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Where You Least Expect It
By Tori Carrington Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.
Copyright © 2004 Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.
All right reserved. ISBN: 0-373-24600-5
Chapter One
Summer always had a way of making Penelope Moon itch. Maybe it was the heat. On this muggy, late-June morning, at just before eight, it was definitely hot. And it would only get hotter as the day went on.
She tugged on Maximus's leash while they walked down Main Street in downtown Old Orchard. The setter and Great Dane mix pulled back, nearly jerking her out of her practical sandals. She pulled tighter, smiling at Old Man Jake who was sweeping the sidewalk in front of his General Store. He gave her the same wary look he always gave her.
No, it wasn't the heat. Well, it was and it wasn't. Something else was to blame for the way she seemed to come alive in the summer, making her want to shuck her clothes and go skinny-dipping, an outrageous act that she would never give thought to at any other time of the year, in the Old Valley River near her grandmother's house. And that had nothing whatsoever to do with the weather in northwest Ohio.
Perhaps it was the extremeness of summer. The heat seemed to amplify every emotion, pump up the volume of sounds, make smells more intense, colors more vivid, overwhelming the senses.
Then again, maybe it was because she was a winter baby and the polar opposite, summer, mystified her.
"Max!" she whispered to the mammoth, untrained dog as he stopped in Lucas Circle in front of a half-barrel planted with red impatiens and started to lift his leg.
Penelope Moon was twenty-four, unmarried in a family with a history of unmarried women, and had taken over her grandmother's New Age bookstore five years ago. Back then, though, it hadn't been a bookstore but rather a general herb shop called Potions and Spells. To be fair, the herbs still sold better than the books, but somehow "Book-store" in the name lent the shop a more suitable air and encouraged more foot traffic, no matter the customers' preferences.
Penelope still lived in the same house she'd grown up in, accepted that she would always be looked on as peculiar by the town, and appreciated every moment she stood above ground rather than lay buried in it. Heat and uneasiness aside, this morning pretty much resembled every other morning of her adult life. She got up just before dawn, made herself a cup of ginseng tea, watched the sunrise while sitting on the front porch of the old house she shared with her grandmother just outside of town. Then she put Maximus's leash on and walked the two miles to open the bookstore in downtown Old Orchard, where she would spend the next eight hours before heading back home to help her grandmother Mavis make dinner.
Penelope caught herself smoothing down the tiny hairs at the back of her neck, trying to calm her restlessness. A state that even the dog seemed to tune in to as he looked at her with his watery brown eyes and gave a small whine.
She resisted the urge to tell him to hush. The townspeople already thought her strange enough without witnessing her talking to her dog.
She took her keys out of the front pocket of her cotton dress and looked around the clump of businesses that sat, one against the other, down Main Street and Old Orchard Avenue. Eddie's Pub had already opened, but was likely serving coffee rather than beer this early. The library directly across from her was still closed. She could just make out some activity at the sheriff's office across Lucas Circle and down a ways.
The tiny brass bells in the shape of morning glories tinkled as she opened the glass door bearing her shop's name and hours in purple and white. The colors were mirrored inside with crisp, white wood bookcases lining the walls, and sprigs of lavender displayed everywhere.
Maximus gave a loud bark and pulled free of her grasp, galloping straight toward a waist-high display of aromatherapy lotions she had carefully stacked the day before.
"Max, no!" Penelope hurried after him, leaving the door unlocked behind her.
His leash was within reach, but it was too late. The four-foot pyramid of smooth, white plastic jars tumbled into a pile at her feet, one jar landing on her big toe.
"Ouch! Oh, Max."
She stood staring at the mess, then at the canine - who was looking pleased with himself as he sat next to the demolished mountain, his tongue lolling. She'd had the exasperating dog for two years and had yet to find a way to tame his roguish ways. A Scorpio. Definitely a Scorpio. Though she had no way of knowing for sure. She'd awakened in the middle of the night to find him howling on the front porch where someone had put him, little more than a pup. She'd taken the abandoned pooch under her wing before he could blink his mournful eyes. Penelope had never even tried to find out who had left him there. All that mattered was that he'd needed love and she'd had it to give to him.
If only she was any good at discipline, maybe her life with him wouldn't be so difficult. Even Mavis refused to keep him at the house while Penelope was at the shop.
"You," she said, rubbing his ear. "Out back."
"He ought to be put down, that dog."
Penelope turned from where she was gathering the jars in her arms to find town gossip Elva Mollenkopf in the door, wearing her normal drab clothes and familiar lemon-sucking expression.
I should have locked the door behind me, Penelope thought. She put the jars down on the checkout counter, pretending not to notice the way Elva tried to hide behind displays and the two purple poles flanking the entrance to conceal her presence in the shop from anyone passing outside.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Where You Least Expect It by Tori Carrington Copyright © 2004 by Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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