by Zoe York
But he wanted them to be his business.
“What else do you need?”
She shrugged.
He squeezed her again. Another hug couldn’t hurt.
And as she stepped back, he thought maybe he could lighten the mood a little. “Can we talk about how my brothers are part of your secret parking fundraising brigade and I am not?”
“They aren’t!” She laughed and groaned at the same time. “I don’t know what she was going on about. Tom would have submitted that permit change, adding the municipality as a co-sponsor of the event, and increasing the number of hayrides, ergo, needing more EMTs and firefighters there for safety control. I literally just suggested it as a trial balloon to see how people would react. I’m not organizing anything!”
He loved how exasperated she got. This was the worst moment for a surge of inexplicable desire, but there it was. He reached out and caught her hand. “It’s a testament to just how much you do effect change around here. All for the better.”
“Says my fiercest critique.”
“Nah.” He tugged her closer and brushed his lips against her forehead. “I’m your biggest fan. I promise.”
She murmured her thanks, then pointed in the direction of their seats. “We should probably…”
“Yeah.”
In the kitchen, Frank was waiting to give her a hug. “Your food’s ready when you want it.”
“Can I get mine to go?” Catie asked. “I’m ready for my PJs and some HGTV.”
“Absolutely.” He glanced at Will. “Yours, too?”
Will didn’t want anyone to mistakenly think he was going home with Catie when that was the furthest thing from the truth. “No, I’ll eat mine here, Frank. Thank you, though. I’ve got some reading to do, and I like the lighting over your booth.”
A most unnecessary addition to the answer, he realized as soon as it was out of his mouth.
But Frank didn’t seem to care.
Will walked Catie out to her car, just to make sure she wasn’t going to be ambushed. “When you get home, text me that you get inside, all right?”
“She’s a fifty-five-year-old lightweight, Will. I think I’ll be okay.”
“Just…humour me.”
She gave him a half smile and nodded. “Thanks for tonight. That would have been even harder if I was alone.”
Forty-five minutes later, after not really tasting much of his dinner and spending most of that time consumed by his thoughts, Will texted his brother a specific request.
Will: Do you have mom’s recipe cards?
Owen: Probably.
Will: Great. I’m coming over.
Owen opened the front door as he climbed the steps. “Why do you need mom’s recipe cards in the middle of the night?”
“It’s ten-thirty, Betty White.”
Owen frowned. “Betty White has never struck me as the early to bed type.”
“Not the point.”
“Also, you said that like some kind of insult, when it really needs to be pointed out that Betty White is a class act.”
“We’ve derailed.” Will paused, distracted by his brother’s rabid but fair defence of the ninety-something-year-old actress. “But your point is taken, I meant no disrespect to Betty White.”
“What about me?”
“You? Maybe I meant a little disrespect in your direction.”
Owen yawned. “I’m going back to bed.”
Will stood his ground. “First the recipe cards.”
“Sure, okay.” Owen wandered into the kitchen and dug into the cupboard beside the fridge. “What is the cooking emergency?”
“Catie’s mom died.”
“Oh, shit.” Owen stopped rifling and gave Will a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry. Is there anything we can do?”
“Go back in time and attend the funeral four years ago.”
“Oh. Shit.”
“Yeah.” Will sighed. “She never said anything—to anyone—when she moved back. And Frank read me the riot act tonight. Then we had a good cry together, and I told her about the blueberry cobbler her mom made for us after our mom died—which was apparently Mom’s recipe.”
“So you want to make her a cobbler.”
“That was the idea. Yeah.”
Owen pointed to the chair. “Sit. You need to think bigger than cobbler.”
“I thought you wanted to go back to bed. Get all the sleep you can before the baby arrives.”
“I can sleep when she turns eighteen. This is important.”
Will blinked. “She? Did I miss a gender reveal announcement?”
Owen scrubbed his hand over his face, then grinned. “Fuck, that was a slip. Kerry wanted to keep it quiet, just in case… she’s not big on the gendered stuff anyway, which makes sense. But yeah. Another girl. I’m pretty fucking excited.”
“I bet.” Will clapped his brother on the shoulder. “That’s great. And mum’s the word.”
“Thanks. Now go back and start at the beginning. How did you find out?”
That was a mood ruiner question. “I ran into Catie at the diner tonight. It was jammed, so we decided to share a table—”
“Likely story, but go on.”
“Hey, noisy peanut galleries don’t get details.” Will paused a beat, then swore under his breath. “Okay, it actually didn’t start tonight. Because tonight, it really was a coincidence. I didn’t seek her out this time. It’s complicated, actually.”
He poured his heart out onto the table. Without details, he told Owen what happened in Timmins, and Catie’s resistance to dating when they got home. Then brought him up to speed on what Frances said, and some of what Frank added. “So all of Catie’s feelings…I can’t blame her, right? But I also hate that she’s afraid to be with me because of what that witch thinks.”
“It’s probably not just Frances, though. There probably are other sour-faced, judgemental asses around town, and they bring back awful memories for Catie when she hears them whispering about anyone. Doesn’t even need to be here.” Owen shook his head. “That’s awful.”
“Yeah. So I want to do something. And you’re right. Baking her a cobbler isn’t the Big Idea, it’s just…one thing. I want to do something for her now, and then more later, and then just keep showing up and trying to be something good in her life. So she…you know…”
Owen gave him a soft grin. “She makes you happy.”
Will nodded, then screwed up his face against the hot, prickly feelings that roared to the surface. “But I’m not sure I do the same for her.”
“It doesn’t sound like it’s you who doesn’t make her happy as much as the circumstances. Sometimes there are barriers people need to work through, and Catie’s perception of how people will see the two of you together is just that—a barrier.”
“That’s the exact opposite of what Josh said.”
Owen snorted. “And what sage advice did the guy who chooses to live above a garage share?”
Will laughed—a little. It wasn’t funny. “It’s not supposed to be hard.”
Owen grunted.
“You don’t agree?”
“It’s not supposed to be hard all the time, sure. But who ever promised us easy?”
“Josh said that if she’s not all in, I shouldn’t lose my head over her.”
“He has some baggage. You don’t need to carry it for him.”
“Okay, sure, but…do I need to carry Catie’s baggage, either? Isn’t that what he’s saying? If there’s a barrier there, it’s hers to break down. Not mine. Isn’t that overstepping?”
“That’s a lot of questions to say, I don’t know what Catie wants me to do here. Can’t you talk to her about it?”
Clearly not. “Yeah, I should. But she has these fucking walls, and I don’t even see them until I ram up against them.”
“So stop ramming up against them.”
“I can’t see them!”
Owen shook his head. “You’re not listening to me. Take a breath. You say she�
��s protecting herself, right? That’s fair. We all do that. And when you try to get too close, boom, there’s a wall. So maybe you’re moving too fast. Take it slow. Slow enough that instead of ramming into a wall, you just graze against it. And when that happens, just make camp there. Outside the walls. But don’t bounce off them or alert her defences or whatever imagery works there. Get close but don’t try to invade. Wait until she invites you in.”
It was a long speech for his brother. And actually, really fucking thoughtful. Will nodded. “So, blueberry cobbler is a first step. It gets me close. It’s friendly.”
“And then you do something else. Keep showing her how special she is to you, until she believes it.”
Will frowned. “Frank said something along those same lines about belief. That she doesn’t know how loved she is in this town.”
Owen rocked back on his chair. “That’s a tough one. Love is… You know what? Josh was wrong. It’s not always easy. We think it is because we conflate like and love. Everyone likes Catie. But if everyone loved Catie, we would have known that her mom died, right?”
Will recoiled like he’d been slapped.
Owen kept going. “Maybe everyone, or maybe— Look, I’ll be blunt. You’re falling in love with Catie, right?” He didn’t wait for an answer, which was good, because Will’s throat went dry. “So you think how you see her now is how we all see her. And hey, I like Catie a lot. I feel shitty about the fact that we didn't know about her loss. But I think you're looking at this through some kind of rose-coloured glasses, because you want this to be easy for you. But falling in love isn't always easy. When I fell for Kerry, it was all about me. My feelings for her. And that felt easy, right up until the moment she found out I’d had a vasectomy. Which, by the way, she discovered as an aside after a condom broke. I mentioned it as an aside—and then things got really hard. Because the woman I was falling for wanted babies of her own, and I was done with all of that.”
Will hadn’t known the details there. “Fuck.”
“Yeah. Right? So I had to come to terms with the fact that I had done something that was possibly going to be a barrier to us being together. I thought I was done after Becca. Long before I knew Kerry would come along. And then, I didn't share that with her at the first available opportunity. I never shared it with her consciously because it wasn’t on the top of my mind.” Owen sighed. “We can be selfish. All human beings can be selfish. And part of falling in love is coming to grips with the ways that we are selfish and learning to undo that, so that we can make room in ourselves to care for another person as wholly and as fulsomely as we care for ourselves. Falling in love all the way is inherently selfless, but that takes work, and a lot of people stop before they get there.”
“Josh, for example.”
“He doesn’t open up to me,” Owen grumbled. “So I don’t know for sure, but yeah, sure sounds like. He spent three weeks in paradise with a woman. That’s enough time to go head over heels, I suppose, but did they ever test that connection in real life?”
“No. You’re right.” There was so much for Will to think about next. “I see what you’re saying about Catie. There's a lot to undo there.”
“And you can't just wish it were easy, you can't just wish that Catie has always been loved and she's just wrong to perceive that she is lonely. She’s guarded for a reason. That’s not wrong. You don’t need to prove to her that she’s wrong. You need to show her that you see that she’s right.”
“I can do that.” Will scratched his jaw. “Speaking of Berton women…what do you remember about Suzanne?”
That night, Will tossed and turned for a few fitful hours before giving up and going in search of coffee and guidance at the diner.
The door was still locked, but after he pounded loud enough to get Frank’s attention, the cook let him in. “You better be here to peel potatoes.”
“Sure.” Will rolled up his sleeves and washed his hands.
“This about Catie?”
“Sort of. Yes.”
“She’s fragile, you know. Strong, yes, but…”
Will nodded. “I know.”
“Don’t break her heart, you know?”
“I won’t. But it’s not Catie I wanted to talk about this morning. Not directly. I’m going to go slow with her. I think I have that plan figured out.” He grinned, thinking about just setting up camp outside Catie’s fortress of solitude. “This is about something else.”
“Oh?”
“I was thinking we should do something to honour her mother. Last night, I went to my brother’s house to get a blueberry cobbler recipe—long story—and we were talking about Suzanne. I remember her bringing that cobbler, my mom’s recipe, over after Mom died. And Owen remembers Suzanne organizing a big yard sale for the hockey team, and it took over the entire town.”
“I remember that, yeah. It was quite the thing.”
“Did she do that sort of thing a lot?”
“Sure. She was never one for the formal organizations. Too stuffy, too many rules. But if there was something Suzanne could do directly, quickly, to help people out. She would throw a yard sale for any cause, and cook a meal for any family in need. She even got me hooked up with a halfway house that takes my leftovers.”
“You still do that?”
“Sure do. Pack the meals up at the end of the day, stick ‘em in the freezer.”
“That’s quite the legacy she had.”
“There’s more to it than that.” Frank pointed to the pile of potatoes. “Don’t stop.”
“Sorry. Go on.”
“Catie never had a father. Whoever it was, he was never in the picture, but also, Suzanne never wanted to marry. Some of her suitors offered, but she didn’t love anyone like that. All her love was for Catie.”
Will knew better than to stop peeling, but he had so many questions. He figured as long as he kept helping, he’d hear it all, so he kept his hands moving. “She must have been quite young when she moved here?”
“Young and beautiful, yep.” Frank sighed. “It was a hard path she chose in some ways, but it was her path.”
“Did people make trouble for her? This young, beautiful single mother who had a lot of suitors?” Will instinctively knew the answer to his own question, and hated it. He thought of Frances spitting a slut-shaming insult at Catie last night and his knuckles went white around the peeler.
“I suppose. But it wasn’t all like that. Suzanne made a lot of friends, many who Catie never knew—that’s something I tried to tell her at her mother’s funeral, not that any of them were there. She did have some detractors, though.”
Will’s throat was tight. “Frances Schmidt?”
“Yeah, Frances always had a bit of jealously when it came to Suzanne. Something to do with someone in the Lion’s Club, if I recall correctly. And that’s the piece…that’s why she always did things her own way. On her own terms.”
“She had exes in those community organizations?”
“I think Suzanne maybe had an ex in every corner. She lived here for fifteen years, and was a single woman the entire time. If she were a man, she’d have been voted in as mayor.”
“Wow.” Will shook his head. “That’s not right. It sounds like she should have been mayor. Catie doesn’t know this?”
“She does, and she doesn’t. It’s hard, I think. Of course it is. But you’re going to make it right, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. Is there anyone else around I could talk to? People she once helped?”
Chapter Nineteen
September was always a weird month for Will. The first few weeks of school were a chaotic kaleidoscope of moments as classes got to know each other, as students and teachers settled into a routine, and behind the scenes, he juggled administration tasks with staying on top of threads that might need his attention all year. His afternoons were consumed with riding the buses—ten of them in total, and he rode each of them twice, to the delight of his students.
Some of them were on the
bus for an hour each way. It made for a long day for them, and an even longer day for him, because when he returned to the school, he still had parent phone calls to return and incident reports to review and sign off on.
SAR training fell off his weekly schedule. His plate couldn’t hold that as well, not in September, which was usually fine, but this year he missed it.
It was the easiest way to get close—but not too close—to Catie. So he had to slow his expectations for gaining her trust. He did make her the blueberry cobbler. His version was only okay, but she texted him a picture of it as her dessert-for-breakfast choice twice in a row.
As Owen predicted, it was a sweet gesture that didn’t change much.
The other reason he missed training was the much needed opportunity to burn off some energy.
And with the impending arrival of Kerry and Owen’s baby—and Becca and Charlie planning to visit and stay at Will’s house immediately thereafter—Will couldn’t plan on working out in the spare bedroom of his house, either. Not with a toddler who napped and had early bedtimes.
So he moved his weights into the garage and started running hill repeats at the harbour with Josh. The whole time, he wondered if Catie was still working out with Isla, and if inviting her to work out with him would be a good “get close but not too close” strategy. He didn’t act on it. He’d taken a step back, and now he was worried it was too far back.
Suddenly it was a week before Canadian Thanksgiving. The calendar flipped into October, and everything happened at once.
Catie’s Big Pumpkin Plan for the business club was in full swing. School families were dropping them off by the truck full.
Kerry went into labour on the day Becca and Charlie were set to arrive. Will was stuck at school, but Josh drove to Toronto to pick them up, delivering them to Will’s place just in time for dinner.
Seth flew down to join their vigil. Adam and Isla brought dessert.
