He found me! Immediate panic hazed her mind, and she began struggling against her captor’s hold.
“Grace, it’s okay. You’re safe. It’s just me.”
It wasn’t Martin’s voice. Her vision cleared and her heart rate slowed as her terror eased. Tipping her head up, she looked into Hugh’s concerned face. Relief warred with embarrassment, and she stepped backward. This time, he let her go, although his hands stayed up, as if to grab her again if she looked like she was going to fall.
“You okay?”
“Fine.” Flustered, she raised a hand to push her hair over her shoulder, saw how much her fingers were shaking, and lowered her hand back to her side. She suddenly remembered why she’d come outside before Hugh had scared the spit out of her. Looking around, she didn’t see any other people except for the two of them. The street was just as deserted as it had been earlier, but her skin burned as if a thousand pairs of eyes were watching her every move. Sunlight reflected off the windows of the buildings across the street, making it impossible to see inside. Grace wrapped
her arms around herself and turned back to Hugh. “Did you see anyone come out of the store?”
His gaze sharpened, changing from general concern to focused interest. “Just you, but I was putting some things in my truck, so my back was turned for a few minutes.” He waved at a red pickup—one that looked old in a ready-for-the-junkyard way, rather than in a classic-car-show way—parked behind Jules’s SUV. A shepherd-type dog sat in the passenger seat, watching them with huge, pricked ears. “Why?”
“No reason.” A rustling sound made her jerk her head around, but it was only the wind making leaves dance across the road.
“Uh-huh,” Hugh said, not sounding as if he believed her. “Was someone bothering you in there?”
She wasn’t sure how to answer that. Although she would’ve sworn she heard someone outside her dressing room, she was starting to think that she was imagining things. After all, the past several days would’ve messed with almost anyone’s sanity. Since she didn’t want to consider that she couldn’t trust her own senses, she changed the subject. “What are you doing out here?”
“Just…more errands.” For the first time since she’d met him, Hugh didn’t answer with his usual cocky confidence. Instead, his gaze darted to the side as he slid his hands in his pockets, looking like a strangely appealing combination of naughty boy and confident man. He snuck a glance at her, and she raised an eyebrow, making him huff and swing a hand toward the pickup. “My truck’s right there. I had to walk by here to get to it.”
“Uh-huh.” She echoed his skeptical sound from earlier. “Do we need to have the stalking-is-bad talk again?”
“I’m a cop, not a stalker,” he said with exaggerated patience. “I arrest stalkers.”
“Might want to check out your house.”
“What?”
She smirked. “It’s looking a little see-through and glassy to me.”
“What?”
“Glass house? Throwing stones?”