Sweet and Salty (Marshall My Heart #1)

12. Chapter Twelve

CHAPTER TWELVE

L aura

“More iced tea, Opal?” I ask, jug with her name on it at the ready. St. Olaf’s beloved librarian—and unabashed gossip—varies from winter to spring only from hot tea to iced.

“Sure, Laura. You’re looking lovely.” Opal Larson holds up her empty glass for me to fill. “Chris didn’t know what he was letting go. Foolish boy. Come to book club. We’ll talk through the available options for you.”

My hair feels frizzy. Opal apparently doesn’t know that Chris is still texting me, and I’m also getting all sorts of random texts from an unknown number. All of it made me late this morning, and I don’t have time to be late. “Thanks, but I already have all the gargoyle erotica I can manage. I’m taking some time by myself.”

“Hon, there’s no such thing as too much shifter erotica.” Opal tsks and sips from her glass of iced tea. She’s wearing a beige knit sweater, that covers a faded tattoo over her left shoulder. What exactly it is, is one of the only well-kept secrets in St. Olaf. “Why, last month we read the most fascinating duet where they shifted into balloon animals! Can you imagine? I certainly couldn’t, but it was quite entertaining. That’s what you’re missing.”

Honestly, balloon animals fucking does sound kind of awesome. Though I usually prefer grizzled mountain man protectors.

“Leave her alone,” Maddy Olmstead says, pulling apart her appetizer, a chocolate and almond croissant. “She deserves someone of the living, not the fictional, kind. I hear Monroe Dryden’s heading back to town. He’s the only decent one in that lot.”

I make a mental note to warn Frannie. Though her hatred runs deep for the entire family, she has a particular justified bee in her bonnet for Monroe. Wonderful. I’ll have to play peacekeeper between her and my mom when Frannie inevitably dashes out of town on some other last-minute job.

Maddy’s hands curl around her vanilla hazelnut latte. “I imagine Frannie doesn’t know yet.”

“I’ll warn her.” Inwardly, I sigh. “The usual, ladies?”

“I don’t know. I thought I might get something different today.” Opal picks up the embossed menu card that she looks at nearly every single day before ordering grilled cheese and tomato soup. “Did you hear back about the liquor license? I’d love a little hot toddy now and then. Ooh, or a Bailey’s hot cocoa. Can you make a Bailey’s hot cocoa, Laura?” Her eyes sparkle with mischief.

My jaw tightens. The news has to come out eventually. “It’s not going to work out.”

Opal and Maddy exchange a look, the kind of silent communication borne of years spent with the same person. “I’m sorry, Laura. You deserve better.”

I shrug. I’m playing nonchalance like a queen. Go me. “Life and lemons. Any decisions on the menu?”

Opal glances down at it as though it’s changed in the last three minutes. “How’s your brother, hon?”

“Rory?” I stifle a yawn. The pitcher of iced tea is getting heavy. “He’s fine. My nephew’s a handful, but he loves helping out on the farm.” Rory’s son has a way with Lucretia Borgia in particular. Far more than I do.

Maddy grins with a wicked intent behind it. Physically, the two of them are around the same height, and after their years of close proximity, they also share a lot of the same mannerisms, if not the same hair color. Maddy’s hair is short and dark, courtesy of her mixed Korean-Belgian heritage, whereas Opal is old school Scandinavian blond. They both have a predilection for Midwesternisms and stoicism. “Not him. We see Rory all the time. Shame about that ex of his. We mean Bobby. I saw him on TV the other day, doing a preseason interview. Whew heck, that boy has muscles.”

Behind them, the cafe is bustling. Tourists have started to appear in town, and there are hardly any tables left. If I squint at the bakery case, I can see the blueberry almond muffins are almost gone. Total pig bait.

“Hon?” Maddy prompts. “Bobby?”

Ah, yes, Bobby. The golden boy. “I imagine he’s fine. He was pretty busy last season, but since the Slingshots didn’t make it to the Stanley Cup, he’s off sunning himself somewhere.” Much to my mother’s unspoken chagrin, Bobby rarely calls. Always something—or someone—better to do.

She’d love the story about Bobby who, on several occasions, wore his tighty-whities on his head and called himself Super Kevin. For reasons known only to himself. But I’m a good sister.

“He’s probably living the life of Riley. Speaking of gorgeous locals, have you seen that new hunk at the hardware store?” Opal asks.

“No one says ‘hunk’ anymore, Opal.” Maddy adds three brown sugar cubes from the little silver dish on the table to her latte. “I think it’s thirst trap. He’s a silver fox.”

“He isn’t nearly old enough to be a silver fox,” Opal retorts. “We’re not that much older than him.”

Maddy takes my wrist. “The post-menopausal life is not for either of us. He can’t be that old.”

Opal and Maddy grew up in St. Olaf together. Neither have ever married, both love reading the smuttiest of smut, and it suits them. Neither appears to have aged in the last twenty years. I asked my mom about it once, as she babysat Opal’s cousin Steven several times, and she told me “love takes a lot of forms.” Opal and Maddy had forged a long-term, platonic relationship that has lasted longer than a lot of marriages in this town.

“He looks like he needs a good, buttery pastry,” Maddy says.

“I don’t have time to bring pastry to grumps who don’t want to come to my bakery.” Which stings. Why hasn’t he come in yet? “Are you ladies ready to order? Or should I come back? I still have lunch to serve, a wedding cake to make, and then my life to get back on track.”

“Jesse Vanek.” Completely ignoring my request, Maddy leans around me and speaks in a conspiratorial whisper. “He’s mysterious too. No one quite knows where he came from, but he sounds Southern, doesn’t he? Shirley Mott thought Florida, but I didn’t think they have those accents.”

How did she learn his last name before I did? It’s not like I have proprietary rights to it, but still. Has he been sharing his pig catching hands all over town? “I think so.”

Oops. I shouldn’t have said anything. Both Opal and Maddy fix me with curious gazes. Under one arched eyebrow, Opal’s hazel eyes gleam. “He’s your neighbor, isn’t he? I can’t believe he rents that old hovel. Can’t you let him stay with you, Laura, until the Drydens fix up his shack?”

Still holding the jug of iced tea and somehow miraculously not spilling it everywhere, I put one hand on my hips. “When has a Dryden ever fixed anything? And why me? You have quite a nice guest cottage, Ms. Olmstead, that I’ve seen you advertise on VRBO before.”

Maddy turns a shade of pink delicately described as flamingo. “That’s for tourists, hon. You understand.”

“He’s just as good as a tourist.” I straighten my back, ignoring the indignant twinge in my muscle from chasing down Edward this morning. “St. Olaf is not for someone like him. He’ll never winter here. The first big ice storm, that man is hell and gone.” The words taste like bitter absinthe on my tongue. “Now what can I get you ladies for lunch?”

Opal hmphs while Maddy tsks. “I’ll have the usual. Veggie wrap, hold the tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers. Add turkey and bacon and on sourdough, please and thank you.”

I make a show of writing it down, since the last time I didn’t, I endured a half-an-hour-long lecture on the decline of western civilization. “And for you, Opal?”

“I don’t know.” Opal sets down the menu card and picks up her iced tea. She has on black nail polish with hot pink tips. Where does she find the time for a manicure amid butting into everyone else’s business? “Today I think I’ll try the grilled cheese and a cup of your delicious tomato soup.”

“Coming right up.”