Chapter Three
Hallie looked across the parking lot at Horrocks. Picturesque Christmas lights glowed in the dark evening, rows of wreaths and pre-cut trees lined the sidewalks up to the doors, and a gentle sprinkling of snow was coming down around her. It was every bit as lovely as it had been billed.
Just like the Sinclairs were every bit the wreck they’d been billed as.
Somehow even worse when she really thought about it.
They’d been delighted to see River. Her parents had run out to meet Hallie’s car when they’d arrived at the designated home, and everyone had hugged her like they really were grateful to see her.
They’d carried both River’s and Hallie’s bags.
They’d made up their room at the rental with a welcome basket and multiple pairs of coordinating festive pajamas. They were generous.
And then they’d talked about Audrey. And the illusion started to unravel.
“It’s cool, right?” River asked, appearing at her side.
Hallie smiled. “Very cool. Can’t wait to see inside.”
“They have a whole wall of salt water taffy.”
“So I’ve heard.”
River hadn’t stopped talking about it all day. That wasn’t a Christmas special, apparently, so, any time River came, she beelined for the taffy. Hallie didn’t mind candy, but she’d heard there was plenty on offer in the savory category too, and she was excited to explore.
“Oh,” River’s mom, Jill, muttered, scandalized as she swept them towards the entrance. “Michele says Cal picked Audrey up and she’s alone again.”
Hallie thought she could feel her eye twitching. Why did she sound so scandalized? They’d known Audrey was coming alone. And what did it matter?
She shook her head, unable to ask as Jill jumped straight into conversation with her husband, voices hushed like there was any point in pretending to be secretly distressed about the turn of events—which was nothing close to a turn and simply a manifestation of what they should all have been expecting.
She glanced around as they made it inside. The place was busy, warm, bright, and packed with Christmas spirit.
“We’re going to start with the alcohol,” River’s dad, Rob, called, grabbing a cart and heading quickly off in one direction.
Hallie found herself immensely relieved that the entire family didn’t stay together for this trip. She’d had visions of all twenty-something of them trudging around the store together.
“Taffy?” River asked excitedly, looking at Hallie with wide eyes.
Hallie wondered how much like a couple they seemed to the rest of the group, who paid them little mind as they streamed in from their own cars outside.
She sensed that River had been correct—so long as she wasn’t alone and everyone was told the two of them were a couple, they were happy to go along with it.
Very few questions, very few genuine attempts to get to know Hallie, just happy River wasn’t alone. And not in the caring way.
“Sure,” she agreed, not nearly as eager to get to the taffy as River but knowing it would be odd to split off from her apparent girlfriend the second they walked through the door.
“Great!” River cheered, gripping Hallie’s sleeve and towing her off in the opposite direction from where her parents had gone.
Horrocks, it turned out, was something of a maze, and they really did have everything you could want. A farm store, a local business, but something so much more than that.
It didn’t take long to make it to the candy section—Christmas-themed, fudge, pre-packaged, and, as promised, a wall of taffy. More flavors than Hallie knew what to do with. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had taffy.
River grinned as she grabbed one of the large bags and gestured towards the wooden buckets along the wall. “Now, we feast!”
Hallie laughed. Things were a lot easier when it was just the two of them, and, in a house that was almost full of River’s relatives, they hadn’t gotten much of a break from their act all day. But she’d known what she was signing up for.
At Hallie’s gesture to lead the way, River started grabbing handfuls of taffy and throwing them into her bag. She really loved taffy. “Blueberry muffin! Cherry cola! Ooh, butter!”
Hallie did a double take. “Butter?”
“Yes! It’s so good.”
“Okay…” Hallie laughed again. Maybe she was looking forward to trying some of these. If only because… what was butter taffy?
“Oh, we have to get this one too. Just for fun.” River held out a handful of orange candies with green stripes.
“Orange and… mango, maybe?” Hallie guessed.
River laughed. “Nope. Chili mango.”
“Chili mango?” She nodded slowly. “Chili mango. Of course. Why didn’t I guess that?”
Taffy was… different than she’d been expecting.
She was pretty sure that when she’d previously had it, it had been strawberry or chocolate.
Basic. And, sure, they had those flavors too, and River was adding them to her bag with abandon, but butter and chili mango?
Those had not been on her list to expect.
By the time River had finished filling her bag, a couple of her family members had come by to grab other candy and Hallie was starting to get a sugar rush just looking at the bag. But, River held it up like a medal she was winning and Hallie couldn’t help but smile.
“Do you want to get a cart to put that in or are you planning on carrying it like your beloved child?” she asked River.
River laughed. “I’ll carry it until we run back into my parents. They always buy my first bag back. It’s tradition.”
Hallie was distracted from the fact that, again, there was that muddled line between the Sinclairs being generous and having sweet family traditions while also being emotional nightmares by the fact that it was River’s first bag.
Maybe that was why River was always so energetic. She was fueled by sugar.
Hallie was honestly a little curious to see how many bags the woman purchased this week. Was she single-handedly keeping this wall of taffy in business, even while living in a totally different part of the state?
River grinned, proud and satisfied. “So, do you want to see the rest of this place?”
“Absolutely.” And she really did. She might not be wild about the Sinclairs but Horrocks was cool, and she was very much in favor of any place that made her friends as happy as it clearly made River.
“Ah, River’s already bought all the taffy, of course,” Cal laughed as they passed him and Delaney buying fudge.
Hallie looked around, trying not to be too obvious. If Cal was here, that meant Audrey was too.
No sign of her. Of course, Hallie didn’t have a clue what Audrey looked like, but there was no sign of a woman being berated by Sinclairs or looking like she was hiding from them, which was exactly what Hallie would do in her shoes.
“I know what I like,” River shot back with a grin.
From the outside, they seemed like any other, perfectly lovely, happy family. It was unnerving, honestly.
As they continued shopping, they passed Sinclair after Sinclair. Always in pairs like they were lining up for the fucking Ark. But still, no sign of Audrey.
And, then, River led her out into rows of olive oils and vinegars on tap and all thoughts of the Sinclairs dropped straight out of her head. She’d found her version of the taffy wall.
She grinned at River. “Okay, Merry Christmas to me.”
River laughed. “Guess I should have mentioned this, huh?”
“Oh, no, it’s way better as a surprise.”
River laughed again, getting distracted by something off to the side. “Oh, there are my parents. I’m going to go drop this in the cart,” she said, holding up the giant bag of candy again.
“Sounds good,” Hallie said, already moving to pick up one of the tiny paper cups they had out for taste testing.
Perhaps she should have demonstrated restraint and only tried a couple of them, but, as she examined all of the labels, saw all of the different flavors, and her head was filled with the Christmas songs playing in the store, she knew she wasn’t going to do that. She was going to try every single one.
Hallie was in heaven, moving politely around the other shoppers who didn’t feel the need to try every flavor like she did. They tried a few, picked their bottle, and moved on, like they could come here every day of the week and bathe themselves in specialty oils and vinegars.
She moved from a strawberry dark balsamic to a lemon white balsamic, imagining all the ways she and her mom could use them, the way they’d both adore them.
Her brothers would enjoy them, too, but they’d mostly be confused over all of the tasting notes she and their mom got from vinegars.
She was going to have to buy multiple bottles to take home.
She was finally pulled out of her reverie by a woman who looked like she was having a religious experience over one of the balsamics.
Hallie smiled and sidled up beside her, looking the small, metal barrel over. “Maple bourbon dark balsamic, huh?”
The woman’s head whipped in her direction and she laughed self-deprecatingly. “Yeah. You’d think I’d have gotten used to it at this point, but it’s my favorite vinegar in the entire world. Can’t get enough of it.”
“Well, with a recommendation like that, who would I be to refuse?”
She held a hand out between Hallie and the tap. “I’m warning you now, this is going to ruin you for every other balsamic ever. Consume with caution.”
Hallie laughed. “I like living on the edge and experiencing the best the world has to offer.”
“Well, okay then. Have at it.”
She could feel the woman watching her curiously as she decanted a small amount of the vinegar into her cup before sniffing it and, finally, sipping it.
There were people who would think sniffing and sipping vinegars and oils like they were wine was a weird thing to do. Hallie was not one of those people.
And the woman was completely right about the maple bourbon balsamic.
“Oh, my god,” Hallie exclaimed, the sound almost indecent. “This is the best balsamic I’ve ever had. How are they doing that?”
“Right?” The woman nodded, satisfied.
“I would drink this like coffee. You wouldn’t even need to pay me to do it. I’d pay you.”
“Well, great news. They are, in fact, selling it. You can pay them for it and… drink as much as you want.”
“Thank God.” She reached for one of the bottles. There was no discussion to be had. She was definitely buying this one. She passed the first bottle into her spare hand, holding it out to the woman. “No way you’re not buying a bottle, right?”
Something flickered across the woman’s face before she smiled and took the bottle, carefully not touching Hallie’s hand. “Yeah, who would I be to resist?”
“Wrong. That’s who you’d be. The wrongest person to ever wrong.”
She laughed sweetly. “Well, we don’t want that.”
“Absolutely not. Everyone needs this balsamic in their life,” Hallie said, moving to fill her bottle. “What a way to turn around a weird day.”
“Ah. Sorry to hear it’s a rough one.”
Hallie hadn’t even meant to say that out loud, she’d just been mesmerized into confessing by the world’s best vinegar. That was a thing, right? It was now. “Totally fine. Just… terrible families at Christmas, you know how it is.”
The woman grimaced like she really did. “Yeah…”
“Oh, my god!” River’s voice called from behind Hallie.
Hallie whipped to look at her. She’d honestly forgotten for a minute that she was supposed to have her partner stuck to her side. “Are you okay?”
River beamed. But she wasn’t looking at Hallie. She walked towards the woman and threw her arms around her neck, standing on her tiptoes to reach. “Audrey! You’re here!”
Hallie’s mind stalled. Audrey. Audrey?
The woman she’d been talking to—sharing a religious experience over vinegar with—that was Audrey? River’s cousin? The one the whole family was weird about?
And the one to whom Hallie had just complained about the Sinclairs… Shit.