“But we’re in this together.”
“No, you’re not.” She gave him a warm smile, hoping to take a little sting out of the words. “You all went off to lead your own lives and Josh was left to carry this place. He was here when you and then Ryan went off to college and Sean joined the army and Liz ran off with that useless waste of a man. And he’s been carrying it alone since your father died.”
“He hasn’t needed us.”
“’Course he has.”
“Then why hasn’t he said so?”
“Pride, maybe? You decide to go into demolition, and now look at you. Northern Star Demolition is one of the top companies in the country. Ryan goes off to pound nails for a living and now he makes custom, million-dollar homes for people with too much damn money. Sean and Liz may not be as well-off financially, but they’re out there in the world, doing what they want to do.”
Mitch couldn’t really wrap his mind around it. Josh had always been more interested in the lodge than any of them. He’d shadowed their dad and tried to run the place since he was old enough to walk, and he’d never mentioned wanting to do anything else. “I’m taking him out for breakfast today. Maybe I can get him to talk to me.”
“Tread lightly.” Rose put her hands on her hips and pinned him with one of her looks. “And why aren’t you staying here and letting me make your favorite French toast for you?”
“It’d do him good to get out. We’ll just go to the diner and get reacquainted.”
As if she didn’t know how the male Kowalski mind worked any better than that. “You leave Paige Sullivan alone. She’s a sweet girl and she’s made a nice life for herself here. She doesn’t need you turning it all upside down before you leave again for who knows how long.”
He grinned at her, even though he had to know by now his charm was lost on her. “What’s her story, anyway?”
“Her story is her business, and you stay out of it. You’ve got enough to do here, helping your brother, without toying with that woman.” A bang and a curse from down the hall let them know Josh was out of the tub and probably trying to get dressed, so she pointed her finger at Mitch. “I mean it.”
“I need to jump in the shower. Don’t let Josh get into the beer before I’m done.”
“He’s not that far gone,” she said, shaking her head as Mitch went into his room and closed the door. “Yet.”
Since she’d called Mitch less for help around the lodge and more for help dragging Josh out of the funk he seemed to be sinking into, Rose could only hope Paige Sullivan didn’t become a distraction.
*
Four-thirty in the morning had royally sucked.
Paige had slapped at the alarm clock until it stopped beeping so she could close her eyes again. A few minutes later, though, it started beeping again, and she made herself sit up and swing her legs over the side of the bed before shutting it off. She was so not a morning person, especially when it was still dark.
As she stumbled into the tiny kitchen toward her not-so-tiny coffee mug, she reminded herself for the umpteenth time if she wanted to sleep in, she shouldn’t have bought a diner in a town full of early-rising Yankees. Being slow to wake up wasn’t helped any by the fact she’d covered Ava’s shift and hadn’t even left the diner until after she was usually in bed.
Then, when she’d finally crawled between the sheets, she’d lost some precious sleeping time to thinking about Mitch Kowalski and how he’d looked back at her from the edge of the parking lot. It was a look that promised…something. Something good and maybe naughty and she wasn’t sure what else. But pondering the possibilities had kept her tossing and turning until she wished she’d never met the man.
Once she was dressed—and, no, she didn’t primp any more than usual just because she might see the man in question again—she left her very small mobile home and walked the twenty or so yards to the back door of her diner.
They’d been a package deal—the closed-up, outdated restaurant and the small, even more outdated trailer—and the price had been right. More importantly, the town had been right. Sure, it might have been nice to buy a little house for herself, with a yard consisting of more than a few feet of sorry-looking grass between the trailer and the parking lot. But she’d sunk almost every last penny into renovating and reopening the restaurant.