by Kaitlyn Rice
“You go ahead.”
She brought the beer to the table. Then she contemplated it for a moment and replaced it in the fridge. She crossed to the cupboard, grabbed two glasses and filled them with milk.
As she set one of them in front of him, Gabe stared at it. Then her. “Turning over a new leaf?”
She laughed as she sat down. “Just drink the dang milk.”
He watched her, noticing the gloss of her very short, very dark hair and the way the style suited her small, pretty features.
When had he decided that Josie was beautiful?
“As I said before,” Josie went on, “he was great.”
She stopped herself. Took a drink of the milk and peered toward her back window. Her eyes showed a worry she hadn’t voiced.
“There’s a but after the end of that statement, isn’t there?” he asked.
She lifted a shoulder. “He was coughing again, a lot this time, and his skin had a gray tone. I don’t think he’s healthy.”
“He probably doesn’t live very well.”
“He practically issued a challenge to me, to proceed only if I’m willing to accept him the way he is.”
“Sounds like something you’d do.”
Her father was very lucky to have met Josie.
And Gabe knew he was head over heels. If he never found an opportunity to retool this friendship into a relationship, he’d die loving Josie and masquerading as her devoted friend.
It was time to change the subject.
“Josie.”
Her expression was guarded, but she listened.
“I realize we’ve agreed. Friends and no more. Right?”
She nodded.
“I’m not sure we should curb the attraction.”
A darkness fell over her face.
“Why avoid it?”
“Because if we try something more than friendship, we’re essentially ending the friendship.”
“Not necessarily.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“Marriage?”
She looked confused.
“We feel that strongly about each other.”
Josie scowled, as if thinking hard about his statement, then said, “I’m not sure about that. I love you. You know that. And I can’t deny that I’m attracted….”
“But?”
“But I believe this is just temporary madness.”
“Not for me.”
“How can you be certain?” she asked. “I’ve needed you so much lately and you’re flattered. Maybe you’re confusing those feelings.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Gabe sighed. “So what do we do?”
She took her milk glass to the sink and ran water in it. “Maybe you should tell Shelby you made a mistake.”
So Josie wasn’t ready.
At least she wasn’t running.
“Have it your way,” he said. “But please stop dodging me. I want to see you.”
“I think I can handle that.”
“Good.”
He kept looking at her back until she turned to meet his gaze, and he held it for a moment.
Saying more with his expression. Showing her that he was steady and all right and ready to hold strong as her friend for as long as necessary.
WHEN JOSIE HADN’T shown up at his house by two the very next Sunday, Gabe put away the extra sandwich and tried not to think about the empty recliner next to him. Although they’d never discussed their plans to spend big football Sundays together, they’d been doing so for well over two years now. Hell, he’d cut Saturday-night dates short so he could have the house ready for Josie’s visits. He was fairly certain that Josie had done the same thing. It was tradition.
But today he’d had the food laid out, the drinks chilled and the game going, and she’d gone missing. She hadn’t answered her phone a while ago, and the Chiefs were doing great. They were up by seven, two minutes from half-time.
She wasn’t working. She’d finished the second model home on Friday, and she wouldn’t start a new one on the weekend.
Her whereabouts were no mystery, however. The woman was obsessed.
Gabe devoured his sandwich, but realized he wasn’t focusing on the game when the crowd roared. The Chiefs had scored, and he’d missed it. He was three feet from the blasted television.
At half-time, he hopped in his car and drove by Josie’s house. She wasn’t there, of course.
Her constant pop-in visits were probably driving the old man crazy. Joe refrained from smoking when his daughter was visiting, so he probably got pretty fidgety. Maybe Gabe should go by and rescue the pair from each other.
He circled Josie’s block, then headed east to Joe Henshaw’s place. It looked better already, Gabe realized as he drove up. Josie had cleared some sprouting trees from the side of the porch, replaced the bolt in the dangling mailbox and reaffixed the address letters. She must have been spending all her spare time here.
Good for her. Gabe wasn’t surprised and he didn’t blame her. He should go home and turn on the game again. Or he could drop by Mary’s. Earl might be there, watching the Chiefs.
Or he could go in and say hi to Joe.
Before he could change his mind, Gabe parked and strode to the door to knock.
Josie answered, wearing the distracted look she got when she was busy. “Gabe?”
“I figured you were here.”
At her questioning expression, he reminded her, “The game?”
“Aw, Gabe, I forgot.” She hesitated, then pushed open the screen door. “Want to come in?”
“Sure.”
She motioned him inside. “But be quiet,” she murmured. “He’s in bed. I’m going to leave in a minute and make a big grocery store run.”
Josie was generally the “grab something when I need it” type. “You get tired of takeout?” he asked.
“My dad’s the one who needs groceries.”
As they entered the kitchen together, Gabe noticed that Josie had left the cabinet doors and drawers open. She’d dumped a bunch of boxes and bags into the trash can, and she had a shopping list started on the counter.
“Joe got up to let me in about an hour ago, but he looks awful,” she said. “I insisted that he lie down again.”
This was a leap. Less than two weeks ago, Josie and her dad were barely more than biologically tied strangers. Today she was acting as his caregiver.
“I intended to make him some soup for lunch, but I could only find liquor and stale food. Some of the cereal was moldy. Can you imagine? That stuff’s full of preservatives.”
He could imagine. Joe had lived his entire adult life independently. He had no one around to tell him to clean out the cabinets, so he didn’t.
But it must hurt Josie to see her father living this way. “Your dad is who he is, Josie. You’ll have to accept that.”
“I can help him get set up better,” she murmured. “I know he doesn’t want me to pry too much, but I can grab a few things at the store to replace the bad stuff.”
“If you give me the list, I’ll shop for you,” Gabe offered.
“Joe’s asked me three times if I’m done banging around in here,” she muttered. “He’s got to be craving a cigarette.”
“We could both go.”
“Okay. Soon as I’m done here.” Josie bent to her hands and knees and peered inside some lower cabinets, scrunching her nose when she pulled out a smashed box of spaghetti mix. She tossed that on the countertop, then reached back inside.
“Want help?”
She stood on her knees and let out a little groan. “God, no. I hate for you to watch me doing this.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s grimy and disgusting. Why don’t you go talk to Joe. Tell him I’ll be finished in five minutes.”
Gabe started for the doorway, but paused when he noted Josie’s smile for him. He wished he could return for a big, smacking thank-you kiss.
But he knew better.
Joe’s bedroom was in the opposite hallway from the kitchen. He lay propped on several pillows with his eyes closed and his hands clasped around his damned smokes. When Gabe entered, he opened his eyes.
“Hello again, Joe. Josie says you’re sick.”
“I’m fine. Cold air irritates my bronchial tubes.”
Gabe glanced at the window beyond Joe’s head. “You don’t have storm windows?”
“Nope.”
“They’d cut down the draft in here.”
“Mebbee.”
Gabe could get some good thermal panes at cost, but he already knew better than to ask the old man for permission. He’d have to just show up here with the windows, tell Joe they were leftovers and put them on. Josie could help install them.
Joe dropped the cigarette pack on his night table and used his elbows to shove himself up, looking as though he was going to get out of bed.
“Stay there,” Gabe said.
“Got comp’ny.”
“We’ll be gone soon.”
Joe’s gaze was stern. “I do better if I don’t stay horizontal too long. That’s why I sleep on that stack of pillows.”
Gabe helped him up and stood back while the old man slid a heavy flannel shirt on over his cotton T-shirt. “I told the girl I needed to be up, but she wouldn’t listen.” Joe shot Gabe an incredulous look. “She’s taken over my kitchen!”
Gabe’s dad had been sick for several years. He knew there were times for taking extra care and times for maintaining respectful distances. Even if Joe was sicker than he realized, he wasn’t ready to abandon his efforts to make his everyday motions. As well he shouldn’t, until he was ready.
Josie wouldn’t recognize that. She’d been a young college student when her mother had died, and she hadn’t realized her mother was living out her last months. Her sister Isabel had tackled the burden of caring for their mother. Josie had dealt with guilt ever since.
That was probably why she was here, doing more than she should for a man who had done diddly-squat for her.
“What’s she up to in there?” Joe asked. “She’s been clattering around, slamming drawers.”
“She’s trying to help you.”
“I didn’t ask for anyone’s help.”
“I’ll tell her to cool it, but I think you ought to let her do something.”
Joe frowned for a moment, then nodded. “Maybe you’re right. I can’t get women. Even that girl out there, who claims to be uncomplicated.”
Gabe laughed. “She’s anything but that.”
As the old guy buttoned his shirt, he indicated with a nod that Gabe should close the bedroom door. Then he spoke softly. “You and Josie-girl in trouble?”
“She’d say no. I say yes.”
“Why?”
Gabe listened at the door for a moment, and when he heard the squeak of a cabinet door, he sat at the end of Joe’s bed. “I’m in love with your daughter,” he said. “I guess you can tell?”
“Ayuh.”
“Well, we’ve been friends for a long time, and she’s afraid that if we get involved we’ll mess things up.”
Joe finished dressing and sat at the head of the bed. “Do you think you would?”
“I never thought I’d say this, but I believe that Josie and I would make the fun and romance last.” He grinned wryly at Joe.
“But she doesn’t agree.”
Gabe gave a slight nod.
“That girl has a mind of her own, like Ella Blume. Did you know her mama?”
“No. I met Josie when her mother was sick, but Ella died before I got a chance to meet her. Josie always said she didn’t want to subject me to her mother.”
“I don’t blame her,” Joe said. “Ella was…interesting. I’ll just say that.”
“What happened between you and Josie’s mom?” Gabe asked.
“I watched Ella,” Joe said. “Everyone talked about her, so I was surprised to discover that she was pretty. Had a nice figure. Had me curious.” He hesitated, chuckling, then went on. “Sometimes I thought I noticed her looking at me. But then she’d just tell me I was doing something wrong. I decided I was imagining things.”
“Complicated.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“And that one afternoon, she approached you?”
Joe widened his eyes in the same way his daughter did sometimes. “She just drove up, got out and knocked at the door. Came in like she visited me every day, then kissed me. Afterward, she didn’t say boo. Not when she dressed. Not ever.”
“She was confused.”
“She was lonely, even if she was married,” Joe argued. “And she was aware of what she was doing. She acted with purpose. I realize now that I was only a pawn in her game.”
“You never got involved with another woman, Joe?”
“Nope.”
Gabe couldn’t imagine living to Joe’s age and having had only one intimate experience. One unsatisfactory experience. How did a person greet each day with hope when they’d led such a lonesome life?
“What’s going on in there?” Josie pushed the door open. When she saw that Gabe and her father were simply talking, she studied Joe. “You’re up?”
“He says it helps him feel better,” Gabe said.
“It does?”
“I’m not coughing now, am I?”
“Okay, get up, then. We’re leaving, anyway.” She glanced back at her father as she left his bedroom. “But we’ll be back in a half hour.”
Joe shuffled out behind them. When Josie grabbed the trash sack full of discarded food she’d left near the front door, he grabbed at its edge. “What you got there? Is that my food?”
“It’s just some old, rotten food you had in your cabinets,” Josie said. “You’d get sick if you ate it.”
Joe sank in his chair and glowered at Gabe, as if to send the message that they were supposed to be buddies now.
“We’ll replace it,” Gabe promised.
“I don’t have the money for a bunch of new food.”
“We do,” Josie said. “We’ll cover it just this once. It’ll be a Christmas present. And yours to me will be to eat better and take care of yourself.”
He looked at Gabe again.
Gabe nodded. “Let her do this,” he murmured.
“Suit yourself.” Joe waved them toward the door.
Ten minutes later, Gabe pushed a cart around the nearest grocery store while Josie scanned the canned goods aisle. “He didn’t have any vegetables at all. Can you believe that?”
“He might not care for them, Josie.”
“He’ll like them if I come over and cook them!”
Hopefully, she wouldn’t hover too much and drive the old guy crazy. “Consider the choices he’s made, kid. I realize you want to be a part of your father’s life, but don’t be too intrusive or you’ll push him away.”
She dropped six cans of green beans into the cart. “He has no idea that he needs someone to care for him. How would he, if he’s never experienced it?”
Did Josie hear herself?
Gabe bit his tongue and let her load the cart however she wished. He also found himself watching her as she analyzed the nutrition labels on the canned corn.
He used to tell her everything. Now he could tell her nothing about what was happening in his life, because his feelings for her were all mixed up in his perspective of it. Most of the time, she acted unaware of any changes.
She also didn’t know he was eyeing her butt.
Gabe felt himself grow hard as he followed that sexy derriere around the corner to aisle six. If she were his wife, he’d help her carry the bags inside wherever they were living, then attack her just beyond the door.
They’d have hot sex among the warming milk and rolling cans. The fantasy was divine frustration. Was his choice to be patient with her the right one?
Or did he follow Josie’s plan, and force his affection despite the loved one’s protests?
“You daydreaming?” Josie asked. She set a huge carton of oatmeal in the basket and nudged Gabe out of the way, shoving the cart toward the front. After paying, she and Gabe loaded the groceries in his car trunk, then she got into the passenger side.
Ignoring his new grocery fantasy, Gabe helped her take the bags in to Joe’s. They filled the cabinets and stayed long enough to eat some deli chicken with her father.
Josie was quiet as they walked back out to their vehicles.
“You want to come over?” he asked as he stood at the door to her truck. “The Chiefs game is over, I’m sure, but we could find something else to do.”
He’d said that dozens of times before. They found something to watch on television or just hung out.
Today, he saw images of a naked Josie in his big, warm bed. Or his bigger, warmer bathtub.
“I’m beat. I should head home,” she said.
“I’ll follow you.”
She rolled her eyes. “I can make it home, Gabe.”
He nodded, then thought of another reason to follow her. “Didn’t Callie, Ethan and the kids come over last night to help you put up your tree?”
She sighed. “You’re just dying to see it, huh.”
“You said you really liked this one.”
Twelve minutes later, he’d admired Josie’s usual red ball ornaments and Luke’s popcorn strings and the new angel tree topper. Josie was rushing him through his admiring comments.
He didn’t want to leave, damn it. Not now, when Josie was obviously in need of…convincing. That was what he wanted, wasn’t it? To finally convince her that she required more from him than only friendship.
But then again, he’d hate to push too hard, and encourage retreat.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I will be.” She whirled from the tree to stare out the window at the dark night. “God, did you see his kitchen?” she asked. “He has a total of two plates and four forks to his name.”
“He’s gotten along all right so far,” Gabe said. “He might not be the healthiest person, but he doesn’t look as if he’s starving.”
A small pinch formed between her eyes. Then she nodded. “Thanks.” She drifted forward for a hug.
Perhaps Josie managed to hold her feelings to the same warm, amiable ones from the past.
Gabe felt a kick of desire. He hugged and withdrew, reserving those fantasies for a better time.