Once in a Lifetime(18)

“You planning to off the people on that list or what?”

She whipped around to stare at him. He pulled his sunglasses off, and that’s when she saw the light of amusement in his eyes. He was teasing.

Sort of.

Because the smile wasn’t quite real. He didn’t understand her. He was confused by her.

Well, join my club, she thought.

“Because if you are,” he said, shifting closer, lowering his voice to a conspirator’s whisper that shouldn’t be so sexy, but totally was, “then you should be scoping the place out at night, not in broad daylight. And you should be in a vehicle with night-vision and heat-seeking goggles.”

“I’m afraid to ask how you know all this,” she said.

“I’d tell you, but…”

“You’d have to kill me?”

His smile went slightly more real, but his eyes were still laser sharp. “What’s going on, Aubrey?”

She shook her head. What was going on was that she’d lost her mind if she thought she could really pull this off.

A million years ago, or so it seemed now, Mrs. Cappernackle, the high school librarian—the woman who lived in the town house—had tattled on Aubrey. Her claim was that Aubrey’d had sex in the reference section of the library with the principal’s son.

And though Aubrey certainly had been guilty of being in the wrong place with the wrong guy before, she hadn’t been that time, and not with the boy in question, either.

But in spite of her innocence, she’d gotten in big trouble, and because Mrs. Cappernackle falsely claimed she’d stolen books while she was at it, she was suspended. So when a few weeks later Aubrey realized she’d actually forgotten to return a library book she’d legitimately borrowed, she did a really stupid, juvenile thing. She claimed she had returned it but that Mrs. Cappernackle had only said she hadn’t because the librarian had it out for her. Aubrey even managed to produce real tears and must have been convincing enough, because she’d gotten away with it, and Mrs. Cappernackle had been written up by the superintendent.

Mrs. Cappernackle had retired later that same year, and Aubrey had always felt guilty, like she’d had something to do with it.

Now, more than a decade later, Aubrey had the book she’d stolen in her purse. It wasn’t the original, of course, but a new copy from her store. She wanted to hand it over as a peace offering. Or such had been her plan, but it seemed stupid now. “I’m asking you nicely,” she said to Ben, “to go away.”

This was hard for her, very hard, and some of that must have been conveyed, because he studied her with those assessing eyes for one long moment, then nodded and walked back to his truck.

And then he was gone.

She wasn’t hopeful enough to think he’d actually completely vanish from her life, but that he’d left for now was good enough. Drawing in a deep breath, she marched up to the town house and forced herself to knock.

A moment later, Mrs. Cappernackle opened the door. She was tall, thin, and using the cane she’d once wielded to enforce her reign of terror in the library. If you got that cane pointed at your nose, you knew you were in deep trouble. Aubrey’d been at the wrong end of it often enough to vividly remember the bone-quaking, knee-shaking fear it could evoke.

Mrs. Cappernackle had aged in the past decade, and she’d been old to start with. But she took one look at Aubrey, and her expression puckered as if she’d just sucked on a sour ball. “Well, look what the cat dragged in.”

“You don’t have a cat, Martha,” said another woman’s voice, and then she poked her head around Mrs. Cappernackle.

It was Lucille. She was a senior, too, and though Aubrey had never personally had any run-ins with Lucille, the woman’s gossiping prowess was legendary. So was her soft heart and kind soul. Aubrey was banking on both. “Hi,” she said. You can do this. “Mrs. Cappernackle, I was hoping for a moment of your time.”

“I have no time for you,” Mrs. Cappernackle said. “And stay away from Ben McDaniel. You don’t deserve him.” And then she slammed the door on Aubrey’s nose.

Aubrey stared at the closed door and felt her inner strength wobble a bit. Two for two…she turned to walk away, but the door opened again.

It was Lucille. Glancing back over her shoulder as if checking for a tail, she tiptoed out and grabbed Aubrey’s hand. “Honey, don’t take that personally.”

“Hard to take it any other way,” Aubrey said.

Lucille paused as if she wanted to say something, but changed her mind. “It’s not a good day,” she said carefully. “Will you do me a favor and try again, real soon?”

“Sure,” Aubrey said softly, managing a smile when Lucille gently patted her arm.

“You’re a good girl,” she said, and then vanished before Aubrey could tell her she wasn’t a good girl at all.

Not even close.





Three days later, after a very long ten hours at the bookstore, Aubrey closed up shop and was dragged to a wine tasting and spa event at the local B and B with Ali and Leah. While having a free paraffin hand treatment by the spa’s owner and sheriff’s wife—a very lovely, very pregnant Chloe Thompson—Aubrey dodged her friends’ questions about Ben. She did this because, one, she didn’t want to talk about her feelings for Ben, and, two, she didn’t even know what her feelings were.