Either Annie Abraham is back in town or I just paid for some random girl's coffee.

That's all I can think as I walk away from The Caffeinated Cowboy as fast as I can without skidding on the icy sidewalk. These ankle boots, soft leather with a sturdy heel, are comfortable and they look great with these pants, but they have no grip and if that really was Annie Abraham then the last thing I want to do is fall on my ass outside the coffee shop.

I only caught a glimpse of her side profile. That ski slope nose and those heart-shaped lips, the natural honey blonde of her hair. A hint of the long lashes that frame her winter blue eyes, her irises ringed with navy. It must have been Annie. Annie with baggage. No-one comes to Deer Pines with that much stuff unless they're moving in. Or moving back.

That glimpse of her face plays on repeat as I walk down Deer Street – the entire town exists on the intersection of two imaginatively named roads, Deer Street and Pine Street – until I reach Jacob's Ladder. A wall of heat hits me when I push open the door, which is all I need to know that Ruth's working today, the same as every Friday, when it's just her and me. I finish the last of my espresso as I step into my haven.

"Morning, boss," Ruth says from behind the register. I'm not a hundred percent sure of her age, but her hair has been gray as long as I've known her and I know she has grandchildren and I'm pretty sure she's at least twenty years older than me. I must've known her age at one point, when I added her to the payroll and the employee insurance program, but it has long since slipped my mind. It amuses her to call me boss.

"Hi, Ruth," I say.

"My goodness, Laurel, aren't you cold?" She looks me up and down, taking in the thin material of my cashmere sweater through my open coat. I'm wearing sixty denier tights under my pants but I was running late this morning and I couldn't find an undershirt so there's nothing beneath my loose sweater except the lace of my bra.

"Freezing. But you have the thermostat set to ninety-eight, by the feel of it, so I'm sure I'll warm up soon." I hang my coat on a hook in the staff room and drop onto one of the chairs dotted around the store. That was one of my most important visions for this place, that people have places to take a seat as they browse. Jacob's Ladder is, for the most part, a bookstore, but we sell gifts and games and stationery too. Just a few of my favorite things.

"Seventy-five, actually," Ruth says. I drop my head into my hand and sigh.

"That's too hot, Ruth. I know it's cold out but people are coming in here in all their outside layers. We don't want to boil them alive."

If there's one thing I learned from that retail management course I went on a couple years ago, it's that for the ideal shopping environment, the thermostat must never be set below sixty-six or above seventy. I can't be bothered to get up and turn it down, though, so it will have to stay that way for now, until it inevitably gets too much and I have to turn it right down before the heat makes me flip.

"How's your morning been?" Ruth asks, leaning on the countertop. We get a lot of downtime here, pockets of the day for chatting and organizing stock and placing orders when there are no customers around. Deer Pines is hardly a thriving town, but we do alright.

"Busy." As per usual. Such is the life of a single mom. "Hannah decided that this morning was the perfect time to tell me that today's the deadline for me to sign a permission slip for a field trip I've never heard about, and Otto's being a grumpy little shit because I said I wasn't comfortable with him staying the night at a girl's house."

"Kids," Ruth says with a smile and a roll of her eyes. "Who'd have them, eh?"

"Am I being harsh? Is it just me, or is fifteen too young to be spending the night with girls?"

"I don't know, hon. It's been a long time since any of my kids were fifteen, and it was pretty different back then. What would your mom have said if you'd asked her the same at that age?"

I don't know. I was a late bloomer. When I was my son's age, I had no interest in boys or girls or kissing or sex, but a lot of girls in my grade did. If I believe everything they said, then a solid third of them had lost their virginity by the time we got to tenth grade. I carried mine with me through college, through grad school, until I met the man I went on to marry and he said all the right things.

"I don't want to encourage him to, you know, do that," I say, "but I don't want to demonize it either. I don't want him to rebel, you know? If he's going to do anything I'd rather he was safe and home, but ... god, when does it get easier?" I look up at her with pleading eyes. "Everyone keeps telling me it gets easier, but they've been saying that for fifteen years and I keep hitting hurdles."

"For me," Ruth says, "it got easier after my son's wedding day."

"God. I've got a while to go, then."

"Just a little." She chuckles and stands straight, stretching out her back. "Don't worry so much, Laurel. You're doing a great job. Your kids are great little people."

I close my eyes and sigh, and when my lungs are empty and I have to suck in a breath, I change the conversation. "Do you know if Annie Abraham is back in town?"

Saying her name does something to me. I haven't said her name in so long but seeing her this morning, I'm right back where I was eight years ago. Lost and confused and desperate to know more.

"I haven't a clue, hon," Ruth says, "but then again, I don't know who that is."

"Come on, Ruth, you know everyone in town," I say. She's not a busybody exactly, but she's lived here her whole life, however long that's been, and she worked as a receptionist at the doctor's office for about thirty years before I opened Jacob's Ladder five years ago. She was the first to join me. We handled it between the two of us for the first year, until we were able to hire Jessica and later, Bobby, and I could step back a bit.

"I know everyone who visited the doctor," Ruth corrects. "Whoever this Annie Abraham is, she's either in excellent health or she doesn't have insurance. Who is she?"

That's the million dollar question. Who is Annie Abraham?

She started out as my babysitter. She was home from college for the summer and I was tangled up in divorce proceedings and when I put out a desperate ad for someone to watch my kids for a few hours, she answered. I warned her that my kids weren't easy, that Hannah was in the terrible twos and Otto was going through the scratchy sevens. She assured me she would be alright, that she'd spent the past three summers working as a camp counselor at a sleepaway camp near Kalispell. I was apprehensive, but I didn't have any other choice.

My meeting in Whitefish ran over and then there was an accident on the highway and I couldn't get home until after seven when I should've been back by four at the latest. When I finally made it back, it was to a quiet house. The kids were fed; Hannah was asleep in her crib; Otto and Annie were playing Monopoly.

It was as though a fairy godmother had swept into my life in the form of a twenty-one-year-old in a pink peacoat and with a wave of her wand, she tipped my world upside down.

She had me under her spell. When I had to stay late at work the next day and my ex wasn't around, I asked her to get Otto from school and Hannah from daycare so Annie would be there when I got home, so I could spend time in her company. I started making excuses to see her. She started staying longer even after I got home.

After a couple of weeks, she kissed me, and I was undone. And so, as the rest of my life was crumbling down around me, she was the first blossom in spring, the hardy shoot of a snowdrop reaching through the ice that I had let form around my heart.

We met at the end of May. Her classes started up again the first week of September. The three months in the middle belonged to us. Sneaking around like a couple of teenagers because my divorce was too raw, too fresh, and I didn't want anyone to see us. I didn't want my kids to see us, didn't want Otto to realize I was sleeping with the babysitter, didn't want Christian to think I had cheated on him before our marriage had fallen apart. I'd never felt that way for a woman, couldn't remember the last time I had ached for a person. She captivated me.

September came around too fast. When she left, I'm sure she took a little piece of my heart, and I couldn't tell anyone because no-one ever knew about her. Our time together was a secret, a thrill at the time until it ended and there was nobody I could cry to. The only person I had to lean on back then was my mom, who lived an hour away and disapproved of my divorce. Now she lives five minutes away and she still disapproves of almost everything I've done with my life, but at least she's good with her grandkids.

"She used to look after my kids," I say in the end. A catastrophic disservice to who Annie was to me. "When Christian and I first split up, before my mom moved here."

"I don't recognize the name," Ruth says, resting her chin in her hand. "What does she look like?"

"Tall, blonde, slim, wears a lot of pink." Freckles on her stomach and a birthmark on her left breast. "She's very smiley." Not this morning, though, I think. This morning, if that really was Annie, she was a mess.

"Oh, I've seen her." Ruth vanishes into the staff room and comes out with the lost and found bin, rummaging through it until she pulls out a Barbie doll in a pink dress and heels. "Ta da!"

"Very funny." I roll my eyes at Ruth, although there is a slight resemblance. "Annie doesn't have bangs."

"And she probably isn't twelve inches of plastic."

"No." But she knows how to use it.

"Abraham, did you say?"

"Mmhmm."

"And her family's from around here?"

"Yeah. She grew up here, went to college a couple hours away. I don't know where she went after that, though, but I could've sworn I saw her this morning. I thought you might've heard."

Ruth clucks her tongue and shakes her head. "Abraham. Abraham. I don't know, hon. Sorry. My mind isn't what it used to be."

"You're not that old, Ruth." I glance at her. "Are you?"

That earns a laugh but no answer.

The door chimes when a customer comes in, shaking snow out of their hair, and I snap into action, . Forget my curiosity and the ache of my heart. This is my work, my livelihood. Look alive, Laurel, and forget about Annie. It's been eight years. I bet she's forgotten about me.

*

and here's protagonist number two! i hope you like laurel!