Happily Ever After: A Romance Collection

by Amelia Wilde

  But the shed was empty now.

  Completely.

  I stood there, frozen in place as I tried to slow my suddenly panicked breathing. Even the air smelled empty, just frozen cold blankness that filled my lungs and made me cough.

  The complete panic that gripped me made no sense. The shed had been cleaned out before. When we used it as our studio back when we were auditioning, it was empty.

  But not truly empty, not like this. Emptied not only of Uncle Gid's stuff but of his spirit too.

  I reached out and gripped the door frame with my gloved hand, my fingernails digging into the soft wood. It didn't help with the spinning in my head at all. I leaned back and pressed my back against the cold wall and slid down to sit on the freezing ground.

  There was no box here. Nothing. Nothing was left. It was like Gid had never even existed except as a memory.

  I took another deep breath.

  But that wasn't true, his voice lived on. I could play the music he'd written for those little kids to sing. And I could listen to him, hear him like a whisper from the afterlife.

  Because Ruby had his tapes.

  I could listen to him. I just had to do it with her. That was her only condition.

  Why had that idea bothered me so much yesterday? Why was I so unwilling to share him? He'd clearly trusted her. They were friends. And she was kind, and good, and kissed like she was on fire.

  I should be happy to share him with her.

  She was amazing.

  I dug my fingers into the wood, this time for a different reason. And then suddenly stood up, brushing my hands against my pants. A soft film of dust left streaks like ash on my jeans, but I didn't even bother to try cleaning up. I slammed the door shut on the empty shed and headed to Ethel, keys already in my hand.

  26

  Ruby

  Ginger was in the ceiling.

  When I bought this little house, the first project I'd wanted to tackle was the awful drop ceiling in the basement. Whoever had installed it was either blind or drunk, because the tiles all hung at different levels, leaving just enough space for a tiny kitten to nose her way into.

  I hadn't had the time or the money to fix it yet, and now I was cursing myself

  "How on earth did you even get up here?" I demanded. "Cat, I am trying to help you, ow!" I complained. Her little kitten-daggers were still dainty enough not to draw blood but they still hurt. "I'm going to clip those nails as soon as I get you out of there."

  As if she recognized the threat, she backed away from me, twisting and compressing her little body into a small space back by the duct work and completely out of my reach.

  I stepped back on the chair I was standing on, and sighed....then sneezed out some of the ceiling dust. "I bet I just got a lungful of asbestos because of you, cat," I muttered. "I should just leave you there."

  But she and I both knew this was an empty threat. I scooted the chair under the next piece of tile and pushed up. "Got you...oh, come on!" I cried as she somehow managed to worm her way out of what seemed like a pretty solid neck grab. "Why do you want to be up here anyway? It's full of dust and mouse poop. Oh that's probably exactly why you want to be up here right?" I sneezed again, and tried to bat the floating filth away from my face. "I'd say I gotta clean up here but we both know that's a lie, so you'd better come down or the dust bunnies will eat you."

  I reached for her again. She stretched her little neck towards my outstretched fingers, sniffing tentatively. "That's good," I cooed. "I'm the person who feeds you, you know who I am. Come on and..."

  A loud pounding sent her scurrying into the farther reaches of the ceiling. "Oh fucking hell cat!" The pounding sounded again and I realized it was someone at the front door. "Stay right there," I told Ginger. "I just have to go yell at whoever scared you and then I'm coming back to drag your orange butt out of there."

  Ginger, safe in the farthest reaches of the ceiling, licked her paw.

  Grumbling, I jumped down from the chair as the pounding came again. "The house better be on fire!" I shouted as I came up the basement stairs. "Because otherwise I - "

  I opened the door and froze.

  Jonah's eyes met mine. Then they traced up to take in my asbestos covered head, dust streaked face, and the long rubber gloves I'd bee, wearing in anticipation of plunging Ginger into the bath. "Is...this a bad time?"

  "The bad time already happened when you pounded on the door and scared my cat even further into the basement ceiling," I huffed, stepping back.

  "Is that why you -"

  "Look this way? Yes. Yes it is."

  "I was going to say look like you want to murder me, but then I remembered that was your usual expression."

  "What do you want, Jonah?"

  He pressed his lips together like he was catching his words before they got him in trouble. "Do you need help?" he asked.

  "With what?"

  He looked at me like I was daft. "Getting your cat."

  This time it was my turn to take him in. His hair looked wild and needed a trim, his eyes were bright, like he'd been outside in the wind and the cold. The unbuttoned flannel shirt that poked out from under his puffy jacket was not the fashionable, hip kind of flannel. It was the kind of flannel that was sold in outdoor stores next to the tractor parts. It looked like something his dad would wear.

  It actually looked like something Gid wore, a lot.

  My insides felt like someone had poured warm honey over them. "Yeah, sure," I said, trying like hell to keep my composure, so he wouldn't know I was melting at the sight of that shirt. So he wouldn't see the tears in my eyes and mistake them for sadness when they were actually the happiest I'd felt in a while. "Basement."

  "You said that."

  "Right."

  Jonah in my house looked way too big. Just standing there, he seemed to take up all of the sparse space, making my house feel full and furnished instead of meager. I looked around with him, wondering what he was making of my stacks of books, the overflowing yarn bin and the overall lack of furniture except for my grandmother's rocking chair.

  "This place looks like you," he commented.

  "And what does that look like?" I wanted to know.

  "Clear. Uncluttered." He pressed his lips together and looked back at me. "Truthful," he finished.

  That shouldn't have made a damn bit of sense, but I was starting to understand Jonah, and so it did. "Thanks?" I wondered.

  "It's definitely a compliment."

  "Okay."

  "Ruby?"

  "Yes?"

  "I'm sorry I was a dick yesterday," he said. "But I sure liked kissing you." He coughed and looked away. "Where's the basement?"

  I huffed out a chuckle of disbelief. "You're unbelievable," I sighed. "Door's in the kitchen."

  Of course he started off walking to it first, but rather than get all affronted, I quietly smiled. Jonah was...Jonah. He didn't know how to hang back and let other's take charge.

  "How did she get in the ceiling in the first place?" he asked as we trundled down the stairs.

  "She's...a cat? I have no idea. I think cat's exist in an alternate dimension from us. I was looking for her this morning because her food bowl was full, so I was shaking her treats and started hearing these little tiny mews coming up through the floor. Took me forever to realize she wasn't stuck in a closet somewhere."

  "What's her name?"

  "Ginger. I know it's a cliche for an orange cat. I let my kindergartners vote on the name."

  "What came in second place?"

  "Meow."

  "Should have gone with that." He looked kind of charmed.

  "I think he misunderstood the question and was answering the sound a cat made, but half of the class went with it." I pulled out the chair and pointed. "I think if you come at her this way, she might actually back up enough that I can grab her over here."

  He looked up. "She is literally in the ceiling."

  "Literally."

  "How do you know she's righ
t here?"

  I called up above us. "Ginge-y? You still up there or did the dust bunnies eat you?"

  A faint, squeaky mew filtered down through the tile. Jonah shrugged as if to say "well there you go." He poked the tile up and peered in. "I don't see a...oh hello."

  "Is she there?"

  "Ssh," he hushed me. "You're a pretty kitty, right?" he cooed. I glanced down to see that his hand was moving slowly, and deliberately upward. "You don't want to be in the dirty ceiling, right?" I bit my tongue and chose not to hear that as an insult. "You want to come back down and eat some treats with your mommy, right little kitten?"

  Then there was a bang, and a hiss, and Jonah's triumphant, "gotcha!" and all at once he stepped back down, cradling my tiny little kitten in his huge hands.

  I swear I heard an audible pop, and assumed it was my heartstrings getting tugged by the sight of a big man with a tiny animal.

  "You smell like dust," Jonah observed, stroking her little head. She lifted her paw and batted at his fingers, trying like hell to gnaw on them. "Hey, I need those."

  "Thank you," I said, and it came out all stiffly because I was still trying to process the sight of him right now. "I guess I was being too hesitant."

  "She's a feisty one," he said, wincing as Ginger clamped down with her tiny needle teeth. "Maybe keep the basement door closed?"

  "Good idea. She would absolutely do this again just out of spite," I agreed.

  He chuckled, stroking her fuzzy head, setting off a thunderous purr. She closed her eyes, stretching out so he could scratch under her chin.

  I realized I was grinning like an idiot. "Oh, um, you want some coffee? Tea?" I blinked. "Why did you come here in the first place?"

  "To rescue a kitten, of course," he said, following me back up the stairs. When I had deliberately latched the door, he set Ginger back down again. She arched her back and did a little hopping dance, then bit my ankle and charged off, probably to wedge herself somewhere else inconvenient.

  I rolled my eyes. "Why are you really here?" I asked him.

  He shifted on his feet.

  "Sit down," I ordered. "You're making me nervous being all big in my tiny kitchen."

  He obediently sat down. "I went down to the shed this morning."

  I flexed my fingers. "Where Gid and Izzy lived?"

  He nodded.

  "Izzy is all moved out now, right?" I couldn't keep the heavy sadness out of my voice.

  His eyes got that shining look to them again. The one I had thought had something to do with the wind getting in them. But there was no wind in my kitchen. "It's empty," he said, his voice strangely tight. "Nothing but dust."

  I swallowed. "Yeah."

  "It hasn't ever been empty," he went on. "Not since I can remember. There's not even a leftover sock to show he was there."

  "You have his shirt," I said, pointing.

  Faint color rose to his cheeks. "Mom found it in mixed in with the towels." He brushed his hand over it. "I didn't think you'd notice."

  "Course I would. That was his Friday shirt."

  Jonah looked at me. "He wore this on Fridays? Only?"

  "Your uncle didn't like to waste brain power on such trivial things as wardrobes. He had higher thoughts to think."

  Jonah fell quiet. "Ruby?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Can we listen to the tapes?" He licked his lips. "Together?"

  27

  Jonah

  "All this time I've had these," she was saying as her voice floated down from the rafters. "And I never really thought through how I would listen to them."

  "You okay up there?" I was holding the ladder and trying not to sneak peeks at her round, nicely curved ass. We were both wedged in a closet in her second bedroom, the only access point to her attic a panel in the ceiling. If she stumbled, my hands were right there to grab her. Which might be a problem.

  "I'm fine." She was a body without a head as she poked around in the crawlspace. "I think... yeah this is it."

  I heard a scrape and then a thud and then she made a triumphant noise. "Here it is!' she cried, banging the ancient tape recorder against the rungs so close to my head it made my hair ruffle.

  "How old it this thing?" I wondered, deftly taking it from her before she brained me. "It looks pure 70s."

  "1980 exactly, as a matter of fact," she corrected, hopping down off the ladder. "Apparently it was the height of technology because of these." She pointed.

  "A dual deck, nice."

  She trundled the ladder out of the closet and set it against the wall. Then she looked at me with those big eyes of hers. There was a tightness in her smile, but she was smiling and that was good enough to make me smile back. "Are you ready?"

  I took a deep breath. My first instinct was to scoff. Of course I was. Except. "I'm not sure," I confessed, letting my breath out in a long, slow inhale.

  "You're worried you're going to hate it?"

  "How did you know?"

  "I feel the same way. I always wondered why Gid didn't - "

  "Do something with it?"

  "I mean he did, back in the day, but this is recent stuff. Stuff he'd been working on..."

  "Until he died," I finished. "And whatever his plans were got cut short." My tongue felt too thick in my mouth.

  "Yeah," she said, looking down.

  I took a deep breath, needing to force the words past my own possessiveness. "Are you really okay with me hearing them?" I asked her.

  She widened her eyes. I nodded and swallowed, enunciating each word so that I was sure to hear them too. "I was pissed," I said. "Yesterday. Because I was like, why would Gid give them to her and not me? But then I realized, whatever claim I felt like I had to this music was less than the claim you had. He gave it to you. And," I let out a long, slow breath. "And I wasn't around."

  She lifted that pretty, heart-shaped face of hers and for a second her clear, perfect beauty made me stupid. "I'm glad I'm around now though," I finished.

  "I'm okay with it," she repeated, looking a little defensive. "That's why I told you about it yesterday and - "

  "I was an ass?" I supplied.

  The corner of her mouth twitched. "In so many words."

  "I'm sorry about that." I shook my head. "I knew I'd be sad about losing him. I didn't expect to be so pissed off too."

  Ruby's lip slipped between her teeth and for a moment the only thing that mattered was watching the way her teeth dragged a white line across the red. "Grief is weird," she finally said. "Brings out the worst in people."

  "And the best."

  "How do you figure?"

  I swallowed. "I would have never known what an incredible person you were if Gid hadn't died."

  Her blush started across her chest, on that small patch of creamy skin made visible by her ribbed tank top. I watched, mesmerized, until I realized it looked like I was staring right at her breasts.

  I flicked my eyes back up to meet hers and was relieved to see that she was looking away and hadn't caught me staring at how pink and lovely she looked right now. "Should we listen then?"

  "Let's," I said, nodding.

  I followed her and her ancient tape recorder into the small, spartan living room. Ruby plopped herself right down on the floor and opened her arms to let the wayward Ginger settle herself into a purring ball in the center of her lap. "Pull up a patch of floor," she instructed, twisting to plug the player in. "You can pick the first tape."

  I looked into the box that sat in the center of her floor and hesitated. I reached for one, then put it down, then another, and another...

  "Close your eyes," she said, her voice calm and gentle. "Just grab the first one you touch."

  I nodded and did what she said. I didn't open them when I grabbed the tape either. I just handed it right to her. "This one."

  "Okay." She popped the tape player open and slid it in.

  I opened my eyes. "What does it say in it? Did he leave a note? A track listing?"

  "Sssh, Jonah." She presse
d play.

  A hissing crackle filled the air and then the soft strum of a guitar. I leaned a little close, realizing I was holding my breath and then realizing again that my hand was on Ruby's knee.

  She looked down at it, but she didn't move.

  A flurry of finger picking now, the notes falling like water and reminding me a bit of Crown Creek as it leaped and burbled. It was silent and frozen right now, but this music was just like the sound of summer, the little trilling splashes that made the woods sound like they were whispering secrets to themselves.

  And then Gid's voice started and Ruby's hand slipped over mine.

  It was just humming at first. A couple of 'woo-woos," and then some "hey-heys," and then more humming as he found his melody. I recognized it from my own process, the way you feel around the edges of a song before you can dive in all the way.

  "Don't want to lose you," Gid's voice rang out as clear as if it were in my own head. I glanced at Ruby.

  "It's him," she whispered, and there were tears in her eyes.

  "Don't want to lose you," Gid repeated, and there was a clanking sound like his fingers slipped. He coughed and I swallowed to hear it, the raw, aching emotion in his voice. What had made him write this song? What heartache had he felt that I wasn't around to know about? What problem had he had that I couldn't be there with him through, to hand him a drink and sit with him down by the place where the creek bends around our property line, listening to the water, helping the problems he was having falling away in the silence because all he needed was to know was his nephew was there?

  A tear was slipping quietly down Ruby's cheek. She wasn't making a sound and seemed like she was holding her breath. I squeezed her hand as the music started again. "The best chance at love was the one I never took," Gid sang.