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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Either Annie Abraham is back in town or I just paid for some random girl's coffee.
That's all I can think as I walk away from The Caffeinated Cowboy as fast as I can without skidding on the icy sidewalk. These ankle boots, soft leather with a sturdy heel, are comfortable and they look great with these pants, but they have no grip and if that really was Annie Abraham then the last thing I want to do is fall on my ass outside the coffee shop.
I only caught a glimpse of her side profile. That ski slope nose and those heart-shaped lips, the natural honey blonde of her hair. A hint of the long lashes that frame her winter blue eyes, her irises ringed with navy. It must have been Annie. Annie with baggage. No-one comes to Deer Pines with that much stuff unless they're moving in. Or moving back.
That glimpse of her face plays on repeat as I walk down Deer Street – the entire town exists on the intersection of two imaginatively named roads, Deer Street and Pine Street – until I reach Jacob's Ladder. A wall of heat hits me when I push open the door, which is all I need to know that Ruth's working today, the same as every Friday, when it's just her and me. I finish the last of my espresso as I step into my haven.
"Morning, boss," Ruth says from behind the register. I'm not a hundred percent sure of her age, but her hair has been gray as long as I've known her and I know she has grandchildren and I'm pretty sure she's at least twenty years older than me. I must've known her age at one point, when I added her to the payroll and the employee insurance program, but it has long since slipped my mind. It amuses her to call me boss.
"Hi, Ruth," I say.
"My goodness, Laurel, aren't you cold?" She looks me up and down, taking in the thin material of my cashmere sweater through my open coat. I'm wearing sixty denier tights under my pants but I was running late this morning and I couldn't find an undershirt so there's nothing beneath my loose sweater except the lace of my bra.
"Freezing. But you have the thermostat set to ninety-eight, by the feel of it, so I'm sure I'll warm up soon." I hang my coat on a hook in the staff room and drop onto one of the chairs dotted around the store. That was one of my most important visions for this place, that people have places to take a seat as they browse. Jacob's Ladder is, for the most part, a bookstore, but we sell gifts and games and stationery too. Just a few of my favorite things.
"Seventy-five, actually," Ruth says. I drop my head into my hand and sigh.
"That's too hot, Ruth. I know it's cold out but people are coming in here in all their outside layers. We don't want to boil them alive."
If there's one thing I learned from that retail management course I went on a couple years ago, it's that for the ideal shopping environment, the thermostat must never be set below sixty-six or above seventy. I can't be bothered to get up and turn it down, though, so it will have to stay that way for now, until it inevitably gets too much and I have to turn it right down before the heat makes me flip.
