A Sweet Life-kindle

by Andre, Bella

  “I can’t wait for that pie. Maybe a glass of cherry cola to go with it, if you still have that.” Her voice was firm, the intent clear.

  Go away. Far, far away.

  The second Alice bubbled her way to the front counter, Ellie slid out from the table. Gabe caught her wrist in his hand, wasn’t prepared for the blast of heat that came from the simple touch.

  “What’s wrong?” He knew instantly that it was the wrong thing to say when Ellie laughed mirthlessly as pulled away from his touch as if his fingertips had burned her.

  “You heard her. Too bad you couldn’t get back for the funeral.” So many emotions played over Ellie’s face that he couldn’t have picked out just one. “She didn’t expect me to. No one in this town did. Not even you.”

  The words roused his anger, but they hurt as well. Frowning, he rose with her, took her shoulder and turned her to face him.

  “That’s a cheap shot, Ellie.” He’d thought to remind her that she had left him—and the town of Florence—behind, but she just shook her head slowly.

  “I’m not that girl anymore. I had to grow up. You made me grow up.” It broke his heart a little that, rather than accusation in her eyes, he saw acceptance. “But this town will never see that. I shouldn’t have expected anything different. And I don’t know why I care.”

  “Ellie, wait.” She pulled out of his grasp, hurried past a bewildered Alice, who watched the scene with a tall glass of fizzing soda in her hand.

  Gabe followed Ellie right out the door of the diner to the street.

  He didn’t care. Just like it once had, his focus had narrowed until it included just him and Ellie.

  She didn’t stop. He followed her right across the street—the cop in him noticed that she didn’t bother to check for traffic—and to the front door of the shop.

  Which he noticed that she’d left unlocked. Despite her claims, some things stayed the same.

  “Ellie. What the hell was that about?” Slowly, she turned to face him, and his hormones—he refused to think it was his feelings—jolted.

  Standing like this—they’d done it so many times before. But most of those times had ended with hot, delicious kisses that had led to him buried inside of her welcoming body.

  He hated himself for the heat that the memory brought. For noticing the way her simple T-shirt outlined her breasts, the way emotion had brought a flush of pink to her skin.

  “Time moves on, Gabe. People change. But I know what the people here are like. I shouldn’t have expected anyone to think of me as anything but the girl I used to be.” The confused, scared girl… he could hear the words, though she didn’t say them.

  And he noted that she didn’t separate him out from the others in town. His temper rose, making him want to give her a good shake.

  He had been the only one to bother cracking open the prickly exterior to find the person inside. And yet in the end, it hadn’t mattered—she’d broken her promise to him. The biggest promise she’d ever made.

  “What happened to you?” He asked softly. Ellie sucked in a breath at his words. And for a moment he thought he might have gotten through to her—he’d had no inkling that she would be harboring such bitterness towards Florence.

  But then she turned on her heel and went inside, shutting the door to the shop firmly—erecting a barrier where he’d hoped, foolishly, that there wouldn’t have to be one, after so many years and so many regrets.

  He hadn’t thought they’d be friends—there was too much animosity, too many memories. But it made him sad that they couldn’t even be in the same room without causing one another pain.

  Ellie’s parting words floated through the thick door, and though he didn’t know if she’d meant for him to hear them, they were an arrow slicing straight through him.

  “I grew up.”

  Chapter Three

  The grocery store closest to Estelle’s had once been an independent business, run by a family that had lived in Florence for a long time—one of the few families that, like Ellie’s, had little to do with the prison culture that permeated the very atmosphere of the town. But now the small grocery was part of a larger chain, and Ellie was surprised by the twinge of regret that pinched her gut as she pulled a metal cart from the long row and, head down, strode inside.

  A cool sweat broke over her skin, making the loose wisps of her ponytail stick to the back of her neck, as she tucked her chin to her chest and walked purposefully towards the produce section, hoping her demeanour didn’t encourage anyone to approach her. But even with her attention firmly focused on finding just the right apple, she could feel the stares. Knew she wasn’t imagining her name, murmured in a hushed voice.

  Defiance was a knee jerk reaction, and so she raised her chin, met the eyes of a clerk stacking crates of tangerines. No more than fifteen or so—the age Ellie had been when she’d left—the young girl seemed startled by the intensity of Ellie’s glare.

  She had a streak of purple in her hair that made Ellie’s lips curl up just the slightest bit. Florence wasn’t a town that understood purple hair. So this girl must have a touch of the rebel in her, just like Ellie had.

  But had she ever looked that painfully young? That innocent?

  She certainly hadn’t felt that way. No, even at fifteen, she’d felt like the weight of the world was perched on her skinny, neglected shoulders.

  Until she’d met Gabe. And he’d lifted some of the burden. Until she’d been crushed by the weight of the biggest load of all.

  And seeing him last night—he hadn’t acknowledged it. Not even a bit. And though she honestly thought she’d long buried it, the resentment suddenly flared hot and bright—she was the one who had lost her home, her childhood, her innocence. Even though he was equally to blame, even though she’d really thought he’d respond when she’d tried to reach him. Thought that it had all been one giant misunderstanding.

  But maybe she’d never really known him at all.

  Stomach churning, she moved on. Ignoring the bakery—she’d always had a weakness for sweets, she picked out a jug of milk, some yogurt, some eggs. Just enough for a few days, while she got things in order.

  Then she could go back to Colorado, to the ritzy florist’s shop where she was allowed to create pieces of art with expensive and unique blooms that were a million miles away from the bread and butter mums and baby’s breath that the people around here appreciated. It made Ellie feel good to roll her cart to the tiny cooler that the store had designated as the floral area. Running her fingers over the different buds, she mentally clucked that they were even available for purchase—in a bouquet of twelve roses, she counted two blown heads, petals falling off the stem, and six bullets, which would never open.

  Quick on the heels of the thrill of satisfaction, though, came embarrassment. She hated that just being here in Florence—being around Gabe—took her maturity level right back to where it had been before she left.

  She was a grown woman now, one who’d been forced to grow up far faster than she should have. Why should she care if she saw Mrs. Ligori, the teacher who had always made thinly veiled comments about apples not falling far from trees? Or Mr. Hansen, the convenience store owner whose truck she had defaced with bright pink paint. They could see her, and all they would find was a woman who had turned from hellion with a lot of baggage into a polished, successful woman.

  They could look all they wanted. All traces of that girl were gone. Well, except for one. One that was hidden beneath her clothes, that she ran her fingers over from time to time, just to remember.

  Mrs. Ligori. Mr. Hansen. Or, she noted with a sinking heart, Anna Jacek, the counsellor at the high school, the one who Ellie had actually tried reach out to. The one who was sailing her full cart of groceries toward Ellie at a steady, unavoidable pace, a Titanic with hennaed hair to Ellie’s iceberg.

  Wincing, Ellie braced herself for the crash.

  “Eleanor Kendrick.” Rather that the grating squeal of the waitress in the diner the ni
ght before, Anna—Ellie would forever think of her as Ms. Jacek—brought her cart to a halt, then, before she could catch her breath, folded Ellie in a soft, warm hug.

  “Oh, sweetie. I’m so sorry.” Drawing back, Anna framed Ellie’s face in her hands, sympathy written all over her face. “Losing someone who played a big role in our lives is always hard, isn’t it?”

  “I—” And suddenly, there it was, the grief that she hadn’t thought she’d been capable of. This woman—she understood some of what Ellie had experienced growing up. Knew her fears at being abandoned, because of the way her mother had left her with Estelle and never looked back. The way the father she barely remembered, Estelle’s own son, hadn’t wanted her either.

  Anna had been privy to some of the constant struggle between the old woman and the wild granddaughter that she’d been saddled with. The way Ellie had chafed, had rebelled to the extreme under Estelle’s unyielding method of parenting.

  She wouldn’t cry. She hadn’t cried for ten years. She certainly wouldn’t give in to the emotional impulse now.

  “Well, just look at you.” Anna stepped back, looked Ellie over with a warm smile. “You’re as lovely as I always knew you would be.”

  The compliment didn’t sit well. “You can’t possibly have seen this under all that hair dye and makeup.” Ellie’s voice was quiet.

  To her absolute astonishment, Anna laughed. “Oh, sweetheart. You sure did express yourself in every way that you could. Drove your grandmother batshit crazy.”

  Ellie’s felt her mouth fall open. She and Estelle had just barely tolerated one another, yet this woman—this woman who knew those dynamics—made it sound like Ellie had been no more than your average teenager.

  “She was proud, you know. That you followed her into the business.” Anna nodded toward the buckets of flowers to emphasize her point. Ellie pursed her lips and shook her head.

  “Well. Perhaps that’s how most grandmothers would feel.” She didn’t want to be rude to this woman who once shown her such kindness… even if the years had clearly addled her memory.

  Anna cast Ellie a knowing look. “Believe it, sweetie. When she found out that you had gotten your business degree, she held a giant sale to celebrate. An entire week.”

  Ellie felt as though she’d been struck dumb. Estelle? The woman who pinched a penny till it bled, made Ellie feel guilty for every cent that it cost to feed and clothe her?

  “Well. I’d best let you get on with your day.” Anna gestured to the rest of the store. “I’ve got a few more aisles to hit, myself. But don’t be a stranger. If you need a hot meal any night that you’re in town, you come on over. Hal and I are still in the same house.” And then she was gone, having… not turned Ellie’s world upside down, not quite, but tilting it on its side, for sure.

  In a bit of a daze, Ellie finished her shopping, giving in to temptation and adding a large bar of dark chocolate with dried fruit and nuts at the last minute. An emergency bar, she told herself. Calories didn’t count.

  She’d just placed that bar on the moving surface of the conveyer belt at the checkout, eyes down again, lest the cashier, who’d been a few years behind Ellie in school, recognize her and have yet more questions. She’d just placed the plastic divider down when a hunk of uncut bacon landed nearly on top of it, followed quickly by a tin of coffee grounds, and a box of doughnuts.

  Annoyed, she whipped her head up to—well, maybe not snap at the person for their impatience, not anymore, though she probably couldn’t resist a glare—and when her eyes met those of the man behind her, she stopped cold.

  Familiar. A green just like Gabe’s. But far more world weary, the lines showing both his age and the weight of the badge that he’d worn for so many years.

  The last time she’d seen Ed Gabriel, his hair had been dark like Gabe’s, with the sparest hints of salt and pepper at the temples. Now it was fully grey, his skin the dark, leathery tan of someone who spent a great deal of time out of doors.

  “Mr. Gabriel.” An invisible rod snapped into place in her spine, making her instantly and uncomfortably stiff. This was Gabe’s father… the man who blamed her for corrupting his golden son, who’d made her feel like trash every single time they so much as breathed the same air.

  A man who knew her deepest secret.

  She refused to feel intimidated. She wasn’t a teenager anymore; he couldn’t do anything.

  Couldn’t do anything except make her feel like she was fifteen again, with those intense eyes boring into her own.

  “Ellie.” He nodded once, then shifted his weight from one foot to the other, clearly as uncomfortable as she, though she knew that cantankerous old man would never admit to it. His face set in inscrutable eyes, he gave her the once over that she was starting to feel almost used to. “You look different.”

  Ellie’s temper rose, hot and thick enough to choke her. He means I look different from the trash that he once accused me of being.

  She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing that he’d upset her. So she simply nodded, and let him look.

  “Heard from Estelle that you got yourself a good job in some fancy tourist town. Tickled her pink.”

  For the second time in ten minutes, Ellie was thrown sideways.

  “How on earth did you hear that?” But she knew. Nothing was ever a secret in a small town.

  His next words blew her away.

  “I take flowers to Mary’s grave, once a week.” He squinted at Ellie. “Estelle’s Blooms is the only florist in town. Not taking this grocery story shit to my wife, am I?”

  His dead wife. Estelle had mentioned during once tense phone conversation that Gabe’s mother had died, a car accident, but Ed Gabriel had never struck Ellie as the sentimental type.

  There had to be more to it than that. After that final showdown, the screaming exchanged by Ed and Estelle while Ellie cowered in a corner...

  There had to be some other reason that Ed frequented that store.

  Too bad Ellie just didn’t care.

  “Well.” She had no desire to engage in small talk with this man, not even if her curiosity was roused by the very idea of him being a patron of her grandmother’s store. There had to be more to it. The last time she had seen the two of them together, they had been hurling vicious insults, laying blame while Ellie sat in a corner and tried her best not to be violently ill.

  Still, with every minute that she spent back here, the more she felt like she’d never left. So she found herself asking how the Sheriff’s office was.

  “I retired. Passed on the flag, two years ago come May.” His sudden cagey expression left Ellie with no doubt about who he had passed that flag to.

  The car Gabe had driven up in last night had told her that her former lover was a cop, but somehow she’d never imagined him as sheriff. Once, he’d wanted to get out of this town just as badly as she had.

  “That’s… great.” If she had little desire to talk to the man at all, conversation veering into the territory of his son sent alarm bells shrieking in her head. Giving Ed a tight smile, she turned, shoved a wad of folded bills at the cashier, though she hadn’t even heard how much her total was.

  But Ed was still watching her. She wondered what he saw—certainly not any hint of the girl he’d so vehemently wanted out of his son’s life.

  Maybe he wondered how someone like her had managed to succeed, to drag herself out of the gutter that he’d helped shove her into.

  At the bottom of it, she didn’t really care.

  Thanking the cashier, Ellie slid her fingers through the handles of the canvas tote that her groceries had been packed in. It was a city habit, carrying a foldable tote in her purse, and she saw Ed snort in its general direction as he requested plastic bags for his groceries.

  “Goodbye, Mr. Gabriel.” And she chose her words carefully—no see you later, no have a good day.

  She never wanted to see this man, not ever again.

  But he just couldn’t—wouldn’t—let her go
.

  “What are you going to do with Estelle’s shop?” The cashier looked up, eager for gossip, and the woman minding the next till over turned around too, forcing Ellie to stifle a sigh.

  “I’m selling it.” She hadn’t entirely made up her mind until that moment, but really, what else was there to do with it? She certainly didn’t want it, not the shop, and not the apartment above it either.

  Looked like her next stop would be at the realtor’s, to get an estimate of the property value. Maybe she’d donate the money to one of the prisons. She wouldn’t keep a cent.

  Ed narrowed his eyes in contemplation; Ellie felt certain that the entire store was listening.

  Well, let them listen. What did she care about these people, anyway? They’d only ever let her down.

  “Why are you bothering?” He asked finally, and Ellie pursed her lips at the audacity. “What I remember, you never much bothered with things you didn’t care for. And you two never exchanged a civil word in your lives. Figured you’d just abandon it, let the lawyers figure it out.”

  Here, here was the attitude she’d been expecting from her return—someone who still saw her as the gothic princess intent on wreaking havoc under his orderly rein.

  She was not that scared little girl anymore. She stared at him in return, stared long and hard until something—guilt?—flashed over his face.

  “Once, I was just a child.” The words were bitter; she couldn’t help it. This place brought it out in her. “But I’m all grown up now. And I don’t leave my problems for other people to clean up.”

  Slinging her grocery tote off the counter, she stalked toward the exit of the store. If she’d been paranoid about people staring at her when she’d gone into the store, she was all too aware of the audience that she had on the way out.

  Well, that was too bad. She had made something of herself in the last ten years, damn it. And she refused to let this town, these people—her ex-boyfriend’s domineering father—take that away from her.

  She’d prove them all wrong. She didn’t know why she cared… but she did. She hadn’t thought she’d care… she hadn’t cared, not until she’d arrived.