Awakening (Lily Dale #1)(9)

She’ll be glad to get away from Tampa, even though she’s about to spend three weeks in a strange place with a virtual stranger who’s—well, not to be mean to Odelia, but she’s . . . strange.

“Grandma!”

“Darling!”

Calla stops walking so that the girl behind her can rush past, straight into the arms of a little old lady waiting by the Arrivals gate. The woman has a white bun, glasses on a chain, and is wearing a double-knit pantsuit with sensible brown shoes.

After allowing herself a wistful glance at them, Calla looks around for Odelia, who doesn’t have a white bun and wears her pink-rimmed cat’s-eye glasses high in her dyed-red curls when they’re not balanced on the tip of her nose.

She wouldn’t be caught dead in double knit or sensible shoes. No, she’s more likely to wear . . .

Birkenstocks and yellow capris.

That’s exactly what she has on, and after spotting her, Calla debates—but only for a split second—fleeing before Odelia spots her.

You can’t do that. It’s not like there’s anyplace else to go.

Sure there is. You can hop a flight to Europe. Or some island where you can start over and nobody will know who you are or what happened to you. You can—

“Calla! Yoo-hoo! Calla, here I am!”

Yes, there she is, running with open arms and the most welcoming smile ever.

“I’m so, so happy you made it. You don’t know how thrilled I am to have you here.”

In that moment, Calla senses with overwhelming clarity that she’s right where she should be. “Hi,” she says, her voice muffled by Odelia’s generous cleavage.

“How was your flight? Were you afraid?”

“Afraid? No, I knew the flight would be okay.”

Odelia smiles an odd little smile. “So did I.”

Before Calla can contemplate the possible implication of that strange smile, Odelia says in a rush, “Let’s get your luggage and blow this pop shop. I’m double-parked.”

Calla smiles. Of course she is.

Less than ten minutes later, they’re standing beside an ancient, beat-up cherry-red convertible.

“Um, do you want to pop the trunk so I can put my luggage in?” Calla asks, dragging her suitcase around to the back.

Odelia laughs. “This trunk doesn’t pop. That invention’s way before its time. I’m surprised there isn’t a rumble seat in there someplace.”

“A what?”

“Never mind. That’s way before your time, too. Get in, and I’ll take care of your bags.”

Calla obediently climbs into the passenger’s seat, then spots a white rectangle propped beneath the windshield wiper on the driver’s side. “Uh-oh. You got a ticket,” she calls.

“Oh, that? I got it years ago. Paid it, too.”

“Then what—?”

“I carry it with me whenever I come to the airport. It’s good for something. I just put it on the windshield, and the parking patrols leave me alone.”

What is there to say except Oh.

Well, there’s Wow.

There’s other stuff, too. Far less tolerant than Oh or Wow. She can just imagine what her upstanding, law-abiding, sensible father would say about Odelia’s all-purpose parking ticket.

Then again, Dad doesn’t know any of this. And he doesn’t have to know, Calla reminds herself. I’m on my own now. She just isn’t sure she knows how to feel about that.

“Ready to go down to Lily Dale?” Odelia asks, getting into the driver’s seat.

“Ready,” Calla tells her. “How far is it?”

“You mean in miles, or time?”

“Time, I guess.”

“About an hour if someone else were driving, but I can get us there faster.”

“I’ll bet,” Calla murmurs, fastening her seat belt. She has a feeling she’s going to need it.

The farther they get from the New York State Thruway exit, the more rural the scenery.

“We’re really in the country,” Calla notes, gazing out the open car window at a couple of black-and-white cows grazing in a pasture bordered by a grape vineyard.

“What did you say?” Odelia turns down the radio.

CD player, actually. She’s singing along with an old Bob Dylan song on a homemade mix that includes Dylan, the Dead, the Band, and, inexplicably, the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

“Never mind,” Calla tells her, figuring her grandmother knows she lives in the country. It’s just news to Calla, who pictured a small upstate New York town as being more, well, tourist-friendly. But she hasn’t seen a restaurant or hotel for a few miles now.

Plus, Odelia described Lily Dale as a gated community. Calla is pretty familiar with those, considering that she lives in a nice one off Westshore back home. But she’s having a hard time picturing an exclusive suburban development plunked out here in the middle of nowhere.

She shivers a little in the cool breeze blowing through the window, but she doesn’t roll it up. You don’t get to drive with your car windows down in Florida very often, and she likes the feeling of the wind in her hair.

Just when she’s about to ask how much farther they have to go, Odelia brakes and screeches onto a side road. “We’ll go this way,” she says. “Less traffic.”