“That is very weird.” Although no stranger than hyperventilating near airports. “And totally untrue. Patrick’s wife probably has him on a choke chain these days. For all I know, he changed jobs or moved.” She shrugged, genuinely not caring about her former lover’s life. She cared more about his kids, whom she’d never met. The guilt sneaked up on her at odd times.
“Okay.” Biting her lip as she studied Erin, Heather turned back to the bicycle basket and plucked another daisy. “I’m going to go.” She wrapped it around Erin’s wrist. “And I’m not going to think about you spending 24/7 on the store expansion, which I know you’re going to do without me around to force you to go home. You love that sledgehammer too much.”
Erin smiled in spite of herself while Heather took a photo of their matching wrists with her phone. Her sister might be bossy, but she meant well. Heather was practical, organized and the business mind behind Last Chance Vintage. She also happened to be much better with their mother—a calming presence that soothed Diana Finley’s fractious nerves. Erin had always envied Heather’s ease with their mom.
“Awesome.” Erin gave her a quick hug. “If you leave now, you can still grab a coffee for the road. Plus, I hear there’s a storm coming in tonight. It would be good to stay ahead of it.”
Heather peered outside at weather that had gotten more overcast as the day had gone on.
“Right.” Heather frowned, tucking her phone back in her shoulder bag. “I just worry you won’t follow through on the promotions I’ve set up.”
Erin suppressed a groan, and instead recited the mental list. “Dress sale on the first Tuesday of the month, free champagne for shoppers during Friday lunch hours and thirty percent off anything spring-related next week.”
“Yes, fine.” Heather nodded absently, her heavy turquoise earrings rocking against her curtain of long red curls. “But I mean the press releases about the grand reopening for the updated store and the social media presence I’m trying to maintain. I’ve sent out a lot of feelers to try and attract some media attention. We need to bolster that stuff to support the expansion.”
Erin tried not to grind her teeth. She and her sister could not be more diametrically opposed on this issue. The last thing Erin wanted was to turn a kitschy small-town boutique into some regional shopping mecca. But retreading old ground now would not get Heather out the door.
“I will probably not do as good a job as you, but I will try.” She stretched her lips into what she hoped passed for a reassuring smile.
She held her breath.
“Fair enough,” Heather said finally, and surprised the hell out of Erin by picking up her suitcase. “Austin, Texas, here I come.”
When Heather swished out the door, the welcome bell ringing in her absence, Erin slumped against the front counter. She was too mentally exhausted to celebrate that she’d ousted her sister before Heather’s wise eyes had seen through the Goth-girl hair and the sledgehammer-wielding nights to the truth that Erin was still a broken mess and not really over a lying scumbag she should hate with a passion.
How long would it take for her brain to get the message Patrick’s wife had delivered so succinctly six months ago? He was the antithesis of everything Erin hoped for in a man. But some days, it was hard to reconcile that image of him with the guy she’d fallen for, possibly because she’d never confronted him about it, had purposely avoided any interaction with him ever again. She’d never gotten to see his expression as she called him on his lies, never gotten the chance to see the charming facade fall away.
Maybe that would have helped her to hate him more.
Okay, she actually hated him quite a bit.
And that was the whole problem. She wanted desperately not to care.
Until then, she would simply keep moving forward, building her new life here and hoping that by walling out the rest of the world, she’d finally find some peace.
* * *
REMY WELDON HAD never seen fog like this. It had come from out of nowhere in the past two hours, causing his visibility to shrink. It looked as though someone had dumped a few metric tons of wet cotton balls along the back roads of central Tennessee. In theory, he was scouting locations for one of his shows that was floundering in ratings—Interstate Antiquer. But since he couldn’t see what street he was on, he didn’t hold out hope he’d see much of the shop he’d been searching for, Last Chance Vintage.
In his six years as a TV producer, he’d never had a show plummet in viewership so fast, but then, he’d never had a successful show’s host walk away midseason to make a documentary on a turn-of-the-century American painter. As if that film project would lift the guy’s career more than Remy’s show? Either way, Remy was at his wit’s end trying to patch together the rest of the contracted shows with guest hosts while doing the heavy lifting himself on everything from location scouting to script development.
Everything sucked. Much like the thick gray fog that cloaked the headlights on his crappy rental car. Much like life since his wife had died two years ago and he’d relocated from Louisiana to Miami to escape the memories. There seemed to be no end to gray fog and suck-age.
“Arriving at destination,” his GPS informed him with obnoxious cheeriness, her electronic voice sounding smug at having landed him in a downpour thick with rain, fog and inky darkness.
If he was truly near Last Chance Vintage—one of ten businesses he planned to scout this trip—there was no sign of it outside the car window. Then again, he could barely see the road in front of him as he braked to a stop, the headlights picking up a drain in the street where water rushed from all sides. He must be near a curb.
Shutting off the engine, Remy sat for a minute, letting the stress of the drive slide off his shoulders. He’d been away from his home in Miami for three days already—long enough to be apart from his adopted daughter. Liv’s daughter. His first priority should be—and was—taking care of Sarah until she finished high school and started college. But since her mom had died, he’d struggled with being overprotective to the point of overbearing. He was trying to return to a more regular travel schedule even though being away from his daughter made him uneasy after what had happened to his wife.
In fact, if he thought about it too long—knowing full well Sarah was staying with extremely responsible friends of the family—he stood a very real chance of a panic attack while sitting on the side of the road.
She was safe. She was safe. She was safe...
The mantra didn’t work as fast as Remy needed it to, memories of his wife’s death—while home alone—returning too fast for him to block them out. Two years wasn’t too long to grieve. Not when Liv’s death had been Remy’s fault. He hadn’t been home when two drifters had shown up, targeting their home for easy-to-pawn goods and cash. They’d known about the house thanks to a shared jail cell with Sarah’s biological father, Brandon, who was doing time at a medium-security facility for some kind of hacking crime. The guy had bragged that his ex-girlfriend had struck it rich when she had married, spilling details about the new house Remy had built in Lafayette, Louisiana.
The weight on his chest increased, the air in his lungs leaving in a rush of breath and fear.
Feeling along the passenger seat in the darkened car interior, he found his cell phone and punched in the speed dial code for his daughter. He’d be all right once he heard her voice. God, let her be okay...
Dialing. The device showed it was dialing. And dialing.
Then the call screen disappeared and returned to his home page. Remy punched in her number again. Only to repeat the process.
How far away from civilization was he that he couldn’t grab a cell signal? The delay did zero for the onslaught of panic. He snatched