“Maybe we could invite her too. She has read more than one book on Ted Bundy, so she might be interested.” Tess wanted to get more people involved—two people did not a book club make.
“No, not Mia,” Ruth replied quickly.
“Why?” Tess asked as the woman in question slid their plates onto the table, silent this time.
When she was gone, Ruth whispered, “Mia isMia.”
“Maybe you guys could bond over serial killers and your dislike of Rafferty Brooks. Looks like she has no time for Mr. Flirty either,” Tess said.
Across the café, Mia had grabbed his knit hat and threw it on the ground, just before she slammed his head into the frosty window. The woman said something only the men could hear before spinning and stomping back into the kitchen.
“I guess you can. But I’m not,” Ruth said.
When Mia finally made it back to their table with their meals, Tess asked Mia if she was interested in joining a book club. The time and place were set by Mia herself. It would be tomorrow, right there in the café.
The time went by fast as they talked, and soon Mia had brought their bills to them. Just after she dropped them off, the door opened, letting in another blast of cold air and a small family. Tess was surprised to see Mathias Nordskov in the flesh again. It had only been a few days since she had turned him down.
Instead of the dress pants and a pressed shirt, he was now wearing a heavy green jacket and blue jeans, tight-fitting blue jeans. His blond hair was wind-blown, and he was trying to fix it but failing. She wanted to run her fingers through it herself to see if she could do any better.
She diverted her mind away from thoughts of touching him as he followed a teenage girl past her table. Two smaller children followed behind, one mid-sized boy and a small girl. Tess could tell that they were his children because they looked so much like him, blond hair and all. But she couldn’t help but look for a wife or girlfriend. Though Tess saw no one, she figured there must be someone. No way was Mathias single.
As he passed by table after table nearly everyone in the place called a greeting, and every one of them called him Math and not Mathias. Even Mia, but Tess liked Mathias so much better for the man.
He walked past so quickly, and she wondered if he had even noticed her, not that she cared. She could still feel his anger at her for telling him no to his loan request, but the risk was too high for her even to consider it. Melanie had told her that morning that Mathias was coming in, and Melanie knew him too well to tell him no. Not wanting to ruin Melanie’s relationship with the man, Tess had delivered the bad news instead. When he had lost his temper, she was glad it was geared towards her and not the younger woman. Melanie hadn’t been a personal banker for long enough to be able to handle that much anger. Tess, on the other hand, had years of experience in that department.
Bills paid, she and Ruth both grabbed their jackets from the rack by the door. Both headed out the door and down the street into the blowing wind and snow. Ruth stopped at the insurance office. “This is me.”
Tess laughed. “You are going to work?”
“No, I live above it,” she admitted with a grin.
Tess pointed at the next building. “Then you are my neighbor. I live right here.”
“Yes, we are,” Ruth said, not sounding surprised.
“See you tomorrow then?” Tess asked, hopeful that the other woman would show up tomorrow, even if she wasn’t overly happy that Mia had been invited.
“Yes, at three,” Ruth answered.
In a few more steps, Tess entered the stairway to her apartment. Carefully, she walked up the steps—she often tripped on the narrow steps when she wore heels. Once on the landing, she unlocked her door and closed it behind her. After shrugging off her jacket and boots, she sat down on the couch, grabbed a blanket off the back, and snuggled in.
When she had moved in eighteen months ago, she immediately put the couch against the window. She loved to watch the world outside. She had spent many afternoons sitting right there, looking over the back of the couch at everything from rain to snow to just plain sunshine.
The best part of living downtown was that she only had a two-block walk to work. Within minutes of locking the bank, she could be home, changed and drinking wine. Or if the day was a bad one, something stronger.
Pulling out her phone, she looked through her texts. She had four waiting for her to respond to, but nothing important, so she set the phone back down.
Tomorrow she was getting together with two women from town to discuss books. Though she had read the book they were going to talk about a few weeks ago, she remembered it well enough to discuss it without reading it again. She was more nervous about getting to know the two women. In the eighteen months since she had moved there, she had found it hard to make friends. It had never dawned on her that you make most of your friends at work; however, people usually don’t make friends with their boss.
This was the first bank she was president at, and she had worked for years to get to this point in her career. After getting her degree in finance, she worked as a financial advisor for a long time. Then over a year before, she had applied for a few presidency jobs and had landed the one in Landstad, North Dakota. She gladly took it. It was a small bank in a small town, but she hoped to use it to get a presidency job closer to where she grew up.
Though this was the farthest she had ever lived from her parents, she had yet to be within a few hours of New Paris, Minnesota. With a nine-hour drive between them, she had only made it home a handful of times in eighteen months. Her parents did not visit her … ever.
Leaning her head on the couch, she remembered the look on Mathias’s face when she had said no to him. She knew he knew the answer already. He wasn’t stupid, just frustrated, and he had taken that frustration out on her.
It had stung when he had pointed out that she was not from Landstad. It was true, but it still hurt. Fitting into Landstad had been the biggest challenge of her job, and she had failed. She knew she was an outsider, and everyone else knew it also. Even the bank employees didn’t let her into their group. That hurt too.
Tess knew she had a reputation around town of being a strict, unbending, rule-following witch. But she had to be; she was a woman in charge. If she were a man, she would be called none of those names.