Allie smiled and came up with the answer she’d framed weeks ago. “Cold.”
Unlike the many people who’d posed that same question in the past four weeks, he seemed satisfied with her response. For that, Allie warmed to him.
“Can I help you with anything?”
“Actually, I was just looking around.” As if to prove his point, he craned his head to look behind him. “This is a beautiful place. Reminds me of those Western movies with general stores. The wooden bins and barrels. Especially the old brick walls.”
“Well, it is an old building. That part is authentic at least.”
“Is it yours?” he asked.
“No, my…my parents’,” she replied, unwilling to get into a long explanation of relationships. Her father had left his half to Susan, along with the house they’d shared for two decades. “Shall I leave you to browse, then?”
He frowned, looking indecisive. “Uh, well…”
The door at the front of the store swung open, and Beth, Allie’s longtime friend and Susan’s assistant, breezed in. “That’s that for another six months,” she announced, bustling toward the counter. “Everything okay here?” she asked, her eyes flicking from the customer to Allie and back again.
“Thanks,” he said, nodding at Allie, and moved past Beth to the door.
As it closed behind him, Beth winked at Allie. “Never seen him in here before, and I’d remember a face like that! Is he new in town or what?” She headed behind the counter and plopped her handbag and sweater on a chair.
“No idea,” Allie mumbled.
“You two looked like you were in deep conversation when I walked in,” Beth teased.
For some reason, Allie was annoyed by the remark. She’d barely noticed how good-looking the man was. But that was Beth, always trying to matchmake.
“He saw the magazine article.”
“Oh,” was all Beth said, knowing how Allie felt about the fanfare.
Susan returned, carrying her purse and all-weather coat. “Beth, thank goodness you’re here. Allie’s driving me home, then she’ll come back to close up with you. My back,” she explained at Beth’s look of concern.
“Sue’s going to take a week off and I’ll fill in for her,” Allie said.
“Want me to call in some extra help in the morning?” Beth asked.
“That would be great. When will the full-time summer help be starting, do you recall?”
“We asked the two university students to start on Monday. The high-school kids are taking the weekends and Friday night.”
Susan nodded. “We should be okay for help, then.”
“We’ll be just fine,” Allie said quickly, afraid Susan might change her mind about taking time off. “It’s been pretty quiet, so by the time I get back, we’ll probably be ready to close.” She grasped Susan’s elbow and accompanied her to the door.
JOEL DUCKED his head as soon as he saw the two women round the corner of the health-food store and enter the tiny paved parking lot next to it. Fortunately he’d found a place for his car in the far corner, guessing that owners of the stores adjacent to the lot would use the four reserved spaces.
He watched as the Newman girl solicitously helped the older woman into the hunter-green van, its paneled sides emblazoned in bright yellow with “Evergreen Natural Foods,” and then climbed into the driver side.
Of course he’d recognized her as soon as he’d stepped into the store, although she was leaning over the other woman at the time and hadn’t noticed his arrival. He’d wondered what had been on her mind those few seconds she’d watched the other woman limp toward the back of the store. Concern and worry, he’d figured, for when she’d swung around, her forehead was furrowed.
The magazine photo hadn’t done her justice at all. It hadn’t caught the glossy sheen of her dark-brown hair or the tiny dots of amber in her hazel eyes. It hadn’t even picked up the pale, crescent-shaped scar at the corner of one eye. Allie Newman was definitely more interesting in real life, he thought, as were most things.
The van roared to life and started to back out. He waited until it was angled onto the one-way main street—what was it called again? Princess?—waiting for a break in the rush-hour traffic. At least what counted for rush hour in a city the size of Kingston, Ontario. Then, he turned the key in the ignition and followed the van out of the lot, leaving at least three car lengths between them.
Not that he expected her to notice him following her. Few people did, unless the cars were alone on a country road or something—unlike the movies, where actors were always peering into their rearview mirrors and spotting a tail. Of course, he didn’t even need to be following her, because he already knew where she lived, having passed by the house on Wellington Street on his way to the store. But he didn’t know about the other woman then—Susan, he thought she’d called her—and decided to check her out.
The van took a left at the waterfront and headed toward the army base on the outskirts of town. Joel frowned. He hadn’t expected to be leaving the city, but then, he had no one to answer to and no time commitments. Not yet, anyway. The van drove over the metal lift bridge spanning the Cataraqui. Joel looked upriver to his left, wondering where exactly Newman had jumped in after the old guy.
She had nerve, that was all he could say. The days were still brisk in early May; he couldn’t imagine how frigid the water must have been a month earlier. Cold, as she’d so curtly informed him. He’d smiled to himself at that, figuring she was fed up with answering the same questions over and over. And for some damn inexplicable reason he’d felt himself admiring her for not succumbing to the preening affectation of celebrityhood.
The van chugged up the hill past the Canadian Forces base and stopped at the traffic light that marked the intersecting road to Fort Henry. He’d been there last night, acting the tourist for once and almost enjoying it. When the light changed, the van made a sudden left. Caught unawares, Joel was glad he was far enough behind to make the turn, too. Was this an impulse turn, he wondered, or had she forgotten to signal?
The sign at the corner had indicated she was heading toward Barriefield. Joel liked the sound of that. In his mind, he imagined a different spelling—Berryfield—and pictured the fields planted with strawberries that people would come to pick in late June. Except the land was currently under development, and the fields that might have once produced crops were now harvesting partially built houses.
The van swung right onto a gravel road, jolting him from his brief philosophical interlude. Joel swore, reminding himself to stay alert. He’d found himself drifting off into these dreamlike states too often over the past year, ever since Trish had walked out on him for the last time, taking Ben with her. This time they hadn’t even gone through the pretense of a marriage counselor. Joel had signed the papers without any protest, especially when Trish had agreed to let him have six-year-old Ben for one weekend a month and three weeks in the summer.
Access to his son had been the only dispute in their divorce, and Joel knew, given the uncertainties of his job, that he couldn’t and shouldn’t ask for more. As it was, he’d had to constantly juggle his schedule. But for once, Trish was willing to be flexible, letting him shift weekends when necessary.
The van was less than a quarter of a mile ahead of him on the gravel road now, so Joel slowed down. There was no more traffic to hide behind. This section was undeveloped, and the fields were sprouting with crops that had a whole growing season ahead of them. What few houses there were, were hundreds of yards apart, well back from the road, and accompanied by small barns and sheds. No big farming operations here, Joel noted. Maybe the people who lived here were