Gloria

According to some of the locals she talked to, that was a possibility. Gloria kept that thought in the back of her mind, and once the first snowstorm hit during the second-to-last week of November, she started to stay in more. It was barely a couple of inches, and it was gone by the next afternoon, but her car had been acting up lately. She didn’t want to risk it.

Of course, that didn’t last long.

As much as she enjoyed the solitude of her cozy cabin up in the mountains, there were a couple of times that she felt the itch to get up and take the trip into the heart of the town despite the weather. She stopped by the coffeehouse a couple of times a week for some coffee and whatever delicious pastry Addy had working that day. She finally got to meet Gus, Addy’s gruff husband who tended to the grill inside the main house, and by the time she was firmly installed in her great aunt’s cabin, most of the coffeehouse’s regulars had seen enough of her to accept her as one of their own.

It was something she noticed from the beginning. Hamlet was such a small town, but it was an incredibly tight-knit community. A lot of the villagers were related in some way, all stemming from the few founding families who settled between the mountains and the gulley following the end of World War II. There was a total “us” vs. “them” mentality that wasn’t harmful—but it was noticeable. Or, rather, it was an “us” vs. “outsiders” situation.

Turned out, thanks to Great Aunt Patti vouching for her and giving her the cabin, Gloria was accepted as an “us”. She was grateful for it, too, because, without the help of the locals, she probably wouldn’t have made it through November.

Hamlet wasn’t just small. It was its own little world.

One of the first things she discovered? No cell service. The weird location made it difficult for cell towers to reach this far into Hamlet, and the villagers long ago refused to put any towers of their own up. No landlines, either. And, to Gloria’s horror, there was no internet or cable television.

Thank goodness she came prepared with her flat screen, a blu-ray player, and her collection of movies or she would’ve waved goodbye and hightailed it out of there already. She could live without the phone—she never really liked talking on one anyway—but nothing to watch when she was unwinding at night?

Yeah. That wasn’t going to work.

Her ice cream creations took a bit of a hit there, too. Nothing she couldn’t handle, but it was another shock to her senses that Hamlet didn’t have its own massive grocery store. No chain locations in the small town. No Whole Foods. No Trader Joe’s. Not even a 7/11.

They had Jefferson’s. That was it.

She liked Jefferson’s. It was a cute store and it had a lot that she needed for her recipes: sugar, eggs, heavy cream, and milk. If Gloria was running low on an essential, she could find it in the crowded aisles of the general store.

When it came to some of her more adventurous flavors? Normally, Gloria would place an order online. She was absolutely floored to discover that that wasn’t an option in Hamlet. Mail service didn’t exist, not really. A middle-aged man named Phil Granger spent a few afternoons a week driving a repurposed golf cart around, picking up mail from the next town over and delivering it himself. Gloria was surprised, then impressed at his civic duty. But just because she could expect her bills to find her sooner or later, the Hamlet townsfolk drew the line at UPS trucks rattling around their empty streets.

Talk about a culture shock. Gloria went from living on her computer and one-clicking whatever struck her fancy to no television, no cell, and no instant gratification.

She kind of, sort of loved it, though. Once she got over the shock, that was.

The quiet, the solitude, the trees that bordered her rustic cabin, and the home-y, everybody is your neighbor vibe that she got from the villagers. Her Great Aunt Patti was well-loved in Hamlet and, as her next of kin, the locals treated her like the prodigal great-niece who had finally returned home to roost.

Which was why, that late November afternoon, she was so surprised when, a few minutes after she turned onto the main road, a police cruiser appeared behind her. As soon as she could see it in her rearview mirror, the sirens turned on.

There were no street signs in Hamlet. No speed limit signs, either. Though she couldn’t imagine what she had done wrong, she immediately coasted to the shoulder.

This was only the second time ever that she’d been pulled over, but Gloria watched a ton of crime shows. Before the cop had even gotten out of his car or walked over to her, she had her window rolled halfway down, her license and registration in her hand.

A pleasant voice drifted over to her on the chilly air. “Hi, there.”

The cop was cute. That was the perfect word for him. Cute.

He was a stocky white guy, broad in the shoulders, but extremely non-threatening. He filled out his brown uniform shirt nicely, a belt complete with a walkie talkie, a flashlight, and a small gun on his hip. Styled light brown hair, beaming chocolate-colored eyes, and a super friendly smile made her forget about the fact that he was armed.

He was younger than she was. Twenty? Maybe.

She smiled up at him.

“Hi.” The cop didn’t ask for it, but she held her cards out anyway. “My license.”

He took her license, giving it a cursory glance. “Gloria Watson.” He slipped it back through the gap in her window. “I thought it was you.”

She must have made a face or something because the deputy laughed. It was a throaty laugh, deep and real, his dark brown eyes twinkling with mirth as he smiled down at her.

“We don’t get too many new faces around here. New cars, either. When I didn’t recognize the vehicle, I was wondering if I’d finally get my turn to meet Ms. Patti’s great-niece.”

Dropping her cards into her purse again, she slipped her hand back out through the window. “That’s me. I’m Gloria.”

He took her hand, giving it a firm shake before letting go and tapping his nameplate. “Mason Walsh. I’m one of the deputies for the HSD. Hamlet Sheriff Department,” he explained. “I guess you could say it’s my job to look after anyone new to town.”