All He Ever Needed

by Shannon Stacey

  “It’s been twenty-six years, Rose,” he said. “And Earle’s been gone the last fourteen of them. How long are you going to hate me?”

  Whether or not to answer was a struggle. She’d managed to go twenty-six years without speaking to the man, but he’d asked her a direct question this time and ignoring it would be more rude than she usually cared to be.

  “Longer than twenty-six years, I guess,” she told him.

  “I’m sorry. You know, you’ve never given me a chance to tell you that.”

  “Because I don’t care.”

  “You’re a hard woman, Rosie Davis.”

  She turned on him, fighting the urge to reintroduce the flat of her hand to the side of his face. It had been a long time since she’d slapped him, but she’d never lost the urge to do it again. “Don’t you dare call me that. Only people who care about me call me Rosie.”

  He shook his head, his expression sad and his shoulder slumping a little. “I didn’t make him do anything he wasn’t willing to do. He was a grown man and he made his own choice.”

  She almost did hit him then, because it was the truth and she didn’t want to hear it. It was a lot easier to blame Andy for what Earle had done. “I want you to leave now.”

  For a long moment she thought he might argue with her, but then he walked past her and disappeared around the house.

  Though she thought she was done shedding tears over the situation, a few gathered in her eyes and she swiped at them with the back of her hand as she walked halfway around the lodge in the opposite direction to get to the front door.

  Damn him. Damn Andy Miller and his too-late, not-enough apology. And damn Earle Davis, too.

  They’d gone over to New Hampshire snowmobiling, just the two guys. It was something they did every couple of years, just to see some new scenery. Earle had come home a different man and it wasn’t but a few days before guilt drove him to confess he’d cheated on her.

  They’d been at a restaurant, having steaks and a few beers after the mileage was done for the day, and Andy had met up with a couple of pretty women at the bar, one of whom tripped his trigger in a big way. The only way she’d go back to their motel room, though, was if her friend could go, too. A few more beers and a hot young thing jealous her friend was getting some action, and Earle had broken his wedding vows.

  She hadn’t left him. They had a seven-year-old and a home and she knew, at heart, Earle was a good man. But their marriage was never the same after that. His confession was like a spot of tarnish on a piece of heirloom silver. You could treasure that heirloom and shine it up and show it off, but that bit of tarnish was always there, a sore spot you couldn’t rub away.

  And she blamed Andy Miller for it. Not that she didn’t blame Earle, but she believed in her heart her husband would never have strayed if Andy hadn’t put him in the position he’d been in. The man became as good as dead to her and, if Earle and Andy continued their friendship after that weekend, she didn’t see or hear evidence of it. And her husband was never gone overnight again.

  Rose pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table, feeling a little shaky. She couldn’t put the sorrow and regret she’d seen in Andy’s eyes out of her mind, and that made her even angrier. When she was being honest with herself, she knew that blaming and hating Andy had made it easier for her to live with forgiving her husband. Nothing Andy—or the woman—could have done would make Earle cheat if he wasn’t of a mind to already.

  And she had to begrudgingly respect the fact nobody in Whitford ever found out Earle Davis had cheated on his wife. She and Earle certainly hadn’t told anybody. But she knew if Andy had told even a single soul, everybody in town would have eventually heard, and that would have made it a lot harder to pretend everything was fine during the long months—or years, really—it took for the pretense to eventually become reality again.

  Because she wasn’t quite ready to admit it was unfair to blame a guy who hadn’t even done anything wrong back when he was young, single and stupid, Rose went back to the cleaning closet and grabbed the big basket of supplies and a pair of rubber gloves. Any dirt or stray toothpaste with the audacity to hide in one of the Northern Star’s bathrooms was about to bear the brunt of her frustration. Some women indulged in retail therapy. Rose scrubbed.

  * * *

  Mitch was tired. He was physically tired from spending much of Sunday night in Paige’s bed, followed by much of Monday night and even more of last night. He was mentally tired from worrying about the lodge while keeping his thumb on Northern Star Demolition from a distance and thinking about the fact he’d spent a good part of three nights in a row in Paige’s little bed.

  And he was really damn tired of wading through the mindboggling amount of crap his family had managed to cram into the barn. He’d thought emptying the building out to redo the floors would be a quick job, but now he was beginning to wonder if they’d even be able to start replacing planks before Josh lost the cast and crutches.

  A long stream of curses cobbled together to make colorful compound swear words made Mitch turn to see Ryan trying not to lose his grip on a crate of old tools while extricating his boot from a hole rotted in the floor.

  He was about to tell him to hang on a second and he’d grab the crate, when Ryan threw the thing, and decades worth of screwdrivers and wrenches scattered. Once his foot was free, Ryan crossed his arms and stared up at the ceiling, as if praying for the fortitude not to simply burn the whole mess to the ground.

  “I need a break,” Mitch said. “Let’s take a ride out back.”

  The words “out back” got Ryan’s attention, but he looked skeptical. “With as much care and attention as everything else around here got, the four-wheelers probably don’t even run anymore.”

  “I fired them up last week just to see, and Josh said he changed the oil in them not too long ago.”

  “Should we tell them?”

  Mitch snorted. “Hell, no. They’ll hear us leave and figure it out. I don’t want to give anybody a chance to point out how much shit’s left on the to-do list.”

  The four-wheelers had been parked behind the barn and it only took a minute to undo the rope and pull back the tarp that covered them. The keys were in them and they each fired one up. They were old ATVs, without the luxuries of electronic fuel injection or independent rear suspension or power steering, but they were familiar and dependable and just what they needed.

  Mitch followed Ryan across the backyard and into one of the cuts through the woods surrounding the lodge. There was a little fresh growth, but the trails they’d been using since they were kids were still there, and Mitch felt some of the tension ease out of his shoulders as he thumbed the throttle and made his four-wheeler jump over a bump in the trail.

  They had enough land to have multiple trails that cut back and crossed each other at unmarked intersections. Somebody else would have been hopelessly lost within the first twenty minutes, but they knew every tree, boulder and other natural landmark on the property. Growing up, they’d all rushed through their chores so they could climb on the ATVs and go adventuring in the woods. There was one for each kid, disreputable beasts held together with duct tape and Loctite, but Katie usually went out with them while Liz stayed behind to shadow Rosie.

  After close to an hour of winding through trees and pounding through ruts and over rocks, Ryan pulled off into a wide spot in the trail and Mitch did the same. Off to his right was the log they’d worked for weeks to turn into a bench, but he didn’t dare test his weight on it. Looking at it made him smile, though, as he remembered how close they’d all been as kids. They’d bickered, of course, but they’d been close in a way they weren’t as adults, in more ways than geographical proximity.

  “We probably should have grabbed a bottle of water before we headed out,” Ryan said, and Mitch laughed.

  “I have gum, if that helps.” He fished the pack out of his pockets and handed Ryan a piece before popping one in his mouth.

  “So h
ow are things going with Paige Sullivan?”

  The question was asked innocently enough, but Mitch had no doubt Ryan was digging at him. He would already have heard from Josh that their oldest brother was creeping home from Paige’s place in the wee hours. “Good.”

  “Really? That’s all you’re going to give me? Lame.”

  “What do you want me to say? She’s fun, we have a good time, and I’m leaving in a couple of weeks when Josh gets the cast off.”

  “And you gave her the whole ‘won’t call, won’t text’ spiel?”

  “It’s not a spiel, jackass. It’s not like I’m selling her a used car.” He chewed his gum for a minute, hands shoved in his pockets. “But, yeah, she knows there’s no relationship going on.”

  Saying it out loud made him wonder silently what a relationship was. Enjoying time together? Check. Great sex? A giant red check. Talking about books they both loved and about people they both knew and about their lives? Check. And, whenever they were apart, looking forward to when they’d be together again?

  That was the one he was worried about. He found himself thinking about Paige during the day a little too often for comfort. He’d hear something funny and want to tell her. Or see something cool and want to take a picture to share it with her. He thought she was beautiful with messy hair and no makeup, and he didn’t give a damn if she’d just had onions on her burger when he moved in for a kiss.

  If some guy told him he felt like that, Mitch would tell the poor sap there was no doubt he was in a relationship.

  All Mitch could do was keep in mind there was going to come a time in the very near future when Paige wouldn’t be there to share funny stories with or talk books with. No more cheeseburger-with-onions kisses.

  “Geez, you got it that bad?” Ryan was staring at him, an eyebrow raised.

  “Hell, no. I was thinking about all the crap we have left to do at the lodge.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Screw you.” Mitch straddled his machine, ready to get moving again, but he couldn’t resist a parting shot at the brother who loved to push his buttons. “Have you run into Lauren Carpenter around town?”

  Ryan’s expression hardened, but he didn’t say anything. He flipped Mitch the bird, then fired up his ATV with a roar. Chunks of dirt and a few rocks flew up as Ryan spun his wheels taking off, and then Mitch was chasing him up the trail.

  They rode as hard as the tight and windy trails allowed until Mitch was sweating and already feeling the pull across his shoulders. As they neared the far edge of Kowalski land, where it abutted Ed Grandmaison’s property, he wondered if they’d have time to load up the wheelers and drive all the way around to the neighboring town—on the other side of Grandmaison—to the real trail system.

  Even as he jerked the bars to avoid a rock big enough to stop the ATV in its tracks, the smallest germ of an idea for rejuvenating the Northern Star Lodge planted itself in his mind.

  * * *

  Paige was dragging. Badly. With an embarrassingly small amount of stage makeup, she could probably win an Oscar for playing a zombie.

  That’s what happened when a sweet, smoking-hot man snuck out of your bed somewhere around midnight and your alarm went off at precisely four-thirty. You felt like you got hit by a freight train, but you were grinning on impact.

  Folding herself into her tiny bathtub, hoping to soak as many of her body parts as she could fit in the foamy, hot water, Paige gave herself a good scrubbing before she sighed and closed her eyes. She wouldn’t be seeing Mitch tonight. His brother Ryan was back in town and they had a lot to get done. And maybe, like her, he needed to catch up on some sleep.

  Just when she’d relaxed to the point she was afraid she’d fall asleep in the bath—though, thankfully, there wasn’t room to drown—her cell phone rang. It was on the edge of the sink, which she could reach from the tub, and Hailey’s name was flashing on the screen.

  After a few seconds of hesitation, she answered the call. “Hello?”

  “Every night this week?”

  She didn’t need a secret decoder ring to figure out what she meant by that. “It’s only Wednesday night, so we’re only halfway through the week.”

  “Is he there now?”

  Paige smiled. “You tell me.”

  There were a few seconds of stubborn silence, and then Hailey laughed. “Okay, so I know he’s not. Ryan’s in town and when Andy Miller stopped in at the hardware store, he told Dozer that Mitch and Josh were glad to see him, because it meant Rose would cook a real dinner and that they’d be going over plans after they ate.”

  “So why did you ask?”

  “I don’t know. I thought maybe he’d ditched his brothers to sneak over and see you.”

  Since the tub didn’t hold enough water with her in it to keep itself hot long, Paige pulled the plug and stood. With her free hand she grabbed a towel and started blotting herself dry. “He doesn’t sneak. You make us sound like teenagers.”

  “You’re going at it like teenagers,” Hailey retorted, and Paige wondered if there was maybe a little jealousy there.

  “I’m going at it like I haven’t had sex in two years. As for Mitch, I think he just really likes sex. A lot. And he’s very good at it.”

  “I wonder if it runs in the family,” Hailey said. “Ryan and Josh are still single.”

  “I think if you had any chemistry at all with them, you would have wondered that before now.”

  “True. So when are you going to see him again? Do you have to wait until Ryan goes back to Mass?”

  “I don’t know.” They hadn’t discussed it at all. She only knew he wasn’t coming tonight because he’d mentioned Ryan being home and what they’d be doing that evening. “I guess if he comes around again, that’s when I’ll see him.”

  “If? You need more than that from him. You should at least know which days you don’t have to shave your legs.”

  Laughing, Paige threaded the damp towel over the bar one-handed and then managed to get herself into her robe without dropping her phone. “Mitch doesn’t like to commit to anything, even a cup of coffee, so if he comes by on a stubble day, that’s his problem.”

  While she set up the coffeemaker so it would magically deliver fresh coffee at four-thirty in the morning, Paige tried a few times to change the subject. She didn’t want to analyze what she and Mitch had, because analysis meant feelings and those were the very last thing she wanted to talk about—feelings and the fact she might be having some.

  She missed him tonight. Maybe if it was a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kind of thing, she wouldn’t, but he was also surprisingly good company with his pants on. They’d spent almost an hour the night before arguing over which book was Stephen King’s best before they even got around to making out on her couch. And the fact he was very good company with his pants off went without saying.

  She hit subject-change pay dirt when she brought up Drew and Mallory. The town had been all abuzz when Mallory visited her husband at the police station. An argument ensued that was rumored to shake the windows, though nobody was repeating what was said. Nobody knew quite what to make of that, though most people had their fingers crossed it was the huge meltdown that would clear the way for the couple to reconcile.

  “I’ve left her a couple of messages,” Hailey said, “but I haven’t heard back from her. Mitch is his best friend. Has he said anything to you?”

  “Nope.” There was no reason to share their previous conversation on the matter. It was best if Hailey thought their relationship was all sex, all the time.

  “If you hear anything, let me know.”

  “I will. And you do the same.” Paige wrapped up the conversation and then put her phone on the charger for the night.

  She should probably feel embarrassed about crawling into bed while it was still light out, but Paige was beyond caring. She needed sleep and lots of it. After sliding between the sheets, she closed her eyes and thought about Mitch.

  Chapter Fourteen

&nb
sp; By Friday, Mitch was ready to share his possible plan for increasing the lodge’s revenue. He told Ryan about it first, and he thought it had such good potential they stopped what they were doing to go inside, where Mitch pulled out the notes and maps and projections he’d hastily sketched out, as well as the official trail-system map he’d printed off the computer.

  The more he and Ryan talked through it, the more Mitch was convinced it would work, even if the Kowalskis—and he in particular—were going to have to lay on the charm like sunscreen on a blond toddler.

  “What are you guys looking at?”

  Mitch and Ryan had been so engrossed in the maps, they hadn’t heard Josh coming, even with the thump of his crutches against the wooden floors. Mitch used his foot to shove a chair out for him. “Maps. Ryan and I were talking today and we think with a little charm, luck and money, we can get access to the ATV trails. Instead of just a stray booking here and there, the lodge could have real business all year long instead of just during the winter.”

  Josh grumbled what sounded like a curse as he sat, but Mitch couldn’t tell if it was a response to what he’d said or discomfort from his leg. “Dad looked into it once, but there was no way to do it.”

  “Martha Grandmaison passed away a few years back,” Mitch pointed out. “Her son owns the property behind us now and he might be more reasonable.”

  “Look.” Ryan slid the maps toward Josh and leaned across the table to jab at them with his finger. “We’ve got a whole mess of ATV trails over there. If we can get Ed Grandmaison to agree to let us pass through one small section of his dozens of acres of woods, we can cut a path that connects the trail system to our land. Since we’re on the sled trails, once the ATVs get here, we can get the snowmobile club to give permission for them to use the sled trails so the ATVs can get into town for gas and food. And, most importantly, lodging. It’s a win for everybody.”

  Josh’s jaw tightened. “Yeah, that’s what it is. A win.”

  Mitch leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Thought you’d be a little more on board with a plan that would help the Northern Star make money again.”