Set Me Free Read Free Page B

he’d probably sent from home— his home, now, though some of my clothes still hung in the closet, and the spring wreath I’d made still decorated our front door. In spite of myself, I wondered what Rhys had eaten for dinner last night—how much time he’d taken away from studying in order to deal with the nuisances of daily life.
    Deliberately, I scrolled up to the text from earlier yesterday evening: Who the fuck do you think you are, leaving me like this?
    He had been like this almost from the beginning—charm and rage lived in equal parts inside of him, as inextricably intertwined as strands of DNA.

    * * *
    O n my walk to Claire’s, the damp, cool April air seeped through my leather jacket and curled the ends of my ponytail. Snow glittered on the pine trees lining the narrow road. The town was more of a sleepy gingerbread village than ever, with only the tiny grocery store open for business. I smiled and waved at the grocer, Bob, as I walked by, but he didn’t smile back. Reaching Claire’s frosted parking lot on the far side of town filled me with relief.
    Inside, Claire stood on a crate in the middle of the store, taking ceramic fishermen out of a box and putting them on a shelf. She glanced over her shoulder at the sound of the door, holding a fisherman with a navy coat and a yellow hat, and beamed at me. “Well, hello, Miranda! Your usual?”
    “Yes, please.”
    She slid the fisherman onto the shelf with the others, hopped off her crate, and bustled over to the café counter, where she handed me a very, very large coffee with cream and sugar.
    A cloud of fragrant steam enveloped my face. “You are amazing.”
    Claire chuckled as she wiped down the spotless counter with a wet cloth. She almost never stood still, but I was getting used to that now.
    “Quiet in here today,” I said.
    “I don’t mind.” Claire tossed the cloth back into a bucket of cleaning solution. “I thought I’d try out some new recipes, before the tourists start taking over the island.”
    “Is Fiona working today?” Fiona was Claire’s baker, a harried mother of four.
    “Actually, I thought I’d give it a try myself. Everyone loved the test batch I made from the recipe you gave me. I would never have thought of pineapple muffins!”
    I smiled at her over the top of my coffee cup. Back when I was a bartender, I used to like inventing recipes based on popular drinks. Piña colada muffins, strawberry daiquiri cheesecake… I’d even made a Tom Collins-inspired lemon loaf once, but no one was a fan of the cherries.
    Claire disappeared into the kitchen, humming to herself, and came back out a moment later holding a gargantuan, lopsided pie. “It isn’t very pretty, is it?” she remarked, smiling fondly at her creation. “But I can work on that for the next one.” She glanced up at the clock on the wall. “Owen and Jenny are coming for lunch in a little bit, if you want to join us. We can taste-test my pie for dessert.”
    “Oh, no, I’m not…I have to…” What could I say? Claire knew I had no friends or family in town, and she’d probably guessed by now that there was no landlord. No anybody.
    “Come on, it’ll be fun,” she insisted.
    “Is Marianne going to be there?” I asked hopefully. Marianne was Claire’s girlfriend, a red-faced, jolly woman who worked as a park ranger and seemed to be always talking about tents and fire-starters. I had absolutely nothing in common with her but liked her all the same, and always enjoyed seeing her and Claire giggle together.
    “Marianne’s working,” Claire said, with a huff.
    Damn. “But, you know, since they’re a couple, they’ll want to be just with you, probably…”
    “Nonsense!” Claire said. “Owen likes you.”
    I choked on my coffee. No, he didn’t. We didn’t even know each other. There was no reason for me to feel like I knew him, or for me to want to know him better.
    “He’s really a sweet boy,” Claire said wistfully. “He keeps to himself,