Page 28

She’d intended on packing an order for some antique keys that weren’t worth all that much, but the collector had wanted the whole lot of the ones she’d recently acquired, and she’d been able to sell them as a set for a little more. Plus, she’d be shipping them only a few towns over, and she’d charged a flat rate for shipping for this one, which meant she’d made a few extra bucks since the actual cost was a little less than her charge. While she was happy to have a potential customer, considering how unlikely it was that the person would actually buy something, Quinn wished she could just pack up the keys and get them ready for the driver.

“Ouch!” she yelped as she tripped over a box resting against the wall, not at all where it should’ve been.

She’d yet to move it to where itshouldhave been, so she’d just rammed it with her toes and was now in pain.

“Are you okay?”

Quinn looked up instantly at the sound of that voice, a voice she’d only heard for a few minutes just a couple of days ago, but one that she’d been thinking about ever since, wondering if Abby would keep her word and return to the shop. She hadn’t bothered to check the camera, so now, she was regretting that because she could’ve at least fixed her hair, which she’d worn down that day and had yet to disentangle from the wind outside.

“Hi,” she said, offering Abby a smile. “You’re back.”

“I’m back, yeah,” Abby replied.

“With groceries?” she asked, confused.

“Huh?”

“You have…” She pointed to the plastic bags in Abby’s hand.

“Oh.” Abby chuckled. “Yeah, I needed to pick up a few things.” She held up her coffee cup. “Like coffee. I was in desperate need of that. Also, food, which I need to survive, so…”

“Me too.” Quinn laughed nervously. “I was just at that coffee place, though. How did I not see you?”

She moved, ignoring the toe pain, behind the counter because as much as she wanted to be closer to Abby, she also felt like she needed the barrier to protect herself from her own nervousness. There was a real chance that if she got closer to Abby, she might end up reaching out to take her bags, which she desperately wanted to do, and then ask her to come in the back, where they could share coffee and conversation and maybe even talk until it would be time to close up before they continued their conversation on a walk somewhere or at a restaurant. Quinn couldn’t propose any of that, though, because they’d just met, and Abby was or, could be, a customer. There was also a chance that she would drop those bags and end up breaking something in there if she tried to take them from Abby. She really didn’t want to be a klutz in front of this woman, so the counter was the safest place for her to be at the moment.

“I’m guessing I went before you. I went there prior to going shopping. Then, I saw you walking back, so I thought I’d stop by. Are you busy?” Abby looked around the empty shop.

“Yes, extremely,” Quinn joked. “Can you not see my dozens of customers?”

Abby laughed and said, “They could be in the back.”

“They’re not. In the back, there’s a desk I rarely use, with a lot of stuff piled up on it, a shipping counter for my pack-and-ship stuff, and a lot of boxes of things I need to inventory or pack up.”

“Why don’t you use your desk?” Abby asked.

“I’m my only employee, so I’m usually just up here with my laptop when I’m open or at the shipping counter with my laptop or at home with my laptop after I close up. The desktechnically came with the building, so it’s more just a way to pile up more stuff for me to sell than a place for me to sit and work at. At least, that gets the stuff off the floor, right?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, sure.” Quinn swallowed, wondering what Abby had in mind.

Abby walked up to the counter and set her bags down on it, along with her coffee cup. This was the closest they’d been since they’d met, and Quinn had no idea why, but she felt like the whole room now smelled like honeysuckle. She’d only smelled that flower a few times in her life that she could remember, but sense memory was the strongest, so maybe Abby had a body lotion with honeysuckle in it, and Quinn’s nose was picking it up.

“Why do you keep ordering stuff if you’re never busy enough to sell it all? I don’t mean that in a bad way, just… This is the second time I’ve been in here, and I could be wrong, but it’s been empty both times, so I’m guessing you don’t get a ton of foot traffic.”

“Not during the week, no. My busiest days are Saturdays and Sundays,” she replied. “But, yeah, you’re right: I go days without anyone buying anything in the shop itself. I keep ordering because I work with collectors.”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you ever heard the expression, ‘One man’s trash is another man’s treasure?’”

“Yes,” Abby said, picking up her coffee to take a drink.

“Well, when I first bought the shop, the person who owned it before me had a list of people they’d worked with over the years. They were retiring and moving to Florida, so they no longer needed it and gave it to me. People collect just about anything. I’ve sold old Coca-Cola bottle caps before; vintage candy wrappers, even. Antiquing and collecting go hand in hand. I’ve sold a cow-shaped saltshaker to a man who had the pepper side of it but had broken the salt part. He’d been searching for that saltshaker for over a decade, and I had one here in mint condition.”

“What was so special about it?” Abby asked.

“It was from the 1950s. He grew up with them in his home, and he’d found them in his mom’s stuff after she died. The saltshaker was broken in the box.”