Page 106 of Confessions

“She’s at work.”

With a sigh, Tina clucked her tongue. “Work, work, work, that’s all everybody does anymore. You tell her to come up and visit us once in a while. Eli—hey, look who’s come visitin’.”

Eli Sedgewick was leaning over a glass display case of fishing equipment, loudly discussing the merits of gray hackles, some kind of fishing fly, with an older man Carlie didn’t recognize.

Two other men sat around a potbellied stove in the corner, swapping fishing tales.

Eli, fishing hat studded with different flies, straightened, squinted through thick glasses and smiled as he recognized her. “Well, Carlie girl, about time you showed your face around here,” he said. “Your pa retired yet?”

“Not quite.”

The customer asked Eli a question and he turned back to his serious discussion.

Carlie walked to the coolers at the rear of the store, eyed the variety of sodas and settled on ginger ale. As she walked back toward the cash register, she stopped at Ben’s ladder. “So now you’re an electrician?” Carlie asked, her stomach filled with a nest of suddenly very active butterflies.

“Jack-of-all-trades, that’s me.”

“Or a soldier of fortune?”

He hopped lithely to the ground and dusted off his hands. “Absolutely.” Offering her a smile that caused her heart to turn over, he snapped the ladder shut and yelled toward the fishing lure section, “You can try it now, Mr. Sedgewick.”

“What? Oh, well, yes...” Sedgewick disappeared behind an open door and flipped on the appropriate switch. The paddle fan started moving slowly.

“What’d I tell ya?” Ben asked, obviously pleased with himself.

“I’ll never doubt you again.”

His grin widened. “I’ll remember that.” He turned his intense hazel eyes in her direction. “You come here lookin’ for me?”

“No, I...just stopped in for a soda.” To prove her point, she flipped open her can of pop.

“Come on, Carlie. You haven’t been in the store in months,” he said and she couldn’t argue, not after he’d obviously overheard her conversation with the Sedgewicks.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she said, tossing her hair off her shoulder defensively.

“I’m just telling you what it looks like to me.” He carried the ladder back to a storage closet and tucked it inside. Carlie, embarrassed, wondered if the conversation was over and if her relationship, what little there had been of it, with Ben was over, as well.

She paid for her soda and walked outside. She’d been a fool to come by here. She’d known it and yet still she’d come, irresistibly drawn, as if a powerful magnet had forced her to wheel into the Bait and Fish.

“Idiot,” she muttered as she climbed into the hot interior of her car. She jammed the keys into the ignition and the motor turned over.

“Hey, wait!” Ben strode out of the store, the screen door slamming behind him.

“For what?” She eyed him through her open window and wondered why she didn’t ram the little car into gear and roar out of the lot in a cloud of dust and righteous indignation.

“I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“Well, you did.” She just wanted to get away from him. Enough was enough. She couldn’t chase him forever and let herself look like an idiot.

“I’m sorry.” He stopped by her car and leaned down so that he could stare into her eyes. “I’m glad you came by.”

“I’m not.”

“Carlie,” he said and his voice was like a caress on the soft-blowing breeze. “Look, can we start over?”

She swallowed hard. She didn’t want to see the kind side to him, not when she’d made a fool of herself. “Maybe we should just finish. It would be easier.”

“But not as much fun,” he said and the streaks of silver in his eyes seemed more defined. “I’ve been meaning to call you—”