“Does he?”
“Yeah, baby. He does.”
“He gonna make this hard on me?”
Georgie snorts and turns back to the store. Her lack of answer is answer enough. Then again, Rett doesn’t really need it. They both know how stubborn Calum is. He can make it as hard as possible if he wants to. And for this… Rett is certain he’ll want to be difficult. He already was all those years ago.
By the end of the afternoon, Rett has met with everyone left in the heart of town. She’s pretended she doesn’t feel as out ofplace and awkward as she really does. The sun is beginning to lower in the sky as she stands in front of Mitchell’s Auto Shop. Impact wrenches whir beyond the massive bay doors, and she can hear tools clattering against metal. Her brain supplies the image of jumpsuit-clad people moving around vehicles, laughing amongst themselves as they crack jokes and do their jobs. She used to sit just inside the doors with Calum and watch as cars came and went. They were occasionally allowed to wash the cars before the owners came to pick them up.
Times were simpler back then.
Very few of the cars came from Oak Creek. With a town this small, vehicles are only necessary for going to the next city over or for outer-lying inhabitants, the ones who lived on farms or wanted their space from prying eyes. Folks like the Richardsons who had a pool. She can see in her mind blue water washed silver in moonlight. Shaking her head, she steels her spine and steps inside.
The Bryant twins, Mason and Ginger, turn away from the Camaro they’re arguing over. His eyes widen, and she gapes. Rett manipulates her lips into a facsimile of a smile and moves toward the back of the shop. Conversations die out as she passes. She isn’t surprised. Years of being away and the entire town knowing why she came back… It isn’t exactly hard to figure out why no one speaks.
“I shouldn’t have to be here,” she announces, and Calum only smirks without looking up. “Calum Spencer—”
“Ooh, middle names. I’m in trouble now, aren’t I, Kingsley?”
Leonard lets out a booming laugh from where he lies under a Jeep. “Sure sounds like it, kid.”
“Shut up, Kingsley,” Rett snaps without looking at the man. Calum’s lips twitch again, and he curses cheerfully when his hand smacks against the side of the engine block. Sighing, shetucks her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. “You already know why I’m here, so why fight it?”
He finally glances at her. Her breath stutters at the rich brown of his eyes, the sharp line of his jaw. He raises a thin brow before turning back to his work. “Not fighting anything, Rett.”
“Then please, can you just sign the papers so we can be divorced?”
Seven years earlier
two
Calum
CALUM WILSON DIDN’T WANT to be in Oak Creek—wherever Oak Creek actually was on the map. All he knew was it was somewhere in the middle of Tennessee. And that his mother had enough of his behavior and sent him over a thousand miles to live with an aunt and uncle he hadn’t seen since grade school eleven years ago. He just wanted to be back home with his friends, doing whatever they wanted.
But no. He was forced to stand outside a tiny bus station in a tiny town, waiting for someone he wouldn’t recognize.
Behind him was the station, hardly big enough for the people who rode into the town—no one but him and an adult. The woman barely glanced at him before disappearing inside. He wondered if there was air conditioning in the building beforedeciding he didn’t care. He didn’t want questions, and questions were all he’d get if he stepped through those doors. The bus pulled away out of what he assumed was a parking lot, though it was no more than a large patch of dirt. A beat-up bicycle leaned against the side of the station. Calum almost imagined tumbleweeds from every Wild West-era movie he’d ever watched, scuttling across the ground. He caught himself before he could; he didn’t want to find any sort of amusement.
The sky was a far purer blue than he could see at home. He had to admit, albeit begrudgingly, the quiet was a point in Oak Creek’s favor. He stared down the road toward the buildings he could see in the distance. They were tiny pinpricks with the miles between them and him. No cars approached the station from either side. Calum hefted his bag further onto his back and started walking.
Thankfully, living in Nevada prepared him for the heat, so the trek wasn’t horrible despite the distance. Though the sun hung high in the sky, a breeze disrupted the still air. He might not have been accustomed to walking so far, but anything was better than standing outside the tiniest bus station he’d ever seen in his life. He glanced down at his cell phone, at the last text his mom had sent: Georgie’s Corner Store. At the time, he hadn’t realized why she sent the message, but Natalie had done her best to make sure he kept it anyway.
Calum was glad he didn’t delete it.
He reached a corner an hour later and looked between the buildings. To his right stood a dilapidated bank across the street from a diner that looked as if it would collapse in the slightest breeze. An ice cream shop sat on the corner diagonal from where he stood, and he turned to the left to see an enormous rusted building with a sign declaring it “Mitchell’s Auto”. Farther down the road sat another building, wooden booths out front holding brightly-colored objects.
“Must be Georgie’s,” he muttered when he realized the objects were fruits and vegetables.
The ‘store’ ended up being the size of a small house full to the brim with goods. A girl about his age ambled around behind the counter, putting away packs of cigarettes as she hummed under her breath. She didn’t seem to have heard the bell tinkling over the door, so Calum stood and watched her. Her blonde hair bounced in its ponytail, and her black top revealed a stretch of tanned skin. She turned to grab another box, caught sight of him, and shrieked.
Calum struggled to understand her accent—thick and drawling as it was—but he thought she screeched, “What the Hell, dude!”
“Sorry, I’m looking for Georgie?”
“And you can’t make a sound?” She sighed, rubbing a hand over her face without disturbing her makeup, and turned toward a curtain hanging from an archway. “Mama! Someone’s here for you.”
She gave him a withering look before going back to her task. Calum didn’t know why, but he felt like he had just made an enemy already in the town. And it was his own cousin. Before he could dwell on it, a plump woman emerged from the back. Her silver-streaked blonde hair laid flat around a sweaty, ruddy face. The T-shirt she wore read the name of an amusement park, judging by the silhouette of a rollercoaster around the letters.
