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Chapter Four

E ven though I’d ventured into the woods the next morning to see if the unicorn had decided to reappear, I didn’t see a damn thing.

Well, sure, I spied some squirrels, a raccoon, and a doe who scampered off through the trees the second she caught sight of me, but those encounters, while interesting enough, weren’t what I’d been hoping for.

Obviously, unicorns came and went on their own time.

So I’d gone back into town and opened the pet shop, doing my best to fight back an overwhelming sensation of futility. Why had the unicorn shown himself to me the afternoon before? Trying to help, in some sort of roundabout way? Checking in on me?

That possibility seemed to suggest that maybe he was in communication with my mother and grandmother, and was acting as some sort of messenger who could travel between the two worlds.

However, I had a feeling that theory was born of wishful thinking and not much else.

The pet shop was strictly about providing supplies, not selling animals — I knew back in the day there had been puppies in the window, but when my mother took over, she’d decreed there were far too many animals in shelters who needed homes and there was no reason for the store to have dogs and cats for sale — so I didn’t have to do much when I went in except turn on the lights and the cash register and then unlock the door.

Later today, I’d be getting shipments from Science Diet and Blue Buffalo, but the UPS driver never appeared until after two o’clock, which meant I had plenty of time before I had to worry about that.

People came and went, grabbing bags of food, replacements for leashes that had gotten chewed through, bottles of pet shampoo and grooming brushes.

Nothing out of the ordinary, which was about par for the course.

Despite the legendary creatures who came and went in the woods outside town, not a lot happened in Silver Hollow, which was sort of the point.

Anyone who hadn’t been born here had come to the town because they wanted some peace and quiet.

Among them was my friend Jasmine Perez, the town librarian, who popped in for some advice during her lunch break.

“Lulu’s been kind of droopy lately,” she said, mentioning the gorgeous Siamese cat she’d brought with her when she’d relocated here from San Francisco a few years earlier. “I was thinking maybe we should switch out her food?”

Since Jasmine had already told me that Lulu had been fed Science Diet since the day she was weaned, I didn’t know for sure whether her food was the real reason for the cat’s current listlessness.

“When did this start?” I asked.

Jasmine tilted her head to one side. I’d always thought she was about the exact opposite of traditional stereotypes about librarians, since she was definitely the most glamorous person in Silver Hollow, thanks to her severe black bob with its Bettie Page bangs, perfect cat-eye liner, and impeccable red lipstick.

Even though she’d been here for several years, heads still turned when she made her way down the sidewalk in her kitten heels and vintage beaded twin sets.

In general, my hometown was much more of a flannel and jeans kind of place.

Then she said, “I guess a couple of weeks ago, after I bought all that new furniture and rearranged the living room and my bedroom.”

Ah, now I thought I knew what was going on.

“Cats tend to be creatures of habit,” I said. “Lulu probably didn’t like it that you changed up her living space. Was she like this after you moved here?”

Jasmine’s perfectly penciled brows drew together, even as comprehension sparked in her dark brown eyes. “You know, she was. She bounced back after about a month, but she was a total lump until then.”

“Well, that must be what’s going on here,” I said. “It’s nothing permanent, so you should just give her a little extra attention until she gets used to the new arrangement.”

“I can do that.” Jasmine paused there and sent a quick glance over to the display that held all the shop’s various cat toys. “And I’ll pick up a few things for her just to make sure she knows that I care and don’t want her to be too upset by the new furniture.”

Five minutes later, Jasmine was out the door, clutching a bag full of treats and toys — probably more than Lulu’s current situation required, but spoiling your pets was just part of having them in the first place.

The rest of the day passed quietly enough…

well, until Eliza Cartwright came in. She owned one of the four restaurants in town, but since hers specialized in breakfast and lunch, that meant she was usually done for the day by around three.

When her daughter Bethany was younger, that worked out perfectly, since Eliza could pick her up from school.

Now that Bethany was a freshman at the local high school, though, Eliza had been discharged from chauffeur duty, which meant she had much more time available for gossip.

“We had a stranger come to town today,” she said with a knowing look in her eyes, and I had to hold back a smile.

That kind of comment made her sound as if we were inhabiting an old Western movie, rather than living in a small town in the Pacific Northwest. Since plenty of people came here to hike and kayak and explore the various national and state parks in the area, it wasn’t so terribly strange to have someone show up who wasn’t a local.

“Oh?” I said. The store wasn’t busy right then, so I figured it was okay to indulge in a little gossip.

Eliza nodded. She was in her early forties, divorced and raising Bethany on her own, which didn’t seem to have slowed her down a bit.

Hazel eyes glinting, she said, “He told me he was here to go hiking, but he sure wasn’t dressed for it.

Asked about any local folklore and made kind of a joke about Bigfoot, which I thought was a little strange. ”

A thrill of unease moved down my spine. Sure, ours was the kind of country where you might expect to find Sasquatch roaming around, but as far as I knew, there hadn’t been any sightings near my hometown.

“What kind of local legends?” I asked, deciding to leave the Bigfoot comment out of it for now.

The women in my family had done a damn good job of keeping their connection to all those beasts of myth and legend severely on the down-low, but that didn’t mean someone else might not have caught a glimpse of something they couldn’t quite explain while wandering in the woods.

Eliza’s thin shoulders lifted slightly. Despite being around all that excellent food — and eating her share of it, since she had to grab her meals on the go when things slowed down at the café — she was practically model-thin, with the kind of sharp jawline and sculpted collarbones that I’d always secretly envied.

The women in my family were much more about a sort of soft prettiness than having model-worthy cheekbones.

“He didn’t say,” she replied. “It kind of seemed like he wanted to brush it off, so I’m not really sure why he even asked in the first place.” Her voice lowered, even though there wasn’t anyone else in the pet store at the moment. “He’s very cute.”

“That a fact?” I returned, singularly unimpressed. I’d had to break off a relationship to come back here, and even though I’d been the one to initiate the split, the whole thing had left me in a mental state where I had no desire to get involved with anyone else for a very long time.

Especially not with anyone from out of town, no matter how “cute” they might be.

But Eliza just chuckled. “I’m not saying you have to marry the guy,” she remarked. “I’m just saying it might not be a bad idea for you to have a little fun. You can’t keep living your life entirely alone, even with everything that’s happened.”

As she spoke, though, the twinkle in her eyes disappeared, and I got the feeling she’d just realized that urging me to get out there and date when my mother and grandmother had been missing for barely three months might not have been the most sensitive thing to do.

“I’m not planning to be a complete hermit,” I said, and made sure to keep my tone as light as I could. “I’m just saying that I think I need some more time to adjust to everything.”

She reached over and patted me on the arm. “And I understand that, honey, I really do. Everyone’s pulling for you. We just want you to be happy.”

“Happy” didn’t seem like a state I’d be able to attain anytime soon.

However, saying such a thing out loud felt way too self-pitying…

and might possibly be construed as an invitation for some commiseration, which I definitely didn’t want right then…

so I summoned a crooked smile from somewhere and put it on.

“Working on it,” I told her. “But thanks for the heads-up that someone’s asking questions.”

“A cute someone,” Eliza reminded me. Then she got her sunglasses out of her purse and put them on, adding, “Well, I need to run by the market before Bethany gets home from school. You have a good rest of your day, Sidney.”

“You, too,” I said.

She headed out, and I looked around the shop and allowed myself a small head shake.

Well, at least I probably wouldn’t have to worry about the stranger coming into my store…unless he was traveling with his dog or something.

I thought that highly unlikely, though.

But everyone else who came in after Eliza was people I knew, and I was able to close the shop at five-thirty without incident.

Because my house — I’d been doing my best to think of it that way, even though it always felt like “Grandma’s house” to me — was located only a quarter-mile away, I walked to and from work whenever the weather allowed, and I had to admit that those moments of breathing in the fresh air and feeling the breeze tug at the ends of my loose hair helped me get in a place where I could think a little more clearly.

Well, most of the time, anyway.