by Lara Swann
“Probably best not. What if I get confused - think it’s just some game you’re playing out here?”
“Sounds like the start of an epic movie to me, so I guess that would mean you’d have to go on a long quest to find the antidote to a deadly snake bite—”
“Daddy? What’s going on?”
I blink as Maya comes up behind me. I’d momentarily forgotten I left her inside the house as I rushed out here, too distracted by the sudden change of situation and then Kelsey’s amusing imagination.
“Hey sweetie - it’s nothing, it’s okay. I’m sorry if I worried you - they’re just playing over here.”
“Who’s playing?” She asks, barely glancing at Kelsey or me as she looks over at the two girls - now stood back up and holding some sort of wooden sticks as they seem to…bounce?…around the garden, giggling and chattering to each other all the while. They don’t seem at all interested in my interruption, either.
Now that she mentions it…good question. I hadn’t actually thought about the girls, but they look around Maya’s age…I didn’t think Kelsey had children, she never said…do little girls just gravitate toward her or something?
Kelsey glances over her shoulder at the two of them, smiling as she turns back to Maya.
“Katy and Lily - my nieces. I’m looking after them for the afternoon.”
“Oh.” Maya says, still looking over at them as she gravitates toward me.
“Katy! Lily! Come say hi!” Kelsey calls, and the two girls look up before - yes, definitely bouncing - over to us.
It’s not until one of them comes to a stop with a high-pitched snort and tosses her head that I notice the wooden sticks have horses’ heads on them.
Ohh. That’s what they’re doing.
I belatedly notice the logs and sticks propped on chairs spread over the garden.
“These are my new neighbors.” Kelsey is saying, while my brain is still catching up. Adrenaline does that to me sometimes - so focused on looking for a problem that I miss the little details - though I’m not sure what accounts for my distraction after I relaxed and started talking to Kelsey. “Liam, and his daughter Maya. They run the new cupcake store in town.”
“Oooh, I love it there!” Lily says, her eyes going wide. “It’s so pretty!”
Katy nods, smiling a little shyly.
“And these are my nieces - or two of them, anyway - Katy and Lily.”
“Hi.” Maya says, sounding just as shy as Katy looks, and I glance at her in surprise. Usually, my little girl is full of exuberance.
“It’s nice to meet you.” I say, giving them both a smile. “It looks like you were having fun.”
“We’re playing horses, and we’re doing shows and Katy just made it over the big jump!” Lily says, pointing enthusiastically to one of the bars over a couple of chairs.
“Wow.” I say, putting the same impressed tone in my voice that I often use with Maya. “That’s a really high jump.”
“It is!” Lily exclaims, grinning, nudging Katy who mumbles something I can’t make out.
“Did you want to join us?” Kelsey suggests, making the offer to Maya before glancing up to include me. “I’ve got a picnic all set up over here, too.”
Maya looks at the two girls and then up at me, hesitating, and it’s not hard to see the longing in those big, blue eyes of hers.
“Do you want to, sweetie?” I ask, gently encouraging as I understand immediately.
I’d made such a big thing of spending the day together because I feel guilty about how much I’ve been working recently - but I’m not surprised she wants to play with some girls her own age. She’s got the whole summer with just me, and I was getting a little worried that she might not get the chance to make friends until school started up again. What Kelsey is offering is exactly what she needs, and I feel a rush of gratitude towards her once again.
“But, what about…”
“You can spend time with me any day.” I tell her. “We’ll have lots of special days together. But…I’m not very good at playing horses. These two seem a lot better at it than me, if you wanted to play with them instead today.”
“Playing horses is easy.” Lily says, as if I’m being silly, then steps closer to the low fence between us.
She makes an exaggerated movement of swinging her leg over the wooden stick - sorry, the horse - and holds it so that the head is over the fence. She glances back at her sister before looking at Maya again, her voice going slightly shier than she seemed a moment ago.
“We only have two horses, but you can share mine if you want. His name is Thunder.”
She strokes his head, and Maya gives her a little smile as she steps closer, looking at the horse head.
“Hi Thunder.” She says softly, reaching out to stroke his head too.
Lily snorts and makes a neighing sound, nuzzling the horse closer to Maya’s hand and making her giggle. It’s the most adorable thing I’ve seen today and just like that, the two girls are grinning at each other, and Katy comes closer to join her sister, smiling too.
Maya looks back at me, some of the shyness dissolving. “Can I, Daddy? Please?”
“Of course, sweetie.” I squeeze her shoulder, and Kelsey opens the gate for Maya to come skipping through, already deep in whispered conversation with the two girls as they bounce off to the other side of the garden.
I smile after them, a strange lightness in my chest as I watch.
That was easy.
With one simple gesture, Kelsey has given us the first step to something that’s been bothering me since we moved here - how I’m going to help Maya make friends her own age. Especially when - beyond the cupcake store - I’m not particularly good at being sociable. I’m too used to the closed-off life I had in Los Angeles.
“Want to come and join me with the food? I find that’s usually ample entertainment for the adults.”
I laugh, enjoying her easy smile as she keeps the gate held open.
“We just had lunch.” I admit, then glance over at where the three of them are tearing around the garden, giggling and yelling at each other. “But I can come over and help you watch them.”
I still feel a little guilty that she had Maya with her all of yesterday afternoon - I can’t just leave my kid with her again. I have no idea what she’d start to think.
“Well, you’re always welcome - the more the merrier, that’s pretty much the town philosophy here - but if you’ve already eaten and need some child free time to get your head back on straight, I won’t be offended. That’s why Mark and Jenny drop these two off with me so often, after all, and if I’m watching two…three is no big deal.”
I hesitate. An afternoon in the sun watching Maya make friends and chatting to Kelsey sounds like a great time, but now that she mentions it, I’m more than aware of everything I didn’t get done yesterday.
“Would you think I’m a total dick if I grabbed a whole load of paperwork and came over with that? It’s way too unfair to ask you to look after Maya again while I disappear, but I feel like I’m drowning in it at the moment.”
“Sure.” She says, her easy nature seeming totally unfazed. “Watching you badly multitask between paperwork, kids and a picnic in the sun sounds entertaining to me.”
She gives me an impish grin, then turns to walk back to the large blanket she’s got spread out under a tree. I can’t help chuckling to myself, shaking my head as I go to gather up the work I’ve got to get done. I’m not sure she’s going to be wrong about that, but at least this way I’m trying. I tell myself it’s better than nothing.
“Thanks for this.” I say, as I join her and set the notepads and letters in front of me, ready to make notes on everything I need to do when I get into the shop tomorrow. “And for inviting Maya to join in, too. I worry about her getting lonely sometimes, with me being the only person she knows here.”
Kelsey nods. “I thought it would be good for her to get to know a few other kids before school starts up.”
&nb
sp; She says it casually, like it’s no big deal, but I can’t help the rush of warmth as I realize she actually thought about this - about what would be best for my little girl. A girl she barely knows. Kelsey met Maya yesterday, and somehow she’s already looking out for her. It’s a little hard for me to get my head around.
“Yeah, that’s…thanks.” I have to cough slightly, not quite sure how to react to that - or deal with the feeling that wants to creep up into my voice.
Damn. If this is what the people here are like, moving here might have been a better decision than I could have known.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about it, though.” Kelsey continues, hopefully not noticing the unexpected tightness in my chest. “It’s Ashton - I’m pretty sure she’ll know the whole town before long. We’re like that around here.”
She gives me a crooked smile, which puts me slightly back on an even keel, and I manage to meet it with my own.
“Yeah, I’m starting to notice that - I keep getting invited to random things.”
“But not going?” She raises an eyebrow at me, looking curious as she nibbles at the grapes spread out between us.
I shrug. “I don’t really know any of the people that invite me, it feels awkward to just turn up.”
She tilts her head at me, amused. “How else do you think you get to know them?”
I laugh. I hadn’t quite thought of it that way. “Okay, fair point. I guess I’m just not used to it - too much time in a big city does that to you, huh?”
Though admittedly, I was starting to feel like I was letting Maya down. I’d promised myself the next time I was invited to the park with a few other people, we’d go.
“A big city?” Her eyes light up as she looks over at me. “Where did you come here from? I never did ask.”
Shit. I did not mean to bring that up. The last thing I want to talk about is the past - but somehow, things seem to slip out a little more easily around Kelsey.
“Los Angeles.” I shrug, hoping my unforthcoming answer will deter her.
She doesn’t even seem to notice as her grin widens.
“Ohh wow. That must have been amazing - I’d love to live somewhere like that - what was it like?”
Double shit. Really? She had to be the kind of women who fantasizes about a big city lifestyle?
I start wondering how long it will take for that to get around town. If there’s something I’ve already learned, it’s that if you tell one person something here - an hour later, someone else will be commenting on it - and this is the last thing I want to be casually discussing.
I shrug again. “I don’t know…there’s not much to say about it, really.”
She gives me a puzzled look, and the intensity of it makes me a little uncomfortable, but before she can follow up I give her my go-to easygoing smile again and gesture to the papers in front of me, bringing us back to her earlier comment.
“Of course, this is the other reason I haven’t been too sociable - turns out, being a small business owner is everything they tell you it’s gonna be. Maybe when I finally get on top of it all, I’ll free up my time for something else.”
I pick up one of the letters, hoping she’ll get the hint - which she does, dropping the subject and leaving me simultaneously relieved and…strangely disappointed about it.
Yeah. That makes sense. Idiot.
I feel a little bit rude - especially considering how nice Kelsey has been - but hopefully I can make it up to her somehow. Just not by talking about Los Angeles. I left that behind for a reason.
Kelsey leans back on her elbows, her gaze returning to the kids running around as I open the letter, but I can still feel the occasional glance she shoots in my direction and I have no idea what she’s thinking. Hopefully not that her new next door neighbor is too odd.
Then Katy runs up asking Kelsey to time them, and I let out a small breath of relief as she gets up to join them. It’s a little distracting, watching them together and smiling at Kelsey’s whoops of encouragement as they run around while I’m trying to work, but it’s nice, too.
By the time Kelsey comes back, I’ve relaxed again - all thoughts of Los Angeles replaced by something else entirely.
“Hey.” I say, nodding to her as she takes her place back on the picnic blanket. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
I pick up one of the letters with a slight frown. I haven’t been able to understand this.
“Do store rents around here increase twice a year? Or are the payments split unevenly over the year or something? I’ve got a letter here talking about my next installment, but it doesn’t match the amount I was quoted when I took the property at all, and it seems a strange time of year for it to change…”
“Ohh, that.” Kelsey says, her nose wrinkling. “Yeah, turns out we have a major problem with the sewers here - not the most pleasant thing, I know - so we put it to a vote, and agreed to the increase in property rates to raise the money to clear them.”
I blink. What?
“You voted…to increase them?”
“Yeah.” She shrugs. “Seemed like the easiest way. We didn’t want to lose other services and it needs to be fixed, so…”
I’m not sure I know many people who would agree to something like that. And the whole system just seems…bizarre. I can’t see how it could possibly work like that.
“What about the people that voted against it?” I ask.
I can only imagine the potential uproar.
“There weren’t that many.” Kelsey says, as if this was all quite simple. “And they were happy to accept the vote. There were one or two who trade too close to the line to afford it, but some of the better-off stores helped them out.”
Then she frowns as she glances over at me. “You weren’t around for the vote, though, it’s a little unfair you weren’t told about the increase. It’ll come back down again next year, once the problem is cleared, but still…if you’re worried about paying, I’m sure someone would help you out.”
“I don’t need anyone to help me out.” I say, almost automatically. “It just sounds…strange to me.”
And I’m not entirely sure what I think about paying for something I never signed up for. That’s not the same as wanting to ask for charity.
“Welcome to Ashton.” She grins, then reaches over and nudges me. “It’s for the good of the town, though. If you’re gonna live here, you probably want to get invested in our little slice of the world pretty fast.”
“Why?” I ask, raising an eyebrow, the amusement in her expression feeling contagious. “Does this sort of thing happen around here often?”
“You’d be surprised.” She laughs. “Ashton…is a pretty unique place. Anywhere else, something like this would be disdained as blatant socialism - here, it’s just everyone banding together to help each other out.”
“That’s the same thing.” I point out, and her laugh only gets deeper.
She throws her head back and I can’t help staring at the elegant line of her neck, the throatiness of that sound going all the way through me.
“Shhh…” She says with a wicked grin as she finally tilts her gaze back toward me. “Don’t tell anyone else that.”
I shake my head as I turn back to the letter in my hand.
Yeah. This town sure has its quirks.
Chapter Six
Kelsey
“I’ve got an article for you.”
I look up as Anderson walks toward my desk, sitting up from where I’d been reclining back in the chair and letting it bump me on the back as I raise an eyebrow at him, my mind turning to business.
“Oh yeah? Did something happen over the weekend?”
“Not exactly.” He gives me the same knowing smile he always does, right before he suggests something I’m not going to like. “Something happened about three weeks ago - I’ve been saving it for you.”
Three weeks…where did I hear that again?
It hits me at the same moment he jerks his t
humb over his shoulder to the window at the front of the building.
“We need a piece on the most exciting event to happen in Ashton this year - that cupcake store over there opening up, and the ever-intriguing man behind it. It was too soon to put it out last issue - it had only just opened - but it’s been around long enough now, and I know everyone wants to find out more. Perfect timing with you just getting back.”
I groan, and my infuriating boss just grins at me. Of course, I wasn’t expecting much - it is Ashton, after all, we never have anything real to report on - but still…that wasn’t the one I wanted to end up with.
“Are you sure?” I ask, with a sidelong glance in Amanda’s direction. I’m pretty sure she’d be much more enthusiastic about some one-on-one time interviewing my new next door neighbor. “That sounds like one Amanda would love, you know.”
“Yeah.” She grumbles, from the other side of the room. “Instead he has me on an in-depth piece about the sewage problem we’ve got, even though we’re not publishing that for at least a month.”
“I’ll take that.” I say immediately, grinning at them both. “You know I prefer the detailed stuff, Anderson, where I can actually get my head down and do some research. I mean, sure, sewage isn’t the most attractive topic, but it’s about as close as we come to the big issues, right?”
“Nope. You’re on the cupcake piece, Kelsey, I need that nice, fancy camera of yours for the photos. That store is a work of art - might as well get some good pictures out of it for the article.” He wrinkles his nose. “No one is going to want pictures of the sewage.”
I laugh despite myself. “You know I’m not actually a photographer, right? I’m here for the career as a reporter, remember?”
“Might as well make the most of your individual talents though, huh? And you were the one that bought the camera.”
“Also, what career?” Amanda laughs from the side and I roll my eyes at her.
It’s not even as fancy as he makes it sound. To anyone else, it would just be the simple step above the point-and-click kinds, with a real lens and such, but Anderson can’t make head or tails of it, and that’s enough for him to decide it’s sophisticated.
