It was her second day of working for Archer’s grandmother. And her second day of driving nearly twenty miles out of town to feed his cat that may or may not actually exist.
She was an idiot. That’s what she was.
She twisted the top of the cat food bag closed and returned it to the back seat of her car, then got behind the wheel and drove to Weaver. Twenty miles in a metropolitan area wasn’t much of a big deal. Twenty miles on the very winding road running between Weaver and Braden, on the other hand, took a long time.
When she reached the Cozy Night motel, where she’d been renting a room since Sunday night, it was nearly dark.
Inside the room, though, the lamp worked just fine. She dropped her purse on the nightstand between the two beds—one which was covered entirely with suitcases containing all of the clothes that she hadn’t left in the storage unit in Cheyenne—and kicked off her shoes. It was warm and stuffy in the room after being closed up all day and after she changed out of her suit into a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, she opened the door again to let the air circulate.
It would cool off soon enough and she preferred fresh air rather than the rattling noise and forced chill provided by the air-conditioning unit that was located beneath the room’s only window.
The Cozy Night wasn’t fancy. But it was clean and it was affordable, even if she ended up having to stay there for a month. Which was how things were looking when it came to finding an actual rental.
The two listings on the board at Ruby’s Diner hadn’t panned out. Both had already been rented when she called. There were two apartment complexes on the other side of town, but they were both nearly full. The units available were either too large—and astonishingly, too expensive—or they weren’t coming available until next month.
Nell still didn’t believe she’d have difficulty finding a place to live. Not in Weaver. But if she had to, she could continue staying at the Cozy Night for a while. It wasn’t perfect. With only a dorm-sized refrigerator and a hot plate, it wasn’t exactly equipped with kitchen facilities.
But then again, she hadn’t exactly cooked back in Cheyenne, either.
She extracted a bottle of juice from the refrigerator and carried it with her outside the room.
There was an old-fashioned metal chair that had obviously been painted over a number of times—it was currently a not-unattractive shade of salmon—sitting outside the door of each room. Twenty-two chairs, stretching from one wing to the other. Depending on a person’s viewpoint, it looked either stylishly retro, or completely out of date.
She sat in her chair with her legs outstretched and debated whether she could satisfy herself with a can of soup heated on the hot plate or if she needed to go farther afield. But having spent more than an hour driving back and forth to feed a possibly nonexistent cat with no name, going out again held little appeal.
“Can of soup it is,” she murmured to herself.
But later.
For now, she relaxed in her chair—the metal bounced slightly if she shifted, sort of like a rocker—and sipped her juice.
The motel was situated on top of a small rise on the road before it dipped down again toward what she’d termed “Old Weaver.”
“New Weaver” was the Shop-World region. Cee-Vid was located in New Weaver. It was a large gaming company owned by one of Weaver’s longtime residents, Tristan Clay. She’d learned that from Vivian’s nemesis, Squire, who had indeed been sitting on that same stool in Ruby’s Diner that very afternoon. Tristan was Squire’s youngest son. He’d also told her about his other four sons, who all lived in the area, too.
She’d run into the diner to grab a quick sandwich between errands for Vivian and he’d waved her over, patting the seat beside him.
There was something decidedly engaging about the old man, even though he was one of the roadblocks in the way of Vivian’s library project. Something engaging but also something that struck Nell as a little sad. Maybe the fact that he talked about all of those sons, but still spent every afternoon having lunch in a diner?
But what could a person learn about another person over a half hour? Considering her debacle with Martin, she was having a hard time trusting her own sense of judgment.
From her salmon-colored perch, Nell watched lights begin to flicker. There were a lot more clustered together on the New Weaver side. The population of residents on that side of town was denser. Younger. They were the employees at Cee-Vid. At Shop-World. At the dozens of other small businesses that inevitably cropped up in everyday towns to support the growing needs of those citizens as they settled. Got married. Bought houses and had babies.
An old, rusting car turned into the motel parking lot. Its headlights washed over Nell before it came to a stop in front of the unit next to hers. Even before the engine cut out, the back doors opened and three ginger-haired kids tumbled out.
They spotted her and waved, but their steps didn’t really slow as they raced around the car toward the small, fenced swimming pool that the Cozy Night offered its guests.
George, Blake and Vince.
She’d met the boys on Sunday when their mom, Gardner, who was obviously an avid country music fan, had ordered them to help their new “neighbor” carry her suitcases in from her car.
Gardner and her boys had been living at the Cozy Night for most of the summer now. Which was one of the reasons why Nell figured she could hack it for a while there, too, if it came to that.
“Need any help?” she called to the young mother as she opened her trunk.
Gardner shook her head. “I don’t have much, Nell. Thanks, though.” She ducked momentarily
