Tell Becca.
Hey, baby doll, you aren’t really an only child, we have a secret kid stashed somewhere. What’s he like? Don’t know. Never met him.
That’s every family’s normal conversation, right?
I wanted to step in front of the nearest bus. If there were buses in Copper Falls. As odds go, I’d have better luck with a scooter on a hell bender. In lieu of that kind of luck, I headed to work with uncharacteristic procrastination.
I could call in sick. I never did that either, so Ruthie would think I was dying, but it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to take a day off.
Yes, it would. I’d sit on my couch all day and picture Noah, and think and dwell and obsess myself into a state of doom. I needed to go, I was pretty sure we had a large order coming in, and it wasn’t fair to put all of that on Ruthie. I could step outside my boundaries and park on the other side of the store instead of close to the diner like I always had. That way, I’d avoid potential encounters.
A plan in place, I turned down Main Street, approached the bookstore, and kept right on driving.
“You are such a baby,” I muttered, making the block.
But spying the bank and knowing I needed to cash an insurance check and snag a little cash for Becca’s lunches—assuming she actually stayed at school to eat—I pulled in and justified it as productive. I blew out a breath as I tugged my purse onto my shoulder and entered the lobby. I had to shake off this crap. This was crazy. Yes, I had a bucket of shit swirling around, but so did everyone else. I wasn’t special. And this was my town. I was not going to go skulking around it like a scared bird just because my particular bucket might get stirred up.
I had to learn to live with Noah back in town, like it or not. And I had to tell my daughter things about myself that went against everything I’d ever preached to her.
And I could never eat at the diner again. Or wear red.
I rounded the corner toward the tellers and was stopped short by a huge donation display of a giant red kettle, the sign reading Help our local families. Give at the teller window.
“Show-offs,” I said under my breath.
I started digging for my wallet as I stepped around the obnoxious kettle and right into a pair of arms and hands that I didn’t see and wasn’t ready for.
“Oh!” I exclaimed, my head shooting up. “I’m so sorr—”
My word was cut off as I looked up into Noah’s face. Again. About four inches from mine. Damn it.
“—ry,” I pushed out, as all the air left me.
Time stopped in those few seconds, and all the little nuances of his face that were new registered like files being tucked away. A tiny white scar above his upper lip. Another thin sliver of one through his left eyebrow. The little laugh lines next to his eyes. All new to me, and yet achingly familiar. The subtle scent I’d picked up from him earlier filled my senses as his eyes panned my face in the same three seconds. I wondered what he saw.
His face went neutral again as he dropped his hands from their hold on me and backed up a few inches. I could still feel the heat imprints on my upper arms.
“Sorry,” he echoed.
I should have just gone to work. This was what I got for being a big lame wuss.
I shook my head and gripped my purse strap. “No—um—I’m just—” I pointed at the teller windows so I could shut up. “Going over there.” I noticed he wasn’t, and was kind of hovering around the desks. “What are you doing?”
“Opening an account,” he said, nodding toward an empty desk. “Waiting to, anyway.”
I nodded. Of course he was. That’s what you do when you move to a new place and plan to stay. Forever. Noah and Shayna and the newest little Ryan.
“A joint one?” I blurted out, feeling suddenly like I was standing off to the side watching myself talk.
He smiled. “Not just yet.”
Not just yet. “So don’t you have to have an address or something?”
His eyebrows drew together slightly on that. “My dad’s is fine for now. I just need to get a debit card.” He looked around the room, probably silently begging the bank lady to come back to her desk and rescue him. “We’ll start looking for our own place soon.”
“Oh, good,” I said, shaking my head at myself. Oh, good? Who was using my mouth?
Noah met my gaze again with that infuriating locked-in non-blinking thing of his, and as much as I wanted to look away, walk away, do anything that carried me away—I couldn’t move.
“Listen, I’m sorry about just dropping by earlier,” he said, backing up yet another step. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
I shook my head. “It was fine—”
“No, seriously,” he said, the hint of a smile at his lips. “I didn’t take into account that you might have—someone there.”
He ran a hand along the back of his neck on the last words, as though they made him itchy, and I closed my eyes, wishing to die.
“I didn’t—I mean, I don’t—” I stumbled, opening my eyes again. Of all nights to call Patrick. “That wasn’t like that.” I held my chin up, refusing to show weakness.
Noah’s eyebrow shot up, carrying the tiny scar with it. “Okay,” he said on a chuckle. He stepped forward again, and I reflexively crossed my arms. Holding my crazy in. “Jules, relax. You’ve had a life. So have I. We both have someone in our lives, that’s normal.”
“He’s not a—Patrick isn’t a someone.” I blew out a breath, cursing myself for not just going to work. And for talking. Because making myself out to be a rent-a-whore was infinitely better than letting him think Patrick was my boyfriend. I smiled and looked at the floor, drawing in a huge breath before looking back up at him. “You know what, Noah? This is just going to take some getting used to—for both of us.”
Noah let out his own breath, a relieved expression passing over his features. I’d saddled up the white elephant in the room.
“You’re right,” he said softly.
I nodded. “So—let’s just make the best of it and go about our normal days.”
He did a head tilt that signified a shrug. “Whatever normal is.”
I smiled, and ignored the shimmy in my stomach when he smiled back and dropped his eyes to my mouth.
“So, I’m gonna head over there,” I said, pointing to the teller counter. “See you later.”
“Later,” he responded.
I told my feet to walk around him, and they brought me to my destination, where I was eternally grateful that no other customers were around. Because it took me a good minute or two to remember what I was doing and how to do it.
By the time I was done and turned around, he was seated in front of a petite blonde woman, one ankle resting on the other knee and his arm resting across the chair next to him. My knees nearly betrayed me at the beauty of him, so relaxed and confident, yet exuding raw masculinity as he chatted with this woman and smiled as she kept fingering her hair. Well, hell, of course she did. My God, he was positively edible.
I strode out with the intention of looking nonchalant and hoping not to trip over my own feet. When I looked his way and found him watching me leave, however, my throat closed up. I gave a polite smile, which he returned before turning his attention back on the blonde lady having sex with her hair.
I counted my steps back to the car. Thirty-seven. Thirty-seven steps to make it to a place where I could close and lock the door and have a nervous breakdown.
“Shit,” I said, my voice quivering on the word as I hit the lock. “Crazy,” I muttered, starting the car so the heat would blast through the vents. It wasn’t all that cold, but I needed the heat and the noise to calm my blood down. One day at a time, I told myself.
My cell buzzed.
Where are you? From Ruthie.
Currently on a fast track to the loony bin, thanks, and you?
On my way, I texted back. Where I would stay from now on. Either the store or my house. Safely tucked where I could see people coming.
• • •
“We need a night out.”
I was shelving newly arrived books and arranging the new releases up front on the display table, listening to Ruthie sing along with the eighties music she’d set up at a ridiculously low volume with an iPod station in the middle of the store. Away from the wall to avoid Johnny Mack’s cane. So far, so good. But the day was young.
The day might be, but I felt ancient. Like I’d lived three days before ten o’clock. Starting in the store late didn’t help me, either, as I was accustomed to arriving at eight and having all my busy work done before the store ever opened.
“Did you hear me?” Ruthie said, moving some books around in my wake.
“I heard you,” I said, stacking more titles on the table. “We have that stupid party, don’t we? The Chamber thing?”
“It’s a meeting.”
“It’s after hours and requires a change of clothing,” I said. “That’s a party.”
She made a huffing sound. “Whatever, that’s not till next week,” she said. “I’m talking like tonight.”
I sighed. “I’m just not up for that right now. I don’t need—”
“Are you crazy?” she said, picking up the books I laid out and rearranging them with plastic boxes and easels. “It’s exactly what you need. Get out and live a little.”
“I have Patrick for that,” I responded, digging back in the box and smiling at an older gentleman carrying around an old used copy of a Jackie Collins novel. You just never knew.
“Out—being the pertinent word,” Ruthie said. “Someplace not in your house.” She put down her props for a moment and pulled a hair clip from the mammoth pocket of her big black sweater. She twisted her hair up in two seconds and still managed to look adorable. “Come on, Jules, step out there with me. Eat, drink, talk to people who aren’t me or Becca. Or your boy toy.”
“And Frank’s fine with you stepping out and eating and drinking and talking?” I asked, eyeing her.
She scoffed. “Frank loves it when I go meet my clubs and committees. He gets to eat crap out of a box and chili out of a can.” She laughed and waved a hand. “He’ll be fine. It’s not like we’re swinging on a pole, Jules, I’m just thinking of something like the Grille over in Katyville. Good food, good music—”
“Oh, I love their baked squash and peppered pork chops,” said a woman standing nearby who I recognized as a regular from the courthouse. “And all their desserts are to die for.”
“Mmm, the blackberry cobbler,” Ruthie said, nearly salivating.
The woman sighed. “Now I have to talk my husband into taking me tonight.” She laughed and touched Ruthie’s arm.
“Well, maybe we’ll see you, Tess,” Ruthie said, shooting me a look.
“Tomorrow, okay?” I said, bringing her social endeavor to a halt. “I just want to get through the rest of this day and go home and watch TV in my sweats tonight. Maybe I’ll even find something Becca and I can watch together for once.”
“Nothing on Lifetime,” she said.
I frowned. “Why? I love Lifetime.”
“She hates it. Get on SyFy.”
I groaned. “I swear we aren’t related.”
Ruthie and the woman who was evidently Tess laughed and headed to the register with a couple of books. I watched them, a little envious of the easy way Ruthie dealt with people. She had that way of connecting, of being so likeable that people just wanted to be around her. I mean, I knew I recognized that woman, but I couldn’t have pulled her name out of the air if my hair was on fire and she owned all the water.
Ruthie was good at that. And she had something else, too. Watching her work the store, the customers, knowing what was right and how and when—it was a little like watching my mom back in the day. Ruthie had learned from the master. Why didn’t I?
A few minutes later, Ruthie looked at her watch. “Lunchtime.” She looked at me questioningly. “You want something from next door?”
I gave her a pointed look. “No.”
She tilted her head. “I’ll go pick it up.”
I opened my mouth to say no again and my stomach grumbled loudly. “Maybe McMasters still has some tacos left?”
McMasters Meats was a butcher shop up on the next block that also served breakfast. I didn’t hit it that often, but Becca did on her way to school. The bacon was to die for, along with the brothers who owned it, and right then that sounded wonderful. The breakfast tacos with bacon, not the brothers.
She gave me a lip curl. “From breakfast? Doubtful.”
Crap. “Okay.” Ruthie grinned and grabbed her purse from behind the counter, and I studied her. “You look too pleased. What are you doing?”
Ruthie frowned and did a little smirk, but didn’t meet my eyes but for a second. “I’m picking up lunch.”
“Don’t say a word, Ruthie.”
She looked at me like I was a loon. “What are you talking about?”
“If Noah is there, not a word.”
She blew out a breath and did a little eye flutter like I didn’t know what I was talking about, but I knew her. Given the chance, she’d bow up with her little five-feet-five self and tell Noah Ryan just where to go and how to get there.
Ruthie wasn’t swayed by his smile or his eyes or the way he looked with his arms crossed over his chest. She was oblivious to all of it. Because once upon a time she’d believed in him. And he’d let her down.
An old conversation drifted up from my memory bank.
“I swear I’m screwed, no matter what I do,” I said.
“Don’t worry, Jules. Noah loves you,” Ruthie said. We were taking a break out back of the store, holding a bucket of chocolate chip ice cream with two spoons. “He’ll ride this out with you no matter which way it goes.”
I rubbed my basketball belly and took another bite of the cold creaminess, feeling a little foot push against the side.
“Maybe,” I said. “So why do I get the feeling that if I keep it, I lose my parents, and if I don’t, I lose Noah?”
Ruthie waved a spoon at me, pushing glasses up her nose. “You’re not losing anybody, silly. Everybody’s on your side, even if it’s different ones.”
So much for that. And Ruthie never forgot it. Not with my mother when I spiraled into a destructive mode afterward and she refused to acknowledge it, and certainly not with Noah, when he shocked the hell out of Ruthie by leaving me alone to deal with it.
She’d waited many years to give him a piece of her mind, and I could see the wheels turning.
“What’s your order?” she asked, clear-eyed and ignoring me.
“I’m serious, Ruth Ann.”
Her gaze turned deadly—if she could pull off deadly. “You call me that again and you’ll get a scene over there worthy of the evening news.”
I held my hands up. “Okay, okay, just—please don’t stir shit up. I’ve already talked to him twice today and I’m sure he’s as tired of the subject as I am.”
“Who cares how tired he is,” she muttered. “Look at you.” I looked down at myself in question and then back up at her. “One day back and he’s got you coming in late to work, avoiding public places, wearing blue jeans to work—which I happen to like,” she added, doing a little flair with her hands. “But that’s beside the point. It’s not you. You’re cowering in your own town,” she said. “Your town.”
I blinked. “You’re right.”
“Damn straight I am,” she said. “Once upon a time you thought you’d die without him. Then you thought you’d crumble into dust if you ever saw him again.” She leaned forward at me, intending to be forceful. “Well, he’s back. And you’re still standing.”
True. Although that crumbling part wasn’t that far out of reach.
“So, your usual order?”
I looked at her and shook my head. “Get me a cheeseburger.”
Her eyes widened in surprise and she chuckled. “Whoa.”
“And fries,” I added. It may not have been ballsy to anyone else, and it wasn’t as good as going over there, but it was a step outside my carefully constructed, lined, and sealed box.
I was still standing.
• • •
The cheeseburger only made me want more crap, so I figured that nachos would be a good follow-up for dinner that night. And the look on Becca’s face when she came in was nearly worth the empty calories we were about to consume. She looked almost as excited as Harley, who was sitting at my feet looking up at me like I was God.
“Are you dying?” she asked. “Am I?”
“Ha ha,” I said, chopping up the lettuce. “Check those beans in the microwave. See if they’re ready.”
She dropped her backpack where she stood and headed that way. “Is there a reason for the madness?”
“Is there a reason for your backpack on the floor?”
She waved a hand as she grabbed a spoon to stir the beans. “I’ll get it in a second.”
“And if you’d just put it on a chair to begin with, you wouldn’t have to get it, and we wouldn’t—”
“Be having this conversation?” she finished for me with a sarcastic expression. “Oh, yes, we would. You’d find a way.”
I sighed, already tired. “Becca.”
“Hi, Mom,” she said, turning. “Can we just do that? Do we have to fight?” Her gaze landed on my jeans. “Did you go to work today?”
I closed my eyes and sucked my readied comment back in. “Yes, I did. Hi, Bec. How was your day?”
“I passed my government test.”
I stared at her. “There was really a test? Wonderful!” I said, grabbing the shredded cheese. “Sounds like a good day.”
“Yeah, well, until Jill Bartlett decided to be a douche,” she said, her shoulders slouching a little.
I glanced up. “And why is that?”
Becca shrugged and did the scrunch-up thing with her face that said the subject was about to be done. “Nothing. It was stupid.”
“So tell me.”
“I did tell you,” she said, widening her eyes without meeting mine. She grabbed a plate from the cabinet and started building her nachos. “It was nothing.”
“Nothing enough to mess up your day?” I asked, attempting another angle.
“Whatever, Mom, can we just eat?” she said, clearly done. And irritated.
“Yeah, whatever.” I blew out a breath. “You bring it up and then get mad at me for it.” I pulled the sour cream container from the fridge. “I swear, baby, you make me want to bang my head on the wall sometimes.”
“Ditto,” she muttered.
Well, so much for the relaxing girls’ night at home. I tried again in the living room.
“Grab the TV trays and we’ll see what’s on.”
She stared at me as if I’d grown horns. “We’re eating junk food—and eating it in the living room?”
“Good Lord,” I muttered, grabbing the trays myself. “You’d think it was the first time ever.”
“First time in Nonnie’s house,” Becca said, setting her plate on a tray and settling herself on the couch next to me as Harley jumped up on the other side of her and stared. “We did it sometimes at the blue house, but never here.”
I looked at her. “That’s crazy, Bec, that was four years ago.”
She held up her hands. “Just saying.” She scratched Harley’s chin. “I’ll save you some,” she whispered as Harley’s tail thumped.
I frowned, thinking about it, wondering if she was right. We did have a more casual lifestyle in the old house she called the blue house. Hayden and I had leased it early in our marriage when it was painted a hunter green. He never liked it and painted it a sickly beige a few years later. When we divorced, I got the house, and one of my first actions as a single woman was to paint it whatever color Becca wanted. Thank God, her favorite color was blue.
When my mother died and left us this house, I thought it made sense to move here and sell our smaller one. I’d second-guessed that decision a hundred times or more since then. Especially when I’d hear Becca refer to it as belonging to my mother, or Nonnie, as she called her. Very seldom did she refer to it as our house.
“Well, this doesn’t hurt anything,” I said, turning on the TV and attempting to make light of it. “Give the table a break for the night.”
I flipped through the on-screen guide as we ate, hoping I wouldn’t have to resort to SyFy but willing to just to keep her there. Finally, I landed on a romantic comedy she’d liked when she was younger. “Yes?” I asked.
Her shrug was the best I was going to get, but the genuine laughs that came later were proof I’d chosen well. Becca’s two major appendages, her phone and her journal, rested by her side, and every now and then she’d scribble something down or smile at a text. I couldn’t help feeling a pang of envy toward whoever was pulling that reaction from her.
I remembered her being attached to my hip when she was little, always wanting to lay in my lap to watch TV, begging me to play with her hair. I missed those days.
I leaned sideways to bump heads with her. “Loves, baby girl,” I said during a commercial break.
“Loves,” she said, pulling the afghan from the top of the couch behind her and half curling into it as she leaned against me.
“You know, I’m going to miss this kind of thing when you go off to college.”
“Eating on the couch?” she said, throwing her arms over her head in a contorted stretch I’d probably need help to get out of. “I’m pretty sure you can still do that if you want.”
I smirked. “Cute. You know what I mean. It’s been just you and me for a long time, Bec. I’m gonna miss you.”
She shrugged and finger-combed her crooked hair back. “Well, who knows,” she said, hugging a pillow with a lazy smile. “Maybe I won’t go anywhere.”
Tiny bells rang in the back of my brain. Ones that had been poised and ready to ring for months now over the lack of college application enthusiasm.
I licked my lips. “Meaning?”
“Meaning—maybe I won’t go anywhere,” she repeated, finding that broken record again.
“So, have you heard back from any of them?” I asked, fully aware of the answer since I got the mail every day.
“No, but it’s early,” she said. “Besides, there’s always Community College if nothing else.”
I felt my eyebrows raise. “For an associate’s degree, Becca. For summer courses. You can’t get a master’s or even a bachelor’s degree there. For the level of teaching that you want—”
“Here we go,” she said, pulling the afghan off and sitting up.
“Here we go?” I echoed. “It’s a simple conversation, Bec, and a legitimate one. You graduate in less than six months.”
“Totally aware of that,” she said, nodding. “Believe it or not, they actually mention that once or twice at school.”
“Don’t get smart with me,” I said, feeling the tide go out. “All I’m doing is asking what the status is on your college plans. A lot of kids already have it planned out by now.”
“And—I don’t,” she said.
“I thought it was teaching.”
“I don’t know anymore,” she said.
I frowned. “But it’s always been teaching.”
She rubbed at her face. “Oh, my God, Mom, have you ever been undecided on anything ever in your life? Has everything always just fallen in place for you?”
I blinked at her, stunned, before a laugh worked up from my chest. “Are you serious?”
“Whatever.”
Becca stood and carried her TV tray back to its designated place as the show came back on, and headed toward the stairs.
“The show, baby, it’s back—”
“I’m done,” she said, waving a hand halfheartedly. “I’m—gonna go read or something. Supper was good.”
I watched her trudge up the stairs in her socks, shoes probably discarded in the kitchen. I kicked myself for ruining the night with logic. I was already missing the good vibes and warmth of hanging out with her.
“I love you, Bec.”
“Love you too, Mom,” she said quietly before the house swallowed her up.
The photograph of her and Harley looked at me from the side table, and my eyes went to the park painting from there. Has everything always just fallen in place for you?
Wow.
I got up and walked upstairs, passing Becca’s room and mine, going to a door that was seldom acknowledged anymore. I opened it, instantly breathing in the old familiar smells, as charcoal and paper and mostly dried-up oils wafted up into my senses. My art closet, easels hanging obediently on their hooks, drawers of supplies sitting unused, and huge portfolio envelopes of charcoal drawings leaned together in stacks.
I licked my lips as my fingers twitched, itchy to pull things out and explore. But to what end? Something else to fill up time I didn’t have? I closed the door. I had a business to run now.