Shelter Me: A Frazier Falls Novel

by Collins, Kelly

  When I turned back to Emily, she’d already pulled her computer and a notebook from her bag.

  “What is it you actually do?” I asked, suddenly curious.

  She raised her head and looked over the screen. “I’m an urban planner in Los Angeles.”

  My eyes opened wide. I hadn’t considered she’d be somehow connected with building and growth. Once again, we had another thing in common. “How in the world did you get into that line of work?”

  “I studied geography and sociology at Berkeley.”

  “Fancy.”

  “I tried my hand at becoming a meteorologist.” She winced as if the thought was painful. “But that didn’t work out.”

  I sat up straight, more intrigued than ever. “Meteorologist? As in—”

  “A weather girl, yes. Laugh all you want.”

  “Do you see me laughing?” I kept my face deadpan and neutral, but then I ruined it by letting out a burst of laughter despite myself.

  Emily giggled in response, which was possibly the most adorable sound I’d ever heard.

  “I know, it doesn’t seem like the right kind of job for me, given my temperament. However, I love my current job, so I guess it’s all good.”

  I glanced down at Emily’s notebook and all the scribbles that didn’t make sense. I couldn’t make heads nor tails of it.

  “What are you working on now?”

  Alice dropped off our order.

  “Thanks,” I said as Emily’s eyes lit up when she saw the pie.

  She grabbed a forkful right away.

  “Excellent choice of baked goods,” she murmured in delight around a massive bite of apple pie.

  “You have … you’ve got filling on your face,” I said, reaching over to swipe it off with my thumb. Her tongue darted out at the same time. Feeling it against my skin sent a shiver of desire racing through me.

  She blushed slightly when I brought the dab of filling to my mouth and licked it clean. “Maybe you should wait, and you can lick my face when I’m done,” she teased.

  “I’m game.” Seeing as my pants were growing uncomfortably tight, I turned the conversation away from her tongue and licking to her work. “What is it you’re working on?”

  “A park, actually,” she said, turning her tablet around so I could see the screen. “I’m not the one architecturally designing the park, but I’m working out the logistics of where it goes and what we want in it.”

  “Owen’s designed a couple parks before.”

  Emily perked up at that. “Your older brother?”

  I nodded. “He’s an architect by trade.”

  “Wow, and you all run a construction company together?”

  “Yes, but Owen designs all the new builds that we do when the client hasn’t attached an architect to their project already. He has his Green House Project, which he’s been rolling out across the United States for the past half a year. It’s beginning to gain traction in Europe now, too.”

  “Wait a second,” Emily interrupted, holding a hand up to emphasize her request. “Are you telling me that your brother Owen is the one behind the Green House Project? The one responsible for all those eco-friendly, sustainable apartments currently being built in Sacramento?”

  “That would be the one. You’ve heard about it?”

  “Have I heard about it?” Emily parroted back incredulously. “Our department has been trying to get the funds together to offer a joint project to Owen for a couple of months now. I never thought we’d get the money, so it’s been on the back burner.”

  There was a certain kind of irony that somehow, someway, Emily and I were destined to meet. “It’s a small world. Almost seems like fate that you’ve been stuck here. A shame Owen and Rich are still trapped in New York. But you know what?” I forked a bite of cherry pie and chewed, giving her time to respond.

  Emily perked up. “What?” she said with renewed excitement.

  “You could talk to Carla about it. She’s Owen’s fiancée, and the reason the project got any investors in the first place. Given the snow, she’s likely to have some time.”

  Emily glanced out of the window. “If it stays settled like this for another day or so, then I’ll have to head back.”

  “Then I guess we’ll have to hope for more snow.”

  Her expression was mutinous. “Don’t even joke about it. I’m on thin ice as it is with this extended leave of absence. My job is on the line if I don’t get back soon.”

  I felt a twinge of disappointment at the thought. Though I knew that Emily wasn’t going to stay in Frazier Falls, something inside me had hoped for the possibility.

  She lifted her cup and breathed in the aroma before she took a sip and sighed. “If I have to head back before getting the opportunity to meet Carla, I don’t suppose you could help me set up a phone or video conference with her, could you? You know, to brainstorm ideas.”

  “That’s not a problem.” I was happy to help Emily in any way I could. It seemed like I’d been trying to help her out since that first day when I told her to ask Pax to get the potatoes. While we hadn’t gotten off to a good start, things were turning out better than I’d expected.

  The two of us worked in companionable silence for an hour or so. After that, we were content to slowly chip away at our coffees and our work. Though I didn’t strictly have any work to do, it felt satisfying to make some decent headway with all the tax forms due to be completed for the year.

  It occurred to me that if Emily ended up working with the Green House Project, she’d inevitably come back to Frazier Falls more frequently than the few visits a year she’d normally take to see her mother. It meant the two of us could possibly explore more.

  No doubt, I was getting ahead of myself. I barely knew the woman. How could I realistically think about having more? A future where she lived in Los Angeles, and I lived in Frazier Falls was not a great option, but it was better than nothing.

  I looked up from my paperwork to watch her. The sun shone through the window onto her red hair. It looked like dancing flames with touches of red and orange and gold.

  She hummed under her breath as she worked happily writing away in her own world—a world I wanted to be a part of.

  Emily working by my side, doing her own thing while I did mine, felt right. If I had been sitting here in Alice’s working by myself, I would have felt completely alone.

  Her presence changed my entire perspective. Had I been content to live by myself? To have no significant other to share things with? Nobody to walk through the forest with? Nobody to cook with? No one to kiss or fall asleep with? My life until now suddenly seemed unremarkable and sad. Worse yet, was that my time with Emily had an expiration date.

  I chuckled at the irony of it all, which garnered a curiously raised brow from her.

  Trust me to find something that I wanted just as it was about to go away. For now, I had to take each minute, and hour, and day, as it came. I refused to let the time I had with her get spoiled with pointless negative thinking.

  “Would you like another coffee?” I asked about an hour into our work session. “Or lunch?” I asked when the clock in Alice’s hit two in the afternoon.

  A sudden luminous smile lit up her face. “Absolutely.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Emily

  When my phone vibrated noisily against the grain of my mom’s old wooden desk, I almost ignored it … almost. Then I saw it was from my boss. I accepted the call, feeling guilty about my intent to disregard it in the first place.

  “Don, hi!” I said too quickly. “Sorry, I nearly missed this. I was too engrossed in the park project to notice my phone.” Could he hear the lie in my voice?

  “That’s always a good sign, though not as good a sign as you actually being back in the office, Emily.”

  I analyzed his tone for irritation. “You know I’d be back there in a flash if it were possible.”

  “I don’t doubt how desperate you are to get back, though I know how worrie
d you are about your mom’s health. It can’t be an easy situation. Add in the weather, and I’m sure it’s pure misery.”

  The universe had blessed me with a compassionate, understanding boss. Don Cleaver was the kind of supervisor a person could only dream of having—polite, driven, organized, and a good listener.

  Upon discovering my mom was unwell and knowing that Colorado was facing its coldest winter in thirty years, he had all but marched me to the airport and put me on a flight to Frazier Falls. Don was a saint. His boss, Pete Rosen, was not.

  Ma always said that shite rolled downhill, but somehow Don always managed to make it stop at him, which created an ideal work environment for me. However, my three weeks paid vacation had expired nine days ago, and I wasn’t sure how ideal this situation could remain.

  “Don, the weather is awful, and I hate it here,” I complained, which was mostly true. I didn’t want to think about Eli, because then I’d have to admit that there was something, or rather someone besides my mother, worth hanging around for. “It gets better for a day or so, taunting me with the possibility of leaving; then the storms move in again. A couple of folks from here managed to fly to Europe a week ago, but they’ve been stuck in New York trying to return to Colorado ever since.” A woeful sigh escaped. “Though being stuck in New York sounds much better than being stuck in Colorado. I don’t even know how they managed to make it to the airport, in all honesty. The roads are piled high with snow. White walls line the highway for miles.”

  Don laughed. “Some people are simply luckier than others, or unlucky, as the case may be. But there’s no point in constantly waiting day by day on the off chance you might be able to leave. I don’t want you to risk life or limb to catch a flight.”

  My heart beat wildly in my chest. “What are you saying?” My heart pumped hard.

  “I’m saying that I’m giving you two more weeks to get back. Unpaid, though. I can’t justify the time as it is, but I know you need it.”

  “Is Peter threatening to fire me?” The thought of not having a job terrified me. If I thought things were bad now, a lack of income would only be a straight dive into hell.

  “If you can get back before that time, that would be great, but I’ve got your back until then.”

  While the offer was great, something about it didn’t feel right. “Do you want me to keep working on the park project?”

  “No, I can’t ask you to work when you’re on unpaid leave, so I’d suggest not working. However, if the choice is between doing work and being bored to death, then be my guest and toil away.”

  Don was his chipper self, but I had to know if he was masking something more serious. “Does Pete know you’re doing this?”

  The silence said it all. “He’s putting on the pressure to let you go. I offered up the two weeks you have left and told him it was part of The Family and Medical Leave Act to appease him.”

  My heart shook and rattled. “What happens if I still can’t get back in two weeks?”

  He sighed. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. In all honesty, we can barely afford to have you away as long as you’ve been, but it’s not as if we can control the weather. I’ll do my best to keep your job safe.”

  “Thank you,” I replied, genuinely grateful. I checked the time. “Okay, I better get going, or else my mom will complain that lunch is late.”

  “I’m sure she won’t complain too much. She’s got you there to look after her.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” I joked. “She’s getting spoiled and is too used to having me around to bark orders at. She’s living the life of luxury, I tell you.”

  “Get back to your daughterly duties. Fingers crossed, we get you back before the twentieth.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t believe we’re into February already. Where has the time gone?”

  “To Frazier Falls, clearly.”

  We said our goodbyes, and I hung up the phone feeling conflicted.

  I was happy to have a boss who was concerned for my well-being. He wasn’t shouting or screaming for me to get back to California this instant, but the underlying threat was there. His boss was aware of my absence, and that didn’t bode well for me long-term.

  I dialed Sadie.

  “Hey,” she whispered. “Everything okay?”

  “Why are you whispering?”

  I could hear the squeaky wheels of her chair, and pictured her sliding close to her desk, hunkering down inside her cubicle. “Pete is here, and he’s not happy. Apparently, none of us work hard enough, and heads are going to roll.”

  I touch the back of my neck, feeling the guillotine already. “Oh, hell.” I was on my way to living in a box on the corner of Wiltshire and Vine. “I’ll be the first to go. Easier to can someone if they’re not there to cry and plead.”

  “No way, he’s been giving Don the stink eye. Apparently, he’s moving too slowly on the park project.”

  My gut ached. “What about you, are you going to be okay? I mean … don’t take this the wrong way, but you spend most of your day watching Netflix and texting your latest boy toy.” Sadie was the woman’s equivalent to a man whore, which made her a whore, but that didn’t sound flattering.

  “I’m fine. I may be lazy, but I’m a total kiss ass, and he likes the weekly lattes I show up with.” She giggled. “I’m telling you, a double shot with hot milk and a Splenda goes a long way.”

  “You’re so bad.”

  The squeak of the wheels sounded again. “Shit, he’s on his way back, I’ve got to go.”

  Before she hung up, I heard her sugary-sweet voice say, “Mr. Rosen, can I get you a latte?”

  With Don negotiating two additional weeks, I should have been fine, but I didn’t feel fine. I felt trapped. If I had to be trapped in Frazier Falls, there was at least a silver lining. I got to see my mom for longer, and it gave me more time to spend with Eli.

  I burst out laughing though nobody was here to hear the sound. “A silver lining?” Last week I was in hell. Eli wasn’t a silver lining, that man was trouble dressed in fitted jeans and a parka. “The sooner I leave, the better.”

  Don’t think about Eli.

  Don’t think about Eli.

  It was fine chanting inside my head to stop thinking about him. It was another thing entirely to stop obsessing over him.

  He was smart.

  He was handsome.

  He was bitingly funny.

  He was as jaded as me.

  And yet he cared about people, and looked out for them, and drove through snowstorms to ensure my mother wouldn’t freeze to death.

  He was a good cook and happy to sit in silence and work away at his own thing. When he thought I wasn’t looking, and sometimes when I clearly was, he stared at me like I was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen.

  Merely thinking about the way he looked at me caused my face to heat up.

  Being around him made me feel young. The way I did when I was a teen, longing to grab the guy I liked and drag him behind the bleachers to make out. Damn, I was even picking up his stupid similes. So much for me ribbing him for wanting to use Irish slang. I was becoming Eli Cooper with red hair and boobs.

  “Emily, I think whatever you were cooking in the kitchen is probably ready,” my mom called from downstairs.

  I knew when the casserole I had cooking in the oven would be ready because I’d set a timer on my phone for it. There was still ten minutes left.

  “Talk about impatient,” I mumbled under my breath.

  Resolving to record my mom being pushy about mealtimes at least once over the next two weeks as evidence for Don, I wandered down the stairs, past my mom in the living room, and through to the kitchen. To my surprise, she followed me, dragging her oxygen tank behind, the wheeze and hiss was an ever-present reminder that she wasn’t a hundred percent.

  “You seem to be in a good mood, sweetheart,” she said as I opened the oven door to check on the casserole.

  “Yep, this definitely
needs another ten minutes,” I said, mostly to myself, before glancing at my mom. “What did you say?”

  “That your spirits seem high. Did something happen?”

  “Um, my boss called.”

  “A normal person wouldn’t associate that with being a good thing. Is he being supportive about being stuck here so long?”

  “He was understanding.” I tamped down the need to vent. Unloading my stress on my mom wasn’t good for her. Hell, it wasn’t good for me. “But, his boss is pressing for my return.” She shrugged as if it wasn’t a big deal. “No worries, Don’s got my back.” God, I hope he does.

  “I’m glad you have a good boss,” my mom said as she sat at the breakfast bar, content to watch me collect bowls and silverware and glasses for lunch. “Did he say anything about when you have to go back?”

  “He’s actually given me another two weeks.”

  My mom brightened up immediately. “That’s great.”

  “It’s unpaid, though, and he can’t guarantee my job after that,” I explained, “so I can’t stay for two weeks if I can get back before then.”

  “That’s … okay. I understand.” The excitement that had bounced off her moments ago suddenly went flat. “You can’t afford to lose your job.” She hung her head. “I’m embarrassed to say that I can’t afford for you to lose your job, either.”

  Ma got her citizenship years ago and paid into the social security system, but it didn’t give much back. There was no way she could live off less than a grand a month. Thankfully the house was paid off, or she’d be in a pickle, then again maybe it wasn’t such a good thing. If mom couldn’t afford to live in Frazier Falls, she’d be forced to move back to Los Angeles.

  It did no good to dwell on what-ifs.

  “You’re right, I can’t afford to forfeit a paycheck for weeks on end, and I can’t lose my job. I have rent to pay and my student loans and—”

  Ma raised her hand. “It’s okay, honey, you don’t have to explain yourself.” A smile graced her lips, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She never wanted to be a burden. “I always knew your life was going to be far bigger than mine. Why do you think I moved us to a city? A small town wouldn’t provide you with enough opportunity.”