Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Mabel looked shocked. “Don’t you?”
Hutch started chuckling, bent to kiss her and found her lips tasted of ice cream, cinnamon and apples.
Not the best kiss he had from Mabel, but it was a good one.
He didn’t move far away when he was done, and said, “No, baby, I don’t.”
“Do you have insider knowledge from your time in the military?”
He grinned. “Sad to say, Area 51 was not a high priority at any of our briefings.”
She pretended to pout.
He sat back and tipped his head to the remaining pie. “You eat that, we can get the pets, load up and go, so you can get home and unbutton your jeans.”
She laughed. “How’d you know?”
“I didn’t always eat clean.”
Her hazel eyes sparkled and she turned back to her pie.
So, tonight wasn’t the night.
She was full of good food, in a good mood, enjoyed meeting someone and getting to know them, he wasn’t going to crash her vibe.
He knew it was an excuse.
He knew he was searching for a reprieve.
But if you were lucky, tomorrow inevitably came.
And when it did, Hutch would do it then.
THIRTY-THREE
Our Wedding
Mabel
I’d been right.
Abigail had come down with the flu.
In fact, a lot of people were coming down with it, and this was why Hutch was right then at the rescue and sanctuary, filling in for staff and volunteers who couldn’t make it in.
And it was why it was only me at the shop which had been, the only way to put it, Kimmyfied.
That morning, she’d made two trips, hauling two big boxes over, and even if it was my own damned shop, she wouldn’t let me have any say in where she set stuff out.
Then again, she’d been doing this shop business a lot longer than I had, and as such, what she decided was perfect. I also took note of how she did it, because you never knew when you’d learn something, so you always had to be open to learning it.
We’d then haggled about the money when I sold stuff, and I’d agreed to a commission just because it went on so long. Only then had she taken off, I’d put out the little cards to cross-market her place, and that was the big event for the day since the shop was mostly dead.
Until Jill walked through the door in the afternoon with her messenger bag.
Tonks yodeled hello and loped in her direction.
“Wow,” I cried. “Hi. So cool to see you.”
She smiled and headed my way, having a look around.
“You okay with dogs?” I asked as Tonks made a play for her hand.
“Love them,” she replied, patting her as she moved. When she stopped across from me, she said, “And wow is right. I keep passing by and reminding myself I need to step in. I really should have stepped in.” Her head turned, her eyes fell on the leather chair, that illusive thing called hope sprang in my breast, and she came back to me. “I’m definitely coming back when I start Christmas shopping.”
So she wasn’t going to drag the chair out my front door with her.
And that’s what you got from hope.
“That’d be great,” I replied.
“Guess what?” she asked, rummaging through her bag.
Before I could make a guess, she put a book on the counter between us, went back to her bag and put a file folder on top of that.
“I did some digging. Went to the library,” she said. “I own that book, but I checked another copy out of the library for you. If you could return it before its due date, that’d be great. Or go back and check it out yourself.”
I didn’t have a library card.
I’d be getting one.
“That’s no problem,” I promised. “Is it about the history of Misted Pines?”
She nodded. “The one and only in existence. The library has some journals, notes, letters, old deeds, and maps and stuff. And there are the old newspapers, seeing as the Chronicle has been around for ages. But no one has written a book about this place, which I think is crazy, except that one, and heads up, it’s not very comprehensive. So much happened here.” She wrinkled her nose. “Way before all the gross stuff started happening when Ray Andrews did his thing.”
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Anyway, look,” she urged, turning the file folder my way and opening it up.
“Oh God, you found her,” I said, staring down at an old-timey picture in a plastic sleeve of a woman in an old-fashioned dress, a straw hat on her head, standing in front of a house made of wood.
The picture was overexposed and very old, but you could make her out.
“Then,” Jill said, and reached to the thin stack in the file folder to turn that pic over and expose the one under it. “I found this.”
And there I saw another old, this time posed and formal portrait of that same woman, seated. A baby in a lacy baby dress sat on her lap. Two older children stood by her, one on each side. And a man stood behind her with his hand on her shoulder.