Escape Claws. Linda Reilly
mismatched chairs made up the rest of the seating. Daily specials were announced on a stand-alone chalkboard framed in pale-green distressed wood.
The moment Lara and her aunt approached the counter they were rushed and assaulted.
“Oh my God, I can’t believe it!” Sherry Bowker, her short black hair poking the air in gelled spikes, raced around the end of the counter and threw her arms around Lara. She squeezed and rocked back and forth until Lara laughingly begged for mercy.
“Sherry, this place looks wonderful,” Lara said.
“Thank you.” Sherry hugged Lara again and then looped her arm through Aunt Fran’s. “And Fran, you haven’t been here in like, forever,” she said in a mock-stern voice. “I’m so happy to see you.”
Aunt Fran smiled and allowed Sherry a quick hug. “I’m glad to see you, too, and my pal Daisy over there.” She waggled a hand at her old friend Daisy Bowker, who was busy serving a table of four. Daisy’s face morphed into one of sheer joy when she spotted Lara and Aunt Fran.
After more hugs were doled out, Lara and her aunt settled onto stools at the counter, which, Aunt Fran explained, was easier on her knees. Sherry instantly produced two steaming mugs of coffee, along with two of the oversized sugar cookies Daisy was known for. With Halloween only a few weeks away, today’s cookies were shaped and frosted like mummies. Lara couldn’t help giggling as she bit off a chunk of the mummy’s frosted arm.
“Eating dessert before you’ve even ordered lunch?” Aunt Fran asked wryly. “I guess some things never change.”
Lara smiled, feeling her nerves loosen. For the first time since she’d arrived in Whisker Jog, she thought her aunt looked almost happy.
They both ordered tuna salad sandwiches and sipped at their coffee. Between serving customers, Sherry and Daisy took turns plying them with bits of local gossip.
Aunt Fran waved at a table of four opposite the counter. Its occupants—two women, an older man, and a teenage girl—returned the greeting. The girl, who looked about thirteen and sported aqua-tinted hair, smiled curiously at Lara. Lara smiled back and took a napkin from the dispenser on the counter. The girl’s face intrigued her—oversized brown eyes, roundish cheeks, slightly large ears lined with silver studs. And that hair… She removed a pencil from the depths of her flowered purse and began to sketch.
Sherry sidled up to the counter and leaned over to sneak a peek at Lara’s handiwork. “Hey, that’s Brooke you’re drawing, isn’t it?”
“Brooke?” Lara said.
Sherry laughed. “Sorry. You haven’t been introduced yet. Brooke Weston is the girl sitting at that table over there.” She tilted her chin at the table of four. “They all belong to a book club that reads the classics. Brooke comes here directly after school every Wednesday so she won’t miss any of the discussion. The coffee shop closes at four, but sometimes I stay a bit longer so they can finish up without feeling rushed.”
“That’s nice of you,” Lara said. “But why don’t they just have the club at the library?”
Sherry smiled. “They like it better here. Can you blame them?”
Daisy came up beside her daughter. “So, Fran,” she said, “I’ve been thinking about you, sweetie. Have you been able to plant your tulip bulbs yet?”
“I don’t think I’m going to get to it this year, Daisy. The bulbs were shipped to me last week, but they’re still sitting in burlap bags out by the shed.”
Tulips! That’s right—Lara remembered now. Back when she was a kid, Aunt Fran was known for the gorgeous tulip varieties that skirted her house from front to back along the brick walkway. Apparently she’d kept up the tradition.
In fact, Lara remembered one year when she “helped” her aunt plant a row of the bulbs, only to learn that she’d stuck them all in the ground upside down. Instead of getting annoyed, Aunt Fran had only laughed, ruffled Lara’s curls, and said, “Oh well, next year you’ll get it right.”
But there never had been a next year. Lara’s folks had moved out of state, and she’d never seen Aunt Fran again.
Until now.
Lara didn’t want to embarrass her aunt by bringing up her current physical limitations. Instead, she made a mental note to try to plant the tulip bulbs before she returned to Boston.
Daisy went off to clear one of the tables. Lara was putting the finishing touches on her napkin sketch when the door to the coffee shop swung open. A broad-shouldered man wearing a red-and-black-checkered jacket strode in. His bushy eyebrows matched his thick white hair, and he wore the look of someone quite enamored with himself. “I’ll take a black coffee to go,” he said to Sherry in a rather rude tone.
A muscle in Sherry’s face twitched, but she gave him a sharp nod. With a quick tilt of her head in his direction, she shot Lara a meaningful look.
Who’s that? Lara mouthed to her aunt, after he strode off.
Aunt Fran leaned closer to Lara. “Theo Barnes,” she whispered. “I’ll tell you later.”
The man’s hard-looking blue eyes scanned the room, and then he sauntered over to the book club table. “So how are all my buds today?” he said in a voice like a sonic boom. He touched the younger woman’s cheek, eliciting a smile from her. The older woman beamed up at him, and with a theatrical motion he took her left hand and kissed it. Then he clamped a meaty hand onto the shoulder of the club’s sole male member, a sixtysomething with a pasty complexion who cringed visibly at Barnes’s touch. Barnes leaned over and growled something in the man’s ear. The man nodded, slunk out of his chair, and stalked out of the cafe.
Barnes came up to the counter to collect his takeout coffee, stopping between the stools where Lara and Aunt Fran were seated. Lara stifled a shudder. Barnes was standing far too close for her liking. She looked at her aunt, whose face had gone pale. Lara was about to tell Barnes to take a hike when he announced, “I need to talk to you, Fran.”
“I don’t think so,” Aunt Fran hissed at him. “You’ve talked quite enough.”
Barnes’s piercing eyes shifted and rested on Lara. “My proposal stands, my lovely, but I think I can make it even sweeter for you. We will chat later. I promise you that.”
Aunt Fran squeezed her eyes shut and said nothing.
With a smug look, Barnes reached across the counter and took the lidded paper coffee cup Sherry was holding out. Then, without so much as a thank-you, he left.
“What an oaf,” Lara said after the door closed. “I mean, could he have been any louder?”
“Theo Barnes is the town bully,” her aunt murmured. “I’ll tell you about him when we get back to the house.”
“But he didn’t even pay for his coffee!”
Sherry slid two plates in front of Lara and her aunt. “Don’t worry about it, Lara. He never does. He thinks he owns the place.”
“He does own the place.” Daisy came up behind her daughter. She reached under the counter for a bottle of spray cleaner. “Unfortunately, he’s our landlord. For now, anyway. But that’s not for you to worry about. You two go ahead and enjoy your lunch.”
Lara looked down at her tuna salad on wheat. A pile of rippled chips and two pickle rounds sat beside it—exactly the way she liked it. She set aside her pencil sketch and dived into her lunch. The tuna salad was perfect—lightly seasoned, and with just the right amount of celery and onion to give it crunch. Aunt Fran nibbled at hers, but with far less gusto.
Lara was attacking the last bite of her sandwich when her aunt, who’d barely eaten half her lunch, suddenly pushed aside her plate. “Why are you here, Lara?” she asked quietly. “I mean, why are you really here?”
Lara felt a hard lump form inside her stomach. The cats weren’t