Page 104 of Brewbies
“I have you to thank,” Caryn said, her blue eyes fastened earnestly on Darby’s.
“I’m not sure I can take credit for that.”
“Whether or not you did so intentionally, the end result is the same. And I just needed you to know that I’m grateful. Between that and my conversation with Roy,” she said, a sly look giving her elegant features a distinctly foxlike cast, “my life has taken a rather dramatic turn as of late.”
“I’m so glad to—”
“Oh, would you look who it is!” Caryn glanced toward the rear of Darby’s camper and waved.
Checking her side mirror with a sinking heart, Darby spotted Roy coming up the sidewalk.
Or, at least, a creature wearing an alarmingly accurate facsimile of Roy’s face. Because that was where the resemblance to the man she’d spoken with in the cluttered, dusty junk shop ended. He moved at a pace markedly different from the lumbering gait that had brought Roy and his insulated coffee thermos to her service window each morning. His trim figure was now fitted out in a beautifully cut dove-gray suit.
“I’ll let you two catch up,” Darby said breezily, shifting her camper back into drive. “We’ll have to keep in touch.”
“Wait!” she heard Roy shout.
Oh, for the sake of all fucks—3:22.
“Well, isn’t this a pleasant surprise,” Caryn said with a warmth and sincerity that caused Darby’s heart to squeeze despite her suspicions that it was not, in fact, a surprise at all. “And where are you headed looking so dapper?” Caryn asked with a saucy wink.
Roy shifted his weight, and for the first time, Darby saw the enormous bouquet hidden behind his back.
“Oh, you shouldn’t have,” Darby said, reaching for the bouquet.
Roy jerked them away just as Darby’s fingertips brushed the cellophane wrapper likely made of plastic bottles fished out of the Puget Sound. “I didn’t.”
Aaaaaand there he was, ladies and gentlepeople.
“These are for her.”
Caryn’s cheeks flushed with obvious pleasure. “For me?”
“Yes, indeedy.” Roy transferred the impressive jewel-toned bundle of blooms. “I was going to give them to you tonight, but I just couldn’t wait to see you.”
“Well, I won’t keep you two.” As much as Darby was intrigued by this development, she was in imminent danger of missing her ferry if she ran into any traffic.
And the way her day was going, that was looking extremely bloody likely.
“But I never I gave you the information I promised,” Roy said. “And a deal’s a deal.”
“You know? Seeing as I sold Raven Creek and am actually right this very minute driving the business the town council wanted to shut down out of Townsend Harbor, I don’t think I’m actually going to need it after all. So as much as—”
“It looks like Miss Dunwell is in a bit of a hurry. Perhaps we should let her go,” Caryn said.
Gratitude the size of the Olympic Mountains swelled Darby’s chest. At least one person in this town had a fucking clue.
Roy inclined his neatly barbered head deferentially. “I’m afraid this affects you too.”
“Me?” Caryn batted her lashes at Roy. “What on earth could this have to with me?”
Darby could just drive away.
She could wedge her platform sandal down on the gas pedal and rocket right the hell out of here.
Could, were it not for one small complication: Caryn’s hand was still fastened on the window well.
She could see the headline now.
