Sammy felt her vagina flutter in appreciation. He was still here! Still gorgeous! Still grumpy! And he was looking right at her.
“Yeah, that’s the look of a man who finds you repulsive,” Eden whispered, picking up a menu and fanning herself with it.
“Shut. Up,” Sammy hissed. God. She was a mess. She wished she would have actually washed her hair instead of just cramming a hat on her head that morning.
“Here he comes,” Layla sang under her breath.
“I can see that,” Sammy growled.
“Sparkle,” Ryan said, a hint of a smile playing on his lips.
Eden kicked her under the table. “Ouch! Uh, hi. Ryan,” she said. “These are my sometimes friends, Eden and Layla.”
“Ah. Those friends. Did you ever get confirmation on Dirk?” he asked Eden.
Eden choked on her soda. Layla snorted. “Maybe this guy’s not such a dumbass after all?”
“Maybe I’m not,” he agreed.
“You’re still here?” Sammy asked a little too loudly. “I thought you’d be long gone by now.”
“I thought so too,” he said, oblivious to the fact that Bobby was making a heart symbol with her fingers behind the counter. “I may have underestimated the complexity of my uncle’s filing system.”
“Well, I need to get back to the inn,” Eden said, pointedly looking at her bare wrist.
“And I just got a call from dispatch,” Layla lied.
“No, no, no. Nope. Not this time,” Sammy said, standing abruptly. “This time, I’m leaving.” She dragged on her coat, which today smelled like a chicken farm. “Thanks for the lunch and the lecture.”
Turning to Ryan, she looked him up and down one more time. God, he was so stupidly gorgeous. “Good luck with whatever it is you’re doing,” she said to him. “And goodbye again.”
She marched out the door, head held high.
Blue Moon Emergency Text Alert: All citizens with any level of accounting experience are encouraged to attend tonight’s emergency town meeting at Take Two Movie Theater. Please do not call Beckett Pierce’s house or office to ask for details prior to the meeting.
20
So maybe she’d overreacted the smallest, teensiest bit, Sammy thought in the concession stand line. Take Two was the town’s Art Deco movie theater that showed second-run movies. It was also commandeered as a venue for town meetings like the one tonight, which were arguably just as entertaining as the films.
The smell of fresh popcorn and gallons of organic butter tantalized her nose. Her stomach let out a plaintive groan. She’d left half her salad on the table at Peace of Pizza when she’d stormed out into the cold.
But that was the effect of a spiritual kick to the head. She wasn’t thinking about normal, everyday things like lunch. She was suddenly staring down at the big picture of her life, seeing it from a different angle.
The emergency alert text message—which, since its inception, had only been used for non-emergency situations—about the “essential” and “urgent” town meeting had been received on her way home after spending over an hour getting a donkey to hold still so she could stitch up a wound on his leg.
With Layla, Eden, and Bobby’s words echoing in her head, Sammy had taken an extra long shower and dusted off her rarely used hair dryer. She’d forgotten how decent she looked with a little product and five minutes of diffused drying. Her sleeker, shinier hair—as well as the mascara and lip gloss she’d found at the back of her vanity—had actually managed to put a little bounce in her step.
She got her popcorn and a water refill in the bottle she brought from home and stepped into the theater.
As expected, it was a madhouse. Half the town had come out of hibernation for the popcorn, Milk Duds, and mysterious crisis.
“Sammy!”
She turned and found the blonde, chic Summer Pierce waving from the middle of a row. Carter was next to her, looking mountain man chic in a flannel coat, ancient jeans, and a thermal shirt. His dark, full beard made him look more bad boy than good guy. Even after all these years, Sammy still felt the faint echo of her teenage crush on the man whenever he looked directly at her.
She slipped into their row. “Hey! Where are the kids?” she asked.
“Phoebe and Franklin have them for a sleepover in the bunk room,” Summer said.
The house Phoebe and Franklin built on Pierce Acres had a bunk room built to house a dozen grandkids and the way those Pierce brothers were going, Grandma and Grandpa were going to need to build an addition.
“It’s costing us a big, fat gift card to the Hershey Spa in Pennsylvania,” Carter said, with a wink at his wife.
“Totally worth it,” Summer said, slipping her arms around his waist. Sammy couldn’t help but smile. The two of them radiated love and healing. Summer was a cancer survivor, and Carter had come home from Afghanistan wounded. Together, they’d built something beautiful together.
Summer turned to greet her sister-in-law Gia Pierce, who had just arrived with Evan, Aurora, baby Lydia, and pregnant Eva in tow.
“Your girl, Magnolia, is doing well,” Carter told Sammy. “She’s starting to get her confidence back around the other horses.”
Sammy’s heart glowed a little bit thinking about the sweet mare soaking up Carter’s attention. The man was one of the most restful people she knew. He had a soulful connection to the earth he cultivated. Animals—and people—gravitated to his calm. He reminded her so much of his father. “I can’t thank you enough for working with her,” she said.
“It’s a pleasure. Really,” he insisted.
“Your dad would be proud of you,” she blurted out the words.
He cleared his throat gruffly. “Thanks, Sammy. I think he’d be pretty tickled to see you on the farm, too. He always said you had a better way with horses and people than your mom.”
Sammy managed a laugh around the lump in her throat. Even all these years later, it was still hard to accept the fact that a good, kind man was gone forever. “I won’t tell her if you don’t,” she promised.
Carter winked. “Deal.”
Ellery clomped onto the stage in her Frankenstein boots. “Five minutes to show time,” she announced into the microphone on the lectern.
Sammy took a seat and grabbed a handful of popcorn as she scoped out the attendees. She was happy she’d come. Sure, she could have used the time to finish another few wreaths, but seeing so many of her neighbors showing up for each other warmed her.
Taneisha Duval, the enviable beauty and women’s record holder for the Blue Moon 5-Miler, was deep in conversation with Destiny Wheedlemeyer, a six-figure Etsy entrepreneur with a knitting store. A few rows from them, Kimoni Henderson and Kathy Wu had their heads together over what looked like a jar of moonshine.
Young, old. Black, white. Vegan, Paleo. Jewish, agnostic. Blue Moon managed to come together time and again in a brash, weird, wonderful celebration of similarities and differences.
She loved this damn town and everyone in it. Sometimes it snuck up on her and stole her breath.
“Is this seat taken?”
Sammy jumped, bobbling her popcorn. Ryan caught it and helped himself to a handful before returning the bag to her.