Lover Beware

center of town and most of the gossip originated there and then spread like wildfire. Damon decided he needed a few things before he went home. He hadn’t been in the store for more than two minutes when he heard it again. “Sarah’s back.” The same hushed whisper, the same awe and respect.
    Inez Nelson, owner of the grocery store, held court, spilling out gossip as she normally did, instead of ringing up the groceries on the cash register. It usually drove him crazy to have to wait, but this time he lingered by the bread rack in the hope of learning more of the mysterious Sarah who had finally returned.
    “Are you sure, Inez?” Trudy Garret asked, dragging her four-year-old closer to her and nearly strangling the child with her hug. “Are her sisters back, too?”
    “Oh, I’m certain, all right. She came right into the store as real as you please and bought a ton of groceries. She was back at the cliff house, she said. She didn’t say anything about the others, but if one shows up the others aren’t far behind.”
    Trudy Garret looked around, lowered her voice another octave. “Was she still…Sarah?”
    Damon rolled his eyes. Everyone always annoyed the hell out of him. He thought moving to a small town would allow him to find a way to get along to some extent but people were just plain idiots. Of course Sarah was still Sarah. Who the hell else would she be? Sarah was probably the only one with a brain within a fifty-mile radius so they thought she was different.
    “What could it mean?” Trudy asked. “Sarah only comes back when something is going to happen.”
    “I asked her if everything was all right and she just smiled in that way she has and said yes. You wouldn’t want me to pry into Sarah’s business, now would you, dear,” Inez said piously.
    Damon let his breath out in a hissing rush of impatience. Inez made it her life’s work to pry into everyone’s business. Why should the absent Sarah be excluded?
    “Last time she was here Dockins nearly died, do you remember that?” Trudy asked. “He fell from his roof and Sarah just happened to be walking by and…” She trailed off and glanced around the store and lowered her voice to a conspirator’s whisper. “Old Mars at the fruit stand said Penny told him Sarah…”
    “Trudy, dear, you know Mars is totally unreliable in the things he says. He’s a dear, sweet man, but he sometimes makes things up,” Inez pointed out.
    Old man Mars was crotchety, mean, and known to throw fruit at cars if he was in a foul enough mood. Damon waited for lightning to strike Inez for her blatant lie, but nothing happened. The worst of it was, Damon wanted to know what old Mars had said about Sarah, even if it was a blatant lie. And that really irritated him.
    Trudy leaned even closer, looked melodramatically to the right and left without even noticing he was there. Damon sighed heavily, wanting to shake the woman. “Do you remember the time little Paul Baily fell into that blowhole?”
    “I remember that, now that you say. He was wedged in so tight and no one could get to him, he’d slipped down so far. The tide was coming in.”
    “I was there, Inez, I saw her get him out.” Trudy straightened up. “Penny said she’d heard from her hairdresser that Sarah was working for a secret agency and she was sent to some foreign country undercover to assassinate the leader of a terrorist group.”
    “Oh, I don’t think so, Trudy. Sarah wouldn’t kill anything.” The store owner’s hands fluttered to her throat in protest. “I just can’t imagine.”
    Damon had had enough of gossip. If they weren’t going to say anything worth hearing, he was going to get the hell out of there before Inez turned her spotlight on him. He plunked his groceries down on the counter and looked as bored as he could manage. “I’m in a hurry, Inez,” he said, hoping to facilitate matters and avoid Inez’s usual attempts at matchmaking.
    “Why, Damon Wilder, how lovely to see you. Have you met Trudy Garret? Trudy is a wonderful woman, a native of our town. She works over at the Salt Bar and Grill. Have you been there to eat yet? The salmon is very good.”
    “So I’ve heard,” he muttered, barely glancing at Trudy to acknowledge the introduction. It didn’t matter. They’d all made up their minds about him, making up the history he refused to provide. He felt a little sorry for the returning Sarah. They were making up things about her as well. “You might tell me