Chapter Two
Alicia
The cab didn’t come after I called and I waited for almost two hours before I began walking.
She said everything is within walking distance.
Banking on that, I closed the door behind me, then locked the entryway to my aunt’s house. I’d been waiting the better part of the evening for my ride and dusk had started to settle in—hence the lights. I had no idea how far or how long I’d be traveling, so I decided taking only the necessities from my overnight bag seemed like the most reasonable action for travel. I got my toothbrush and a pair of panties, which I stuffed into my oversized purse. The final element had been a pair of more sensible shoes. I had a pair of flats in my luggage and decided those were my best bet for tonight’s journey.
I headed onward after that, using my cellphone light after a while, as I ventured into the wildness known as my aunt’s small town. The area was completely surrounded in trees and landscape despite the single gravel road leading out from the country home and I wished I would have paid more attention on the drive up here with Marilyn.
Or taken her advice to just stay at the house.
The concept just felt inappropriate. This really wasn’t my house and to stay there like I lived there didn’t feel right.
Then there had been that guy…
Maybe it was just normal that country people walked into one’s home, fixed things because they felt like it and didn’t take or ask anything for it. Maybe this was all normal, but for me none of it made sense and the need for refuge and comfort was something that I needed right now.
That and cell service.
I hadn’t been able to make any calls besides the one to the cab company. Not that anyone in a hundred-mile radius could help me anyway. I was on my own here, out of my element and ideally wished I would have taken my dad’s advice to handle all this—the inheritance—himself. He’d offered graciously, but I wanted to do this. My aunt was my only link to that side of my family and I was grown. I had this.
My cellphone died.
I don’t have this.
My feet in an aimless sprint, I shuffled in the only direction I knew of. The rocky road underneath my feet wasn’t easily made out, but it could be seen and I stayed on it, suddenly wishing for the obnoxious noises of city life to guide me to some sort of civilization. The only thing out here were owl calls and cricket chirps.
The lights of a small city took my vision about halfway between me being kinda freaked and completely losing it, a cluster of tiny buildings ahead in the night. As I moved forward, they got bigger and I realized immediately this was it. This was the town, downtown.
All the buildings faced each other like in a square and as I had no idea what building was which, I headed in the direction of the closest. It happened to be a bar judging by the flashing neon lights of Budweiser and Guinness and I gave a silent prayer of relief at the sight of something familiar.
Shrugging my bag up my shoulder, I cracked the door and entered a room so lively I questioned if I’d been in the middle of nothing only moments ago.
I guess this is where everyone is, travelled my thoughts, as well as my sight. I normally felt at home in environments such as this, partying and bars nothing new to me. Stuffy, suited businessmen and women partied hard if not harder than the rest of them and I’d always been along for the ride.
But that was in Chicago.
People, faces—white male faces—ventured in my direction. Heads cocked, I got more than a few stares my way and the fact that I was in a small town came to fruition in my thoughts.
Brushing next to burley men at high-top tables eating wings and guzzling beer, I lowered my head, looking for a kind eye to latch upon. I needed someone to tell me where the BNB was and at the sight of the bar, came my saving grace.
What happened to be the sole woman in this place resided there.
And we just happened to share the same skin.
The woman looked a bit hipster, slender in frame with a beanie cap on her head. She’d actually pass for a boy had I not looked twice, but she was clearly female, her tight-fitting jeans and slight bump of bosom beneath a plaid shirt evident.
I hustled my way toward her, not stopping for anything.
I dropped my heavy bag of currency and personal items on the counter, sighing relief as I slid onto a bar stool. The bartender didn’t see me right away and I waved my hand, attempting to get her attention. When I didn’t get that I waited patiently. She passed shots and mugs to customers a mile a minute so I figured I’d wait my turn. A soft “Can I help you?” eventually came my way from her direction, muffled behind that of the bar’s music, but as the woman was still turning out drinks, she didn’t look at me when she asked the question.
I placed my hand on the counter, wanting to ask her about the BNB, but figured I should at least order a drink first.
I got out my wallet. “A vodka tonic, please, more vodka than tonic.”
My order got a few eyes, but only a slight smile from the bartender. She looked up finally, looked at me, and at the sight of me, she did a double take. She did like a legitimate double take, stepping back.
She blinked at me. “What?”
I guess a place such as this might not have what I ordered, small town, small bar.
I smiled. “If you don’t have that I’ll take whatever is on tap?”
This seemed the safer option, but the woman’s eyes didn’t do anything to lessen in size. Eventually, she stepped forward.
“Um, yes, yeah, um?” she pulled her hat off, revealing the tight, short coils of natural hair, big and bushy in nature despite how the hat had concealed them.
Forcing the hat under the bar, she exchanged it out for a mug.
“Budweiser okay?” she asked, looking up twice.
Then a third.
My eyes shifted. Looking down, I thought I might have had something on my white blouse or something. When glances came up unscathed, I set an arm on the counter.
“Yeah, that’s fine.”
A curt nod and she filled the empty mug, the glass pumped full with frothy booze. She slid it over to me and I thanked her, placing her a tip in the amount of the drink. I was sure she worked hard here, bartenders tended to do so.
Lifting the extra bills, she muttered thanks before pocketing them. I thought she’d move on to someone else, but she chose to let the other guy behind the counter handle the others, choosing instead to wipe down the bar in front of me.
I sipped the alcohol, not exactly what I was used to, but not bad. I grew up with three half brothers and saying they liked to drink in their youth was an understatement. I got about a quarter of it down before I noticed the bartender girl was still there.
And was still very much looking at me.
What was with people in this town…
“You’re not Alicia are you?”
I blinked now.
How did she know my name?
She must have realized how unusual what she just said came across to me because she stopped wiping the counter, chewing her lip a little.
“Small town,” she said, bunching up the rag. “I think everyone here knows who you are. We all knew Josephine, and well, there’s not very many of us here.”
She gestured her rag back and forth between us, laughing a little, and gazing around, people did glance at me from time to time. But if they did, they just went back to their conversations. I even got a couple smiles when I locked gazes with a few people.
Relieved by that, the friendliness, I nodded.
“Uh, yeah,” I said, breathing. Quite a day so far. I put my hand on the bar. “I just got in earlier today. I’m in town to settle my aunt’s estate.”
At the words, the girl’s lips went tight, a slight sadness with her nod. She said she knew my aunt, that everyone did, so I bet this all affected her quite a bit, the loss.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” she said, leaning on the bar. “We loved Jo.”
And so it was confirmed. What I remember of my aunt had been positive memories and I wished I could have had more of them, had something like they all seemed to.
“So you just uh, came into town for a drink or…”
“No, actually.” I was glad she brought it up. I’d nearly forgotten after sitting down, my senses on overloaded. “My realtor told me about a bed and breakfast. I’m trying to find it for the night but wasn’t sure what building it was. I walked from my aunt’s house.”
“You’re not staying there?” she asked, sliding a brew over to a patron. What she said had been similar to the realtor.
“I plan on working and I need the Internet for that. It’ll only be for a few nights while I’m here.”
I’d blocked off the whole week for the finalization of the details surrounding the estate, but didn’t plan on using the time if I didn’t have to. I had a very fast-paced job and didn’t want to get behind.
The girl’s expression cringed after she brought her attention back to me.
“It’s actually undergoing repairs,” she said, resting her arms on the bar. “There was a fire earlier this summer. Some stupid kids. It hasn’t been in commission for a bit now.”
Something my realtor failed to mention. She didn’t live in town, though. She and her husband had been someone my aunt apparently hired from a nearby town, which was more heavily populated, no estate planners in the area I guessed.
I’m not surprised.
There really wasn’t anything out here let alone the tools needed to settle an estate. I was just wrapping my head around the fact that I’d have to travel in the dark all the way back to my aunt’s when the woman behind the bar got my attention again.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” she asked, smiling a little. “I guess it has been a long time and I do look different. I used to come over a lot to your aunt’s when I was a kid. I wore glasses at the time, big round ones.”
My memory pulled for those elements, a little girl with big glasses lost in the sea of twenty-eight-year-old memories. That in itself made the feat damn near impossible, but as I worked through the muck for anything of who she could be, my thoughts did pull something.
I remembered a girl coming over sometimes. We’d played with my aunt’s doll collection and Aunt Jo had been so annoyed when we did. The dolls had been precious, had glass faces or something, but the girl and I played anyway. Ava had been her name.
I said the name with the thought and when the woman said the same name, my eyes widened.
“Oh my… God. You look so different.”
And she did. I recalled her being a chubby little thing, round cheeks and all.
Ava’s head bounced back and forth in the air.
“Thinned out a little I guess,” she said, laughing. “You look different, too. So smart and fashionable.”
I sat back with my crisp shorts and flat-ironed hair I styled up today. I used to not care so much before, getting just as dirty as any kid my age. Things changed, though. We grew up.
“I guess we both did a little changing,” I said, gripping my mug. “And you’re still here. Didn’t leave or anything?”
“I left for a little while. College. I didn’t do so well, so I came back.”
My mouth made an “o” and she waved me off.
“It’s fine,” she said. “This is home. It always seems to pull you back and I did come back in the end. Most do.”
I respected that, smiling at her. She excused herself for a moment, obviously needing to help others, and by the time she came back, I finished my beer.
“You headed out?” she asked, flipping her tiny spirals in my direction. She was filling up a mug for someone.
I slid off my chair. “Yeah, I should head back to the house. Though, I’m not exactly sure what direction to head in.”
I had no cellphone for light this time and almost got lost the first time—going in a straight line.
Ava frowned. “You walking there?”
“I think so,” I said, patting my purse. “I tried to call a cab earlier but—”
“Oh, if you wait a second I can take you home. I get off in about,” she paused to check the clock on the wall behind the bar. “Thirty minutes? Or is that too long for you?”
It was like she asked if I minded chocolate. This girl was turning out to be my saving grace.
After thanking her profusely, I slid my way back onto the barstool, making light conversation with Ava in the minutes she wasn’t serving.
“You don’t happen to know anything about a guy named Gray, do you?” I asked, catching her during a moment of rest. I shrugged. “A little scruffy? Tall.”
Huge, actually and would be a little intimating for a girl not able to hold her own. I’d been around people like him for most of my adult life. From gaining my MBA and law degree to my position now, senior associate at one of the most successful law firms in the country. Powerful people with an often brooding force came a dime a dozen in my life and didn’t easily throw me.
Ava flipped her head of bouncy curls in my direction, her hands steadily filling a cup with brew.
“I don’t know him per se,” she said, topping off the glass. “But I know of him, yeah. He’s actually like you. New to town, fairly anyway.”
“Really?” I found this surprising considering he knew my aunt. At least, he said he had.
Her fluffy curls bopped with her nod. “Yeah, moved around here less than a year ago, which is uncommon for people living here. Like me, I’ve lived here my whole life. He’s pretty quiet for the most part, keeps to himself.”
I moved in. “But you said you don’t know anything about him?”
“Not really. He lives on the outskirts of town,” she said. After slinging the beer mug she filled down the line, she placed her hands on the bar. “Like I said he keeps to himself.”
“Do you know where exactly he lives on the outskirts?”
I didn’t really know why I asked, but I was curious about him. Besides the brief, unusual interaction I had with him I found what she’d said about him being a loner completely contradictory. Loner people didn’t tend to make sudden appearances in peoples’ homes and honestly show genuine concern for the state of the homes’ well-being. He did, though.
He definitely did.
Ava dipped below the counter.
“I don’t,” she said. Popping up, she retrieved a glass. “But he’s sitting just over there if you want to ask him.”
Her chin jutted in the direction of her right and, sure enough, down the bar—I mean, the exact very bar I sat at—the man I’d been questioning her about resided. He had a glass of something clear in his hands, his tall body arched over the busy bar with steady traffic in and out from the counter.
I froze, the man literally four barstools away from me. I had no idea when he came in or even if he had been in here the whole time I’d been, which reminded me of our initial encounter earlier today, the surprise of it all.
Hugging my bag, I snuck a casual glance in his direction. He was sitting by himself, a loner like Ava said. He tipped his glass of whatever back and forth on the bar and the other bartender came over, speaking to him briefly.
Gray simply lifted his glass in response, then went back to nursing it. He smoothed his hand over the short layer of scruff on his jaw and in the movement, he turned.
Our gazes collided immediately.
Gray’s body lifted, his eyes narrowing and the fact he knew exactly who I was and where I sat in position to him was evident.
Turning on his stool, he faced me in much of the same way he’d done before, full on and unrelenting. I thought maybe he’d turn away or… something, but he didn’t. He simply picked up his glass, then came right to me.
My purse’s strap slid under my slick hands. I had no idea why this man was making me nervous. Perhaps, it was how in my face he was. He talked right at me before, and was coming over here now.
His glass clinked the bar when he set it down, only a barstool between us.
“Can I get you anything?”
The flare of blue that was his eyes only severed their gaze from me when Ava asked the question.
He smiled at her, tight, but genuine.
His dark hair tousled more when he shook his head, some of that brown curling over his eyes with the movement.
Dismissed, she nodded, then tipped her chin at me. “I’ll be ready in five to take you home.”
I thanked her with a wave, truly appreciating her generosity. Especially considering Gray was here now.
“Can I uh,” he started, pushing a hand behind his neck. His eyes creased hard in the corners. “Can I take a seat here or are you meeting someone?”
Like I knew anyone here. In fact, other than Ava, he was the only other person I’d associated with.
I waved to the barstool next to me, but not before I stood. Ava said we’d be leaving soon.
He watched me as I gathered my things.
“Allie, right?”
I closed my eyes slowly.
“Actually, Alicia,” I said, facing him. “Grayden, right?”
“Gray.”
Well, now that we were acquainted again.
Ava, where are you…
“I see you’re leaving, but I wanted to catch you.”
“Really?” I asked, more than sarcasm dripping from my voice when I tossed my gaze in his direction. I put an arm on the bar. “What exactly for?”
“To apologize I guess,” he said, opening his hands. “If I scared you by being in the house—”
“You didn’t.” And I did partially mean that. I wasn’t scared after a minute or so. He didn’t scare me or intimidate me.
His lips went firm with his nod. “Not even a little? I was in your house, your aunt’s house.”
“And what was that about anyway? Are you just a creepy lurker or—”
“No,” he said seriously. He shook his head. “I was trying to help. I probably didn’t go about it the best way, but honestly didn’t expect you to be home.”
“And that makes it right? You breaking in—”
A key stamped down on the bar, his fingers slipping away from it when he pulled his hand back. The overall design and grooves looked eerily familiar to me.
Because it looked exactly like the one my realtor gave to me.
“Where did you get that?” I asked, glancing his way. “Is that a key to my house?”
Broad shoulders lifted and dropped, but I doubted it was because he didn’t know the answer to my question. He put his hand back on the bar and his finger danced over the key.
“I knew your aunt well,” he said, flashing dark lashes at me. “I did work for her before. Lots of work when she needed it. I checked up on her too sometimes, made sure she was okay and…”
His words drifted off when I retook my seat. Silent, I didn’t exactly know what to say to that, to what he’d said. He helped my aunt. He checked up on her, which was more than her own family had ever done, me despite the fact of not knowing that I could. I’d been so young when I had last been here, the memories of the past and my times here faint.
Those were crystal clear for Gray, this guy who’d only been in this town not even a year. He took a swig from his glass he’d been nursing.
“You got something hard in there?” I gestured to his glass and he shook his messy locks again.
His smile after he swallowed took me by surprise, the hike in his strong jaw playing out all over his face. He didn’t look so aged when he smiled.
Sitting back, he put his arm on the bar. “Not tonight. I actually don’t drink a lot. It’s just seltzer water.”
“Seltzer water? In a bar?”
His head dipped once.
Now, I’d seen it all.
From over his shoulder, my ride came down the lane, Ava sliding on a jacket.
I got off my stool again. “Apology accepted, Gray. But only if you don’t break into my aunt’s house again.”
His lips lifted in the corner, his hand rising from the bar. “Is it considered breaking in when you use a key?”
And since I didn’t have the answer to that, I didn’t respond. Instead, I got my bag and moved past him to meet Ava.
“Wait, Allie— Alicia. You forgot your key. Your aunt’s—”
“Are you as good at fixing things as you are at diagnosing them?” I asked facing him. He’d stood up, the key in his hand.
He pushed the barstool behind himself with his leg. “Yes?”
I nodded. “Good. Then you’ll need to keep that key for when you come back. I’ll need you to fix all the things you mentioned. You got time in the next few days? I’m here for less than a week.”