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Turner wasn’t there Friday either, and I tried really hard not to imagine him out on a Friday night, clubbing or hooking up or even just flirting with the waiter while having dinner with my brother and his girlfriend. The store was empty, and I’d picked up a slim children’s book. The one with the unicorn on the cover. The unicorn with the rainbow horn.

“Don’t look so disappointed.”

“Huh?”

“It’s like you don’t want to work with the kooky old lady.”

“Miss Anita! You’re not …”

“Don’t you dare say I’m not kooky. I’ll be insulted.”

“Old. You’re not old.”

“Ahh, but I am. And so are you now, so let’s drop the Miss, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am.” I smiled.

“He’ll be here tomorrow.”

“I … It’s… Um? Who will be here?”

“Nice try, kid!”

I waved the book at her. “Last one.”

“It’s still very popular. There are more in the back.”

“On it.”

Chapter Six

Turner at Twenty-Five

He looked so charming, kneeling there playing with those twins.

When I’d arrived in town the year before, he’d stopped working as soon as I’d started. And for one reason or another, despite the fact that I spent a lot of time with his brother and Mallory, I’d hardly seen Dalton in the year I’d been there. Which made perfect sense. Brett lived out of town, Dalton no longer worked at BT&G, and he was still in high school. It’s not like we traveled in the same circles.

Last winter break, I’d told Anita my story. I’d cried and let it all out, and then she’d offered me a job. Even at the time, I realized it was more than a job that she was offering me. It was a chance for a real life. My own life on my own terms.

“Your timing is perfect!” she had said after I’d hemorrhaged my emotions all over the store and argued that her job and rent offer were much, much too generous.

“Dalton just told me he’s quitting after the holidays, so I really do need someone.” I was about to call bullshit because Dalton was still in high school and only worked part-time. Anita was offering me a full-time position as assistant manager and a place to stay.

“Don’t look at me like that.” How she knew me so well so early in our relationship I’d never know. Anita just had this way of seeing things, of understanding people. Of understanding me.

“I was serious last time we spoke, you know.”

I felt a crooked smile cross my face. “I wasn’t sure you even recognized me, much less remembered our conversations from back then.”

“Well, I didn’t recognize you until you took that hat and those silly glasses off.” She’d mussed up my hair, and I had smiled a real, genuine, everything’s-going-to-be-okay type of smile for the first time since I’d run into Derek in a dance hall in Milwaukee.

Anita eventually explained that I had the look when we first met. “I could just tell you’d fallen in love with the beach. I remember thinking, wait until he sees it in the summer. Then you started coming by in the mornings, asking all those intelligent questions.”

She reminded me of her story and how she’d been gifted the property we were sitting in, One Hundred Four Breakwater Avenue.

“You’re just going to give me this business and this building?”

“No,” she’d said emphatically. “I’m going to make a business deal, just like someone made me many, many years ago.”