by J. H. Croix
Of all the reasons Travis hadn’t gotten serious about dating, he hadn’t considered the benefits of avoiding the rumor mill in Diamond Creek. Yet, even when Sylvia was teasing, she didn’t tend to spread gossip. Oh, she had plenty to share if she chose. People told her just about everything. She was the human switchboard in Diamond Creek, a benevolent switchboard with everyone’s best interests at heart. He took a deep breath and looked over at her.
“Ben might be right,” he finally said with a sheepish shrug.
Sylvia’s smile spread slowly. “Well, it’s about damn time.” She paused and cocked her head to the side. “How did this come about?”
“Me and Janie?”
At her nod, he shrugged, uncertainty rolling through him. His feelings for Janie were unfamiliar and new. “After I fished her out of the bay, she ended up being my assigned tour guide the day I went to the elementary school for the fire safety talks. I asked her out to dinner and…” He shrugged again. “Honestly, not much has happened. I’ve had dinner with her and Stella since then, but that’s about it. I’m not, well, I’m not much for dating, much less a single mother. Any suggestions?”
Sylvia took a sip of coffee. She was quiet long enough, Travis started to wonder. When she spoke, her eyes were serious. “Janie is an amazing woman, but you might want to know something about her. I’m not sure I should say anything, but if you don’t hear it from me, you might hear it from someone else.”
Travis’s gut clenched and he took a gulp of coffee before nodding.
“Janie hasn’t dated much. I kind of figured she might not ever bother with it, which tore me up. Her father died in a fishing accident when she was ten. After that, her mother got involved with Randy Price. There’s no other way to say it, but Randy was a class-A abusive jerk. He knocked her mother around and pretty much isolated her from everyone. If you know much about Janie’s family, that was awful. They’re pretty tight. Everyone was worried, but nothing seemed to nudge her away from Randy. Anyway, one day when Janie talked back, Randy hauled off and hit her. He broke her jaw. That woke Janie’s mom up, and she knocked him out with a pan. Janie ended up being the one to call the police. After that, they were back and forth in court. Randy tried to move back in with Janie’s mom more than once, but she kept him away. He was eventually convicted, but he didn’t spend much time in jail. I check on him every so often. He moved to Fairbanks and he’s been arrested a few more times for assault against his latest girlfriend.”
Sylvia stopped talking and watched him. Travis was wrestling with a mix of emotions—raw fury at a man he’d never even laid eyes on, anguish for what Janie went through watching her mother get beaten, getting assaulted herself, and then slogging through the long legal process of a trial. If he’d wondered if Janie was starting to mean something to him, he knew it with certainty now. All he wanted was to track down Randy Price and beat the living crap out of him.
“I thought maybe you’d want to know that bit of her background. She, uh, well, she’s steered clear of men for the most part, and it’s no wonder. I’m friends with her mother Leslie. She’s never stopped feeling bad about letting Randy into their lives and not being able to push him out until he hurt Janie.”
Travis managed to nod. He’d sensed how guarded Janie was and now he knew where it came from. He took a breath and another gulp of coffee, trying to beat back the fury flooding through him. Randy Price was nowhere near, and it wouldn’t do much good for Travis to stomp around looking for a fight with someone long gone.
Sylvia reached across the table and curled her hand over his, giving it a squeeze. “You can’t change the past, and Randy can’t touch Janie now. But if I was curious about whether she meant anything to you, I’m not now.” Her eyes crinkled with her smile. “Janie’s stronger for what she went through, but she doesn’t make it easy for anyone new to come into her life. You can count yourself lucky in that regard.”
Sylvia stood up and rounded the circular table to lean over and squeeze Travis’s shoulders. “Like I said, you’re a good man. I have a feeling about you and Janie.”
At that moment, Ben entered the break room, a wide grin spreading when he caught Sylvia’s words. “Told ya!”
His teasing snapped the somber moment, which Travis needed. He shifted in his chair to glance over his shoulder. “You just wait ‘til we’re making bets on your love life.”
Ben shrugged. “Go right ahead. I can take it,” he said with a chuckle as he poured himself a cup of coffee. He stepped to Sylvia’s side and dropped a kiss on her weathered cheek. “Thanks for the amazing coffee.”
As Ben turned away, their radios went off simultaneously, announcing a stove fire on the hillside. Travis stood swiftly and followed Ben out. In minutes, they were racing behind the main fire truck up the hillside.
Janie carried a tray into the living room, pausing beside the coffee table to clear a spot for it. Once she set it down, she put her hands on her hips and glanced down at Stella. “Need anything else before I run upstairs to shower?”
Stella looked up from her tablet reader and glanced to the tray. “Chocolate chip pancakes! Yay!” She lifted her eyes to Janie. “Thanks Mom. This broken ankle isn’t turning out so bad,” she said with a grin.
Janie rolled her eyes. “You get breakfast every Saturday. Only difference is now I carry it to you.”
Stella leaned over and transferred the tray from the coffee table to her lap. Pansy wiggled her way between the couch and coffee table, nosing her head onto the edge of Stella’s tray. Stella stroked her head quickly and nudged her away. “Sorry Pansy, no pancakes for you.”
Janie smiled softly watching them. Pansy had blended seamlessly into their lives. It felt like she’d been there much longer. She was Stella’s shadow most of the time.
“So you’re all set?” Janie asked.
Stella was already chewing on a bite of pancake. She nodded and mumbled her reply between bites. “All set.”
Janie jogged up the stairs and into her bedroom. After a quick shower, she returned downstairs to find her mother had pulled up a chair on the opposite side of the coffee table from Stella. Her mother stopped by frequently, so it wasn’t a complete surprise. They were engrossed in a game of Scrabble, which had become one of Stella’s favorite games.
Janie’s mother, Leslie, glanced up. “Hey hon, thought I’d stop by and check on you two. I brought coffee from Misty Mountain.” She gestured across the room to the kitchen counter.
Janie made a beeline to the counter and lifted a cup from the holder. “Thanks Mom!” She took a gulp of the rich brew and sighed. “So good.” She crossed back into the living room and sat carefully on the couch by Stella’s feet. She noticed Stella’s tray had been carted away and guessed her mom had taken care of it.
Stella quickly played a word and lifted a fist in triumph. “Seven letter word and fifty extra points! Oh, and I’m out of letters.”
Leslie grinned and gathered the tiles from the board before dumping them in the bag. “Remind me when your first recital is.”
“In three weeks. After Thanksgiving and before Christmas. I hope I don’t still have this thing on,” she paused to point to her bright pink cast. “But, it’ll be fun. You’re coming, right?” It didn’t matter that Janie’s mother had never missed a single concert of Stella’s, Stella always asked.
Leslie looked up as she put away the game board. “Of course! As if I’d ever miss one of your concerts.” Her hazel eyes were warm as she looked over at Stella.
Janie had inherited her dark brown hair and hazel eyes from her mother. Leslie’s hair was streaked with gray now, but her eyes were lively and snapping. Janie never stopped feeling relieved to see the joy in her mother again. It had taken a few years after Randy was successfully banished from their lives before her mother seemed to return to the woman she’d been before. Thinking about Randy made her mind skip tracks to Travis. Not because Travis was anything like Randy, but because no matter how good it felt to be with Travis, she always carried see
ds of doubt about her judgment deep inside. She knew perfectly well how easy it was to be fooled. Randy hadn’t walked into her mother’s life and started knocking her around. It had been a gradual process of erosion in his behavior. He’d started out charming and ended up nearly destroying their lives. Janie still wondered if her mother ever would have gathered the courage to leave him if he hadn’t hurt her.
Travis is nothing like him. Nothing. Don’t even go there. She gave herself a mental shake. It was hard not to constantly doubt. After what she’d witnessed her mother go through, it didn’t seem worth the trouble to suss out who could be trusted. Instead, she built a life where she didn’t have to worry about being vulnerable.
“Mom?” Stella’s question broke through her thoughts.
She glanced to Stella. “Yeah?”
“I need to shower. Can you help me get up?”
Janie stood and held her hand out. She gave a gentle pull as Stella rose up. Once Stella was standing, Janie handed her crutches over. Stella gave a little wave and made her way to the stairs. Janie had to forcibly keep herself from following Stella to the stairs. Stella had gotten more and more nimble at making her way around with her crutches and resisted any help. Janie watched while she slowly navigated up the stairs. After she disappeared down the hall, Janie tidied the pillows on the couch and folded the throw blanket before sitting down.
Her mother smiled softly. “I bet you want to hold her hand through this whole thing.”
“Oh yeah. She won’t let me though, so I have to suck it up.”
“She’s doing great. I’m glad it’s not holding her back much.”
“Not at all. Once we got through the first few days and her pain eased, she’s been fine. She has her cranky moments, but she has those with or without a broken ankle.”
“That she does. I was thinking of taking her up to Anchorage with me for today and tomorrow. Is that okay?”
“Sure. You doing your usual holiday shopping run?”
“Of course. I need to beat the Thanksgiving rush. I booked a two-room suite, so she’ll have her own space. It’s still early, so I figure we have plenty of time to make the drive. Need anything?”
“Always. Hang on. I’ll write a list.” Janie strode to the refrigerator and tore a piece of paper off a small notebook mounted there. She quickly jotted down a list of groceries and a few gift items. After she handed the list over, she crossed her legs and leaned into the pillows. “Anything new?”
Leslie shook her head. “Nope. At sixty-five, a boring life works great for me.”
Janie rolled her eyes. “Mom, your life’s not boring. You volunteer for the hospital and the animal shelter, and you’re friends with the entire town. You have a much more exciting social life than I do.” Travis flashed through her mind again, but she batted him away.
Leslie grinned. “Maybe not. Rumor has it you’re seeing Travis Wilkes.”
Janie felt the blush race up her neck and face. “Seriously? Where did you hear that?”
“From Stella, so it’s not exactly gossip,” Leslie said pointedly. “Stella thinks he’s awesome.”
Janie grabbed her coffee for a big gulp and sagged into the cushions. Talking about Travis made her feel unsettled because she didn’t know what to do with her feelings. “I should’ve guessed.”
“Not that you need to hear it from me, but I’m glad you’re seeing someone. Travis seems like a nice guy too.”
Janie closed her eyes and took a breath. “He is a nice guy. I don’t know if it’s gonna go anywhere. I hope Stella’s not pinning her hopes on something big. It’s been a few dinners and that’s it.” She uncrossed and crossed her legs, restless at the emotions Travis stirred up inside. She looked over at her mother. “I don’t mean to bring up a bad subject, but I have to ask. Randy was nice at first, right? That wasn’t just my imagination, was it?”
Her mother closed her eyes for a long moment before opening them again. They held sadness and pain. “Of course, he was nice at first. But pretty early on, I knew he wasn’t who he seemed. I just didn’t know how to end things and by then, things started to go really bad. Honey, don’t let what happened with Randy make you question your own judgment. Travis is nothing like Randy. Nothing! You know that. Plenty of people in Diamond Creek know him and know him well.” Her mother angled her head to the side. “You have no idea how much I wish I’d had the strength to leave Randy once I started to get a sense of who he was. If I could have a chance to go back and change things, I would. I can’t, so all I can do is learn from it and go forward. I hope you don’t think the only lesson in it was not to trust any man.”
Janie’s throat was tight. She held her mother’s eyes and tried to keep from crying, but a tear rolled down her cheek anyway. She gave her head a sharp shake. “I don’t know why all this is coming up right now. It’s been so long. I thought…I guess I thought I was fine. This whole thing with Travis makes me feel like I’m not sure of anything.”
Her mother leaned forward, pinning her gaze on Janie. “You don’t doubt your judgment in any other part of your life, so don’t do it here. Give yourself a chance for once.”
Janie swallowed and took a deep breath. “Right. It just seems a lot easier not to worry about trying to find someone.”
Her mother shook her head slowly. “It’s one thing if you choose to be alone because that’s what you want. It’s another if the choice is a default option driven by fear. Your father was nothing like Randy. After he died, I was devastated and emotionally out of whack. If I’d been a little more together inside, I’d have seen Randy for who he was before he got too close. You have no idea how much I regret I didn’t have the strength to leave him before he hurt you, but I didn’t. I can’t fix that, but I’ll tell you over and over again that you deserve to have more if that’s what you want. The way you looked when I mentioned Travis tells me you probably do want a chance to at least see what might unfold. Don’t let fear take that away from you. That’s all I’m saying.”
Janie stared at her mother for a long moment and finally looked away, weary of the emotional confusion swirling inside. See, this is why it’s easier to just be alone. Yeah, but maybe I want to try something else. She looked out over the bay. Clouds were scudding across the sky with the wind ruffling the surface of the water. She looked back at her mother and shrugged. “I’m working on it. I…” She stopped when she heard the distinctive thump of Stella’s crutches on the hallway upstairs. “Let this go for now. Hang on, let me tell Stella you want to take her to Anchorage.” She stood and strode to the bottom of the stairs. “Gram wants to take you to Anchorage for the night. Wanna go?” she asked as Stella reached the top of the stairs and looked down.
Stella grinned and waved one of her crutches. “Yes! When are we leaving?”
Janie’s mother had joined her at the base of the stairs. “Whenever you’re ready,” Leslie said. “It’s just for the night, so you don’t need to pack much.”
Stella spun around and immediately crutched her way back down the hall. “Hang on. I’ll get my stuff now. Mom, can you help me carry a bag down?”
Not much later, Janie stood by the kitchen door and watched her mother’s small truck disappear as it turned onto the road. They’d decided to take Pansy with them since the hotel allowed dogs. When Janie closed the door and walked through the kitchen, the house felt strangely quiet without Stella and Pansy. She started a load of laundry and puttered around the house, taking care of chores, until she ran out of things to do. Restless, she found herself pacing aimlessly back and forth in front of the windows, thoughts of Travis tumbling through her mind.
She was wrestling with figuring out how to shove him out of her mind, but didn’t know if it would be that easy. She was too drawn to him and disconcertingly drawn to the humming attraction between them. She wondered if she simply needed to get him out of her system. Abruptly, she spun away from the windows. She had the rest of the day and night to herself. It would be the perfect time to see if she could
do precisely that.
Chapter 11
Travis stared down at the text message on his phone screen for roughly the one-hundredth time. He wasn’t usually an indecisive man, but then he wasn’t usually tossed asunder inside by a woman like Janie. He didn’t know what it was about her, but just thinking about her sent him spinning inside, not to mention kept his body on high idle. He tried to recall the last time mere thoughts of a woman got him hard, and he kept coming up empty. He considered himself practical and in control. Janie made him feel wildly impractical and bordering on out of control. For instance, she’d sent him a text message a bit ago, the message he couldn’t stop re-reading.
Have the house to myself until tomorrow.
That’s it. That’s all it said. The ball was in his court, but he didn’t want to make assumptions. All he could think was that meant he could go over and finally slake the pounding lust inside. He nearly jumped when there was a knock on his truck window. He glanced up to find Nathan grinning at him through the frosty glass. He glanced at the dashboard clock and realized he’d likely been sitting in his truck in the post office parking lot for a good five minutes. That’s how much a text from Janie got to him. He gave himself a mental shake and climbed out of the truck. Nathan stepped back as Travis opened the door.
“Hey man, what’s up?” Nathan asked casually.
Travis shrugged. “Not much. Just checking the mail.”
He started to walk toward the post office. Nathan turned at his side and walked with him. A bracing wind gusted across the parking lot.
“Damn it’s cold,” Nathan commented.
They reached the door, and Travis experienced a sense of relief when the door whooshed shut behind them and the warmth inside the building rushed around him. He glanced to Nathan. “That it is. What’re you up to?”
Nathan arched a brow. “Uh, same as you. Checking the mail.”
They walked in tandem down one of the aisles, each respectively opening their post office boxes and pulling mail out. In silence, they stopped at a small table by the windows and sorted their mail. Travis tossed junk mail in the recycling with Nathan following suit. He glanced up and almost jumped in his skin when he saw Janie walking across the parking lot. Her dark hair blew in a swirl with a gust of wind.
