“He’s outside with the dogs somewhere. I’m sure he’ll be back in a minute. Frank woke up and stuffed his nose in my face looking anxious. You know that look?”
“All too well.”
“Sorry I didn’t get up. My toes are so happy in this afghan, I didn’t want to ruin the mood. But it’s your house, anyway. I’m sure Jack would want you to feel welcome to stop by any time.”
“I don’t want to disturb your privacy.” Joel looked around the room. “It looks nicer in here. After I moved out my stuff a few months ago, it was a little bare.”
“Why don’t you sit down?”
Joel glanced at the recliner and walked over to the ladder to the loft. He half sat, half leaned on the steps, and rubbed the side of one of his legs. “What are you knitting? It’s very, uh, pink.”
Becca held up the wool, which had the color and fluffy consistency of cotton candy. “It’s a baby blanket.”
“Really? Wow. Congratulations.”
Becca raised her eyebrows. “Um, no. It’s not for me. It’s for Jack’s goddaughter.”
“Oh, okay.” He pointed at the table that was now covered with piles of paper. “I had my desk there, too.”
“Yes. It’s great that there are so many phone jacks in here. I can connect to the Internet from almost any corner of this place.”
“I may have overdone it on the wiring. Have you thought about getting a file cabinet?”
“I know.” Becca shook her head. “It looks like something exploded over there. Now there’s not even any space left for the laptop. Not to mention no place to eat. Jack’s going to be relieved when I go back home and all my piles of papers are gone.”
Joel shrugged, but didn’t say anything. He rubbed at something on the side of the ladder.
Becca directed her knitting needles toward the windows. “I just hope it doesn’t snow again. I’ve got to get back home before this weekend.”
“I think it’s going to snow later today, but it will probably be fine by Friday.”
“But they said flurries.”
“They’re wrong.” Joel shifted his placement on the ladder, stretching out one of his long legs in front of him. “By the way, thanks for inviting us to the Christmas party your uncle is having, but I don’t think we can go. Kat is worried about the dogs and cats.”
Becca sat up straighter. “That’s what she told me. But you have to come! It’s not that far.” She extracted herself from her afghan cocoon and walked to the table. “You can find someone to take care of the critters.”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Becca handed him an envelope. “This will convince Kat. Oh and I keep forgetting. It would be great if you could take the Twinkies back. I know Jack isn’t going to eat them.”
Joel sighed. “There’s some here too?”
Becca got a grocery bag and went to the pantry cabinet. “Yes. You must really like them.”
“No, I don’t. A few people stayed here after I moved out.”
“Oh yeah, Cliff said that. One of them must have a serious sweet tooth.” Becca heaved a few snack cakes into the bag. “When did you buy this place?”
“Six or seven years ago after my sister moved here. The listing said The Shack itself had no value, but it had electricity and a well.”
“Speaking as an appraiser, electricity definitely has value. So does a well.”
“I know. Back then, The Shack was just a log shell that had been sitting here empty for about ten years.”
“What happened?”
“The people who built it ran out of money before they finished it. Interest rates were really high and no one was interested in buying a half-done cabin. It had been sitting on the market so long, the price dropped low enough that I could pay cash. I wanted a weekend project.”
“Well, from what I can tell, property around here was a lot less expensive then too. That was before everyone wanted a summer house here.” Becca paused in her pantry clean-out. “This was your weekend project? Do you mean you finished this place yourself?”
“Yes.” Joel pointed to a spot on the floor. “For years, the table saw sat right there. It was like camping out. I didn’t get to the electricity and plumbing until I moved up here full-time and could hire pros to help.”
“I can imagine.” Becca looked up. “So you built the loft and everything?”
“Yeah, when I look around, I still notice the things that are a little off.” He tapped the side of the ladder. “See, here’s a pencil mark that isn’t supposed to show, but you can see it because the step isn’t quite spaced right with the others.”
“I had no idea. Kat said you were an engineer.”
“That too.” He grinned. “But she likes the fact that I can fix things.”
Becca gestured toward the room. “So she knows you built this whole place?”
“Yes. She was annoyed that after all the times she’d been out here, she’d never even seen the loft. So she came with me when I was shutting it down for the winter and asked me about every, single, little thing I built.”
The door opened with a whoosh and Frank and Mona charged into the house, followed by Jack. Frank shook off some snow and settled onto his favorite rug. Mona went over to Becca to say hi.
Jack walked over to Joel and shook his hand. “I see you brought wood.”
“This is the last of it.”
“Even better, he’s taking the Twinkies away,” Becca said, holding up the grocery bag. “Joel was just telling me how he built this place.”
Joel said. “I just finished the inside.”
Jack gestured toward the kitchen area. “You made all the cabinets?”
“Yes. Nothing in this place is a normal size. Or particularly square, so I had to build pretty much everything. My neighbor Cliff was having a guy with a Wood-Mizer come out to get some wood turned into boards. So I had lumber cut from some logs here too. I had a huge stack of stickered lumber drying out back for ages.”
“I was wondering if the logs for the house were cut from the property,” Jack said.
“Probably. That’s what I was told.” Joel stood up and looked at Jack. “So are you ready to stack that wood?”
“Sure. Let’s go.”
The two men tromped outside, leaving Becca inside with Frank and Mona, who were both looking a little too interested in the grocery bag full of snack cakes. Grabbing the bag, she put on her coat and boots, went outside, and put the bag in the cab of Joel’s truck. She was not going to let him get away without taking those stupid Twinkies with him.
Chapter 13
Decisions
Friday morning, Becca began gathering her stuff together for her return to LA. It had been a wonderful vacation, but the queasy feeling in her stomach had returned now that she had to leave. It was going to be even more difficult not to cry this time. Trying to steel herself against the inevitable weepy factor, she picked up her bag of knitting and placed it on the table, which had been cleared of her piles of papers. The appraisal was done, and she knew Pat would be pleased with it. Jack had pointed out a couple of aspects related to the land, which had helped her do a better job of conveying what the place was like.
The door opened and Mona and Frank rushed into the room, rrr-ing, and shaking snow off themselves. Apparently they’d had quite a wrestling match out there. Jack closed the door behind him and took off his coat. “So have you got everything? We should probably hit the road.”
Becca sat down on the sofa and looked down at her hands in her lap. “Yes. I think so.” Do not cry. Do not.
He sat down next to her. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’ve been trying to stay in the moment and all that. I really have.” She shook her head. “But I can’t stop thinking about it. How is this ever going to work?”
“This what?”
“You. Me. Us. I know I love you, but when am I ever going to see you again? Weekends? Tha
t’s not going to work. It’s too far. And as we know, the weather doesn’t always cooperate.”
He took her hand. “Maybe you’ll get another appraisal job up here.”
“Maybe. My uncle claims there’s more work here, but I don’t know.”
“Plus, once you have your license, you can be an appraiser anywhere in the state where you have experience, right? You’ve done enough appraisals in Alpine Grove. Why not here?”
Becca looked into his eyes. “Don’t you think I’ve thought of that? You know I can’t live here.”
“Why not?”
She waved her arms. “For one thing, how much work could there be in this tiny town? Where would I find clients? How would I find clients? I have no clue. And apart from work, what else would I do? I’m not all outdoorsy like you are. There’s almost no shopping and only two restaurants, or something like that. There’s nothing to do. I’d go nuts!”
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to…I don’t know. Work. Have fun. Normal stuff.”
Jack wiped a tear off her cheek with his fingertip and leaned over to kiss her. “According to your uncle, you’re doing a lot more working than having fun.”
“Well, I could have fun. Go out. Do stuff.”
“True. Do you?”
“Not really.”
He gazed into her eyes. “Becca, only you can decide what’s important to you.”
“Oh sure. That’s easy for you to say. You have the trees and all that.”
“Maybe you weren’t paying attention, after all.”
Becca leaned away from Jack and reached down to stroke Mona’s head. “That’s not true. Of course I was paying attention!”
“I don’t think you get it.”
“Get what?”
“I decided to stay here because this is where I want my life to be. But by making that choice, I gave up the ability to see my friends and family in Colorado as often, so it wasn’t an easy decision to make.”
“Then why did you stay? Was it me?”
“Not exactly. But after we were trapped here in The Shack, I realized that I had to be happy on my own. It’s not the responsibility of my friends and family to make me happy. Or Annie. Or you. It’s mine. At some point while I was sitting at the table extracting pine nuts, I realized I was actually content. Okay, I was also hungry, but I was basically content. There’s something about Alpine Grove that feels like home, and I knew I didn’t need to go back to Colorado. I could be happy here if I just let myself. That sense of peace was what was most important to me.” He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, looking at the floor. “I’m probably not explaining this very well.”
“I guess I didn’t realize how close you were to moving away.”
He looked up at her. “I told you that’s why I didn’t buy furniture.”
“So what are you suggesting? I should just drop everything and move to Alpine Grove?”
“I can’t answer that for you. You have to decide what you want. Figuring out what you want to do with the rest of your life is something you need to do yourself.”
“But you said you love me.”
“I do. But contrary to what John Lennon might say, love is not all you need.” Jack leaned back on the sofa and slouched down. “I learned that the hard way.”
Becca put her hand on his arm and leaned over to kiss him. “I do love you though. This vacation has been wonderful, even though I was working on the appraisal. I don’t suppose you’d like to move to LA, would you?”
“Nope. But it has been great sharing a loft with you.” He put his hand on hers. “You were right. I like it up there. It’s nice not having Frank stomping all over my mattress too.”
“Sorry we have to spend tonight at my place. But the Christmas party tomorrow should be fun. Pat knows how to throw a great holiday bash.”
“It sounds like he’s excited about celebrating your new full-fledged appraiser status too. I think he’s really proud of you.”
“I’ll probably have a lot more work to do and be able to make more money.”
“I’m sure you’ll be great at it.”
“Maybe.” Becca leaned her head on his shoulder. “We haven’t answered my main question though. When you return here after the party, will I ever see you again?”
“I don’t know. But I’m not going anywhere, so you can visit whenever you like. I’ll be here.”
She lifted her head to look into his blue eyes. “I know.” And she also knew that they’d get busy with their lives and it was only a matter of time until he met someone else or just forgot about her entirely. Lowering her head to his shoulder, she closed her eyes and allowed another tear to slide down her cheek.
Joel stood in front of the large window staring out at the ocean view. Kat came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. She leaned her cheek on his back. “I can’t believe we’re here. It’s our first vacation together.”
He turned, enveloped her in his arms, and bent down to kiss her. “No kidding. You know I’m way too cheap to splurge on a place like this. I can’t believe Becca gave us a free night’s stay.”
Kat squeezed his waist. “She thinks you saved her life.”
“I think that was Jack.”
“You and The Shack helped.”
“I don’t know about that, but I’m glad to be here with you.”
“I wish I could take that comforter home with me. It’s like crawling onto a poufy pillow. I’d have enjoyed that when I was sick.”
He stroked her cheek. “Please don’t get sick again for a while, okay?”
“I’m not planning on it. I told Maria we’d meet her at four. She said that no one is at the fern bar then, so she can talk for a while before we go to the party.” Kat stepped back, took his hand, and swung it back and forth. “I want to walk on the beach first. It’s been so long since I’ve heard the ocean. Let’s go down to the pier and wander around for a while.”
“Okay. Do you know where this fern place is?”
“It’s not too far from where I used to live. But it can be a pain to get there, depending on traffic. You’ll get to scare some more LA drivers with the blade on the truck. It will be fun in a ‘my truck is older than your truck so I don’t have much to lose’ kind of way.”
Joel laughed. “No doubt.”
Later, they were walking hand-in-hand along the beach. Even though it was chilly for LA, Kat took off her shoes and carried them in her other hand. It was necessary to feel the sand in her toes, even if it was cold. She looked up at Joel. “It feels weird walking with you without having five or six dogs around.”
“I know.”
“I hope Cindy is coping with everything okay. Thanks for asking her to take care of the house. I really hope Johnny doesn’t burn it down.”
“Cindy walked the dogs before. I’m sure it will be fine.”
“It’s about time she did something to help you for a change.”
Joel shrugged. “I don’t know about that.”
Kat stopped and turned to look up into his face. “I do. I love our house and being with you, but we might want to go on a trip again sometime. It’s good to establish a precedent with her as our official house-sitter.”
He smiled. “That’s true. Where do you want to go?”
“I’m not sure. I haven’t done much traveling, but I’d love to go sit on a beach somewhere and drink mai tais. Hawaii would work. Or Fiji. Maybe a tiny island in the Caribbean? I wouldn’t mind going to Europe either. I don’t know. It’s just that certain important life events merit traveling. Celebrations. Vacations. Those are great excuses for trips to exotic, faraway places.”
“Sounds like fun.”
Kat leaned her head on his chest. “As long as I’m with you, I think it would be.”
Later, they walked through an archway of ferns into the Fern Oasis. Maria waved from behind the long bar. Pushing aside an especially large frond, she ran around the bar and stretched out her arms for a hu
g. “Hey, girlfriend!”
They embraced and Maria looked down at the bag Kat was carrying. “Did you bring groceries? You do know that more drinking than eating happens at this establishment, right? They aren’t too fond of it when customers take the potluck approach.”
Kat placed the bag on the bar. “These are for you. Think of them as a housewarming gift.”
Maria went back around the bar and peeked into the bag. “That’s outstanding! How many are in there?”
“Seventy-five,” Joel said. “We counted.”
“Actually, you bought them,” Kat said. “You’re like the Twinkie fairy, leaving cases of snack cakes wherever you go. But after Joel’s nephew stayed with us, we determined they needed to return to their rightful owner. Six-year olds and Twinkies do not mix.”
Maria took the bag and put it behind the bar. “Thanks. I went through my stash over Thanksgiving weekend. Sometimes you can’t stop at just one, you know.”
Kat said, “So it seems. How’s the job search going?”
“Not so good. I may be hanging out here with the ferns longer than I thought. I’m a little discouraged, if you want to know the truth. And they really don’t have many hours for me here.” She opened her arms toward the room. “And as you can see, we are not exactly jam-packed with clientele. In fact, this whole place could go under. Then I’ve really got a serious situation. On that note, would you like a drink?”
Kat pointed at Joel. “He’s the designated driver, but you can give me something. What about the swizzle thingie you told me about?”
“Queen’s Park Swizzle. But it’s got a lotta rum in it. You sure?”
Kat spread her arms expansively. “I’m on vacation. For two whole glorious days I have no responsibilities whatsoever! I need to live it up. Plus, as you know, social situations tend to stress me out. It might be better if I’m a little loosened up before we go to this party. I’ve never met Becca’s uncle or anyone else who is going to be there. It could be uncomfortable and awkward, and I hate that, since sometimes I say stupid things and people think I’m weird.”
Snow Furries (An Alpine Grove Romantic Comedy Book 4) Page 22