Close to Home

by Raney, Deborah;

  She showered quickly, brushed her teeth, and pulled her hair into a loose ponytail. She pulled on black pants and a shirt that wasn’t too sloppy for work, but would be comfortable enough to cook in, in case she didn’t have time to change before she had to leave for work.

  She padded barefoot down the stairs, seeing lights under several doors on the second floor. When she got downstairs, she found ten of the fifteen Farrigans—mostly those over twenty—already up and having coffee in the great room. Thank goodness, she’d remembered to set the coffeemaker’s auto-start.

  “Good morning! You guys are up early.”

  “Yes.” The elder Mr. Farrigan rose halfway out of his chair before sitting again. “We’re hoping to get an early start.”

  “Oh! You should have said something. I could have had breakfast ready earlier if I’d known.”

  “Oh, no. That’s fine. We’ll eat at the usual seven o’clock, but we hope to have the cars loaded and be ready to eat and run.”

  “Okay. Well, I’m going to start the eggs and waffles now, so it won’t be long. There are some muffins and scones ready now if you want something to go with your coffee.” She went to the kitchen for the trays of pastries she and Drew had baked last night.

  She turned to carry them and almost ran into Drew.

  “Wow.” He angled his head at the Farrigan crew and looked up at the clock. “Did I oversleep?”

  “No,” she whispered. “They want to get an early start. They said breakfast at 7 is fine, but I’m going to try to get breakfast going as quick as I can.”

  “What do you need me to do?”

  “If you’ll scramble eggs, I’ll get the waffles going. Oh, and how are you at slicing ham? That might be quicker than trying to fry bacon.”

  “I’m on it. Good morning, by the way.” His smile held no message she could discern, but she’d learned he wasn’t exactly a morning person.

  “Good morning to you. Do you want coffee?”

  “No, I’m good. For a little while anyway.” He opened the refrigerator and brought out two cartons of eggs.

  They had their kitchen dance down pretty well and worked in silence for the next twenty minutes getting the rest of the meal put together.

  Drew was pleasant enough, making conversation with a couple of the guests while they ate, but he seemed intent on not meeting her gaze for more than a millisecond. Was he regretting what happened last night? Maybe he meant something completely different than she’d read into his “to be continued.”

  If only she could stay until the guests left so they could talk. But she’d missed too much work recently. And besides, Grant and Audrey would probably be back shortly after the guests checked out anyway.

  She got the kitchen mostly cleaned up before she had to leave, and while Drew helped the guests carry down their luggage, she started stripping beds in the vacated rooms and got the laundry going.

  There were still two carloads of Farrigans milling about, trying to get packed, when she simply had to leave. She caught Drew between trips hauling suitcases. “Hey, I hate to leave you with the rest of this, but if I don’t go now, I’ll be late for work.”

  “No problem. You go. I’ve got this.” He gave her a grin that was only slightly warmer than any she’d gotten out of him yet this morning. But he’d had his coffee now, so she couldn’t write this off as him just being a morning grump.

  “I just have to run up and get my shoes on and grab my stuff.”

  He merely nodded.

  But when she came back down with her overnighter and her purse slung over her shoulder, he took the bag from her. “I’ll walk you out.”

  She didn’t know whether to be relieved or terrified. He was either going to kiss her good-bye or tell her he’d made a huge mistake and never wanted to see her again.

  He waited in silence while she found her keys and unlocked the car.

  As soon as the locks clicked, he opened the back car door and deposited her overnight bag. He slammed the door shut and turned to finally look her in the eye. “Well, we did it. I think it went pretty well too.”

  “It did, didn’t it?”

  He smiled and touched her arm. “You’d better go. I don’t want to make you late.”

  She nodded and opened the driver’s side door. She started to get in, but she couldn’t bear to leave things like this between them. “Hey, will I see you tonight?” She tried to sound casual, not wanting to be the clingy woman. Yet wanting to cling to him like crazy.

  “Tonight?”

  She gestured back toward the inn. “Tuesday family night. Here. I figure you have a standing invitation by now.”

  “Oh. Well . . .” He kicked at a stone on the driveway. “Grant didn’t say anything about working on the cottage, but I kind of doubt we will since they’ll be getting CeeCee—Mrs. Whitman—settled at the rehab and everything.” He took a step back. “I’ll call you, okay?”

  “Oh, sure. That’s what they all say.” Her attempt at humor fell flat.

  “I really will call.”

  She wanted to reach up and kiss his cheek. Leave him with a little reminder. But she didn’t like how serious he was. “Well . . .” She gave a little wave. “I’d better go.”

  He took another step backward and lifted a hand. “Drive safe. I’ll call you.”

  * * *

  Drive safe. Well that was something, though Bree couldn’t guess what.

  She felt like crying. It was her own fault for entertaining stupid fantasies about her and Drew having at least another hour together alone before the guests started showing up for breakfast. She wanted to slap every one of those stupid Farrigans upside the head. Why couldn’t they sleep in like normal people on vacation?

  If she was honest with herself, she’d hoped she and Drew might steal another kiss. Just for . . . insurance. But at the very least, she wished he would have said something—anything—to acknowledge he even remembered last night. And meant what he’d said when he told her “to be continued.”

  “To be continued when?” She spoke the words aloud into the white noise created by her car’s tires on the pavement. She sighed. Nobody ever warned you that dating at twenty-eight was as fraught with angst as dating at eighteen. Or fourteen, for that matter. Sheesh.

  Traffic picked up as she neared Cape and she tried to push her worries aside while she navigated the streets to the office. She didn’t even care if things were awkward with Aaron today. She just wanted to do her job and get back home.

  Sallie was talking to Wendy at the reception desk and greeted her with a cheery “Good morning!”

  She wondered if she needed to inform her boss that she and Aaron had broken up? Maybe later. Not today. Or maybe she’d make Aaron do it since he was the one who started their whole stupid thing.

  She took a deep breath. She’d better get this snarky attitude in check before she talked to her first client.

  She went back to her cubicle, wishing she’d remembered to stop and get a coffee. She should have brought some from the inn. She hoped Drew remembered to unplug the coffeemaker. Oh, but Grant and Audrey would likely get home before he left. They could take care of it.

  Okay, Whitman. You’re at work now. Focus.

  Aaron arrived about five minutes after she did and stopped by her cubicle. “You have a good weekend?”

  “I did. Thanks. You?”

  “Yeah. Real good. But you know what they say: Tuesday is the new Monday.”

  She laughed. “Well it is this week, anyway.”

  He waved and went on back to his cubicle. It was good they could laugh together again.

  She started answering the avalanche of e-mail that had come in over the holiday weekend. Didn’t people get the memo there’d been a national holiday?

  She heard Aaron talking on the phone behind her, and a couple minutes later he poked his head in her space again. “I’ve got to run out for a short client meeting. Driving through Starbucks on the way back. You want anything?”

  Sh
e opened her mouth to say yes, then thought better of it. Best to cut all ties. She didn’t want to risk encouraging the guy. “Thanks, but I’m good.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Okay.” He grinned. “Just so you know, I’m thinking about asking Wendy out.”

  “Wendy in reception?” She shrugged. “Are you . . . asking my permission?”

  “No, no. Just . . . being forthright. And giving you one last chance at my charms.” He wiggled his eyebrows comically.

  “I’ll pass. But thanks, man.” She laughed, pretty sure he was just joking around, trying to find his way back to the snappy repartee they’d enjoyed before they messed it up trying to make a good friendship something more.

  “I just hope her mommy will let her go out with you.” She called after him, in the spirit of the game.

  He did an about face and came to lean one arm on the doorway to her cubicle. “I don’t get it.”

  “Wendy’s kind of young for you, don’t you think?”

  “Whoa, wait a minute. Who is talking? And I wasn’t too young for you?”

  “Well, apparently you were.” She laughed again. “But apples to oranges, my friend. Two years and, what, ten?”

  “So you think Wendy is sixteen?”

  “Oh. That’s right. I forgot what a youngster you are.”

  “She’ll be twenty next month. Just FYI. I asked.”

  “And you believed her.”

  “Well, I did make her show me some ID.”

  Bree shook her head, enjoying the exchange. “I don’t know, Aaron. Still a pretty big gap. Nine years?”

  He howled—like the Aaron she’d first become friends with—and reached over her desk for her calculator. “Do the math, sweetheart.” He made a show of punching the buttons, enunciating his words. “Twenty-six minus twenty equals . . . ?”

  He handed her the calculator, which displayed the number 6.

  She turned it upside down and handed it back to him. “Like I said, 9.”

  He shook his head, then strode down the hallway, still laughing.

  She smiled to herself. The morning had already accomplished one thing: Seeing Aaron again—after spending three solid days with Drew—only confirmed that she’d been right to break up with the one and take up with the other. You ought to be a poet, Whitman. And there’s been no “taking up” yet. Just slow down.

  Her phone chimed with an incoming text. She slid the arrow to see Corinne’s photo beside a group message to all the Whitmans. CeeCee all moved in, but no Tues Fam Nite tonight. Mom & Dad wiped out. Back on next week.

  She turned her phone over beside her keyboard and sighed. There went seeing Drew tonight. Unless he called her.

  He was probably sick of her. What was it they said about guests? Like fish, they stink after three days?

  She was tempted to call him—under the guise of making sure he’d gotten the message about tonight, of course. But he’d already told her he didn’t expect to be there. And she was not going to start their relationship off—if they even had a relationship—with playing games and manipulating.

  If he wanted to talk to her, he could call her.

  And she would not sit, watching her phone, waiting all night for some guy who may or may not call.

  Okay, maybe she would watch her phone for a couple of hours—no more than three, tops.

  32

  It felt funny to be back in his apartment after spending three days out at the Chicory Inn. Drew wasn’t sure what he was going to do with himself the rest of the day. He’d offered to help Grant with the cottage—he had ulterior motives, despite how much he enjoyed the construction work. But Grant had declined, telling him to take the rest of the day off and show up in the morning.

  It had been a great three days—right up to last night. He wished he could have a do-over.

  He should have gone to bed about an hour earlier on Monday night.

  Not that he hadn’t thought about that kiss every single minute since it happened. But it was too soon. He didn’t want to mess things up this time. This felt too important.

  He grabbed a load of dirty laundry and his iPad and headed down to his apartment’s laundry room. Laundry dungeon, residents affectionately called it. He fed quarters into two washing machines and took his tablet over to the most comfortable chair—which wasn’t saying much.

  He quickly scanned e-mail and checked his favorite news feed since he hadn’t read a newspaper or watched TV for three full days. Looked like no wars had started, no celebrities had died, and no new political scandals had broken out. He should avoid the media more often.

  Still, it only took him ten minutes to deal with three days’ worth of e-mail. For the first time since he’d started helping Grant with the cottage, he felt very unemployed.

  He checked the job boards, which looked like they, too, had been pretty dead over the holiday weekend.

  Bored, he clicked on his Facebook app. Business as usual on Facebook: Wedding pictures, baby pictures, stupid cat tricks, political rants, and lame memes created by people with way too much time on their hands.

  Ironic that he’d joined their ranks. On a whim, he typed Bree’s name into the search bar. Her profile came up, and he hesitated for a split second before clicking. He didn’t have a clue what Facebook etiquette was, but he wouldn’t add her as a friend just yet. He didn’t want to look like a stalker.

  He did a double take. Her profile photo was a cute picture of her in a fancy dress at some friend’s wedding, but the first photo in her public feed was her and that Aaron dude. Looking pretty cozy. He zoomed in. Very cozy. Okay. No big deal. There were pictures of him and Nora and . . . well, probably him and several girls still in his photo albums.

  He didn’t expect her to erase her entire history just because he didn’t like to think of her being with some other guy.

  He clicked on the photo and saw that Aaron had posted it and tagged her. That made him feel a little better. Until he saw that the photo was currently Aaron Jakes’s profile pic. And that his profile said he was “in a relationship” with Bree Whitman.

  He tried to remember his conversation with Bree word for word. He would have sworn she used the phrase “we broke it off.” He remembered because, to him, it sounded like a term you used when speaking of a broken engagement.

  A washing machine spun madly, sounding like it might lift off the platform at any moment. He felt a little sick to his stomach. Okay, maybe it was all the muffins and coffee cake he’d eaten over the last three days. But he felt strangely betrayed.

  Still, even before seeing this stupid Facebook image, he’d had reservations. Everything with Bree . . . it had all happened pretty fast. And he didn’t want to be the rebound boyfriend.

  The kiss was his doing. His fault. He knew that, and he’d take full responsibility. But what kind of woman let that happen if she was still seeing someone else? Not exactly the kind of woman he wanted to be involved with.

  And who was he kidding? Even if there was some logical explanation why Bree still seemed connected to Aaron Jakes, Drew Brooks had nothing to offer a woman like Bree. Zip. Zilch. Nada. He had twelve thousand dollars in the bank, he made twenty-five bucks an hour doing carpentry, and so far he appeared to be otherwise unemployable.

  His first washing machine screeched to a halt, and he went to transfer the clothes to a dryer. While he waited for the second one to finish spinning, he punched his brother’s number into his phone. It went straight to voicemail and Drew started to leave a message, but another call came in before he could finish.

  “Call you back later, bro.” He clicked off and answered the incoming call.

  “Drew? Garret Harport at Vineguard Manufacturing in St. Louis.”

  Well of course it was. “Hi there. How are you?”

  “I’m terrific. I hope you had a good Labor Day holiday, and I hope you’re up for some good news.”

  Drew laughed nervously. “Of course. Always.”

  �
��I’d like to offer you the position. The board met this morning and after considering numerous applications, we are most impressed with what you have to offer the company.”

  “Wow, that’s . . . I’m flattered.”

  “You’re still available, I assume? We’d like you to start Monday morning, if that’s not a problem.”

  “Next Monday? Yes, sir. I’m available. And no, Monday’s not a problem. I’ll be there.”

  “That’s good news. Well then, I’m going to be e-mailing you some documents and information. If you have any questions in the meantime, you can contact our HR department and they’ll get you taken care of.”

  The man chatted him up for another fifteen minutes. Drew hung up feeling a little shell-shocked. He guessed one phone call had answered just about all of his questions. In one fell swoop, as a certain girl he knew liked to say.

  * * *

  Bree pulled in to her driveway Thursday after work wishing it was Friday. And at the same time, not. Because that would mean yet another day had passed without her hearing so much as a peep from Drew Whitman.

  If she hadn’t heard from him before next Tuesday, it was going to be as awkward going to the inn as it had been to go to the office after she and Aaron broke up. She should have gone with her first instinct and just sworn off dating altogether.

  She put the car in park and turned off the ignition. Gathering her things she noticed the lawn could use mowing. Maybe she’d do that tonight while they still had cooler weather.

  She headed up the walk, eager to kick off her shoes and change out of her work clothes. She ducked under the river birch that formed a canopy over the front porch steps. When she straightened, she gave a little gasp. “Drew!”

  He sat on her doorstep, grinning up at her. “Consider this that phone call I promised you.”

  “Okay.” She fished for her keys. “Do you want to . . . come in?”

  “Can we just sit out here? I won’t stay long, but I want to talk to you about a couple of things.”

  “Sure.” She set her purse and laptop case on the porch swing and sat down beside him on the top step. “What’s up?”

  “I’m just going to be blunt, okay?”