Summer Skies Over Starr’s Fall (Starr’s Fall #4)

Chapter 1

As she put a second scoop of Moose Tracks onto a waffle cone, Zoe Wilkinson kept her eye on the sulky-looking girl hovering by the shelf of pottery mugs.

She’d come into The Latest Scoop ten minutes ago, and had insisted she was “still deciding,” while not actually looking at any of the flavors.

Plus, Zoe knew this girl, if only by sight, and she suspected she was trouble.

And Zoe knew all about girls who were trouble, because she’d been one herself, and sometimes still was—or at least pretended to be. “Here you go,” she told the mom who was balancing a baby in a stroller and a toddler on her hip. “Enjoy.”

“I will,” the woman replied with a smile and Zoe moved to the cash register, her gaze still on the girl.

Her name, she recalled, was Sophie, and she’d come into the ice cream parlor with her dad a week ago.

He’d tried to buy her an ice cream cone which she’d refused, scowling and flicking her hair like it was a professional calling.

Zoe had assumed they were tourists, but then the dad had let drop that they’d actually moved here.

And now the girl was back, having moved to stand in front of a display of fridge magnets, looking like she just might slip something into the pocket of her oversized hoodie, her expression furtive and guarded, as her gaze swept the near-empty room.

The woman with the kids paid for her ice cream and moved to a table in the back while Zoe wiped off the ice cream scoops and washed her hands, all the while keeping her eye on this girl, Sophie.

She was slight with long dark blonde hair she kept back in a messy ponytail, and she was wearing ripped jeans and a big black hoodie, the clothes swimming on her slender body.

Zoe judged her to be about fourteen. She thought about asking her if she’d decided yet, but then she was distracted by someone else coming into the store—Zach Miller, who owned his own woodworking business and had just gotten engaged to Maggie, who ran the boardgame café down the street.

Zoe liked them both, and she especially liked that they were helping revitalize the small town of Starr’s Fall, Connecticut, the only place she’d ever lived, save for an unfortunate year at art school in Hartford when she was eighteen.

She’d hightailed it home pretty darn quick, and then never left again… and probably never would.

“Hey, Zo.” Zach gave her his usual friendly smile as he propped his elbows on the counter in his laidback, familiar way.

Sophie’s eyes widened at the sight of him, and even the mom in the corner looked taken aback.

Zach had that effect on people, Zoe knew.

They’d gone to high school together, and she remembered when he’d been a baseball star and Grade A jerk, arrogant to the nth degree.

But he’d mellowed a lot since then, and maybe so had she, and in the last year she’d started considering him her friend.

He was still just as ridiculously good-looking, though, so much so that it often became a thing, and it turned out that annoyed him.

A lot of people struggled to get past his good looks and realized he had some depth.

Zoe was immune to him, though, thank goodness, because with his bright blond, blue-eyed, boy-band looks, Zach was so not her type.

She preferred the angst-ridden, grungy poetical guys, not that such a preference had worked out for her all that well in the past. The one boyfriend she’d had was during her year of art school and he’d dumped her when she’d gone back home, which had been as much of a relief as a disappointment.

“Let me guess,” she told Zach as she reached for the ice cream scoop. “Quart-sized chocolate peanut butter milkshake, extra on the peanut butter, with a banana thrown in.”

“You know me so well.” He grinned, showing off a gleaming set of straight white teeth.

As someone who had had to have braces twice, Zoe semi-resented those very straight teeth.

Some people had a lot of luck in life. She’d had her fair share, she had to admit, but she’d suffered a few hard knocks, as well.

She glanced back at Sophie, who was still hanging out by the magnets. What, Zoe wondered, was her story?

“Coming right up,” she told Zach, and as she turned, she saw Sophie slide a fridge magnet into the pocket of her hoodie.

She sighed, feeling weary rather than annoyed by the girl’s blatant theft.

What did a fourteen-year-old want with a fridge magnet, after all?

And yet she knew, of course, that she couldn’t let it slide.

She kept her gaze on the girl as she started scooping chocolate ice cream into the blender.

Already Sophie was making a beeline for the front door, clearly trying to act casual and just as clearly failing.

Even Zach noticed something was up, glancing at the girl with a faint frown drawing his eyebrows together.

“I don’t…” he began, just as Zoe barked out a sharp, “Wait.”

Sophie stilled for a millisecond and then started half-striding, half-sprinting for the door, a look of pure panic on her pale face.

Zoe came out from behind the counter, crossing the store floor in three large strides, and grabbed the girl by her hood, unfortunately nearly choking her in the process.

“Get off!” Sophie howled as she clutched at her throat like she was being strangled, which, Zoe had to acknowledge, she sort of was.

From the corner of the parlor, the mom straightened, looking concerned by the spiraling situation, while the toddler watched openmouthed as Zoe pulled Sophie back, taking her by the arm to ease the pressure on her throat.

“What are you doing?” Sophie spluttered, dramatically pulling the neck of her hoodie away from her throat like she’d been garroted, while Zoe kept a firm grasp on her arm.

She gave Zoe an incredulous and disgusted look, like she was the one who was being outrageous.

Zoe almost laughed at her sky-high attitude.

“I’d like that magnet back, please,” she stated with quiet firmness.

She had no wish to make a scene, but neither was she going to let this girl off the hook—both for Sophie’s sake and her own.

No one benefited from letting her get away with it.

Zoe had learned that the hard way, when she’d been about fourteen herself.

Sophie drew herself up, flicking her ponytail over one shoulder as she gave Zoe a look of impressively scathing disdain. “A magnet?” she exclaimed in deep derision. “I have literally no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Come on, Sophie,” Zoe said quietly. “I saw you put it in the front pocket of your hoodie.”

Sophie drew back, eyes wide, lips thinned. “Wait a second, you know my name?” she exclaimed. “You are such a weirdo.”

Zoe suppressed a groan. All right, yes, knowing this girl’s name could be seen as a little strange and even creepy, but she already could tell Sophie was going to use it as absolute ammunition… and as a way to get out of a shoplifting charge.

“Hey, this is a small town,” Zach chimed in as he strolled up to the scene, all easy charm.

“We all know each other’s names.” He smiled at Sophie, who blushed in response, and Zoe didn’t know whether to be grateful or seriously irritated that a cute guy could charm a girl who had previously been spitting nails at her.

“The magnet,” she said firmly, holding out her hand. “And then we’ll talk.”

Sophie glanced between Zach and Zoe, clearly unsure as to how to play it. “I… I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she finally blustered, but a wobble in her voice gave her away.

Zoe sighed. It would be so much easier, she reflected, if this fourteen-year-old klepto-in-the-making had decided not to brazen it out.

“There is a magnet of Starr’s Fall, a watercolor of the waterfall above the town painted on slate, in your hoodie pocket,” she stated wearily.

“I know exactly what it looks like, because I designed it myself. It costs five dollars, which might not seem like all that much to you, but this ice cream parlor is a one-woman show, and I need to keep every dollar I earn.” She stretched her hand out a little farther, fingers wide. “So give me the magnet. Please.”

Sophie glared at her, looking both frightened and furious, and Zoe felt a pang of sympathy for her, because she knew what it was like to feel cornered, knowing it was your own fault and yet still seeking someone to blame.

She’d been that way for most of her own teens, committing minor acts of desperate rebellion so she could feel in control of her life, even when it had had the opposite effect, and she’d known it.

Was Sophie the same? And if so, how could she help her?

She couldn’t, Zoe decided, help her in this moment, even if she wanted to, which she wasn’t all that sure she did. Right now, it would be akin to telling someone who was spitting mad to calm down. That kind of thing didn’t work and was likely to make everything worse.

“I’m calling my dad,” Sophie declared abruptly, lifting her chin in determined defiance. She’d clearly decided to go on the offense. “Because this is, like, harassment. And assault,” she added triumphantly. “You could have strangled me.”

“Oh, come on,” Zach protested, and now he sounded irritated, and the mother who had ordered a double scoop of Moose Tracks for herself and, Zoe hadn’t failed to notice, nothing for her child—the toddler had been given a plastic baggy of soggy-looking carrot sticks—now decided to get involved.

“I don’t know what’s going on here,” she stated in an officious tone, “but I’m concerned about the power dynamics in this scenario. This young girl is clearly vulnerable and you two are taking advantage—”

“Say what?” Zach turned to the woman as he gave his head a little shake, as if he hadn’t heard correctly. “She stole something.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” the woman blustered, “but I don’t like the way you two are talking to her. It feels aggressive to me.”

“Thank you,” Sophie told her with a theatrical sniff. “I’m actually really scared right now.”

Good grief. Zoe only just managed to keep herself from an obvious eyeroll. The sympathy she had been feeling for Sophie was rapidly evaporating. The girl clearly knew how to play to her audience.

“I’m not trying to be aggressive,” Zoe stated in as pleasant a voice as she could manage.

“I just want my magnet back.” She held out her hand, giving Sophie a beadily expectant look.

Several seconds ticked tautly by, and then Sophie reached into the pocket of her hoodie and hurled the magnet at Zoe so it bounced hard off her shoulder and fell to the floor, the slate shattering into several sharp-looking shards.

“Fine, you can have it,” Sophie screeched, and then whirled for the door.

At this point, Zoe was almost willing to let her go.

It was surely more effort than it was worth to keep at her, all for the sake of a single magnet.

The mother, she saw, had hightailed it back to her kids, no doubt realizing she’d read the situation completely wrong.

Zach, however, didn’t feel as defeated as she did, because in two long strides he’d made it to the door and blocked Sophie’s exit. “Unfortunately,” he told her in a voice that was far pleasanter than Zoe’s had been, “you’re going to have to pay for that.”

Sophie came up short, staring at him wildly, caught between fury and terror. “You can’t keep me here,” she declared, her voice wobbling. Suddenly she seemed very young.

“Look, let’s just all take a breath—” Zoe began, only to have a voice cut across her, the tone terse and incredulous.

“What on earth,” Sophie’s dad asked from the doorway, “is going on here?”