She glanced right, trying to remember the layout of the town.
“Wrong way. His place is that way,” said Bear, pointing left.
“Oh, shush.”
When her phone buzzed, an incoming call from her agent in New York, she shooed Bear away and this time jumped on the chance to answer. Only to find herself looking at the original Norman Rockwell painting that lived behind her agent’s desk.
“Nancy?” Sable said.
“Sable, darling!” Nancy slid into view. “Is that really you?”
Sable waved a hand around her face to prove that it was she.
“Oh, my dear girl, how I missed that beautiful face! How’s Hicksville?”
Bear shot Sable a look. Sable just shook her head. “Radiance is...overcast.”
“Lovely. But not as lovely as Greece, I’m sure. That job is still yours if you want it!”
“Not the right time.”
“Darling, it’s always the right time for a paid trip to Greece.”
“I am fine, Nancy. Really.”
“Fine,” Nancy scoffed. “The most loaded word in the English language.”
Sable smiled. For there was no heat in Nancy’s words. They’d known and adored one another too long for all that. Nancy had been gifted to Sable as a part of the international art prize that had taken her to the States in the first place. She’d been the only one in Sable’s circle who’d never warmed to The Chef, despite the heightened profile he’d provided. The only one who’d stood by Sable when his truth had been exposed.
Nancy was more than owed a little sweetener. “What if I told you I found my old box Brownie camera in my mum’s house?”
Nancy’s mouth sprang open.
“With film in it.”
Nancy’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t mess with me, kid.”
“What if I also told you I’d taken a few photos on it too. Small town. Fall foliage. Hyper-nostalgic.”
Nancy grabbed the edges of her monitor, her face filling the screen. “What’s the name of that Nowhere Town, again? I’m coming to you. On the very next flight. So I can hug you. And steal that film and develop it myself.”
“No, you’re not. And I’m not letting you anywhere near my film.”
Nancy sat back, grinning from ear to ear, her cosmetic procedures making sure the smile only went as far as her eyes. “Fine. If Nowhere Town is your way back to finding your spark, then you stay right there, for ever and ever if necessary.”
“Oh, no. No, no, no.” Sable glanced out of the window at the pretty oak-lined avenue right as a flurry of autumn leaves drifted daintily to the ground. Then a pair of little girls in tartan dresses and wintry tights skipped past, holding hands. “Not staying. Just...passing through.”
“Stay as long as it takes, then. Call me any time you need a hit of culture. Or an accent other people can understand. Deal?”
“Deal,” Sable said on a laugh. They said their goodbyes then both rang off.
And Sable’s gaze went to the window once more.
It was a truly pretty town. All park benches and picture windows and overflowing flower pots on the footpath that were still there the next day.
Picturesque and patently photographable as it was, she couldn’t stay. Not for much longer. She’d spent no more than ten minutes with her mother so far, and had already ground a layer off her back teeth.
Then there was Rafe, and her promise he’d never have to see her again.
Just thinking his name had her feeling warm tumbles in her belly and nervous jitters skipping over her skin. Needing to walk it off, Sable stood and slid her arms back into her big coat.
“You off?” Bear asked. “Need me to point the way to the nearest brooding, dark-haired hunk?”
She shot him a look. “No, thanks. I’m all good.”
Besides, the longer she could leave Rafe to think over her proposal, the better. Meaning she had to keep herself busy lest she spy him, drop to her knees and beg. “I think I’ll go check out the sights of the town. See what else has changed around here.”
The sights included a hill that called itself a mountain, a thick twisty forest in which tourists often famously got lost, a closed fairground, and the few local shops she could see from Bear’s front window, which was probably why the big guy snorted his response.
And yet, Sable kept herself busy. Checking out the ancient thrift store, the wool store, the sweet new community library, the cool bike shop.
Most people she met were friendly. Asking if it was cold outside. If they could help her find what she was looking for—and meaning it. But she also felt a few dark looks hit between her shoulder blades, saw a few locals whispering behind cupped hands.
She’d lived in Hell’s Kitchen when she’d first moved to New York. Then spent a year photographing nature, finding life between sidewalk cracks in South Central LA. Small towns really did do hostility like nowhere else.
After a long, long day, jet lag now tugging at her eyelids, emotions having run the full gamut from euphoria to panic, once the sun set behind her, the half-moon casting a smoky dark blue tinge over the hills beyond, she dragged her feet towards the top end of town.
The shops had all closed. Radiance was tucking itself in for the evening.
As if her footsteps had set off some switch, the street lamps along Laurel Avenue flickered to life. Then a zillion fairy lights—strings of orange, strings of purple, twirled prettily around the trunks of the big old trees lining the avenue—sparkled against the inky backdrop of the twilight sky. It was beautiful. Magical. Oozing small-town charm.
Then, right as she wondered if she’d been going the wrong way, as her sense of direction was shocking, there it was. Radiance Restorations. And any feelings of magic, and ease, and charm dried up in a snap.
From memory Stan’s old garage had been a third the size, an old wooden building with a single petrol pump out front. Now it had swallowed the plots
