Tails, California by Heather Huffman

Author:Heather Huffman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Heather Huffman

CHAPTER 8

At first, Eve thought she’d dodged the poison oak bullet. Two days after her ill-fated hike, she discovered she was wrong when a swath of angry blisters appeared on the back of her calves, just above where her boots ended.

Even with oatmeal baths and slathering cortisone cream on the rash, she still wanted to crawl out of her own skin. While she had zero inclination to ever go hiking again, she did swing by the store to buy a pair of long pants that the clerk assured her would be good for hiking, just in case.

And, since she was close, she stopped by the coffee truck to grab herself a latte and a pastry.

“Oh, hey, that’s a nasty-looking rash,” a voice behind her said.

Eve turned to see Martha in line. “Yeah. Went hiking with Corinne and got in some poison oak.”

“You really should wear long pants on the trail.”

“So I’ve learned.” Eve did her best to let it go at that.

“Are you settling in okay? You like our little town?”

“I do,” Eve replied, glancing up to see if it was her turn yet. “It’s a great little town. Everyone’s so nice.”

“Well, not everyone, from what I hear.”

Eve’s confusion must have been evident because Martha plunged ahead.

“Don’t you let that Sorcha McTavish scare you off of her youngest son. You just make her nervous because anyone with enough moxie to move across the country on a coin toss will give her a run for her money, and she’s used to being the queen bee.”

There was that word again—moxie. The people of Lakeport must be pulling from the same dictionary; she’d heard it more since moving here than she had her entire life up to this point. She didn’t have the faintest clue how to respond to Martha’s revelation, which made her all the more grateful when it was her turn at the counter.

She got her breakfast, cringing when the guy said, “Enjoy your breakfast” and she responded with “You, too!”

She told herself Martha hadn’t heard that as she said goodbye to the woman, though the amusement on Martha’s face said otherwise. Eve then proceeded to spend no small portion of her walk home wondering if everyone in town knew how she’d come to be here. And she wondered if Martha was right, was her move the reason Mama McT didn’t like her? If so, what could she do about it?

When Eve got back to her apartment, there was a new chair on her stoop. While not quite as large as the last one, it wasn’t a small chair. The thought of wrestling it through the door without spilling her coffee was not an appealing one, so Eve shrugged and settled into the chair long enough to eat her breakfast. Luckily, she always had a book in her purse, so she was quickly engrossed in the world created by the author. So much so, she didn’t bother to move inside even after her food was done.

And that was exactly how Callum found her: curled up in a chair of unknown origin on her front stoop, reading.

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