by Ev Bishop
No, she commanded herself. Worry about how Steve will react when the time comes. For now, just be happy. Focus on the moment.
She spotted Brian by the coffee island. As if feeling the heat of her gaze, he turned and broke into a welcoming grin. But wait. What the—? The happy ball of emotions playing through Katelyn hit a wall.
Who was the cute, athletic blonde standing close to Brian, one hand possessively on his arm? Wow . . . that hadn’t taken him long at all.
What did you expect? she asked herself. You told him flat out that you guys could never be a thing. He respected that and he’s moving on. You can’t fault him.
Still, she was hurt he’d shown up here with a date. And so soon.
Brian’s smile faltered and his expression changed from welcoming to questioning. She shoved her stupid disappointment away and pasted a smile back in place.
Brian leaned in and whispered something to the woman on his arm. She darted a look Katelyn’s way, then chuckled lightly and released her hold on him.
A second later, Brian was by Katelyn’s side, two mugs in hand now, one of which he passed to her. Unfortunately, the blonde had come with him.
“Um, thanks,” Katelyn said, and for the first time in ages, she felt a bit shy with Brian. Thank goodness she hadn’t texted him the “exciting” news. This was bad enough. How awkward that would have been!
“So how are you? How was your week?” he asked.
“Great, great. And yours?” She groaned inwardly the minute the words left her suddenly dry mouth. Really? This was what they were going to become? Acquaintances who sucked at small talk? She wished she hadn’t accepted the coffee. Now she’d have to drink it or it would be obvious she was fleeing. If she hadn’t taken it, she could have made an excuse, said she’d come to talk to Jo or something, and left right away.
“Yeah, mine too. Great.”
Well, at least he was doing no better with small talk than she was. At a loss for anything else to say, but desperately needing to do something, Katelyn extended her hand to Brian’s friend. “Hi, I’m Katelyn.”
The woman smiled and, of all the slightly weird ways to respond, nodded before she shook Katelyn’s proffered hand. Then, seeming to realize Katelyn was out of the loop, she added, “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m Naomi. I’ve heard so much about you, I just assumed Brian told you about me too, especially since he’s moving in.”
What? Katelyn’s head reeled and she tried to hide the hurt shock ripping through her by taking a big gulp of coffee. It was scalding hot and burned all the way down, but she kind of relished the pain. It gave her an excuse for the tears that sprang to her eyes. “Ouch, sorry,” she coughed. “That was stupidly hot.”
“Are you all right?” Brian rested a concerned hand on her shoulder.
Katelyn pushed him away. “I’m fine. Fine.” She coughed again. “Just surprised.” Shocked was more like it though. How could he move in with someone a mere week after telling her she was the first person to make him believe two people could be meant for each other? Was it just a line he used? Maybe she’d misread him from the get-go. Maybe she was the queen of not being able to tell a good guy from a bad one. She closed her eyes. No, Brian was a good guy. Just one she had rejected and who was moving on.
When she opened her eyes, Brian was staring at her pensively. “Well, it’s not a sure thing yet—”
“No, Brian. Don’t worry,” Naomi interrupted. “We have a history and I want to make this work. Just let me settle a few things.”
Jo took that moment to burst through the swinging kitchen doors with fresh cinnamon buns. Katelyn could’ve kissed her.
“Oh, I want one of those!” Katelyn pivoted toward the kitchen, eager to escape. “Nice to meet you, Naomi,” she chirped over her shoulder. “I’ll talk to you later, Brian.”
He caught her arm and she looked down at his fingers on her flesh, trying to ignore her racing pulse. “What?”
His face was full of something intense, but he shook his head and his next words were out of sync with the raw emotion burning in his eyes. “Nothing, not really. I just wanted to know . . . are we still on to run together tomorrow morning before you get the kids back?”
Katelyn’s gaze crept to Naomi, standing a few paces behind Brian, and she shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Brian followed her look, and one of his eyebrows lifted in confusion—then smoothed as he apparently arrived at a moment of clarity. He nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
Katelyn wanted to reach out and clasp his freshly shaved jaw in both hands. She wanted to plant a kiss on him that would loosen all the tight, disappointed, frightened places in both of them. She wanted him to read her mind, pull her body to his, then lift her up and swing her around in joy-filled excitement. She wanted—
But then Jo was greeting a new family of guests who were just entering the hall, Brian was reaching for a cinnamon roll, and Naomi was chattering about how “amazing” the coffee was and how she was “dying” for a refill—and Katelyn was slammed by just how alone she really was.
She leaned toward Brian, head bowed, and whispered, “Are you really thinking of moving in with her?”
“Yeah, but it’s not—”
Katelyn raised her hand to stave of explanations. He didn’t owe her any and she couldn’t bear to hear them. A burning lump threatened to close off her throat and it was work, hard work, to swallow it.
“That’s great,” she said weakly. “You’ve been looking for a new place to call home and now you’ve found it. I’m happy for you.”
She turned and dashed away before he could utter a word of the regrets she saw so clearly in his eyes.
Maybe he’d been about to follow her because she heard Callum stop him. “Brian, wait up. I’ve been trying to catch you all week. There’s something Jo and I think might interest you.”
It’s for the best, she told herself sternly. You can’t stay in Greenridge, and Brian loves it. His whole life is here. Why shoot for something you can’t keep?
So why’d you even bother with divorce papers then? a little voice nagged.
Katelyn slammed the dining room door harder than she intended. Jo’s wiry mutt, asleep in a patch of sunshine on the porch, lifted his graying muzzle and gave her a very odd look.
Chapter 26
Brian ran fifty feet of the gravel trail in front of Spring cabin, turned and ran back the same fifty feet, then repeated the loop yet again. The circles he was sprinting in front of Katelyn’s abode were ridiculous and embarrassing—and mimicked the circles of his racing thoughts, which always and forever seemed to roll back to her.
It had only been a few days since his very public breakfast meeting with Naomi, where the plans regarding his move had been so clumsily spilled—and so completely misinterpreted by Katelyn—but it felt like ten years. He missed her. Their runs. Their talks. Their time with the kids doing weird crafts, reading stories, and going for walks. Their movie nights and laze about, do nothing times. He missed everything to do with her. Even her strange little rat-dog, Monster.
He still agonized about his decision to stop and talk to Callum instead of clearing things up with Katelyn right away. The minute he realized she had jumped to the erroneous conclusion that he and Naomi were a couple, he’d started going back and forth, back and forth, much like he was jogging now. Should he tell her that Naomi was just his potential landlord? No, he should let her think he’d moved on. No, he should tell her right away. No, it was best to let her think he’d moved on. . . .
When Callum interrupted him, he’d taken it as a sign he should let her leave, let her think he’d taken up with Naomi, let her focus on whatever she needed to do to put her life together. After all, hadn’t she made it clear to him that was what she wanted? And hadn’t he been actively seeking a way to build a wall and give her the space she asked for? Just living further apart was an easy problem to circumvent. They both had vehicles. But him having a
girlfriend that he’d moved in with? Well, that would close the door. It just would.
So why the hell was he running loops in front of her cabin like a lunatic? Because he hated lying to her, that’s why. And omitting known facts, letting a false interpretation stand, was still a lie, no matter how he tried to rationalize it. And it was disrespectful. He wouldn’t treat her like she was incapable of doing what she needed to do, or imply she was too weak to stand by her resolve by holding things back from her or manipulating her with half-truths.
And also, the thought replayed yet again, like the refrain to a song you can’t get out of your head, he missed her.
On that note, he increased his stride, took her stairs in one bounding leap, and knocked loudly on her door before he could overthink it or chicken out.
There was a flutter of movement as the curtain that shielded a window by the door shifted. Weird. She was peeking out to see who was there? The door opened a crack, and Katelyn appeared, wedged in the small opening. “Oh, it’s just you,” she said, sounding weirdly relieved, though not exactly pleased.
“Yeah,” he said. “Just me. Disappointed?”
Their eyes met and held. Katelyn inhaled a slightly shaky breath, then reached out and pressed her hand to his chest. “Not in the slightest. Thrilled, actually.”
“Thrilled, hey?” Brian laughed in relief—and at her use of such an exuberant word when her body language suggested anything but. He removed her hand from his chest and rubbed it between his palms. She was cold or upset or something. Would she let him in?
“I’m sorry. It’s probably a bad time, and I know things are awkward between us, but, well, I missed you.”
She sighed, gave a sad smile and nodded. “Ditto.” Then she stepped back, shook her head, and stretched like she was trying to wake up and shake off a bad dream. “Do you want to come in?”
“Do I.”
“Ditto. Do I. Those are the exact same things we said the first time you ever dropped by to see me.”
Brian grinned too broadly for the small joke, but he felt so . . . ridiculously happy. “Yep, we’re wordsmiths all right.”
Katelyn closed and locked the cabin door the instant he entered, and Lacey and Sawyer’s elfin faces popped over the banister above his head.
“It’s just Brian,” Katelyn said. “Come on down. I’ll make us a snack.”
The kids tumbled over themselves to get to the fridge first, wanting to help, and once Katelyn had them busy—Sawyer stirring a dip for carrot and celery sticks, Lacy taking the waxy wrappers off mini round cheeses—Brian lowered his mouth to Katelyn’s ear. “Just Brian again? I have to say the word ‘just’ used in relation to me twice in such close succession is hurtful.”
Yes, it was a lame attempt to be funny. He couldn’t help it. He was off his game because he was wishing so hard that she’d step into his arms, so he could hug her and press his face into her hair—
Oh yeah, this whole creating and maintaining distance thing was working fantastically. He shook his head at himself.
Katelyn turned—and because he’d moved close to whisper to her, she was deliciously near. “I promise you . . . I meant nothing mean or dismissive with that word.” Then she spoke again and the warm feeling her nearness always triggered in Brian froze and cracked. “I thought you were Steve.”
Ice moved through his veins. So it hadn’t been his imagination at the door. She was acting strangely. What had happened? Something, obviously. He opened his mouth, but she pressed a finger to her lips and tilted her head in the direction of the kids. He nodded and didn’t say a word.
“Hey, guys.”
Lacey and Sawyer looked up from their food prep.
“I’m going outside to talk to Brian for a minute. You can start eating, okay?”
“Can we have two cheeses each?” Lacey asked.
“I don’t know. You two don’t even like cheese that much,” Katelyn teased, but there was still something off about her vibe, something Brian couldn’t quite place.
“Yes, we do. We love it,” Sawyer said in a serious tone.
Katelyn smiled at him fondly. “Yes, you guys may have two cheeses each, but that’s it, no more. And lots of yummy veggies, right?”
“Right!” they cheered and returned their attention to their snack, more interested in the acquisition of cheese than any boring conversation their mom was set on having.
Out on the porch, Katelyn motioned for Brian to take the large rocking chair. Then she pushed the door shut firmly and leaned against it.
“Nothing has happened, but . . . ”
“But?” he prodded.
She closed her eyes and spoke in a tense whisper. “I’ve asked Steve for a divorce—and Marilee called just as I was getting off work earlier. He was served with the papers today and didn’t handle it well. The bailiff recommended she warn me, and he called the cops about it too.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, pounding her clenched fist lightly against her mouth.
It was hard to think. “So what now?”
She shrugged and took a deep breath. When she spoke, her voice was too calm. “We wait, I mean, I wait. It might blow over, might be nothing.”
“And if it’s not?”
“Then I cross that bridge when I come to it.”
Brian shook his head. “No, you were right the first time.”
Katelyn bit her lip and one of her eyebrows arched.
“Not ‘I.’ You’re not alone. We. You and me. Us. Whatever happens between us or doesn’t, we’re friends. You aren’t alone.”
Katelyn pressed a hand over her eye. Brian stood up and opened his arms to her. She walked into them. She didn’t sob or wail or even make a sound, but his sweatshirt grew damp beneath her cheek. He rubbed her back in small circles and wondered how many times she, not wanting to alarm her children, had wept silently or kept herself rigidly under control. Please be okay, he begged in his head, be okay, be okay, be okay.
Katelyn seemed to have a child awareness chip inserted in her heart that cued her to how long she had until she was needed, even when distraught. After a long moment—but not so long, Brian knew, that the kids would start to question—she pulled back and looked up at him.
“Better?” he asked.
She wrapped her arms around herself. “Maybe. A bit.” Then she added, “Do you want to stay for dinner?”
“I’d love to. Want to take the kids for a walk first? Burn off their snack and some energy before bed?”
She smiled and nodded, but looked deeply, deeply sad.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said.
As she pulled the door open and they moved to go back inside, Brian heard a car start up and rev hard. He jogged to a break in the trees to see who the jerk was, but only caught the rear end of a blue hatchback disappearing at Mach speed around the first bend in the driveway. No doubt one of Jo and Callum’s constantly coming and going guests. He’d have to suggest that they post a “Slow” sign in the parking area, just in case. There were always kids around, not just Sawyer and Lacey, and it wasn’t merely a liability issue. It would be horrific if anyone got injured at River’s Sigh.
Chapter 27
The air was warm and sweet with the fragrance of blooming lilacs, and despite the approaching evening, the sun was still strong and bright, promising long, full of light days and shorter nights soon. Soft rays filtered through the newly greened cottonwood trees, decorating Sawyer and Lacey with dappled shadows and making the deep green conifer branches shine jewel-bright.
Katelyn was lost in thought, and she and Brian walked mostly in silence, while the kids pranced ahead, laughing and pretending they were deer. It was all too easy to pretend everything was perfect and right in her world—and even easier to play make-believe that the four of them were a family. Every so often, however, a breeze kicked up, whispering a warning that rustled through the bushes and touched Katelyn’s bare legs with a shivery chill. They w
eren’t out of the woods yet. Literally or figuratively. While it seemed that spring had arrived and was shifting into summer early this year, there could still be storms ahead.
Brian noticed her tremble, but misinterpreted it. Or maybe he didn’t. He unzipped his sweatshirt and wrapped it over her shoulders.
“Won’t you be cold?” she protested.
“Nope.”
As they continued on, the forest and the quiet deepened. Then Katelyn spotted a fork in the path. “That’s far enough, guys. Let us catch up,” she called. Both kids stopped like she’d pulled a cord and busied themselves lifting rocks, hoping to find salamanders.
When she and Brian caught up, Brian joined in the reptile search. A bumpy fist-sized toad was discovered, and if anyone had witnessed the scene, they’d have thought someone struck gold by the amount of cheering and sheer delight.
“This place is the best,” Lacey enthused as they left the toad to his wanderings and recommenced their own.
“It really is,” Katelyn agreed, but her happiness in seeing her children enjoy themselves so fully was bittersweet. A throbbing sadness, thick as blood, pulsed through her. River’s Sigh B & B, quirky Spring cabin, and this crazily beautiful property were such a wonderful place to raise kids—but it was all as fleeting as mist. Soon they’d be wedged into some low rent apartment, surrounded by concrete and close neighbors. That was all she’d be able to afford in a bigger city.
There was no help for it. She couldn’t stay here indefinitely. Even staying into the fall was iffy. Lacey needed to return to school in September, so they had to be settled somewhere by then. And there was the issue about the reliability of her car. If she was worried about it on summer roads, there was no way she could trust it in bad weather conditions. And last but not least, there was Steve—her ultimate, insurmountable problem, as always. Yes, he was quiet now, but he wouldn’t remain so for long. He never did. And now she had pushed him by asking for a divorce . . . Her eye twitched and she fought off a fresh jolt of nerves. She needed to break free of him, once and for all. She—they—needed a fresh, safe start. Far away. Soon.