“Just left the doctor. Same ol’ stuff.” He turned, and Gerard noticed his thick, wiry gray eyebrows.
“Is Jill outside?”
“You know she is. That old goose won’t let me out of her sight.” He laughed, and it turned into a rattling bark. Gerard flinched at the harsh sound, but Bri didn’t turn away. Rather, she touched his shoulder as he finished the coughing fit. “Let me get you an iced coffee to go.”
He started to protest.
“Don’t worry, I’ll make it decaf. Soy milk.”
He clutched his to-go bag. “But I already paid.”
“Good thing I know the manager, then.” She winked at him as she whipped up his drink.
Betty. And Jill? Gerard couldn’t figure it out, but he was intrigued—and even more mesmerized by the way Bri transformed while taking care of the man.
He opened his Word document and typed some notes, keeping a sporadic eye on the animated, beaming pastry chef behind the counter. Bri handed the man a to-go cup with a secured lid, and he thanked her with a slightly shaky voice that Gerard could tell used to bark with authority. He’d bet anything the man was former military.
Marine, by the way he held his shoulders.
Bri helped him tuck the pastry bag into his baggy jacket pocket. “Don’t keep Betty waiting, now.”
“I’d never dream of it. That Jill, though, you gotta watch her. She’ll bite.” Mr. Mac chuckled, and it turned into a cough.
Bri patted his back. “I’ll see you next week, sir.”
“Not if I see you first.”
Gerard bit into a petit four by habit, not even desiring the sugar but finding it awakening something in him regardless. Somehow, being in Story—more specifically, watching Bri interact with her community—was like having a front-row seat to a play, one deserving of a snack and the full experience.
Bri carried Mr. Mac’s coffee for him as he ambled out of the shop with his walker. Gerard’s gaze followed them outside, where a round, gray-haired woman in blue scrubs opened the door to a silver Crown Victoria. Bri chatted with her for a moment, holding her hair back with one hand as the wind kept threatening to toss it in front of her face.
She could be on the cover of Trek.
Gerard looked quickly back down at his notes. What was wrong with him? Something about Bri made it hard for him to look away.
He better nip that in the bud. Remy had been right—that fateful conversation in Paris when he was twenty-one had left him starry-eyed in the presence of his media hero. The traveling photo journalist had won every award possible and was only in his forties at the time. He knew how to document life because he’d lived it. He’d turned traveling into an art form and inspired Gerard, a college student at the time, to write about it just as artistically. If not for Remy, Gerard wouldn’t be where he was today.
Standing by the Seine, Remy had warned him not to fall in love, not to lock himself into a lifetime of regret and pain as he’d done.
“Chase after the story, son. Don’t let it catch you.”
Gerard had naively nodded, hanging on to every word he’d said. But a few years later, he met Kelsey and forgot everything his mentor had said that day. He’d gotten caught.
Gerard’s inner defenses rose, effectively guarding the place Kelsey had left raw. The door swung shut behind Bri as she reentered the bakery. Jaw cocked, he leaned back in his chair. “So, who was that? The town bachelor?”
“Mr. Mac?” Bri rubbed her arms through her baggy sweatshirt sleeves as if chilled. The smile she’d had while visiting with the older man still lingered. “Hardly. He’s the most devoted man I know.”
“To who? Betty or Jill?” Gerard snorted.
“Betty. He’s been married sixty-five years.”
“Does Jill know?”
Bri’s smile faded, and her eyes iced over. “She drives Mr. Mac to the graveyard to see Betty once a week.”
Oh.
“So yeah, I’d say she knows.” Bri crossed her arms. “Jill is Mr. Mac’s nurse.”
He swallowed. “I’m—”
“A jerk? Agreed.”
He couldn’t argue that at all.
Bri slowly walked the deposit bag of the day’s receipts, checks, and cash to the bank, the late afternoon sun warm against her cheeks despite the November chill cutting through her jeans. She replayed that morning’s conversation with Gerard over and over in her mind but was unable to come up with any explanation other than he was simply a bitter bachelor.
Permanent bachelor, she’d wager.
She waited in line for the next available teller, foot tapping an anxious rhythm on the tile floor as the hum of the heater filled the quiet lobby. Of all the bitter, negative approaches to life. First, he actually expressed his sympathies toward a newly engaged woman, then he had the audacity to assume the worst about the sweetest old man in the entire town. The faster Gerard Fortier wrote this feature and got out of Story, the better.
It still bugged her that he was French—even if it was only a quarter.
“Well, now, Bri Duval. I thought that was you!” The woman in front of her caught her eye and smiled with overly lined red lips, her dyed blonde hair coiffed to perfection.
Bri stiffened. Sandra Thompson, town gossip. Normally Bri wasn’t one to label people, but Sandra had actually written the town gossip column when that was still a popular thing in the local paper, well over a decade ago. And it was still a thing—one Sandra took seriously, even if it wasn’t published anymore and she now ran a secondhand shop over on Fern. She knew everything about everyone in town, and still held a grudge toward Bri for breaking up with Charles.
“Hi, Sandra.” Bri quickly turned off her negative thoughts toward Gerard. She didn’t believe in mind reading, but Sandra had an uncanny radar. It wasn’t worth the risk.
