Wait and see. Jesus Christ. Maybe it was just this fucked up night, or my lingering hangover, or the way I was freakin’ primed to see ghosts popping out all over the damn place, but his throwaway comment had unsettled me.

Unsettled? Hell, it had made shivers dance down my spine like he’d been a sideshow fortune-teller whispering portents of the future.

Si collected Daphne’s carrier from the side of the road and tucked her into the backseat with a whispered, “Welcome to O’Leary, Daphne,” I wasn’t sure I was supposed to hear and I was positive I shouldn't find so charming. Meanwhile, I sat in the cab of his gigantic truck, mulling over his words while my leg throbbed in time to the country song playing low on the radio.

Wait and see. No, thank you. I was tired of surprises. And if Officer Sloane had outed himself to me for a reason, he was barking up the wrong tree.

He was good looking, yes. One could objectively call him hot. And yes, he was kind. Funny, too. But right now, I wouldn't care if he was the love child of Jason Momoa and Chris Pratt, and his dick was magic. I had no need of friends and even less of a lover.

“The cat is a shitty conversationalist, and the more you try to charm her, the more she’ll ignore you,” I warned him as he climbed into the driver’s seat and buckled his belt. My voice was defensive and I didn’t care. “Don’t bother making an effort.”

Si chuckled. “Eh. She might be cranky, but she’s pretty. Maybe the effort will be worth the reward.”

I tilted my head to study him. His eyes were focused on the road, but his lips were quirked like he found me amusing and I wondered — because I was so thoroughly out of the game, I couldn’t say for sure — if this was his way of flirting with me. I should probably feel more outrage.

I faced forward, folding my arms over my chest. “I’m not sure where you learned about cats, Officer Sloane, but sometimes they don’t want to be friends.”

I felt his gaze on my face. “Sometimes,” he agreed. “And sometimes they’re just prickly when they’re injured.”

I hadn’t been paying attention to where we were going, since all the damn woods looked the same in the headlights, so I was confused when he pulled over behind the remains of my Toyota. The mangled metal looked even worse from this angle than it had from inside, and I shuddered.

If life worked the way it was supposed to, I shouldn’t have walked away from the crash, but then, it generally didn’t. Win some, lose some.

Before I knew it, Si had turned off the truck, walked around to my side, opened my door, and was holding out his hand to me again.

“What are we back here for?” I demanded.

He rolled his eyes — eyes that were very patient, very blue, and on a level with mine even while I was sitting in his truck. “I figured you’d want to get stuff out of your car. You know, clothes? Phone charger? Toothbrush?”

I looked at the ground. I was an idiot. “Yeah. Yes…. Thank you.”

He nodded and tipped his head toward his hand, which was still outstretched. With a sigh, I grabbed it and let him help me down.

I pulled out my keys and unlocked the trunk, then reached for a suitcase. He pushed my hand aside. “You’re hurt,” he said, like I might have forgotten.

“So? I can still do it,” I protested.

“Sure you could,” he said, grabbing the heavy case like it weighed nothing and swinging it into the cargo area of the truck. “But why?”

Uh, to prove I could? To make sure I never again forgot how? Duh.

“Suit yourself,” I told him, like it didn’t matter either way. I hefted the other suitcase awkwardly and hissed as I stumbled under the weight of it.

With another eye-roll, Si grabbed that bag too and set it next to the first. “Christ, you’re stubborn.” He frowned at me severely. “Listen up, Everett: if you even touch those boxes, I’m strapping your ass in the bed.”

I blinked at him in shock, and against my will, my stomach flipped.

Si made a choking noise.

“The bed of the truck,” he stammered, his face turning beet red. “Jesus Christ. I meant, I’d strap you in the…” His horrified eyes came to mine. “Wait! I meant strapping, like I’d tie you up! Not like I’d use a belt or a… a…I mean…” His voice was strangled and he ran a hand through his hair. “Oh, God. There’s nothing I can say without making this worse, is there?”

The noise that came out of my mouth was a cross between a giggle and a snort, a bubble of sound so rusty and unexpected I clapped a hand over my mouth to stifle it. But it was all so ridiculous and impossible; not just Si hurling himself over a conversational cliff, but everything else, too - the ‘ghost’ in the road, the accident, exiling myself to fucking O’Leary in the first place, ending up in the woods with this unrelentingly friendly man, and making a noise like a fucking pig being violated. I couldn’t stop laughing at the absurdity of it, and every gasp for breath made me snort even louder.

Si stared at me, likely wondering if I was having some kind of fit, but when he realized the sound was laughter, he started laughing too, doubling over on himself with the force of it and burying his face in his hands.

And that made me laugh harder still.

When the worst had subsided, I propped my ass against the open trunk of my car and wiped my eyes, watching Si try to get himself under control. The man was so capable, but looked helpless in that moment. Vulnerable in his laughter. I felt something inside me crack a tiny bit.

Maybe I did have need of a friend, after all.

“God, if you only knew how smooth my game was earlier tonight,” he moaned. “You wouldn’t believe it.”

“Your game?”

“I was on a date. At a bar.” He lifted his head and gave me a rueful smile. “Guy was hot, totally into me. I’d almost locked things up.” He came over and leaned on the car beside me with a sigh. It was comfortable, companionable, and I found myself relaxing for the first time in… well. A while.

“Almost,” I snickered. “Sure.”

He knocked his shoulder gently into mine. “Believe what you like. It was this close.”

“The guy must have been easily impressed.”

Si turned his head to glare at me in mock outrage. “I’ll have you know, lots of guys are into this.” He waved a hand up and down his body.

“Uh huh. So what happened?” I demanded, still smiling. “How’d your destiny get derailed?”

Si snorted. “Destiny doesn’t exist, Ev. Everyone makes choices. And sometimes you have to live with the consequences of other people’s choices.”

“Okay.” I put my hands up in surrender at his unexpected lecture. “Whatever you say.”

“Like, in this case, my date got derailed because a sweet old lady heard gunshots and decided to report it. And then further derailed when some dumbass got scared off the road by a deer or something.” He shook his head at me in reproof. “We don’t even get moose this far west.”

No kidding. The moose had been about as real as my hallucination.

“So, kind of a wild night in O’Leary, huh?”

“Pretty much.”

“And your date wouldn’t wait for you to finish your business?”

He sighed again and tilted his head back to look up at the sky. The moon had risen, and there was a smattering of stars just visible through the canopy of trees. “Most guys don’t like coming in second to the job. Kinda kills the vibe.”

I nodded. “Well, I’m sorry,” I told him. “For my part in the derailment.”

He shook his head like I was crazy, his eyes still trained on the sky. “Not your fault.”

I tilted my head back so I could appreciate the view, too. I had to admit, it was kinda pretty. The night was mostly silent around us, but it didn’t seem so terrifying anymore.

After a while, my stomach grumbled, reminding me I hadn’t eaten since… Damn. Yesterday.

Si turned his head and raised a teasing eyebrow. “We’d better get you to Henry’s before your stomach starts digesting itself.” He reached into the trunk for the largest of the boxes.

“Don’t bother with that one,” I told him, giving up on the idea of carrying them myself. “Just the other two.”

“The big one has all the incriminating evidence?” he joked, lifting one of the smaller ones into the truck.

“It has art supplies,” I said dismissively. “I haven’t used them in ages.”

Over a year, to be precise.

Si looked at me curiously, hands on his hips. “Why not? Doesn’t it drive you crazy if you go too long without… doing whatever kind of art you do?”

“Painting,” I said, frowning. “And yeah, it used to. Do you paint?”

“Oh God, no.” He shook his head ruefully as he grabbed the other small box. “I can’t draw a straight line with a ruler. But Matty - my brother Matthias - he was a whole other story. Always had a sketchbook in his hand.”

He broke off and turned to look at me, his body tense like he’d accidentally opened a conversational door and now he wasn’t sure he wanted me to walk through it.

Was, he’d said. Had. Past-tense.

I felt a stirring of sympathy.

“That was me when I was younger.” I turned to slam the trunk lid and lock the car again. “I used to draw cartoons all the time, anthropomorphic cars, and squirrels, and cans of soda. Half of them weren’t even funny. But it gave me something to do in social situations. An outlet for my random thoughts.” I was babbling, and his soft smile told me he appreciated it.

I cleared my throat, profoundly uncomfortable, and hobbled back to the truck. “Do you, uh, know where my grandfather lives?”

Stupid. Of course he did. My grandparents used to live in an old Victorian on the outskirts of town, with a huge front yard where Grandma Anna had grown roses and I’d played under the sprinkler. But Grandpa had gotten rid of the house after she died, and now he lived in the two-bedroom apartment above the hardware store, which was pretty much smack in the center of O’Leary. Unmissable.

Si opened the door and handed me up. “I'll get you where you need to go, Everett." He winked.

For once, I kept my mouth shut.

* * *

“How’s Hen doing with his leg?” Si asked a few minutes later, when we were back on the road. “I haven’t been by to see him like I should have.”

“My mother says he’s complaining about the doctor putting him in a cast when any fool could see it was just a bad bruise, and that the kid who’s been helping him in the shop is incompetent and weird.” I shrugged. “Sounds like he’s pretty much the same as ever.”

Si winced. “Theo’s a good kid.”

“Oh, no doubt,” I agreed. “I’m sure I’ll love him. We incompetent, weird kids have to stick together.”

“Uh. Your grandfather is…” Si began, in the careful, diplomatic tone people had used my whole life when trying to explain or excuse my grandfather’s behavior. But I was old enough to know some things couldn’t be explained or excused away.

“Is stuck in a time warp? Where girls are girls, and men are men? Where Adam and Steve are a crime against nature, and for the love of all that’s holy, don’t dare call their relationship marriage? Yeah. I know.”

Si frowned. “So why are you here?”

That was a damn good question. One I’d asked myself a million times.

“He needed someone to take care of him. Apparently, he’d had a lady helping him out, but he’s refusing to let her help him anymore. Maybe she’s incompetent and weird, too? Who knows.” I traced patterns on my leg with my index finger. “But my mother freaked out because he was all alone, and she can’t get away from work, so she basically guilted me into helping. She, uh, called some old friend of hers and found out there was an opening for an art teacher at the elementary school, then called Grandpa and told him to expect me.”

I debated saying more, mentioning Adrian and how my life had suddenly become so rootless and portable, but I never knew how to bring up the subject of Adrian, especially now. So instead, I turned my head and watched the little houses of O’Leary pass by.

Si whistled long and low. “So you were voluntold to come.”

“You might say that. But if Grandpa’s the worst I have to deal with, I can handle it. I accepted a contract with the school until June, and then I’ll head back east.”

“Marking days like a convict?”

Well… yes. I glanced over, worried I’d offended him, but found him smiling.

“I’m telling you, the town might grow on you.”

“Like a fungus.”

“Exactly.”

He pulled to a stop in one of the diagonal parking spaces right in front of my grandfather’s store and hopped out, but this time I was too quick for him. I opened my own door and eased myself down before he could help me. He smirked like he knew what I was thinking and shook his head at me, then continued around to the back of the truck to get my stuff while I looked around at the town that was going to be my new — temporary — home.

In the darkness, it looked almost exactly as I remembered it.

O’Leary Hardware was a two-story clapboard building, located almost in the center of Weaver Street, right between Marybeth’s Salon and Spa and a store that used to be simply called Nickerson’s Books, but was now called Nickerson’s Books and More, maybe as a nod to the town having climbed out of the nineteenth century somewhere around the turn of the twenty-first.

But I had to admit, I was curious what the more was.

Nothing about the hardware store was different. The front door was flanked by enormous, lit-up picture windows bearing ancient, hand-lettered signs that read, “Tools and Fixtures!” and “Hardware and Gifts!” Beneath one of the signs sat the giant model train set that Grandpa Hen’s father had first constructed back when dinosaurs roamed the earth — a miniature locomotive chugging in endless circles around a tiny, unchanging O’Leary.

“Don’t s’pose you have a key?” Si appeared on the sidewalk in front of me, carrying both of my suitcases.

I shook my head.

He looked up at the windows on the second floor, where golden light was spilling out between black shutters. “Well, maybe Hen’s got company with two working legs. Otherwise, we’ll figure something out.”

He walked to the small door set to the right of the building and knocked loudly, but nothing happened.

Shit. I hadn’t even considered how Grandpa would be able to let me in from upstairs with a broken leg. Apparently there were a lot of things I hadn’t considered before embarking on this trip.

But eventually, we heard muttered curses and thumping, then the door opened to reveal my grandfather, red-faced, sweating, and leaning heavily against the banister of the staircase behind him.

He was a bleached-out version of the man I remembered - his bushy mustache more salt than pepper now, the thinning hair on his head decidedly whiter, his eyes a lighter version of my own green, and his right leg swathed in plaster.

He looked directly at me for the first time in years and said, “Everett, you’re late.”

Which was about the reception I’d expected.

Like his store, Henry Lattimer’s personality hadn’t changed at all.

“Ev ran into some trouble with his car, Hen,” Si interjected mildly, drawing Grandpa’s attention. “On the road in from Camden.”

Grandpa gave him the grin he hadn’t given me. “Silas Sloane! Good to see you. You been up Lake Loughton recently? I heard it’s the best summer for trout in near on fifty years.”

If Si was surprised at this change in conversation, his smile didn’t show it. “I can’t comment on what it was like fifty years ago, Hen, but I can say my dad and I caught ourselves a pair of two-footers last weekend.”

“How about that!” Grandpa slapped the door frame with his open palm, then pointed his finger at Si. “You tell Jack I owe him a drink and he can tell me all about it.”

“Yes, sir,” Si replied with a chuckle. “Just don’t let him convince you it was anything over two feet.”

“I know better,” Grandpa agreed. “And you tell your mother I said hello.”

“I will, sir. She’s got the council meeting coming up.”

“Oh, that,” Grandpa scoffed. “Why they need a meeting to deal with that eyesore of Rena Cobb’s is beyond…”

Christ. They could go all night, and my knee was officially killing me. I cleared my throat and shuffled forward. “Si, we don’t need to keep you any longer. I can take care of the suitcases. Thank you.”

Grandpa looked at me reprovingly. “Don’t be rude, Everett.”

But Si looked chastened. “Shit,” he said, all concern. “Your knee must be killing you. Let me drop these upstairs and then I’ll help you up and take a look at it.”

“Uh, no,” I said, with what I hoped was finality. “I can manage, and I don’t need a doctor.”

“What’d you do to yourself?” Grandpa said, frowning. “Your legs look alright.”

“They are,” I agreed. I shuffled forward until I stood next to him, waiting for him to move to let me in. But when he didn’t, I realized he likely couldn’t. I turned to Si. “If you’re going to help anyone up, it should be him. I have no idea how he got down here on one leg.”

Grandpa’s face darkened. “Strength comes from will, Everett.”

“Inspiring.” I rolled my eyes. “I’m gonna go ahead and embroider that on a tea towel, but in the meantime, unless you can will yourself back up the stairs, let Si help you.”

“Too fresh by half.” Grandpa scowled. “I will not be treated like an invalid in my own home.”

Si cleared his throat. “Ev’s right, Hen,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’ll help you up the stairs, and…”

From above came a buzzing, like a smoke detector going off.

“Goddamn it! The pie!” Grandpa said. He used the banister to turn himself around, but when he tried to lift his casted leg to climb, he paused. I could imagine the scowl on his face. “Fine! Help me up, Silas.”

Si left the suitcases on the sidewalk, then ducked through the door and under Grandpa’s arm, wrapping his hand around Grandpa’s waist, then proceeded to mostly carry the shorter man up the stairs.

It would have been amusing if I wasn’t dreading my own climb.

But I hadn’t taken more than two halting steps up when Si jogged back down the steps to me and held out his hand.

“I’m fine,” I told him, holding the railing with two hands. “But on second thought, if you could maybe get Daphne and the suitcases…”

I barely registered Si’s huff before he grabbed me over his shoulder and hauled me up the stairs.

I shrieked. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Being efficient,” he said. He set me down at the top of the stairs, in the tidy living room where my grandfather was already sitting in his ancient, green recliner in front of the football game. “We could have had a whole drawn out argument, and in the end, you would have agreed because you’re a reasonable person. But I’ve only known you an hour and I swear we’ve already had that conversation twice, Ev. So, you know.” He shrugged and gave me a smile. “Efficient.”

It was mildly mortifying that his smile – ten times more devastating now that I could really see him properly – made me hesitate. But by the time I’d regained my wits enough to argue, he’d already moved into the kitchen, which was the next room back from the street.

“Pie’s out!” he said. He strolled back into the living room with an ice pack in one hand and a dishtowel slung over the other. “And don’t you tell me you made that delicious-looking thing, Henry Lattimer, or I’ll call you a liar.”

Grandpa’s cheeks, which had already been red from either his climb down the stairs or the way Si had hauled him back up, blushed a deeper red. “Diane Perkins brought dinner,” he said. He gave Si a defiant look. “She knew Everett was coming.”

“Ah,” Si said. His eyes found mine, and he grinned. Then he seemed to realize that I was still standing next to the stairs. “Let’s get you to the couch.”

But when he approached me, I slapped his hand away and belatedly hobbled across the room to sit down on the plush burgundy couch that used to be in my Grandma Anna’s living room.

I didn’t need to be manhandled or coddled. And I was wary of the strange closeness that seemed to spring up fully-formed between Silas and me. I’d never been that way with anyone before, sure as hell not within an hour. I didn’t trust it.

Si held out the icepack wrapped in the towel. “At least put ice on it,” he said impatiently.

“I don’t have a broken leg, Si, I bruised my knee. I’m perfectly fine.”

Grandpa Hen sighed. “That’s what I tried to tell the doctor,” he said plaintively. “It’s just a bruise! But nobody believed me.”

I glanced at Si, then at Grandpa, then back to Si. His blue eyes were mocking. “Runs in the family, then?”

I knew he wasn’t talking about bruises.

“Fine.” I snatched the ice out of his hand and set it on my knee. I was reasonable. Just apparently not in O'Leary.

“I’ll just bring up Daphne and the suitcases,” he said way too cheerfully, then he took off down the stairs, whistling.

From across the room, I studied my grandfather. He was watching the football game avidly, the remote control gripped in one hand. It seemed he’d forgotten I was there.

“O’Leary, New York is going to make me a murderer,” I grumbled.

“Let me go ahead and embroider that on a tea towel,” Grandpa said. Then he turned the volume up before I could reply.