Close to You

back to himself. Stepping forward, he
silently took the mug from her hand. She let it go without a word,
and he set it down quietly on the counter.
    She opened her mouth a couple times,
as though she wanted to say something but couldn’t. Then she
straightened her spine and smoothly walked away. “Lock the door on
your way out,” she said over her shoulder.
    Treat stared after her. What was going
on? Was she finally coming unhinged? Was he imagining things? Maybe
it was all coincidence?
    No—how could it be? She was fixated on
Eve. If only he could figure out why—and maybe how to fix
it.
     
     
     

Chapter Fourteen
     
    Margaret stood in the doorway of the
Whole Foods on California Street and watched the chaos inside. This
Whole Foods was usually busy, but weekday evenings were a madhouse.
She knew that—she’d thought of it before getting in her car—but
still she’d elected to come.
    She had to get out of her house to
stop thinking about the letter she’d received earlier, from the
money manager Harry had employed—or wealth management consultant,
as his letterhead touted him. Apparently the mutual funds they’d
invested in had lost another twenty percent of its
value.
    Wealth management consultant, her ass.
That faceless man had no idea he was playing with her
life.
    The thought of failing was bad enough,
but to lose the house—Harry’s legacy, what he remodeled for her so
lovingly with his own hands—wrecked her. Braving the frantic
after-work crowd at Wholes Foods was better than staying at home
and having her failure right in her face.
    But she didn’t know what to do here
either. She was spinning out of control and nothing helped. She
felt like she was going out of her mind.
    Everyone else thought so too. She’d
noticed the way people were watching her, like they were waiting
for her to snap like an overstretched rubber band.
    They’d have her committed it they’d
known how badly she’d been acting.
    On top of it all, she’d almost thrown
a mug at her son.
    She couldn’t believe Treat had accused
her of those things, even if they were true. He was her son. He was
supposed to be on her side.
    She was going to lose him
too.
    Someone pushed by her, and she
stumbled into the store. A woman with a shopping cart containing
only carrots gave her a dirty look.
    Margaret had the urge to pick up a bag
of grapes and pitch them at the witch. She controlled the impulse,
instead mumbling an apology. She hurried down the aisle, browsing
at the products on the shelves.
    She had no idea what she
wanted.
    She smiled deprecatingly. Wasn’t that
just the perfect summation of her life?
    She wandered aimlessly down the
aisles, coming to stop in the wine section. Maybe she should buy a
bottle of wine to take home.
    She stared at all the bottles and
labels and wondered what to get. When she went to dinner, she just
ordered by the glass, red, whatever the waiter recommended. When
Harry was alive, they drank martinis.
    She smiled faintly. It’d been so
fifties of them.
    She’d tried having one after he’d died
but it hadn’t been right. Harry had always made them, and no matter
how she ordered them nobody could get them right. Another thing
that had died with him.
    Anger surged up her chest and into her
throat. She tried to swallow it down, but it refused to
budge.
    Seething, she stared at the wine
bottles. It was unreasonable to be so angry, but she couldn’t help
herself. That she couldn’t pick a bottle only incensed her, and the
only way she could think to relieve the fury was pushing the entire
rack of wine over.
    “ I almost thought you were
a mirage,” a familiar voice said from behind her.
    She stiffened, caught. Fists clenched
to keep control, she turned around.
    The stalker from the golf course,
Grant, stood behind her. Close. So close she could see flecks of
blue in his eyes.
    Margaret took a step back, walking
into the wine rack behind her. The clatter of the bottles sounded
oddly satisfying. “What are you doing here?”
    He glanced to the wine, his brow
arched. “I wonder if it wasn’t fate that guided me to this
spot.”
    “ Fate isn’t”— she almost
said cruel , but
that was exactly what Fate was.
    “ Fate isn’t…?” he
prompted.
    “ That obliging.”
    “ I don’t know.” He leaned
his shoulder against the shelving, crossing his arms. The sleeves
of his dress were folded back from the day, but it still looked
crisp, tucked neatly into his fine wool trousers. “I went