“Yeah, whoever put up the sign also got into the store and put signs on everything that said, ‘free’ and ‘clearance, everything must go.’”
“Oh no, Michael. That’s awful.” Addie’s wide eyes were full of sympathy. There was no way she knew about this.
“Seems like a Tanner thing.”
She frowned but didn’t deny it. “I can find out.”
“Thanks. It doesn’t really matter who it was, though.”
“You planning some revenge?” Addie sat back in the chair and crossed her arms. Her long dark hair was arranged behind her head in some kind of knot, and one long strand fell to the side of her face. In the sun’s fading light, she looked beautiful, like a goddess in a painting.
“No,” I said. “But I can’t speak for Emmett and Virgil.”
“You know your cousins are basically criminals, right?”
That got my attention. My cousins were townies for sure, and maybe not at the top of the haystack in terms of intelligence, but they weren’t criminals. “What?”
“What they did in Mom’s cafe was vandalism. You’re lucky she didn’t press charges.”
“And what about what happened in my store today?” I asked, feeling my blood heat. “I spent the entire day offering discounts when the place barely breaks even as it is.”
“You didn’t have to do that.” She dismissed me with a wave of her hand and my exhaustion and anger boiled over.
“I was trying to avoid a riot!” I stood, my anger over the stupid prank spilling out of me now. I hadn’t really had time all day to process how pointless and mean-spirited it really was. “Someone broke into my store and set this up. And I don’t know why I’m a target. I’ve never once done anything to any of you!”
“Any of us? Like we’re some other breed of human?”
“You know what I mean. Tanners.”
Addie rolled her eyes again. “Right.”
“What does that mean?” I was vibrating with anger, and while I knew Addie didn’t really deserve any of it, I couldn’t help myself. This feud was ridiculous, and today it had hurt business. I didn’t have a lot of spare money lying around.
“As if the Tuckers are so much better than us, like we started this whole thing.”
“I have no idea who started it,” I fumed. “And I don’t care! What I do care about is that today I lost thousands of dollars from a business I don’t have any interest in running in the first place! Is it too much to ask that I at least don’t go bankrupt because of someone else’s stupidity? I can fail perfectly well all on my own.”
Addie’s eyes widened as I spat these words at her, and she stood up from the table, her expression less imperious than it had been a second before. “Look, Michael, I’m really sorry for what happened. But—“
“I don’t really want to talk about it anymore,” I said. I’d told her far more than I intended and now I wished I could just reel the words back in. I felt my face flush, with embarrassment and anger—at the prank, but also at the state of my life and the fact I’d just given a beautiful, successful women a bird’s eye view of my pointless existence.
“Okay,” she said, her shoulders slumping slightly. “Well, I think I’m just going to walk down to the square and get some dinner at the Shack.”
I stood there, feeling stupid for a beat too long, and Addie turned to pick up her purse from the hook by the back door. I watched her pull her coat on, letting the anger dissipate from the atmosphere around me. Just as she put her hand on the knob, I managed to find my voice again. “I’ll walk you.”
“I’m fine,” she said, the dark eyes finding me as she turned her head over her shoulder. “You don’t have to.”
“Do you mind the company? I’m hungry.”
She turned to face me, her smile tentative and those wide eyes questioning. “As long as we don’t talk about the feud.”
“Deal,” I said. I’d had more than enough of it anyway, and I knew it was Shelly’s night off, but I also knew she’d have words for me about eating at her place of work with a woman. At that moment, I didn’t care. “Let’s go.”
We stepped out the back door and walked around to the front gates, leaving the old house standing in shadow for the ghosts to claim for the evening.