Better Than Gold. Mary Brady

want him, I’ll take a crack at him.”

      “No, you wouldn’t. And what’s going on with you?”

      “Oh, nothing, really, nothing.” Monique made dismissive circles in the air with her hands.

      “Monique.” Mia stilled her friend’s hands.

      “Okay, I thought I got a new regular customer, but... Never mind.”

      “Never mind it’s not important, or never mind you don’t want to talk about him right now.”

      “Can we just do never mind for a while?” Monique’s eyes held a pleading look.

      “Okay.”

      “Did you hear Mac and Sally are engaged?” Monique asked over-brightly.

      “Does that mean he’s done saying he’s sorry for taking you on the worst date ever?”

      “What do you mean? You thought getting champagne up my nose was a bad time?” Monique shoved more laundry in a bag.

      “I thought running out of gas and having to be rescued in the middle of the harbor was the best part.”

      “Mia, what if it could happen for me? After all this time, I find a guy right here in Bailey’s Cove? I get to marry, live happily ever after right here at home.” Monique got all dreamy-faced. “I still believe, you know.”

      Mia shrugged and smiled. “Who knows? Your heart may wander right into bliss.”

      “So what are you doing here instead of being over there with him? Hiding so you won’t fall in love?”

      “Hiding so I won’t commit murder and then brick the wall back up with an anthropologist inside.”

      “You are so totally bad.”

      “I wish.” Mia leaned her elbows on the counter. “I wish.”

      “Ms. Parker, I wish you’d at least help Ms. Beaudin when you’re here,” Mr. Wetherbee, the shop owner, said as he appeared between the beaded strands of the curtained doorway leading to the back room. “If I had both of you to do the job, I might get a good day’s work done around here for the money I pay this little slacker.”

      Monique tossed a lightweight laundry bag at the shopkeeper’s head in reply.

      Mr. Wetherbee haha-ed good-naturedly and continued out the front door, leaving the bag where it had fallen.

      “You don’t need him,” Mia said, still leaning on her elbows.

      “Except he owns the store.”

      “Minor detail.”

      “I suspect he pays me so much because he wants me to have enough money to buy the store from him someday.” She tossed another filled bag into the canvas cart of waiting laundry and turned on Mia with a long sigh. “So back to you. You wanna kill a guy that cute. Must be a really good reason.”

      “I made it clear to him about how important it is for me to get back in there and get the job done, but he’s so...so...”

      “Ah, anthropologist-y?”

      “I think I hate him.”

      Monique looked up from the label she was scribbling out. “’Cuz he wants to get things right?”

      “Maybe, but maybe because he’s good-looking and he’s funny.”

      “A bone-and-pot-shard guy is funny? Since when do you not like funny?”

      “Oh, please.” Mia clapped her hands to her cheeks and squeezed her face into distorted horror.

      “Would he be just exactly the kind of person you’d want if you ever looked for another man?”

      Monique sighed again and Mia knew she was hiding something, but played along anyway.

      “Yes.” Now she threw her hands up imitating her friend. “Right. Fine!”

      “And the kind you’d like to hop in the sack with.”

      “No. No. No. I don’t want to go there.”

      “Until hell freezes. I know.” Monique shook her head. “So why are you here if it’s not for my advice on how to land the big one?”

      Mia sighed. “Moral support and he threw me out. I’m getting a complex—about being asked to leave my own place.”

      “Maybe you should go across the street and talk to Delainey Talbot at Morrison and Morrison. She could probably get you in to see one of the attorneys today or tomorrow. They might help you get him out sooner.”

      “I hope I don’t need an attorney and I certainly can’t afford those guys.”

      “You want me to come over to the Roost...” Monique hunched her shoulders and flexed “...and tell that guy how it’s gonna be?”

      Mia snorted. “No.”

      “Then why don’t you go back and seduce that hunk right out of town?”

      “Because I’m not sure you’re all right. Is it your granddad?”

      “No, it’s not, and I’m fine.” Monique leaned on the counter across from Mia so their noses almost touched. “And don’t fall in love with your anthropologist, and if you do, don’t get your heart broken.”

      Monique’s last words seemed as if they were personal. A guy? Monique and a guy? Why didn’t she know?

      Mia put a hand on Monique’s. “Be good to yourself, my friend.” Don’t get your heart broken, either, Mia thought as the door rattled shut behind her.

      She crossed Church Street, passed the redbrick building with a stately facade that housed the town’s most successful attorneys and walked north to Treacher Avenue. Daniel’s car still sat parked in front of the Roost, which made her frown as she continued.

      From the corner of Church down Treacher to the harbor were the most colorful five blocks in town and her favorite to contemplate. The Three Sisters, three Victorian-style homes, sat in varying stages of neglect. Built for the daughters of a long-gone shipping magnate they sat side by side on Treacher Avenue not far from the docks. Each was a prime candidate to be turned into a bed-and-breakfast or a boutique by someone who had enough faith.

      Next door to them was an artist’s studio still closed for the season and surrounded by pine trees and low-growing junipers. After that came an old shed falling into disrepair, languishing because of a disputed estate.

      All the time as she walked, her thoughts bounced between the man at the Roost and Monique. She hoped her friend wasn’t dabbling in long-haul truck drivers again. That had not gone well for her in the past. And she hoped Daniel MacCarey would just plain go away.

      When she reached the docks, Mr. Calvin the elder gave her a wan smile. She could tell he didn’t want to sell the family boat, either. Two other fishermen and the woman from the Marina gave her speculative looks making her wonder if the truant teenagers Mickey and Tim had been down here spouting tales of yo-ho-ho instead of being in school.

      Everyone else gave her smiles and waves, lending her the encouragement she needed for when it was time to start back up the hill and get to work on Dr. MacCarey, if not on the demolition.

      Although, what would do her really and truly good was if she got back to the Pirate’s Roost and Daniel MacCarey’s hybrid was gone. Maybe she could resume the special kind of lunacy she called her life, where the only workers she could find were slightly off balance, piles of bills were expected and she had teenagers drooling to enter the premises where a skeleton had resided for who knew how long.

      The two women who had moved their yarn and craft shop from the building she was now renovating to be closer to the docks stood in the doorway of their shop. Pins and Needles sat directly across from the Three Sisters, positioned well if the Sisters were ever renovated.