“I’ve got some things to take care of in town,” she said vaguely, hoping June didn’t have a follow-up question.
“Well, it’s great to see you.” She had another customer to take care of and she stepped away.
Callie spun her stool a hundred and eighty degrees and looked around again while waiting for her food. A feeling of déjà vu came over her, or at least a step back in time.
It wasn’t long before June delivered her food. Callie hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she smelled the burger in front of her. “Thanks, June.” She put a blob of ketchup on her plate for her fries. “So what have you been up to? How are your kids?”
The two caught up while Callie ate, interrupted occasionally by other customers. So far, no one else had come in that Callie recognized.
She was wiping her mouth after her last bite of burger when the bell over the door rang, signaling that someone was entering the store. Callie turned in that direction. It was her stepsister, Wendy Carter. Their gazes collided. Wendy looked away first, as if uncomfortable. Interesting. Not the same cocky teenager Callie remembered.
She couldn’t help but notice Wendy’s appearance. Her jeans and plaid shirt looked like they’d been washed a hundred times or more. Her hair needed something—a cut, deep conditioning—Callie couldn’t say. And her complexion... Callie had never seen anyone with such a sickly appearance. She was pale, with tinges of green and yellow on one cheekbone. As if she’d been bruised a week or so ago.
“Hello, Callie,” Wendy said stiffly when she came up to the counter. “I didn’t know you were in town.”
“I got here yesterday,” Callie said just as stiffly.
“What can I get you, hon?” Thankfully, June interrupted their awkward exchange to take Wendy’s order.
Callie had nothing more to say to the stepsister who had mentally and sometimes physically tortured her when they were growing up in the same house.
While Wendy placed a take-out order, Callie pulled out the money she’d stuck in her pocket to pay the bill June had left when she’d delivered Callie’s food. Even the handwritten green checks that had to be added manually were the same as when she was a kid. She didn’t bother asking if they now took credit cards. She’d planned ahead and taken out cash from an ATM before she’d arrived in Whittler’s Creek. Callie laid enough money on the counter to cover the bill, as well as a healthy tip.
“Have you been to see my mom and Bart?” Wendy’s question caught Callie by surprise.
“Not yet.” Not until she gathered her courage.
Wendy didn’t comment, merely nodded and then concentrated on a fingernail.
After waving goodbye to June, Callie was almost out the door when Wendy said just loud enough for Callie to hear, “You don’t belong here.”
Callie turned to Wendy, wondering if she’d heard correctly. “Excuse me?”
Wendy sneered. “You heard me. Go home. No one wants you here.”
Callie remembered to breathe, in and out, in and out.
When her stepsister turned away, Callie assumed Wendy had nothing more to say.
So she continued out the door to the sidewalk and relaxed her hands when she realized her nails were digging into her palms.
* * *
IT HAD BEEN a long afternoon of frustration.
Tyler’s job had been straightforward until that email about financial fraud showed up in his in-box. He’d spent the afternoon trying to find someone to audit the town’s finances, but no one could do it for at least another month.
Thirty days was way too long to wait. It would give whoever was responsible the time to find out that an investigation was under way.
He’d appropriated a storage locker for all the records and they’d finally been moved, so at least they weren’t cluttering up his office anymore.
He closed his computer and straightened his desk before letting the receptionist know he was leaving for the day. “I’ll have my cell if anyone needs me.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Donna mumbled. “You say that every day. When was the last time anything happened in this town?”
Tyler had to think a minute. “When Mr. Rawlins got drunk and was waving a shotgun around.”
Donna’s eyebrows rose. “You know that was last month, right?”
“Seems like last week,” he quipped. “And how quickly you’ve forgotten the standoff at the bank that secured this job for me in the first place.” She did have a point, though. His job was mainly administrative.
Not that he expected to stay in this position until retirement, but he couldn’t complain when the job and this town gave his daughters the stability they needed.
A little while later, he arrived at Aunt Poppy’s, his family’s temporary home, to hear giggles and commotion coming from the kitchen. He headed there to greet his daughters and see what they were up to.
Aunt Poppy watched the girls while he worked, and staying with her just made sense while their house was under construction. This week they were attending a day camp to give his aunt a break.
“Hey, what’s going on in here?” The words were barely out of his mouth when Alexis and Madison came running into his arms. He picked them both up and squeezed, making them giggle even more.
“Hi, Daddy.” Alexis, the older of the two, kissed his cheek loudly. Madison, two years younger at four, did the same to his other cheek.
He was about to ask about their day when he noticed Callie across the room. She was hard to miss in those formfitting shorts and tank top.
He put his libido in check and got down to reality. What was she doing here? For that matter, what was she doing in the same room with his daughters?
“Where’s Aunt Poppy?” he asked instead when he didn’t see her anywhere nearby.
“She ran an errand,” Callie explained. “I said I’d be here with the girls until she got back. I’m renting a room from her while I’m in town.”
She was staying here? He was silent, wondering how to tell her to stay away from Alexis and Madison without causing an incident.
“You don’t mind, do you?” Callie’s puzzled look told him she didn’t know why it would be a bad idea for her to be around his children. “I don’t have much experience around kids, but yours have been great. And Poppy only expected to be gone twenty or thirty minutes. She needed something for dinner that she forgot to buy earlier. I offered to go, but she said it would be faster for her to go since I wasn’t familiar with the store.”
“Um, no. It’s fine.” He put the girls down, purposely not looking at Callie when he answered. He’d speak to his aunt privately about his concerns.
“Ms. Callie was telling us about when she used to go to the same camp as us.” Alexis was bouncing as she spoke.
“Is that right?”
“Uh-huh. And she even took a bus like we do.”
He glanced at Callie and then back at his daughters. “You know I went there, too.”
“You already told us that, Daddy.” Madison was very serious. “But you don’t remember singing the same songs as us. Ms. Callie has been singing them with us. She knows all the words.”
“Well, let’s not wear her out. Who wants to go on a short bike ride before dinner?”
Both girls raised their hands and began dancing around the kitchen. “Can Ms.