The second pie was a pizza with chanterelles, roasted garlic, and heirloom tomatoes from Lawson’s. The pizza menu, she had learned, was new, the result of Law’s trying to branch out beyond just booze. Nora was planning to support Law generously in this endeavor.
And speaking of the pizza, hadn’t Law said that Jake had built the outdoor oven? Maya had called him the town’s fairy godfather when it came to building, and in Nora’s experience that was proving true.
Jake was leaning against the brick façade of the building that housed the clinic when Nora arrived. He was so big, it sort of looked like he was holding up the building, but that was ridiculous.
She unlocked the clinic and said, “You want to eat first?”
“Nah. Unless you’re hungry, let’s leave it till I’m done.”
“We’re done.”
“What?”
“We. Because I’m helping you.” When he looked like he was about to protest, she cut him off. “Humor a girl who’s on a self-sufficiency kick. I clearly have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m a decent worker bee.”
He handed her a paintbrush. “Okay, but we can only do the primer today. It will have to dry before the paint goes on. So it really is going to go fast.”
They got into a rhythm, and he was right about it going quickly. After sanding off the biggest blobs of dried paint, he showed her what to do. As they worked, he told her about the town’s three annual festivals. The upcoming Mermaid Parade she’d already heard about—the whole town seemed to be eagerly anticipating it. There was also a Raspberry Festival earlier in the summer that she’d missed, and a locals-only secret party the first weekend in October.
“They call it the Anti-Festival,” he said.
“Anti as in ‘against’?” she asked.
“Yeah, you’ll see how the town sort of has a seasonal rhythm. There are a lot of tourists and day-trippers in the summer, but it drops off pretty dramatically. Seasonal businesses close, and everyone sort of hunkers down for the winter.”
“So this festival marks the transition?”
“Yeah. It started as a joke—hence the name. The idea is that the tourists are gone, and the locals have their own party. There are fund-raisers for local causes—cakewalks, except with pie, a bachelor auction. Maya stages a play.”
That was awfully cute. It sounded like something out of Gilmore Girls or a Hallmark movie. “Where does this happen?”
“Out on the strip of parking lots behind the businesses on the north side of Main Street. Everyone shuts down their storefronts. They try to make it look like the town has been abandoned. It’s actually kind of funny. They get really aggressive about keeping out anyone but locals.”
“I wonder if they’ll let me attend. I’m only here for two years.”
“Yeah, I heard you’re leasing the practice. They’ll probably have to consult their bylaws, but I bet they’ll make an exception for you.”
She used her brush to point to the big can of paint nearby—not realizing they were only going to prime today, she’d brought it out. “You know, I think I bought too much paint, even with me spilling a ton of it the other day. That can is still three-quarters full.”
“Yeah, you could have done with just a liter, probably.”
“I’m thinking now that I’m a painting expert”—she made sure he saw her eye roll so he’d know she was kidding—“I might take what’s left over and try to paint that horrible metal chair in my backyard. Which is dumb. I should probably buy new lawn chairs.”
“Nah, that’s a great old chair. You just need to sand the rust off before you paint. I’ll help.” He paused. “Unless that’s a violation of the self-sufficiency thing.” Another pause. “Which, for the record, I completely respect.”
God, this guy was too much. Everybody here was too much. “Why is everyone in this town being so nice to me? Pearl wouldn’t let me pay for my pie just now. CJ offered to do a house call when I need my roots touched up. And that’s just today. There must be a catch.”
“It’s that two-year thing, probably. I think everyone just wants you to stick, you know? This town really needs a doctor.”
“Oh, so I’m just a warm body with a medical degree?” she joked.
“No. I think Dr. Baker was the warm body with the medical degree, and now that you’re here, everyone is realizing exactly how much that was true.” He paused. “That sounds uncharitable. He was a nice enough guy. He was just…not getting right in there on the town green when a tourist was going into labor, you know?”
“The scientist in me needs to point out that my clinic isn’t even open yet, so all these favorable conclusions are premature.”
“Nah. You can just tell.”
Well. She liked that assessment. “Speaking of tourists in labor on the town green, Sawyer told me that Colleen called the police station looking for both my name and your name—she said she’d forgotten them.”
“Huh. I wonder why?”
“Maybe so she can send us thank-you notes? Name her kid after us?”
“Jake Nora?”
“Nora Jake!” she teasingly corrected. “It is a girl, after all.”
“Nora Jacobina?”
She wasn’t sure why she found that so funny, but she had to pause in her painting because she was cracking up. “Nora Jacobina sounds like a pilgrim.”
He chuckled, and they settled into a companionable silence as they worked. They’d each started on one end of the desk and had gradually been making their way toward the center—toward each other.
“See?” he said as his left arm brushed her right. Goose bumps rose on her flesh despite the fact that it was a warm evening. “Piece of cake.”
“Wow. That was anticlimactic. I guess it’s time for dinner. I was prepared to work a lot harder than that.”
He stood back and examined their work. “Let’s take the food and paint to your place and do that chair.”
She started to object. It was a reflex. But as she’d wondered the other day with respect to the deck, why? Someone offered to help her, and something inside her automatically rose up and said no? Wasn’t she supposed to be not doing that anymore?
“Okay. We can eat on my glorious new deck and listen to the lake.”
An hour later, her good-as-new chair was drying in the warm twilight, and they were sitting on the edge of her deck, eating pizza.
“This is so good,” she said. “Even cold.”
“Yeah, Law has been wanting to start serving food for a while. I think he’s onto something.”
“My favorite is the Hawaiian—he uses this ridiculous pancetta that melts in your mouth and grills the pineapple with this balsamic glaze. But I didn’t know if I should inflict that on you. So many people object so vehemently to pineapple on—”
“Nora?”
Oh hell no. She shot to her feet and looked wildly around the yard. She had to have imagined that.
“Nora? Hello?”
Crap. She was too content, wasn’t she, with her pizza and her chair and her deck? Apparently so, because the Ghost of Nora’s Past was here to take her down a few pegs.