“Old or new?” Fletcher asked before he took another bite. He seemed perfectly happy to listen to her talk while he ate.
“Either. Both. It’s always a surprise what shows up.”
He swallowed and said, “Like Christmas.”
She shook her head. “Except I’m never surprised at Christmas. I always know exactly what’s coming.”
Hadley’s family was big on the joy of getting precisely what you wanted, to the extent that all her gifts were either things she put in a digital shopping cart or actually bought for herself and then got repaid for. It worked out just fine. Who needed surprises, anyway?
But she did love delivery day from the book warehouses or the estate sales.
The crack of a laden pallet, the squeak of plastic wrap. Slick covers sliding across each other as she lifted each book to inspect it. She had no misguided expectations that she’d unearth hundreds of money-makers in an inexpensive bundle of books, but the journey was so fun.
She didn’t know how to translate that to a thrill-seeker fireman, though. How could she explain the tingle of excitement at finding a hand-tipped illustration when he was used to smothering walls of flame? She knew they had nothing in common anymore, and if she tried to force a connection, she’d only end up hurt. Again.
Just as Fletcher threatened to reach the bottom of his vat of fries, Jace reappeared with two platters of gorgeous burgers. He placed them on the table with a flourish that Hadley imagined everyone received but not everyone appreciated.
“Enjoy,” he said, backing away from the table.
Hadley was glad she’d refrained from eating half of Fletcher’s fries, because her sandwich was enormous. She put the top bun on it and could barely hold it in two hands. Squishing the buns together, she managed to get a bite inside her mouth.
“Oh, that’s good,” she said, her mouth full of food. Fletcher managed to be neither shocked nor dismayed by her lack of manners. He grinned and pointed to the corner of his mouth, and she touched the edge of her own. Her finger came away with a blob of guacamole from her burger. She wiped her mouth with a napkin and wondered how closely he was watching her mouth to notice that.
As it happened, he didn’t touch her face again, but his eyes never left hers. She felt his gaze like a physical caress.
What was happening? Even though he’d made it clear that he thought she was silly and foolish to do business her way, he appeared to still find her attractive. And she couldn’t deny what his proximity was doing to her.
Was this real?
Also, when was the last time she’d had a meal as delicious as this burger?
When he checked his watch and told her they’d better be getting her back to the shop, she recalled that, oh, yeah, she owned a store and had a few responsibilities, and probably there was something else she was forgetting while all of the ‘business of running a business’ flew away from her mind.
Jace brought a check and Fletcher picked it up. Sliding a credit card into the black folder, he asked, “And would you mind wrapping a turkey with lettuce and tomato on wheat to go?”
Wow. Right. Faith. Fletcher remembered hearing Faith ask Hadley to bring her lunch.
If it weren’t for his condescending and patronizing attitude about all the things she worked hard for, she’d have found it difficult to remember why they’d ever broken up at all.
Chapter 7
“Why did you break up with her?” Nick asked Fletcher as they drove the practice course, a reconstruction of a high school driving range, but with higher stakes and larger parking stalls.
Over the past few weeks, Fletcher had tried to politely shut down any discussion about his history with Hadley. Nothing good could come from dissecting something so long dead. He hadn’t told Nick anything about his relationship with Hadley beyond that they used to date. But the guys talked, and Fletcher had to assume that Savanna talked to everyone but him. One afternoon when Hadley was dropping off more donations, Red had asked Fletcher what was happening between the two of them in front of Nick. He made it very clear that nothing was happening, but his denial led to a little good-natured ribbing about their history, so the secret of how serious he and Hadley had been, if it had ever been a secret, was out.
Why had he broken up with her?
Fletcher had been asking himself the same question for days now. When he walked her back to her shop the day before after staring at her over the best burger he’d had in weeks, he’d been grateful that it was time to meet his mom at the clinic; he had a built-in excuse to say goodbye. Otherwise, he worried, he might have overstayed his welcome, wandering through the crowded aisles, colorful stacks, and comfy décor of her store, looking for code violations and watching how she fit perfectly inside the controlled chaos of Second Glance.
Why had he broken up with her?
It wasn’t as simple as that.
Every year they’d been together had been an adventure. Hadley made life sparkle. Her sense of adventure was outmatched only by the utter joy she seemed to experience at every turn. His dad had understood.
“She’s fun, and you could use a little more fun in your life,” he had often said. Not that Fletcher had been a totally serious kid, but between worrying about his grades and hoping to earn a university scholarship, he was, he knew, driven. And his dad, seeing Hadley’s energetic, headfirst charge at every aspect of her life, had felt drawn to her. He made it clear Fletcher was lucky to have found her, and that he was lucky that she had thought he deserved her. His dad had been right.
But after two years at university, Hadley had changed.
She was still exciting and fiery and fun, but every conversation eventually turned to the capital-F Future. Not necessarily their future; mainly what seemed important was her future. Her success. Her achievement. Her return on investment. In the quest for a perfect ending, she seemed to lose sight of the beginning and the middle.
Fletcher realized that he’d been staring out the window of the truck. As Nick patiently waited for an answer to his question, Fletcher turned to him and shrugged. “She didn’t need me,” he said.
He knew two things for sure: those words sounded pathetic, and they were entirely true.
Having made a habit of studying personalities, Fletcher learned that some people grew sweeter as they aged. Some grew lazy. Some seemed to discover previously hidden depths and unsuspected talents. Hadley had grown independent. With a vengeance.
Through the intervening years, Fletcher tried to pinpoint when Hadley’s transformation from carefree girlfriend to tunnel-visioned entrepreneur had begun. That wasn’t fair, he told himself. But it really kind of was. There must have been a moment, a place in time he should have been able to pinpoint, but he hadn’t seen it. Her newfound fierce independence had blindsided him and left him untethered and unmoored.
Unnecessary. Unneeded.
Her every action, word, and behavior seemed to suggest that, while she still liked him, she could manage her life without his input or assistance, thank you very much.
Surprised at the emotional devastation such a change had caused in him, Fletcher had tried to fix it.
Big mistake. Huge.
Instead of seeing his efforts as saving their relationship, Hadley accused him of trying to control her. To manipulate her.
Fletcher, confused and hurt, had changed tactics and stepped back. And in the worst kind of irony, Hadley never missed him. Up until the moment he went to her apartment and told her they were over, he thought she was just having a moment, that she’d see he was serious and run into his arms.
Instead, he’d seen how serious she was about her plan—a plan that didn’t include him. She got serious about studying business—serious enough to transfer to a different university. Serious about leaving her life with Fletcher, and all that was included in it, behind her.
Remembering all of this while driving the fire truck around the practice course, Fletcher was grateful that Nick was not a huge talker. His acceptance of Fletche
r’s short answers was a relief.
Fletcher’s mom didn’t let him off so easily. When they sat down to dinner together in her kitchen that night, she steepled her fingers under her chin, her sign that she was pretending to be casual when, in fact, she was dead set on getting answers.
“Pauline told me you were on a date with Hadley while I was having my treatment,” she said. His mom wasn’t any better at being subtle now than she’d been when he was in high school.
Fletcher tried a deflection play. “Who is Pauline?”
Rose rolled her eyes. “My hair lady.”
Picking up a knife to butter his bread, Fletcher asked, “If I raise my right hand and swear that I didn’t take Hadley, last week or ever, to your hairdresser for a date, can we drop this and change the subject?”
Shaking her head, Rose laughed at him. “She saw you from her front window.”
He put his knife down and leaned across the table. In a quiet voice, he said, “Mom, do you have any idea how weird it sounds that your friends are spying out their windows so they can gossip with you about what your adult son is up to when he’s in town?”
“Well, when you say it like that…” Rose laughed again. He felt a physical load leave his shoulders at the sound of her laugh. Rose’s health had Fletcher more worried than he would admit to her. Laughter and a little harmless gossip brought the seriousness of her illness to a manageable level.
“So, is she wrong?” Rose fiddled with a pork chop, cutting it into smaller and smaller pieces. Fletcher noticed how long it was between bites and worried about her appetite. Along with all the other worries.
Rose could wait him out. She’d always had that over him. He wasn’t getting out of this unless he got up from the table and left the room. And he wasn’t new here; he understood that chances were good Rose would follow him.
“Is who wrong?” Fletcher asked, knowing the answer perfectly, but stalling for a few seconds to decide how much of the story he was willing to say out loud.
He could tell she was trying not to sigh at him. Her eyebrows telegraphed her waning patience with this game. “Pauline. Is Pauline mistaken, or did you take Hadley out for lunch at Griddles?”
Leaning back in his chair, Fletcher decided to give it to her straight. “Pauline is not mistaken. I found myself in Hadley’s shop and she looked hungry. You have successfully raised a man who will not ignore a person in need of a meal. You should be very proud.” He grinned at her. She maintained a straight face and solid eye contact. He was fooling exactly no one. Sitting up straight again, he said, “Did you know Hadley has a bookstore?”
As soon as he asked it, he knew it was a silly question. As much as Rose had always adored Hadley, it was unlikely that Hadley could buy paint at the hardware store without Rose knowing about it. Especially when she likely had, at her disposal, an entire team of Paulines.
As though her response was of no consequence at all, Rose said, “Where do you think I got all the books I sent you?” She slipped a few peas on her fork and then into her mouth.
Fletcher could feel his brain ticking around this question, as though many different thoughts were leading to one common conclusion. For some reason, it was very important to him that this conclusion be reached clearly.
“Mom,” he said, sliding his plate away from him so he could put his elbows on the table. “Tell me something.”
“Anything,” she offered, making the word sound careless.
“How often did you see Hadley when I was in Montana?”
She tilted her head as if she was counting. “Tough to say,” was her only reply.
“I think you could probably put a number on it if you tried,” he said, and now it was his turn to maintain eye contact.
Rose looked out the window, and Fletcher knocked on the table to regain her attention. “Mother. Focus. How often?”
Folding her arms across her chest, she leaned back in her seat, asserting some kind of casual dominance that made Fletcher proud of her even as he realized that if this turned into a contest, he would surely lose.
“I shop in her store at least once a week. It’s the best place in town to buy gifts. She has a little of everything. Did you see the jewelry displays?”
“No changing the subject. Mom. Seriously? You saw Hadley every week?” Visions of the conversations they must have had, the multitude of ways he’d been discussed, filled Fletcher’s brain. He felt dizzy.
“Well, of course. She comes to the house for lunch every now and then.” Rose looked at him with a didn’t-you-know-that expression. “Or at least she did, until she got really busy. Then your return made things feel a little awkward between us girls.” She reached across the table and patted him on the hand like a grandmother would. “But don’t worry. I’m really very glad you’re here, you know.”
“Oh, thanks,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m glad my return and its cramp in your social calendar hasn’t put you out too much.”
Laughing, Rose squeezed his hand. “See? These are the chats I’ve missed. No one else even pretends to wonder if I have a social calendar. It’s like Dad’s here again.”
An unexpected lump rose in Fletcher’s throat. He knew his mom missed his dad all the time, but she missed him in such a joyful way—no tears lately, only happy memories that she worked into everyday conversations, resulting in the feeling that he had merely stepped out of the room and would surely return any minute.
It wasn’t the way Fletcher missed his dad at all. For him there was a gaping hole, a raw wound that would not heal. The injustice of his illness and death were a constant buzzing at the back of Fletcher’s head, continually reminding him that no matter how carefully he protected himself and his team, something could always attack from the sidelines. Cancer. Flashover. Heart disease. Backdraft. The whole world was dangerous, and every day, Fletcher carried on his shoulders the weight of protecting those he loved.
Thinking of his dad, his hero, first in line to save a life, a home, a memory, but unable to fight off his sickness, Fletcher understood once again that the job of firefighter was the right fit for him, for both of them. Discovering and attacking an enemy gave meaning and purpose to the kind of physical destruction that so often felt pointless.
And it wasn’t simply the beating back of the flames. Every part of the firefighter image appealed to him just as it had to his dad. Sacrifice was in Fletcher’s blood. He and his dad were men of such similar mettle that even their word choice was the same, resulting in Rose grinning delightedly at Fletcher for saying something that his dad might have said.
Fletcher shook himself to release the melancholy that tended to settle over him when he allowed himself to wallow in the sadness he could never express to his mom. She had done such a beautiful, thorough job of mourning the loss of her husband and then healing, that Fletcher’s own continued sadness came with a guilt he was unable to escape. Why could he not get over the loss of his dad the way she did?
Put it away, he told himself. You didn’t come home to bring grief back into her life.
As though she could see his thoughts, Rose slid plates across the table to Fletcher. “Clear up for me, would you? I have a bet to settle with Pauline.” She winked at him and pushed out her chair.
Picking up their plates, he asked, “You made a bet? That we weren’t having lunch?”
Rose laughed as she left the room to make a phone call. “Not at all. The bet was that you’d try to change the subject at least four times. I won, by the way,” Rose said, grinning over her shoulder. “Pauline thought you’d crack sooner.”
“I’m concerned that a woman I’ve never met thinks she knows what I’ll do,” Fletcher called halfheartedly. He knew she wasn’t listening. He mumbled aloud as he rinsed the plates. “It’s bad enough that the women I do know think they have me pegged.” He raised his voice again, speaking to the empty room. “I’m a complex guy, Mom. I have fathomless depths.”
From the other room, he heard his mom’s snort. “Did yo
u just say, ‘fathomless depths’?” He could hear her reporting on the results of the bet to Pauline, which made him eager to finish the dishes and get out of there.
Women.
Chapter 8
Hadley clipped the leash to Edison’s collar. “Come on, you big teddy bear,” she said, pulling him out the door. Edison was a mutt of gargantuan proportions: part Bernese, part Saint Bernard, but mostly undefinable and accidental blends of breeds. He was well trained in sleeping in a spot of sunlight on her apartment floor and sniffing strangers to uncomfortable degrees, and she was crazy about him.
The irony of a woman of Hadley’s petite size walking a dog that could be mistaken for livestock was not lost on her. Many evenings, she heard innocently flirty comments about “who is taking who for a walk?” and wished she dared tell the sweet old men it was “who is taking whom.” Instead, she let Edison yank her arms out of their sockets as he nosed his way into every neighborhood trash can and around the base of every tree.
Tonight, Hadley turned west on Juniper Street and walked toward the new city park. “New” was what this park had been called for several decades before Hadley was born, and it always amused her to look at the splintering wooden play structures that no reasonably new park would stand for.
Slipping Edison’s leash over the handle of the warped and wobbly teeter-totter, she sat down and pushed herself up off the ground and let herself gently back down.
She looked around, saw no one was nearby, and told Edison what good exercise this was. “See, my quads are burning after only a few reps. This is way better than doing squats in the gym. Besides,” she said, looking adoringly into his grinning face, “this way I can hang out with you. Nobody would ever let you into a gym.” She leaned closer and scratched him under his chin. “Or a bookstore, am I right?” She winked at him, and he slobbered on her arm.
Edison, she was certain, was as sweet as a dog could be, but he wasn’t going to win any prizes for his grace and decorum. Or his intelligence. He was a good boy, sure enough, but he was not subtle. His visits to the bookshop generally ended in his being tied to a doorknob in the back while Hadley put pieces of whatever he’d broken in a box, either for repair (if she was lucky) or for the garbage man (far more often).
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