by Lori Ryan
“Okay,” she said slowly.
“I think you’re doing this on purpose. Again.”
“Doing what? I haven’t dated my boss in the past. Well, I mean, I have, but only because I was dating someone and they offered me a job. But I’ve never started dating someone I wasn’t already dating when I took the job.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Chelsea pulled a pillow onto her lap and held it like it might offer some protection as she spoke.
Phoebe couldn’t help but want her own protection.
“I think you’re going for a guy you know you can’t have a real lasting relationship with.”
Phoebe let the words sink in. She was honest enough with herself to at least try to assess their veracity.
Chelsea continued softly. “What happened with Michael was inevitable. I think you didn’t want to see it, though. Well, that’s not entirely true. I think you saw it on one level but wouldn’t let yourself acknowledge it.”
Michael had been Phoebe’s boyfriend for eighteen months before she’d gone with him to his friend’s wedding. She’d been thinking about how beautiful it all was. She’d looked at little details the couple had chosen and thought maybe she and Michael would do something one way or another when they got married.
Then Michael had leaned over and whispered how lucky he was to be with a woman who wouldn’t shove marriage down his throat and choke him with it the way the bride had done. “Not everyone has to get married, you know?” He’d looked at her, nodding, like he fully expected her to nod with him. She hadn’t. She’d been crushed.
“I thought Michael and I were on the same page,” Phoebe said, protesting Chelsea’s armchair diagnosis. She really had. She’d been stunned when she realized he had truly believed she wanted nothing to do with marriage.
Chelsea narrowed her eyes. “Did you really? I mean, I know you think you did, but if you really think about it, did you really?”
Phoebe shook her head and laughed even though she didn’t really feel like laughing. “That was a lot of reallys and a lot of thinks.”
Chelsea raised a brow. She was never one for letting a person slip out of a conversation just because things got uncomfortable. “I think you’ve been running a little scared and I think it has to do with your mom. As much as you say you want marriage and a family, I think on some level, you’re afraid you won’t be able to cut it and you’ll take off like your mom did. It’s possible you’ve chosen guys who are either emotionally unavailable or—in the case of your boss—otherwise unattainable.”
Phoebe let her head fall back.
“Too much?” Chelsea asked.
“No.” Phoebe held out her wine glass. “Not enough. Wine that is. More wine. Less talk. I don’t think I’m ready for psychoanalysis yet.”
“Sorry,” Chelsea said, refilling Phoebe’s wine glass.
Phoebe looked at the glass, then back at her friend. “You know what we need?” She picked up the remote and flicked off the movie as she spoke. A sappy love story was not her friend at the moment.
“What’s that?” Chelsea’s grin said she was ready to put the psychoanalysis aside for happier things at the moment, too.
“Pie. Two Sisters Diner has the best pie you’ve ever tasted, and they’re open late. Let’s go eat pie.” This time, she grinned at her friend, and Chelsea grinned back. Pie was one thing they could both always get into.
12
I’m afraid I’m going to have to be brave enough to start again.
Fiona O’Malley’s Journal
Phoebe curled up with Fiona O’Malley’s journal Sunday afternoon after Chelsea had started the trip home. She’d already peeked between the pages earlier in the week, but hadn’t had the time or energy to dig in yet. Too much of her energy had gone toward overanalyzing a kiss and an apology for the same kiss.
Now, she found herself getting lost in the heartache of a woman who had fallen in love with her husband at only sixteen years old. What should have been romantic—the high school sweetheart kind of romantic—had turned out to be something else altogether. Fiona wasn’t religious about writing in her journal. She called her entries “weekly” but they were often monthly and sometimes a lot longer stretches went between.
It was almost like reading about someone trying to learn to be an adult all over again in her fifties. Fiona O’Malley had gone from living with her parents to living with her husband, who it turned out was six years older than her.
July 15, 2006 Yoga sucks.
July 23, 2006 Pilates is worse.
August 18, 2006 It turns out, it’s all exercise. All exercise officially sucks.
Coffee is good, though. My mam would spin a circle in her grave if she knew I was drinking coffee instead of tea, but I’ve got a taste for it now. The diner has good enough coffee, and I’ve taken to going there after the dreaded yoga for coffee and the homemade coffee cake the sisters who own the place make. I like this little town. It’s farther away from Emmaline than I’d like, but it suits me. The pace is slower and I don’t have to be something I’m not here. No one seems to have expectations. I don’t anyway. Besides, I’m not sure Emmaline couldn’t use a little space from me right now.
December 12, 2006 New neighbor moved in next door. Beverly something-or-other. Oh, did I mention I bought the house? The divorce isn’t final yet but Aengus seems to have given up fighting. Honestly, aside from the bruise to his pride, I think he might have been relieved when I left. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t being themselves all these years. There is still love in my heart for him, but it’s no more love than one has for a dear longtime friend. I’m thankful that I do have that for him, at least.
There were no long drawn out battles. No bitter fights. Not that we didn’t have any fights over the years. We did. But in the end, there was simply a slow falling out of love. The kind that happens so gradually, you never see it happening. You only wake up one day to realize it’s happened.
December 18, 2006 Beverly is just what I need. She likes wine and coffee as much as I do and thinks yoga is for the birds. No, really, she has this flock of crazy birds that seem to be doing yoga out on the porch railing. She’s thinking of making a scarecrow right there on the porch to scare them off. Birds doing yoga creep her out, and I’m sure I agree with her. We’ve taken to having coffee in the mornings together and wine in the afternoons. I’m still trying to find my thing. Her thing is knitting. Not for me. Maybe glass blowing. I wonder what kind of equipment one needs for glass blowing?
January 1 2007 Turns out, glass blowing takes a lot of equipment. Not happening.
Emmaline chose her major. Finance. That sounds a little dry to my mind, but it’s her life and I’ll not live it for her.
March 13, 2007 My divorce is final. I cried more than I thought I would. Not for me or for Aengus. Some for Emmaline, and mostly for the young couple who’d thought their love would last forever. I cried for those two, whoever they were.
Phoebe dozed off reading and was awakened by a text alert. It took a minute to find her phone and shake off the dream she’d been having. It was a dream she’d had again and again. She dreamed her father was rocking her as a baby. He sat in a large rocking chair, one large enough to hold his strong frame. She was tiny, probably only a few weeks old, wrapped in the white and pink striped blanket the hospitals send new parents home with. He stood and set her down on the rocking chair on her back, laying a bottle by her side.
She began to squall but he walked away, only turning with a smile and a wave. He always pointed to the bottle, as if to say you have your bottle, you’ll be fine.
The dream always left her feeling confused and alone, especially since her father had never left her. He’d been the one to stay. He had held her and rocked her and fed her. He’d been there when she was sick, when she lost her first tooth, when she figured out Santa Claus wasn’t real and hated him for lying to her, when she’d had her heart broken by Billy Carver in the tenth grade, when she’d falle
n off a horse and broken her ankle. Through all of it. He’d never left her.
Phoebe swiped at tears. It was utterly ridiculous. She didn’t cry over her mom leaving her anymore. In fact, the times she’d cried over it had only ever really been the times she was mad at her father, or when some mother-daughter thing was going on at school. But, somehow, that dream always returned and it always left Phoebe in tears.
She lifted her phone and saw a text from Shane.
Pick you up for dinner in an hour?
Phoebe froze. She’d forgotten all about dinner at his family’s house. She should make an excuse. Chelsea was right. She had no business getting personally involved in Shane and his life.
But it had been Laura and the puppies that had prompted the invite. And as far as Phoebe had heard, the Bishop Sunday dinner invitation was one that was shared frequently and widely. Almost everyone in town had had supper with the family at one time or another. It was almost an initiation into the town of sorts.
Phoebe swung her legs around and sat up. Sure. See you then, she texted back. She could do this. In fact, it would be a good chance to put things back on employer/employee footing for them. She’d keep the conversation to topics related to work and keep everything professional. She’d look at the puppies with Laura and make the visit about settling into town instead of settling into Shane’s life. Because that was one thing she most definitely wasn’t doing.
No. She needed to be like Fiona O’Malley had said in her journal. She needed to be focused on herself. On finding her way in the world and figuring out who she was. Then, when she’d done that, she could find a man who wasn’t emotionally unavailable and who wasn’t otherwise out-of-bounds, as Chelsea had said. A man who wasn’t Shane Bishop.
13
Love is worth the fear. The plunge. The leap.
Fiona O’Malley’s Journal
Phoebe tried to ignore the tension that hung in the air as Shane opened the car door for her. She wasn’t imagining it. It was there plain as day. The reminder of what had happened the last time they’d stood in that spot was a little too raw.
They drove in near silence.
“Is it very far from town?” She asked when it was clear this wasn’t going to be one of those comfortable silences two people could enjoy without needing to fill.
“Not far. Twenty minutes. I think Ashley and Garret will be there, and probably her sister Cora.”
“I haven’t met Cora yet, but I like Ashley a lot.”
Shane laughed. “It’s hard not to like Ashley. She tells you exactly what she’s thinking all the time. It could be obnoxious, I guess, but she somehow makes it work for her.”
The heaviness in the air lightened as they chatted and he told her about Ashley’s friend and one of the town’s most cherished fixtures: Hadeline Gertrude Gillman.
“Ms. Haddie and Ashley are almost a matching set, with the exception of the difference of some fifty years or so between them. Sometimes I think they’re competing to see who can shock people the most. Neither has an internal filter. If we’re lucky, Ms. Haddie will be at dinner. Believe me, the entertainment value of the two of them together can’t be beat.”
He was right. It was apparent the minute they arrived and people poured out onto the porch to great them. Above a cacophony of chatter as introductions were made and hugs exchanged, the white-haired woman Phoebe had just been introduced to as Ms. Haddie, took one look at Shane’s new car and called out. “Your sedan looks a little swollen. Did someone beat it about the head with a baseball bat?”
Ashley shook her head at Ms. Haddie. “It’s just a sprain. It’ll be back to usual after ice, elevation, and rest.”
Shane grinned. “Funny, you two. Phoebe picked it out.”
All heads swiveled her way and Phoebe felt the urge to hide. It had been funny when she’d talked him into letting her choose the car, but now it seemed intimate. Too intimate.
“I, um…” She looked to Shane for help, then back at the car.
There was silence as she flailed for something to say. Ashley moved in before she could come up with anything, looping her arm through Phoebe’s and tugging her toward the barn while she tipped her head toward Laura. “Let’s go show Phoebe the adorable puppies.”
“You hate the puppies,” Laura said.
“Hate is a very strong word, but more importantly, I want to talk to her alone.” Ashley said this with no effort to keep the rest of the group from hearing her. Oddly, Phoebe understood what Shane had meant. It was hard not to grin as Ashley manhandled her down to the barn where the puppies were, even as her cheeks heated knowing Shane was probably being grilled.
Laura and Ashley chatted on the way to the barn, as though they weren’t about to give her the third degree.
“Did you talk to Presley?” Laura asked.
“Yes!” Ashley said this in a voice that said the story she had was a juicy one. “She’s leasing the building across from Katelyn’s studio. She’s going to open a coffee shop!”
“What?” Laura didn’t ask this as a question. It was more surprise than anything.
“She’s the horse girl?” Phoebe asked. She was more than happy to let Presley Royale’s coffee shop derail their train of thought if it meant getting her out of the hot seat.
“Yep,” Laura said, then turned to Ashley as she pushed open the barn doors. “What does her dad have to say about that?”
Ashley shook her head. “We’re sworn to secrecy. She said I could tell you and Katelyn, and I’m assuming she’d be okay with Phoebe, but you guys can’t tell anyone yet.” She looked over at Phoebe and Phoebe made a cross-your-heart gesture over her chest.
Ashley nodded and continued. “Her dad doesn’t know yet. Presley is retiring.”
“She’d not going to ride anymore?” Laura asked, but Phoebe had tuned the other women out.
She just about turned to mush at the sight of ten wiggling, wriggling blobs of fur lying in the barn stall Laura had led them to. The puppies were all black like their mother, who looked up with deep black eyes and a tail that thwacked the ground as she wagged it. She lay on her side, most of the puppies clamoring for a spot to nurse.
The sound that came involuntarily from Phoebe was part squeal, part sigh, and all happiness. “They’re so beautiful.”
“They smell funny.” Ashley wrinkled her nose as Laura hit her with a light backhanded slap to the shoulder.
“Where did they come from?” Phoebe asked as she sank down and let the puppies crawl in her lap. “It’s like heaven.” She scooped a puppy up and brought it to her nose. There was nothing funny about their smell. Puppy breath was like crack, she decided. And she needed more hits. Lots of them.
Phoebe heard laughter and looked up at Laura and Ashley, who was flat out snorting at her.
Ashley stopped laughing to explain. “Well, sweetheart, when two dogs really love each other, they share a special kind of hug.”
Laura elbowed Ashley, but she was smiling, too. “You’re so damned obnoxious.”
“She walked right into that one.”
“I really did,” Phoebe said as Laura sat next to her. Ashley chose to sit on a nearby tack box, presumably to avoid the puppy attack that was inevitable on the ground. “What I meant,” she said with a laughing glance toward Ashley, “is where did you get the mom? Is she a rescue?”
“Yes. Cade works with all kinds of rescued animals. Most of the time, we get animals who’ve been mistreated. He has a way of reaching them when others can’t.”
“He whispered Laura right on into his heart when she came to the farm.” Now Ashley sighed wistfully and Phoebe didn’t think she was joking about how romantic she thought it was. “It was so sweet.”
“It was.” Laura’s smile was wide and it reached her eyes. In fact, it reached her whole being. She seemed to glow as she talked about her husband. Phoebe felt a pang of longing for that kind of relationship. “Well, once I got past the fact that I knew he was applying all of his dog training tricks o
n me. If you can look past that, it was very romantic.”
A tiny set of teeth clamped down on Phoebe’s thumb and she yelped before removing the culprit from her lap. “Sharp little buggers.”
“All right, we’ve let you put this off long enough. First, we need your story. Why you’re here, what your hang ups are, and all that. Then, give us the dirt on you and Shane.” Ashley looked up at Laura. “Or do we want the Shane story first then the backstory? What do you think?”
Laura’s only response was to shake her head at her friend, a look of tolerant love in her eyes.
Phoebe couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s a boring story, really. I moved here from Austin when I realized my life—and my relationship with a guy I’d been dating for over a year—was headed nowhere.”
“Couldn’t commit, huh? Men are like that.” Ashley nodded sagely.
“This from the woman happily married to a wonderfully committed hottie,” Laura put in.
“You and I, my friend, have found the guys. They’re like a subspecies. Hard to locate, but once you cull them from the herd, they’re yours to keep.” Ashley paused. “I have to say, I really think Shane is one of the men. He’s all about commitment, if that’s what you’re looking for.”
Phoebe chose to study the squirmy mass of love in her lap instead of meeting the women’s eyes. “Except, to me, he’s also one of those unavailable men. My friend, Chelsea, thinks I’m choosing men like that on purpose. Men I can’t have for whatever reason. In the case of my ex, he was emotionally unavailable. Happy to have me in his life, so long as I didn’t ask for too much or expect it to go anywhere past that. With Shane, he’s unattainable because I work for him.”
“Just because you work with Shane doesn’t have to mean he’s unavailable. You’re both adults. If it doesn’t work out, you agree to be professional about it and you work together, the same as you always have,” Ashley said.