Jeez. Definitely less than half my brain present and accounted for.
“Shit,” the guy said. “Sorry, man.” He pushed to his feet and held out a hand.
“Nah, don’t even worry,” I said, letting him help me up and brush halfheartedly at the dust on the back of my shirt. “It was totally my—”
I broke off the second I saw the guy’s face and stared at him in shock. It was the man from the courthouse—same golden-brown hair, same gorgeous tattoos, same stunning eyes—and he looked almost as horrified as I felt.
“I—” I began, ready to launch into my apology right then and there, but before I could utter another syllable, the man turned on his heel and left. Clearly, he didn’t want to hear another word out of my mouth, and I couldn’t really blame him.
The next few minutes were kind of a blur—I knocked over a bunch of shit at Mal’s table, I kept replaying the look on the man’s face, and I very definitely didn’t make eye contact with anyone, ’cause I knew they’d all ask me what was wrong. Instead, I waited as long as I could, then made my escape from the booth and started looking for a particular head bobbing a foot above the crowd.
Of course, as soon as I started looking for him again, the guy had disappeared. I plowed through the throng of people anyway.
“Parrish, son, are you alright?” Uncle Beau hurried to catch up to me, his cane hitting the ground with every other step.
“Yes. Sure. Perfectly perfect. Why do you ask?” I said brightly, like I hadn’t acted like a total idiot. “Just give me a minute to check something out, alright? Then we’ll get some biscuits and we can talk about staffing for the store!”
Beau grabbed my elbow and yanked me to a stop. “We already went over the staffing, remember? When you picked Marnie ’n’ me up in Nashville this morning? Your aunt asked if you’d heard the news about Payne, and you said yes, and I asked how you were feelin’ about that, and you said you were perfectly perfect. And then you launched into a whole spiel about staffing, followed by you recounting all the new thingamajibbers you installed on that jalopy you’ve got parked out in the lot, and somehow that explanation took exactly as long as the ride to the Thicket, so I couldn’t ask you any more questions about your reaction to Payne being a giant, enormous jerk.”
“Convenient how that worked out.”
“Wasn’t it, though?” He looped his arm through mine. “A little too convenient. So, help your old uncle around for just a minute, why don’t you, since Marnie’s off looking at the craft stalls. I ain’t as young and spry as I used to be.”
I snorted and relented, though I kept my eye out for tattooed mountains. “You? The man who was jogging after me a minute ago and dandling Paul’s baby on his lap a few minutes before that?”
“I’m just plain worn out by it all,” he claimed, but the twinkle in his eyes said differently.
We walked among the stalls for a minute in silence, watching the crowd of giggling children and coffee-sipping parents—of note, none of the children were adorable, dark-curled babies, and all of the parents were of average size.
“Parrish,” Beau complained. “This is the part where you’re supposed to spill all your sad secrets to your favorite uncle, boy. You’re missing your cue.”
I laughed. “Me? Secrets? You’ve got the wrong nephew. I’m an open book, Uncle Beau. And I’m happy as a clam. Never been better.”
“I believe you believe that,” he said wryly. “Alright, then. If you won’t come clean, our stroll’s gonna become an inquisition, and just you remember you brought this on yourself.” He cleared his throat. “What’s been going on with you the last couple days, Parrish? You’ve been jumpy and distracted.”
“What? No. I’m—”
“My knees might be frail, but my eyes aren’t.”
I winced. I hadn’t thought my distraction was interfering with my work, but apparently I was wrong. “I’m sorry, Uncle Beau. I’ll work harder. Promise.”
“Parrish,” he sighed. “If Licking Thicket were the point I was trying to make, you’d be in Outer Mongolia right now, missing it entirely.”
“Huh?”
He sighed. “What happened back in Malachi’s tent?”
“Oh, that.” I cleared my throat. “I was super clumsy and knocked into—”
“Into Diesel Church, who looked at you like you were the ghost of Christmas past, present, and future all rolled into one? Yep, I saw. What I don’t know is why he looked at you like that, or why you turned red and looked like someone had kicked your puppy.”
I stopped dead in the path. “Wait, you know that man? The tall one with the tattoos?”
“Diesel,” he repeated. “’Course I know him. He’s a friend of Malachi’s. Helped him source some of the pieces for the restaurants.”