Steph winked again as she turned to head back down the hallway. “Then you can work on falling for Ethan again.”
Chapter 36
Josie cracked open the French door, unable to resist the golden sunlight peeking through the lacy curtains. She’d just take a quick look—just open the door a smidge and poke her head in, then close it before anyone was the wiser.
The door slid easily, and as she looked into what must be a living room, her breath caught in her throat. Sunlight slanted through a bank of windows to her right, sending warm beams onto a buttery wood floor and soft yellow walls with wide white trim.
She stepped into the room and closed the door softly behind her, despite her quick-peek-only stance. Two couches with big cushions angled toward a warm brick fireplace, and soft folk-art rugs decorated the floor. In one corner, two floor-to-ceiling bookcases snugged against each other, barely holding games and puzzles and what had to be three hundred or more books.
Josie spun in a slow circle. No television, no radio, no computer. Just a bright, cozy space to pluck a book off the shelf and curl up on a gooshy couch for hours. Or play a game at the low, square table in the corner that had huge cushions on four sides instead of chairs.
She stepped hesitantly toward an arched doorway, then felt her mouth open in awe as she came through it to the huge kitchen. Glass-front cabinets with antique white trim lined the upper walls, and a dark granite countertop sat atop beadboard cabinets. The appliances were stainless steel, and the oven was a chef’s dream, complete with six burners and a warming drawer. An oblong island in the middle of the room had a prep sink and three green-shaded lights hanging from the ceiling, along with five wrought-iron barstools brightened with pale green checkered cushions.
She pictured the galley kitchen in her Boston apartment for a moment. It would almost fit on top of just the island here, she mused. On one hand, it was awfully convenient to have everything within reach. On the other, she’d never fit another human in there with her.
Josie walked by a sunny breakfast nook complete with a vase of daisies, a cozy den, and a huge dining room with a long maple table and matching hutch and sideboard before she came to a wide stairway with curving balustrade. It sure looked like someone lived here, or at least took really, really good care of the place. How did Ethan possibly find the time to keep a house he didn’t even live in dust-free?
She peered up the stairs, still feeling like a trespasser in Ethan’s home, but after seeing the … well, perfection of the first floor, she couldn’t resist heading up to get a peek at the bedrooms. All those years of dreaming about what the inside of this old hotel looked like had never prepared her for the reality of it.
Thick folk-patterned carpet cushioned her steps as she climbed the stairs, and when she reached the top, a wide hallway stretched both left and right. She headed to the left, catching her breath as she poked her head into each doorway. Every single bedroom was decorated like the B and B rooms at the front of the house, with a casual elegance and thick, soft duvets on the beds.
After she’d seen the four bedrooms to the left of the stairway, she turned to check out the other end of the hallway. The first bedroom looked like a nanny’s room, and the next one was decorated like a nursery, with bright blue walls and white furniture.
At the end of the hallway was a double door, and Josie gasped as she opened it and got a look at the master suite. A king-sized four-poster bed sat between two huge windows, a lacy canopy softening its lines. Acres of pillows and a downy comforter made her wonder how anyone could leave that bed in the morning.
Especially if a man like Ethan was still in it.
She shook her head, walking slowly across the plush carpet to three doors on the same wall. The one on the right held a walk-in closet bigger than her apartment’s bathroom. The door on the left opened into a huge dressing room decorated in deep rose, teal, and gold tones. A huge beveled mirror sat in one corner, and there were built-in drawers and cubbies covering one full wall.
Oh Lord. Steph was right. Who would not want to live here?
A cushioned window seat with colorful pillows made Josie sigh, just aching to curl up with a cup of cocoa and a novel. She looked back through the door toward the bed. After curling up with Ethan in that big, lovely bed, that is.
She pulled the lacy curtain aside and had a clear view of the back patio, the flower gardens, the … wishing well? Avery’s wishing well?
Her knees buckled, sending her pitching forward toward the window seat.
* * *
“Whatcha doing, munchkin?”
Avery looked up, fuzzy brown hairs peeking from beneath her Red Sox hat. “Making wishes.” She closed her eyes and flicked a penny into the water.
“What are you wishing for?”
“Can’t tell or it won’t come true.” Plonk.
“You sure have a lot of pennies there.”
“I’ve got a lot of wishes to take care of today.”
“Why today?”
“It’s time.”
Josie’s heart lurched. “What do you mean?”
Avery looked up, eyes wiser than they should have been at her age. “You know what I mean, Jos.”
Josie sat down on the bench, elbows on her eighteen-year-old knees. All she wanted to do was gather Avery in her lap and infuse her strength into her frail little body, but she’d tried that before. Tried it for two years now. It hadn’t worked.
“Sure you don’t want to tell me your wishes? Promise I won’t spill your secrets.”
She tossed another penny into the well, murmuring under her breath. “You’ll tell Ethan.”
“Not if you don’t want me to.”
“Baloney. You two are glued together, practically. I bet you tell each other everything.”
“Maybe almost everything. But not special secrets we’re keeping for other people.”
Plonk. “You promise you won’t tell?”
Josie made an X on her chest with her index finger. “Cross my heart, munchkin.”
“Okay.” She lifted up the bag, which had to have at least three hundred pennies in it. “I tried to find enough pennies for everybody I know.” She set the bag on one of Josie’s knees, then climbed into her lap and held her face in her tiny hands. “I’m wishing … wishing for everybody to be okay when I’m gone.”
Josie felt her eyes water, so she gathered Avery close so she wouldn’t see. “That’s a very generous wish, Avery.”
“I’ve been saving up these pennies for a long time so I could be ready, but I still don’t have enough for everybody.”
“You sure know a lot of people.”
“I got lucky, didn’t I?”
Josie squeezed her softly. Avery was ten years old, facing her own death, and talking about being lucky?
“We’re the ones who are lucky, munchkin. We’re the ones who got lucky.”
Avery put her tiny arms around her neck and squeezed her hardest, then climbed down from her lap. “Come on, Josie. I have a lot of wishes left to do. Help me?”
For the next two hours, Josie held her baggie while she plucked one penny at a time out, murmured her wish, and tossed it into the well. As it started to get dark, Avery sat back on her lap and tossed from there, exhausted.
Ethan found them a few minutes after the park had closed, and leaned over to kiss first Avery, then Josie. “Whatcha doing, Aves?”
“Making wishes.”
“Good ones?”
Avery nodded. “The best kind.”
“Are you ready for us to bring you home yet?”
“Almost.” She looked at the sky, where the first stars were starting to twinkle. “Do you think Ben would give us one last ride on the Ferris wheel?”
Ethan stood up, pulling her onto his back. “You better believe it. Let’s go find him.”
Minutes later, the three of them sat at the top of the Ferris wheel, swinging slowly in the soft twilight breeze. Avery leaned toward Ethan and pulled his head down, then bl
inked her eyes rapidly against his cheek. “Flutterby kisses, Ethan.” Her voice was so soft Josie could barely hear her. Ethan leaned down and tickled Avery’s cheek with his own lashes, making her giggle softly. “Flutterby kisses, Aves.”
Avery turned to Josie and did the same, then leaned her head on Josie’s shoulder and took Ethan’s hand in hers as she sighed and closed her eyes. “Guess what I wished last?”
“What, sweetie?”
“I wished that every time you see a butterfly, you’ll think of me.”
The next morning, when they arrived at Avery’s house together, an ambulance was parked in the driveway, along with a long black car from Freeman’s Funeral Home. Josie clapped her hand to her mouth and screamed silently, then louder. No! No, no, no, no, NO!
Ethan slammed the truck into park, and she felt his fingertips reach for her across the cab as she leaped out of the truck and sprinted up the driveway toward the stretcher just emerging from the house.
They were too late.
Josie knew Ethan had never cried before, at least not since his mom had died. It just wasn’t done in the Miller house. But as he pulled Josie away from the stretcher, as he rocked her on their knees in the middle of the gravel driveway, she felt his tears falling on her neck for a long, long time.
* * *
“You okay?”
Josie jumped as she heard Molly’s voice behind her. She swiped at her eyes, grabbing for a tissue on the vanity.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.”
Josie turned to her, and suddenly, a hot fury enveloped her. Yes, she’d fled Echo Lake ten years ago. Yes, she’d done it badly. Yes, she’d left both Ethan and Molly in her wake.
But she hadn’t meant to hurt them. She really hadn’t. And dammit, it was just about time for Molly to stop punishing her for it.
“You’re right, Molly. I’m not fine. How fine did you expect I might be, coming here?”
Molly shrugged, but her glance didn’t waver.
“It wasn’t your place to do this, Mol. This is Ethan’s home, and you should have let him show it to me, when he was ready. If he was ready. The only reason you brought me here was to hurt me.”
Josie blotted her eyes with the tissue. “Well, congratulations. You did. Does it make you feel better?”
Molly still didn’t answer—just stood in the doorway.
“I’m sorry, Molly. I’m sorry for how things happened, I’m sorry you got caught up in it, I’m sorry I couldn’t see how to stay friends with you without—without dying of heartbreak, dammit. Forever, it was the three of us, and I didn’t want you to have to choose between us.” She put up a finger when Molly opened her mouth. “We were eighteen. You would have had to choose, and you know it. I tried to make it easy, so you didn’t have to.”
“We were best friends, Josie.” Molly’s voice was soft.
“I know.”
“You killed him, Josie. And you left me to pick up the pieces.”
“I never meant to. Either of those things.” Josie took a shaky breath. “Everything was falling apart. Mom was—a mess, Dad had abandoned her for the stupid park, and Ethan … as far as I could see, Ethan was setting out to become a cookie-cutter version of my dad.
“And me?” She shivered, remembering her last night in Echo Lake. “I don’t know what I was headed for, but it scared the hell out of me.”
“Why didn’t you ever talk to me? Why’d you just take off in the middle of the night? You just—left.”
Josie took a deep breath. “That night … it was bad, Molly. I just—had to go. I can’t explain it. I don’t know how to explain it.”
Molly stepped slowly into the room and sat on the bed. “Okay, fine. I get that. But Jesus, Jos. It’s been ten years. No way to explain it since then?”
“I don’t know. Explaining it meant … reliving it. I buried it, Mols. I tried to bury it in work and exercise and … God, anything I could.”
“Did it work?”
“I don’t think so.” Josie shook her head as she sat gingerly on the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry I hurt you, Mols.”
“Are you?”
“Yes. I never meant to. Really.”
“You’re not just saying that because you’re desperate and have no friends here anymore?”
Josie looked sidelong at her, relieved to see a tiny smile. Ah, now that sounded like the old Molly.
“Not just saying it. I’ve missed you like crazy.”
Molly sighed, shaking her head. “Ditto.”
“Any chance we could be friends again?”
“Maybe.” Molly shrugged uncomfortably. “This isn’t third grade, though. It’s not that easy.”
“I know.”
“What about Ethan, Jos?”
Josie traced the seams of the quilt with her finger. “I don’t know. I really, really don’t know, and that’s the honest truth.”
“Well, friends or not, if you hurt that man again, I will hunt you down. I mean it.”
“I know.”
“I mean it, Josie. You need to decide, before things go any further, just what you’re after here. Because this little jaunt down memory lane might be easy for you to leave behind, but it won’t be for Ethan.”
“Wouldn’t be easy for me, either.” Josie’s voice was a whisper, and she could almost hear the alarms ringing inside Molly as her old friend’s expression hardened.
“Do you—still love him?”
Josie looked at her, feeling tears threaten again.
“Oh, Mols. I wish I didn’t.”
Chapter 37
“No.” An hour later, Molly crossed her arms like a four-year-old. “No freaking way.”
Ethan sighed as he took a seat across from her desk. “How do you really feel, Mols?”
“Ethan, are you seriously this dense? Are you seriously under some delusion you can convince Josie to come back here by offering her a job? You think she’s going to take a job from you? Seriously?”
“Could you please use the word seriously at least one more time so I know you’re serious?”
“This is insanity.”
“It’s not.” He pushed his hands through his hair, then braced his elbows on his knees. “It’s not, dammit. You know she’d be perfect for this place. You know we need this sort of care available. Think about how it would round out what we’ve currently got.”
He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it since he’d seen her work her magic on Bryce-the-tree-climber. Hadn’t practically slept, thinking about it. And then she’d appeared here, thanks to Molly, before he’d quite figured out how to approach her gracefully about the whole thing.
And then she’d walked around the house like she was going to break it if she stepped too hard, spent twenty minutes exploring the living quarters, came out looking like a deer caught in the headlights, Molly close on her tail.
When he’d come toward her, she’d put up a hand, halting him. “No. I need to process this. I need to … to … just go. For a while. I don’t know. Avery. Everything. The well!” She’d made a motion toward the back windows, where the wishing well was.
Dammit. Showing her the well’s new home was just one more thing he had been hoping to do more gracefully, but he’d waited too long.
And then she’d left.
Bad. It had all been wrong. And he was furious at Molly for bringing Josie here without even asking him first. It hadn’t been her place.
Had it?
Molly sat back in her chair, lips tight. “I have a date. I do not have time for this discussion. Were you planning to advertise an opening for a counselor anytime in the next six months?”
“That’s not my point.”
“Were you?”
“You know I wasn’t.”
“Then you are making up a need here, in a desperate attempt to convince your ex-girlfriend there’s something still here for her. Which there isn’t.”
“Not true.”
“Ethan, be serious
. She lives in Boston, for God’s sake. She has a practice that does business with Boston Children’s Hospital. She’s got patients coming out the wazoo. You really think she’s going to be satisfied sitting in this house seeing maybe two or three patients a day?”
“Maybe? Or maybe Mercy is looking as well? Why not? It’s good work, Molly. You know it is.”
“Yes, I know it is. And you know it is. But I have absolutely zero confidence that she will agree. She moves at a different pace now, has different expectations. She didn’t want this life, remember? Have a few grown-up make-out sessions completely clouded all reason? One trip to the waterfall?”
Ethan felt bile rising in his stomach. She was one step away from being out of line, but if he was honest, it was partly his fault. He’d laid this conversation on her without any warning, and Molly was not one to mince words on the best of days.
“Mols, she didn’t want the life she thought she was going to have. She was eighteen. She could barely see past the end of her nose, let alone what her life might look like in ten years. Her parents were a disaster wrapped in a holiday package, and I was one big old barrel of laughs back then, with my scholarship down the drain and a future at the park she hated staring me in the face. Of course she wanted to leave.”
“Shouldn’t have mattered that you were going to be an elf. Not if she really loved you.”
He leveled Molly with a look. “Be serious. She wanted more than this town had to offer, and she went and found it. She had a whole lot of really good reasons to take off for greener pastures, and at the time, I was one of them.”
“And you think that’s changed now, just because she’s been back for two weeks and you’ve seared her with your golden lips?”
Ethan coughed. “Golden lips?”
He was surprised to see color rise in her cheeks. “Be realistic, Ethan. So the two of you still have chemistry. Great. You’re still sitting in her father’s office at her father’s precious park, and you show no signs of leaving. You’d be offering her exactly the life she didn’t want.”
Ouch.
“It’s not that simple.”
Molly looked down at the papers on her desk, silent for so long that Ethan shifted uncomfortably. Molly never held her tongue. Finally, she looked up and took a deep breath, then blew it out slowly between her lips. “Ethan, if you offer Josie a job here at Avery’s House, I will resign.”
Forever This Time Page 27
