Page 9 of With Stars in Her Eyes

Thea

Each step toward my car was a battle. The wind lashed my face, causing the tall trees around St. Clare Circle to creak and crackle like a chiropractor realigning a spine.

The streetlights were barely visible. The main street was a snow emergency route, so I’d parked in the small lot that now felt miles away.

The snow blurred everything in sight in hypnotic swirls. So this is what they mean by whiteout.

Even the radio weather team seemed surprised by how quickly the light snow became a blizzard.

I had rushed through closing up, but the snow was already above my knees when I locked the door behind me.

It had been dumb to refuse a ride back to my car from the last customer of the day, whose boyfriend showed up in a giant SUV.

Denise had called and left several messages on the shop machine, but of course I hadn’t received them until too late.

While listening to the last one, the power went out entirely.

The pub lights were off, so I couldn’t duck in there to get warm. Marshall had gone to Topeka to pick up his dad from the airport, not knowing whether the flight would get in. The only visible light around was a subtle glow in the bookstore window.

Movement darted inside the shop. I blinked a few times, trying to decide whether it was an actual human inside or just my eyes playing tricks. I peered through the frosted glass.

Someone was inside, pacing by the desk area lit by several candles.

A second person sat on the floor holding something in their arms. That might be Courtney because I could just make out that heavy quilted coat she wore sometimes—not that I had been watching out the window and noticing whenever Courtney and Samantha walked by…

A howl of wind interrupted my observations. But why would Courtney still be in the bookstore if the power had gone out there too? Who else was with her? Samantha was out of town according to Denise.

A flash of bright blue sent me whirling back so quickly I nearly tumbled into a snowdrift. A rumble sounded in the distance.

“What the hell was—”

Hands grabbed me and yanked me inside. The store wasn’t exactly warm, but at least the painful impact of the wind was gone.

“Why in the world are you out walking all by your damn lonesome in this? You trying to freeze to death?”

That voice wasn’t Courtney’s. It belonged to a gray-haired woman with steel-gray eyes.

“Um…”

“Can’t you see that there’s a blizzard happening?” The gravelly voice was muffled by several scarves and her wiry body beneath was swallowed by an oversized peacoat. The woman’s head was covered by a hat that would look appropriate in an adaptation of Doctor Zhivago .

“It’s Thea, Ms. Jeannie. Marshall’s friend who’s living with him.” Courtney turned back to me, arms still cradled in an odd way. Is she hurt? “Seriously, what the hell are you doing just walking out there? What if you had fallen all by yourself?”

I fastened my hands to my hips and stood as tall as possible, like being out in the storm was anything other than an accident. “Well, I could ask you the very same question, honey.”

“ Honey? ” The note of accusation in Courtney’s voice vanished into something closer to amused surprise.

I spluttered before I could make my thawing lips speak again. “Forget that.” Another flash drew my attention to the window.

“Thundersnow,” whispered the older woman.

Courtney peered as close to the glass as possible without touching it. “Thundersnow. Oh… wow.”

“ Thundersnow? That’s a thing?”

Jeannie nodded. “I’ve never seen it myself. Been in plenty of blizzards and never seen it.”

“It happened once when I lived in Connecticut, but I slept through it.”

Another flash of blue cast harsh shadows on our reflected faces.

“Well, I’ll be damned. Thundersnow.” I matched Courtney’s awed volume.

The last full blizzard to hit Huntsville happened when I was too young to remember it clearly.

The metric ton of snow the sky had dropped over the last few hours gave me newfound respect for winter.

I just wished I had found that respect when my second-to-last client warned me about the increasingly apocalyptic forecast.

I turned to Courtney. “Why didn’t you go home? Didn’t the bookstore close an hour ago, even if y’all had kept normal hours? And I’m sorry, but you own the plant store, right?”

The old woman pulled off a glove and extended her hand. Her fingers were rheumatic and gnarled, probably from years of digging and pruning. “Jeannie Gallagher-Keegan. And yes. Guess I forgot my manners for a second.”

I took off my own glove and shook her hand.

My initial impression of this woman when she had given me a mild tongue-lashing for parking in the wrong place when I interviewed at Squid was that she was scarily stern.

But up close, there was a nearly constant twinkle in her eye.

Up close she had a beautiful if careworn face with high cheekbones.

Her features recalled photos I had seen of Audrey Hepburn in her later years.

The front of Courtney’s coat wriggled. I took a jerking step back, fearing the return of the roving reptile.

Jeannie’s whoop of laughter filled the candlelit bookstore. “Don’t worry. It’s not Billy.” She patted my hand. “Yes, I heard what happened.”

I groaned.

Courtney unzipped her coat a few inches and out popped a tiny snout.

“Oh my god, is that a—”

“A potbelly pig,” Jeannie said. “The runt of a litter. One of my employees called me, carrying on because this little fellow was going to be stuck here over the weekend after his surgery because she couldn’t get back in time to pick him up. This storm rolled in early and took us all by surprise.”

“Why is he here ? Specifically, in your coat in a bookstore .”

“Remember what I said about boarding animals?” Courtney frowned.

“He kept crying at the vet’s office because he’s terrified of other animals, and they called to see if he could come over here.

The power was flickering on and off earlier when the wind started picking up.

I closed up the shop and I went home to grab some emergency stuff.

I was going to take him home with me, but I got worried he’d jump out of my coat and get lost. After I finally got him calmed down, Ms. Jeannie showed up—”

“So…” I turned to Jeannie. “You hollered at me five seconds ago about me being out in the storm that you were just out in too even though you’re…”

“Even though I’m what, exactly?” Jeannie stood several inches shorter than Courtney, nearly half a foot shorter than me, yet somehow in pure haughtiness she towered over us both.

I cleared my throat. “Um…”

The pig’s small snuffling sound interrupted the tension. He nestled himself against Courtney’s chest but eyed me with more suspicion than should be possible for a potbellied piglet.

“For the record, I think y’all made the right call on keeping him here. The snow’s twice his height.” I held out my hand to the little piglet, letting the warm snout nudge it and sniff. “What’s his name?”

“Baxter.” Jeannie’s eyes smiled.

I smirked at the piglet. “It suits him.”

“I think so too.” Courtney nuzzled Baxter with her nose.

Another flash of blue pulled my attention back outside. When I turned back to face Courtney, her face was pulled tight in a wince. Noticing my attention, she smoothed her features.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“Head hurts a bit. I’m fine.”

Jeannie’s attention snapped to Courtney. “A headache or a migraine, kiddo?”

“A migraine. The pressure changes can make them worse. This one’s not bad though. I swear.”

“Why do I get the impression you’ve spent a long time fibbing about how bad your head is?” I scanned her face.

Courtney adjusted her hold on the pig. “Probably because you’re inconveniently perceptive and notice things.”

Jeannie cleared her throat. “ Probably because Courtney has spent a lot of time doing just that. And fibbing’s a pretty way to say lying through her damn teeth to all the people who care about her.

” Jeannie’s eyes flashed. “Glad to know Courtney’s got other people around her who are inconveniently perceptive.

” Her phone began buzzing, and she stepped away to answer it.

“How dare you both imply such awful things about me?” Courtney shook her head.

“Just don’t want you to think you have to pretend everything’s all hunky-dory if you feel like your head’s about to fall off.”

Courtney’s head tilted. “Where are you from?” The suddenness of the question caught me off guard, but I weirdly liked the way Courtney was studying me. “You have an accent that sort of comes and goes, and I can’t place it.”

“I’m from Huntsville, Alabama. It’s my mama’s accent that I try to hide most of the time.”

“It’s stronger tonight.”

“Charmingly skittish piglets have that effect on me.” I scratched the piglet’s chin. “Most of the time it’s more subtle. I grew up around a lot of transplants, so they didn’t have strong ones either. And you? You said you’re from Connecticut?”

“I was born in Los Angeles, but I moved around a lot. It’s complicated. My mom was from California. Honestly, don’t have a clue where my dad’s from.”

“Military?”

Courtney shook her head. “Musicians.”

“Oh, that’s cool.”

“Fundamentalist evangelical musicians.”

“Significantly less cool.” I cringed. “Yikes.”

Courtney snorted. “I agree.”

“So what do you—”

“Bad news, gals,” Jeannie said. “Old Jack Cobb—my soil supplier—his truck won’t start. And believe you me, ain’t nobody wants me to call in help from my rascal of a stepson. With Marshall and his daddy both out of town, I think this settles it.”

“Settles…” I widened my eyes expectantly, hoping a plan was forthcoming.

“We’re bunking in here until Dewayne and his plowmen can clear the roads. Power lines are down all over. I wouldn’t want us risking the walk home even if it wasn’t for the whiney little brute in Miss Courtney’s pocket. Wind’s picking up.”

“Sounds good,” I said.