“She enjoys it. And enjoys you. So. You enjoy that sweater.”
“Thank you! You tell Winnie I love it!”
Riley waved as Mr. Tolleson shuffled toward the door, cheerfully swinging his rubber-tipped cane like an umbrella. As soon as he hit the sidewalk, she turned to Jessie and Ruby. “Oh my God, can you believe this? Look at the craftsmanship.”
Jessie fingered the sleeve. “I totally want one. Winnie Tolleson’s knitting is a thing of legend.”
“She spends a lot of time in doctor’s offices,” Ruby added. “Knitting is something she can still do without too much trouble. Takes a lot of joy in it.”
“Do you know, Howard and Winnie have been married for fifty-eight years?” Riley asked.
“Really?” Jessie asked. “I can’t even wrap my brain around that. That’s amazing.”
Liam absorbed the brief stab of pain at the thought that, if not for his father’s aneurysm, his parents would’ve been just like them. “We should all be so lucky.”
Riley didn’t squeak, but she did jolt at the sound of his voice, one hand pressing to her heart. “I swear to God, you need a bell around your neck.”
“Didn’t mean to startle you. Got a minute?”
As he expected, she immediately opened her mouth. “I really need to—”
“I just wanted to talk to you about the storage room. Work out a plan for when would be the least disruptive time for me to move everything out and where you want me to put your stock in the meantime. It’ll only take a few minutes.”
“Go ahead, Riley, baby. We’ve got things covered.” Ruby gave him a wink.
Liam worked to keep his own expression neutral. No reason to give the sister of the biggest gossip in town additional fodder for the mill.
“I guess I can spare a couple of minutes.”
She preceded him into the stock room, wrapping the sweater tight around herself despite the fact that the AC wasn’t pumping that hard. He wondered if he could shut the door without making anybody suspicious and figured the answer was no. In her current state, Riley was liable to bolt. So he followed her inside.
She jumped straight to business. “I hate to make you do any work on a weekend, but Saturday afternoon or Sundays are the best time since we’re closed.”
He had no trouble reading between the lines. And if we’re closed, I won’t be here and have to see you because I’ll see to it your mom is the one to supervise.
“The playground assembly is coming up this Saturday and next. We’re cementing in posts this weekend, doing the full assembly the weekend after.”
“Oh right, I forgot about that.”
“You coming? Seems like you ought to have a hand in the finished product since you helped tear down the old one.”
“I’ll have to talk to your mom to see if she can cover the pharmacy.”
“I’m sure she’d be happy to, if you asked.”
Cue awkward silence. Because she looked completely miserable, Liam walked on by her, weaving his way through boxes of new stock back to the piles of other crap that had been accumulating for years.
He moved a drop cloth to peer beneath. “I think there are display shelves under all this mess.”
“Your mom said before this building was the pharmacy, it was a five and dime. They had need of more space than we do.”
“You ever think of tearing down that wall they put up and expanding back into this section?”
“I don’t have enough stock to justify it. Not to mention the expense.”
“If money were no object?”
“It’s definitely an object.”