“Should I help her?” Paige whispered.
Thrilled to have a surprise visitor, Rose had made a pot of tea and they were sitting at the kitchen table, watching Katie make a mess. “Nope. She can do it.”
“She does know that baking soda and baking powder aren’t the same thing, right?”
Rose might have shushed her, except Katie was being a pain and had insisted on putting her earbuds in so Rosie couldn’t “interfere.” She wanted to make them all on her own and, with music blasting straight to her eardrums, she couldn’t hear any helpful suggestions.
“This is painful,” Paige said. “Let’s go in the living room and stop staring at her like she’s a zoo exhibit.”
They carried their tea into the other room and Rose settled in the couch corner she was getting all too tired of. But it was an easy reach to the coffee table and her teacup, so she smoothed the blanket over her lap and picked up her knitting. She could knit and visit at the same time.
“Christmas present?” Paige asked. She’d chosen the armchair with the side table for her tea.
“Nope. I finished my Christmas knitting in the hospital.” She held up the little red sweater she was knitting, with a white band near the bottom separated from the red with thin blue stripes. “For Sean and Emma’s baby.”
“Guess those colors aren’t girl or boy specific.” After a beat, Paige’s face lit up. “Oh, wait, I get it! New England Patriots colors, right? The football thing?”
It still blew Rosie’s mind one of the boys had married a woman who knew absolutely nothing about sports, but the girl was trying. “Yes, the football thing.”
Paige gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Since Mitch talked me into getting a TV and cable, I’ve tried watching the games with him when he’s home, but I don’t really get it.”
“You must be a really good cook,” she teased.
“Or pay two really good cooks who are willing to make things to go.” After taking a sip of her tea and listening to see if anybody was coming, Paige leaned forward a little in her chair. “So? How are things going?”
“Something happened.” When Paige’s face lit up, Rose held up her hand. “Nothing big, I don’t think. But Josh is definitely acting weird and there’s tension in the air.”
“It’s almost inevitable. Everybody can see it but them.”
“If I have my way, there will be a baby sleeping on a blanket in front of that tree next Christmas.”
Paige looked at the tree, as if imagining it. “What about the fact Josh plans to leave Whitford as soon as they figure out how to make it happen? Mitch feels pretty bad about the way they all abandoned him. He’s really dedicated to making it happen.”
“Once Josh realizes he loves Katie, he’ll lose that itch to wander.”
“Or take her with him.”
Rose’s hands stilled, her fingers clutching the needles. Not once had she ever considered Katie moving away with Josh. The possibility she could lose the lodge and her daughter made her hands tremble and she set her knitting in her lap so she wouldn’t drop any stitches.
“Rosie, are you okay? You’re pale all of a sudden. Should I get Katie?”
The panic in Paige’s voice snapped her out of it and she forced herself to smile. “I’m fine. I just…I don’t think Katie would leave her dad’s barbershop. She worked too hard for it.”
“I shouldn’t have said that. Of course she won’t leave Whitford. I can’t imagine her leaving you and the barbershop at all. And all her friends are here.”
“Of course she wouldn’t.” She said it mostly to make Paige feel better, though. Rose was old and wise enough to know women made sacrifices like that for men they loved all the time. “How are things at the diner?”
“Business is better than I ever expected. If the guys really do manage to connect the lodge to the ATV trails and get them access into town next summer, I might even have to hire more people. Ava’s great, but if the supper rush gets any bigger than it is, she won’t be able to do it alone. As it is, she’s called Tori in two Friday nights in a row.”
Rose didn’t know Tori Burns very well, yet. She was Jilly Crenshaw’s niece and she’d just recently moved from Portland to escape her parents’ divorce. She was in her mid-twenties and worked from home, but liked picking up part-time hours at the diner, which gave Paige a little more freedom with her own hours.