“I can’t what?”
“Break up with me,” she said, a thread of genuine emotion winding around the teasing note in her voice. “I mean, I know how to get into your house. You would never be able to get rid of me. It would make things really uncomfortable. You would be like, ‘Lane, I’m not speaking to you, why are you in my house?’ And I would be like, ‘you’re doing a really bad job of not speaking to me, since you’re speaking to me.’”
“That’s what it would be like?”
“Yes. So, you can see that it’s silly.”
“Definitely. You have nothing to worry about. I have no desire to break up with you.” Using those words to talk about the two of them was weird.
“Good,” she said.
She shoved her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, looking around, the air once again thick between them. He had thought that maybe it was just him. Until yesterday. And that made him mad all over again. It was one thing to feel attracted to her knowing that she was completely oblivious.
It was another when he had a feeling she sensed the tension.
“I have to go,” he said, using the cows as a convenient excuse.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m going to clean.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
“And I don’t care. I have a while until I have to go open the store. Just let me help.” She reached out, like she was going to put her hand on him, and he took a step back. She stared at him, and then lowered her hand back down to her side.
“See you later,” he said.
“See you.”
THE MORNING HAD started tense, and she was still annoyed about it. The day was not getting along any better. First, a shipment of jam that had come in from a little farm down the coast had arrived with two broken jars that had left everything a sticky mess.
The deliveryman—the son of the woman who made the jam—was apologetic. But that still saw her wiping jam off each individual jar in the boxes.
Though, things didn’t start getting really terrible until later that afternoon when a group of giggling women walked into the store holding smartphones.
Lane couldn’t make out words so much as indistinct squeals. “He’s holding baby ferrets,” one of the women said. “I can’t handle it. And then—”
Lane didn’t get to hear the rest of the and then. Mostly because it was overshadowed by more laughter.
“Hi,” Lane said, doing her best to keep her tone bright. “Are you ladies having a good day?”
“Great,” one of them said, adjusting a flimsy infinity scarf. “We’re on a wine tour.”
Well, that explained the squealing. “How fun. I hope someone else is driving.”
“Yes,” another woman, a blonde, told her. “We have a tour bus.”
“Very nice.”
“We just came from Grassroots. What a beautiful place. Set right into the woods, with a lovely private dining space by the river. The view is lovely. And there was an actual rodeo cowboy there. He was a nicer view than the ocean.”
Lane wondered if that meant that Dane Parker was back from the Pro-Rodeo circuit. He was definitely the kind of man that caused a county-wide hot flash with his mere presence. Assuming tall, cocky and cowboy was your type.
He was essentially a local celebrity, even though he was from Gold Valley. But when it came to rural areas like this, being from a neighboring town meant every other community in the vicinity claimed you as their own.
“I do like a view with my drinking,” Lane said, smiling even more broadly.
“Oh,” the woman in the scarf said, “as sexy as he was, he doesn’t have anything on that new senator.”
Lane just about gagged.
And when she found a phone being shoved in her face, a video already playing, she was pretty sure she did. Because there he was, wearing a suit and a red power tie, clutching an armful of ferrets like a little furry bouquet.
What the actual fuck was a politician doing with an armful of ferrets? More important, why did this man insist on being both across the country and in her face constantly?
“It’s at the zoo in DC,” the blonde said. “It’s a whole montage of him holding baby animals while he hears about the various breeding programs. He is just such a nice man. And handsome. Not just for a politician either.”
Suddenly, the woman lowered the phone, and Lane knew she must be registering her disgust in her facial expression. Except, she was still smiling. She realized when she tried to widen it, that her mouth was stretched as far as it could go. But she had a feeling there was a murderous light in her eye. She must look terrifying.
Yet she had no idea how to fix it.
“Are you not a fan?” the phone woman asked.
“I’m a Quaker,” she lied. “I don’t engage in politics. I conscientiously object.”
She had no idea if Quakers voted or not, or if she was remembering that wrong. However, she could see that the slightly tipsy women didn’t know either. In spite of her near apoplexy—or maybe because of it—they ended up buying several packages of crackers and a pound of Laughing Irish cheese.
But by the time they left, Lane felt spent. Wrung out.
This was her life. Until the internet picked a new golden boy. Until his fame subsided. Unless he decided to run for president.
She spent the rest of the day engaging in busywork around the store. When the steady stream of tourists abated, she went into the back and started to cook some dinner for the night. There would be no harm in cooking for Finn again. She wouldn’t have to cross the threshold of his house if he was going to be a weirdo about it. She could just hand a casserole to him and scamper off into the night.
She snorted. What was the deal with that, anyway? Him being cranky with her. She hadn’t moved into his house and taken over a quarter of his ranch.
She’d gone over this morning with the idea in mind to establish some kind of normalcy. And okay, her bringing breakfast unannounced wasn’t normal. But random gestures of kindness were normal for them, and surely croissants were a gesture of kindness?
Then he’d been cranky with her.
Sure, she was applying a little bit of pressure on him to alter his business plan, but she wasn’t wrong. And it came from a place of love. And she hadn’t even mentioned it in a couple of days.
She huffed around the back kitchen, coming out periodically to check on the store, just in case someone had managed to walk in without setting off the bell.
The afternoon passed without incident, and by the time she turned the closed sign she was more than done. She sighed, sitting down in her chair behind the counter.
She should do something. Something pertaining to the subscription boxes, probably. She hauled herself up out of the chair for a moment, leaning forward to fetch a notebook and a pen. She wrote a header on top of the page: Box Things.
Then she stood again, wandering slowly from behind the counter and through the narrow aisles of the store. She started to write down various items she thought might make good representations of Copper Ridge goodies.
Suddenly, she saw a muddy brown blur flash across the floor, and over her foot. She screamed, jumping backward and knocking into a shelf, sending a box of scone mix