End Of The Road: (A Clean Romance Novella) (Women's Adventure in Alaska Romance Book 3)

by Renee Hart

  I looked over and saw a man I didn't recognize. He was tall and husky, with a muscular upper body but a bit of a gut, like many men got in their middle-age. He had dark hair and deep eyes that lit up with recognition as he walked over. “Good morning. Fancy running into you here.”

  I stared for a moment, my mind blank. Then the man's green flannel shirt brought a spark of recognition. “Oh!” I said. “You...hi!”

  It was the library's lumberjack. He'd shaved off the thick, dark beard he'd worn for as long as I'd known him. He looked ten years younger without it. He had a pleasant face with a chiseled jaw and weathered lines that spoke of a life well-lived. He looked so different without the beard that it took me by surprise.

  He looked around at the small crowd in the cafe. “I've never run into you outside of the library. Come here often?”

  “Sort of. Well, no, not really. I'm meeting someone here.” I glanced over at the man at the other table, worrying that if he saw me talking to another man, it would give him the wrong impression.

  “A friend?” the lumberjack asked.

  “More of a blind date.” A bashful smile crossed my lips.

  He looked at me, his dark eyes studying me. Then he slowly raised one hand, shaking a finger as he pieced a thought together. “You...Sharada, you're not 'S,' are you?”

  I stared at him, my face blank. Then my jaw dropped open. “Harold?”

  He laughed and took the seat across from me. “Well, yes. Most of my friends call me Harry. But I always thought Harold was more dignified.”

  I stared at him in mute shock, then laughed. “Oh my! Just...just wait until I tell Jessica about this. Harold!” She wouldn't be able to call him Paul anymore, though I expected that the jokes about Babe the Blue Pickup Truck would continue.

  We studied each other's features for a moment. I could hear Jessica already, talking about fate or serendipity or some such foolish nonsense. The funny thing was, I never would have considered asking the lumberjack...Harold out on a date when he came into the library. He had never seemed like my type. Though he did read Sylvia Plath and Louisa May Alcott, so maybe there was something there that I hadn't considered. Or maybe I just hadn't been able to get past the beard.

  “So,” he said, smiling awkwardly. He folded his hands on the table.

  “So,” I said. I wasn't sure where to begin, and it seemed like he wasn't either. “Shall we order?” I gestured to the girl waiting behind the cafe counter.

  “Yes. Sure. Sounds good.” He stood up and gestured for me to go first. I ordered a tall latte. Harold got a simple black coffee. He paid for both of our drinks, and we stood there in an awkward silence while we waited for them. Then we sat down and the silence drew out while I searched for something to say.

  Harold finally broke the silence. “I'll be honest with you, I haven't been on a date in twenty-five years.”

  “Ten for me,” I said. “And I didn't really 'date' my ex-husband when we met. Our families sort of set us up.”

  “Not like an arranged marriage thing?” he asked, concern in his eyes.

  “No, nothing so archaic. More like, we were pressured into meeting. Sunil had an economics degree, and my father told me said I should marry a man who would have a good career. He said he'd be good for me. And I guess he was, for awhile...” I shrugged and lowered my gaze, studying my latte through the clear plastic lid.

  “My wife and I were high school sweethearts,” Harold said. “She got pregnant our senior year, and marriage seemed like the right thing to do.” He looked off into the distance, the years clouding his gaze. “I think we loved each other back then. But raising two kids took its toll on us. The youngest just finished college.”

  “I always wanted kids,” I said, sighing. “The timing was never right.”

  “I doubt it ever is. But the kids still made it all worth it. Janet and I still get along well enough, for their sake. But once they both moved away for college, we admitted to each other that we had only stayed together as long as we had to keep them from growing up in a broken home. Sometimes I wonder if we made the right choice.”

  “Doing what's best for your kids is always the right choice.” I reached across the table, my fingers brushing the back of his hand.

  A slight flush of color crept into his cheeks. “Well, what I thought was best at the time, and what I think now, those aren't always the same thing.”

  “You know what they say about hindsight.”

  “Yeah.” He chuckled and looked into my eyes. “Sorry, didn't mean to talk your ear off about my problems.”

  “It's all right, Harold,” I said, smiling at him. It felt good to know his name. I found I couldn't imagine calling him “Harry.” He had been right: Harold was more dignified, and that seemed fitting.

  “So,” I said, leaning forward, “tell me what you thought about Little Women.”

  We talked about books for awhile, and Harold shared his thoughts on Alcott, Plath, and several of my other favorite authors. He also brought up a few I'd never heard of. I tended to read mostly the classics, plus modern women's fiction and a little bit of trashy romance here and there. But Harold, as Jessica and I well knew, would read just about anything. He even mentioned some indie authors I'd never heard of, and I made mental note to look into a few of them when I had the time.

  We sat there for more than an hour, simply talking. It wasn't anything like I would have expected on a first date. It wasn't exciting or romantic. It was just comfortable. And I realized that this was exactly what I'd been looking for. I was past the age of wanting to go out an experience the night life, and the idea of going to a club or a bar just sounded exhausting. The time Harold and I spent together was simple, it was quiet, and it gave us time to start really getting to know each other.

  When we decided to call it a day, Harold walked me to my car. I saw Babe the Blue Pickup Truck parked a few spaces down from me. I laughed when I saw it, thinking of the stories I'd have to tell Jessica at the library on Monday.

  We stood there for a few moments saying our goodbyes, and I wondered if he was going to kiss me. He shuffled his feet like a shy teenager and kept his eyes on the ground. In the end I pulled him in for a long hug, then kissed his cheek as we parted.

  “We should do this again,” I said.

  “I'd like that,” he said. “Very much.”

  I thought about giving him my phone number or telling him to email me, but all of that seemed too impersonal So I simply said, “Next time you stop by the library, let's go out to lunch. There's a quiet little place just off campus.”

  “Sounds wonderful.”

  He gave me another hug, then took my hands in his for a moment. As he walked away, he held onto my hand until his fingers couldn't reach any further and they slipped out of my touch. I watched him walk to his truck and get in, then he drove off, possibly to go cut down trees or something. I realized I still hadn't asked him what he did for a living.

  But that was just fine. We'd definitely be seeing each other again, and I planned to learn a lot more about this man. The mystery of the library's lumberjack had only deepened now that I knew a little bit about his life. I knew there was a lot more about him to learn, and I wanted to find out what it was.

  Chapter 6

  I pulled into the campus employee parking lot Monday morning, looking around for a blue pickup truck. There was no sign of it, but Harold usually didn't show up until later in the morning or the early afternoon, so I wasn't really surprised. I walked to the library with a skip in my step, greeting a few students that I recognized along the way. It was a warm day, and it seemed like spring was finally here for good. I even saw a few of the campus landscaping crew working on planting fresh spring flowers in the beds around the library.

  I didn't try to hide my grin as I walked in and headed for the front desk. Jessica was already there, sorting through the returns from the drop box. She looked up at me and started drumming her fingers impatiently on the cover of an economics book.
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br />   I walked past her, deliberately not saying anything. Her eyes followed me the entire time. She followed me into the back office and stood in the doorway with her arms crossed, watching me as I put my purse away and poured myself a cup of coffee.

  “Good morning, Jessica,” I said, trying my best to fake like I was completely casual.

  “Don't 'good morning' me, you tease,” she said. She snapped her fingers at me several times. “Details, woman, I want details!”

  I laughed and sat on the office desk, crossing my ankles and letting my feet sway back and forth. “Oh,” I said, feigning dainty innocence and twirling a strand of hair between my fingers. “You want to know about my little old coffee date?”

  She glared at me with a grin on her face. “You've got something to share. Something big.” She looked me straight in the eye. “Was it big? Did you—?”

  “Gosh, Jessica! No!” I laughed and waved my hands at her. “You're incorrigible! On our first date?”

  “Well, with that big grin on your face, I figured it had to be something juicy.”

  “Oh, it's juicy.” I looked up at the ceiling, pressing my lips together, enjoying the way I was making her squirm.

  “So come on, what is it? Is he hot? Is he rich? What was he like?”

  I laughed and kept my mouth shut for a minute until it looked like she was going to burst. “Well,” I said. “He likes poetry. He reads Sylvia Plath.”

  “Good, good,” Jessica said, making a rolling motion with her hand. “Sensitive is good. Tell me more.”

  “He's rugged. Handsome. Drives a truck.”

  “Sensitive and manly?” Jessica pursed her lips in thought, then nodded. “I can work with this. What else?”

  I looked her right in the eye and said, “And he's a lumberjack.”

  She frowned, studying the look in my eyes. Then her jaw dropped. “No.”

  I nodded.

  “No! You can't...Paul Bunyan? You went on a date with Paul Bunyan?”

  “His name is Harold, actually.”

  Jessica peeked out through the door and down the hall towards the main entrance, as if expecting him to walk in just then. “Harold?” Her face twisted up as she tested the taste of the name. “Harold the Lumberjack. Hmm.”

  “I still don't know if he's actually a lumberjack. I never did ask what he does for a living.”

  “So what did you two talk about?”

  I told her all about the date, reliving all of the simple but wonderful moments as I shared them with Jessica. I had to pause here and there as a few students came up and interrupted my story, needing help with one book or another. Jessica glared at each student that walked up to us, making it clear that hearing about my love life was more important to her than helping students find a book.

  When I got to the end of the story, she scowled at me in mock anger. “A hug? Oh, come on, Sharada. You could do better than a hug.”

  “It didn't feel like the right moment for anything more.” I shrugged. The hug had been the perfect end to the date. I knew Jessica wanted to hear about a magical first kiss, with everything perfect and the stars and planets aligning above us as we lost ourselves in the taste of each other. But real first kisses were rarely like that.

  My first kiss with Sunil had been all kinds of awkward, with too much saliva and not enough romance. I wasn't going to let myself get too focused on a first kiss with Harold. It would happen how it happened, and I wanted it to feel natural. Comfortable.

  Jessica kept nagging me for more details until it was getting close to lunch time, when Harold came in. Jessica stared at him, focusing on his shaven chin, and giving him a knowing grin. He smiled at her the same as always and said, “Good morning, Jessica.”

  “Good morning, Harold,” she said. Her grin followed him as he walked up to me. I stepped out from behind the desk to greet him.

  “Good morning, Sharada,” he said. He'd said the same words to me dozens of times before, but there was a new layer to them this time.

  “Good morning, Harold.” I touched his hand and he closed his fingers around mine for just a moment.

  “What time do you usually step out for lunch?”

  I could feel Jessica's eyes on my back. And her grin. “Right around noon,” I said, keeping my eyes on Harold's and ignoring the itching between my shoulder blades.

  Harold glanced at his watch and nodded. “I don't want to interrupt your work, then. I'll be down when you're ready to go.”

  “All right.” I gave him a hug and a quick peck on the cheek. Then he went down the hall and climbed the stairs, same as he had every other time he'd come to the library over the past months.

  I turned and found Jessica frowning at me. “That's it?”

  “What were you expecting?” I asked her. “Should I have started making out with him right here on the desk?”

  “I dunno,” Jessica said. She shrugged and went back to the pile of returned books, which she'd been ignoring for a couple of hours in order to hear more about my date. “I was just hoping there'd be a little spark of something. Show some passion, live a little!”

  “I lived plenty when I was your age,” I told her as she wheeled the returns cart away. “I'm ready to take things a little slower now.”

  “Pfft,” she said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “You're barely forty, stop talking like an old lady!”

  She was off and down the hall then, leaving me shaking my head at the desk. Part of me wondered if she was right. I wasn't too old for passion. But excitement and romantic adventure weren't what I was looking for. There was nothing wrong with starting simple.

  We could build our way up to passion later.

  Right at noon, Harold returned from his reading. I still barely recognized him as the same man, with his beard shaved off. I grabbed my purse and fell into step alongside him, studying his smooth but well-lined chin. “So, why did you get rid of the beard?”

  He rubbed his chin and chuckled. “I grew it in after the divorce. Bachelor's life and all, I hadn't much felt like shaving. But I kind of figured it would be a turn off.”

  I reached up and caressed his chin. It wasn't completely smooth to the touch. There was just the slightest roughness of stubble. I found I liked the feel of it. “I don't know,” I said, smiling and eyeing him sidelong. “I could get used to the idea of a more...grizzled man.”

  A wolfish grin crossed his lips. He took my hand in his and our fingers intertwined. He led me out to his truck and, bless his heart, opened the door for me. I climbed in, looking around.

  The truck was old and weather-beaten, with just the slightest bit of dirt on the floor, as if Harold or whoever drove around with him had a tendency to track in dirt on their boots. The dashboard had an old cassette deck. It fit my image of Harold; I couldn't imagine him as a man who listened to CDs or MP3s.

  There was an empty gun rack mounted behind the seat. Scrapes on the wood made it seem like it had seen some use, probably hunting deer, though I was glad to see that Harold wasn't the type of man to bring rifles on a date.

  He circled around the truck and climbed in. I smiled at him and patted the dashboard in front of me. “I can't believe I finally get to ride in Babe.”

  “Babe?” he asked, frowning.

  “Babe the Blue Pickup Truck. It's...” I laughed and shook my head. “Jessica came up with it. I don't know.”

  He looked at the truck for a moment, then grinned and patted the steering wheel. “I like that. Makes me feel like a lumberjack.”

  I laughed out loud, though from the look on Harold's face, it was clear he didn't get the joke. When my titters subsided, I explained it to him. He wore a bemused grin when he heard me describe him as the library's lumberjack.

  “So, what do you do for a living?” I asked him. “I mean, you obviously know all about my job.”

  “I'm a teacher,” he said.

  My jaw dropped.

  He glanced at me as he drove. “What?”

  “A teacher?” I aske
d. “Wait until I tell Jessica.”

  “Yup. For over twenty years now. Though only part time these days. I used to teach tenth grade English. Now I teach night school for students taking English as a second language and people getting their High School Equivalency degree.”

  “Wow.” I stared at the road ahead, trying to add this to what I knew about him. “So, that explains why you're at the library during the day so often.” It had never occurred to me before that it was strange for a man his age to be in the library during what was normal working hours for most people. Though teaching night school certainly made more sense than overnight lumberjacking.

  We pulled into the restaurant parking lot, then headed inside for lunch. It was a quiet little family-owned place, and one of the few in the area that wasn't frequently crowded with students.

  Most of the local businesses had arrangements with the university to allow students to use their school meal plans to pay for things off-campus. It was more convenient for the students, and helped the businesses bring in more sales. The restaurant I'd chosen, however, was more old-fashioned, and had never become a part of the off-campus network. It helped keep the place quieter, without all of the loud and often drunk students that you found around the rest of the town.

  We got a table and made small talk for awhile, discussing everything from the weather to literature to Jessica's long list of theories about Harold's mysterious life. He laughed out loud when I told him she had once told me she was sure he was gay.

  “What gave her that idea?” he asked, his face turning pink from the laughter. “What, was it the flannels? They're just comfortable, that's all.”

  “I think it might have been Sylvia Plath.” I shrugged. “Your reading choices have been a topic of great discussion among the library staff. Though knowing you're an English teacher makes all the pieces suddenly fit together.”

  “Well,” he said, still chuckling. “I never realized I was such a mystery. I hope the bland truth of the situation isn't a disappointment to you.”

  “Not at all,” I said. I reached across the table and took his hand. We were quiet for a moment, and it made me think about silence. I remembered the quote I'd used when I first emailed Harold. The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence.