Remember When

a puzzled expression on her face, as a clever artist might on a portrait. She crossed back, sat on one of the two elbow chairs she'd arranged in front of the fire. "I don't know why."
    "An impression," Vince said with a shrug. Always mindful of his size, he sat, slow and careful, in the matching chair. "Said he took your hand."
    "Well, we shook hands, and he gave me his card." Laine pulled it out of her pocket, forced herself to keep her attention on Vince's face. The fire was crackling with warmth, and though she felt its heat on her skin, she was cold. Very cold. "He said he'd like to speak with me when I wasn't so busy. That he might have something to sell. People often do," she added, offering Vince the card. "Which is how I stay in business."
    "Right." He tucked the card into his breast pocket. "Anything strike you about him?"
    "Just that he had a beautiful topcoat, and a silly umbrella-and that he didn't seem like the sort to wander around small towns. Had city on him."
    "So did you a few years ago. In fact..." He narrowed his gaze, reached out and rubbed a thumb over her cheek. "Still got some stuck to you."
    She laughed, because it's what he wanted. "I wish I could be more help, Vince. It's such an awful thing to happen."
    "I can tell you, we got four different witness statements. All of them have the guy running straight out into the street, dead in front of that car. Like he was spooked or something. He seem spooked to you, Laine?"
    "I wasn't paying enough attention. The fact is, Vince, I basically brushed him off when I realized he wasn't here to shop. I had customers." She shook her head when her voice broke. "It seems so callous now."
    The hand Vince laid over hers in comfort made her feel foul. "You didn't know what was coming.
    You were the first to get to him."
    "He was right outside." She had to take a deep gulp of coffee to wash the grief out of her throat.
    "Almost on the doorstep."
    "He spoke to you."
    "Yes." She reached for her coffee again. "Nothing that made much sense. He said he was sorry, a couple of times. I don't think he knew who I was or what happened. I think he was delirious. The paramedics came and... and he died. What will you do now? I mean, he's not from around here.
    The phone number's New York. I wonder, I guess I wonder if he was just driving through, where he was going, where he was from."
    "We'll be looking into all that so we can notify his next of kin." Rising, Vince laid a hand on her shoulder. "I'm not going to tell you to put it out of your mind, Laine. You won't be able to, not for a while. I'm going to tell you that you did all you could. Can't do more than all you could."
    "Thanks. I'm going to close up for the day. I want to go home."
    "Good idea. Want a ride?"
    "No. Thanks." It was guilt as much as affection that had her rising on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek. "Tell Jenny I'll see her tomorrow."
    ***
    His name, at least the name she'd known, was Willy Young. Probably William, Laine thought as she drove up the pitted gravel lane. He hadn't been her real uncle-as far as she knew-but an honorary one. One who'd always had red licorice in his pocket for a little girl.
    She hadn't seen him in nearly twenty years, and his hair had been brown then, his face a bit rounder. There'd always been a spring in his step.
    Small wonder she hadn't recognized him in the bowed and nervy little man who'd come into her shop.
    How had he found her? Why had he?
    Since he'd been, to her knowledge, her father's closest friend, she assumed he was-as was her father-a thief, a scam artist, a small-time grifter. Not the sort of connections a respectable businesswoman wanted to acknowledge.
    And why the hell should that make her feel small and guilty?
    She slapped on the brakes and sat, brooding through the steady whoosh of her wipers at the pretty house on the pretty rise.
    She loved this place. Hers. Home. The two-story frame house was, strictly speaking, too large for a woman on her own. But she loved being able to ramble around in it. She'd loved every minute she'd spent meticulously decorating each room to suit herself. And only herself.
    Knowing, as she did, she'd never, ever have to pack up all her belongings at a moment's notice to the tune of "Bye Bye Blackbird" and run.
    She loved being able to putter around the yard, planting gardens, pruning bushes, mowing the grass, yanking the weeds. Ordinary things. Simple, normal things for a woman who'd spent the first half of her life