Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 92938 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92938 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
“Where’d you hear about me and Phoebe?”
He shrugged. Around.
A small pang of humiliation went through me, but I kept my face neutral. “I didn’t see us going anywhere, anyway. It was for the best.”
He assessed me for another moment and then finally said, Okay. He must know I was lying—I’d told Bree the week before that Phoebe and I were serious and I had no doubt Bree and Archer told each other everything. They probably signed all their secrets while snuggled up in their bed in their little gnome cottage. Despite my inner eye rolling, the thought made me feel more depressed than ever. In any case, if Archer knew I was lying—which, again, I was sure he did—he didn’t press the issue.
I was grateful.
His shoes plunked in the water as he showed himself out. I stood there alone, feeling unusually . . . well, alone. Maggie and Norm would take me in, but their place was small too, and they didn’t have an extra room. Plus, if I became an unwitting witness to any sort of domestic displays of physical affection between the two of them, I’d have to find a therapist, or maybe a lobotomist, and a serious medical procedure wasn’t currently in the budget.
I thought of my mother but . . . hell no. I’d had a bad enough week as it was. I wasn’t going to make it worse.
I could pitch a tent on my property if I was truly desperate, but I still had to go to work, and getting ready for a shift with no running water would be challenging.
Spencer would take me in. Spencer would give up his bed and sleep in the bathtub or the doghouse if I asked him to. I massaged my temples, the very thought of enduring Spencer for nights and days on end making my head pound. The other guys who worked for the police department were married, but a few of my good friends at the firehouse who were bachelors might be possibilities—but only if all the B&Bs were actually full.
I grabbed my phone and started making calls.
All the B&Bs were actually full.
The rental cottages too.
I looked at the last B&B listed on the Pelion website I’d gone to. I’d disregarded it because it was in a sketchy area, right on the edge of town, a sort of no man’s land, that wasn’t exactly Pelion, and definitely not the ritzier side of the lake.
The Yellow Trellis Inn.
It was inexpensive compared to the others. And from what I’d heard, for good reason.
It was also run by a woman I’d heard the town refer to as “Batty Betty.” I thought I’d gotten wind of a story floating around about a dead husband and suspicious circumstances but couldn’t recall anything specific.
I picked one foot up, water streaming from my shoes. It couldn’t be worse than this. And definitely better than Archer’s well-worn couch where he and Bree had done who knew what in that little gnome home on the lake.
I picked up the phone and booked the last room they had available. “It has a lake view,” the woman on the phone promised, enthusiastically.
“Great,” I said. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, but in that moment, the promise of a lake view buoyed my mood just a tad. Even this rental I lived in didn’t have a lake view. Then I packed some clothes, my work gear, and a few accessories into a duffel bag, all of which thankfully hadn’t been rained upon by upstairs plumbing, grabbed a dry pair of shoes, and headed to my car.
**********
The room definitely didn’t have a lake view.
“Right there,” the woman named Betty with the frizzy halo of blonde hair said, pressing her face against the glass and angling it to the side. “If you crane your head just so, you can see the edge of the lake.” She turned and smiled brightly as if having to meld yourself with the window to see an inch of water made it the finest room in the house.
What I could see—clearly and directly outside my window—was what appeared to be a headstone. “Is that a grave?” I asked.
“Oh that.” She waved her hand, dismissing it. “That’s where an old barn cat that used to roam the property is buried.”
I peered out the window again. The headstone seemed sizable for a barn cat. Not to mention there was no barn in sight.
Batty Betty. Yet she seemed mostly normal.
I gave her one more suspicious glance before looking around the room. It wasn’t terrible. It was actually what I’d call somewhat . . . charming. Or at least on the verge of charming. Within range of charming. More importantly, it had a bed and a bathroom, so I wasn’t going to complain about not having a view of the lake, but instead, a cat’s tombstone. I’d been looking at that particular lake since I was born.