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"And he did it all with a smile on his face. Always smiling, that boy." She gave me a pointed look. "Was, anyway."

Then she left me standing at the counter with a menu and growing suspicion that I'd accidentally declared war on an entire zip code.

By the time I made it to the pharmacy, I’d been treated to a handful of scowls and one woman who spat after she walked past me.

"Mikayla Parsons!"

I turned and immediately wished the ground would swallow me.

Eleanor Valentine. The matriarch of Valentine Bay's founding family was ninety if she was a day, carried a cane that looked like it had been used to settle more than one disagreement, and possessed a purse large enough to conceal a small weapon. Possibly two.

She also knew more about everybody's business than the federal government.

Usually, she traveled with a rotating cast of attractive young men in scrubs who were supposedly her caregivers. Personally, I suspected she was running some kind of geriatric gigolo ring.

Today, she was alone. Lucky me. "Hello, Mrs. Valentine."

"Where's Damon?"

No hello. No small talk. Just straight to the firing squad.

"Excuse me?"

"Damon Lockhart. Tall. Handsome. Dimples. Proof that genetics occasionally like to showboat."

"I know who Damon is."

“Where is he?” she persisted.

“I don’t know.”

"Why not?"

"Because we're not…" I stopped. Not dating. Not together. Not anything. Except, apparently, the subject of every conversation in Valentine Bay.

Eleanor planted her cane on the sidewalk. "Well, spit it out, girl. I haven't got all day."

"We're not seeing each other anymore."

"Hmph."

That was it. One syllable. Somehow more judgmental than a three-page lecture.

"With all due respect, Mrs. Valentine, whatever happened between me and Damon is private."

A huff of laughter escaped her mouth. "Then you picked the wrong town to have it happen in."

Fair point.

She studied me over the tops of her glasses. "You think that boy's a fool?"

"What?” My brows knitted, trying to connect the dots of the accusation. “No."

"Then why are you treating him like one?"

My spine stiffened. "I'm not."

"Is that the story you’re sticking with."