Page 18 of The Side Road (Love Chronicles #3)

AMELIA EARHART

Perched on the top rung of a stepladder, Mia fixed balls of wool in a circle to the wall behind the shop counter. After checking her sphere was symmetrical, and the balls evenly spaced, she attached the hands of a clock in the centre.

After climbing down the ladder, she stepped back and examined the clock.

Almost perfect. Ball number seven needed to be shifted a little to the left.

Ball number three, a little to the right.

However, she was happy with her decision to create a wall clock.

The timepiece made the space feel more homely.

Once again Mia scaled the ladder. She adjusted the position of the wool and climbed back down again.

April joined her behind the counter. ‘The blue one’s not straight.’

April was right – number four was too far to the left. If she tried to fix it, the adjustments might never stop. It was easy to overcorrect: a little to the left, then a bit more to the right. Minor tweaks could go on forever. She would leave it for now .

Leaning against the Spectacle of Socks, Mia noticed Saige with a teenage boy. Sharing earbuds, they were listening to something – probably new music. She would give them a few minutes. It might be young love; she wasn’t going to stand in their way.

Eventually, Saige returned to work. The teenage boy continued to lean on the Spectacle of Socks’ display, where he scrolled through his phone.

About seventeen, with messy brown hair that fell over his eyes, he wore loose jeans and a T-shirt printed with a vintage car design. A hoodie slipped off his shoulders.

‘Saige, who is that boy?’ Mia asked.

‘That’s Connor.’

‘Why is Connor here?’

‘He’s driving me home.’

Mia glanced at the wall clock. Saige’s shift finished at five. It was a two-hour wait.

Connor wasn’t causing any trouble. Leaning and listening to music was not belligerent behaviour. It was a perfectly good place to lean and listen. But didn’t he have something better to do?

‘Fine,’ Mia said. ‘Tell him he can sit at the table. There’s tea and coffee in the lunchroom.’

The basket of knitted ‘Women Who Changed the World’ sat on the counter. Laminated cards with facts about the famous women were beside the basket, and on the bottom was a link for the pattern.

Saige picked up a doll and studied the orange-haired woman wearing a crown and a high-collared dress. ‘Rihanna, right?’

‘Rihanna? No, she’s a queen. Queen Elizabeth the First,’ Mia said.

‘Rihanna’s more fun.’ Saige put down the doll and picked up another. ‘This one’s a zookeeper?’ The doll had a monkey on her hip.

‘That’s Jane Goodall. The famous?—’

Saige picked up another doll. ‘This one rides a motorbike.’

‘She’s a pilot. It’s Amelia Earhart.’

‘But she’s wearing a bike helmet and goggles,’ Saige protested.

‘They’re her aviator glasses. She was the first woman to cross the Atlantic. She disappeared trying to fly around the world.’

‘She didn’t make it?’

Mia shook her head.

‘Traumatised. Literally. A trigger warning should come before that story.’ Saige collected a bag of winter decorations, including pinecones, fake snow, wreaths, and candles, and wandered off to decorate the front window.

Mia considered Amelia Earhart. Adding a scarf might make her identity even more confusing, but perhaps a belt would help, or she could change the colour of the doll’s jacket. She placed Amelia back into the basket. Still no sign of Joan’s flag. If it didn’t turn up soon, Mia would make another.

Logging into her online shop account, Mia checked the sales orders. Her Quinn the Quirky Chicken reel had been running for twenty-four hours on social media. Discounted, she expected the kits would sell. As she scrolled to the bottom of the page, her mouth dropped open.

There were ten thousand orders.

‘Shit!’ Mia yelled. She turned to April. ‘We have ten thousand orders.’

‘Wow,’ April said.

‘Slay,’ Saige agreed.

Mia took down the post .

When Oliver opened the front door at Hook the car pulled out and drove away.

The idea of him was now loose. Caught on the breeze, it was impossible to call it back.

An hour earlier, while they were working on the production line, she had stared at the arc of his eyelashes.

Now, she recalled his scent, an earthy smell, like wild grass.

The erotic charge of his presence had filled the shop, and it caused her heart to race.

It fluttered like a flock of noisy birds .

Three years ago, Mia had been engaged. It had only lasted a few weeks.

On the first day of spring, she had left her engagement ring on the kitchen table in the apartment she had shared with Alfie, along with a note.

Unable to articulate how she felt face to face, writing everything down had seemed like a sensible idea.

All her friends had agreed. Alfie had a way of getting her to change her mind.

He was charming and attentive – when he wanted something – and for Mia, the push–pull nature of their relationship had been addictive.

Life with Alfie was like a roller coaster – exhilarating and exhausting.

Caught in a whirlwind of emotions, she couldn’t resist the magnetic pull of his personality.

Later, she realised that his attentiveness was a calculated move to get what he wanted.

It was the right thing to do, leaving a note for her fiancé.

It was a long note – three pages, double-sided – more like a three-thousand-word essay.

An intuitive person might have suspected there was trouble ahead, that she was thinking of leaving him.

But not Alfie. No one had ever accused him of being self-aware.

Finding the courage to leave had been the most difficult thing she had ever done.

She left because she was afraid. Not of Alfie.

After she understood the nature of their relationship, his hold over her diminished.

She was afraid of herself. The compromises she had made for the love he offered.

This was something she knew about. It was how she expected love to be.

For her entire life, this was how her parents had loved her.

For a year, Mia worried that Alfie never read her letter – he wasn’t a man who took criticism well – but eventually, she realised it didn’t matter.

Getting her life back on track was more important.

Still, leaving the way she did and without a proper goodbye weighed heavily on her heart.

She had loved him, and it had taken her three years to move on from that love.

If it were only a year, no one would care, including herself.

There would be no pressure to find a partner, a lover, a husband, a soul mate, a best friend, a person to grow old with.

Someone to hold at night. Someone to knit for.

Cook for. A hand to hold. Lips to kiss. A body for sex… she missed that.

Three years wasn’t a long time – thirty-six months had passed quickly. The problem was that another three years could slip by just as quickly. If that happened, she would be forty. Still alone. This was a troubling thought.

After she had left Alfie and moved to Eagle Nest, the road ahead was like a new beginning.

With each passing year, her confidence had grown, fuelled by the realisation that she was finally taking control of her own happiness.

When the journey of self-discovery began, she welcomed it with open arms. Without a partner, there was time to pursue other things.

Not being in love freed up weeks and months for more productive passions. Like building a business.

Later that night, as Mia closed her eyes in bed, movies began to play inside her head. Pornographic films. His neck. His lips. His thighs. Firm hands on her bare breasts. A hard cock, she had missed that. Smiling, she drifted off to sleep.