Watching Their Steps

by Alana Terry

  “I’ll be with you in a moment!” a woman’s voice called from the back of the store.

  I glanced back at Jordan, who was still leaning against the open door out in the cold. It took me a moment to realize why: he was trying to respect my need for space.

  Oops. I took five small steps to my left and smiled, a little embarrassed. “Sorry.”

  He grinned as he came inside, and the door drifted shut behind him. “I don’t mind the cold.” His red fingertips said otherwise, and he tucked his hands into his jacket pockets. “Good morning, Georgetta!”

  A woman in her fifties emerged from between the bookshelves with a mountain of books in her arms. “I’ll be just a minute, Jordan. I need to shelve these. Those Huxley boys sure do make a mess of my books when they come in. You’d think since they can read that they might know the alphabet and put things back where they belong. But no, they leave . . .”

  Words seemed to fail her when her eyes fell on me. Her eyes were enormous behind her glasses, and she blinked at me in an apparent state of confusion. “Good heavens.” The books tumbled into a disorganized pile at her feet, and her mouth went slack. “Is that . . . who I think it is, or am I seeing things?”

  Jordan pursed his lips. “You’re not seeing things, and it’s not who you think. Let me help you with those books.” He bent down and started collecting the books for her.

  Georgetta stared at me with such intensity that I squirmed. “But it can’t be Emily. Emily died. And . . . she was taller, wasn’t she?”

  Jordan hefted the stack of books onto one of the benches. “No, it’s not Emily, Georgetta.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and gave her a gentle, steadying squeeze. “This is a friend of mine from New York. Her name is Marie. And I’m just showing her around town while she’s visiting.”

  “Oh. Marie?” she asked, looking up at him. Marie was my middle name, and if she had been a friend of my family, then she probably knew that.

  “Yes. Not everyone can have a unique name like yours,” Jordan said. “Marie is a very common name. We have, what, three Maries in town?”

  Georgetta moaned thoughtfully to herself. “Well, I suppose.” She forced a smile that must have felt at home on her face because it warmed and spread into a broad grin. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Marie.” She stepped forward and offered her hand.

  I hesitated briefly before shaking it. “You too. It’s a very nice store.” She released my hand, and I noticed Jordan watching with an interested expression again—not me specifically, but the way I interacted with people.

  “Thank you. I can’t really take credit for it, though. Cristopher Cross pulled it all together. Well, him and those precious girls of his. They used to spend hours here. I helped out with the bookkeeping. But when Cris and his family . . . passed on, I kept the store running.” She readjusted her glasses self-consciously. “I do the best I can to uphold his memory for this place.”

  “I love books. Do you mind if I take a look around?”

  “Oh, of course, of course. If you need me, just shout. Loudly, though. I don’t have the best hearing, and you’re so soft-spoken.”

  “I’ll holler if we need you,” Jordan assured her with a charming grin. “There’s no way you won’t hear me.”

  Georgetta snorted. “That’s because you’re like your father and you can bellow like there’s a bullhorn attached to your face.” Her attention focused on the man walking past the front window of the store, and her eyes widened. “Who is this handsome fellow?”

  I looked back to see Marx striding toward the door.

  Jordan made a slightly strangled sound when she described Marx as handsome. “That’s Marx. He’s a friend of Marie’s.”

  Georgetta tucked the flyaway strands of hair behind her ears and smoothed out her rumpled blouse nervously. I suppressed a smile as I started down one of the aisles. Marx was on his own with this one.

  I ran my fingers along the spines of the books, enjoying the feel of them. Some of them were old and bound in soft leather, while others were slippery from the colored, decorative sleeves they were wrapped in.

  Jordan walked one aisle over from me, and I could see him through the gaps between the books. He leaned on one of the shelves and looked at me. “If you could shelve me as a book, where would you put me?”

  I smirked. A charming, handsome sheriff who knew he was charming and handsome. Hmm. “I would put you . . . somewhere between Snow White and the Westerns so you can ask, ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all,’ while you shoot the bad guys.”

  He laughed. “Wow, you think highly of me. I would never shoot someone while gazing at my reflection. It’s impossible to aim that way.”

  We kept walking. “Where would you put me?” I asked before thinking better of it. He would probably shelve me in the self-help section next to Five Steps to Finding Your Mind or Sanity is Within Your Grasp.

  His eyes narrowed in thought. “Well, let’s see . . .” He raised his fingers so I could see them and began ticking things off. “Funny, curious, cautious, mysterious, beautiful . . .”

  Anxiety fluttered through me at the word “beautiful,” and I wrapped my arms around myself.

  “I would shelve you somewhere between Mystery and Crime Novels near Nancy Drew.” He glanced at me, and I tried to smile. “You don’t do well with compliments, do you?” he realized.

  I shrugged.

  Jordan pulled a few books off the shelf and rested his chin in the opening, looking as nonthreatening as he could probably manage with his head sandwiched between two books written by Stephen King. “In my experience, telling a woman she’s beautiful doesn’t usually drain the color from her face. So let me be clear on something. One, I’m not taking it back, because it’s the truth . . .”

  I pinched my lips together.

  “And two, just because you’re beautiful doesn’t mean I’m gonna forget my manners. My mother would smack me senseless, Marx would probably shoot me, and I don’t wanna scare you off, so . . . you have nothing to worry about. Besides, I’m more interested in being your friend.”

  The knot of anxiety in my stomach slowly loosened. “Friend?”

  “Yep. Commonly defined as people who spend time together, usually because they enjoy doing things with each other like . . . playing catch, going for runs, making ice cream sundaes, evening trips to the movies.”

  That sounded alarmingly like dating, but considering I’d never actually been on a date before, I couldn’t really be sure. Maybe we’d done those things as children, and it just felt different now. “I’ll take it under consideration,” I said slowly, and gave him a small, uncertain smile.

  We continued down the aisles as I studied the books. I loved this place; it felt more like home to me than any place I had ever been.

  Memories turned through my mind like the pages of a book, and I absorbed them greedily: Gin sitting cross-legged on the floor with her nose in a picture book, our father pretending he was going to drop books on our heads as he shelved them, Gin and me running back and forth between the shelves while playing peekaboo between the gaps in the books.

  I plucked a book from the shelf in the children’s section: The Wizard of Oz. I smoothed my hand over the familiar cover and flipped it open. Written on the inside cover was a note: “To my baby girls, Gin and Holly. May your imaginations take you on an adventure across the world. Love, Daddy.” Written beneath it in big, barely legible letters was, “Propty of Gin and Holly.”

  I released a breath that was tight with unshed tears as I closed the book. “This was mine and Gin’s.” I looked up at Jordan as he leaned against the end of the shelf. “I used to read it to her on the round bench by the fountain. We . . . never made it to the end.”

  I remembered the gentle sound of her giggle as she cupped a hand to her mouth every time I read a line from the Cowardly Lion. He was her favorite character.

  Lord, I miss her . . .

  I knew He was taking care of her, b
ut my heart longed for her. I had only just remembered that I had a sister, and it didn’t seem fair that I didn’t have a chance to see her. I wanted to hug her and laugh with her. I wanted to see the person she would’ve grown up to be.

  “It’s your book. Take it with you and finish it,” Jordan suggested.

  “I can’t just take it. Georgetta owns the store now.”

  “No, she doesn’t. Your father willed it to you and Gin. Criss Cross Books is yours, and Georgetta loved your family. She would hand over the deed in a heartbeat. And she would probably gladly continue to run the place if you wanted her to.”

  Wow. I owned a bookstore. How did I go from being a transient woman with no name and no home to being a woman with friends, a bookstore, and an entire town filled with people who knew my name? I could stay here and rebuild my life in this small town.

  It was tempting.

  But there were people I cared about in New York. Jace and . . . I glanced at Marx, who looked awkwardly uncomfortable as he rebuffed Georgetta’s advances.

  “Come on. Let’s talk to Georgetta,” Jordan said with a nod toward the front of the store. I followed him up the aisle, wondering how he intended to convince her to give me the book without revealing my identity.

  I got distracted by the fountain bench and stopped as he continued on. I sat down and ran my hand over the cushion, remembering the feel of it and listening to the soothing sound of the water rippling behind me. I could curl up on this bench and sleep; it filled me with a sense of safety I hadn’t felt in a long time.

  Georgetta shook her head as Jordan spoke with her. “Not for sale,” I heard her say. She didn’t want to part with the book any more than I did. Jordan whispered something to her, and she hesitated. She studied me out of the corner of her eyes and then reluctantly nodded.

  A moment later, Jordan slid his hands into his jacket pocket and walked back to me. “The book is yours, with the promise that I’ll explain everything to her later.”

  I hugged the book to my chest. “Thank you.” I was already looking forward to curling up in a sunny spot somewhere and reading it.

  “Do you wanna drive by the house?” he asked.

  Marx crossed his arms. “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”

  “I wasn’t actually asking you.”

  “If you two start arguing again, I’m putting you in separate corners until you calm down,” I warned as the two men scowled at each other.

  Marx gave me a vaguely amused look. “What makes you think you can put me anywhere I don’t wanna go?”

  “Easy. If you don’t go, I won’t listen the next time you tell me to go somewhere for my own protection.”

  He grimaced. “If you try that, I will pick you up and carry you.”

  “If you ever try to pick me up and carry me, I will beat you with this book.” I wasn’t some tiny chess piece that could be moved around.

  Jordan laughed. “She always did have an attitude three times her size.”

  I rolled my eyes and walked toward the exit. The little bell above the door tinkled again as I pushed it open and stepped out onto the sidewalk. The air was shockingly cold as it splashed across my face and neck.

  I burrowed deeper into my jacket that was rapidly becoming insufficient for the weather as I moved into the sunlight. I took in the center of town with a sweep of my eyes.

  It was one single street of “town” with quaint little shops nestled together on both sides of the street and festive decorations hanging in every window. Even the lamp poles were decorated with leaf garland and orange lights.

  I hated this season, and I was ready for all things autumn to fade away under a blanket of white. God’s cosmic whiteout.

  I heard the tinkling of the bell as Jordan followed me out and leaned against the nearest tree to look up through the leaves at the sky.

  “You know, I’ve never quite liked fall as much as I once did,” he admitted. “We used to play in the leaf piles and go trick-or-treating—you, me, and Gin—but it just wasn’t the same after that October.”

  “What happened that year?”

  He sighed. “When the town realized you were missing, Trick-or-Treat was cancelled, the kids were all gathered in City Hall, and the adults assembled search parties to comb the woods for you. I was supposed to stay in City Hall with the other kids, but I snuck home, got my flashlight, and went out to look for you myself. You told me once that your father had a plan in case of emergencies. If you couldn’t get to a phone, you and Gin were supposed to run through the woods to my house. I was your closest neighbor, but my dad was also the sheriff. So I went to your house and followed the path I thought you would’ve taken.”

  My heart ached a little for him. He was ten years old, and he’d just lost both of his friends and two adults that he cared about. And he came back to the scene of the murder and braved the dark woods alone in the desperate hope he would find me.

  “I came out on the road, and I walked for probably a mile in both directions,” he continued, and his voice sounded haunted. “But I couldn’t find any sign of you. If there had been any evidence, the rain that morning probably washed it away.”

  I exhaled a quiet breath. I had tried to reach his house that night, but I hadn’t made it. “I’m sorry. That must have been hard for you.”

  His smile was tinged with sadness. “I imagine it was harder for you.”

  I shrugged and turned away from him and the dozens of questions burning in his eyes. I knew he wanted answers, but I just couldn’t give them to him.

  “Holly needs to eat,” Marx announced.

  I turned back to see him standing in the doorway of the bookstore and protested, “But we just had breakfast.”

  “No,” he said. “I had breakfast, Jordan had breakfast, you had a starin’ contest with your pancakes.”

  “There’s a diner a few buildings that way. They started serving lunch about thirty minutes ago,” Jordan explained after a quick glance at his watch.

  “I’m not hungry,” I objected.

  “You’ve barely eaten since you were hospitalized a week ago and it’s startin’ to worry me,” Marx replied. “Please tell me you don’t have some sort of eatin’ disorder or some irrational complex where you think you’re fat.”

  “No,” I said, crinkling my nose at the suggestion.

  “Good. Then let’s go put some meat on your bones.”

  “Don’t talk about my bones. My bones are fine.”

  “I know. I can see them,” he said evenly.

  I hugged the book tighter to me, abruptly self-conscious. “I’m not that skinny.” I glanced at Jordan, who deliberately avoided my gaze as he scratched the back of his head, and Marx just stared at me. I sighed in surrender and started walking toward the diner we’d passed on the way to the bookstore.

  I heard Jordan release a puff of breath before asking, “Is she always that difficult?”

  Marx grunted. “That didn’t even scratch the surface of difficult.”

  Somehow Jordan made it to the door of the diner before me even though he’d been a few steps behind. How did that always happen? He pulled open the door and gestured with a flourish, “After you, milady.”

  I stepped inside and froze when the crowded diner descended into complete silence. Marx came to stand beside me, and people twisted in their seats to look at us. Even the waitress stopped scribbling down the order on her notepad to look up at us.

  “Well, this isn’t unsettlin’ at all,” Marx mumbled under his breath. Concerned and curious eyes darted to the gun on his hip, and a steady stream of low murmurs began.

  I leaned toward him and whispered nervously, “Do you think if we stare back they’ll blink first?”

  “I think they’ll shoot first,” he mumbled back. “I’m not sure everybody in this town is entirely stable.”

  “Because New Yorkers are a picture-perfect example of sanity?”

  Jordan squeezed past the two of us to the front and whispered, “Just have a s
eat. They’re not used to new faces. They’ll get over the shock of it in a minute.” He gestured to an open booth.

  I walked stiffly toward the booth, feeling self-conscious under the weight of so many gazes. Marx was only a few steps behind me. I slid into one side of the booth and planted my back against the wall.

  Marx sat down on the edge of my bench next to the tips of my toes, which, ordinarily, would make me uncomfortable, but I understood that he was using himself as a barrier between me and the onlookers.

  I hated when people stared.

  I heard a few of the whispers bouncing around between the tables and booths: they were concerned about the fact that Marx was a stranger in town carrying a gun. The men and some of the older women gaped at him with open suspicion, while some of the younger women studied him with interest.

  I tried to look at him objectively. I just saw Marx, but he was tall and fit, and his warm green eyes could be mesmerizing. Georgetta had certainly found him attractive.

  “You should probably keep that wedding ring on so you don’t get mobbed,” I advised.

  He gave me an amused look. “I think I can handle a mob of middle-aged women. And this ring.” He raised his hand and wiggled his ring finger. “Never leaves this finger.” Light glinted off the metal, and I saw disappointment register on a few of the women’s faces.

  Jordan slid into the opposite side of the booth after speaking to a few of the customers.

  “I’ll give you two some time to talk,” Marx said, and he started to get up from the table. I must have given some sort of sign or sound of distress at the idea of being left alone at the table with Jordan, because he looked back at me and gave me a reassuring smile. “I’ll be right over there.”

  He gestured to a table beside the window, and I forced myself to nod. Jordan didn’t comment as Marx left, but his pinched lips told me he hadn’t missed my unease.

  I was unrolling my silverware when a slight, older woman in a flour-splattered apron appeared at our table. “Hi, baby,” she greeted, and Jordan stood back up to hug her.