occupying the tables and booth were late arrivals, having missed the drama.
Miranda sat at the far end of the counter, next to the jukebox, playing one of her endless games of solitaire. Frank, the fry cook, was washing glasses behind the bar.
“He left?” she asked Miranda, in a low voice.
“You mean that handsome fella from Bean Town?” Miranda countered lightly. “Yeah, he’s gone. Had to get back to Kalispell and catch a plane.”
“That’s it?” Brynne almost hissed. “He just drops in here, wrecks everything and then leaves?”
“He said he’d call or text later,” Miranda said, her tone noncommittal. “Where is that damn four of spades?”
“The bastard,” Brynne said.
Miranda looked up, smiled. “A bastard he may be, but he’s a good-looking one, that’s for sure. Doesn’t measure up to the sheriff, of course, but he’s mighty easy on the eyes, just the same.”
“He’s a liar and a cheat!” Brynne found a cloth and began scrubbing at a nonexistent spot on the counter.
Miranda sighed heavily. “Unfortunately, that’s the way some men are.”
Brynne stopped rubbing at the invisible spot and rested her elbows on the counter, covering her face with both hands. “I’ve ruined everything, Miranda,” she said, in despair. “I blew up at Clay, in front of God and everybody, and now Eli thinks I’m still hung up on the guy!”
“Are you?” Miranda asked, very gently.
“No!”
“Then why so much anger? You’ve always been so cool, calm and collected—like your mother. Today, I saw a whole other side of you, Brynne. A stranger.”
“First Eli lectures me, now you. I’m a human being, with feelings.”
“I’m not lecturing you, honey,” Miranda said, resting a hand over Brynne’s. “Of course you’re human and of course you have feelings. But in all the years I’ve known you—since you were knee-high to a lawn sprinkler—I’ve never seen you so upset.”
Brynne wanted to cry again, but she managed to stem the flow. After all, she was no weakling, and she was country proud. She raised her face from her hands and looked directly at Miranda.
“What should I do now?” she asked the older woman, in a very small voice.
Miranda smiled, squeezed Brynne’s hand again. “Nothing,” she replied kindly. “Nothing whatsoever. Wait. Think things through. If you keep your head, well, when it’s time for the next step, you’ll know exactly what to do.”
Brynne drew a deep, restorative breath, let it out again. “Thanks, Miranda,” she said.
“Hey,” Miranda replied, still smiling. “I promised your mom I’d look after you while she and your dad were away. I’m a woman of my word.”
Brynne leaned across the counter to plant a quick kiss on Miranda’s cheek. Then, straightening, she told her friend about the phone call from her parents. Between picking up her art supplies from the shed in their backyard, the unexpected confrontation with Clay and the subsequent disastrous conversation with Eli, she’d forgotten to mention it.
Miranda was clearly pleased that Mike and Alice were coming home early; like pretty much everyone else, she’d missed them and, she’d complained more than once that was tired of the cold weather and wanted to spend a few weeks with her sister, down in San Miguel de Allende. Soak up some sunshine, enjoy some true Mexican cuisine, she’d often said, and stop thinking that two people had died recently, within mere days of each other, and there was bound to be another death to round things out.
“You really believe that?” Brynne asked. “That deaths come in threes?”
“Around here,” Miranda said, “they do.”
Brynne thought about Eli’s theory, but she saw no point in outlining it for Miranda.
Mostly because she didn’t want to let Eli occupy any real estate in her head.
She did miss Festus, though.
“I’ve always thought so, too,” she finally confessed. “But it does seem like superstition, doesn’t it?”
“Call it what you will,” Miranda said, gathering her dog-eared deck of cards and tucking them into an equally battered box. “I’ve lived in this town all my life, and I’ve seen it happen over and over again.”
“But isn’t it possible that, well, our minds just automatically sort deaths into groups of three?”
Miranda sighed, stood up, straightened her apron. Her shift would be over soon, and she’d leave for the little house on Willow Road, where she had lived since birth. When she wasn’t at work, or at church, she holed up in the shed behind her house and spun clay into pots and vases, plates and bowls.
She lived alone—had never married—and Brynne wondered if, as busy as she kept herself, she ever got lonely.
From there,