For Love Or Money (Main Street Merchants Book 2) Page 2

  Sloane put her hands on her hips. “Well, that’s just wrong. No one should be messing with Rory.”

  Rory raised his hand. “Um, hi. I’m sitting right here.”

  “Oh, we know. But that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about you.” Sloane gave him a grin before heading off to help the couple who had just walked in.

  “We’d better get back,” Morgan said, ready to put this whole thing behind her. She wasn’t thrilled with the turn this conversation had taken. “Have you told Alana that Leah’s been in touch?”

  Rory looked a little uncomfortable. “No, not yet.”

  “Why? Are you worried about what she’ll say?”

  “Yes, yes, I am.”

  “And so you’re keeping it a secret until . . .?”

  “Until I see if this is going somewhere or not.” He stood up and pulled his wallet out of his pocket. “It’s my turn to pay today, right?”

  “Yeah. I got it last time.”

  Rory walked over to the cash register, handed Sloane a twenty, and said “Keep the change.” Then he held the door open for Morgan so she could go out first. She loved their Tuesday lunch tradition. She just wished that old girlfriends hadn’t shown up on Facebook to ruin a perfectly nice afternoon—and that mothers didn’t text, either.

  Chapter Two

  Morgan finished out her shift at the bank and then decided to take a little stroll across the street to visit Alana, Rory’s sister. Alana owned the town’s herb store, Thyme in a Bottle, and she was honestly one of the nicest people Morgan knew. That became a little annoying at times when Morgan wanted to be gloomy and all Alana could do was bounce back with the positive, but Morgan had to admit that she needed Alana’s influence in her life.

  The bell over the door chimed when Morgan stepped into the herb shop, and she was greeted by the combined smells of peppermint, lavender, and sage. The store never smelled the same twice in a row—it always bore hints of whatever Alana had been working on that day. Morgan took a deep whiff, appreciating the relaxing qualities of the lavender. She didn’t know why she felt so uptight, but something was definitely bothering her.

  “Hey, Morgan!” Alana called out from the back of the store. Her long blonde hair was tied back in a messy bun and she wore an apron over her peasant blouse. Morgan wouldn’t necessarily call Alana a hippie, but she was definitely closer to it than anyone else Morgan knew. She was into star charts and crystals and all kinds of bizarre things like that, but at the same time, she was really skilled in the use of herbs and homeopathics, and Morgan often came over when she had a headache.

  Alana walked up the aisle, brushing something off her hands. “It’s good to see you. You haven’t stopped by for a while.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been pretty busy. But that’s no excuse, right?”

  “None whatsoever.” Alana stepped behind the counter and checked on the small kettle of water she always kept on a hot plate back there. “Can I offer you some chamomile tea with red clover honey?”

  “I’ll never turn down your tea.” Morgan sat on one of the overstuffed chairs in the corner of the shop. Alana’s theory was that the body had to be totally relaxed before it could begin to heal. Morgan didn’t know what she thought about that, but she definitely appreciated the comfy chairs. And when Alana handed her a mug of her special chamomile blend, it was enough to make Morgan feel like she never wanted to leave.

  “This is what I like best about running my own shop,” Alana said, kicking off her shoes and sitting on a chair across from Morgan, a mug in her hands too. “I get to hang out at the end of a long day and just appreciate life instead of being crushed to death by the bottom dollar.”

  “You have created a little piece of heaven right here,” Morgan replied. The Celtic music playing in the background was soothing, not overwhelming, and the whole atmosphere reminded her of a little hut in the Shire. Not that she’d ever been to the Shire, obviously, but that was the vibe she got.

  Alana sipped her tea for a moment and then tucked her feet beneath her on the chair. “What brings you by?”

  “I missed hanging out with you.”

  “That’s really sweet and I bet it’s even somewhat true, but something else is bothering you. What is it?”

  Morgan had once asked Alana if she was psychic. Alana denied it, laughing, but Morgan still wondered sometimes. Alana just seemed to know things or sense things, even when Morgan thought she was acting totally normal.

  “Something is bothering me, but it’s not mine to tell.”

  “Ah. It’s someone else’s to tell and you wish they’d just spit it out, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”

  “And it’s Tuesday, meaning that you and my brother had your weekly lunch date. Am I guessing correctly that this has something to do with Rory?”

  “Yep, you got it.”

  Alana seemed to study the handle on her cup for a moment. “When Rory was born, the doctors didn’t think he’d live,” she said after a long pause. “I was ten at the time, and I remember my mother spending hours pacing the floor with him. That’s actually what led to my interest in healing and to the career I have now. As he grew and got stronger, he became my little shadow, wanting to do everything I did, or just wanting to be near me. I felt protective of him because we’d come so close to losing him.”

  “You never told me that before.” Morgan said. She wouldn’t have guessed that there had been anything wrong with Rory. He seemed perfectly fine. Well, except for the Facebook thing. That called for some serious therapy, in her opinion.

  “It’s not something I share a lot because there was so much fear wrapped around that time, and I want to focus on the miraculous outcome and not the fear. I’m telling you now because I just wanted to explain why I’m so protective of him. It’s more than a big-sister thing, although that would be reason enough.”

  Morgan drained the rest of her tea and then set the mug on the small table between the two chairs. “His old girlfriend contacted him on Facebook,” she blurted, realizing that she couldn’t keep this secret from Alana, not now that she knew how much Rory meant to his sister. Maybe that’s why Alana had told her the story—to get her to spill the beans. It worked.

  “Are you talking about Stacy or Leah?” Alana asked.

  “Leah.” Rory had two old girlfriends? Well, Morgan supposed that was normal—he was in his mid-twenties, after all. But she’d never seen him in a serious relationship with anyone, so the thought was a little odd.

  “Oh.” Alana said. It was a very short reply, but it was loaded with meaning.

  “He told me that things hadn’t ended well,” Morgan said.

  Alana put her mug next to Morgan’s on the table. “We never really approved of Leah. I mean, she was nice to our faces, but we always felt she was hiding something. By ‘we,’ I mean me and my mom. Rory just adored her and couldn’t hear anything bad said about her, and my dad was never involved in our dating relationships. When Rory and Leah broke up, Rory was devastated for a long time. My brother has very deep feelings, and once he cares about you, he cares for life. But you know that, being his friend.”

  “I do.” Morgan didn’t like the idea of someone tampering with Rory’s feelings like that. He deserved so much better.

  “So she contacted him on Facebook,” Alana mused. “What did she say?”

  “He didn’t go into details. Just that they’d been chatting. And that he hadn’t told you yet.”

  “He’s probably scared of what I’ll say, and he should be scared. I don’t know what’s up with that girl, but she’s just not right for him. It’s more than that, though—it’s like she’s not who she’s pretending to be. I did her star chart years ago out of curiosity, and it showed some duality, living a double life.”

  “Wow. Does she have five secret children tucked away somewhere?”

  Alana laughed. “I doubt it’s anything that serious. Just something dishonest. So, when do you think he’s planning to tell me?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  Alana reached back and pulled out her bun, shaking her hair all over kind of like a dog. A beautiful dog. She didn’t look a day over twenty-eight, even though she was in her mid-thirties. She attributed it to her herbal facial moisturizer. Whatever it was, Morgan hoped she looked that good in ten years.

  “Well, Rory doesn’t keep secrets from me for long. I imagine I’ll hear all about it before the weekend. And in the meantime, I’ll pretend I don’t know anything.”

  “I appreciate that. I don’t want to be in the hot seat for telling.”

  “And now that we’ve gotten Rory out of the way, what else did you want to talk about?”

  Morgan looked up, surprised. “What do you mean?”

  “You came in here with two issues, and we’ve only resolved one. What else is bothering you?”

  “How do you do that?”

  Alana grinned. “Just reading your body language. So, out with it.”

  Morgan heaved a long sigh. She didn’t want to talk about it, and yet she did—if she really didn’t want to, she wouldn’t have come over here. “I got a text from my mom today. My drug-addicted, neglectful mom. And I haven’t read it yet.”

  Alana didn’t answer right away. Instead, she got up and poured them each some more tea and brought out a tin of lemon rosemary cookies. Once she was settled again, she asked, “When are you going to read it?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe never.”

  “What are you worried it says?”

  Morgan thought for a moment. She knew Alana didn’t want a flippant, off-the-cuff answer. “I’m worried that it’s not really her—that some morgue worker found her phone in her pocket and is texting me to let me know that my mom died in a ditch somewhere.”

  Alana nodded. “From what you’ve told me about her past, that’s a possibility. But wouldn’t you want to know, if that was the case?”

  “Yes. No. Maybe.” Morgan turned her mug around and around in her hands. “I guess no one should die without someone knowing about it.”

  “And what if she’s not dead?”

  Morgan blew a puff of air that lifted her dark hair off her forehead. “Then I’d want to know why the heck she hasn’t contacted me before now.”

  “Maybe she says why in the text.”

  “You’re doing everything you can to get me to read it without my realizing that’s what you’re doing, aren’t you?”

  Alana smiled and reached for a cookie. “You figured me out.”

  Morgan pulled her phone out of her pocket. “How about if I read it now, and then you can help voodoo me through it?”

  “I don’t practice voodoo, as you well know, but sure. Anything else I can do to help.”

  Morgan steeled herself and then brought up the text. Hey, honey. I’d like to come for a visit. When is a good time?

  She stared at the phone for a long time, not sure what to think or feel. A visit? From her mother? It was too weird, like a chick flick from the eighties or something. Something not real.

  “What did she say?” Alana asked.

  “She . . . um, she wants to come see me.”

  “Interesting. Where does she live now?”

  “I don’t even know. She moved us here when I was a teenager and then she flaked out, took off, and started moving all over the place. The last I knew, she was in Little Rock, but that was a couple of years ago.”

  “So she could be anywhere.”

  “Yeah, pretty much.” Morgan looked at the words again—they blurred before her eyes. “Should I let her come?”

  “Are you ready to let her come?”

  Morgan tried not to snort, but she wasn’t very successful. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.”

  “Why don’t you sleep on it before you make a decision? I don’t think there’s a rush, do you?”

  “No, not really. I haven’t heard from her in so long—it’s not like one more day, or two, will change anything.”

  “Okay, so why not give yourself some time to think it over? See how you feel tomorrow. Live with it for a bit and then make your decision.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m going to need to do.” Morgan shook her head, trying to comprehend it. “I just can’t even imagine why she wants to see me now.” Her mother had made it clear some years before that she considered her children a burden and that she wanted to be free of them. Morgan didn’t even know where Luke, her brother, was, and that bothered her more than anything.

  Alana glanced at her watch. “Time to close up. You wanna grab the sign?”

  Morgan walked over and pulled the chain on the neon “open” sign in the window while Alana turned off the hot plate. “I counted out the till just before you got here, so we’re good to go,” Alana said.

  Morgan waited while her friend turned off the lights and locked the door, and they walked down the street together. Alana lived just two blocks away and almost never drove to work. “Thanks for stopping by, and thanks for telling me about Rory,” she said. “You’re a good friend. He needs you in his life.”

  Morgan shrugged. “I just didn’t like the idea of this Leah chick contacting him out of the blue.”

  “Yeah, me neither. I hope she’s just catching up with him for old times’ sake and doesn’t have any ideas of getting back together. And listen—if you need to talk about your mom or anything, just let me know.”

  “I will. Thanks, Alana.”

  “Is that your car?”

  “Yep, it is. I’ll catch you later.” Morgan waved good-bye and then unlocked her door. She’d have to replace this old clunker sooner or later, but she wanted to pay off some student loans first. Her roommate Laurie was working hard to pay off her car and she’d be there before too much longer, but Morgan had a lot farther to go to reach that point.

  * * *

  Cara was strumming her guitar in the living room when Morgan got home. “There’s some pizza in the fridge,” she said as Morgan threw her purse in the corner.

  “Great. I’m starving.” She opened the fridge door and pulled out the pizza box, snagging three slices of supreme before putting the rest back in the fridge. She plunked them on a plate and nuked them while she took off her shoes.

  “I sold an engagement set to the cutest little couple today,” Cara said. She put her guitar to the side and leaned forward a little bit. “They were in their early eighties, and this was the second marriage for both of them. He wanted her to get the diamond she’d never been able to have before, and you should have seen her face when he slid it on her finger. It was awesome.”

  “Sounds like it.” Morgan brought her plate over to the couch and plopped down. “Get a good commission?”

  “Pretty decent. Enough to buy some groceries.”

  “That’s always helpful. Who do I owe for the pizza?”

  “Regan.”

  They chit-chatted for another few minutes before Cara excused herself to go get ready for a date. After she left, Morgan realized she had no idea what they’d even been talking about. Her brain was equally hung up on thinking about Max Grayson, wondering what on earth she was going to say to her mother, and worrying about Rory. Maybe a hot shower would help bring everything into focus.

  Chapter Three

  “Well, hello there.”

  Morgan’s head snapped up at the sound of the mellow voice and she grinned when she saw Max Grayson standing in front of her. She’d just been wishing he’d stop by the bank again, but figured that he wouldn’t for a while because he’d only set up his account the day before. But here he was, like an answer to her unspoken plea to the fairies of matchmaking.

  “Hi. What can I do for you today?”

  “I wondered if you could recommend any good investment brokerage firms in town or nearby.” He smiled, and she wondered if his teeth could flag down passing airplanes.

  “We don’t dispense investment advice or make referrals to investors,” she said. “Some banks do, but we don’t have the resources to make that available. I’m afraid the most I can do is help you set up a savings account and inform you of the current percentage rate. I’m sorry.”

  Max leaned against the counter, not looking at all disappointed in her answer. “What if I told you that the real reason I stopped in was to see you again?”

  Morgan blinked. “I would say that one should never joke about investments or use them as an excuse.”

  “One shouldn’t?” He raised an eyebrow.

  “No, one shouldn’t. It’s serious stuff. Now, if you’d come in here and told me you needed to get a roll of pennies, for instance, that would be a much better excuse.”

  Max nodded his head. “All right then, I would like a roll of pennies, please.”

  Morgan reached below the counter and grabbed the roll, taking a second while her face was out of sight to compose herself. He’d come in just to see her? How sweet was that?

  “Here you are,” she said, placing the pennies in front of him.

  “On second thought, may I get two rolls? You never know when you’re going to need a penny.”

  “Of course.” She grabbed him another, and he handed her a dollar bill.

  “So, now that we’ve established that I’m just looking for excuses to see you, I wondered if you were free to go out with me in a couple of days. I’ve got to drive back to Utah to get a second truckload of my stuff, but after I’m done with that, I’d love to take you out to dinner.”

  Dinner with Max Grayson? Heck, yeah. “I’d like that,” she said, forcing her voice to sound casual. She grabbed a Post-it Note and scribbled her phone number on it. “Just let me know when you’re back in town.”

  “Great. I will.” Max tucked the paper in his pocket and flashed her another grin before leaving.

  “A date? A date, you say?” Rory came up behind Morgan and nudged her with his elbow.

  “Yes, a date. When he gets back in town.” Morgan tidied up her counter, trying to avoid Rory’s curious eyes.

  “Well, I’m glad it’s not tonight.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “There’s a flute recital at Harpstrings, and I need someone to go with me and make sure I don’t claw my way out through the ceiling.”