Awakening (Lily Dale #1)(57)

Somehow, though, she doesn’t. She just smiles at him, and he smiles back.

“Can you bring those up, Kev?” Lisa calls, and he already is.

Calla sees him glance up at the shingle above Odelia’s porch as he lugs the suitcases up the steps. He frowns but says nothing, just deposits the bags on the porch with a grunt.

“Man, those are heavy.”

“You’re staying, too?” Calla asks, then realizes he might think she doesn’t want him to. And she does. Desperately. “I mean, I’m really glad. I just . . . I thought you had to drive back to school tonight.”

“I do. These are Lisa’s bags.”

Oh. Her face grows hot. She should have known. And she shouldn’t have hoped.

“I think she packed everything she owns,” Kevin adds.

“Not everything. I forgot hair gel. I need to get some right away. I’ve gone two days without it because he wouldn’t go out of his way to get it, and every time we stopped we were in the middle of nowhere.”

“I hate to say it,” Calla speaks up, “but you still are.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there’s a Wal-Mart ten miles away, and that’s about it for shopping as far as I can tell.”

“Then let’s go right now.”

“Now?”

“Look at me!” Lisa lifts a hank of her silky blond hair in disgust.

“You look great,” Calla tells her. “And I’ll get my grandmother to take us tomorrow. She’s, um, busy for the rest of the day.” Right. Doing back-to-back readings with clients anxious to get in before the season ends. But Calla isn’t about to get into that yet. Not with Kevin here, especially.

Lisa wails and turns to her brother. “You’ve got to take us to Wal-Mart.”

“Me! I’ve got to drive to Ithaca.”

“Please take us to Wal-Mart first, Kev. Come on. I let you keep the AC on high for two days even though I was freezing, and I didn’t complain once about your choice of music.”

“Sure you did. Constantly.”

Calla can’t help but grin at that. Lisa likes only country.

“Please, Kev?” Lisa asks. “Come on. It won’t take long. I promise.”

He sighs. “Okay. Come on, let’s go. But you have to make it quick. I need to get on the road to school.”

And Annie, Calla thinks grimly, thinking she shouldn’t even tag along to Wal-Mart.

But she does. Old habits die hard.

Lisa does most of the talking on the way to Wal-Mart, sitting in the back but leaning forward between the two seats. Even with her there, even in a new car, Calla can’t help but feel wrongly comfortable sitting there beside Kevin in the front. If only . . .

No. Stop.

Wal-Mart’s parking lot is crowded. As Kevin squeezes his new car into the first available space, Calla thinks, for the first time in a while, of Blue. Blue and his BMW, parked way out where no other car can touch it.

In the store’s entryway, Lisa promptly grabs a cart.

“Uh . . . how much are you planning to buy?” Kevin asks warily.

“Just a few things.”

“Oh, God. I can’t watch this.”

“Then don’t. I’ll meet you guys up front in half an hour.” Lisa sails away.

Calla looks helplessly at Kevin, who shrugs and sighs. “Looks like we’ve got some time to browse.”

We? So, he’s going to stick with her?

Suspecting Lisa did this on purpose, Calla wishes she hadn’t. She wants to tell Lisa there’s no hope for her and Kevin; he has a new girlfriend now, and she . . .

Well, she doesn’t have a new boyfriend, though Blue said he’d call. And when she ran into Jacy yesterday at the library, they talked for over half an hour. She left feeling as though she wouldn’t mind seeing him again. Maybe Evangeline will get over him and move on to someone new. If that happened, there would be no reason not to—

“Do you need to get anything specific here?” Kevin asks Calla, breaking into her thoughts. “Should I get a cart?”

“God, no.”

There’s plenty that Calla needs, though. She picks things up here and there as she and Kevin walk along. Nail polish and remover and emery boards, a couple of books, and—after a slight hesitation—a new digital alarm clock. In the jewelry department, she buys a cheap watch.

“I forgot all my jewelry back home,” she feels compelled to explain.

“Right,” he says a little sadly, and she realizes he thinks she stopped wearing the Movado because they broke up. She wants to tell him that’s not true, but then decides to let him think it is. Let him feel bad that he fell for another girl and dumped her in a text message.

That thought is enough to make her deliberately pause to browse the clearance aisle on their way to the front register, even though she can feel him getting antsy.

“There’s some good stuff here,” she comments, picking up a packet of stationery emblazoned with a C. If she can’t e-mail anyone, she’ll have to keep sending real letters.

“So, are you all set, then? Lisa should be ready,” he adds, checking his own watch. It’s new, Calla notices. A gift from Annie? Grrrrr . . .

She can’t resist saying, “Just give me another minute to make sure I’m not missing any bargains . . . oh, look at those cute Santa cups!”