Page 24 of Second Chance Baby

“Six.”

I cleared my throat. Hmm, why was she checking those out? “A little old for rattles, I imagine.”

“Oh, yeah. She just loves unicorns, and it caught my eye. Oh hey, Carrington, look, another spider like the one you were coloring at the diner.” She plucked a huge purple plush one with glowing green eyes off a shelf. “Do you still like these?”

“The spiders? Yeah, they’re cool.”

“I meant like stuffies. Or are you too mature for these now?”

Carrington shrugged, already moving on to a rack of spooky Young Adult books. But before she could take one, she noticed a display right on the counter of graphic novels.

“Hey, this one is Uncle Penn’sKnights of Chaos.”

She understood enough about how fame worked to lower her voice on Penn’s name. For the most part around here, people gave my brother his space when he visited, but there were far more tourists around about now due to the Cove’s recent infamy as Baby Central. And now Every Line A Story was doing book signings too here and there, one even with Penn recently.

“Sure is, Care. His books are so good. I read the first dozen or so…” Bridget trailed off, glancing back at me as if to gauge my reaction.

I merely smiled. I had no issue with her reading my talented brother’s books. Lots of people did. “Then what happened?”

“Then I got busy, but I need to catch up. I still always preorder.”

“Seems like you need to make some time. I think the series is like forty books or something crazy.”

“Yeah, something like that.”

Clearly bored now, Carrington grabbed two Young Adult novels off the nearby spinner and camped out in the nearest overstuffed chair to start reading.

“Do you do any of this stuff?” I asked Bridget, gesturing to all the bins of brightly colored yarns and the accompanying ones of needles or whatever they were called. “Craft shit?”

Bridget’s lips twitched. “I did some cross stitch once upon a time. Talk about having to pay close attention. Tiny stitches. And if you make a mistake, then you’re in a whole heap of trouble to undo your fuck-up.”

I had no clue what cross stitch even was. “Um, I just bet.” I glanced up toward the ceiling at the bouncing ghost lights currently blinking on and off. “Oh, those are cool. Maybe we should grab a set for Carrington’s room? What do you think?”

“I like them. They’re fun.” She glanced over to where Carrington was devouring her book. “Is she into ghosts?”

“Your guess is good as mine. But they’re outlined in all those bright colors.” I headed over to the checkout to ask the pretty brunette behind the counter if she had any of the ghost lights boxed up and ready to go. She smiled and made polite conversation before she mentioned having to check the storeroom.

The moment she disappeared, Bridget sighed. “Another one wowed by your charm.”

“Huh?”

“Did you see how fast she hurried away? She couldn’t help you fast enough.”

“I’d say she was just eager to make a sale. That’s Colette, the owner of this store.”

A moment later, she returned, toting not only a sweetly bagged set of lights tucked in a Snoopy vampire bag but also a set of blinking acorn lights. “On the house.” She nudged the bag at me. “Gotta honor our local legends. Especially you two.”

“What?” I glanced at Bridget. “Oh, no, we can pay.”

Discreetly, Bridget hip-checked me as if to say,see, told you.

“I mean, you’re steaming up this town already. We owe you a debt.” Colette pretended to fan herself before whispering, “I’m friends with Rita. She texted me that the heat was off the charts. She’s so excited about your new book cover.”

Hurriedly, I looked to where Carrington was still curled up in her chair near the fireplace. Thank God. I didn’t want her to hear anything that would traumatize her.

Or us, for that matter.

“We didn’t plan for that to happen,” I said quickly. “It was all my fault, getting ahead of myself. I figured we should sell it well to make sure the reshoot was good for the book cover too.” I cleared my throat. “Bridget is never anything but professional.”

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