Bed of Roses

CHAPTER FOUR CLEOPATRA

CHAPTER FOUR

CLEOPATRA

S am dressed in charcoal gray slacks, a dark green blouse, and slipped her feet into her favorite pair of soft gray suede high heels. She checked her reflection in the long antique mirror and caught a glimpse of a calendar hanging on the wall behind her. She had arrived in Homestead on Valentine’s Day, and it was already the last day of March.

“Well, now,” Kathleen said from the foyer as Sam walked down the curved oak staircase, “don’t you look nice!”

“Thank you.” Sam smiled. “So do you.”

When there were guests at Rose Garden, Kathleen wore jeans and a T-shirt, one step above her preferred outfit of well-worn bibbed overalls and torn flannel shirt when the roses were calling to her. That night, she had chosen a black power suit with a lovely gold rose brooch pinned to the lapel. Sam was still learning Kathleen, but she knew that when Kathleen wore her black suit, she meant business.

“Tonight, I’m the mayor, so I have to be presentable.” Kathleen chuckled.

Loretta came from the kitchen with a silver tray of cheese straws in her hands. “I’m not anyone special, but I dressed up anyway.” She had topped a flowing multicolored skirt with a bright orange blouse, belted at her tiny waist with a wide orange ribbon. Her matching earrings clinked as she swished around the room, setting up snacks and swiping imaginary dust off the occasional surface as she went.

“Y’all both look amazing,” Sam said. “What can I do to help?”

“Greet folks at the door and send them into the living room,” Kathleen answered. “Everything else is ready to go. Most of them have been here before and already know where to go.”

“Do you always have city council meetings here?” Sam asked.

“Only a couple of times a year,” Loretta answered. “The rest of the time we hold them at the church, but there’s a wedding going on tonight.”

Folks started to file in as the meeting approached. Some headed to the dining room for refreshments. Others went directly to the living room and found seats on one of the settees or claimed one of the folding chairs that Loretta and Sam had hauled up from the basement and had set up around the room.

“Good evening, everyone.” Kathleen raised her voice. “It’s time for us to begin this meeting.”

She gave them a few minutes to quiet down and for the stragglers to take their seats. “The main focus of our meeting tonight is to discuss the Easter egg hunt and gather donations for the plastic eggs and candy to fill them,” Kathleen said. “And we’ll need volunteers to help stuff them. Donnie Stapleton, can I depend on you for your usual five hundred donation?”

“Of course,” an older man dressed in a suit and tie said from the back of the room. “The bank is glad to donate to the cause.”

A tingling down deep in Sam’s heart told her that Noah was nearby before he even nudged her arm with his elbow. “Sorry I’m late, I had a last-minute customer who could talk the ears off a brass monkey.”

I’m not attracted to a taken man. I am definitely not attracted to a taken man , Sam repeated as she scolded herself and straightened her shoulders.

“Noah, I see that you made it,” Kathleen said.

“Better late than never,” he said with a wave. “As always, I’ll make sure there is plenty of candy to fill the eggs.”

“I’ll chip in another five hundred to be sure that we have plenty of eggs,” an older lady with ink black hair said. “Last year there were so many kids that some of them only had one or two in their baskets. Our little event has started drawing children from Linden and Jefferson and all in between.”

At that moment, the front door opened and closed with a loud bang. Nibbler let out a warning bark at the entry of someone new. The click of stiletto heels on the heart pine floors grew louder as Laura rounded the corner and made her grand entrance.

Her eyes skipped over Noah’s face before landing on Sam’s face right beside him and shooting a dirty look toward her before she turned back to Kathleen.

“Seems I got here in the nick of time. I have an idea I want to float.”

“Let’s hear it,” Kathleen said, gesturing for Laura to come up front to talk.

“I vote that we have the egg hunt on Saturday at the same time the other towns have theirs. That way we won’t get a lot of overflow, and …” She glanced around the room and paused.

Sam was pretty sure that Laura was checking for anyone that might be nodding in agreement. If that was the case, then the woman was definitely disappointed, because all eyes had turned toward Kathleen.

After a pregnant moment, Laura went on, “We wouldn’t have to gather as many donations because kids from other towns wouldn’t be showing up out of the woodwork. So, I say we vote. All those who agree, raise your hand.”

“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” Loretta popped up on her feet. “We’re not going to vote that fast. All y’all need time to think about Laura’s proposal. This has been Homestead’s tradition since the first year when we started having the community egg hunt. We should leave the floor open for discussion for at least five minutes before we put it to a vote.”

“I, for one, like to keep our traditions as they are and not change them, but I’m going to let y’all discuss Laura’s idea before we make a decision,” Kathleen said.

“Five minutes or five hours wouldn’t be enough time to think about changing a tradition that goes back to when I was a little boy,” the guy in the suit said. “I make a motion that we table Laura’s suggestion until next year. Then we can bring it back up again and see how everyone feels.”

Sam glanced over at Noah. His eyes were closed as if he would rather be anywhere in the world but in that room. She suspected Noah was in a tough spot. If he didn’t agree with his girlfriend, she could and probably would give him the cold shoulder until she got her way. If he did agree with her, he would be sacrificing his own opinion to make her happy and going against what the whole town seemed to want. She didn’t envy his situation.

“Let’s vote on Donnie’s idea to table this for a year,” Loretta said. “It’s not even three weeks until Easter, and I’ve heard a lot of folks have already planned their afternoon around the egg hunt.”

“All in favor of revisiting this maybe in January of next year to give the people more time to make plans, raise your hand,” Kathleen said.

Every hand in the room went up—except Laura’s. Daggers shot from her eyes as she surveyed the sea of raised hands. She narrowed her eyes at Kathleen and then stormed out past Noah and Sam to the foyer.

Sam whipped around when Nibbler’s growl was cut off by a yip of genuine pain out in the hallway. The poor boy was cornered near the front door, and Laura’s foot was pulled back and aimed at him for what must be a second kick.

“Hey!” Sam bellowed so loud that everyone turned to look at her.

Laura swung around, and Nibbler scampered away from her. Her high-heeled shoe came down so heavy that it sounded like a shotgun blast on the hardwood floor. She pointed at Sam, then jerked her finger around at Nibbler, who had cowered near Sam and growled again. “You keep that filthy dog away from me. You don’t belong here, neither does he.”

Sam took a step forward and bowed up like a mama bear, moving closer until Laura’s red-painted fingernail poked into her sternum. Her fists were clenched so tightly at her sides that her fingernails bit into her palms.

“If you ever kick my dog again,” she whispered through clenched teeth, “I will shove my foot so far up your ass that every time you brush your teeth, you’ll be shining my shoes.”

“Don’t you talk to me in that tone,” Laura growled.

“You may be on a pedestal of your own making, but I don’t have to bow down to you or even look up to you. However, if you ever want to come down to earth, I would be glad to help humble you.”

“I’m leaving,” Laura snapped. “But I’m telling you, if that dog ever growls at me again …”

“Don’t say it unless you want to face the consequences,” Sam said, grateful that Kathleen had control of the meeting, and no one was listening to the catfight in the foyer.

Flames sparkled in Laura’s icy blue eyes. “Oh yeah? Well, honey ,” she said in a low growl that would have rivaled anything Nibbler could do, “when that old hag dies, I’m running for mayor, and I’m gonna run this town the way I see fit.”

“Come on, Laura. I’ll take you home,” Noah whispered and stepped between the women and reached for Laura’s hand.

“I can drive myself.” She yanked her arm out of his reach. “You just stay here with all your friends .”

Laura slammed the door behind her so hard the chandelier above Sam and Noah shook. The sound of her car tearing out of the driveway followed.

Noah turned to Sam with a hopeless look on his face. “I am so sorry about that. I don’t know what got into her. You’ve been catching her on really bad days. She ain’t always like this. I don’t know where this came from.”

“Alright,” Kathleen’s voice floated from the meeting. “Let’s talk about prizes and a day to meet up to stuff eggs. Then we can end our meeting, and everybody can get home for dinner. Marvin, would your oldest boy, Wayde, be willing to be the Easter Bunny again this year at the egg hunt?”

“Of course,” Marvin said.

Nibbler limped over to Noah and put both front paws on his knees. Noah crouched and pulled him gingerly into his arms. He checked his leg and hip by pressing around softly, watching the dog’s face closely as he did. “I believe he’s okay, but I’ll be glad to take him to the vet in Jefferson first thing in the morning to be extra safe.”

Sam sighed and watched Nibbler lick fervently at Noah’s cheek as his sad golden-brown eyes scanned the dog’s body, his hand still pressing around the dog’s left hip. “Let’s just wait and see.”

“I’m sorry again. That was unacceptable. I will talk to her once she cools down a bit. Thank you for understanding.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but he focused on Nibbler. “I’m sorry, old boy. I promise you will get every treat in the shop after this ordeal.”

He gently handed him off to Sam. “I should get going. Tell Kathleen I’ve already ordered the candy, and it should be delivered next week. And tell her to put my name on the list to help stuff the eggs again this year. He stood up and dusted his pant legs off absentmindedly before looking down at Sam. “Again, I’m sorry. See you tomorrow, maybe?”

“I reckon so,” Sam said with a nod. “Nibbler gets cranky if he doesn’t get his evening walk each night. And I’m getting very spoiled getting that cozy little reading nook all to myself, and Loretta probably needs a new cowboy romance or two anyhow.”

“You’re a good person, Sam. I’m glad you came to Homestead.” His smile couldn’t erase the sadness in his eyes. He waved over his shoulder and disappeared outside.

Sam watched him on the path as long as she could by lamplight glow and then went back to the living room in time to hear Kathleen ask about prizes for the egg hunt. “In the past we’ve always given a bicycle to the winner in each group. What do y’all think about giving them a bag of books to encourage reading?”

“I like that idea,” a woman on the sofa said, “but let’s do both. A bicycle to the kid in each age group who finds the prize egg, and a set of age-appropriate books to the second-place winners.”

“I’ll sponsor the three bikes like I do every year,” the man wearing a collared shirt with Gill Drugs embroidered on the chest piped in.

A lady in a blue hoodie with Homestead Produce emblazoned across the back raised her hand. “Put me down for the books. I’ll talk to Noah to be sure which ones to buy.”

Another guy’s hand shot up. “I’ll take care of a third-place prize for each group. My wife and I will give the child and their family a free dinner at the restaurant.”

“Plus dessert?” Loretta queried.

“With ice cream,” the lady who must have been his wife confirmed with a smile, and a soft chorus of chuckles bubbled around the room.

Nibbler lay sleeping in Sam’s arms, his head tucked into the crook of her elbow as the meeting continued, a roomful of people working together to ensure the Easter festivities would be the best they could be for the kids in their town and the surrounding counties.

This whole town is cut from good cloth , Inez whispered in her mind. Sam agreed. Homestead wasn’t just a town. It was an extended family that had gathered that night in Kathleen’s home. By the time the meeting had ended, Sam’s blood pressure was back to normal, even if she couldn’t forget about Laura and her shitty attitude. She wondered if Noah was tracking Laura down to talk to her right now. What would he say to her? Every family tree has a few rotten apples, and Sam could spot one when she saw or smelled it—red-soled stilettos or not.

The next day, there was only one elderly couple staying at the B&B. The man and his wife had talked Loretta and Kathleen into playing canasta with them after dinner, so Sam snapped Nibbler’s leash on him and headed out as Loretta cleared the dining room table for the card game. As spring pushed winter into the history books, the sun started setting later and later in the day, Noah kept the bookstore open until seven p.m., and she’d stop by most evenings. Sometimes she could only drop in for a minute or two, but if she had the time, she and Nibbler would escape to the back room to hole away in the softest chairs in Homestead. She would read as Nibbler snored.

That evening, Noah met them at the corner of the town square. “I was on my way to see about Nibbler. I was worried his leg was hurting him when I hadn’t seen y’all yet.”

“I think he’ll pull through,” she whispered as Nibbler recognized Noah and began dancing around his legs. “He was downright pitiful after you left, well, ’til Kathleen fed him all the sympathy treats he could eat before he almost barfed. I apologize for him for the way he acted with Laura. I don’t know why, but he just seems to have a bone to pick with that woman. He does the same thing with Jack Reynolds.”

Noah turned around and walked with Sam and Nibbler back to the shop. “He’s got good reason not to like Jack,” he said as he unlocked the door and held it open for them.

“And that is?”

He took a breath before answering her. “Jack ain’t a good person,” he answered and changed the subject. “I got a new box of romance novels in today, and it got me thinking. I’ve got a proposition for you.”

“Oh, yeah?” Sam set the tote bag down on the floor beside the front desk.

“So, I was wondering …” he said, “would you be willing to write a short, one-paragraph review for some of the books you are reading? I could pay you a little bit for each one you write. Reviews help tremendously when selling books online. No pressure if you don’t want to, just thought it might be fun for you to do, and it’d help me on the store’s website.”

Sam was so intent on listening to Noah that she didn’t notice that Nibbler had woven a cat’s cradle around her legs with his leather leash. She started to take a step but then realized that her legs were hog-tied. She let out a muffled oof as her head collided with Noah’s collarbone. He wrapped his arms tightly around her and held her upright.

When she caught her breath, she reached down to untangle the leash from around her and unhook it from Nibbler’s collar. She stood back up to see the strangest look in Noah’s amber-colored eyes. Hunger, wariness, something so intense that Sam’s cheeks started to burn. He pulled away abruptly and stuck his hands in his pockets, clearing his throat loudly and looking anywhere in the room except at her.

“Oh Lord, I’m sorry, I don’t know how Nibbler even did that!” she said in a hoarse voice.

“I’m just glad you didn’t bang your head on the corner of the desk. Kathleen would have my hide if I let you get hurt while you’re here. And if you came back one night with a black eye or something, I can’t even imagine what she’d do. Next time you’d see me, I could be the new rug in the dining room at Rose Garden.” He grinned before looking away again and stepping back another step.

“Well, fret not. I survived. Your hide is safe from tanning for another day. Thanks to your quick thinking.”

Why did her voice sound shaky in her head? He feels the sparks between the two of you too. The devil on her shoulder was giddy, hopping up and down, begging for her attention.

She brushed her shoulder off as if there were dust on it and shook her head. Get thee behind me, Satan. I’m not a homewrecker. I will not do what has been done to me. It was an awkward accident.

“Yes,” she blurted out.

“Yes, to what?” he asked, looking back at her face, confused.

“I’m agreeing to do reviews for you, but you don’t have to pay me. I’ll write them for getting to read the books without having to buy them,” she answered. “It’s a fair trade.”

“Great! Pick out however many you want and whatever Loretta and Kathleen sent you down for, and I’ll bag them up while you and Nibbler claim your favorite spot.”

Sam inhaled deeply, loving the scent of the mixture of old books, the aged wooden floors of the shop, and—was that Stetson aftershave? She would have figured Noah would wear something far more expensive, but the smell brought her back to childhood. She used to dab the little tester bottles of perfume and cologne on her wrists and arms as a young girl, bored out of her mind at the Clinique counter with her mother in the local department store on Saturday afternoons. She once poured the whole bottle of Stetson’s English Leather on herself by accident, then attempted to cover up her error by dousing the rest of her damp shirt in Miss Dior. She remembered her daddy asking her mama why their six-year-old smelled like a French bordello when they got home that afternoon and Wanette laughing and making Samantha explain. The whole house smelled like Stetson for a week even after Wanette washed her clothes a third time.

She had never picked up the scent of cologne in the shop before, only the warm tones of old paper and sawdust, coffee and cedar. But then, she had never been as close to Noah physically as she had been today in his arms.

“You should have a company create candles to capture the aroma of this place,” she said, focusing back on the room, not the man in front of her.

Noah nodded toward the front of the store. Candles, cute little wooden signs about book lovers, and even a few T-shirts embellished with Mark Twain and Jane Austen quotes lined several shelves. “Good idea, but it’s already been done. I sell a lot of that stuff around the holidays, or during the tourist season, which will be coming up real soon. There’s a jar candle up there that really does smell like old wood floors and used books.”

“Tourists travel all this way back into the woods?” Sam asked.

“Oh, yes, they do. They go to Jefferson for all the antiques stores, but they make the trek over here to wander through the stores on our historic town square. You’ve been to all the shops now, haven’t you?”

“Not yet. I rode into town with Jack, and from what I could see, his auto business and a bunch of stores between there and here were either empty buildings or closed for the day,” Sam answered. “Right here is as far as I’ve really wandered, other than back to Jack’s to say goodbye to Patsy. Speaking of Patsy, that was really sweet of you to come to her funeral. And to think to bring roses.”

“I knew that you had to be hurting. Kathleen had said y’all were having a funeral, and I thought flowers might help.” He shrugged, but his cheeks reddened just a touch. “But back to the tourist season, Kathleen and I are working on bringing more business back to Homestead. That’s one reason we want to keep the Easter egg hunt on Sunday. We’ve already talked all the stores on the square into staying open from two to five on that day so the folks who bring their kids to the hunt can spend some time here.”

The bell above the door rang, and Sam took a couple of steps toward the reading room and grabbed Nibbler as he attempted to scurry past her to greet the folks walking in.

“Good evening, Kara, Rita Jo. Y’all lookin’ for something in particular?” Noah asked.

Sam made a sharp turn to her left and pretended to suddenly be very interested in the paranormal romance section. She lingered in earshot. She had already seen Kara’s face (and most of her body for that matter) on Jack’s phone, but she wanted to hear her voice.

“Cowboy romance,” Kara said.

“I’m thinking more thriller or gothic horror for me,” Rita Jo answered and then followed Noah’s finger across the room.

Kara cocked her head to one side and raised her voice, “Hey, are you the new girl in town? The one working for Kathleen at the inn?”

Sam wanted to pretend she was deaf, but she turned around and answered Kara, “Yeah, I’m Samantha. How did you know?”

“Jack told me that he hauled in an old Mustang a while back and that the driver was a redheaded woman who got a job working up at the Rose Garden,” Kara answered. “Welcome to Homestead, Samantha. I’m Kara.”

“Thanks, nice to meet you.” A guilty flush washed over Sam.

Kara seemed nice, so why was Jack cheating on her? He and Laura should get together and make each other miserable instead of taking it out on nice people. She waved a little goodbye to Kara before slipping into the back room with her newest book and Nibbler in tow where she eased down into her regular chair. Nibbler had seemed unfazed by Kara and Rita Jo when they came in, wagging his tail instead of growling. Sam took that as a good sign.

* * *

After work on Thursday, Sam refreshed her makeup, spritzed perfume on her hairbrush—just a hint—and put on a white long-sleeved T-shirt with a sketch of a bookshelf, laden with books and the words I Have No Shelf Control printed on the front of the shirt. Liza Beth had given it to her for her birthday, but she’d never worn it until that very evening.

“You know you’re going to have to donate your mess of books to the library if you get married. Chase wouldn’t put up with all that junk lying around,” Liza Beth had said when Sam opened the box and held the shirt up to her chest. Until that very moment, she hadn’t realized that Liza Beth had said if you get married, not when you get married. What a difference one tiny little word could make.

Sam had found out later that Liza Beth and Chase had been sleeping together for a few months at that point. On the morning of her birthday, Chase was in a particularly cheery mood, saying he had to go out for something very important and would be gone most of the day. She had hoped he was about to propose and was buying her an engagement ring.

But he came back with candy in a bag from the gas station and some lotto tickets as her gift. “You’re hard to buy for, so I just grabbed this.”

She noticed his hair was a little damp when he got back to the house, like he had been caught in the rain or had recently showered.

When she got to the bookstore, Noah looked up and smiled, and just like that, Sam was back in the present and rerouted off memory lane.

“Hey, I like your shirt!”

“Thanks, I almost burned it. It’s growth for me to wear it. Kathleen has sent me on a mission of forgiving and forgetting. This is my first step,” Sam replied, pulling the shirt wide and looking down at it.

“I hear a story in that statement,” Noah said and glanced down at the folded-up paper in her hand. “Wow, you got a review ready for me already?”

“Not quite yet, this is a list from Kathleen. In this week’s bag of books, there was one called The Concubine , a book about Anne Boleyn and King Henry. Now she wants me to see if I can find any nonfiction about other strong women throughout history. She’s on a kick, and this week she seems really interested in Cleopatra. One of her friends from Jefferson told her a story of Cleopatra saving Egypt from invasions using roses and some quick thinking, so of course, the owner of Rose Garden now must do research and find out if it’s a true story.”

“Well, now I got to know what story this is, do tell,” Noah replied as he shuffled books on his desk in front of her.

Sam laid the list on the counter and looked around the shelves as she started, “The story goes that when Cleopatra was pharaoh of Egypt, she got word that Rome was planning an invasion and quickly told her sailors to untie the masts and dip all the sails in rose water before hanging them again. They filled those same ships with roses and set off to Rome, surprising Marc Antony and the Roman Empire when they arrived with the smell of roses wafting in on the wind as they docked in the harbor. Marc Antony gave her a room in the royal palace as is customary for any traveling royalty, and that night Cleopatra set her trap. Her servants filled her room with rose petals, so many rose petals that they went up to their knees. She sent a letter, inviting Marc Antony to her chambers, where Cleopatra lay naked on a bed of roses as he entered. They got it on, and Cleopatra made Marc Antony promise that he would never invade her country as long as she was pharaoh. She said she filled the room with roses, so that from then on, anytime Marc Antony smelled a rose, he would remember their union and their agreement. They turned out to be great lovers, according to Kathleen.” She grinned at Noah. “For her sake, I hope it’s true. It’s a cool story.”

Noah raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “Well, that was like a chess move in a game of checkers. I love it when Kathleen gets on a new kick—I learn more about what I have in this shop every time she does. I’ll look on the computer and see what books we have on Cleopatra now.” As Noah leaned over the ancient computer behind his desk and scrolled down the titles, Sam scanned the bookshop silently, letting her thoughts wander from one thing to another.

“You know, I’ve been to a lot of used bookstores, and the new rage seems to be organizing some sections by mood as well as genre.”

“How would I do that?” Noah asked.

She unsnapped Nibbler’s collar and he meandered through the shop, checking out every nook and cranny as Sam slowly walked from one aisle to the next to look, talking louder the farther she got from his desk so he could still hear her. “I don’t think it’d be too hard. It would just be a sorting job. You have historical romance books in this section. If you broke it down and put sub-labels on the shelves—like dark medieval or sweet Victorian—then your customers would know the mood of the book. I could help you since I know more about the romance book realm than you do, Mr. Nonfiction.”

“I could use help in the romance section, for sure. Cowboy romances seem to be the latest craze online and in town. And from what I’ve surmised, they range from wholesome to straight up raunchy. Maybe the cowboy section could be divided into three sections: bedroom door closed, bedroom door slightly ajar, or bedroom door wide open and beyond.” Noah grinned and slid a sly wink across the room.

Is he flirting with me? Sam wondered. Or am I just imagining the playful lilt in his voice just then? She stooped down behind a row of shelves, using the books for cover, and pretended to study the titles to keep him from seeing her blush.

The flush drained from her face when the sound of a loud siren screeched and Nibbler threw back his head and howled. She came around the corner of the science fiction section in time to see her dog making a mad dash to Noah, trying his best to jump up into his arms.

“Poor little guy.” Noah picked up the dog and held him close to his chest. “I’m sure that hurts your ears, but it means that we need to take cover. A tornado is headed this way, and we need to get down in the basement.”

“Wait? What basement?” Sam asked. “A tornado for real?”

“Noah nodded at the phone near his head and fished out two flashlights from a lower desk drawer and then opened a door to the right of his desk. “Call Kathleen and tell her that you’re safe. Be quick though. The police station doesn’t blow the warning siren unless they’ve seen a tornado close by.”

Sam hated cellars and basements—any room with no windows, really—but she had seen the destruction that a tornado had left behind just south of Jefferson a few weeks before. She called Rose Garden, and Kathleen answered on the second ring and sounded out of breath. She told Kathleen she was safe, then hung up and called her parents. The alarm seemed to be getting louder or closer somehow. She nervously tapped her foot and held her breath as the phone rang five times, each ring seeming to be longer than the last. Her father’s voice on the machine finally answered, so she left a message.

“Hey, don’t worry. You are hearing the tornado warning in the background. I don’t know what you’ll see on the news later tonight or tomorrow, but I want y’all to know I’m fine. I’m heading into the basement now. I love y’all, I’ll call as soon as I can.” She hung up the phone and closed the door behind her on her way down the steps.

“Welcome to the Cellar Lounge, a speakeasy from the 1920s during prohibition,” Noah said from his seat on a futon against the back wall with Nibbler in his lap. He patted the empty space beside him. “Sit down, and we’ll all three ride out the storm together.”

“You know that old song, ‘Storms Never Last’?” Sam asked as she eased down onto the futon and scanned the room. The place was every bit as big as the bookstore, and it had been kept in pristine condition except for the modern-day futon they sat on and a bit of dust on the gorgeous, shiny mahogany bar stretched across one end with an antique mirror behind it. All that was missing was barstools and bottles of liquor lining the back shelves. A time capsule, hidden under a bookshop, seemingly untouched by today’s world.

“Where’s the moonshine?” she asked.

He leaned his head back against the cement wall behind the futon and stared at the ceiling. “To answer your questions, I don’t think I’ve heard that song since my grandfather died. I rarely drink, so I sent all the booze up to Kathleen. I keep one bottle of whiskey in the bar, the kind my dad and grandfather loved, for sentimental sake.”

“I’m surprised folks don’t badger you to come down and see this. It’s like taking a step back in history—it’s so old-timey in here.”

“Very few people know this place exists.” Noah’s eyes followed hers around the room as she took in everything. “It’s sorta my little hidey-hole. I keep some extra clothing down here and sleep on this futon when there’s bad weather. Now …” He turned to look at Sam. “Before the storm warning sent us down here, you said something about forgiving and forgetting when we were talking about your T-shirt. Is it a story you’re willing to share? I won’t lie. I’m sorta curious about how you landed in Homestead.”

“It’s a long story,” Sam warned. Telling Kathleen and Loretta the other night had been cathartic, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t emotionally exhausting to recount and relive all the sordid details.

“Hey, you don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t feel comfortable. We gotta wait for the all-clear siren, and I don’t know how long it might be before we can leave, so I just thought I’d ask. Don’t worry, we can talk about something else.” His kindness was the sort of thing that made a woman comfortable enough to confess everything.

“No, I’ll tell you,” Sam finally said after staring in his eyes for what felt like too long. “I’m learning to let it all go anyway. Maybe this is practice.” She told him everything, how she got a scholarship to Nashville, then gave it up because Chase had said that he couldn’t live without her. How they had broken up more than once, taking months away from each other sometimes, but he’d show up and win her back over and over again.

“The worst part wasn’t giving up the scholarship out of state to stay in Rosepine for him. It wasn’t the fights or the ugly breakups, but it was that he slept with my best friend. Or more, that my best friend slept with my boyfriend. I lost two people I loved when I found out.” She looked down at her shirt and said, “That’s why I almost burned this shirt. She gave it to me. Kathleen says I gotta let it go, but it’s just hard, you know? The one person I wanted to call and cry to when I found out Chase was cheating on me, and was lying to me the whole time too, had been cheating on our friendship. So, I left. I just packed all my shit, and then my car broke down, and here I am.”

“I can’t imagine that pain, Sam. You are a strong person, stronger than you probably realize. Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me all that.”

In that simple comment, Sam felt an overwhelmingly warm sense of safety. She was at home here with him, sitting on a stretched-out futon in a concrete basement as a siren screamed in the distance. She wondered if this was how things started between Liza Beth and Chase. Friendly conversation, all the small talk maybe being completely innocent, until a single gaze between them lingered just a tad too long. Did their hands accidentally touch, and sparks shoot between them, startling them both?

Liza Beth and Chase both worked at the bank in Rosepine. They ran into each other all the time five days a week. Maybe there was a moment in the vault, where space was tight and they touched, by accident at first, then maybe not by chance. She remembered Chase driving to Jefferson to buy cologne the Christmas before last. He had always said he didn’t wear the stuff, but something and someone had changed. Did Liza Beth spray perfume on her hairbrush before work?

The thought was like a hot penny burning a hole clean through Sam’s stomach. Because she had done that very thing, just this evening, before coming to the shop. She was a hypocrite if there ever was one.

“Yeah, well, thanks for listening.” She was ready to hit the ball into a safer-to-navigate area of the court. “Now, it’s your turn. Tell me how you and Laura met.”

“We’ve known each other since we were in elementary school. We were in the same class but in completely different worlds. I was a nerd through and through and always had my head in a book. I don’t think Laura knew I existed back then. She was the prettiest girl in town growing up. It wasn’t until my grandfather died that …” He paused. “Maybe I should say it all started when he died. He was the last relative I had, and she showed up at the hospital. I was completely lost. I didn’t know what to do. Laura stepped in and helped me get his accounts in order, and steered me through the funeral plans. I really don’t know if I could’ve done all that without her guiding me through the grief I was still processing. Before I even realized it, we were dating and have been since then.”

“Are we friends?” Sam asked quietly after a moment’s pause.

Noah locked eyes with her. The soft light in the old speakeasy did nothing to dim the golden glint in his eyes.

“Of course we are,” he answered.

“As your friend, then …” Sam paused. “Why do you let her treat you like she does?”

“She needs me.” Noah’s voice sounded weary. “When I had needed someone back then, she was there. She struggles internally with self-worth, with where she is in her life as well as in the world.”

“Grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, right?” Sam said before she realized.

Noah nodded. “Yeah, and she can’t seem to put it to rest. She just wants to be accepted, to be somebody in this small town to prove to everyone that she isn’t that little girl from the trailer park wearing secondhand clothes. She worked hard in school, got a good education and her master’s, has a great job now over in Jefferson, but in Homestead, she …”

“She still feels like the child from the trailer park who has to prove herself?” Sam asked.

“Exactly. Sometimes,” Noah answered with a sigh, “I get the feeling that she’s not truly happy being with me, but when I needed her, she was there for me. Now that she’s having a hard time, I can’t leave her high and dry. She deserves the kind of support she gave me.”

Before Sam could think of anything to say, a secondary siren sliced through the night, and Noah slapped his hands on his thighs and stood up from the futon.

“And that ends our time in the Cellar Lounge for the night. I’m glad you and Nibbler were here to keep me company.” He smiled down at Sam for just a moment before turning to the staircase. “Let’s go see if we got any damage upstairs.”

Nibbler was up the rickety staircase in a flash, pawing at the door until Noah opened it. Sam made her way to the front of the shop, looking at each window carefully to see if there was any damage done. After confirming all the windows were alright, she turned back to see Noah looking up at the ceiling, eyeing every corner for leaks.

“Good news, all the windows are A-OK. How are we doing up here?” She looked up too, crossing her arms over her chest.

“I think we survived unscathed.” Noah smiled at her. “I’ll call around and see if it touched down in town or if we’re all in the clear.”

Sam clamped the leash onto Nibbler’s collar. “I should get going. Kathleen and Loretta might need help if the storm did any damage up there.”

“Oh, of course.” Noah opened the door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. “Looks like some big tree limbs are down. You sure you want to walk back, or would you rather me drive you up there?”

Sam took in the wet leaves and branches blanketing the rain-slicked road as Nibbler tugged at his leash. “We’re good, thanks though. I feel like there’s a different kind of stillness that settles in after a big storm like that. I find it calming.”

Time alone to think was what she needed. And cold air on her face and space from the man with warm brown eyes and a good heart. Lots of space away from him.

“Okay, I’m gonna close up and head home too, then. Goodbye, Sam, and goodnight.” Noah’s tone seemed to hold a measure of wistfulness.