Her Minnesota Man (A Christian Romance Novel)

by Coulter, Brenda

  "Jeb, I don't know what to think." All she knew was that spending time with her no longer seemed to be a priority in his life. "I hardly know you anymore."

  "You know me," he insisted in a voice that was oceans deep.

  "Not anymore." She shook her head and then couldn't seem to stop shaking it. "I don't know anything anymore."

  "Come here."

  He pulled her into an awkward sideways hug. The rigid arm of the otherwise fluffy chair dug into her ribs and she felt a painful twinge in her shoulder, but she was too upset to protest.

  "That house isn't my home," he murmured into her hair. "You are."

  Oh, really? She lifted her face to glare at him. He had some nerve, pretending nothing had changed when everything had changed.

  "You haven't seen me in more than a year," she accused. "And not counting last night, when was the last time you called? Do you even remember?"

  "Yes, I remember!" he snapped. Letting her go, he sat back on his heels and rubbed his forehead as though his head ached. Then he closed his eyes and repeated the words in a dejected, barely audible tone, "Believe me, I remember."

  An awful suspicion settled over Laney. "You've been staying away on purpose?"

  He winced and averted his face. It was all the confirmation she needed.

  She had to tilt her head to recapture his gaze. "Don't I deserve an explanation?"

  He just stared back at her, pleading with his eyes for her to let it go, but she couldn't do that. If he wouldn't tell her what was wrong, how were they ever going to fix it?

  "Jeb, please."

  Finally, he nodded. But when he again turned his face away from her, she was gripped by a foreboding that made her want to cover her ears and protect herself from hearing the explanation she'd demanded.

  "You call me your best friend," he said slowly. "But that doesn't quite explain what's between us, does it? Do you really think a husband will accept that?" He rose to his feet and rubbed his forehead again. "Laney, we're not kids anymore. Our relationship has to change."

  "No!" Her voice broke on the word, but somehow she got the rest out. "Besides, you just said I was your h-home."

  "I shouldn't have said it. Things aren't that simple anymore." A bitter smile bent his lips. "We're all grown up, Laney. And this—" He spread his arms in a vague gesture that suggested he, too, was frustrated. "This is how life works. Kids grow up and move on."

  "Well, sometimes life stinks," she muttered.

  "Yeah." He walked over to the window. Bracing his hands on the sill, he slumped forward, his shoulders rounding as his chin sank toward his chest. "Sometimes it does."

  Observing his defeated posture, Laney silently berated herself. Her happiness wasn't Jeb's responsibility; he had his own dreams to follow. It wasn't right to make him feel guilty for leaving her behind.

  He raised his head and fixed a hard gaze on something outside the window. "My calendar's clear for the immediate future," he said. "I'll stay for a while and do my best to help you get settled. But when I go, Laney, I won't be back for a long time, and I won't be calling you much, either." Sliding his hands from the sill, he turned to face her. "Tell me you can accept that."

  Laney opened her mouth to protest, but then thought better of it. She'd save this fight for later, when she wasn't so annoyed with him and she'd worked out the best way to make him understand that if he had just called her once in a while, his emotions wouldn't have gotten into such a tangle that he'd concluded it would be in her best interest to end the most amazing friendship either of them would ever know.

  Deep breath. Okay.

  "I'm sorry about getting all emotional," she said with a nervous laugh. "I've been a little depressed lately, but it's nothing, Jeb, really. I'll be fine, I promise."

  His troubled gaze searched her face. She stared back at him, her mind carefully blanked, until she sensed his tension receding. Only after the last glimmer of doubt disappeared from his eyes did she allow herself a slow, careful breath.

  "Come on." She slapped her palms against the arms of her chair and pushed herself up. "Our ice cream is melting."

  When her alarm clock buzzed at six-thirty the next morning, Laney extended a hand from her cozy, quilted cocoon and smacked the snooze button. She'd spent most of the night turning in her bed like a chicken in a rotisserie oven; it couldn't have been more than three hours since she'd stopped worrying about Jeb and succumbed to an exhausted, dreamless sleep.

  She hit the snooze button twice more, and then had to rush through her morning routine. But at least the pain in her shoulder had begun to fade.

  By the time she made it down to the kitchen, it was too late to brew a pot of coffee and savor her usual two cups while perusing the morning paper, so she microwaved a mug of instant espresso. She had just leaned against the kitchen counter to enjoy a few bracing sips when in the orange-pink light of dawn she saw Jeb slog past the windows, head down and shoulders hunched.

  To say that Jeb wasn't a morning person was to understate the case to the point of hilarity. Laney couldn't imagine what he was doing awake at this hour, but the fact that he'd dragged himself over here could mean only one thing: She'd forgotten to buy coffee when she'd picked up his groceries.

  She let him in and surrendered her mug of espresso. He grunted like an exhausted caveman and swallowed some of the hot beverage, and then he paused to stare at her in bleary-eyed puzzlement.

  "It's instant," she said. "But it's fully caffeinated."

  His eyes slid shut and he drank deeply.

  "Look at you," she said. Outside, the grass was covered with frost, but Jeb was barefoot. He wore jeans and a plaid flannel shirt with only one button fastened—and that button had been matched up with the wrong hole, causing the shirt to hang crooked on his lanky frame. His too-long, almost-black hair, stringy and uncombed, completely hid his right eye.

  "Honestly, Jeb, you need a keeper."

  He grunted again and moved past her to slump onto a chair, adorably pathetic.

  Shaking her head, Laney opened a cupboard and got out a can of ground coffee. A single cup of instant was never going to do it for Jeb, so she fitted a paper filter into the basket of her drip coffeemaker and loaded it up.

  Filling the carafe with tap water, she looked at Jeb over her shoulder. "What are you doing up, anyway?"

  "Some idiot journalist called from New York City." Scowling ferociously, he scratched the black stubble on his chin. "Who makes phone calls at seven-thirty in the morning?"

  Laney opened her mouth to point out that it was eight-thirty in New York, but then she thought better of it. "People who don't realize musicians sleep in the daytime," she offered instead. "Why didn't you just turn off the ringer and go back to sleep?"

  He tilted his head so that the tangle of hair flopped away from his right eye, affording Laney an unobstructed view of his indignant stare. "Because that would have meant—" He interrupted himself with a huge yawn. "—waking up twice. Once a day is bad enough."

  Laney clucked in sympathy as she poured water into the coffeemaker's reservoir. She could hardly wait to see how he would handle leaving for church at nine o'clock on Sunday morning.

  "And I can't turn off the ringer," he grumbled. "What if you needed to call me?"

  Laney flicked the coffeemaker's switch and grabbed her heaviest wool cardigan off its peg by the door. "You're seriously underestimating my instinct for self-preservation," she said as she pushed her arms into the bulky sleeves. "I'd never call you before noon. Not even if my hair was on fire."

  "Laney." His severe tone made her freeze in the act of buttoning the sweater.

  Wishing she'd thought twice before teasing him at this early hour, she moved behind his chair and hugged his neck.

  "It was just a joke, Jeb. You know I didn't mean it."

  He patted her forearms, possibly to indicate his forgiveness but more likely to signal that he wanted to drink his coffee. Laney released him and straightened, but didn't move away. As her coff
eemaker rumbled and hissed, wafting a delicious aroma through the kitchen, she finger-combed Jeb's hair.

  He could talk all he wanted about childhood friends growing up and growing apart, but he was still her wild boy, still desperately in need of love and acceptance but terrified of admitting it. His taciturn nature and his piercing stare led people to believe he was dangerous, but Jeb was as sweetly vulnerable as a child.

  "Call me when you wake up." Laney rubbed a silky lock of dark hair between her finger and thumb. "I wouldn't say no to a nice supper tonight." She paused. "Or do you California people call it dinner?"

  He muttered something unintelligible and drank some more coffee.

  "I haven't been to that French place in a while," Laney hinted. Her favorite restaurant was in Minneapolis, more than an hour's drive from Owatonna, but Jeb liked driving.

  He grunted again, and Laney decided she'd better stop pestering him. Anyway, she had to get to the tearoom and start the day's baking.

  "If my newspaper's not on the front porch, check the azalea bushes," she said. "And you'll find some apricot-oatmeal bars in the cookie jar. I don't suppose they'd make a bad breakfast." Not for Jeb, who could stand to put some meat on his bones. "Just be sure to have some orange juice, too."

  As she worked one last tangle out of his hair, she realized there was something unfamiliar about his scent. Leaning forward, she sniffed to determine whether he was using a new shampoo. When that experiment yielded no conclusive result, she decided that her nose must still be accustomed to Nathan's expensive colognes.

  She moved her hands to his shoulders and gave him two light, affectionate pats. "You have a good day," she said, and turned to go.

  Jeb's hand snaked out and captured one of her wrists. He squeezed hard, for just a second, and then he released her without looking up.

  "You're welcome," she said softly. "I don't know how I forgot to buy coffee for your house." She scooped up her bag and headed out the door, trusting him to switch off the coffeemaker and lock up when he left.

  Having Jeb home always righted her world, but there was nothing for him in Owatonna. He needed to make music, and he couldn't do that here.

  Approaching his garage, Laney pressed the button on her remote and waited while the door rumbled upward. Maybe all of this would be easier to accept if she'd had some inkling, back in those halcyon days when Jeb had been a fixture of her daily life, that things would eventually change. That his phone calls and his trips home would dwindle in frequency and duration and then stop entirely.

  Last night he'd said this was simply the way of things. Maybe it was, but why did it have to hurt so much? And why did this revelation have to come at a time when her emotions were already stretched to the breaking point?

  "I just can't deal with this," she muttered several hours later as she stood in the tearoom's kitchen stirring the thick batter that would become tomorrow's lemon-pecan tea bread. "If one more thing goes wrong this week, I'm going to scream."

  "No, you're not," Caroline said bracingly. "You'll handle this little setback like the strong woman you are."

  Little setback? This was an unmitigated disaster. The tearoom's furnace had stopped working, and where she was going to find the money to have it repaired, Laney didn't know.

  She shoved the mixing bowl aside and pressed her fingertips against her eyelids until she saw sparks, but that did nothing to ease her tension headache. Neither did the low roar of the fan she'd placed in the doorway to blow the kitchen's heat into the dining room.

  "Just tell me it's warm enough in there," she begged.

  "It's not too bad," Caroline said. "The thermostat says it's 65 degrees, and I don't think it'll get any colder because it's 50 outside and the sun has just come out. A lady from Missouri complained about being cold, but everyone knows those people have thin blood. Aggie found her a sweater to wear at the table instead of her bulky coat, so she's all right now."

  Laney stopped abusing her eyeballs to look hopefully at her great-aunt. "Was that the only complaint?"

  Caroline dipped her head to peer at Laney over the rims of her glasses. "Do you honestly think Minnesotans are going to whine about having a few goosebumps?"

  "I guess not." Most Minnesotans didn't even bother zipping their jackets before January, but they weren't whiners in any case, the majority of them being descendants of hardy Germans or Scandinavians. And they couldn't listen without embarrassment to people who complained about their troubles, either.

  That made things difficult for a misfit like Laney, whose emotions required regular venting.

  A wry smile tugged at her mouth. "So everyone's sitting out there with blue lips and frost on their eyebrows, drinking stone-cold tea and telling each other it could be worse?"

  "Yeah, pretty much." Caroline gave her a look charged with meaning. "And there's a lot to be said for that attitude."

  The phone rang. Grateful for the interruption, Laney grabbed the receiver.

  "Good afternoon. Three Graces Tearoom."

  "Hey," Jeb said. "How's your day going?"

  She glanced at Caroline. "It could be worse," she said, although she really didn't see how. "What are you doing?"

  "Fishing."

  "That's good." Picturing him in his canoe on a tranquil lake, a hunched shoulder trapping his cell phone against his ear while he baited a hook, Laney exhaled some of her tension. "Catching anything?"

  "A couple of walleyes, but they weren't keepers. Good thing I made reservations for the French place." He paused. "Why do you sound so wistful?"

  Caroline was walking away, but Laney took the precaution of lowering her voice. "Because I'd rather be with you on the lake than stuck here, tangled up in an endless string of emergencies." Unlike her mother, Laney didn't thrive on the unremitting pressure that was the small-business owner's lot.

  "What's going on?" Jeb asked.

  "The furnace died." Laney twisted several tight curlicues of the phone's cord around her index finger. "And I can't get anybody to look at it until tomorrow."

  "I'll round up some space heaters and get there as soon as I can," he said.

  "No, we're okay for now. I've had the ovens going all day, and I've got my big fan set just inside the kitchen door to blow warm air into the dining room. But thanks."

  "You're stressed out," he said. "Let's do the French place another time and just go to Willie's tonight."

  "Comfort food," Laney said on a grateful sigh. "Yes." One of Willie's juicy cheeseburgers and some melt-in-your-mouth onion rings sounded a lot better right now than rushing home to change before making that long drive to the Cities.

  "Pick me up here, Jeb, okay?" Noticing that the tip of her finger had turned purple, Laney freed it from the phone cord's strangling coils. "Megan's car is in the shop and she had to take her mother to St. Cloud, so I let her borrow Francine."

  "You're doing favors for the woman who stole your boyfriend?" Jeb's voice vibrated with disapproval. "Laney, you cried over that guy."

  "Yes, I cried over Luke," she snapped. "I cried over Tom and Nathan, too. I thought I was in love with each of them, but I was really just trying it on, like I might try on a pretty pair of shoes and be tempted to buy them even though they pinched my toes. So now I'm frustrated and ashamed, and I can't trust myself to recognize a good fit even if I find one, and—" She stopped and pressed two fingers against her throbbing left temple. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gone off on you like that."

  "You know I don't mind a little ranting." Jeb's voice had deepened and gentled; the warm sound was as soothing as the softly lapping waves of a tranquil lake. "But save it for tonight, when you don't have a tearoom to run."

  She closed her eyes and nodded. "Okay. And on second thought, just wait for me at home. Mrs. Lindstrom is out of town tonight, and I promised to feed her cat. So I'll get the Graces to drop me off, and then—"

  "The Graces?" he interrupted. "Have you lost your mind?"

  "They're not that bad, Jeb." The Graces took turns
chauffeuring each other around in the mile-long silver Buick they'd owned for as long as Laney could remember. Maybe they did drive a bit too fast, but they weren't as reckless as Jeb thought. "They've never had an accident."

  "Only because everyone in town knows that Buick and stays out of its way."

  "You're a fine one to talk about bad driving habits," Laney retorted. "You totaled two cars before your twenty-first birthday, and who knows what havoc you've been wreaking since you moved to California." Although to give him his due, whenever he drove Laney anywhere, he scrupulously obeyed the speed limit and every other law.

  That was her mother's doing. Once Hannah had discovered Jeb's protective streak where Laney was concerned, she'd worked tirelessly to nurture it. She'd drilled into his head that Laney was never to be exposed to reckless driving, foul language, cigarettes, alcohol . . . The list went on and on, but Jeb had kept every rule.

  "I'll pick you up at the tearoom," he said. "We'll swing by to feed the cat, and then we'll go to Willie's. Just call when you're ready."

  "No, wait," Laney said before he could hang up. "Would you mind coming early? Say, five-fifteen?"

  Several seconds elapsed before Jeb replied in a flat tone, "You want me to have tea with the Graces."

  "Would you?" Over the years Jeb had suffered countless indignities at the Graces' hands, and he probably still hadn't forgiven them for an incident involving a pink rabbit costume. But in their own eccentric way, the Graces adored him. "They can't wait to see you, Jeb."

  "Get their claws into me, you mean." He made an amused sound in his throat. "Hey, I could ask them to help me find you a husband."

  "Don't even joke about that." The Graces were dears, but their matchmaking schemes were often embarrassingly obvious to the parties involved, and Laney didn't want them interfering in her love life.

  "I'm surprised they're not already on the job," Jeb said.

  Now that he mentioned it, Laney was surprised, too. Her great-aunts had never even attempted to fix her up with a man. Not that she'd have tolerated that, but still.