Chapter 4 #6
And there it was… What was more important? Staying at the inn, or time to do her own thing? Maybe there was room for a little more negotiation?
“I can give you two hours a day.”
He scoffed, and Poppy knew she was pushing her luck. “Four hours?”
“Six.”
“Five.”
He narrowed his eyes, but she caught the tiny, tiny lift at the corners of his mouth. “Deal. You can start this afternoon.”
“I can start tomorrow,” she countered, and when he started to protest, she held up her hand. “I need to buy linen, some stationery, art supplies, and a journal. A phone charger.”
“So you still haven’t powered up your phone?”
Poppy thought about the number of missed calls and messages waiting for her and grimaced. “Is throwing it away an option?” she asked.
“You’re going to have to deal with them eventually,” Thom said, gesturing for her to start walking. “You might as well bite the bullet and get it over with.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to.”
He caught her wrist and yanked her out of the way of a tourist who was too busy inspecting the display in Spirited Grounds’ window to look where she was going.
Taking her cup from her hand, he threw both their empty cups into the trash bin, and she followed him to the other side of the road where his truck was parked.
“Is this the adult version of you pulling your shirt or a blanket over your head whenever you didn’t want to hear something as a kid?”
“Did I do that?” she asked, surprised when he opened the passenger door for her.
“All the time. Your favorite trick was pretending the bad stuff didn’t exist. You always thought it would pass if you just didn’t acknowledge it.”
Huh. His words hit her harder than she expected.
Poppy chewed the inside of her lip as she watched him walk around the front of the truck, stopping briefly to say hello to someone she vaguely recognized.
Did she really ignore everything bad, sad, or mildly inconvenient until it passed or didn’t matter anymore?
Was that how she survived her boring job, her boring relationship with Benji, and her unfulfilling relationships with her parents and siblings? Was playing possum her default setting?
It was a sobering thought and one that didn’t paint her in the best light.
Thom started the truck and placed his broad hands on the wheel.
And suddenly, just like she did as a child, she felt safe, protected, and comforted by his solid presence beside her.
Yes, she knew he’d probably demand his pound of renovation flesh, but it didn’t change the fact that, like back then, the world felt a little less harsh when Thom Sheffield was close.
Poppy fixed her gaze out of her passenger window, wondering if she was simply regressing—swept up in memories of how Thom had made her feel and in being back in H-Town, the place she loved best and where she felt most at home?
Was she latching on to the past in an effort to make the present more bearable?
Maybe.
Couldn’t she take the feeling of being safe and protected and nourish it for a while? After all the drama and chaos of the last two days, wasn’t that allowed?
Ruby
Ruby hovered behind the bench that Thom and Poppy sat on, pacing in a way that had the other ghosts worried. She didn’t care; all her energy was on these two humans who were playing with fire. Lila and Naomi stood a few paces from her, both looking confused. And amused.
The moment Thom shifted closer to Poppy, something inside her snapped. Please tell me this isn’t happening.
Lila glanced at her. “What’s the problem?”
Ruby couldn’t answer her friend. All her attention was on the way Poppy leaned—just a fraction—toward him, her soft eyes when they dropped to his mouth. Shit, shit, shit…
“She’s already slipping,” Ruby said.
And that was how it started. A look, a touch, a hey, this is interesting. And then, before you knew it, your whole world spun around someone who could, and normally did, walk away.
Naomi frowned. “Slipping how?”
Ruby pointed at Poppy. “She came here to find herself. And what does she do? She moves in with a man.”
“She wants to stay at the inn.”
“In a few days, a few weeks, she’ll be desperate to belong in his life. That’s where she went wrong with Benji!”
Lila and Naomi exchanged confused looks. “You’re imagining this, Ruby,” Lila said.
Ruby sent her an impatient look. “I’m protecting her. That’s what Grandma M. wanted me to do.”
“Hold on, you said she wanted you to get her away from the wedding,” Naomi said. “Grandma M. didn’t say anything about stopping her from living at the inn.”
“It was implied,” Ruby shot back.
“You’re manipulating facts to suit the story you are telling yourself, Ruby,” Lila told her, shooting from the hip as she always did. Ruby rather liked that about her, except when she herself was in the firing line.
Ruby looked at the couple, oblivious to the outside world. A connection like theirs, visceral and primal, was dangerous. Her friends might not be able to see it, but she could.
Now she had to figure out what she was going to do. If anything.