“Evie should be coming downstairs in a few minutes. She can cover for me.”
“Great. I’ll see you in a while. I’ve got to go. No, sir, I’m afraid we don’t carry any climbing guide books with Norwegian translations,” she heard her say in the background before Ruth cut off the call.
Claire set down her phone, marveling at the changes in her mother in just a few weeks. Ruth could still revert to her needy, demanding self on occasion, but working at the bookstore in Maura’s absence seemed to fill a need in her mother to be useful.
If she’d known how much Ruth would thrive in a retail setting, Claire would have encouraged her mother to get a job years ago. Not at String Fever, of course. The changes in her mother weren’t that extreme.
Maura’s bookstore was across the street and up Main Street on the opposite corner, three storefronts from the café. Fifteen minutes later, after Evie came down for her shift, Claire grabbed the cane she used these days instead of the crutches for stability and headed out into the gorgeous late-May afternoon, warm and sunny.
Everything had greened up beautifully except the very tops of the mountains, which retained their snowcaps year-round.
She couldn’t believe school would be out in only a week. The children had a summer full of fun activities planned, from baseball teams to tennis lessons to sleepaway camp. Add to that the impending arrival of their new half brother in a few months and the summer was bound to be as hectic as the past few weeks.
Claire walked past the bike shop and the year-round Christmas store the tourists loved, with its twinkling lights and the train in the window that ran three hundred sixty-five days a year. She crossed at the crosswalk and headed toward the bookstore. If only they could have this sort of perfect weather on Giving Hope Day, with only a few plump white clouds to mar the vast blue sky....
Ooomph. She was so busy sky-gazing that she plowed right into a solid bulk and caught her breath as a couple of strong arms grabbed her to keep her from stumbling.
“I’m sorry, Claire. My fault. Are you okay?”
Riley. Her insides tumbled around and she looked up. Yep. He was as gorgeous as ever. She hadn’t seen him up close since that night at her house. Even though he had driven past a few times when she had been outside with the children on his way to or from his own rental house, he hadn’t stopped.
Somehow she’d forgotten the shock of those green eyes, the angle of his jaw. He wore a tan jacket and a light blue dress shirt with no tie, his badge clipped to the front breast pocket, and she had an insane urge to just rest against him for a moment. Or a hundred moments.
His eyes were dark with concern and he looked as if he wanted to whip out his cell phone and call the paramedics at the slightest provocation.
“I’m fine,” she assured him, feeling her cheeks heat. Why could she never have a single encounter with him that didn’t somehow result in her coming off as an idiot? “I should have been watching where I was going. I was just... It’s a beautiful day and I haven’t been outside all morning. I’m afraid I got a little distracted.”
“I had something else on my mind, too. You’re sure you’re okay?”
“Fine. Great.”
“You look like you’re getting along well. No crutches, I see.”
She held up her foot. “Walking cast. We’re on the home stretch, according to the good Dr. Murray. I’m supposed to get the one on my arm off in a couple of weeks and this one a week or two after that.”
“How do you feel?”
She remembered that tender kiss between them, the heat and magic, and hated that they had been reduced to this bland, boring chitchat.
“Better than I expected.”
“That’s great. I like your bling.” He gestured to her cane, covered in glued-on fake jewels.
“Holly and Macy surprised me with it last week. It’s what all the stylish cane users are wearing these days, apparently.”
What she had thought so trendy and cute at the time now made her feel old and decrepit compared to Riley, brimming with strength and sheer gorgeousness.
“How about you?” she asked.
“I’m still here.” He said it as if it were a joke, but she knew things couldn’t have been easy for him the past few weeks. She’d heard J. D. Nyman was collecting a petition to have the city council reconsider their hiring decision, although she hadn’t been approached with it yet. She pitied the first person to ask for her signature.
They stood awkwardly for a moment and she hated again that things had come to this.
“I’m meeting someone for lunch,” he finally said, “or I’d offer to buy you a sandwich over at the café.”
“Thanks anyway, but I’m actually on my way over to the bookstore to meet my mom.”