The Cottage on Juniper Ridge

by Sheila Roberts

  He looked as if he belonged on a romance novel, but Bill Will was proof that you couldn’t always judge a book by its cover. It hadn’t taken Jen long to realize that the man was more of a lovable doof than a romance hero.

  Of course, look who she was measuring him against. How could he compete with a man who raced into burning buildings to save people?

  Bill Will saw her as he trotted over to the front porch and gave her a big smile and a wave. True, he was no Garrett Armstrong, but he was a nice guy, and they’d have fun putting in this garden.

  She swung the door wide and he greeted her with a half tip of his Stetson. “The gardener’s here, ma’am.”

  “Would the gardener like a cup of coffee before we get to work?”

  “Sure. Why not?” He sauntered inside and glanced around. “Hey, this place isn’t half bad.”

  “I like it,” she said. “Take anything in your coffee?”

  “Nope. I’m tough.”

  “I guess so,” she said, pouring him a cup. “It’s really sweet of you to help me do this.”

  She’d run into Bill Will in the grocery store earlier in the week and had flirted with him in the frozen food aisle. When she’d told him about her garden project, he’d been quick to offer his help, and she’d been happy to accept.

  At one point she’d entertained the idea of asking her landlord for assistance, but then decided against it. Tilling part of a yard probably wasn’t on the list of required landlord duties. Anyway, between having to show her how to work a woodstove, rescuing her from a ditch and shoveling snow, he’d undoubtedly had enough of helping her. She suspected that was why he collected his rent and scrammed as fast as he could. (Well, that and Tilda, the so-called girlfriend.) Jen was coming across as too high-maintenance. This—her garden—would shatter that misconception. Yes, the woman bakes her own bread and tills her own soil. Nothing to it.

  She and Bill Will chatted for a few minutes, mostly about him and how he was saving up to buy a place of his own. “’Cept I only got about a thousand in the bank,” he said. “I need to find me a rich woman. Got any money, Jen?” he asked with a smile.

  “Yeah. Tons. Can’t you tell?”

  “Aw. Well, there’s more to life than money, right?” He set down his mug. “Let’s get moving. I’m itchin’ to try out that machinery.”

  She’d already marked the area where she wanted the garden. “I thought I’d put it over there,” she said, pointing to a sunny corner of the yard she’d set off with string and some small yard stakes.

  “Okay,” he said with a nod.

  She watched, feeling a tingle of excitement, as he let down the tailgate of his truck and dragged out the tiller. Home-grown lettuce and spinach and peas and carrots. This was going to be great.

  Bill Will took the tiller over to the future home of Veggie Central, started it and began to churn up the earth. She should plant sunflowers, too, she decided.

  She was so immersed in her garden daydream that it took her a minute to realize the tilling had stopped. “I think we got a problem,” Bill Will called.

  Had he hit a rock? She hurried over to where he was squatting in front of clumps of grass and sandy soil, examining a network of pipes. “What’s that?” she asked. Whatever it was, something was wrong with it, she thought, looking at the water gurgling from several that had been severed.

  He pushed back his hat and scratched his head. “Well, I’m no expert on stuff like this, but if I had to guess I’d say that’s your drain field.”

  “Drain field?”

  “You know, your septic system. I think we just tore something up.”

  A sick feeling landed in the pit of her stomach. “Can you fix it?”

  He frowned at the mess in front of him and shook his head. “If you need a horse broke or a fence mended I’m your man. This...well, you better call your landlord.”

  The sick feeling swelled. “Oh,” Jen said weakly.

  Bill Will straightened up. “Sorry to ruin your day, Jen, but we better not till any more until you know where all your drain field is. You don’t want to do any more damage.”

  She’d just done more damage—to her tenant-landlord relationship. “Call Armstrong right away,” Bill Will advised.

  She could hardly wait.

  Her trepidation must have shown on her face because Bill Will threw an arm around her shoulders and gave her a hug. “It’ll be okay. He’s a good guy. He’ll understand.”

  Jen wasn’t so sure.

  * * *

  After finishing his shift at the fire station, Garrett had gotten his groceries, stopped by his folks’ place and called his sister in Yakima. That checked off everything on his to-do list. Timmy was with his mother—so far, so good there—and the rest of the day was all his.

  How to spend it? He could do some work on his house, go for a hike, camp out for a while at Bavarian Brews with his laptop and surf the Net. The possibilities were endless.

  His cell phone rang. Oh, God, please don’t let it be Ashley.

  It wasn’t. But seeing who was calling left him just as rattled as if it had been. An image of a short little strawberry blonde with freckles danced before his eyes. Jen Heath, aka Lucy Ricardo II. What did she want?

  “Hello,” he answered warily. Every time Jen called it meant trouble for him. Heck, just looking at her was trouble. Because he liked what he saw. And he couldn’t afford to, not if he wanted to stay sane.

  “Um, Garrett?”

  Something in her voice told him he was going to be sorry he’d taken the call. “Hi, Jen. What’s up?”

  “Well, I have a small problem....”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Life runs so much more smoothly when we don’t delay saying, “I’m sorry.”

  —Muriel Sterling, author of Simplicity

  Garrett arrived at his rental just as Billy Williams was driving away. Jen Heath stood in a corner of the yard by a section of torn-up earth, looking like a mourner at a graveside. Oh, no. The drain field.

  Garrett clenched his jaw. Damn it all, he’d known his day was going to get turned upside down the minute he saw her name on his phone. “It’s hard to explain,” she’d said when he’d asked what was wrong. “I think you’d better just come over.” And that had left his imagination free to run rampant. She’d run into a ditch again. She’d caught the kitchen on fire. She’d... Who knew? With Jen Heath it was always a surprise.

  Bill Will stopped his truck, which had the instrument of destruction sitting in the bed, and Garrett pulled up alongside it. “What happened?”

  Bill Will reached under his hat and scratched his head. “Well, Garrett, she wanted to put in a garden.”

  Garrett swore under his breath.

  “I thought she’d checked it out with you. Didn’t realize she had me digging up your drain field. I quit as soon as I figured it out.”

  Garrett supposed he could thank God for small favors. “I appreciate that,” he managed.

  “Don’t be too hard on her. She didn’t know.”

  Don’t be too hard on her? He wanted to throttle her. Bend her over his knee and spank her. A vision of his hand on that cute, curvy little butt sent his thoughts skittering in a whole other direction, and that did nothing to improve his temper. The last thing he needed was to be attracted to another Ashley, which, of course, was exactly what Jen Heath was turning out to be.

  He nodded and said a curt thank-you to Bill Will, who skedaddled. Then he parked his truck and got out.

  “I’m so sorry,” she greeted him
as he made his way across what had once been a perfectly good drain field. “Can it be fixed?”

  “It can.” He took in the cracked pipes and the gurgling water, the clumps of grass and soil, and clawed his hand through his hair.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll pay for it,” she said.

  An ache was starting behind his right eye. A muscle twitched in his jaw.

  “Are you mad?” she ventured.

  “Mad? You just tried to take out my drain field. Why would I be mad?”

  A moment ago she’d looked ready to cry. Now she looked ready to smack him. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

  “If you’d checked with me,” he began.

  “I didn’t think I needed permission to put in a garden.”

  “I could have told you where the drain field was and saved us both a lot of trouble,” he said, finishing his sentence. In his aggravated state, he couldn’t help adding, “But then I’m beginning to think that trouble is your middle name.” Suddenly he was on a roll and it felt so good he kept on rolling. “Is this a gift you share with everyone or are you just out to get me? First you try to burn my place down, then you’re sliding around on the road like a guided missile, trying to take me out. Now this. You’re like the twelve plagues of Egypt. What’s next, locusts?”

  “Well, that was rude,” she said in a shaky voice.

  Yeah, it was. But she was driving him nuts. So was the fact that the idiot part of him somehow felt the need to give her a hug.

  No! No hugs. He clawed through his hair again, took a couple of steps away and let out his breath in a hiss. “You tried to destroy my drain field and you’re getting on me about being rude?”

  “It was only a few pipes.”

  “Well, I’ll be sure to tell the septic guy that when he gives me the bill for this mess.”

  “I said I’d pay to fix it.”

  Oh, no. Here came the tears. He held up a hand. “Okay, okay.” He pulled his cell phone out of his jeans pocket and started for the truck.

  “Where are you going?” she called.

  “Away.” Far away.

  She trotted after him. “Are you calling someone to come and fix this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you,” she said stiffly.

  “You’re welcome,” he said, equally stiff. And now they were done talking. He hoped.

  “Um, Garrett.”

  Or not. He forced himself to stop, to turn and look at her.

  “Obviously, that wasn’t the place to put a vegetable garden. Is there any place I can—”

  He knew exactly where she was going and he cut her off. “No.” The word almost exploded from his mouth. “No more digging. Anywhere. Understand?”

  She took a step back, bit her lip and nodded.

  “Good,” he said curtly. “I’ll get someone out here as soon as possible. Meanwhile, try not to use any water. Don’t wash any dishes, don’t do any laundry, don’t flush the toilet.”

  She frowned. “How long will it take to fix?”

  “A lot longer than it took you to wreck it,” he snapped, and started for his truck again. But not before he saw her face flush fire-engine red.

  “Okay, that was so uncalled for,” she muttered.

  The ache behind his eye wasn’t an ache anymore. Now it felt as if his eyeball had been pierced with a flaming arrow, and the flame was spreading across his forehead. “You’re right. Sorry.”

  That obviously wasn’t enough. (Big surprise, since he’d said it grudgingly.) She put her hands on her hips. “I can’t believe I thought you were so nice when I met you. Boy, was I wrong.”

  This made him mad all over again. He was the nicest guy he knew. The fact that he hadn’t murdered his ex was proof of that.

  “Yeah, well, first impressions are deceiving, aren’t they?” he retorted. He completed his trip to the truck and yanked open the cab door. “I thought you had your act together.”

  “I do!” she cried. “I pay my rent on time, and I’m paying you a lot more than this dump is worth.”

  If she figured she was going to skip out and leave him high and dry, she could think again. “Well, you signed a lease on this ‘dump’ for a year,” he reminded her.

  “And it’s going to be the longest year of my life,” she retorted, her voice quavering.

  “Mine, too, babycakes.” Now her eyes were flooded with tears. It was definitely time for him to go.

  He climbed into the cab and yanked the door shut with enough force to rattle the windows. He got his friend Dan Masters, who owned Masters Construction, on the phone and Dan referred him to someone who could fix the mess. “Can you do it today?” Garrett asked the man after explaining his problem.

  “Yeah. It’ll cost you, though, being a weekend and all.”

  “Just so it gets done,” Garrett said. He ended the call and roared off down the road, shooting gravel in all directions. The sooner the job was finished, the better. Who knew what further damage Jen Heath was liable to do if he waited?

  That was all it took to turn his mind back to their conversation at the cottage. What a jerk he’d been. His reaction had been completely inappropriate. He’d not only been rude, he’d been downright mean. Maybe he wasn’t such a nice guy.

  He was going to have to apologize.

  Best not to go empty-handed, he told himself, and drove to Lupine Floral.

  At the flower shop Heinrich, one of the owners, helped him pick out an arrangement of pink-and-white roses with a small box of Sweet Dreams chocolates tucked in the bouquet. Chocolate and flowers—Garrett knew enough about women to know that was a good combination. He carefully set the box on the seat next to him and then headed...for home. No sense going over there until the pipes were fixed.

  You’re stalling.

  Okay, he was, but he needed time to figure out what he was going to say to Jen. He went back to his place. The house was pretty much bare bones. The living room was furnished with a sofa and armchair that he’d bought to replace the furniture Ashley had made off with, an old coffee table his folks had given him and his big-screen TV (another thing he’d had to replace after Ashley left). Timmy had a nice bed and dresser, but Garrett was using an old brass bed similar to the one in the cabin; he’d scrounged it from his grandma. He went into the kitchen and made himself a ham sandwich, then sat down at the vintage red Formica kitchen table, which had also been his grandma’s. (Ashley had wanted that, too, but he’d managed to pry her greedy fingers off it.)

  His belated lunch tasted like ashes. You are such a jerk, he told himself, shoving away the plate. Get over there and admit it. Instead, he stalled for another couple of hours.

  Finally, his cell phone rang and he saw that it was his drain field expert. He answered with, “Are we good to go?”

  “Good as gold.”

  And he’d probably need a fortune in gold to pay the guy, Garrett thought as he ended the call. Jen had offered, but after the way he’d treated her, well, he knew who needed to foot the bill. Anyway, he was willing to bet she couldn’t really afford to pay for the repairs.

  Now he had no excuse to delay. He climbed back in his truck and drove to the cottage, all the while trying different word and sentence combinations like working the pieces of a puzzle, hoping to form the perfect apology. The pieces still hadn’t come together when he pulled the flowers from the truck and walked up to the front door of the cabin.

  He didn’t have to knock because the door opened.

  “I saw you coming,” she said.

  He held out the flowers. “I was a jerk.” Impressive, he thought in disgust. Hey, he was a firefighter, not a poet. Anyway, that about said it all.

  She took his offering and buried her face in the flowers, inhaling. “They’re lovely. Thank you.”

  “There�
��s chocolate in there, too,” he said, pointing to the little gold box.

  Speaking of chocolate, what was that he smelled? Cookies? His nose directed his gaze to the kitchen where he spied a plate of cookies covered in plastic wrap and tied with a red ribbon.

  “I love chocolate.” She stepped aside. “Come in.” He was about to say he had to get going when she added, “Please?”

  He nodded and walked in.

  “I have something for you, too,” she said, and hurried over to the kitchen counter. She picked up the plate of cookies and returned, holding it out to him. “This can’t make up for...for the accident, but I wanted you to know I was sorry.”

  He sighed. He’d been a shit and here she was, baking him cookies and apologizing. That never would have happened with Ashley. “You have nothing to be sorry about. I was way out of line.”

  She smiled and wrinkled her nose, making the freckles on it dance. “Yeah, you were. How about some milk to go with those cookies?”

  He should leave. But it would be rude to take her cookies and run, especially after their earlier confrontation. “Sure,” he said, and settled on her white couch.

  She beamed at him. Just the way Ashley used to when she’d talked him into doing something he hadn’t wanted to do.

  Except he realized he wanted to sit on Jen Heath’s couch and drink hot chocolate and eat those cookies she’d made him. Ashley had never made him cookies.

  She set two glasses of milk on the coffee table, as well as a second plate of cookies. “Those others are for you to take home,” she explained.

  “You didn’t have to do that.” Not that he was objecting to home-baked cookies, but he knew he didn’t deserve them.

  “I wanted to. Anyway, I like to bake.”

  Tilda’s idea of baking cookies was to pick up a bag of Oreos. Not that it mattered. He liked Oreos fine, and Tilda was perfect.

  Jen joined him on the couch and she picked up her glass and raised it. “Let’s toast.”