With one final ringing tap, the rock split open. Even in the dim light of the alley, I could make out the glimmer of milky crystal surrounded by dark slate-colored agate.
“It’s a thunderegg,” Evie said, her eyes twinkling. “The ancients believed that when the thunder spirits in the mountains were angry, they’d chuck these things at one another. It takes just the right geological conditions to make them, and they’re pretty rare, even around here.”
Thanks to my hippie parents, I’d seen a lot of crystals and geodes in my day but nothing compared to this. The patterns, the dance of light across even the rough slice, were hypnotic. “But why would someone leave one on the bar? As a tip?”
“It’s for you, for your birthday.”
I rolled my eyes. “Evie, it could be for anyone. Some tourist could have just left it there by accident.”
“Do you see anyone else turning thirty around here?”
“OK, if it’s for my birthday, who’s it from? Why didn’t they leave a card?” I asked.
“Sometimes the gift is message enough,” she said in her “wise” tone. “Fine, I saw him drop it off. I think someone feels a little guilty over how he’s treated you.”
“Cooper? But he—he—”
He howls at the moon and murders defenseless elk.
“He doesn’t like me,” I finished lamely.
“Aw, honey, he’s been nicer to you than he is to most of the locals. Sometimes a man just has to pull your pigtails a few times before he can deign to admit that he likes you. Honestly, I don’t know why we put up with any of them. You just wait and see. He’s coming around.”
“I don’t see how not insulting me or openly sneering at me for a few days can be considered being nice to me.” I snorted weakly. I looked down at my watch. I was supposed to be at Alan’s house in an hour. “Crap. I’ve got a date.”
“Well, that’s the right attitude to head into a date with,” she said, smirking.
“Alan’s fixing me dinner.”
Evie sighed. Loudly.
“What?”
“Mo, it’s not that I don’t like Alan. I love him to death, but he’s not right for you. You need a challenge . . . like, say, my idiot cousin, who apparently doesn’t know about signing gift cards so he can get credit for what is clearly a romantic gesture. A weak and somewhat backward romantic gesture, but—”
“Evie,” I huffed in a warning tone.
“Cooper needs someone who won’t put up with his surly crap, someone who will sift through all that and find the great guy he used to be. And you, you need someone who’s going to make you work a little bit. And Cooper will make you work like a dog just to get him to ask you out.”
“Well, you make it sound so appealing,” I muttered. “And what do you mean, the great guy he used to be?”
She preened. “I have you intrigued now, don’t I?”
I glared at her.
“Look, I’ve watched you every day since you moved here. You don’t trust anything that comes to you too easily. And Alan is the definition of easy-going. Anything you have with him will be doomed from the start.”
“It will be now that you’ve put your evil date voodoo on it. Jesus, Evie!” I pushed to my feet and shoved the thunderegg back into the gift box.
“OK, ‘doomed from the start’ was probably going a bit too far,” she said, following me to my truck. “I just think you need to be careful how you handle this.”
“I will be.” I slid into Lucille’s driver’s seat, rolled my window down, and started the ignition, all the while glaring at her. “If I go into your office and find an Alan doll with pins stuck in its crotch, I will be super-pissed.”
I drove at highly illegal speeds to get home. I put the thunderegg on my mantel, rushed into the shower, and spent fifteen minutes scrubbing Eau de Blue Plate Special from my general person. And then another fifteen debating among the few nicer outfits I’d brought with me. I was torn between a sweater and jeans and a low-cut red party dress, which was a little too much for a dinner in.
I settled on jeans and a sky-blue silk blouse that brought out the color of my eyes, a birthday gift from Kara the previous year. With her in mind, I put on my silver charm bracelet as I thumbed through my bathroom drawer searching for my eyeliner, which I hadn’t used since I moved. Overall, the effect was quite nice, considering I’d been assembling tuna melts only an hour before.>The morning I turned thirty was the first time I’d missed out on one of Mom’s dramatic monologues. I just wanted a nice quiet day at work. But when I walked into the saloon that morning, it was dark, which was unusual. I heard the faint sound of hurried whispering, of scuffling footsteps behind the counter. I backed away, thumping into the door, nearly dropping the morning’s baking to the floor as I fumbled for the knob.
No.