Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 92668 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92668 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Jesus Christ, Charlotte, stop looking at that tattoo.
“Don’t worry. How are you?”
“Like you care.” The words bit out of me before I could stop them, and I wasn’t all that mad about it, honestly.
Let my mouth work before my brain did.
Maybe next time he just wouldn’t talk to me.
A girl could dream.
Noah sighed. “Lottie…”
“Charlotte,” I corrected him. “I need to go. Excuse me.”
“Wait. I—”
“Okay, let’s go,” a cheery voice said from the store next to us. “Or I’m going to be late for work.”
I turned in her direction. She resembled the girl Ash had pointed out as Kayla, and my stomach did a weird, nauseous flip as our eyes met.
Noah looked between us. “Kayla, this is Charlotte. She used to spend summers here with her grandpa. She owns the bed and breakfast now.”
Kayla eyed me with a steeliness in her gaze. “I’ve heard.” She turned to Noah, dismissing me with that single glance. “Should you be talking to her?”
Wow.
“Nice to meet you, too,” I muttered, earning myself a dark look from her.
“Yes. She was only questioned as a matter of protocol,” Noah answered, then looked at me. “How are you?”
I gritted my teeth. “I’ve been better.”
“We have to go,” Kayla said, grabbing his hand. “Or I’m going to be late for work.”
Right. She was wearing a purple blouse and black skirt, and there was a name badge with the bank’s logo on attached to her blouse.
She turned and practically dragged him away in the direction I also needed to go in. I waited where I was as she gripped his arm and leant into him, seemingly saying something into his ear that made him shake his head.
Noah looked over his shoulder at me, and our gazes locked. It was just long enough to make me take a deep breath, and I looked away, tucking my hand in my sleeve and wiping my nose.
I hated how little butterflies came to life in my stomach every time our eyes met.
They had no business doing that.
This man had broken my heart a decade ago, and the first thing he’d done when he saw me again was shut me in the back of his police car and question me.
He didn’t deserve my butterflies.
If only the butterflies could get that message.
CHAPTER TEN
“How was your day?” Ash asked, running a finger along the edge of a shelf.
“Long,” I replied, leaning on the counter.
The store was completely different to how I remembered it. Before, it was more of an art gallery, but the art was eclectic and didn’t really feel like it belonged in Fox Point. Ash had always loved drawing, and I remembered her harbouring dreams of being a famous artist, so I wasn’t really surprised she now owned an art store.
Paintings lined the walls up high, and the shelves held every manner of art supply known to man. I couldn’t name them if I tried, but there were pens and pencils and paints. Canvases stacked the shelves, and there was a mix of pads of paper in mediums I didn’t quite understand. There was also a full-blown craft section which would be a little kid’s dream, but I loved the ceramics area, which is where we were now.
The shelves held ceramics that were both painted and unpainted. Some were for sale to take home, or you could pay a little extra to use Ash’s supplies and paint it right here. Others were labelled and kept off to the side for her classes, and the ones she was laying out right now were half-painted garden gnomes.
“Your grandma paints garden gnomes?” I asked.
“I certainly do. I plan to raise an army of them to take over the local council.”
I turned to see the woman in question walking through the door.
Gwendoline George was exactly how I remembered her—tall, beautiful, and wearing the most fabulous earrings in existence. Today, she wore a dangly scarlet tassel pair that were almost as big as her ears themselves, but that wasn’t nearly the strangest thing about her.
Nope.
That would be the hairless cat on a harness.
“You’re walking a cat,” I said slowly, staring at the cat. “Or what I think is supposed to be a cat.”
Gwen pressed her hand to her chest and gasped. “Tofu is a majestic king, I’ll have you know.”
Ash picked up one last gnome and looked at her. “He has to wear jumpers.”
“So does King Charles.”
“Yes, but King Charles is not a cat,” she replied.
“He looks a bit like an oversized chicken wing,” I said, staring at Tofu. His ears were huge, and his little feline forehead had wrinkles that gave him a somewhat angry disposition.
It was an epic resting bitch face.
“That’s a very rude thing to say about the King,” Gwen said, sniffing.
“I was talking about Tofu,” I muttered.
Ash laughed.
With her hand still pressed to her chest, she shook her head. “After all these years, the first thing you say to me is that my cat looks like a chicken wing.”