Chapter 7

 

In the daylight, the idea of a man crouching outside her window seemed as preposterous as the idea of Eugene Hayes crouching in the corner of her bedroom. Yet, Annalise couldn’t shake that she had seen someone.

This was all going to her head. Emotions, fears, memories? They were the fodder for imagination and illogic. Annalise sniffed, tucked an escaped strand of coppery hair back into her hair tie, and blinked rapidly as if by doing so she could clear not only her vision but also her mind.

She allowed herself a moment to skim the morning crowd that perched at tables, along the barn-door bar, and in the cozy lounge area with stuffed couches and chairs. The double doors that led into the attached food pantry were shut, locked for the morning. The volunteers would open it at ten o’clock. Thank the Lord for the members of the local Lutheran church who had taken the pantry under their charitable wing. It would have been madness to run the coffee shop and the pantry simultaneously. But, Annalise took a sip of her wimpy caffé misto, she would have done it. Her soul resonated with those who wandered into the pantry for assistance. She may never have been in need or want of material things, but sometimes the hollowness reflected in the eyes of those in need had less to do with a warm blanket and more to do with abandonment. Rejection. Condemnation.

God help her, she needed to quit with this introspection! Annalise gulped down the rest of the coffee and performed an overhand toss of the cup into the wastebasket a few yards away.

“Lebron James got nothin’ on you!” One of the college-aged baristas clapped a high five with the palm she instinctively held up.

Annalise moved her hand from the high five and finished with a short wave at Mrs. Duncan, the head of the Silver Saints Knitting Club that met in the shop every Tuesday morning. She attempted to breathe in normalcy, but her breath hitched as her eyes alighted on the far corner table.

Her curse was muttered under her breath. The Lebron-James-touting barista shot her a surprised glance. She stifled a low chuckle.

Yes. Yes, you all, I can sin and swear with the best of them.

Her eyes collided with Garrett’s across the room. His muscular body draped over his chair turned backward toward the round table. His arms rested across the back of the chair, and his face was expressionless when he spotted her. The trendy blonde next to him followed his stare. Her eyes, made smoky with effortless eye-shadow application, drilled into Annalise’s.

Annalise realized she was going to need to sit down tonight and plan for these types of moments. Garrett was back in town, whether she approved or not, and being blindsided every time she saw him wasn’t going to benefit anyone.

Summoning courage, she decided not to duck into her office like a coward, but rather to face her fear and greet them both. It wasn’t fair she had to feel ostracized by the generational offspring of one of Gossamer Grove’s founding families. It also wasn’t fair that Nicole’s chin-length, edgy haircut was so stinking attractive that it made Annalise feel old-fashioned and far too much of a librarian with her twisted ballet bun and chunky glasses.

Nicole offered a smile as Annalise neared them. It didn’t reach her eyes, but then it wasn’t cold either. It was . . . impartial. That was the word.

“Annalise.” Nicole tipped her head.

“Hi.” There. That was a special kind of greeting. Annalise inwardly smacked herself. It wasn’t Nicole who made her tongue-tied. It was Garrett. Whose slouch hadn’t even bothered to straighten, or tense, or look the slightest bit stressed.

Nicole glanced between them. “I take it you’re aware Garrett’s home.”

“Oh, very.” Annalise nodded, offering a tight-lipped smile that didn’t try to disguise the underlying snark.

“I’m leaving you alone,” he shrugged. As if his whole thirty-one years of maturity was diminished to a schoolboy’s challenge. His dark eyes flashed.

Nicole eased from her chair, her lithe frame clad in blue jeans and a flowing tan cardigan that brushed her hips. The red hue of her filmy blouse matched the tone of her lips. She offered Annalise a smile even as she extended her hand to cup Annalise’s shoulder. It was friendship for show, like almost everything else in Gossamer Grove. Nicole leaned in.

“We both know that Garrett being home may lend itself toward resurfaced hard feelings. But the past is the past, Annalise. For both of our sakes, we have critical issues to focus on, whether we agree on them or not. Many decisions are to be made, and we both have our affections for this town. Let’s keep our priorities straight, yes?”

Annalise bit the inside of her cheek. Then her tongue. Would slapping the town’s mayor across the face be a bad idea? Yes. Probably.

“I’ve kept my priorities straight for many years, Nicole.” Annalise looked past the woman at Garrett. “All of my priorities.”

For a moment, a shadow flickered in his eyes. He had the decency to look down and distract himself with his coffee. Funny, how twelve years later, Nicole was still speaking for her brother. The orange T-shirt he wore stretched across his taut muscles as he lifted his cup to his mouth. His carved lips took a sip of the brew.

Annalise swallowed, her face burning. She remembered his mouth. Why didn’t some sensory things fade with time? Garrett looked back up, and for a moment there was a plea in his eyes. The kind of pitiable plea that was fast hidden by the need to cover it, to be plastic, to carry on as though nothing ever hurt them.

“I’ve things to do. Nice seeing you both.” Annalise waggled her fingers as she veered back toward her office on that monumental lie. Nice wasn’t ever a word she could associate with them, unless she went way back into her vault of memories to the time when it was just Garrett and her, and a dare that turned into friendship. Before it shattered into a million irreparable pieces.

Annalise fumbled with her phone to read the text Brent sent. She swallowed one of those lumps that lodged in a person’s throat when they didn’t want to cry and didn’t want to acknowledge emotion. But, Garrett’s presence had stirred up a hornet’s nest of feelings inside her, stinging hurt that swelled and throbbed in a rhythmic reminder of pain. Now this.

She stared at the text.

Hayes’s death will hit paper today. Ongoing investigation. You may be named if Tyler gets wind of the pictures. Chin up, A. We got your back.

Tyler Darrow. He had the local newspaper just teetering on the verge of being a gossip rag, and he loved to pick at town secrets. If Tyler nosed his way in, having this story front and center for the town to read would be dreadful. A destitute elderly man dying just as Annalise was pushing the town to donate property for a shelter and to invest in those very souls? That could be beneficial to her cause, if she were heartless. Proof that Gossamer Grove needed to wake up and see the homeless!

But then there was the issue of her pictures, splayed all over Eugene Hayes’s run-down trailer. And she? She was nowhere to be found. No aid. No assistance. No record of Annalise Forsythe ever helping the poor old soul. She didn’t practice what she preached, and the food pantry was a sham for her to skim off the top to make her coffee shop more lucrative.

Lies. All of them. But Annalise knew Tyler well, and Tyler would spin it that way in a heartbeat. In the words of her very eternally focused Aunt Tracy, “Lord Jesus, come quickly!”

Annalise recited the words in her head. She actually didn’t mean them. If Jesus came now, it might have a good effect on a few, but biblically speaking, it meant an apocalypse for the multitude. She wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

Annalise shot back a quick OK to Brent in text form. What more could she say? She leaned forward and reached for her second coffee of the day, perched on the desktop calendar on her desk. Her office was her sanctuary, her respite, her place to collect wayward thoughts and put them in some semblance of order. It was her—

“Q?”

Her coffee sloshed through the sip hole of its lid as Annalise jumped. She snapped her head up, sucking a puddle of coffee from her hand that was dripping down to her wrist.

Annalise’s eyes met Garrett’s. So much for her private sanctuary. “Yes?” She tipped her head and waited.

Garrett’s arms were crossed, his forearms heavily corded from hours of climbing. She could see chalk dust embedded in the corners of his fingernails. The desk stood between them. A cornfield, no, an ocean would have been preferable.

“I thought you deserved to know why I came back.”

So much for her ocean.

“I do know.”

Garrett’s brow raised in question. His strong jawline curved toward a chin with a crease down its middle. He hadn’t shaved in maybe two days. Chestnut brown hair was floppy on top with sides haphazardly trimmed. The guy was sloppy, but he sure smelled good. Nutmeg, or apple pie, or something.

“You came back to help Nicole ramp up the tourism economy in Gossamer Grove. Make yourself a happy little place for all your climbing buddies to hang. Literally.” Annalise crossed her own arms, but her right hand gripped her coffee as if it were a lifeline.

Garrett shook his head. “Nope. Nic doesn’t need my help. And professionals wouldn’t come here to climb.” He didn’t say it arrogantly, just as fact. Apparently, the resort wouldn’t be professional climbing caliber.

Annalise took the moment to sip her coffee. “Okay, then why?”

Garrett shifted his weight and jammed his hands into the pockets of his shorts. She couldn’t help but notice his calves. Built. The guy was built. Better than her senior year of high school. This must be what over ten years on the professional climbing circuit did to a man. Rock solid—no pun intended.

“Larson contacted me for my expertise in helping design and run his wilderness center. He wants to put in a climbing gym and a zip line. Maybe lead bouldering tours—there are great boulders in the woods near the park. I’m not getting any younger.”

“Thirty-one is old?” Annalise raised an eyebrow.

Garrett shrugged. “In competition? It’s getting there. I’m competing against nineteen-year-old brutes. Their climbing skills are sick. I need a plan for the rest of my life.”

“No more sleeping in decked-out vans and climbing cliffs in Switzerland?” Annalise took another sip of her coffee.

“You followed my career?” Garrett asked.

Annalise choked. Darn it. “No. Yes. I mean, it’s hard not to when you’re practically the town’s pride and joy. Garrett Greenwood, continuing the great line of Gossamer Grove Greenwoods. Medaling in competitions and exploring Europe and Asia. You’re hard to ignore.”

“I’m hard to ignore?”

Annalise closed her eyes and forced herself to take a deep, controlled breath. When she opened her eyes, Garrett’s expression was searching.

“I don’t want trouble, Q. Neither does Nic. We just want to go about life fair and square, okay? The wilderness center will be good for the town, for the people who visit for our outdoor elements here in Gossamer Grove. It’ll get people into physical stuff and away from technology.”

It dawned on Annalise. Very clearly. The decision for the property and the wilderness center had already been made, just not formalized. There would be no land for a shelter, no acknowledgment of the great need shared by those who’d been ostracized by the community.

“I understand.” Her voice came out in a whisper, squeezed by the tension of tears.

“Listen—”

“No. I’d rather not.” She made pretense of organizing paper clips in the tray on her desk. She needed him to go away, before tears slipped out and shamed her. Before Garrett discovered how wounded she still was, and how the past was anything but resolved.

“Q . . .”

She sniffed and pushed the paper clips into a pile. “The great Greenwoods. Always looking out for Gossamer Grove.” She bit her lip as it quivered, glancing up at him. “And ignoring the little people.”

Annalise Quintessa Forsythe may sound lofty, but her parents had failed miserably. Owning a reputable law firm still hadn’t been enough to compete with the Greenwoods’ hierarchy of banking, industrial factory, and four generations of mayors.

She reached for her planner and a pen, under pretense of returning to work. “Goodbye, Garrett.”

There was no resolution in ignoring him as he left her office, silent and without apology.