Page 42 of In the Shadows
too forward to buy some for the sisters.
He felt guilty for his role in that night, and what a toll it
had taken on everyone. Some ribbons might be just the thing. . . .
As he opened the door, a jingling bell matched the tone of
voice of a woman talking. “. . . just this week. Yes, the cottage on
the bay. Very lovely. And you can deliver?”
The instinct to hide was sudden and overpowering. Thom
ducked behind shelves displaying cookware, trying to place the
voice and figure out why it affected him so.
“Of course!” the shop worker answered, his young voice
stretched and cracked by recent growth. “Anything you need. If
we don’t carry it, I’ll get it somewhere else.”
“There’s a good boy,” the woman said, and everything snapped
into place. He knew her voice. She was the woman who had scared
his father.
What was she doing here?
His father had sent them here the day after talking with her.
And for her to be here, too? The world was not such a small place
for something like this to be coincidence.
Squaring his shoulders and standing straight, Thom came
around the corner as casually as he could. He’d see who she was
without her noticing him. Looking up from a set of china, Thom
found himself facing her.
She smiled, full red lips not showing her teeth. Her hair was
dark and pinned back beneath an elegant hat. She stood nearly as
tall as him, but there was something in her bearing and the way
she held eye contact that made him feel smaller.
“Hello,” she said, amusement pulling the corners of her
mouth. “Shopping?”
“I — no, I — well, yes,” Thom stuttered.
