Once inside the store, I debated about whether to call Saint but quickly dismissed the idea. I was being paranoid and ridiculous. And besides, the whole reason I’d signed up for the lessons was to be able to defend myself without needing someone else to do it for me.
After nodding a kind of apology to the cell phone worker, who looked at me with a questioning glance, I exited the shop and was relieved to see no trace of the man. I made my way toward the French Room and tried to put it out of my mind.
Just inside the restaurant, I saw Brett waiting. I approached him and was surprised to hear him say Eric and Prima had canceled.
“Mom decided to go to the charity thing after all, so we’re back on for Friday night. Hey, you want to grab a burger around the corner since you’re here anyway? My treat,” Brett said.
I side-eyed him. He’d never in my life wanted to have a meal with just me. But I had to admit, I was starving. “Ah, sure?”
Once we were seated at Chop House Burger, I finally allowed myself to take a breath. I’d sped to the city and then hustled from the valet stand to the restaurant like someone was after me. But now that I was sitting in the burger place, I realized how ridiculous my paranoia had been.
“Where’s everyone else?” I asked. “Weren’t my mom and Grandfather coming too?”
Brett shrugged. “No idea. Hey, how are things going in the shop? It’s been open a couple months now, right?”
I stared at him. Why was I surprised he didn’t know better? “It’ll be a year in January,” I corrected. Even though January was still a couple of months away, I wanted to make the point that it had been much longer than a “couple months.”
“Oh right. You started it with Melody’s inheritance.”
I nodded and took another bite of my burger, unwilling to babble some apology or excuse as to why she’d left me so much and him only her hunting rifle collection. I wondered if he knew that had been a joke from beyond the grave. He was a terrible shot, and even into her eighties, Great-Aunt Melody had taken great pride in outshooting him at the range. I hadn’t gotten to see any of those victories in person since I had a paralyzing fear of guns, but I’d heard the stories and they were entertaining as hell.
But Brett, like the rest of us, had shares in the Stiel Corporation, which meant he had plenty of money to live comfortably. He had a job in the accounting department at Stiel as well, which meant Grandfather had an excuse to funnel even more money to him without inheritance tax one day.
I hadn’t actually planned on opening my own shop, but Melody’s death had coincided with me landing a promotion at an auction house that meant reporting to an old family friend of my mother’s who’d had a crush on her for years. After the first two weeks of working for the guy, I learned he was telling her every little detail of my life and work. It took an already nosy family into extreme intrusion territory. Now I had a much more peaceful life in Hobie, away from the Stiel name and family. I loved it there. The small town was much more my speed, and the people were incredibly friendly.
“Have you sold that, um, what’s that thing called again? That writing box deal she used to have?”
The food turned to a clump of lead in my gut, and my skin began to tingle. I looked up at him. Brett was munching on fries and doing his best to look nonchalant.
He failed.
“Oh, yeah,” I lied, making shit up on the spot. “I sold it the other day. A nice older couple bought it with a silver gravy boat.”
I took a sip of my sweet tea and eyed him as I swallowed.
His eyes widened. “Really? I thought you loved that thing.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, I did when I was a kid, you know? But I got five hundred bucks for it, so I figured what the hell. I’ll find another one like it at auction one day if I decide I miss it that much.”
There was no way he’d have any idea how significant the box was to my great-aunt. If he was asking about it, something seriously weird was going on.
“Huh. You sure? I can’t see you parting with it. You and Melody were close.”
“We were. But now that I have the house and everything, I don’t feel as sentimental about the little stuff,” I said, hoping like hell my voice was steady. I wasn’t the best liar in the world.
“Weren’t there papers inside? Where did you put those? I kind of wish I’d asked to look at that stuff before she died. My dad said there were letters or something?”