Springtime at Hope Cottage--Includes a bonus short story

by Annie Rains

  Maddie smiled and continued for a few more steps. “I’m tired,” she finally admitted. “Can we sit down?”

  “Sure.” Tuck gave a longing glance at the chair they’d left behind when Maddie had started walking. Beverly had dropped Maddie off again today, claiming she had another appointment, so it was just him and Maddie. He’d have to step away from the girl to get the chair or they’d have to turn and walk back. He wasn’t sure Maddie had the strength to do the latter though.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Josie walking toward her apartment. “Hey,” he called. “Can you help us out?”

  She stopped walking and headed in their direction. “Sure. What do you need?” she asked once she was closer.

  Josie was wearing yellow pants and a white top today. She was the very picture of a spring afternoon and just as pretty as all the flowers blooming around his cottage. It’d been all he could do to keep his distance over the past few days. They’d kissed and then her body language had made it clear that she didn’t want it to happen again. Some part of him wondered if it was because he’d told her about Renee. Apparently she’d already known but maybe seeing the storage building full of Renee’s things had made it more real. Or perhaps he hadn’t hidden his raw feelings as well as he’d thought when she’d asked him questions.

  “Can you grab that chair?” He gestured with a tip of his head, keeping his arms ready in case Maddie’s balance wavered.

  “Sure.” Josie grabbed the chair and carried it over, placing it behind Maddie. “There you go.”

  Maddie reached a hand behind her to find the armrest, just like he’d taught her to do, and then slowly lowered her body until she was seated. She looked at Josie curiously through a lock of dark hair that had fallen into her face. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” Josie said with a bright smile. She wore her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail today, accentuating her long, kissable neck.

  Tuck roped in his gaze, wishing he didn’t find this woman so irresistibly attractive. It wasn’t like him to get his head spun around like this.

  Josie offered Maddie her hand. “I’m Josie.”

  “Maddie.” His patient continued to stare at her. “Are you Tuck’s girlfriend?”

  Josie’s eyes flitted up to meet his. “No. I live in the garage apartment.” She pointed to the door at the top of the stairs beside the garage. “Up there.”

  “Oh.” Maddie’s gaze stayed there a moment as if noticing the garage for the first time. “Tuck is my physical therapist,” she said.

  Josie nodded. “He was mine too before I came to live here. Now my knee is good as new. You’re in good hands.”

  Maddie cast a look at Tuck. “He’s going to have me up and walking for the Sweetwater Dance this Thursday.”

  Tuck flinched. There was no way Maddie would be up and walking on her own by Thursday. “I’m going to have you attending the dance with your cane,” he corrected for the millionth time, “and a ready chair for you to sit in for most of the event.”

  Maddie’s lips puckered. “He’s taking me, and he’s staying the entire time,” she told Josie.

  “I know. I’m actually going too,” Josie said. “As his chaperone.”

  This made Maddie laugh. “Tuck needs a chaperone? Why?”

  “Well, because I’m an awful dancer,” Tuck admitted. “Josie will ensure that I don’t have to embarrass myself.”

  “Oh no.” Josie wagged her finger. “That was not part of the agreement. I love to dance, and I’m not saving you from the dance floor. In fact, I think there’s a story there somewhere. Maybe it’ll lead to my next article.”

  “You’re a writer?” Maddie asked with a touch of awe laced in her voice.

  “Yep.”

  “That’s so cool. I want to be a writer one day too.”

  “What do you want to write?” Josie asked. “I write articles for magazines. All nonfiction.”

  “I write poems mostly,” Maddie told her. “And I keep a journal that my mom gave me for my tenth birthday.”

  Tuck listened as the two of them talked like fast friends. Maddie had opened up to Josie more in five minutes than she had in several therapy sessions with him. It was fascinating, really, and he had to guess it was the young, beautiful female factor that drew Maddie in. He was a guy, which made him harder to relate to, and Beverly was older and sick. Maddie seemed to hunger for the interaction she currently found herself in.

  Maddie laughed at whatever Josie had just said—he’d been too lost in thought to hear it—and then Josie started laughing too.

  “Are you two laughing at me?” he asked with growing suspicion.

  Josie gave a sheepish grin. “With you,” she clarified.

  “But I’m not laughing,” he pointed out. This made the two females start giggling again. He couldn’t help but smile. This was good medicine for Maddie. So was offering to take her to the dance.

  “Okay, Maddie. If you want to be attending that dance on Thursday night, you still have more work to do. One more round of standing,” he said.

  Maddie groaned but her demeanor was considerably more upbeat now. “Stay and talk to me while I stand?” she asked Josie.

  “Of course.”

  Tuck set his timer for ten minutes and kept his focus on his patient. He didn’t want to let himself get distracted by watching Josie. No way was he letting Maddie fall and hit the ground.

  No way was he letting himself fall either. Josie obviously had reservations about dating someone with his past, and now that he was ready to start dating again, he needed to find someone who shared his same values. Family topped that list. Josie clearly valued work and success. The other glaring reason he and Josie couldn’t be together was that she wasn’t staying in Sweetwater Springs and he was. He was ready to put himself out there in the dating world again but he didn’t want to set himself up for another heartbreak.

  So there it was in no uncertain terms. They were incompatible in every way that mattered.

  * * *

  On Wednesday morning, Josie rode her bike into town to work on all the ideas she’d come up with over the last week. For a change of scenery, she’d decided to work at Dawanda’s Fudge Shop today. Dawanda was an eclectic character if Josie had ever known one. The tiny woman talked a mile a minute and was as bright and cheery as her spiky red hair.

  “Can I interest you in a cappuccino this morning?” Dawanda asked with a Southern lilt to her hopeful voice.

  Maybe it was finally time for Josie to indulge in one of these infamous cappuccino readings. Perhaps Dawanda could even tell Josie the fate of her career.

  “Sure,” Josie said with an easy smile. “I’d love one.”

  “Oh, how exciting.” Dawanda clapped her hands in front of her chest. “You get settled, and I’ll be right back.”

  Josie watched the petite woman hurry back behind the counter. This would be fun. When Kaitlyn had her reading last year, Dawanda had predicted that she was heading into a long-lasting relationship. That had certainly come true with Mitch and in her business partnership with Mitch’s mom, Gina. Tuck had told Josie to be careful in believing Dawanda’s predictions. He hadn’t said as much but she suspected the friend he’d spoken of had actually been his wife.

  The wife he still wasn’t quite over.

  Dawanda returned with a tray and a small pitcher of steaming, white milk. She set a cup of coffee in front of Josie and sat down at the table. “You’re not a believer. I can already see that in your eyes.” She held up a manicured finger with sparkly pink polish. “But you will be.”

  “Are you a mind reader too?”

  “No, and I don’t want to be. I’d be scared to know what’s going through some minds.” Dawanda shuddered, making Josie laugh out loud.

  “I would too.” Minds like Bart’s were especially scary.

  Dawanda reached for the handle of the cup and turned it until it was pointing toward Josie’s chest. “The cappuccino needs to know who it’s reading.”
<
br />   “Oh. Okay.” Josie frowned, suddenly intimidated by the cup’s handle jutting at her breastbone. Do I really want to know?

  Dawanda lifted the pitcher ceremoniously over the dark brew inside the cup and poured it in a straight line at the center. Afterward, the shop owner set the milk down and leaned forward over the cappuccino, a serious expression pinching her face.

  Josie wasn’t sure why but her heart was suddenly racing. “What do you see?”

  “Well, this is very interesting,” Dawanda murmured, leaning even farther in. “It seems you are entering into a period of new birth. Do you see the mother figure holding a child?” She pointed at a white foamy oval that curled around another.

  Josie’s breath hiccupped in her chest. “Oh, no, I’m not pregnant.” And she never wanted to be again.

  Dawanda glanced up and narrowed her bright-blue eyes as if alerted to the rise in Josie’s voice. “Of course you’re not, dear. New birth is similar to a self-awakening. The old becomes new. The caterpillar transforms into a beautiful butterfly.” A wide smile spread along her lipstick-stained lips.

  That kind of sounded intimidating too. “What if I don’t want to be…transformed?”

  “Don’t worry. It’s a good thing. The cappuccino would tell me if it wasn’t.” Dawanda continued to stare into Josie’s drink. The white foam inside moved gradually, making small air bubbles that popped and thinned. “Oh, there. I also see a bird.”

  “A bird?” Josie squinted and strained her eyes to see the same. “What does a bird mean?” she asked, thinking of the raspberry-colored one she’d seen behind Kaitlyn’s bed and breakfast the week before.

  “Well, birds fly away for the winter months but return home in the springtime.” Dawanda looked up with a satisfied glint in her eyes. “A homecoming and a self-awakening are in your future.”

  Josie frowned. “Well, I’ll be returning home to New York soon,” she said, trying to make sense of Dawanda’s reading.

  “The cappuccino’s message isn’t always literal, dear. In fact, it usually isn’t.”

  Josie shook her head. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re the writer, and you don’t know what literal means?” Dawanda asked.

  “Well, I do but I don’t understand my reading. What’s going to happen?” That’s what Josie really wanted to know. Her life was suddenly up in the air these days.

  Dawanda stood and moaned softly as she held a hand to her temple. “Doing those readings always takes the juice right out of me,” she said, ignoring the question. “How about some fudge? Would you like a few pieces?” She dropped her hand back to her side.

  Josie was still trying to make sense of caterpillars, beautiful butterflies, and a bird. “Umm.”

  “Of course you would. I’ll be right back with it.” Dawanda lifted the tray and pitcher of milk and hurried back behind the counter.

  Well, that was just as strange as Josie had expected it would be. Maybe stranger. Keeping her eyes trained on the frothy substance—and still not seeing anything—she lifted her cup of cappuccino and took a sip.

  * * *

  It was Wednesday afternoon, which usually meant Tuck stopped by Little Shop of Flowers for a bouquet and took it to Sweetwater Cemetery on his way home. Luckily, Halona’s store had been busy today so she’d just handed him something preprepared and signaled for him to call her later.

  When was his younger sister going to learn that he didn’t enjoy talking on the phone? Face-to-face was his preferred form of communication.

  He parked in the cemetery parking lot, opened the gate, and followed the familiar path toward a shaded spot in the back. A gentle breeze rustled through the nearby oaks, standing tall and acting like their own sort of fence. His steps slowed as he neared the spot where Renee had been buried. Memories always rustled around in his mind in the same manner as the wind when he was here.

  Two years ago, it had seemed impossible that life might go on without the woman who’d so completely stolen his heart. But it had. Breath by breath, step by step, day after day.

  He dipped to place the flowers in front of the headstone, at a loss for words this afternoon. Sometimes he sat and droned on about all the things that were going on in his life but there was so much right now that he didn’t even know where to start. What would Renee say if she knew he’d kissed another woman and had fantasized about doing more?

  When she was sick, she’d made him promise that he’d find someone again one day. She was so unselfish. He wasn’t sure he could’ve asked the same thing of her if he’d been the one dying.

  As he thought, he stared at Renee’s grave marker for a long moment and tried to remember her face. The details were starting to fade away just like people said sometimes happened. That was no doubt life’s way of helping him move on but it was cruel, in his opinion. Couldn’t he move on without losing her too?

  “See you next week,” he finally said, turning and walking back toward his Jeep. His cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, guessing it was Halona. Instead it was the other interfering and nosy woman in his life calling.

  “Hey, Mom,” he answered as he closed the cemetery gate behind him.

  “Tucker James Locklear, I hear there’s a lady friend living with you,” his mother said.

  He reflexively rolled his eyes the way Maddie sometimes did in their sessions. “She’s staying in my garage apartment, yes. That’s very different from living with me, Mom.”

  “That’s good. I’m not a fan of living together out of wedlock. You know that.” His mom was conservative and traditional. She also hadn’t approved when Halona and her ex-husband, Ted, had filed for divorce.

  He got inside his Jeep and pulled onto the road, doing his best to keep his voice even as he responded. “We’re not dating. Josie is a renter, and she’s only here for a couple of weeks.”

  “Have you met her parents?”

  Tuck pulled the cell phone away and looked at it. Was she serious? “Why would I meet my renter’s parents?” he asked when he put the phone back to his ear. “Do you do this to Halona too?”

  “No, of course I don’t. She’s not ready for a relationship yet. She’s got little Theo to take care of. But a man your age living all alone?” she asked with obvious disapproval.

  “I have a dog,” he said flatly. “And I’m considering getting horses.”

  She ignored this. “I’ve made some Three Sisters Stew. I’ll bring you and your new lady friend some. It’ll give me a chance to get to know her. Are you on your way home?” she asked.

  Dread shot through him. “Yes, and I love you but you’re not invited tonight.”

  “Oh, I won’t stay—don’t worry. I’ll pack you up some right now.”

  He started to protest but she disconnected the call. Cursing, he laid his foot heavy on the gas pedal. It was a good thing he was best friends with two officers at the Sweetwater Springs police department. If Josie was going to be subjected to his mom, he needed to get home fast and give her fair warning.

  * * *

  Josie was usually nervous when meeting someone else’s parents but Tuck’s mom was delightful.

  “I just love the article you wrote for Loving Life magazine,” his mom said, sitting across from Josie at the outdoor table on Tuck’s deck.

  Josie glanced over at Tuck, who’d warned her that his mom was coming just half an hour earlier. “Oh, I won’t bother you two, then,” Josie had told him. “I’ll just stay up in my apartment and work.”

  “She’s coming to meet you.” He’d worn an apologetic look in his eyes when he’d told her.

  Josie wasn’t sure what he’d been so worried about though. His mom had been nothing but nice since she’d arrived with a big pot full of stew. She’d told them both she wasn’t staying long but had then sat down and proceeded to start up a lively conversation.

  “I love that magazine. I’ve been subscribing to it for years,” Tuck’s mom said.

  “That’s so nice of you to say, Ms. Loc
klear.”

  “Please, call me Lula.”

  Josie smiled. “I love the name Lula.”

  “Thank you,” the older woman said. “It’s a family name. Also Cherokee.”

  “Mom,” Tuck growled, “I thought you said you needed to get back to Dad.”

  “Nonsense.” Lula waved her hand. “Your father can take care of himself. It’s not often that I get to meet a celebrity.”

  Josie looked away briefly. “I wouldn’t call being a journalist a celebrity.”

  “Well, your name is plastered on magazines across the country. What would you call it?” Lula asked. “I always say, ‘Own who you are.’ I used to tell Halona and Tuck that when they were picked on in school for being different. There are a lot of American Indians around here but we’re still the minority, you know.”

  From the corner of her eye, Josie saw Tuck cover his face with one hand, apparently embarrassed by his mom.

  “If I had it my way, they’d have been raised on the reservation like I was, but they have two very different parents. That’s what makes them who they are.”

  They continued to talk for another ten minutes while Tuck kept his arms crossed at his chest and his forehead deeply wrinkled like this was the worst thing that had ever happened.

  “So do you have anyone special back home?” Lula asked.

  “No. The magazine keeps me very busy but I’m thinking about getting a cat.”

  “A cat is something you take care of. But who’s going to take care of you?” Lula asked.

  “Mom, that’s old-fashioned. Josie can take care of herself.”

  “You know what I mean. Everyone needs somebody to care for them.” His mom gave him a pointed look.

  “I can take care of myself too, Mom. I’m doing just fine on my own.”

  By the tone of their voices, Josie gathered that this wasn’t the first time Tuck and his mom had discussed this matter.

  “But Dad, on the other hand, can’t,” he said, sitting up. “He’s probably at home helpless right now and wondering where you are.”

  Lula silenced him with a look. “I know when I’m not wanted. You two probably need a little alone time anyway.” Her face brightened as she turned back to Josie. “Josie, we need to set a time to chat again before you go back to New York.” Lula pushed back from the table and stood. “I’m part of the Ladies’ Day Out group in town. We get together and do all sorts of fun things. Your friend Kaitlyn has recently joined us. Maybe you can come out with us next time too. We’d love to have a famous writer in our midst.”