After losing her job and her girlfriend, it's time for Annie Abraham to admit defeat and move back in with her parents. She has hardly been back to her tiny Montana hometown since the unforgettable summer before her senior year of college, when she...
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"Trust me, we'll be fine. I'll call you if I need to, but I won't. Stop fussing," Ruth says, standing in my kitchen and holding my daughter. "I know what I'm doing, Laurel. I have children of my own, and grandkids. This is not my first rodeo."
"I know, I know."
"Now you just go and enjoy yourself," she says, shooing me towards the front door. "Have fun on your date."
"It's not a date," I say.
"Whatever you say, boss." Ruth winks at me and, because she can't decide if she prefers calling me boss or pretending to be my mom, she says, " Just be back by midnight."
It really isn't a date. I'm meeting Annie at the store after closing to show her the ropes without customers – or Bobby – getting in the way. I purposely didn't cash up earlier, once Jessica left after her final shift, so I can show her how to do it. Just because it's a good excuse for us to have some time together, just the two of us, without my children or my colleagues getting in the way doesn't make it a date.
But there's no point in wasting energy arguing with Ruth so, once I'm sure that she knows how and when and where to put Ava to bed, I head out into the dark with a fresh spritz of perfume. It's pitch black, the stars hidden by the snow-laden clouds that have threatened to burst all day but have yet to do anything but cast a shadow over the town. Deer Street is lit by streetlights and the glow from two bars, the only places open past five thirty on a weekday. Before Ava, I occasionally went to the cozy, rustic Deer & Pine with Ruth for dinner. I haven't ventured into The Watering Hole since the night Ava was conceived.
I make it to Jacob's Ladder a minute before six o'clock, when Annie and I agreed to meet, giving me time to get Ava home from daycare and feed her before handing her over to Ruth. I don't anticipate we'll be here too long. An hour, tops, and then, maybe, it could turn into a date. Maybe we'll escape the cold into the welcoming warmth of Deer & Pine, with its open log fire and its hearty food and its reasonably-priced wine.
The clock in the center of town chimes six times and as though she has been summoned, Annie appears. A vision in pink against the black and gray of a winter's evening in Deer Pines, her chin buried in a scarf and a pair of fluffy earmuffs holding her hair off her face. My heart lifts at the sight of her, my body reaching for her without instruction from my brain.
"Hey," she says, her arms opening to pull me into a hug.
"Hi." I hold on a little longer than a regular hug and breathe in deep, my nose in her loose hair. She has a soft floral scent, something light and pretty and ever so Annie.
"So, what's the deal here?" she asks as I unlock the store and turn on one of the lights. She follows me in and I lock the door behind us. "I think I know how this goes."
"How what goes?" I fold my coat over one of the sofas and pocket the key, double checking that the closed sign is still in the window.
Annie hops up onto the counter, her fingers curled over the edge, and she crosses her legs, leaning forward as she unbuttons her coat. "You want to get me alone," she says with a wink. "You're the MILF boss who wants to shake it up a bit and I'm the hot new employee who happens to be very attracted to you."
