Part of Your World(2)

“Ahhhhh. And what do you look like?”

I glanced down at myself. “Hair and makeup done, black funeral dress—”

“The Dolce one?”

“Yeah.”

“So lookin’ hot. I’m gonna stay on the phone with you in case you get murdered.”

“Ha. Thanks.” I leaned back in my seat.

“So did the funeral suck?” Bri asked.

I let out a long breath. “It sucked so bad. Everyone kept asking where Neil was.”

“What’d you tell them?”

“Nothing. That we broke up and I didn’t want to talk about it. I wasn’t getting into it. And of course Derek was a no-show.”

“What a time to be in Cambodia. He’s missing alllll the fun,” Bri said.

My twin brother had a penchant for avoiding the family drama. I couldn’t say he knew Great-Aunt Lil was going to die suddenly in her nursing home, and that I was going to be thrust alone into the lion’s den at the three-day family reunion/funeral that followed—but it was very on brand for him nonetheless.

I rolled the window down another few inches so I could pet the dog. He had bushy old-man eyebrows and wide golden eyes that made him look startled to see me.

“Mom did a really nice job with the eulogy,” I said, giving the dog’s ear a scratch.

“Doesn’t surprise me.”

“And Neil texted me the whole time.”

“Also doesn’t surprise me. That man has nothing but the audacity. Did you reply?”

“Uh, no,” I said.

“Good.”

More clanking from outside.

“All right, so listen,” Bri said. “I was thinking we could do a double date thing when you get back.”

I groaned.

“Hear me out. It’s not at all convoluted.”

This was going to be convoluted.

“Both of us pick the hottest guys we can find on Tinder. Probably someone posing with a fish, but that’s not important. We take them to the café outside of Nick’s office, the one where he gets his lunch every day at eleven-thirty? And then when Nick shows up, we act totally surprised to see him there. You pretend to trip and spill some red wine down his shirt by accident while I make out with my date.”

I choked on my laugh.

“As much as I’d like to help you destroy your soon-to-be ex-husband’s clothes,” I said, still tittering, “I’m not dating for the foreseeable future. I don’t need any men in my life right now. Or ever.”

She scoffed. “Yeah, well, we’re all strong-ass women until a smoke alarm starts chirping at three a.m. on a high ceiling and there’s no one to hit it with a broom but you.”

I snorted.

“Seriously though,” she said, “we’ve never been single together before. We should embrace this. Hot girl summer. It could be so fun.”

“I think I’m more in the mood for Golden Girls summer…”

She seemed to mull this over. “This could work too.”

I heard more clanking from outside and felt the car move, like something was being attached to the bumper.

“Wanna get drinks tomorrow?” Bri asked.

“What time? I have Pilates.”

“After.”

“Okay, sure.”

I noticed movement in the side mirror. The man had started to walk back over. I stopped petting the dog and rolled my window back up to almost closed.

“Hey,” I whispered to Bri. “The guy’s coming. Hold on.”

The man pulled his dog off my car again and leaned down to talk to me through the glass. “Can you put the car in neutral?” he asked through the one-inch crack.

I nodded.

“When I pull you out, put it in park and turn off the engine until I get the chains off.”

I nodded again and watched him walk to his truck. A door slammed, and his engine started. Then my car lurched, and I slowly rolled out of the embankment and back to the road. He came around the car with a flashlight and looked at the fender.

A dragonfly landed on my hood. It sat there completely motionless while the man crouched to examine my tires. Then he clicked off the light and went back behind the car. More clanking chain noises and a minute later he returned to the window. “I looked the car over. I don’t see any damage. You should be fine to drive.”

“Thank you,” I said, sliding two twenty-dollar bills through the crack.

He smiled. “This is a freebie. Drive safe.”

He went back to his truck and honked, putting up a friendly hand as he drove past me into the fog.





Chapter 2

Daniel



A hundred bucks if you get her to leave with you,” Doug said, nodding at the redhead sitting at the bar.

It was the woman I’d pulled from the ditch half an hour ago. Fifteen minutes later, she’d walked into the VFW.

It was nine o’clock on a Tuesday night in April, which meant the whole town was crammed into the bar. The snow had melted, and it was officially the off-season. Everything except for Jane’s Diner and this place was shut down until the river heated up, and Jane’s had closed at eight o’clock. The tourists were gone, so this poor unsuspecting woman was not only sticking out like a sore thumb, but she was also one of the only women in this tiny town who wasn’t either related to us or had grown up with us. She was going to be relentlessly pursued.