there. She took the pictures as fast as she could before picking up the notebook and tape measure and heading for the door. She wondered if he’d say something as she left. “Goodbye”? “Thanks for nothing”?
But he didn’t say a thing, and she left the room the way she’d entered it. In silence.
FIVE
Jenny was still a little rattled when they left the Daulton house an hour later. It was stupid. Ben Daulton was just a guy. Or, if you wanted to get specific, a jerk. She’d just avoid him next time.
Her dad talked about the project all the way home, about its potential and the challenge of the time line and the budget. These were the projects he liked best, the ones that forced him to “think outside the box” and “be innovative.” He talked about Clare, too, and how she didn’t know anyone and needed to find a temporary job to help make ends meet until she could sell the house. Jenny tried to listen, nodding and smiling in all the right places, but she couldn’t shake the feeling of rejection from her meeting with Ben.
They reached home in time for Jenny to wrap her paintings before her shift at Books. She had to have everything to the gallery that was hosting the Central Valley Young Artists Show by seven p.m. Prepping the canvases for transport now meant that later she could just load them up and go.
She wasn’t surprised to find the paint slightly tacky where the figure had been added to each painting. Acrylics took only a few hours to dry, but longer to really set. She wrapped them carefully, hoping the paint wouldn’t smudge en route. She may not have meant for the man to be there, but now that he was, better to make it look like she’d planned it that way.
Once the canvases were wrapped, Jenny headed to Books. She took the Honda her dad had bought secondhand when she’d finally passed her road test last year and forced herself not to speed on the way to the store. Samuel was forgiving when they were late, but Jenny still liked to be on time.
She made her way through the outskirts of town and was almost to Main Street when she looked in the rearview mirror and realized the black car behind her had been following her almost since she’d pulled out of her driveway. She had a flash of paranoia as she pulled into the tiny lot behind the store, but the car passed by without stopping. She felt stupid when she saw the moon symbol on the driver’s-side door and realized it was one of the cars from the retreat center on the mountain.
She found a parking spot and scanned the lot for Tiffany’s car, not surprised when she didn’t find it, even though Jenny knew they were on the schedule to work together. Tiffany was always late.
Jenny didn’t bother locking the car door. There was virtually no crime in Stony Creek. It was a big deal if a teenager stole a nail polish from Rite Aid.
She entered the store through the back, making her way around the towers of books and miscellaneous gift items stacked in boxes in the storeroom. Samuel Thompson, the owner of the store, was unloading paperbacks onto a rolling cart. Jenny waved at him as she headed for the employee break room.
“Hey, Sam. Has it been busy?”
His brown eyes were warm as he smiled. “Not too bad today, Jenny. I missed you this morning, though.”
She laughed, knowing he was referring to all the people on their way to Saturday afternoon birthday parties who took advantage of the store’s free gift-wrapping policy. Sam was terrible at wrapping.
“I’m sure you did fine,” she said, hanging her bag on a hook in the break room.
“Don’t be so sure,” he grinned. His accent, still thoroughly Jamaican after twenty years in the US, was like warm syrup on a Saturday morning.
“Where do you want me today?” she asked.
He started breaking down the box, now empty. “I’m putting you and Tiffany in the cafe.”
“Both of us?” Usually only one of them worked the cafe at a time.
He nodded. “That local author is coming