Bigger Than the Sky (Serenity Point) (5 page)

Yikes. “Oh, I’d love to get it, but I’m sorry, I don’t think my finances can handle it right now,” I say with a frown giving it back to her.

“I can put it in layaway for you if you’d like. Six months to pay if off,” she negotiates shrewdly with a grin.

I smile. “While it’s tempting, I won’t be around that long. Sorry.”

“Oh, are you just passing through town?” she asks. “Wait a minute.” She points at me with a hot pink fingernail. “Let me guess. You’re Amelia Hale-Chapman. Your grandparents were Jean and Elliot Hale. You’re here to fix up the garage then go back to your job in Richmond as a CPA. Right?”

“Either you’re the best psychic in the world or you got your information from someone who knows me,” I say with a chuckle. “But, yes, I’m Amelia.” I hold out my hand.

She shakes my hand and introduces herself. “Elise Powell. So nice to meet you. And I have to tell you that I actually am a bit of a psychic.” She tilts her head and raises her eyebrows as if waiting for me to challenge her on it.

I look at her skeptically, which I’m sure others have, which is why she’s waiting for me to question her. “Really?”

“Really. I have a little place in the back if you’d like me to read for you.”

“Um.” I have no idea what to say.

She puts the purse back in the window then grabs my hand and with a grin says, “C’mon,” leading me to the back of the store. “First one’s always free.”

Oh, well. What have I got to lose? What’s she going to tell me? That I’m a selfish hag who only thinks of herself and will now die lonely? Wait. Not sure I really want to hear that. Feeling my hesitation, she turns and smiles at me, then tugs on my hand, pulling me through a doorway with a beaded curtain covering it. She has me sit at a little round table with a fringed purple tablecloth and a crystal ball on it. When she catches me looking at the crystal ball she informs me with a chuckle that it’s just for the effect.

“Okay, are you right or left handed?” she asks when she sits down. I tell her I’m a rightie and she takes that hand in hers, closes her eye and begins swaying in her chair chanting some gibberish and I have to admit I’m a little freaked out. After several seconds of this, she pops open one eye, and at the expression of alarm on my face, she starts cackling. “I’m just kidding!”

“Oh,” I mumble, again not knowing what to say.

“Oh, hon, lighten up.” She grins at me. “I just like to mess with people.”

I smile back, seriously not knowing how to take her. This is all just kind of bizarre.

“Let me first say this, your grandparents were the nicest people,” she continues. “I know you miss them a lot.”

I nod because of course I do. Anyone who knows my history with them would know this.

She now looks down at the table as if concentrating then looks at my palm. “Let’s see here… I’m sensing a married man… someone you work with maybe? Does the letter ‘A’ mean anything to you?”

Dear God. “Uh, yes, Aidan.”

“He still has feelings for you… you might wanna keep an eye on him…”

I lick my lips nervously. Aidan still has feelings for me? We’ve been broken up for going on seven months. And even though it wasn’t an altogether civilized breakup, on his part, not mine, when I’ve seen him in the office since, he’s been decently friendly but not given a sign at all that he still cares for me.

“There’s a ‘K’ here that’s been around you for many years. I’m sensing a very masculine, protective type… you hurt him a great deal…”

Oh. My. God.

I nod weakly. Ack!

“He feels like he’s here to stay… in your life… but you’re leaving soon, right?”

I bite my lip and nod again.

“Well, hon, I think he’s not too keen on that… your plans might be taking a detour if he has anything to do with it.” She looks at me and now she’s the one nodding. “One last thing that keeps showing up is there’s a little danger around you… someone’s not happy about your being here… so be careful.” She smiles at me and lets my hand go. “Well, that wasn’t too bad, was it?”

I clear my throat nervously. “No, I’d have to say it was pretty spot on.”

“I freak some people out. I get it. But you just have this aura about you, as if your grandparents are still around you, and I couldn’t resist. Sorry if I came on too strong.”

“No, it’s okay,” I say. She has freaked me out some but she’s really very nice, so no harm no foul.

She pushes her chair back and stands then holds her hand out to me. I take it and she says, “It was very nice meeting you, Amelia. I hope I’ll see you again soon.”

“Well, you would know,” I say with a chuckle as we start to walk to the front of the store.

She chuckles too. “Yes, I guess I would.”

“I’ll definitely think about the Chanel,” I say. “Thank you, Elise.”

“You’re so welcome, Amelia. I wish you the best.”

I smile and leave the store, still a little weirded out as I walk to Shop and Bag where I buy coffee, sugar, cream, some fresh cinnamon rolls from the bakery up the street, bread, a variety of lunchmeat plus condiments and potato chips. I’ll do lunch at the station and eat dinner at Mags’ I guess.

Back at the station, I spend several hours cleaning and sprucing up the apartment and being in a shit mood. I know I’m not going to be here long, but I want to be comfortable during my stay, so to cheer myself up a little more, I walk back down the other side of the street to a little shop I noticed on my walk to Jen’s last night that has some kick-ass end tables in the window.

A little bell tinkles when the door opens and a woman hollers from the back, “Be right out!”

I go right to the tables and know I have to have them. They’re shaker-style, painted in a distressed red and each has a single drawer with a wooden knob on it. So cute.

I hear the old wood floor creaking under the woman’s feet as she walks toward me. “Hi, how can I hel—Amelia?”

I look up and frown for a second before I realize who she is. “Piper? Oh, my gosh!”

She comes forward and throws her arms around me in a hug, which I return. “How are you?” she asks as she pulls back, smiling at me.

“I’m good! How about you?”

Piper Knowlton was two years behind me in school but we became fast friends when she started dating Brody their sophomore year and I was a senior. She’s still adorably cute, being all of five feet nothing, and I’ve always envied her gorgeous strawberry blond hair with its natural wave that she now has pulled back in a bun which is why I didn’t recognize her at first.

“When did you get back in town?” She looks up at me with her curious sky blue eyes.

“Yesterday. And I’ve already made a drunken fool of myself. Thanks for asking,” I say with a laugh.

“Well, that doesn’t sound like you at all,” she says with a snicker. We’d partied many times together my senior year because Kade was gone and she and Brody felt responsible for keeping me occupied.

“That’s me, party girl!” I say still chuckling, rolling my eyes and shaking my head. “So I’ve seen Brody a couple times. When are you two getting hitched so we can throw a real party?”

Her smile fades and she gets a melancholy look before stating, “We broke up last year.”

This shocks the heck out of me because they were always the perfect couple, so cute and sweet together. “What? Oh, I’m so sorry, Piper.”

“Yeah, me too. If you see his stupid ass again, tell him he needs to get a freakin’ clue, will you?”

I chuckle. “I’ll definitely give him a piece of my mind when I see him next.”

“Come sit down and let’s catch up!” She grabs my hand pulling me toward a little seating area near the back and we sit on the cutest little loveseat. Then she says, “How about some tea?” and jumps up heading to a counter.

“That’d be great, thanks. This sofa is adorable,” I tell her looking down at it and running a hand over the cushion as she gets a tea service out of a cabinet.

She glances over with a smile and continues with our drinks. “It’s actually a slipcover I made. I saw the material and had to have it.”

We go on with our small talk, catching each other up on what’s been going on in our lives the last five years until the teakettle whistles. She then pours the water into a teapot and brings it over to the coffee table on a small, china tray that has a matching tea service on it.

“Everything in this store is so cute!” I exclaim. I think I might have to buy the same tea service too, it’s so sweet.

“Thank you. It’s a mish mash of pretty much everything you can imagine. I kinda have eclectic tastes when it comes to furnishing a home,” she replies with a laugh. Before she even sits down, she gets back on topic and informs me, “So the reason Brody and I broke up was our kids.”

I frown in confusion at her. “Your kids?”

“Yep.” She pops the “P” with her lips irritably and fills our cups from the teapot. “Our nonexistent kids.” She rolls her eyes at me and I wait for her to go on. “So, you know the Kellys, they’re Catholic, right? Well, I’m Protestant.” She says this as if it explains everything.

“Uh, okay,” I say, still confused.

She starts laughing. “Catholics usually have big families. You know, like they used to not approve of birth control, so families had, like, twelve kids or something crazy like that.” She wrinkles her cute little button nose.

I shake my head, still confused.

She sighs. “I want two kids. Brody wants five. He says it’s because he’s Catholic, but he doesn’t even go to church so I’m thinking he’s just using it as an excuse. I don’t know what else is going on, but anyway, we argued forever about it. Then we finally just ended up agreeing to disagree and that was the end of that.”

“You guys have been together for, what, twelve years?”

“Would have been twelve this year. We were sixteen when we started dating but broke up last year. I’m twenty-eight now, so you do the math, Ms. CPA.” She winks at me.

“Wow. That’s just, well, that’s kinda stupid,” I say with a disbelieving chuckle.

“I thought so too. But he’s adamant that he wants five kids, wasn’t even willing to compromise, and since I don’t agree, all I could do was walk away.”

Boy, am I going to give Brody a piece of my mind next time I see him.

“Well, I’m truly very sorry about that, Piper. You can bet that I’ll be talking to him soon.”

She laughs. “I doubt it’ll do any good. He’s pretty set on his magic number five for some reason, like he’s wanting to start a basketball team or something.” She shakes her head as she takes another drink. “Anyway, how’s living in the big city?”

We chat for a bit more and I love catching up with her. She was always such a sweetheart and the store fits her perfectly, so classy and cool with its unique pieces. I tell her I saw the end tables in the window last night and end up buying two of them, a slipcover for my loveseat that’s similar to the pattern on hers but with more reds in it, a beautiful antique looking area rug, a nightstand and a really awesome headboard that looks like it’s part of a picket fence that also has distressed red paint just like the end tables and nightstand. There’s also a big, cushy chair that I find I love because it’s so comfortable and the upholstery is a muted red that’ll go with everything, so I get it too along with a couple other knick-knacky things. After I pay, she helps me load everything into the back of her old pickup and drives me the two blocks to the station.

After we get everything inside, she helps me get the chair upstairs which is pretty comical what with its huge size and her tiny frame but we manage somehow. “Thanks so much, Mill! Gotta get back to the store, but it was so good seeing you again.” She gives me another hug. “Let’s do lunch or dinner soon, okay?”

“You bet,” I tell her with a smile. I walk her out the door and she gives me a wave as she hops up into the truck then drives away.

I glance over at Kade’s store and see him in the window talking to an attractive blond woman who I assume is a customer, showing her what looks like a piece of crown molding. She’s standing so close to him that every time one of them moves, her breasts brush against his arm, and she’s moving
a lot
. She then says something and he throws his head back and laughs which is so damned attractive. I notice that she thinks so too as she glances up at him in awe. Ugh. His head comes down and he shakes it then through the window he sees me watching him and raises a hand in a wave. I give him a quick wave then disappear back into the station, my face flushed for getting caught staring at him.

I spend the rest of the day taking everything upstairs and situating it, and my little apartment is beginning to look better. I’m not sure why I’m putting so much into it since I won’t be staying long, but I rationalize everything by telling myself (again) that I want to be comfortable while I’m here. Anyway, as I look around, I can’t help but smile because the small space looks so much better now, almost like home.

Chapter 5

That night I’m awakened by a crash and sit straight up in bed with a gasp.

I do this all the time, though. I’ll be asleep or maybe I’m in that twilight slumber world where you’re sleeping and you know you’re sleeping, but you’re kind of technically awake since you know you’re sleeping, yet again you’re not? Yeah, well, I’m always thinking I hear noises like crashes or knocks. I know, weird.

That’s what I’m hoping this is until I hear a woman screaming. It’s not a frightened scream, although it scares the dickens (yet again, thanks, Papaw) out of me. No, it’s a laughing scream as if someone crept up on her and hollered, “Boo!” and she realized they were teasing so she threw a laugh in on the scream. A few seconds later, I hear a car’s tires squealing as it takes off.

I look at my bedside clock to see that it’s 2:31am. Okay, Jen’s just closed at two, so it’s probably some rowdy bar patrons who parked close, some guy sneaked up and scared his girlfriend, she screamed and now they’re getting the heck out of town.

I lie down and try to go back to sleep, but something’s not sitting right in my head. I get up and put my robe on then go check downstairs. I don’t take a flashlight because all those crazy women in horror movies do that. I mean, why the hell would they do that and let the killer know where they are? They may as well just wear a neon sign over their head that blinks on and off saying, “Here I am! Kill me!” Or, even dumber, they’ll say, “Is somebody there?” again calling attention to themselves making it so easy for the killer to find them, which just pisses me off. Okay, okay, I know I’ve gone straight to serial killers and murderers the last two nights, but any single woman living alone, I don’t care how small the town is, I’m sure has done the same. Unless I’m just particularly more chicken than the rest.