“Do you even have postage stamps?”
“Oh yes, we connect to the Royal Mail services. If you want to send a message back home, you certainly can.”
Emma frowned slightly, the expression causing creases around her mouth that shouldn’t have been there on someone so young. “I think I’ll just look around for now.”
Brogan nodded. “Of course.”
She tried to busy herself behind the counter, but since she only ever filled in for Nora at the till, she didn’t know a thing about stocking shelves or keeping ledgers, which mostly left her stealing glances at Emma as she inched her way along the wall, inspecting packets of noodles and tins of cream of chicken soup before putting them both in her basket.
Brogan would’ve expected a famous writer to have more expensive tastes. If what they’d said about her buying the cottage sight unseen was true, Emma could certainly afford steaks and fine wine. Why was she currently stocking up on Bolognese sauce in a jar? And if she was used to eating those sorts of foods, why didn’t she weigh more? As her father would’ve said, a stiff Northern wind could blow Emma off her feet and out to sea. Not that she was unattractive. Brogan eyed her from behind. Her long, blond hair hung loose down to the middle of her back, and the slight curve of her waist was one a great many people would love to trace with their fingertips. Her linen pants hung off her hips, but if they’d fit her properly when she’d bought them, Brogan could imagine her cutting a truly alluring figure.
Emma turned around and caught her staring. Brogan looked down at the newspaper in front of her on the counter, only to find Nora had been reading celebrity gossip about the Duke’s daughter throwing some lavish party. She wrinkled her nose and glanced back up to see Emma still watching her.
“I thought you were a property manager.”
“Not me. My brother’s an estate agent. I help him out sometimes.”
“And your sister runs the post office, and you help her out sometimes, too?”
“Yes. I sort of have a big family.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Brogan grinned. “You haven’t even seen the half of it. Literally.”
“Do you help all your siblings?”
“Them, my parents, anyone else who needs an extra set of hands around town. I do a lot of jobs. It keeps me from getting too bored.”
Emma’s eyes narrowed slightly as she regarded Brogan more seriously. The inspection was mildly disconcerting, and Brogan shifted under her gaze. “What?”
“Nothing,” Emma said with a slight shake of her head. “You just don’t strike me as someone who’d be prone to boredom.”
She didn’t know whether to take the statement as a compliment or not, but before she had the chance to give it much thought, the door swung open.
“Brogan, I’d almost given up on finding you.”
They both turned to see a woman, bringing with her a gust of wind that fanned a few newspapers across the counter. As the woman turned to shut the door against the chill, Brogan struggled to place the voice, not familiar enough to recognize right off, so not someone from town. The face triggered a memory, though, albeit a foggy one. And the smile the woman directed at her hinted at something more than a casual acquaintance.
“You’re not an easy woman to pin down. When you weren’t at the holiday let office, I went to the pub and the dock.”
Brogan did the math: all tourist spots. A holiday home hopper. It wasn’t hard to figure out their connection from there. How long would it take for Emma to draw the same conclusion?
“I should’ve known you’d be working somewhere,” the woman continued. “At first I thought you were making excuses to get away last August, but then you kept coming back.”
August, and coming back multiple times. The pieces fell into place. A long weekend, a little flat above the Raven, and Julia.
“How have you been, Julia?” Brogan asked, trying to keep her tone polite enough to be warm without giving too much away.
“I’ve been working hours like yours, only with a wicked commute into London. I survived the gray drudgery of winter only by promising myself I’d take a week away as soon as the first signs of spring struck.”
“You picked the right place for some rest and relaxation.”
“Hopefully not too much rest.” Julia’s laugh caused her brunette hair to fall forward across her shoulder. “If you know what I mean.”
She did, and apparently now Emma did, too, as she stepped slowly away under the guise of inspecting some teas on the far wall.
“I rented the same place above the pub.” Julia plowed on. “The room service was beyond the pale, and the food wasn’t bad, either.”
Brogan saw Emma’s eyebrows go up at the brazen comment, and another flush of embarrassment warmed her skin. She opened her mouth, ready to cut the conversation off, when Julia’s smile turned sweet, almost shy. “You will stop by, won’t you?”
She looked from Emma, who’d turned her back fully on them now, back to Julia again, details of their nights together coming to the forefront. Sex had filled the majority of them, but there had also been a nice dinner, a movie, a walk on the beach late at night. She wasn’t ashamed. If Emma hadn’t been in the room, her predominant emotion at seeing Julia again out of the blue would’ve made her whole week. Why should the presence of a woman she barely knew change anything about the situation? Emma had no right to judge her, and even if she did, she wouldn’t be the first or the most important person to do so.
“Of course.” Brogan lifted her chin with a little bit of defiance. “I’ll be working the bar at the pub tonight until ten.”
Julia bit her lip enticingly as she nodded. “Maybe I’ll see you there. If not, you’ll see me later?”
“I look forward to catching up,” Brogan said, and she did.
As Julia waved and walked away, Brogan felt a little twinge of anticipation deep in her stomach. She loved that feeling. It kept her going on long nights behind the bar or cold days on the dock. She liked believing something good, something exciting was right around the corner, and the fleeting nature of those spontaneous flings gave them their edge. She didn’t begrudge anyone their fairy-tale fantasies, but she contented herself with being content and left the happily-ever-afters to the fiction writers of the world.
The thought drew her attention back to watching Emma Volant walk around the store, picking up tins of vegetables or plastic-wrapped biscuits, and the twinge in her stomach transitioned from one of anticipation to something a little more wistful.
£ £ £
Emma stared at her tiny freezer jammed with food she didn’t have any real desire to eat. She’d bought weeks’ worth of meals at the post office in the hopes of not having to go back out again until she felt ready, whenever that would be. But days later, not a single one of her many options held any appeal. And yet she was hungry. Sort of. At least she’d come to recognize the hollow feeling in her stomach as hunger, over the last few months. It was her body’s way of reminding her she needed fuel even if she didn’t have any appetite to speak of.
She briefly considered walking back to the post office, but what was the use? She’d already basically bought one of everything they had, and she’d run the risk of having to be social again. Odds were good at least one of the McKay women would be working the register, and she’d have to make conversation, not that it had been painful last time. Margaret reminded her so much of her grandmother, the pleasure of those memories had far outweighed the pain of missing her. And seeing Brogan again hadn’t brought back nearly as much embarrassment as she’d expected. Not that the two of them had shared the exuberant welcome offered by Julia.
Funny how the name had stuck in her mind though the two of them hadn’t been formally introduced. Emma had met so many people over the last few years, and she’d never developed any reliable methodology for remembering their names. She never had any such trouble with her fictional characters. She could flesh them out with ease and memorize even the most trivial
aspects of their pasts or family trees without so much as a character sketch, but when it came to publishers, lawyers, agents, cover artists, or even neighbors, she had to keep meticulous notes if she had any hope of telling them apart from strangers on the street. And yet, not only had she remembered the McKays, she suspected she’d never be able to unhear Julia saying, “The room service was beyond the pale, and the food wasn’t bad, either.”
Maybe it was just the brazenness of the comment that’d stuck with her. She’d never expressed her sexuality so easily, not even when things had been new and exciting with Amalie. Maybe that had been part of the problem, even from the beginning.
The thought tightened her chest with the sharpness of a screw splintering the wood it was supposed to hold in place. She brought the heel of her hand to her sternum as if she could somehow stanch the flow of emotions.
A knock at the door shook her from her pain, and she froze as if any movement might alert the person outside to her presence.
The knock sounded again, and this time she could barely make out the sound of voices. Plural.
Her heart beat faster. She did not want to see people. Not now. Not strangers. And they had to be strangers, because she didn’t know anyone in town. Except for Brogan and Margaret, and sort of, Nora. Or the kids. Or Julia. But she didn’t want to see Julia. Did she want to see the others? She certainly would’ve preferred Margaret or Brogan to sitting here thinking about how her previous relationship had probably been doomed from the start because she wasn’t enough like some woman who’d clearly slept with Brogan.
The doorbell rang. She hadn’t even known she had a doorbell. And from the voices growing louder outside, she could now tell there had to be more people on her doorstep than there were people she actually wanted to see. It sounded like hordes of them. Which, once again, made her think of the McKays. Did she really want to hide from them? And if so, would they know she was hiding? Or maybe they’d worry she’d died, since she hadn’t gone outdoors in days. Had they come to check on her? Would they kick down the door?
Why did her mind always go to the worst place? Because she was a writer? Why couldn’t she write a happier scenario for herself? Or at least something benign, which was more realistic than torch-wielding villagers kicking down doors. With a heavy sigh, she chided herself, both for the hiding and for the way she’d let her mind run away with her. Then in a mix of self-chastisement and rash judgment, she swung the door open.
The sight of four bodies hovering close together on the door-step greeted her, and she took an involuntary step back, trying to process each person individually. Two of the women had strikingly similar short, gray hair and ruddy complexions, while the next woman was much younger, and if what Margaret had said was true, her red hair marked her as a McKay. Then her eyes fell on the youngest member of the group, a child, or maybe a preteen, wearing a pair of denim overalls and a floppy cap over a mop of red hair.
“Hello,” Emma managed to say over the still-accelerated beat of her heart. “Can I help you?”
“Could you come to my school?” the young one asked, in a voice belonging to either a girl or a boy who hadn’t yet hit puberty.
The redheaded woman nudged her in the side with an elbow. “She meant to say, ‘Welcome to Amberwick.’”
The two older women held out a large platter filled with baked goods, as if making an offering. “We run the book club in town.”
“Oh.” Emma frowned. A book club. They knew who she was. Or who they thought she was. Her chest tightened at how far their expectations likely fell from her current reality. She briefly considered closing the door in their faces in an attempt to get their disappointment out of the way straight off, but then the aroma of freshly baked flour met her nose, and she gushed, “Those smell amazing.”
All of the women seemed to relax at the pronouncement.
“I’m Ciara.” The redhead said the name slowly, like Key-rah. “And this is my daughter, Regina.”
The girl scrunched up her nose and mumbled, “Reggie.”
“And this is Diane and Esther,” Ciara continued. “We stopped by to share some scones and welcome you to town.”
“How sweet of you,” Emma said, not sure if it was the sentiment or the scones that had begun to loosen the tension in her shoulders. “Do you do this for every new resident?”
Ciara laughed. “I don’t know. We haven’t had any new full-time residents in so long it’s hard to tell.”
“And when we have got new people to town, they’ve always come because they had families to help them settle in and introduce them around,” Diane, or maybe Esther, added. Then they all stared at her as if waiting for her to fill in the blanks. She wasn’t so socially awkward that she didn’t realize they were trying to pry as politely as they could. They wanted to know her story, especially the part about what had brought her here, but where would she even start? She wasn’t hiding anything, but she never knew how much information was too much. Admitting she’d run away from home in shame and heartbreak would certainly be an overshare, so she went with, “I suppose I’m a bit of an anomaly.”
A few slight frowns suggested that hadn’t been nearly enough to satisfy her new neighbors, so she added, “I had family ties to the area once upon a time, and I guess I felt a pull to return to a place I’d never seen.”
“You Americans are so romantic in your ties to where you’ve come from,” Esther said almost dreamily.
“I suppose you all know you came from somewhere else, don’t you?” Diane asked. “Whereas we all just assume our people have always lived here unless we have strong evidence otherwise.”
“But we all have cousins who have gone to America or Australia or such. Maybe it works in reverse for us,” Ciara said.
Even as the grandchild of immigrants, Emma had never given much thought to the traffic patterns across the Atlantic or the idea that she’d moved in the opposite direction of most people, at least historically speaking.
“We didn’t mean to disrupt your day,” Ciara said, “but if you’ve got any questions about the area or need a helping hand with anything, we wanted to let you know we’ve got a friendly community here.”
“We all know each other, and most of us were born and raised in the area, so if there’s anything you want while you’re getting settled in, let us know,” Diane or Esther added.
“That’s very kind. I can’t think of anything right now, but—” Her stomach growled loudly, betraying her most immediate need, and she clasped her hand over her midsection. Blushing, she said, “Well, maybe I would like to try one of those scones.”
“Of course!” Esther exclaimed, thrusting the tray into her arms.
“And we didn’t know if you had all the trimmings.” Diane held up a tote bag. “So, we brought clotted cream and some jams.”
“And some Earl Grey tea,” Ciara said, nudging her daughter, who quickly produced a purple tin from the large front pouch of her overalls.
Emma looked from one of them to another, both arms already full to the brim, and her head feeling a little light, either from hunger or the delicious smell of the scones right under her nose. She couldn’t carry everything, and she couldn’t wait a minute longer, so her baser needs won out over her self-protective instincts, and she said, “Do you want to come in for a second?”
“We don’t want to intrude,” Ciara said quickly, cutting off the others. “Why don’t we just help you get these things to your kitchen?”
And with that little bit of permission granted, they all flooded past her, inside.
Emma followed and watched like a guest in her own house as they laid out a spread on her dining-room table. There were little jars filled with brightly colored jams, as well as deep purple, red, orange, and ceramic bowls filled with something that looked like butter, but lighter and not as firm. And there was milk and a few teacups set next to the tin of Earl Grey.
Her mouth watered as she carefully placed the tray of scones in the center, and she might have
shoved one in her mouth if Diane hadn’t laid a hand on her arm. “You do have a kettle, don’t you, love?”
“I do,” Emma said hesitantly, “but it’s electric. It came with the house, and I’ve no idea how to use it.”
The older two women chuckled. “It’s just the flip of a switch. Come along. I’ll show you.”
She allowed herself to be led into the kitchen, but she didn’t have to do anything as Esther filled the kettle with water and set it back on the base, then lifted a small lever at the side. Nothing happened. Frowning, Esther traced the cord with her finger until she reached the wall outlet and flipped another switch, this one white and right next to the plug. The light on the kettle blinked on, and it was as if a light turned on in Emma’s brain, too.
“Each outlet in the house has one of those switches on them, don’t they?”
“Of course.”
“That probably explains why half of my lamps work and the other half don’t. I’ve been searching for light switches at eye level, not outlet switches behind tables and chairs.” Then, since she’d already shown her ineptitude, she added, “Would there perhaps be something similar for my hot water?”
“My goodness,” Diane said from behind her. “Have you been without hot water since you got here?”
“My shower has a little box on the wall to heat the water,” Emma said.
“A power shower, yes.”
She nodded at the term she’d never heard until that moment. “But the hot water for the sink and the bathtub . . .” She waited, embarrassed to admit she’d gone through an unreasonable amount of soap trying to counteract the fact that she had no hot water for hand- or dishwashing.
“There’s probably a switch for the water heater,” Reggie said, hopping up and following the wall around the dining room to where it met the sliding-glass doors to the conservatory. “Here it is.”
Emma peeked around the corner and, sure enough, to the edge of her curtains found a small white box on the wall with three switches that each had multiple settings, one for radiators, one for the water heater, and one for a timer.
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