Read Between The Lines: Business of Love 6 by Parker Ali

Author:Parker, Ali
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BrixBaxter Publishing
Published: 2020-12-31T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

Walker

The nineteenth-century town of Hudson greeted us with flurries of snow falling from the sky and shop windows beckoning us to come inside and escape the cold off Warren Street, which was lined in old homes and antique shops with frosted windowpanes. I found us a parking spot on the side of the street tucked in front of a snowbank, and Nora and I bundled up before stepping out and making our way across the street to a freshly salted sidewalk. Nora put her gloved hand in mine and we started walking with no destination in mind.

“It’s pretty here,” Nora said as she peered down the length of the street. It rose over a slight hill, and the rest of it, which made its way presumably down to the Hudson River, vanished from sight.

“Where should we start?” I asked. “This is your distraction. How would you approach a new town if you were traveling?”

Nora slowed to a stop in front of a shop window. The antique store display was a bit chaotic but there were little odds and ends that drew her eye, like a women’s indigo-colored coat, a matching hat, an old typewriter, several books, and a carved wooden trunk.

“I’d go in here,” she breathed.

I moved to the door and tugged it open. A bell chimed softly overhead. “After you.”

Nora grinned, brushed past me, and tapped snow from the soles of her red boots before moving deeper into the store.

A man in his early seventies sat behind the sales counter. He wore an Irish cap and a plaid vest over a cream button-up shirt. His eyebrows were bushy and stuck up every which way over the rim of his glasses. He looked up from the book open in his lap and gave us a friendly smile.

“Hello,” Nora said politely.

“Afternoon.” The shop owner inclined his head forward in a greeting. “Anything I can help you find?”

“No thank you,” Nora said as she stepped past a dresser with a collection of buttons on top as well as some incense holders, sewing thimbles, and what I assumed were leftover Christmas items from the season. “We’re just going to look around.”

“Take your time,” he said, and his gray eyes flicked back to his book.

I followed Nora into the depths of the store. Within fifteen feet or so, the light from outside was all but gone and we were left sorting through items in the dimness of the belly of the shop. Old-school lamps with stained-glass shades cast warm but indecent light over back shelves stacked high with books and little odds and ends. Nora’s eyes flicked to every corner and crevice, and every couple of minutes, she’d reach out to touch something or pull it free from where it sat, leaving behind an imprint in the dust.

“There are always so many treasures in a place like this,” she said. “You just have to have the patience to look.”

I felt like the shop was closing in on me. One step to the left put me into a rack of winter coats.

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