chapter Seven
That pulled her out of it. Allie sucked in a long breath and blinked. Dammit.
“I’m not hyperventilating,” she told him, feeling breathless no matter what he called it. “That’s technically breathing too fast.”
“Whatever.”Gavin was scowling at her. “Did Josh’s proposal affect your breathing?”
She pushed him back and frowned right back at him. “That doesn’t really matter now, does it?” She crossed her arms over her breasts.
He looked at her. “How’d he do it? How’d he propose?”
“Not naked on the bathroom floor out of the blue,” she snapped.
Gavin wanted to marry her? What? How was that going to work exactly? Should she have been expecting that?
Yeah, maybe.
“No, Josh wouldn’t do that, would he?” Gavin grabbed his pants and pulled them on.
Feeling even more exposed than she had in the midst of the hot sex, Allie grabbed the towel that had fallen when she pulled the towel rack down. She stared at the towel rack. Wow. She’d pulled it right off the wall.
“He asked me at dinner,” she said softly, wrapping the towel around her.
“I wasn’t talking about the proposal. I was talking about doing you on the bathroom floor.”
“I—” She snapped her mouth shut. Damn. No, there had never been wild sex on the floor with Josh. Or wild sex anywhere else. What sex there was had been nice. Just like Josh.
“But look at us—first time and we’re already going at it on the floor.” Gavin grabbed his shirt, boots and socks and stomped into the bedroom. “I sure didn’t hesitate to spread you out on the hard tile, did I?”
Allie scooped her clothes up and followed him. “I liked it, in case you couldn’t tell,” she said, exasperated. What was the problem here?
“So what else will I do that Josh won’t do?”
She stopped in the middle of the room, watching him strip out of his jeans again and toss them into the hamper. Distracted by the fact that he was naked again—and that naked was a really good look for him—she asked, “What do you mean?”
“I’m guessing Josh doesn’t go for a weekend watching a Big Bang Theory marathon and doing body shots off of each other.” Gavin yanked open a drawer and pulled a pair of sweatpants out.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Allie asked, pulling her shirt on without a bra, feeling the need to be covered ASAP. She’d loved that weekend.
“What about backward meals?”
She paused in pulling her pants up. Those were fun. They’d start by going out for dessert somewhere, then go to a different restaurant for the entrée, then another for soup and salad and end somewhere else with appetizers and drinks. “What about them?”
“Did Josh ever take you out for a backward dinner?”
She thought about that. She couldn’t imagine Josh doing that. She could, however, picture the confused look on his face if she told him about it. “No. We mostly had dinner at his mom’s or with my family. Or everyone all together.” And Allie had done a lot of the cooking.
She tugged her pants up the rest of the way and zipped them. It was absolutely no surprise to her that she had more fun with Gavin than she did with Josh.
Duh.
That was a huge reason why she was currently standing in the middle of Gavin’s bedroom in Alaska in postcoital bliss.
Though his crabby mood was quickly ruining that bliss.
“I also don’t see Josh as the type to take you roller-skating, or sneak into a high school prom or have a water balloon fight with you.”
She shook her head, her heart flipping as the memories paraded through her mind. “No, he never did any of those things.” She swallowed. Suddenly she felt the need to defend Josh. Or her choice in saying yes to Josh. Or both. “But there’s more to getting married than—”
“Exactly.”
“Exactly?” She frowned. “I thought you were trying to talk me into you.”
“I’m trying to talk you into letting me show you that there’s more to me than roller-skating and eating dessert first.”
He wasn’t looking at her but she could see the strain in his face. She’d always loved the roller-skating and dessert part of being with Gavin. But…this seemed important to him.
Josh wasn’t a big dessert eater, period. “But I love dessert,” she said weakly.
“You think of me for fun, but I don’t want to just be the extra stuff. I want to be…the main meal, what you need most. Hell, I want to be your vegetables.”
He wanted to be her vegetables. Great. That sounded ridiculous, of course, but she couldn’t smile. She knew what he meant, and before her mom got sick she would have been thrilled.
But she didn’t want that now. Her life was full of vegetables—so to speak. She had lots of things in her life that were good for her. Teaching, taking care of her family, marrying Josh. All good for her, all important in her life, all just a little…unexciting.
It wasn’t that she disliked any of those things. She liked some vegetables, too. She could eat asparagus and carrots on a regular basis and be just fine, and she happened to love broccoli. But there were also some she really hated. Brussels sprouts, for instance.
The truth was, good for her or not, she wanted more than broccoli.
Like ice cream. Chocolate syrup. Whipped cream. Candy sprinkles.
Dessert.
Gavin was her ice cream sundae. She didn’t want to trade that in on broccoli. No way.
“I need you, Gavin. That’s why I’m here.”
“Let me show you that I can be good husband material, Allie,” he said gruffly.
Her stomach hurt. She didn’t want husband material. She’d had that—or at least, she could have had that. She needed Gavin. Just the way he had always been.
Why couldn’t they seem to get to the same place at the same time?
“How?” she finally asked, trying not to sound skeptical or resigned.
Gavin opened another dresser drawer, pulled out a T-shirt and tossed it to her. “Put this on. Then we’re going downstairs to eat dinner and watch TV and talk. We’re going to have an evening like a normal couple.”
Oh, boy. She held the shirt against her. A normal couple.
There was that love-panic combination fluttering in her chest again.
But she exchanged her shirt for Gavin’s T-shirt.
“Lose the pants,” he said.
Now that sounded promising. “You got it.” She stripped the pants off.
“Now let’s go.”
“Go?”
He took her hand and headed for the stairs. Him in only his sweatpants—and she’d noticed he was going commando—and her in his T-shirt and a pair of panties.
Okay, at least it was sexy.
“Lyd! We’re here!” he called.
The first floor smelled amazing once Allie actually paid attention. Garlic and tomato sauce and… Her stomach rumbled.
“Yeah, and no more skipping meals,” Gavin said, leading her to the couch.
She started to reply and then thought better of it. It wasn’t worth arguing with him. She had skipped lunch and he really wanted her to eat and have healthy habits. Fine.
Lydia came in with a big tray. There were two plates, a bread basket, and a bottle of wine with glasses. She set it down in the middle of the coffee table without a word and headed back for the kitchen.
“Thanks, Lyd,” Gavin called after her.
Allie watched her go with a frown. She didn’t need to be Lydia’s friend, but she did kind of wish that she didn’t annoy the girl so much.
Then she looked at the tray.
They were having lasagna.
And if it tasted even half as good as it smelled and looked, it was way better than Allie’s.
Score one for the moody assistant.
Allie took a seat, then pulled her feet up onto the couch, tucking her knees under the shirt. Gavin handed her a plate, poured the wine and settled back, flipping the TV on. “I know you like this movie,” he said, cutting into his own dinner.
Allie had her first bite of lasagna in her mouth and wouldn’t have cared if he turned on a war documentary. The lasagna was that good.
But it wasn’t a documentary. It was The Bodyguard.
She looked at him. “Ha-ha.”
He grinned. “What? Obviously this movie means something to you.”
“You just love that I called and sang that song, don’t you?” she asked, reaching for the wine.
“I do. It was a stirring rendition.” He chewed with a smug look on his face.
Allie drank, then said, “I was drunk, you know.”
“Oh, I know. But the fact that you were thinking of me, when your inhibitions were down and with everything going on around you, meant a lot.” His eyes were on the screen.
She studied his profile. He was so damned good-looking. Sexy. And talented with that mouth that was now closing around his fork tines.
They’d spent plenty of time perfecting their skills on one another, and he knew exactly how to get her going exactly where he wanted her.
She knew his buttons too—though today she’d been wondering if she’d lost her touch. Earlier that morning she’d stood naked in front of him and begged him to take her to bed and he’d said no. Because of her tears. Because she’d lost her mind and cried after an orgasm.
Then again, just a little bit ago, the tears had moved him. She drank again and thought about that. No, it hadn’t been the tears. Well, they’d started it. She’d been fighting them all afternoon, and then when she’d turned and seen him standing there all she could think about was being in his arms. The moment she’d felt his strong, solid body against hers, she’d lost it again. She’d cried on his shoulder for the first time ever. And wow, it had felt good.
And speaking of feeling good…the bathroom counter and shower and floor had all felt pretty damned good too.
Thank god, he’d relaxed his rules about talking first. Or forgotten his rules. Or said “to hell with the rules”. Whatever had happened, she was thankful.
Looking at him now, she felt that tug in her chest. He wanted to be a “normal couple” with her. He wanted to get married. He wanted to show her he wanted all of that.
How was that going to work? Alaska was a long way from Promise Harbor. Was he saying he’d consider moving home now?
Her heart tripped at that. Could she really have Gavin? Her chest felt tight as the hope welled up. Hope she hadn’t even realized she’d had deep down.
“My brothers are a mess,” she said, watching carefully for Gavin’s reaction.
He looked over at her. “What?”
She took another drink of wine and then set the glass on the table. “You asked about my dad and brothers earlier,” she said. “They’re a mess.” She took a bite of lasagna and watched Gavin process that.
He muted the TV and turned to face her, and it hit her that he was taking this very seriously. “How much of a mess?”
“Charlie’s quit five jobs in the past year. Danny’s failed three classes and is considering taking a year off. Which will mean he’ll never go back to college.” She hated that her brothers were constantly taking the easy way out. Charlie quit jobs when he didn’t want to show up on time anymore. Danny dropped classes if they required more homework than he felt he was able to fit into his very busy social calendar.
“They’ve had a tough year,” Gavin said.
“Yes,” she agreed. Her mom had done everything for the boys. Allie was trying to help them out, but there was only so much she could do. “But they’re making things even tougher with their choices. Charlie doesn’t have health insurance or money for his bills, so he moved back in with Dad and I. Danny will have a hard time finding anything over minimum wage without a college degree, and he’s already lost his girlfriend because she got sick of him slacking. And he’s living with us too.”
“I’m…sorry,” Gavin offered.
She was too. “I just wanted to…tell you something. Since you asked.”
He leaned in. “Thanks.”
“Yeah.” She took another bite of the best lasagna in the world and admitted that telling Gavin that much hadn’t hurt at all.
“How about your dad?”
Now that was a more painful subject. She swallowed and pushed a piece of pasta around her plate. “He’s a mess too,” she said. “Of course.” He and her mom had been married for thirty-four years.
“Of course,” Gavin echoed. “I guess that’s a dumb question.”
She looked up. “No. It’s not.”
Her dad had been completely lost when her mom first got sick. It had taken Allie a week or so to fully and competently take over organizing his routine—something he hadn’t been able to do since the motorcycle accident twelve years before. But once Allie understood Lily’s method for keeping Owen on track, he did okay. By the time Lily had passed away, Allie had taken over the bill paying, the scheduling, the shopping, the laundry and…everything. “He misses her terribly but…” She trailed off, realizing where she’d been about to go with the conversation.
“But what?” Gavin pressed.
“Nothing. Things have been getting better.”
Because of the wedding.
Allie put her hand against her chest and focused on not freaking out. Josh was there. And Greta was back for a little while now. And Sophie. They would make sure Owen was okay. Yeah, Charlie and Danny might be on their own—and in some trouble—but at least Owen had people to lean on. Josh knew the details, he knew the things Allie took care of. He’d step in, she knew it. Yeah, he might be mad at her, but he’d never let Owen down.
“Allie?” Gavin leaned closer, his eyes full of concern. “What is it?”
“Nothing. Just…” She wanted to say it. She wanted to tell him. It would be the first time she’d said it out loud and suddenly she wanted to tell someone.
“Just?” Gavin prompted.
She bit her lip, then said quickly, “I said yes to Josh because he can like my family when I can’t.”
Gavin watched her, considering that. He didn’t seem shocked by her confession. “What’s that mean?”
She sighed. “I love my family but…” She shrugged, trying to ignore the twinge of guilt over what she was about to say. “Sometimes it’s hard to like them. Josh gets that and he kind of takes over for me sometimes. He’ll take my dad out to do something or listen to my brothers whine. He just…makes things easier.”
Gavin worked on not swearing. Or scowling.
Josh had been there, helping Allie. That was good. At least someone had.
But it had, obviously, helped win her heart.
More than that, it was something Gavin had never done.
He’d helped her, but not with her family issues. Not only did they not interact with each other’s families, they didn’t talk about them much. Gavin knew that Allie and her mom took care of her dad and the boys, but he didn’t know the details. He’d never asked.
The details hadn’t mattered.
Or he hadn’t realized they mattered. Or maybe they hadn’t mattered until about the time Josh decided to propose.
Gavin ran his hand over his face and let out a breath. “I’m glad you had someone on your side.”
He was glad. Of course, he would have preferred it be a girlfriend who took her shoe shopping and out for margaritas when things got tough. Instead, it had to be a good-looking, successful guy whom everyone loved and who had a history with Allie’s family.
Of course she’d said yes to his proposal.
“Josh helped pull me—all of us—through a really bad time,” she said.
Gavin glanced over to find that she’d exchanged her plate for her wineglass and was studying the merlot solemnly.
Yeah, he sucked at this. He wanted her to talk to him, to open up, to tell him all about her struggles. Then when she did, he ended up wanting to punch Josh Brewster. And for what? For being there for Allie? Being what she needed?
Yes.
Because it was easier to want to punch Josh than to be pissed at himself.
Josh had been there for her because Gavin hadn’t been.
“I wouldn’t have known what to say,” he finally said into the silence. “I would have wanted to say the perfect thing and it would have killed me to not be able to. I would have seen how sad you were and I would have wanted to make you smile and I would have done something stupid.”
She looked up from her wine. “Something like what?”
He sighed. “It doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t have known how to step in, I wouldn’t have known what to say.”
“What would you have done, Gavin?” Allie pressed. “Give me an example.”
He blew out a breath and pictured Allie sitting in the front pew of the church at her mom’s funeral. “I would have picked you up, carried you out of there and taken you to my house, made you get into flannel pajamas, sat you in front of a Looney Tunes marathon and made you eat Froot Loops.”
She stared at him, her lips parted in a surprised O.
Josh had probably given her a locket with her mom’s picture inside and held her hand through the service. Or something equally annoyingly perfect.
“Sorry,” he said with a shrug when she still didn’t speak. “My instinct would have been to take you away from all of it instead of being there beside you through it.”
Allie cleared her throat. “I know. And it sounds…”
“Stupid.”
“Wonderful.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Do you mean crazy?”
She shook her head. “You don’t get it. No one else in my entire life would ever think of feeding me Froot Loops after my mother’s funeral, but I’ll take sugary kids’ cereal over ham sandwiches and potato salad any day.”
Gavin didn’t know what to do. Should he hug her? Say something eloquent?
Hell, probably the eloquent thing, which was what he really sucked at.
“Al—”
“That’s what they fed us. Ham sandwiches and potato salad. In the social hall at the church. Which ticks me off because I liked ham sandwiches and potato salad before that. Now I’ll never be able to look at them again without thinking of the day my mother was buried.”
Jesus. Gavin swallowed hard. Being eloquent was beyond him even without a huge lump in his throat. This wasn’t getting any easier. Why had he thought talking was such a great idea?
“Do you have any idea how many casseroles we got after the funeral?” Allie asked him.
Gavin just shook his head.
“Twenty-two.” She shook her head. “Can you believe that?”
If giving casseroles was the way to show someone that they were cared for, then yes, he could believe that. Not only had Lily Ralston been beloved, but she, Owen and all their children had been born and raised in Promise Harbor. They knew everyone.
“Even if we ate one every night, it would have taken almost a month to go through them,” Allie said. “I didn’t have room in the freezer. It was nuts.”
“People were trying to help you out,” Gavin said, thinking that was a pretty good thing to say at the moment.
“I know.” Allie reached to set her wineglass down. “And it did help. Dinner was one less thing to mess with some nights anyway.” She looked up at him again. “But a bowl of Froot Loops would have been perfect. Simple to make, always turns out right, and it would have reminded me of building forts with the furniture and blankets in the living room Saturday mornings with my brothers. Nice memories.”
Gavin couldn’t believe that he’d gotten that right. Who knew that Froot Loops could be the simple answer to such a complex issue?
“What else?” she asked.
“What else what?”
“What else would you have done?”
Other than avoiding the whole thing and staying on the other side of the United States? Gavin shoved his hand through his hair. He hadn’t let himself imagine Allie and what she was going through. It was too hard. It was too…unfixable. And he hated that.
But to answer the question he made himself think about how Allie might have looked or felt or acted on the Mother’s Day after her mom was gone. His chest ached and he scrubbed at the spot over his heart. “I would have covered your bathroom mirror with comic strips and jokes.”
Her lips curled into a half smile. “Any dirty jokes?”
“Of course.”
The smile grew into a full smile and her eyes were brighter. “What else?”
To make her go from sad to happy like that? Anything. He thought hard, digging for creativity. “I would have rented a snow machine and had a snowball fight with you in the middle of June.”
She sat up straight, her eyes wide with interest. “What else?”
His imagination was revved up now. He loved not only making her smile, but also surprising her with how he did it.
“I would have set up a scavenger hunt where you had to go around town and collect packages from me. When you had them all together you’d realize it was a new outfit. Then a limo would have picked you up outside the last stop and brought you to me.”
She was sitting up on her knees on the couch now, her wine abandoned on the table. “Where would you have been?”
“I’m thinking…carnival.”
She grinned. “Yes. A carnival would be perfect.” She leaned forward. “What else?”
“I would have whisked you off to a beach where you could just lie around in the sun with umbrella drinks.”
“Would you have been there?”
“Definitely. I’d be the one rubbing the suntan lotion all over you.”
She gave him a sly smile. “A nude beach?”
“Only if it was private.” His imagination really liked that idea, and preferred this talk and teasing to the talk of how to take her mind off of her mom.
“I like that. What else?” she asked.
“Really anywhere far away where I could pamper you and keep you away from everything sad.”
Their gazes held for a moment. Then she said softly, “You did that.”
His gut clenched at that. “Better late than never?” he asked.
“See?” She sat back, her smile much less bright. “No one else would have done any of that. That’s why I like you, Gavin. Things aren’t serious and sad when you’re around.”
He knew she wasn’t trying to insult him, but there was something about the words that made him want to deny them. But it would sound incredibly stupid to insist that things could be serious and sad when he was around.
She started to crawl toward him and Gavin could see the intent in her eyes. All thoughts of sadness disappeared. But this could be serious. She was going to seduce him.
And he was going to let her.
She’d just climbed onto his lap and was leaning to kiss him when he heard, “Gavin!”
It was Lydia, but he could tell she was yelling from the kitchen.
“Yeah?” He had to clear his throat and try again when his answer came out gruff.
“Yeah?”
“Dave Wilson needs you.”
Gavin dropped his head to the back of the couch with a groan. “Why?”
“He said…”
But he couldn’t catch the rest. “Lyd, get in here!” he called.
“Are you naked?”
“Not yet,” Allie called with a big grin.
Gavin grabbed her hips and tossed her to one side. “Let’s not teach her anything she doesn’t already know.”
Allie rolled her eyes. “That girl is a lot of things, but stupid is not one of them.”
“Thanks.”
They both turned to find Lydia in the doorway, holding a piece of paper.
“Dave’s horse is in labor and having some trouble.”
Gavin sighed. This was the one drawback to being the only vet for almost a hundred miles. He looked at Allie. “Sorry. This could take a while.”
She waved him away. “No worries. Go. I’m fine.”
“You sure?” “Fine” was not exactly the word he’d use to describe her lately. Bipolar, maybe. But not fine.
She glanced at the clock. “I’ll probably go to bed.”
Bed. It was just one word, and she hadn’t even said it with any sexual intention, but desire hit him hard and hot in the gut. God, he wanted to join her. He’d had lots of plans for having her in his bed now that she was healthy and happy.
She gave him a wink that told him she knew precisely what he was thinking.
“I’ll be home as soon as I can.”
“Feel free to take advantage of me when you get back.”
Gavin coughed and glanced at Lydia. She looked bored.
He knew that she probably wasn’t as innocent as he liked to assume. She’d run away from home, after all. That took guts, if nothing else, and generally didn’t happen when things were happy and rosy. Still, she seemed so young to him, and he wanted only to be a positive influence in her life.
And for some reason, Allie seemed to like to rile her up.
“Don’t worry,” Allie said, reading his hesitation in his eyes. “Lydia and I will be fine.”
“Two words,” Lydia said, watching Allie. “Duct. Tape.”
Yeah. Gavin headed for the door.
He might be willing to storm into a wedding and carry the bride away, but he wasn’t about to play into this…whatever it was between the girls. A guy had to have some sense of self-preservation.
He didn’t take advantage of her. He didn’t even wake her up.
Allie rolled over and blinked at the beam of sunlight that seemed determined that she be conscious at nine the next morning.
Nine.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept that late. The days since coming to Alaska not considered, of course.
She rolled to her back and stretched. Gavin had been there. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she did. But he definitely wasn’t now.
He was probably already working.
He did a lot of that. And he seemed to love every minute of it.
Frowning, she pushed herself up out of bed. She didn’t want to think about how much Gavin seemed to love Alaska and Bend. Nancy had said that he was still basically a newcomer, that everyone was waiting to see if he’d stick. But she knew Gavin. This was an adventure, a challenge. He’d stick. She knew it.
But he said he wanted to marry her. What did that mean? What was she supposed to do with that? If she said yes…well, she couldn’t think about that. That was way too complicated.
Thinking about the puppies and polar bears in Gavin’s life instead, she showered and dressed. This time when she pulled on an outfit that she’d bought just for her honeymoon, she felt only a tiny twinge of guilt. She counted that as progress. The truth was, she’d said yes to Josh for the wrong reasons, but he’d also asked her to marry him for the wrong reasons. They were equally wrong, she figured, and overall it was a good thing they hadn’t gone through with it.
She brushed through her hair, letting her thoughts go to Josh and the Wedding That Wasn’t. She didn’t try to cut them off before the guilt took over. She just let her mind wander.
Knowing Josh, he was pissed. Not so much that she’d left him at the altar—she winced anyway, knowing that it had to be embarrassing if nothing else—but that she hadn’t done what she’d promised to do. Josh Brewster had never made a promise in his life that he hadn’t kept. She was pretty sure that Josh had lost all respect for her. Which hurt a little. She’d known Josh forever and he really had been there for her through the worst time in her life. But he deserved to be with someone who loved him…really loved him.
That made her thoughts drift to Devon.
And that made her sad.
She and Devon had been tight at one time. Allie didn’t have a lot of girlfriends. She knew it was because she didn’t have time to maintain another relationship in her life and she regretted that at times. But she wouldn’t have traded the time she spent with her mom for a bunch of gab sessions over chai lattes with anyone. Her relationship with Gavin had cut into other relationships too. She was often busy or gone on evenings or weekends. But again, she wouldn’t trade those times.
Still, it would be wonderful to have someone she could talk to about Gavin. A woman who could understand the love-panic thing he caused in her. A woman who’d maybe been there herself.
Devon had been crazy about Josh. And vice versa. Had Josh mixed Devon up the way Gavin did her? Well, he had been on the verge of marrying someone else. That had to have been tough.
Then again, Allie had called Devon when she and Josh started officially dating and again after Josh proposed. Both times Devon had said it was fine, that she was over Josh. Which meant Allie could really use her advice. How did someone get over the love of her life?
But did she want to be over Gavin? That was where things got tricky again and Allie forced her thoughts back to Devon. It wasn’t like she was going to win any Best Friend of The Year awards, but thinking about her screwed-up relationship with Devon was easier than thinking about her whatever-the-hell-it-was relationship with Gavin.
Okay. Devon.
Devon was awesome. Devon was beautiful and smart and fun and…the perfect woman for Josh, frankly.
Maybe when she got back to the harbor, she’d invite Devon out for a chai latte and she could nudge them together. They probably wouldn’t go out unless Allie told them it was okay. Sure, she’d gone off with Gavin, but Josh and Devon were better people than she was.
She’d be sure to tell them that she wouldn’t mind a bit if they dated again.
That might even help Josh forgive her.
Allie frowned at that. Would Josh forgive her? Did she deserve to be forgiven?
Allie tossed her brush back into her bag and headed downstairs.
She was really getting into this whole I-don’t-like-this-topic-so-I-just-won’t-think-about-it thing.
Not sure where else to start looking for Gavin, she headed for the kitchen. Lydia was there, of course, and her back was to Allie as she stirred something in a big pot on the stove.
But Allie had no more stepped onto the ceramic tile and the girl said, “Don’t even think about it.”
“Geez, you have eyes in the back of your head?” Allie groused.
“I know all,” Lydia said, not even turning.
“Where’s Gavin?”
“Out.”
“Out working?”
“Yeah.” Lydia leaned to grab a bowl of what looked like chopped onions.
“For how long?”
“A while.”
“I suppose you packed his schedule full in an attempt to keep him away from the house and drive me crazy.”
“Pretty much.”
Allie sighed. Loudly. “You’re clearly a natural, but I’ve had more practice being annoying than you have.” She guessed Lydia to be nineteen or twenty at the most. “I can do this all day. I’ve got nowhere to go and nothing to do.”
Lydia finally glared at her over her shoulder. “What do you want?”
What did she want? She could not stay here while Gavin was out most of the day. If it was just her and that Wii in the other room, one of them was going to get hurt. And it might well be her. She was more out of shape than she’d realized. “I need something to do.”
“So?”
“So, I figure either you tell me how to get to town, or you move over.”
“Move over?”
“I was thinking about making cornbread.”
Lydia turned to face her fully. “You’re not making cornbread.”
“It goes great with soup.”
“Stew,” Lydia said flatly.
“That too.”
“My sourdough rolls are better.”
Dang, that sounded good.
“My mom’s cornbread was award winning,” Allie said. Lily had won the Promise Harbor bake-off five years straight. “I know the recipe by heart.”
Lydia crossed to the door that led in the opposite direction from the one that went to the clinic. She pulled a set of keys from a hook by the door. “Gavin bought the work truck when he got here, but kept his car.” She tossed the keys to Allie and pulled the door open.
Allie caught the keys. Okay, she was going to town. Big surprise. “I need directions too. And,” she pointed a finger at Lydia, “no getting me lost on purpose. I will make you regret that.”
“Take a left at the end of the driveway. Go three miles. Take a right and drive until you hit town. If you get lost, you’re stupid.”
Wow, Lydia really didn’t want her around. At the moment, that was a good thing.
Allie started for the door, but Lydia didn’t move. She was watching Allie contemplatively. Which made Allie nervous.
She stopped a good five feet away. “What?”
“There’s something you need to hear.”
Crap, what was this going to be? How happy Gavin was here in Alaska? How she was just using him to feel better but deep down she knew she had to go back to Massachusetts eventually? Yeah, she knew all of that.
She was also doing a really good job at ignoring it and would not appreciate Lydia bringing it all to the forefront of her consciousness, where she’d have to deal with it.
Allie crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. Maybe she could intimidate Lydia into not telling her. “Oh, really?”
“Your mom wasn’t perfect.”
Okay, then. Definitely not intimidated. Allie dropped her defensive stance and drew up straight, staring at Lydia. “What?”
“She made your dad codependent, your brothers lazy and gave you a guilt complex.” Lydia said it all coolly and evenly. There wasn’t a mean tone in her voice or a resentful glare on her face. She just met Allie’s gaze steadily.
Allie swallowed hard. “How do you possibly know all of that?”
“I’ve been Skyping with your brother.”
If Allie had been shocked to hear this near-stranger talking—somewhat accurately—about her mother, she nearly fell over to hear mention of her brother. “Excuse me?”
“He got Gavin’s number and called, but that was while you were still in bed.” It was clear from Lydia’s tone of voice that she thought that was a major sign of weakness.
Allie bit her tongue.
“He called again the next day, but not for you that time. We moved to Skype the next day.”
“You’ve been talking to my brother since I got here?”
“Yeah.”
“Which one?”
“The one that can’t hold a job.”
Allie gaped at her, Lydia’s negative judgment of her forgotten, then glanced at the laptop that was never far from the girl. Clearly she’d overheard some of Allie’s conversation about her family with Gavin last night.
“What have you talked about?”
“I told him he’s too hot to be a loser.”
“Um…wow.” Lydia thought Charlie was hot? Charlie was twenty-five to Lydia’s maybe-twenty. Then again, the girl was more grown up than some people twice her age. And Charlie definitely wasn’t grown up.
“I also told him that everyone has a mom and that sometimes they die. It doesn’t get to be his excuse for everything.”
Allie had no idea what to say to that. There was definitely something not-all-that-subtle under Lydia’s words…
“And he should be thankful for what he does have—a sister who gives a shit and a father who doesn’t smack him around.”
Allie worked on not wincing. Not all that subtle, for sure. That explained some, if not all, of the running away.
“And I told him that sometimes you have to make things happen the way you want them to if they don’t happen that way on their own.”
Allie shook her head. “I have no idea what to say.”
“When we talked this morning he told me he’d gone to a job interview and he got it.”
Allie looked at the clock. It was just after ten here, which made it two o’clock in the harbor. “How long did you talk last night?”
“About four hours,” Lydia said.
Based on when she and Gavin had been talking on the couch, that had to have extended Lydia’s conversation with Charlie well past midnight in Massachusetts. And he’d gotten up for an interview? And impressed someone?
“What’s the job?” Maybe flipping burgers didn’t require being fully awake.
“It’s at the bank. It’s entry level but there’s a management program he can apply to after six months and start moving up.”
Allie knew she was staring at Lydia like she was speaking a foreign language but…wow.
“I don’t suppose you could work on getting Danny back in school.”
Lydia nodded. “Charlie’s going to talk to him.”
Maybe the girl could cure cancer and end worldwide hunger while she was at it.
“I don’t know what to say,” Allie said for the second time.
“Well, I prefer you speechless,” Lydia said. She swung the door wide open and then headed back for the stove.
Allie moved for the garage, feeling strangely dazed.
She got into Gavin’s car, still processing all the information Lydia—of all people—had just given her. Lydia’s mom had died, she had an a*shole father and she was counseling Allie’s brother. Charlie was a role model—for better or worse—for Danny. If Charlie got his act together, Danny really might follow.
But why was Charlie listening to a stranger on the computer?
Maybe because she was talking straight with him. Her mom had died too. She knew how that felt. Maybe because she was living what she said—if things didn’t work out the way you wanted them to, you made them work out. She hadn’t liked her home life so she’d left.
Running away wasn’t always the answer but—Allie looked around at the Alaskan landscape as she followed the directions to town—she certainly couldn’t throw stones here.
Gavin’s driveway was really just a long dirt road—a long, bumpy dirt road. It went for at least two miles through the birch and spruce trees, and she took it slow over the bumps and dips. The road leading into Bend was wider. That was about the only improvement.
She finally got to town and decided to drive around and see what Bend had to offer.
That took five minutes.
The businesses all lined the main street and sported old-fashioned storefronts with painted wooden signs and wood-slatted front porches. It looked very much like it probably had back in the early nineteen hundreds.
She wasn’t sure if the main street through town was actually called Main Street because there were no street signs. Then again, giving a specific address wasn’t necessary to find a business. You just drove until you saw it. You’d eventually find everything—as long as you didn’t blink.
It was clearly tourist season in Bend. Even though it was early in the day, people strolled up and down in front of the main shops. The farther down the street she went, the more the crowds thinned, until she reached the end and turned around. Visitors didn’t have as much need for the hardware store, grocery store and bar at the end of the street as they did for the main cluster of shops that included the Outdoor Adventures office, the Alaskan Gifts shop, and the coffee shop. The main street boasted everything from bike rentals to rafting to helicopter rides to hiking tours, hunting and fishing suppliers, outdoor gear shops and local artists, including painters, jewelry makers and clothing.
Allie’s destination, Denali Adventures Climbing School, was right in the middle of the west side of the street.
Climbing up a solid, unmoving, unchanging mountain still sounded like a great idea. Fun even. That’s what she wanted and if it didn’t just happen, or Gavin didn’t set it up for her, she’d follow Lydia’s advice and make it happen.
“Hi,” she greeted the guy behind the counter of Denali Adventures with enough enthusiasm to make the good-looking twentysomething chuckle.
“Hi. Can I help you?”
“I want to climb a mountain.”
“Well, I like you already.”
She smiled. “What now?”
“How much experience to you have?”
“None. Well, rock walls,” she said.
“You have any equipment?” he asked.
“Nope.”
He grinned. “So we need a few classes.”
Right. Probably. But she frowned slightly. Classes? “How many are you thinking?”
“That depends on how good you are and how fast you catch on.”
Well, how hard could it be? You held on tight and headed in the general direction of “up”. Seemed simple enough to understand.
An hour later, Allie was frustrated and sore. She’d forgotten—or had chosen not to remember—that she hadn’t been very good at climbing rock walls.
“I think we have some work to do,” Scott, as he’d introduced himself before the lesson started, said good-naturedly as he helped her down off of the small wall behind Denali Adventures.
It was a real, outdoor, honest-to-goodness rock wall, not manmade. And it was amazingly difficult. Or she sucked. Or both.
“How much work do you think?” she asked, trying not to breathe so hard. “I want to actually mountain climb. It sounds really fun.”
Or at least it had an hour ago.
Scott smiled. “Some definite work. Climbing takes training, Allie. It’s a fantastic sport, but you have to know what you’re doing so you’re safe, and you have to be in shape.”
She pulled in a deep breath and wiped the sweat, that she shouldn’t have even worked up at this point, off her forehead.
“You’re fresh,” he went on. “And I like your enthusiasm, but we’re gonna have to take some time.”
“I wanted to climb today,” she said, unreasonably.
“Well, you did. Kind of.” Scott gestured to the wall they used to train beginners. Real beginners. Like people who had never seen a mountain before. And her.
Yeah, she’d climbed today. Kind of. And it hadn’t been all that fun.
Scott helped her get out of the equipment—something else she hadn’t considered—and she said, “I’ll let you know about the lessons.”
It was going to be a big expense, for one thing. And, though she’d never admit it to him, Gavin might have been right about it being too soon after the pneumonia. She was way more tired than she should have been and it had taken way too long to catch her breath. And her shoulder hurt now.
“Hey, don’t let today discourage you. It just takes some time and planning.”
Planning. Planning was the antithesis of spontaneous. She knew all too well about planning.
She gave Scott her credit card and took his business card. If she decided to sit down ahead of time and plot and plan her next fun outing, she’d give him a call.
But it wasn’t likely.
She’d plotted and planned enough to last her a lifetime. Her mom had been too busy taking care of everyone else to take care of things for herself—like funeral plans. And Allie’s dad couldn’t handle any of that. Hell, Allie planned out the week for her dad and brothers from meals to appointments to chores she needed help with around the house. Which was part of the reason she’d been unable to work up any interest or energy to plan her wedding.
She was not going to plot and plan for fun.
On that note, she stepped out onto the sidewalk, looking around. What sounded good? What was something she could just go do? Something that required no prethought, no reservations, no special equipment. Just something that felt good at the moment.
One sign on a storefront two blocks down, away from the touristy shops, caught her eye. It was another of the businesses that the people of Bend frequented but that was too rustic for visitors. It wasn’t exactly new, but it did sound good at the moment.
The sign read simply Saloon.