So he’d concentrated on the process of handing over the lodge to Andy and figuring out what he needed to take with him. The rest would all be here waiting for his visits, like the others’ bedrooms did. He did a sweep of the bathroom to make sure he hadn’t missed anything vital, then cursed himself for a moron when he saw his cell phone charger still plugged in next to his bed. He coiled that up and stuck it in the side zipper of one of the duffels and then he was done.
After carrying them downstairs, he set the bags by the front door and went in search of Rose and Andy. She was nowhere to be seen, but he found Andy in the kitchen, sneaking a cookie from the jar.
“Ready to go?” Andy asked, offering him a chocolate chip cookie.
Josh took it, even though there was a box on the passenger seat of his truck stuffed with enough baked goods to last him to the Mississippi or farther. “I guess so. Where’s Rosie?”
“When I left her, she was sitting on the bed, looking at your baby pictures.”
“Oh, Jesus.” Josh shoved the entire cookie in his mouth and chewed. This sucked.
“I’m sure she heard you come down the stairs, so I expect she’ll be down when she gets herself together.”
Josh swallowed hard to get the mass of cookie down. “How about you? You got any questions for me before you go?”
“I think we’ve covered everything. And I’m pretty sure there’s nothing about this place Rose doesn’t know.”
“Got that right. She even knows the stuff you don’t want her to. But, anyway, the division of labor’s always come pretty easy to us. If it makes you sweat, it’s my job. If it makes the guests feel at home, it’s her job.”
Andy laughed. “Sounds about right. You know where you’re headed?”
“I’m going to have a steak in Kansas City.” He shrugged when Andy’s eyebrow shot up. “Years ago, when Mitch first started traveling for work, he told me about the steaks there. Said there weren’t steaks like that anywhere else in the world and, dumb as it sounds, of all the things they’ve seen and done, I was most jealous of that steak.”
Andy grinned. “Then, by God, you should go get you a steak.”
“And on my way to Kansas City, I’m going to think about what I’d like to do for work and where I want to do it. Maybe someplace that won’t give me frostbite.”
“You make sure you call Rose on a regular basis. I’m the one that gets to hear about it if you don’t. Maybe text her some pictures along the way.”
“I will. And, trust me, I’m going to miss her as much as she’s going to miss me. We’ve been a team for a long time.”
“Stop it or you’ll make me cry,” Rose said as she walked into the kitchen. “I’m not going to cry, dammit.”
Oh, she was definitely going to cry. The only question was whether she’d be able to hold off until he was gone. And, since he knew that was what she wanted, he needed to do this clean and fast, like ripping off a bandage. “You going to walk me out to my truck?”
“Of course.”
She managed to keep a smile on her face, but the closer he got to the front door, the more his emotions weighed on him, until he felt as if he was wading through semidry cement. He picked up his bags and went out the front door, then stopped on the porch and took a deep breath.
The porch had always been his favorite part of the lodge. It was too cold to sit out this time of year, but nothing beat a cold beer on a muggy summer night on the Northern Star’s front porch.
“You look like you’re going to a funeral, not setting off on a grand adventure.”
He snorted. “Grand isn’t in the budget.”
“You’ll be fine. You have some savings and we’ll deposit your share in your account so you can draw from it every month.”
“I wish you two would take more. It doesn’t seem fair.”
“Honey, we don’t need more than what we have.”
Because they had each other, he thought. That was what mattered. “I lost my best friend, Rosie.”
“Oh, hush. My girl has loved you for so long I probably made a note of it in her baby book. You’ll never lose her.”
“I need you to understand I have to do this. It rips me up to hurt her, but—”
She captured his cheeks between her hands, leaving him no choice but to shut up and look her in the face. “I do understand. And when the hurt wears off a bit, so will Katie.”
“I hope so. No matter where I am, I’m going to need a friend and—to me—that’ll always be her.”
“I want you to promise me two things.”
“I’ll try.”
“To hell with trying, young man. I’ve given you and your brothers and your sister as much of the best years of my life as I’ve given my own daughter and—”
“Okay!” He held up his hand to stop her. “I’ll promise. What are the two things?”
“You’re all as stubborn as a June day is long, but when it comes to pride you got a concentrated dose. Promise me if you don’t find what you’re looking for out there or you get lonely, you’ll come home.”
He gave a short laugh. “Wouldn’t that be great, if after all this time whining about leaving, I turn around and come home?”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about. I don’t want to hear that. You promise me if you want to come home, that’ll you’ll damn well come home.”
Home to a lodge he couldn’t wait to leave behind and a woman whose heart he’d broken. But he couldn’t deny Rosie anything when she looked at him like this. “I promise. What’s the second thing?”
She gripped his hands in her so hard it was almost painful. “Promise me you’ll stop beating yourself up and embrace this opportunity. Enjoy your freedom and find what it is you’re looking for in life, or all of this was for nothing.”
All of this meaning the pain he’d caused Katie and, by extension, her mother. And himself. “I promise.”
She gave him a skeptical look and he laughed. “I swear, Rosie. I promise both things.”
“Good.” Her bottom lip began trembling and he saw the tears glimmering in her eyes before she grabbed his face and kissed his cheek. “Now, go so I can cry in peace. I love you, Josh.”
He hugged her hard and pressed his face to her hair. “I love you, too, Rosie.”
“Go.”
He went because he was afraid if he was still there when her control crumbled and she cried for him, he might not be able to go anymore. In his rearview mirror he saw Andy step forward to put his arm around her and they both waved.
He beeped the horn as he neared the end of the driveway and didn’t look back again.
Chapter Nineteen
“Hey, do you have plans for Valentine’s Day?”
Katie actually pulled the phone away from her ear to make a what the hell face that Hailey couldn’t see on the other end of the line. Sure, she had plans for Valentine’s Day, because in the two weeks since the love of her entire life had driven out of town—to get a steak in Kansas fucking City, according to his email—she’d found herself a hot new guy who was going to romance the hell out of her on the most romantic day of the year.
“No, I don’t have plans,” was all she said out loud.
“Neither do I. Which isn’t a surprise since there’s an extreme lack of romance-worthy men in Whitford. Let’s do something together.”
Katie smiled, which she hadn’t been doing enough of lately. “Are you asking me to go on a date with you for Valentine’s Day?”
“Yes. Yes, I am. You should know up front, though, that I’m not going to let you kiss me good-night.” There was a short pause. “Well…probably not. Depends on how much I drink.”
The laughter felt good and Katie decided that, no matter what Hailey wanted to do for Valentine’s Day, she was going along for the r
ide. She was tired of moping. Tired of not having any appetite and crying herself to sleep.
Josh had left. He’d never made any secret of the fact he would if he got the chance, so she would try to treasure the time she’d had with him the same way she did all the other gifts he’d given her and try to put aside the heartache.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
Hailey sighed. “That’s where I’m having an issue. I want to dress up and have a few drinks and dance.”
“We’d be the talk of the diner for months.”
“So you see the problem. The nearest bar with a dance floor is like forty minutes away.”
“Screw it. Rent a motel room and we’ll split the cost. We can put up signs that the library and the barbershop won’t be opening until ten on Friday. I need to get out and so do you.”
She hadn’t really done anything but work and hide in her apartment since the Super Bowl, which had been the least fun she’d ever had watching football. Without Josh, it wasn’t the same, and the other men at Max’s had acted weird, like they were looking at her differently now. Instead of just being one of the guys, she’d been a girlfriend. Apparently, it changed things.
She knew that would pass, as the pain eventually would, but for right now everything was awkward, all of the women in town were fussing over her and she was in real danger of becoming a hermit.
When the night came, Katie wore the black dress. It was too nice to be kept as some kind of shrine to sleeping with Josh for the first time, so she put it on and made up her mind to attach fun new memories to the dress.
“Damn, you look hot,” Hailey told her when Katie slid into her passenger seat.
“So do you.” Hailey was wearing a red jersey dress with a gold necklace and hoop earrings. She closed her door and buckled her seat belt. “Let’s dance.”
Four hours later, Katie was hot, tired and her stomach hurt from laughing. She hadn’t danced like that in years and she was going to be sorry tomorrow when she had to be on her feet all day. Tonight, she didn’t care.
Sliding onto her barstool, Katie pushed the half-empty glasses, which they’d abandoned when ABBA blasted out of the speakers, toward the bartender. “Two fresh drinks, please.”
“This is the most fun I’ve had in years,” Hailey said, still slightly out of breath. “We should do this more often.”
Katie was pretty sure she wouldn’t survive doing this more often, but she nodded anyway. At least the blaring music, the alcohol and the crush of dancing bodies kept her from thinking too much.
After their next trip to the dance floor, Katie switched to straight-up soda while Hailey ordered her cola with rum again. It was probably a good thing she worked in a library, Katie thought, because she was going to want things quiet the next day.
They gently brushed off the men who approached them hoping to get lucky with single women on Valentine’s Day. Katie flat-out wasn’t interested, and she’d stopped trusting Hailey’s ability to judge genuine interest about an hour after they’d walked in the door. They laughed and danced and sang along with the songs until the DJ called it a night and the bartender turned off the disco ball.
Katie hooked her arm through Hailey’s as they walked the hundred yards or so to the motel room they’d checked into earlier. Hailey was definitely going to wake up with a headache, she thought. But it had been worth it.
Hailey flopped onto the queen bed and almost immediately started snoring, so Katie took her time taking off the black dress and changing into the pajamas she’d tossed in her overnight bag. There was no waking up her friend, so she took off Hailey’s necklace and the big hoop earrings and left her alone. The jersey dress would look like hell in the morning, but it wouldn’t be too uncomfortable to sleep in. Or be passed out in, as it happened.
Katie had to nudge and push to get enough space in the bed for herself, but then she sighed and felt her overworked muscles relax as the exhaustion and low alcohol buzz zapped the rest of her energy.
She was just drifting off to sleep when her phone rang, and she knew before she looked at the caller ID screen it would Josh. The whole time zone thing was something he struggled with.
“Hey you,” she said, smiling so he’d hear it in her voice.
“How’s it going?”
The low timbre of his voice across the line made her chest ache with need. “Not bad. Did you call to wish me a happy Valentine’s Day?”
“Oh, shit, it’s Valentine’s Day? I forgot. I’m sorry. Did you do anything to celebrate it?”
Just nursed a broken heart on the day dedicated to love. And hearing his voice wasn’t helping any. “I went dancing and had a few drinks. It was fun.”
The silence on the other end of the line went on so long, she checked the phone’s screen to make sure it hadn’t dropped the call. “Did you go dancing with anybody?”
The tension in his voice made her want to laugh and cry at the same time. He was jealous, which meant he cared a lot more than he wanted her to know. But the fact she knew he cared about her, but not enough to stay in Whitford, made it harder to keep her voice on an even keel when they talked. She didn’t want Josh to know how much it hurt or he might stop calling her out of some misguided idea it was for her own good.
“A friend asked me to go, actually,” she told him, being deliberately vague. Let him chew on that for a minute or two. “It was nice to get out of town, and I wore my black dress.”
Crickets again. Maybe it was a little mean to bring up the dress, but she didn’t feel even a second of guilt. Tonight she wouldn’t be the only one who closed her eyes and remembered Josh peeling the dress off of her under the Christmas tree.
“I should have stolen the dress and taken it with me. I can’t stand the thought of some other man putting his hands on it. On you.”
Katie closed her eyes, letting the hot, rough tone of Josh’s voice wash over her. Maybe only somebody who’d been his friend for all of their lives would hear it, but he was hurting, too, and she lost the desire to poke at him.
“So are you…am I interrupting anything?”
She could only guess what a hit to his pride it was to ask. “I’m in a motel, actually, in bed with Hailey.”
“Oh. Sorry I missed that.”
She laughed, then covered her mouth, not that Hailey so much as stirred. “She’s passed out, so you’re not missing much.”
“As much as I hate to change the subject away from that dress, how’s everything in Whitford? Everybody doing okay?”
“The same as always,” she told him. “You know how it is.”
“I talked to Rosie yesterday and that’s exactly what she said.”
“How are the riding lessons going?” That one had surprised her. She’d had no idea he’d always wanted to learn to ride until he sent her an email telling her he’d stumbled across a place in Kansas that would give him lessons in exchange for some manual labor.
“Not so well. Turns out horses are a lot harder to ride than four-wheelers. They have minds of their own.”
She tried to picture Josh riding a horse, but couldn’t. “So you’re not the next rodeo star?
He laughed. “Not even the clown in the barrel. I’m thinking about working my way toward New Mexico.”
“I bet Liz would love to see you.”
It sounded lame to her own ear, when what she really wanted to do was ask if he was finding what he was looking for. Was what he was doing worth breaking her heart? But she wouldn’t ask, because if she didn’t keep it light—if she wasn’t just his old hometown buddy—she was afraid he’d stop calling.
“I should let you go,” he said. “You sound tired.”
“I’m going to send you a picture of a time zone map. You should make it the wallpaper on your phone.”
“Oh shit, I didn’t think of that
.” He chuckled in her ear and her fingers tightened on her phone. “Again.”
“It’s okay. I like hearing about your adventures.” And she craved hearing his voice. She didn’t care what time he called as long as he called. “I’m sorry I called you on Valentine’s Day. I wasn’t thinking about what day it was. I just wanted to talk to you.” He paused for a few seconds, and she heard him sigh. “And I hate to say it, but I’m glad Hailey was your date.”
“You’re not that easy a guy to get over, you know.”
“Does it make me an asshole if I say I don’t want you to get over me?”
“Yeah, it does.” Not that it would happen any time soon. “But you’re not over me, either, so have fun falling asleep thinking about me in that black dress.”
He laughed, which eased her heart a little, but when he spoke again, his voice was heavy. “Would it be easier for you if I didn’t call?”
“No,” she said honestly. “Losing my boyfriend hurts like hell, but losing my best friend would just make it worse.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. So…I’ll call you soon, then.” He was quiet for a second, then softly said, “Good night, Katie.”
“Night, Josh.” And happy Valentine’s Day, she thought as she ended the call.
When Katie lay down, tears trickled onto her pillow and she squeezed her eyes shut, hoping to stem the flow. It was so hard to pretend she was okay—that she’d gone through the change in their relationship and his leaving unscathed—but she kept telling herself if she pretended long enough, it would become the truth.
So far that wasn’t working out very well, but all she could do was get through one day after another and hope it happened soon.
March
Josh threw back the blanket and sat up, scrubbing his face with his hands. His sister’s couch sucked.
The sun was streaming through the windows, so at least he could stop pretending he was getting any sleep and get up. His gaze fell on the snow globe, which he’d set on the coffee table after Liz had gone to bed. Katie’s smile was always the last thing he saw before closing his eyes and the first thing he saw when he opened them in the morning.
All He Ever Dreamed (The Kowalskis) Page 21