He gave her one last nudge toward yes. “Hey, at least I’m a step up from those internet losers you dated. I’ve got a job. And I’m not writing a book on mushrooms.”
That made her smile. “Yes, but can you compete with Willie?”
“It’ll be hard, but I’ll try.”
“I could do worse, couldn’t I?”
“Hell, yeah.” He suddenly remembered her prerequisite about a man being a churchgoer. “I mean, heck. Heck, yeah. What do you say? I think I’m done being stupid about women. Give me another chance.”
“All right.”
He pumped the air. “Yes!”
“People are trying to work here, you know,” said Eleanor Gumm, several desks over.
Kyle shut up and got busy, grinning as he worked. It was going to be a great day.
Chapter Sixteen
On Friday Adam had to visit his customers in Seattle, so he got up extra-early and was at Chelsea’s door before dawn, this time setting out the tiger-striped jammies. The accompanying note read “I have something to ask you tomorrow and a promise to make. Will you open the door when I come by?” He knew she wouldn’t be working. He’d actually called the nursery and found out. He’d show up right after breakfast, before she got busy in the yard. He hoped to heaven the presents had been enough to convince her he’d changed.
The work day seemed unending, and he lost twenty bucks and three romance novels to Kyle at poker that evening. “I can’t concentrate,” he said. “Tomorrow is do or die. Either Chels takes me back or I’m in Jonathan’s spare room forever.”
Jonathan had the world’s worst poker face and it was impossible for him to hide the utter panic this announcement inspired.
“Don’t worry,” Adam assured him. “I was just kidding. If things don’t work out with us, I’m moving to Seattle. I don’t want to hang around here and watch her hook up with some other man.”
“I don’t blame you,” Bernardo said. “That would be tough.”
“It’ll work out,” Vance predicted.
Adam frowned at him. “How do you know...Vanessa?”
The jibe didn’t faze him. “Because she’s going to have a kid. She wants security.”
“If that’s all she wants, why didn’t she take me back sooner?” Adam demanded.
Vance shook his head as if sorely tried by having to deal with such a slow learner. “She wants to make sure she’s got you trained before the baby arrives, dolt.”
“Trained?”
“Yeah, trained.”
“What, you think she’s been manipulating me?”
Vance shrugged.
“She’s been jerking my chain.”
“Maybe it needed jerking,” Vance said.
Adam considered his behavior over the past couple of years. “Yeah, maybe it did.”
The next morning at ten he and the stuffed elephant parked in front of his house to find Chelsea already outside, weeding the flower beds. She wore cutoffs and a yellow T-shirt and her hair was pulled up in a ponytail. And there, walking up and down the lawn—his lawn!—pushing a lawnmower—his lawnmower!—was Dennis the Menace.
He grabbed the elephant and stomped over to Dennis, falling in step with him. “What are you doing mowing...” he shouted over the roar of the lawnmower.
“What?” Dennis shouted back.
“Why are you mowing...” Dennis turned off the mower, leaving Adam to finish his sentence loudly enough for all of Icicle Falls to hear. “My lawn?”
“Just helping out,” Dennis said. “You haven’t been around and your grass was getting high. I offered.”
“Well, you don’t need to offer. I can mow my own lawn,” Adam said, attempting to wrest the mower out of Dennis’s greedy paws.
Now Chelsea had joined them. “Adam,” she began.
Adam thumped his chest. “I can mow the lawn.”
“Not if you’re not here,” Dennis said, giving the mower a yank in an attempt to regain control.
“I’m here now.” Adam yanked back.
“Adam, come away,” Chelsea coaxed. “What have you got there?”
“A big, dumb animal?” guessed Dennis. “How symbolic.”
“I’ll symbolic you,” Adam said, and whacked him with the elephant, tipping his glasses sideways.
“Hey, not cool,” Dennis growled.
“I’ll say. Over here trying to steal my wife. My grass.” Adam took a swing.
The little weasel ducked and before Adam knew what hit him, or rather who, Dennis landed a lucky punch. Adam and the elephant went down.
It was broad daylight but Adam saw stars. His jaw was broken, he was sure. Some other man was all over his lawn and would be all over his wife next and here he lay like a beached whale. He groaned and shook his head.
“You shouldn’t mess with me. I was a lightweight champion in college,” Dennis said.
“That was a mean thing to do,” Chelsea snapped, and Adam couldn’t tell whether she was saying it to him or to Dennis.
“You shouldn’t mess with my wife,” Adam said. Ow, that hurt. He clutched his jaw.
“Oh, your poor jaw.” Chelsea was kneeling next to him now, concern plainly written on her face.
It had been a long time since he’d seen even a hint of kindness on that pretty face. Adam decided he could do a little manipulating, too. “I think my jaw’s broken.”
“Someone should break your head,” Dennis informed him. “To just up and leave a sweet woman like this?”
Up and leave? Adam looked at Chelsea in confusion. “I—”
“Come on in the house,” she said, helping him up. “Let’s get some ice on your jaw.”
He let her help him up, him and the elephant.
“Leave the lawn,” Chelsea told Dennis. “Adam can finish it.”
Yeah. So there.
“If you need anything, call,” Dennis said to Chelsea, giving Adam a look that promised a smashed nose to follow his broken jaw.
Once in the kitchen she sat him down at the table. It felt like years since he’d sat here. He soaked it all in—the pretty oak cabinets, the vase of flowers on the table, the smell of bacon left over from her breakfast. But the best sight of all was Chelsea herself.
He watched as she loaded ice in a plastic bag and then wrapped it in a kitchen towel. “What did Dennis mean about me leaving you?”
“He saw you were gone and jumped to conclusions.”
“And you never said anything different?” She’d let him look like a jerk. Granted, he’d been a jerk—long before Dennis arrived on the scene—but not that big a jerk.
“I never said anything, period. He just assumed you’d left.”
Adam chewed on that for a moment. “I guess it’s easy to assume things about people. Like they’ll always be there, no matter how much you take them for granted.”
She looked at him, surprised as a math teacher with an obtuse student who’d finally grasped a simple equation.
She came over to where he sat and pressed the ice on his chin.
He winced and pulled away.
“Don’t be such a baby,” she chided.
Baby. The word brought him back to what he’d wanted to say when he first arrived. He held up the stuffed elephant. “This is for the baby.”
“It’s sweet,” she said softly. “You’ve been sweet,” she added, and the tone of her voice encouraged him to hope that if he played his cards right, he’d be back home tonight.
“I’m gonna be like that elephant, Chels. I’ve learned my lesson. I won’t forget.”
She sat down opposite him, tears in her eyes. “Do you mean that? Really?”
“What else can I do to prove it?”
“Be different from now on. Make time for me. Make time for your family.”
He was done being a selfish bastard. “I can change,” he told his wife and himself.
“You have to. We’ve got a baby on the way. It’s time to man-up.”
“I will,” he promised.
She smiled. How he’d missed that smile! Then she leaned across the table and kissed him. It was as smooth and satisfying as fine bourbon. When she pulled away, the look in her eyes promised more.
“Will you go out with me tonight?” he asked. “Zelda’s is reopening. I got reservations.”
She nodded.
He wanted to jump up and down, shout his success from the rooftop, go pummel Dennis McDermott into the ground. Instead, he played it cool. “Good,” he said. “And now, I’m gonna mow the lawn.”
* * *
Kyle and Mindy were enjoying salmon baked in puff pastry almost as much as they were enjoying each other’s company when Adam and his wife came into Zelda’s to swell the crowd by two. It seemed most of the residents of Icicle Falls had showed up to celebrate the reopening of the popular restaurant. The bar where they’d waited for their table had been packed, and here in the dining room not a table was free except for one down by the fireplace, their obvious destination.
Charley, the owner, was beaming as she led them to their table. She had every right. She’d worked her butt off turning the restaurant into someplace special, and after the fire she’d worked even harder. The restaurant was better than ever with a slick new rustic decor and a bigger bar, complete with a nice-size dance floor. Jake O’Brien, hometown boy, and his band Ricochet were going to be performing there later. Jake’s first CD was out and he was busy playing the county fair circuit, but since his wife and Charley were friends he was squeezing in this appearance as a favor. Yet another reason the place was packed to the rafters. Adam had made his reservation fairly late; he must have pulled some strings to get in. Well, good for him.
He had his arm around his wife’s waist and he was smiling like he owned the world. With his wife back, Kyle supposed he did. He stopped to give Kyle a handshake. “How’s it goin’?”
“Great,” Kyle said, and made introductions.
“We’ll have to get together some time,” Chelsea said before they continued on to their table.
Getting together with other couples, being a couple. Kyle sure liked the sound of that.
“Is that one of your poker buddies?” Mindy asked.
Kyle nodded, although with everything they’d been going through lately, he was more like a comrade-in-arms.
“He’s nice. So’s his wife. It would be fun to do something with them.”
That seemed positive. Kyle took a casual drink of his beer. “So, are you saying you’d like to do more things together?”
She smiled at him. “What do you think?”
He grinned. “I think I’m glad I asked you out.”
“Me, too,” she said.
And later, when he took her home, she asked, “You want to come in for a drink. Or something?”
A drink sounded good. “Or something” sounded even better. “Yeah,” he said, “I do.”
He followed her inside and looked around the tidy little house, taking in details he’d missed the first time he was here. Being stupid. Paintings of flowers decorated the walls. She had a bowl of fruit sitting on her kitchen table. It was all homey and welcoming and he could already envision the two of them stretched out on that couch on a winter’s night, in front of the fireplace. A big orange cat regarded him warily from its perch on a rocking chair, then bolted for safety to another part of the house.
“You’ve got a cat,” he said, stating the obvious.
“That’s Snookums. She’s kind of shy.” Mindy continued on to the kitchen. “What would you like to drink?”
He joined her. She opened the fridge and bent over to inspect its contents. It was a lovely sight to behold.
“I’ve got Pepsi, lemonade, some white wine.”
“Huh?” Oh, yeah, he was supposed to be focusing on the contents of the fridge, not the woman in front of it. “Pepsi’s fine.”
She got out two cans and took glasses from the cupboard. She probably couldn’t reach the top shelf without a stepladder. Smiling, he remembered what his mom used to tell him every time he complained about his lack of height. Good things come in small packages. Mom had been right.
Mindy put ice in their glasses, poured in the pop and brought them over to where he leaned against the counter. As she smiled at him, it dawned on Kyle that, at last, he was writing his own romance.
There she stood, her eyes inviting him to kiss her. Her lips parted in anticipation. He took the glasses out of her hands and set them on the counter, saying, “Later.” Then he reached out and drew her to him.
She came willingly, a smile on her full lips.
Savoring the moment, he threaded a hand through her dark, silky hair. She was beautiful, a perfect little package.
She closed her eyes and tipped up her face, ready for his kiss.
The minute his lips touched hers, he knew his search was over and he’d found the woman of his dreams.
Oh, yeah. This was better than anything Vance could write, Kyle thought, and deepened the kiss.
It was long and juicy, and when they’d finished, she asked, “Are you sorry you’re not out with Jillian?”
“Jillian who?” he said, and kissed her again.
* * *
Jonathan and Chica had gone hiking on Lost Bride Trail. Legend had it that when you were about to get hitched, you caught a glimpse of the ghost of Joshua Cane’s bride, who mysteriously disappeared back when Icicle Falls was nothing more than a mining town. Jonathan hadn’t seen a thing.
He’d returned from his hike in a grumpy mood and heated a pizza. He should’ve been in a better mood since he’d finally lost his roommate. Adam had collected all his stuff that afternoon and was now over at Zelda’s celebrating the grand opening with his wife.
Kyle was there, too, on a date with his pal Mindy. Bernardo and Anna were out with her family. Even Vance had plans. His editor was in Seattle for a conference and they were having dinner. Juliet and Neil were going dancing at the Red Barn. It seemed like everyone was doing something tonight except him.
“We’re doing something. We’re having fun right here, aren’t we?” he said to Chica as he pulled out the pizza. Pizza and the sci-fi channel. Life was good.
If you considered that a life. Halfway through Aliens versus Aliens he decided he’d had enough. He was going out. He donned a clean T-shirt that said Nerd Is a Four-Letter Word, then left Chica in charge and headed out the door to join the gang celebrating Zelda’s grand opening.
The parking lot was full and there was a crowd inside the door waiting to be seated. There was barely room for them with all the floral arrangements and balloons saying Congratulations. No surprise that this was such a big deal. Both the restaurant and its owner, Charley, were popular.
But it was more than that. The people of Icicle Falls loved real-life Rocky Balboa stories. They supported one another, and when one of their own fought her way back from failure to success, everyone celebrated. The town itself had once been on the verge of extinction and came back strong, turning itself into a German-style alpine village. Failure happened and that was okay. Letting it beat you was not.
Jonathan passed up the restaurant, which was obviously catering to couples and families, and entered the bar, just another swinging single out for a good time.
Except once in the bar, he became acutely aware of the fact that although he was single, he was far from swinging. The bar was a mob scene. No one under the age of forty had stayed home, and the air was thick with perfume and aftershave. Jake O’Brien’s latest hit, “Baby, You’re Back,” was playing in the background, a warm-up for his band’s appearance later in the evening. There were lots of singles, but they’d been here long enough to form couples and groups.
Jonathan saw Tina Swift at a corner table, yukking it up with Priscilla Castro, who worked at the town hall, and a couple of guys from the bank. She saw him and waved, but didn’t beckon him over to join them.
Of course she wouldn’t. He wasn’t part of their circle. If this was a historical romance they would’ve been nobil
ity or gentry. He, on the other hand, would have been a stable boy. He worked for them, kept their equipment running, but he wasn’t one of them.
Billy Williams, the popular cowboy who worked on a nearby guest ranch, was the center of a group of giggling women, being his usual hammy self. He was the court jester. Everyone loved the jester. Nobody noticed the stable boy. But then, you weren’t supposed to notice him, even if he’d acquired some muscle.
Jonathan didn’t last more than a few minutes. The crowd was too intimidating, too happy, too...connected. He didn’t belong. He got out of there.
Now he felt more morose than he had at home. Might as well go back to Chica and some cold pizza, he told himself. That was depressing.
Almost of its own will, his car turned toward the edge of town. In a few minutes he was pulling into a potholed parking lot in front of a tavern where he saw several trucks and a couple of muddy Jeeps. Its outside wall sported a painting of a Neanderthal dressed in a pair of lederhosen and bearing a club. The Man Cave.
The place was darker and seedier than Zelda’s. It wasn’t as packed, probably because it was all guys, busy with the important business of shooting pool and drinking. A country song was playing, accompanied by the clack of pool balls.
No one here was any more welcoming than they’d been at Zelda’s, but he didn’t feel so out of place. Was that because everyone here was a stable boy, too? He went to the bar and sat down.
The bartender was a beefy guy who looked a little like the Neanderthal on the outside wall. “What can I get you?”
“I’ll take a Bud,” Jonathan said.
The bartender nodded and a moment later Jonathan had a beer to keep him company. He was halfway through it when a voice at his side said, “Hey there, computer man. What brings you to our man cave?”
He turned to see Todd Black at his elbow, dressed casually in jeans and a plain gray T-shirt. Plain gray, no catchy nerd talk on it anywhere. Jonathan felt like a dork. He crossed his arms over his shirt in an effort to hide the clever saying. “Uh, hi, Todd.”
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