Ever since applying for the job I’d been experimenting with my hair to come up with a better style than how I always wore it (loose, ponytail or braid). I hated using pins and barrettes, which hurt my scalp, but sometimes while I was reading I would twist up my hair and use a pair of black and mother-of-pearl chopsticks to hold it off my neck. I tried that and liked the way it looked.
I went to get my flat-soled black shoes, and nearly walked into Grayson.
“Hey.” He shuffled backward and stuck his hands in his back pockets. “You look nice.”
This from Gray, who barely spared me a grunt when he was in a good mood, and had been mostly mute around me since Halloween. I decided he should get a taste of the silent treatment, and walked around him.
Gray followed me to my bedroom, where he caught the door before I could close it in his face. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
I looked at him while I began silently counting to sixty.
“Trick said I should … ” He stopped and braced an arm on the door frame. “I mean, I apologize. For this morning.”
So it wasn’t his idea. That made the apology so much more sincere. I shook my head and tried to close the door again.
He stopped it with one huge hand. “I’m also sorry I’ve been kind of a jerk lately.”
Kind of? Understatement of the millennium. I started tapping my foot.
“It’s not your fault. It’s me. So I’m sorry. Okay?”
He still wouldn’t look me in the eye, and I was tired of standing there. I turned my back on him and went to find my shoes.
“Cat, you don’t have to go work in town,” Gray said. “I’ll move out to the barn.”
Laughter bubbled up inside me, and I let it loose. I couldn’t help it; the thought of Gray spending all of winter break sleeping in the hayloft was just too funny.
“I’m serious.”
So he sounded. I slipped on my shoes and came out to see him standing by the window. Sometimes I stood there to look out and admire the birds that sometimes perched in the pine tree next to the house. Sometimes I did other things which I didn’t think about when I was around my brothers. “You’re not moving out of the house.”
He glanced at me, his expression wary but hopeful. “I’m not?”
“You’ll freeze out there, or our new problem child will bust out of her stall and trample you to death.” I pointed at the wound on his temple. “I know it was Rika who kicked you in the head.”
“How?”
“The dent in your skull is too narrow; Flash has a wider hoof. Besides, the only thing that palomino loves more than sulking is you.” I picked up my purse to make sure I had my wallet and some lip balm. “I’m not getting a job so I can avoid you. You’re off the hook.”
He walked over to me. “Then why are you doing it?”
Trick must have put him up to this, I realized, to see if I’d tell Gray something different. When it came to interfering in my life, my brothers were like a championship tag team.
“You can’t tell Trick,” I warned. When he nodded, I sat down on the edge of my bed and put on my best woeful face. “There’s this guy I want to see.”
“Yeah?” He reached back and shut the door. “Who is he?”
“He’s really amazing,” I confessed. “Tall, dark, kind of big but not fat. He’s a bit older than me, but I think once he gets to know me the age difference won’t matter.”
Gray’s throat moved as he gulped. “How much older?”
“I don’t know.” I pretended to think. “It’s really hard to tell exactly how old he is. But that doesn’t matter to me. He’s dreamy. A real strong, silent type.”
“Cat, listen,” Gray said quickly. “Whoever this guy is, he sounds like bad news. You can’t—”
“But he’s not. Bad, I mean. I mean, yeah, he might come across that way, but he’s not.” I produced a heartfelt sigh. “He can’t be bad. He’d get fired.”
“Fired?” my brother echoed.
“From his job, silly. I mean, he is the guy in charge around here.” I fluttered my eyelashes. “I love that about James.”
“James?”
I nodded. “James Yamah.”
“You have a crush on Yamah.” He eyed me. “Sheriff Yamah.”
“I know, he’s married and an adult, but that’s no big deal.” I waved my hand to emphasize this. “By the time his divorce is final, I’ll be old enough to get hitched. Then I’ll finally have the life I always wanted. Taking care of Jim, vacuuming out his patrol car, dusting off his gun belt, polishing his mirrored sunglasses—”
His shoulders slumped. “Okay, I get the joke now.”
Knowing he didn’t, I smiled. “Good. When you tell Patrick that you apologized, you be sure and mention that I’m getting a job so I can have something to do over winter break. Something that does not include two nosy, overprotective brothers who never want to let me out of their sight.”
He shuffled his feet. “We care about you.”
I heard the anger and guilt behind the nice words, and had to bite my own tongue to keep from exploding with rage. I couldn’t even think about why I was so angry; I didn’t dare.
It had only been a month, and already this situation was driving me crazy. How was I going to live this normal life for two and a half more years, until I was an adult and could move out?
“I’ve got to go now or I’ll be late for my interview.” I tucked my purse under my arm and walked around Gray to the stairs. I could feel him watching me, but he didn’t follow me down. He was probably waiting for me and Trick to leave so he could search my room for love notes that weren’t there.
I found Trick sitting at the kitchen table and reading a pamphlet the vet had given him on immunizing breeding stock. He had also changed into clean clothes which were, like everything in his closet, black.
“Hey, we match.” I pretended to pat my hair. “Almost.”
“I could shave your head, too, if you’d like.” He inspected me. “That dress makes you look very grown-up.”
“Good, then maybe she’ll be fooled and pay me adult wages.” I glanced at the clock. “You ready to go?”
“Sure.” Trick stuck the pamphlet in his back pocket and took down from the wall rack the keys to Gray’s truck.
We made it all the way out to the driveway before he asked, “Did you and Gray bury the hatchet?”
“He volunteered to spend the winter in the barn.” I shrugged. “I’m still considering the offer.”
“You’re tough.” He opened the truck door for me.
The tight feeling in my chest didn’t start until fifteen minutes later, as we left behind the farmland and crossed over into town. Downtown Lost Lake wasn’t very big—a pitcher with a good arm could probably throw a curve ball from one end to the other—but the townspeople had packed plenty of shops along the two main roads. I’d be spending thirty hours a week here, working alone inventorying books while Mrs. Frost was up north visiting her grandkids.
If I get this job.
As we passed the town’s cemetery, Trick had to veer around two men unloading an angel from the back of a delivery truck. I looked across the headstones at some other men who were digging around the biggest of the family tombs. “Did someone important die?”
“I don’t think it’s a funeral,” he said. “I read in the paper that some vandals damaged one of the tombs. They’re probably fixing it up.”
“That’s gruesome.” My voice cracked on the last word. “Sorry, I’m a little nervous. When you were working for that computer company, did you ever hire anyone? I mean, do interviews with them?”
He nodded. “A few times. Why?”
“I think I need a practice run.” I sat up a little straighter. “Okay, ask me some interview questions.”
He thought for a moment. “How many programming languages do you know?”
I glared at him. “First pretend you’re the little old lady owner of a bookstore café.”
In a deliberate falsetto, he asked, “Who wrote War and Peace ?”
“Tolstoy. That’s too easy. And quit it with the silly voice.”
He nodded. “Who was the author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings ?”
“Dr. Maya Angelou.” I crossed my arms over the butterflies filling my stomach. “Ask me something about me.”
He pulled the truck into one of the slanted parking spaces along main street. “Have you lied about anything on your application?”
I felt bewildered. “Why would I lie?”
“You’d be surprised.” He put the truck in park and shut off the engine. “What do you consider your greatest personal strength?”
I’m a great liar. Not that I could say that to Mrs. Frost or Trick. “I’m a hard worker, and I don’t need to be supervised.” Which made two strengths, not one. “Which is the better answer?”
“Either one.” He turned toward me. “Now what’s your greatest personal weakness?”
“I don’t have any job experience.” That didn’t sound so great, and then I knew what to add. “Yet.”
“I think you’re ready.”
I looked down the block at the powder-blue and white front façade of Mrs. Frost’s shop. The hand-painted sign hanging from a bracket by the door made me want to giggle—or maybe it was hysteria setting in. I got out and joined my brother on the sidewalk, and fought back the impulse to call the whole thing off so he could take me back home.
I felt so jumpy I could have hopped all the way home. “I’m glad the shop will be closed for the holidays. If it were staying open, she’d probably make me say, ‘Welcome to Nibbles and Books’ to everyone who came in the door.”