Garrett chanced a quick glance at her before returning his eyes to the road. “What was that one word we learned about in AP English class, something like fate?”
Trish cocked a quizzical eyebrow. “Kismet?”
“Yeah!”
“You think it’s kismet you just happened to be driving down this road at the exact time I was stuck in a snowbank?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know what else to call it.”
She was about to say the word he was looking for was coincidence but didn’t want to spoil the mood. Kismet sounded way better.
“So,” she started, instead, “why were you out on the highway this morning, anyways? I thought you lived way over on the other side of the state?”
She shook her head as a realization hit her. They hadn’t seen each other since they’d graduated. By that point, they’d broken up and they’d gone to different colleges, her for business management and him for…She shook her head again. How could she know so little now about a guy who meant so much to her before?
“You mean, business or pleasure?” he smirked.
She just giggled at his phrasing.
“Pleasure,” he answered, winking at her. Then, he laughed and shook his head. “Nah, I mean, not like that. I was heading over to Johnson Lake near Milltown to do some ice fishing. My family has that shack near the water over there.”
“Oh, yeah, I remember. You tried to get me to go with you that one time in high school.”
“And, you flat-out refused.”
“I don’t know what you could call pleasurable about sitting in the freezing cold above a hole in the ice, hoping to see your line move.”
“Well,” he shrugged again, “It’s a lot more pleasurable when you have the right company.”
Her blush warmed more than just her cheeks. “You always were a charmer, Garrett.”
For some reason, he didn’t respond with a flirtatious, or even sarcastic, come-back. Trish didn’t know how her words could’ve caused a change in his mood. Thankfully, they pulled into the lot for a small auto body shop and salvage yard a few seconds later.
Trish was gathering up her purse when she glanced absent-mindedly to the back seat. Something on the floor caught her eye, though. Before she realized how brazen she was acting, she’d pulled a cute, plush triceratops toy from the floor.
“Aw, how adorable! This yours?” she asked playfully.
His eyes widened for just a second, as if she’d caught him in an embarrassing secret. Then, his smile returned as he gently patted the toy dinosaur’s head.
“Nah, that’s my nephew’s. He’s way into dinosaurs. Always has to have one on him somehow.”
Trish’s bottom lip nearly protruded in an unconscious pout. All her underlying, biological spidey-senses were tingling. Could this man get any more adorable?
They got out of the truck and met up with the guy from the tow, who said his name was Larry.
“Well, you’re all unstuck now, missy. Best be careful on these icy roads, now. You’re the third person I had to drag outta the snow just this morning,” Larry commented as he went to work unhooking Trish’s Jetta.
“I will. Thank you,” Trish replied, then turned back towards Garrett. “Well, I guess I owe you a huge thank you, too. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t stopped.”
“Like I said, kismet.” He smiled down at her.
For a moment, they stood there, staring at each other, silent. Trish felt she should say more. There should be more to this moment of these two exes after all this time, but she didn’t have a lot of experience with amiable exchanges with past boyfriends.
“You’re all set,” Larry called from over by her car.
“Well, I guess, maybe I’ll see you around sometime?” she half-replied, half-questioned.
“Yeah, I’ll find you on Facebook?” he half-replied, half-questioned.
“Okay.”
Again, they stood there for a few, awkward moments. Finally, Trish reached up and threw her arms around his shoulders in a hug just as awkward as the silence.
His arms curled around her back and pulled her in a bit closer. Her cheek pressed against his and she closed her eyes, savoring the familiar scent of his Calvin Klein cologne, the same he’d always worn.
“Let’s not let it be ten years before we see each other again,” he spoke softly into her ear, sending shivers across the back of her neck, the warmth of his breath in such contrast to the cold air whipping past them.
“Deal,” she whispered back.
With surprising regret, Trish pulled away finally and gave Garrett one last smile before turning towards her car. Larry stood there, holding the door for her and his iPad. She paid him through his Square, remarking how modern his payment method was considering how time-worn his truck seemed to be, in the politest way possible, of course. He responded that travelers on the highway tended to welsh on invoices and a cash register was too clunky to drag along.
She was laughing as she got into her car. Garrett still stood a little in front of his truck, obviously waiting to see her off. At least, she thought that’s why he hadn’t taken off yet. Though, she couldn’t help but notice the flutter in her gut when the idea crept in that perhaps he was sad to see her go.
She turned on her Jetta and waved to both men before putting it in gear and slowly pulling away. At the end of the short parking lot, she turned the wheel to get back onto the road, only the car didn’t turn. It was unfortunate, too, as she’d already hit the accelerator before cranking the wheel all the way to the left to no avail.
Before she even realized what was happening, she was in the snowbank across the street.
6
Garrett and Trish walked through the front door of the small diner, Ma’s Place, a few blocks down the road from the auto shop.
“Mm, smells good in here,” Garrett remarked, breathing in deeply a few times.
“That’ll be the homemade pies,” a rotund woman called out from behind a glass display case off to their right. Inside were at least twenty pies—apple, cherry, blueberry, strawberries and cream, French silk, chocolate, peach cobbler—and the woman was adding a turtle cheesecake.
Garrett took a few steps closer to inspect them. “Must be quite the task to have to pack away that many pies at the end of the day.”
“Honey,” the woman straightened and gave him a warm, knowing smile, “you’re not from around here, are you? These pies will all be gone before the end of the day. Everyone ‘round here knows, if you want good pie, you come to Ma’s, and that’s that.”
Garrett glanced back at Trish over his shoulder, obviously impressed.
“That’s that,” she mouthed and they both giggled.
“So,” the woman continued, wiping her hands on her apron, “I’d ask if you’d be wanting a booth or a table, but our booths are all taken up this morning. There is a nice, little table for two over by the window in the corner of the dining room. Follow me, dears.” Without looking to see if they were following, the woman had grabbed two large menus and was off.
“So, are you Ma?” Garrett asked as they made their way behind her through a set of doors on the opposite side of the entryway and into the crowded dining room.
“Oh, honey, no, that was my grandmother.”
“This place has been around a while, huh?” Trish asked.
“Since the turn of the century,” a helpful customer piped up from a table they were passing.
“Even has the original potbelly stove still running in the back,” a cheery busboy added as he expertly piled plates and coffee mugs atop one another and balanced the whole pile on one forearm, two coffee carafes pinched in his other hand.
The lady stopped at a small table in the far corner. “Folks ‘round here don’t mean to be nosy. They’re just regulars.”
“Not a problem,” Garrett chuckled. “Guess you weren’t kidding about people frequenting this place.”
“It’s kind of a staple in this town. Every
thing grows up around us, but Ma’s is still here after all this time because people want to remember a simpler time when good food and community meant something.”
“That’s a really sweet thought.” Trish felt an affection growing for the woman. Crashing her car and breaking down after the hellish wake-up call this morning didn’t seem quite so bad now she was in this cozy place.
She surely wasn’t going to complain about it when it meant knocking knees with Garrett under their tiny table.
The woman laid out their menus. “Now, sweeties, I’m Janet. You need anything, you just holler for me.”
As if on cue, a man called out from a few tables over, “Hey, Janet, how about a piece of blueberry for the road? I gotta get back to the lumberyard.”
“I got you, Miles, just hang on,” Janet called over her shoulder without missing a beat.
Trish got the sense this place had been in business so long with such regular, local customers, it ran like a well-oiled machine. Janet probably could name everyone in the room, their jobs, and when they needed to get back to them.
“I’ll get you some waters and give you two a moment to look over the menus,” Janet said with a smile, waiting for a nod from Garrett before heading off and calling out to Miles on her way to the back door of the kitchen. “You know you don’t have to remind me, Miles. You get a piece of blueberry to go every day.”
“Just checking to make sure you ain’t getting the dementia, Janet. You know I’ve got to look out for you,” Miles called right back across the room.
“I was two grades under you in school, Miles. Maybe it’s you who’s got the dementia.”
The whole room erupted into peals of raucous laughter. Trish joined in once she noticed Miles was laughing hardest of them all.
“Lively crowd,” Trish commented as the noise subsided.
“You’ve got to love small towns,” Garrett returned, opening his menu.
Trish followed suit. “Especially when you’re stuck in one for the day.” Once she said it, she felt guilty for her annoyed tone. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
Garrett shrugged it off. “Hey, getting stranded a couple hours from home on a cold, snowy day with some guy you haven’t seen since high school isn’t every girl’s idea of a perfect day.” He winked at her.
She laughed and shook her head. “I’ll admit, this day is not what I’d envisioned. But, it was turning out to be a lot worse before you came along.”
He smiled back at her but didn’t comment. She watched him as he continued to ponder the menu. He still looked much the same as he had in high school, but there were some differences she noticed when she studied him.
There were some lines around his eyes that hadn’t been there in his teenage years. Rather than making him look old, however, those lines gave him an air of mystery, as if they were hard-won after experiencing some of those life events kept so conveniently hidden from you behind classroom walls. His brown hair had the tiniest hint of grey in it, too. Though, she had a few of her own, so she wasn’t all that surprised. Still, it was a bit difficult to reconcile the mature, life-tested couple which sat together now with the last image Trish had in her mind of the two of them, warm spring air blowing her blonde locks across her bare shoulders…
She quickly forced away that memory, not willing to allow the replay of their last encounter mar their meal.
“You know, as much as I appreciate the company, you don’t have to stay with me until Larry fixes my car later. If you have somewhere you need to be—”
“Somewhere better than right here with you? Not a chance.”
“What is it you do for a living, anyways? I mean, how are you able to change around a whole weekday on a whim like this?”
“I could ask the same about you,” he countered sarcastically.
“I’m a florist. I own my own shop,” she stated simply.
“What if I said I do, too?”
“You own your own floral shop?”
“Maybe.”
She piqued one incredulous eyebrow at him and he finally broke down, laughing.
“Alright, not a floral shop, but I do own my own business. I do print design. I have a pretty solid, young tyke, Michael, as my assistant manager who deals with a lot of the day-to-day operations, allowing me the flexibility to go to the lake on a Friday to go ice fishing. Or, to rescue pretty damsels in black Jettas.” He finished and closed his menu, folding his hands atop it.
Trish didn’t know what to make of the look he gave her just then, let alone his numerous flirtatious remarks. Considering how tumultuously they’d ended things…
She scolded herself internally. What lay in the past was best kept where it was.
“I really hope Larry can figure out what’s wrong with my car,” Trish added.
“I suppose you probably need to make it back to your shop.”
Trish hesitated a moment before answering. She didn’t want to admit to the real reason she’d been out on the road that morning or why she’d taken an extended weekend with plans to curl up with Devin while the snow moved in.
“It just so happens, I have a stellar assistant, too. She could keep the place running for weeks without me. Hopefully, it won’t take that long to fix my car.”
“Well, we can hope it takes a little while, right?”
He smiled at her. His brown eyes still sparkled the same as they always had when he genuinely smiled. She could always tell when he’d be faking it.
She used to know him so well…
He continued, as if reading her mind, “Seems like the universe has made the world stop turning just long enough to give us a chance to get to know each other again. I’m not complaining.”
Trish blushed and looked off to the right, out the window. With large, heavy flakes floating endlessly down from a marshmallow sky, and with barely any traffic noises in this small community, it felt as if they were in the mountains at some fancy ski resort where they’d paid big bucks for this small slice of solitude.
Although the price tag on fixing her car was still unknown, Trish felt she should recognize the fortuitous situation she found herself in, forced as she was to slow down and enjoy an afternoon with an old friend.
Just then, Janet arrived back at their table. “Sorry about the wait, dears.”
“No problem,” Garrett responded.
“Yeah,” Trish seconded, “we’re not in a rush.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” Janet smiled warmly down on them. “Now, can I start you off with some coffee?”
7
As it turns out, the diner was on the main street in the tiny town. So, Trish and Garrett spent the rest of their time waiting that afternoon strolling from shop to shop. Trish even purchased a coffee mug with a watercolor painting of a fox and Garrett couldn’t resist the saltwater taffy in the quaint sweets shop they visited just before a call came in from Larry about Trish’s car.
They stood just inside the doorway to the sweets shop as Trish received the bad news.
“You’re kidding?”
“Afraid not, miss,” Larry replied as congenially as possible. “Tie rod’s all bent out of shape. Going to take until Monday morning for me to get the part I need from a few towns over. I’m sorry, miss.”
“It’s okay. Thank you for all your help. I’ll be in touch, I guess.” She hung up, having sounded a lot more relaxed than she felt.
“Well, that didn’t sound too good,” Garrett remarked, offering a sympathetic smile.
Trish shrugged up her shoulders and then let them fall heavily with a giant sigh. “My car won’t be fixed until Monday. So, I guess I’m stuck here. The good part is I don’t have to face driving the rest of the way home in this snow. But, what do I do until then?”
Garrett let his reassuring smile widen as he guided her out the door with a gentle hand on the small of her back. “Well, I guess we need to find a hotel room for the weekend.”
She jerked her head back at him and he just l
aughed.
“I meant for you, but if you’re that interested…”
He continued to laugh, even after she’d given him a good smack in the gut.
∞ ∞ ∞
“Thank goodness!” Trish exclaimed just as Garrett was reentering the lobby of the only hotel in town, a small sort of mom-and-pop operation. Although it didn’t have a fancy name attached to it, the building was completely modern and set up with all the amenities one would find at a large chain, including free wi-fi, breakfast, and homemade chocolate chip cookies at the front desk.
Garrett helped himself to one as he walked up. “They have a room for you, then?”
“The last one available. It’s their largest master suite, but I’ll take whatever I can get right now.”
“Wish I was that lucky,” he commented, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck. Even with his plaid, quilted coat on, Trish could make out the impressiveness of Garrett’s physique with his arm raised, automatically stretching out his chest.
She ignored her sudden impulse to run her hands across said chest and instead asked him what he meant.
“I was just out at my truck. I thought something sounded a little funny as we were driving. I popped the hood and gave Larry a call. Looks like I’m a Stranded Susie, just like you.”
“Don’t you mean, Stranded Sam, or something like that?”
“Well, whatever the name, now I’m in the same predicament as you. Except, you’ve just booked the last room in town.”
Their eyes locked for one long, heated moment and Trish saw in his deep, brown orbs that he’d had the same flicker of an idea as she’d had at mention of the room. Not feeling entirely confident in her ability to deliver the offer without exposing how much the idea, actually, excited her, she reached for a cookie and used it to hide her face as she mentioned as nonchalantly as possible, “Well, it is a master suite, plenty of room for two.”
Garrett no longer had a cookie to hide behind and did a poor job of hiding his surprise and, apparent, delight. “You sure about that?”
The Winter Affair Page 2