by Lizzie Shane
Deenie glanced over her shoulder pointedly. “One or two.”
Ally followed her gaze.
Ben. Crouching down to put a tiny little dog sweater on Peanut and tuck him inside his coat against his chest so the chihuahua wouldn’t get cold outside.
Everything inside of Ally went gooey, but she quashed the emotion. He’d made his feelings clear, even if it still felt like something was humming beneath the surface every time he looked at her. “It doesn’t matter how much I want him,” she whispered to Deenie, keeping her voice low so it wouldn’t travel. “He has to want me back.”
Ben looked up at that moment, catching her eye.
“Yeah…” Deenie grinned. “Somehow I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”
Ally wanted to argue. She wanted to point out that heated looks were no guarantee. He’d rejected her beneath the mistletoe. There might be something between them, but if he wasn’t willing to take that risk, nothing was going to happen.
She wanted a partner. She wanted sixty-six years. It didn’t matter that she could see it. Ben had to see it, too. And until he did, she was just holding her breath.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Astrid chattered about the dogs the entire way home, then immediately begged to go back to Furry Friends to play with the ones who hadn’t come to the pet fair. Ben texted Ally to get her consent, then dropped Astrid off, not even getting out of the car.
His parents were arriving in two days and the washer repairman had rescheduled again. He was too busy to help out. At least that’s the excuse he gave himself.
The next day, Astrid wheedled her way over to the shelter first thing, and he didn’t see a trace of her until after dark—which at least gave him time to catch up on all the work he’d been falling behind on. He was starting to get a little jealous of Furry Friends by the time the front door opened Sunday evening, announcing her return.
And then he heard the other voice with hers in the foyer. He knew he should stay away, but Ben came out of the kitchen, catching Astrid and Ally just inside the door with their coats on.
“Still need homes for the puppies—” Ally broke off midsentence when she saw him. “Hey.”
“Hey,” he replied ingeniously.
“It was getting dark, so I wanted to walk Astrid home,” Ally explained, fidgeting with her scarf.
Astrid glanced between him and Ally. “Aunt Elinor adopted Harry. She invited me to go over there and help her get settled. If it’s okay?”
“Um…” Why couldn’t he think of an answer? “Have you eaten dinner?”
“Not yet. Mr. Gilmore made us all these super awesome calzone things for lunch, so I’m barely hungry.”
Ben jerked his chin toward the kitchen. “Eat something. Then we’ll talk about whether you can go help your aunt.” After he texted Elinor to make sure the help would be welcome.
Astrid flung off her jacket and boots, hurtling past him into the kitchen before popping her head back out again. “Thank you for today, Ally. It was the best day ever.”
She disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Ben and Ally alone with the awkwardness in the air between them. “Best day ever?”
“She pretty much played with the dogs all day.” Ally bit her lip, hesitating, discomfort thickening the air between them until she broke eye contact. “I should get going. My grandparents…”
“Right. Thanks for bringing Astrid back—if you text me when she needs to come home, I can come get her next time. I don’t want to put you out.”
“It’s no trouble. I like walking her. And it’s such a nice night.”
“Do you want me to walk you…?”
“No. No, of course not. I know the way. Who knows what people would think, right?” She released a nervous laugh. “G’night, Ben.”
“Good night, Ally.”
She closed the door behind her and Ben slumped against the wall, groaning. “Nice, West. Very smooth.”
“You should go over there.”
Ben jumped a mile at the voice behind him. “Astrid! Make some noise.”
“I did.” She gave him her newly developing teenage stare.
“Right. What did you need? Dinner?” He ushered her back into the kitchen, trying to get his brain to reboot properly.
“I don’t see why you’re pretending you don’t like Ally,” she complained as she followed.
Please let us not have this conversation right now. “Of course I like Ally. She’s a good friend.”
“Is it because of me? Because Isabelle left because of me?”
Ben slammed to a halt so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash. “Who told you that?” He faced her. “Why would you think that? Astrid, Isabelle leaving had nothing to do with you.”
She shrugged, her mouth twisting to one side. “Except it kinda did. You guys were supposed to get married and then…”
“Hey.” He bent down, grasping her narrow shoulders between his hands. She acted so grown up that it jarred him sometimes to realize she was still so small. “Isabelle leaving had to do with her and with me. It wasn’t about you. You are the best thing in my life.”
She met his eyes. “I heard you tell Ally you have to think of me—”
Shit. “That just means you come first, and I don’t want to do stupid things that might affect you down the road.”
“Being with Ally would be stupid?”
“She isn’t staying in Pine Hollow, Astrid. I know you like her. I like her, too. But if we get too attached, it’s only going to hurt that much more when she has to go back to her regular life.” He gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze. “You and me. We do okay, right? I know I’m not always the best with the bake sales and the Instagrammable lunches, but we’re good, right?”
She bit her lip. “Yeah.”
“Good.” He hugged her, releasing her and moving to the fridge to see what he could scrounge up for dinner, reiterating, “Ally and I, we’re just friends.”
“I guess.”
He sent her a look over his shoulder. “What does that mean?” He wasn’t sure he wanted an answer.
“Only that you seem awfully scared to be seen with her if you’re just friends.”
“It’s this town. Trust me. Someday you’ll understand.”
“Uh-huh.”
He shook his head. Was the female of the species born knowing how to cut the legs out of an argument with a dry uh-huh?
He threw together some sandwiches, texted Elinor to make sure she wanted Astrid’s “help,” and pulled on his jacket to walk his niece over to Elinor’s cute little Craftsman bungalow with the big yard. When Elinor opened the door, Harry zoomed out—but after a speedy lap around the porch she raced back inside, the sound of her paws retreating into the depths of the house with Astrid hot on her heels.
“Shoes!” Ben called after her, cringing as she trailed snow down the hall. “Sorry.”
“I’ll get her to clean it up,” Elinor assured him. “I’m still working on getting Harry to stop long enough for me to wipe her paws, so my floors are already a disaster.”
“Thanks for letting her come over. She was so excited.”
“That is one dog-crazy kid. You have more willpower than I do—I would have caved and let her have one months ago.”
Ben stiffened, bracing himself against the judgment, and Elinor, who never missed anything, noticed.
She stepped out onto the porch, pulling the door closed so Astrid wouldn’t hear. “Ben, I didn’t mean—”
“No, you’re right. She should have a dog. And a house with a yard and a tire swing. Katie had it all planned out. Did you know she had a vision board with all their ideas? The two-year plan. Everything Astrid should have by now.”
She grimaced. “Katie showed me the vision board, but no one expects you—”
“To be able to do what Katie did? Because she was Supermom and I’m Ebenezer?”
Elinor snorted. “Katie never thought of herself as Supermom.”
“We all know s
he was amazing—”
“She was human,” Elinor insisted. “You know they started that two-year plan when they moved into the house, right? When Katie was still pregnant with Astrid? She used to joke that it was a rolling two years.”
Ben frowned, shaking his head. That couldn’t be right.
“She wasn’t perfect. She was making it up as she went along, just like the rest of us. Do you know she used to call me crying because she was afraid she was the worst mom ever?”
Ben jerked, the words a shock to his system. “What? Why would she…?”
“Did you know Astrid got stitches when she was two? She tripped over something Katie had left on the floor and took a header into the fireplace. I think Katie cried harder than Astrid. She was so sure it was all her fault.”
Ben shook his head. “She never told me that.”
“Why would she? She was your big sister. She always wanted to live up to your idea of her. But she didn’t have to be perfect to be a good parent, and neither do you. You don’t have to be on the PTA board or the most dedicated member of the town council to honor her memory. And you don’t need a house with a yard to prove you were the right person to raise Astrid.”
Ben eyed Elinor’s house with its big fenced yard. “Did you ever want to be the one to raise her?”
“Of course I did.” Elinor smiled, though her eyes were sad. “But you were Katie’s choice, and I knew Astrid would be surrounded by love regardless of which one of us had her. Though you could let her sleep over here from time to time. I have a very nice guest room.”
It wasn’t the first time Elinor had offered—and he’d always said no before. He’d always thought she was saying she didn’t think he could handle being the primary parent, but now he wondered if he’d been so busy trying to prove he was the best one for Astrid that he hadn’t done what was best for Astrid.
“We didn’t bring pajamas or a toothbrush, but if you wanted she could stay tonight,” he offered on impulse.
“Yeah?” Elinor grinned, the sadness leaving her eyes. “That would be great. I have some stuff she can borrow.”
“She’ll probably want to be over here all the time now that you have a dog.”
Elinor shivered, reaching for the door. “I should probably get in there before Dora starts bouncing off the walls.”
“Dora?”
“Dora the Explorer. I’m trying it out. Ally says she’s smart enough that she’ll probably learn any name I throw at her, but I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
At the mention of Ally, Ben took a step back. “I’ll let you get to it. G’night, Elinor.”
“G’night. And Ben…thanks.”
He nodded, though he was the one who should probably be thanking her. He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and ducked his head against the cold as he started down her front walk.
Paul and Katie’s house was abnormally quiet when he let himself in and paused in the foyer, silently cataloguing all the projects he’d meant to get to. The same ones Katie had never finished.
The uneven stair. The break in the flooring. The outdated kitchen.
Maybe he wasn’t failing her quite as much as he’d thought. He was starting to convince himself he was doing all right—until he stepped into the mudroom and saw the broken washer. Irritation flashed through him, not just at the laundry machine, at the whole damn town.
He was so sick of living his life under the judgmental eyes of every single person in Pine Hollow. Constantly worrying if he was doing the right thing. Why should he have to avoid Ally so people wouldn’t gossip? Why shouldn’t he be able to walk her home without everyone in town speculating about them?
He was so freaking tired of not being able to do anything just for himself.
Ten minutes later the car was loaded, and five minutes after that he pulled into the Gilmores’ driveway, realizing after the fact that maybe he should have called first, but he was here now.
It was barely past seven, but the house was completely dark, illuminated only by the twinkle lights wrapping the porch railing. The floodlight in front of the kennel was still on. Ben headed that direction, pulling out his phone to belatedly text Ally. He bent over his phone as he walked, trying to figure out how to explain the impulse visit, when a voice spoke behind him.
“Ben. Is everything okay?”
Ben spun to face Ally as she and her Saint Bernard tromped toward him through the snow at the edge of the driveway. “Yeah. Sorry. It just occurred to me I should have called.”
“It’s fine. I was just walking Colby. My grandparents are up at the Estates for some Christmas party. You all right? Where’s Astrid?”
“She’s at Elinor’s. Helping Harry get settled in. I may never see her again.”
“She does love dogs.” Ally smiled softly as she and Colby came to a halt a few feet away from him. A safe distance. An unnatural distance.
He’d put that distance between them.
He wanted to be friends again, but he felt like he’d screwed everything up, overreacting to the mistletoe thing. Reaching for some way to put them back on friendly ground, Ben glanced over his shoulder at the barn. “You still need help with those lights?”
Her eyebrows arched skeptically high when he looked back at her. “You sure you want people seeing your car parked in front of my house?”
He shrugged, thrusting his hands into his pockets. “They’re gonna gossip either way.” And he was tired of feeling like he had something to prove. He never felt that here.
She glanced at his car, spotting the row of overflowing laundry baskets in the back seat. “You’re only here because that washer repairman never showed up, aren’t you?”
“Maybe,” he acknowledged lightly, before sobering and answering honestly. “Or maybe I just miss the company.”
A slow smile spread across Ally’s face and she shook her head. “All right, Ebenezer. Let’s get your first load in, then I’ll show you where the lights are.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Did you test any of these?”
Ally grimaced, handing over yet another dud strand of lights to be tossed into the how-the-heck-do-we-recycle-these box and reaching for the next candidate. She and Ben sat side by side on the floor in the living room, trying to find enough working lights to decorate the barn, while Ben’s laundry rumbled away in the washer.
After two days of avoidance and awkwardness, they were safely back in the Friend Zone, and Ally wanted to stay there. She’d missed being able to talk to him. It was comfortable again, going through the lights together. Unfortunately, they only had one working strand so far—and even that one flickered ominously.
“Gramps says these are the ones he always used, but I’m not sure he’s actually put any lights up on the barn in the last few years.”
“Try the last decade.” Ben held up a cord, eyeing the ancient wiring. “How badly does your grandmother want lights on the barn?”
“It’s hard to tell,” Ally admitted, plugging the next contender into the power strip. “She’s so enthusiastic about everything that sometimes the degrees of enthusiasm get lost in translation. But this year she seems to be really going all out for Christmas.” The lights lit—then made a sparking, popping noise that had both Ally and Ben racing to unplug them.
“Enthusiastic enough that we want to risk electrocution?” he asked, holding up a smoking cord.
“Probably best not to burn down the house,” she acknowledged.
“Or the barn,” Ben added, winding up the lights to toss them in the failure box.
“Not with the dogs inside. Though if we had somewhere to put them, I might risk it,” she joked. “We could use the insurance money. Right now I’d try just about anything to keep this place open.”
He reached for the next tangled strand. “I thought you’d be getting excited about going back to New York. With so many of the dogs finding homes, you can get back to your life without worrying about the shelter.”
Ally shrugged, her
eyes on the knot in her hands. “I’m not sure I am going back.”
His hands stilled on the lights. “You aren’t?”
“I don’t know. Everyone talks about my life in New York like it was glamorous and perfect, like I’ve made this huge sacrifice, but part of me was already looking for a reason to leave. That was why I didn’t have another lease lined up.”
Ben frowned, shaking his head. “I thought you wanted to go back. You said you miss it…”
“I said I miss feeling like I know what I’m doing. I didn’t know the first thing about running the shelter when I came out here, but now…I don’t know. I feel like I’m getting the hang of it. Right in time for us to close.”
He stared at her, the lights in his hands forgotten. “I thought you loved being a photographer.”
“I do, but it’s…” She fidgeted with the lights, not meeting his eyes. “It’s lonely. My work is all freelance. I’m traveling all the time. I don’t see the same people every day. Even the ones I work with most regularly, we may only see each other every few months. I applied for a job with this company with a reputation as one of the best places to work in the city—Spectrum, where the work is more stable and I’d be part of a team—but I haven’t even gotten an interview.”
“Maybe they just haven’t called you yet.”
“Maybe.” She flicked a glance at him. “I just haven’t made any connections there, you know? I feel like I’ve been looking for this thing ever since my parents died. Like I’m homesick, but I don’t have a home to go back to. It wasn’t just the house. My parents were the people who knew me best. That was home. And it was hard for my friends to understand, hard to connect with my peers when it felt like I was dealing with this massive thing that was too big for any of them to handle. So I kind of retreated. Photography was the only thing that felt right. And I was good. I worked through holidays and landed an amazing internship that led to jobs I never dreamed I would get. I was so busy chasing success it took me a while to realize how alone I’d made myself.”
Ben was silent for a moment, then he nodded. “I did that, too. Not for the same reasons.”