Читать книгу Small-Town Dreams and The Girl Next Door: Small-Town Dreams / The Girl Next Door - Kate Welsh - Страница 12

Cassidy wandered aimlessly along the marked trail through the woods. She’d put off her walk until after lunch, having continued to help Irma in the kitchen. Taking the time to cook from scratch was something she rarely did, and she found it, and the time with Irma, strangely soothing.

Soon after sharing a noon meal with the older couple, she’d returned to her room and had fallen into a deep sleep. When she’d awakened, refreshed but no more settled, she’d set off for the walk she’d planned that morning.

After hearing about all Joshua had endured, she felt selfish and childish for dwelling on what were minor problems in her own life. She would eventually take over the presidency of Jamison Steel, so what did it really matter if she hadn’t been given the vice presidency? Why was she so unhappy and tense? She could only hope this vacation, impetuously taken, would put her disappointment and hurt into perspective.

Irma had told her the trail would lead her to the far end of Mountain View. Though she was sure there was little to see in the small town, at least it would give her the opportunity to observe the town up close and personal. She could even check to see if Earl was closer to looking at her car.

The sharp crack of a breaking branch to her left stopped Cassidy in her tracks. She moved only her head, and was left breathless by the sight of a doe standing almost as still as a statue. It stared unblinkingly at her. The only sign of life the animal revealed was a quivering muscle high on its haunch.

At that moment a powerful need to recreate the scene on paper gripped Cassidy. Her fingers fairly itched to hold a sketch pad and pencil. In her mind’s eye she could already see the finished picture. The doe would stand frozen in time, surrounded by the stark November woodlands—and fear. It would be in charcoal, she decided—a little sad and a little edgy.

But Cassidy shook her head and banished the vision. The dream. Her sudden movement freed the deer, who bounded away. And once again she said goodbye to her heart’s desire. It was not for her. She had taken a different path. One devoid of creativity and art.

For if there was one thing she did know about herself, it was that she couldn’t devote only half her soul to something that consumed her. And where art was concerned, she always reacted the same way. Whenever she picked up a pencil or a brush, the rest of the world simply faded away—ceased to exist. She became her talent. And her talent became her. It took all her energy. All her heart. And she’d learned it the hard way when she’d tried to split herself in two during college. She’d felt just that—split. Torn. After a near breakdown late in her senior year, she’d made her decision.

She had put away her youthful dreams and passion for an unstable, nearly unattainable success in art, and had marched into adulthood at her grandfather’s side, fulfilling her destiny. She was a Jamison.

She hadn’t painted since graduation. She hadn’t even let herself doodle on her ink blotter. She could not open that door again. It would be ungrateful. Grandfather was counting on her.

But then the memory of yesterday in his office pierced her thoughts. Her heart. And his betrayal made her soul cry out once again. He hadn’t seemed to need her at all when naming Jon Reed his vice president. Remembering her last angry words to the old man who’d been her anchor in life left Cassidy feeling at sea. As domineering and gruff as he was, Grandfather had truly been her port in a storm since she was six and that wall of snow had wiped out her world in one blinding minute.

She forced her mind from the painful past and the embarrassing scene at Jamison Steel. Hadn’t she already decided that it didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things? Instantly, Joshua and all she’d learned about him from Irma filled her thoughts. Aside from being kind, gentle and handsome, he was a strong, courageous person, not only to have survived but to have flourished as he had. He would laugh at her whining over the loss of her dream of a fulfilling career in the art world. At least she could remember the dreams she’d put aside. As misty as her memory of her parents was, she did remember her mother’s soft voice soothing her and her father’s big strong hands holding her.

What must Joshua’s life be like? He must live only in the present. Maybe for the future, too. Because anything else would be fruitless and painful.

She recalled his low comment to Irma the day before when the older woman had noticed him stare off into space. “Just knew something I shouldn’t,” he’d muttered. Did that mean snatches of his past came back to haunt him? An ever-present reminder of all he’d lost?

Sunshine broke through the trees, and Cassidy looked up into the sun-drenched sky. She’d arrived at the end of the trail.

The first building she came to was a large, three-story, boarded-up Victorian with a half-attached, weather-beaten sign hanging from the gatepost. Swenson’s Bed and Breakfast, the faded letters declared on the sign that bobbled in the breeze. The fence the gate was attached to was a wobbly picket-type that had even less paint than it had stability.

The house fired Cassidy’s imagination, though it was every bit as weather-beaten as the sign and fence. It had once been lovely. She visualized its faded, peeling colors crisp and bright again, its windows shining in the sunlight, and the fence restored to its once stalwart position of authority. The upstairs tower room with its circle of tall windows would be unbelievably perfect as a studio. There was something about the house that struck a cord deep inside that said family and security.

“Wouldn’t you love to get your hands on the place?” Joshua asked from behind her. “I know I would.”

Cassidy whirled around. He sat in an old beat-up truck that he’d pulled to the side of the road. She smiled. “You’d get a ticket in Philadelphia for parking facing the wrong way.”

Joshua set the brake and opened the door. He chuckled. “But this is Mountain View. In a town with probably fewer than thirty cars in a ten-mile radius, with three of those in the shop, and the rest parked at job sites, it hardly matters.”

Cassidy glanced away from his charming grin and looked around town, wondering how he kept his sanity in such an isolated place. “I see your point. Do you even have a sheriff or a policeman around here?”

“The state police patrol the area. Their barracks is out on the interstate.”

So even the state police hadn’t been able to find Joshua’s origins. “Are you finished with that roof you were fixing?”

“For now, till it leaks again.”

“Why not just put on a whole new one?”

“Because they can’t afford it and they won’t accept charity. Patching is neighborly. Replacing isn’t. You see?”

Embarrassed, Cassidy nodded and turned back toward the house. She would never have thought of that. Grace and intuition must be inborn, she decided, because she didn’t see how he could have learned that kind of insight into the delicate feelings of others in only five years, especially with all the other things he’d had to relearn. Her admiration for him grew dangerously.

“Does anyone own this?” she asked to distract herself from risky thoughts of him and his apparently stellar character.

“The Swensons still own it but they don’t live here anymore. They moved to Georgia to live with their son about ten years ago. The place apparently got too much for them to handle. It’s been for sale for years, but it hasn’t sold.”

Joshua stepped by her and inside the gate. His movement set the sign swinging. “Summer people don’t usually want anything this big, and we don’t get many year-round families moving into the area,” he continued. “It’s actually pretty stable. The roof’s sound. Henry and I boarded the windows up when some summer kids thought it was funny to break them out.”

“That was kind of you.”

He shrugged. “Just being a good neighbor. I check on the place every now and again for the real estate people. That’s what I was about to do. Want to see the inside? I’m sure no one would care if you tag along.”

Cassidy stared up at the house and realized what it was that called to her. It reminded her of her home—the one in suburban Philadelphia that she’d shared with her parents until that fateful vacation when she’d lost them. She didn’t think she’d really had a home since. “I’d love to see it,” she said automatically. Then she remembered his ever-present companion. “Where’s Bear?” She really wasn’t up for another of the dog’s greetings without ample warning.

“You’re safe from his adoration for now. He’s asleep in the back of the truck. He spent the day chasing kids, rabbits and a bunch of barn cats. He’s been out like a light since I pulled away from the Wilsons’.”

Joshua stepped back, holding the gate open, and swept his arm toward the front door in a gesture that reminded her of a piece of Shakespearean stage direction. “After you, fair lady,” he said, doffing his baseball cap.

Cassidy laughed at the silly gesture, and Josh laughed, too. “Is there any furniture left?” she asked as they sauntered along the walk to the house.

“Almost all of it. Ma dusts the place up every now and again, hoping that if we keep it nice for the Swensons, it’ll sell.”

“And why don’t you dust it? Not men’s work?”

“No. She says I don’t see the dust. I think she’s being a fanatic about a few specks.” He shook his head and grinned that killer grin of his. “She says I suffer from what she calls ‘male blindness.’ Ma’s a real ego bruiser, I’ll tell you.”

“Oh, I’ve noticed how cruel she is to you.”

“Hey, she can be one tough lady,” he protested as he vaulted up the porch steps. “Don’t let that fairy-godmother face fool you.”

Cassidy was helpless to contain the giggle that bubbled up from somewhere inside her. “That’s exactly what I thought when I first met her.”

“Cinderella’s fairy godmother come to life. That’s Irma,” Josh said over his shoulder as he unlocked the door.

“All she’s missing is the wand,” Cassidy agreed as she followed him toward the front door. He had it unlocked and opened before she reached it. Though boarded up, there was a beautiful frosted glass panel in the door that remained undamaged. Unconsciously she ran her fingers over the expertly etched flowers. “Beautiful,” she whispered to herself.

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg. This place is a gem just waiting to be polished.”

Cassidy stepped inside the foyer as Joshua flipped on the lights. She immediately understood the love for the old house that she’d heard in his voice. If the rest of it was as wonderful as the sweeping staircase and oak wainscot panels, this house really was a gem. “So why don’t you buy it and polish it to your heart’s content?”

He shook his dark head. “Because even though they aren’t asking much and I could afford it on my salary, it’s too big for one person. This old place deserves a family. Or at least to be turned back into a B & B so a lot of people can enjoy it. I don’t have a family or the inclination to run a B & B. But I’d love the process of watching it come alive again. Can you understand that?”

“Maybe you ought to rethink your profession. You sound more like a carpenter than a country preacher.”

Joshua chuckled. “Well, that’s kind of appropriate, since I serve a carpenter who became a preacher. I like to build things, fix things up—but it’s a hobby, not a calling like my work with Henry.”

“I just meant that carpentry and cabinet-making is a more lucrative profession.”

“But it wouldn’t be nearly as fulfilling. I really think that has to be the most important thing in choosing your life’s work.”

“I suppose. It’s a shame we can’t all be as fortunate as you’ve been in finding both a profession and a hobby.”

Joshua stood in front of a set of floor-to-ceiling doors with his thumbs hooked in the front belt loops of his jeans. He stood casually, but the look in his eyes was anything but. “If you’re so unhappy in what you do, then why don’t you look for another job that won’t give you ulcers.”

His comment cut a little too close to the bone for comfort, and Cassidy stiffened. “It isn’t my job. I’m where I belong. I just need to find a way to cope with stress better. That’s all.”

“So what exactly is all the stress from? What kind of work do you do?”

“Until yesterday I was acting vice president of Jamison Steel. I’ve been running the Information Systems department.”

Josh heard a note of hurt in her voice. He narrowed his eyes, watching for her reaction to his next question. “Why until yesterday?”

“My grandfather appointed someone to the position permanently.”

“But not you,” he said, “even though you’ve been doing the job?”

“No. I was hurt at first, but I realize now that it wasn’t all that important. After all, I’ll be running Jamison someday. This will just give me a chance to learn other areas of the company in more depth.”

“But you still have to be deeply hurt.”

“No,” she snapped, needing desperately to believe that she was indeed over her hurt. “I understood. It was a business decision.”

“You’re still hurt. I hear it in your voice. You shouldn’t deny your feelings. No wonder you have ulcers if you hold all your emotions inside you like this. I know it hurts most when it’s a family member who deals the blow that—” Joshua cut off the thought, his eyes widening in what looked like shock. He looked upset, but at that moment she didn’t care. She couldn’t let her grandfather’s decision matter because then she’d never be able to return to work. And returning to Jamison Steel was her duty.

“If I’m hurt, I’ll get over it. Do I have to stand here being analyzed as payment for seeing the house?”

Joshua turned away and slid open a set of pocket doors. “This was the parlor,” he said, as if neither of them had spoken of anything other than the house.

Joshua closed and locked the front door to the Swenson house as Cassidy hurried along the walkway toward the street. He wished he could help her. He didn’t know why Henry thought Josh could, but Josh wanted to try. Sometimes she seemed like two different people. The nervous, tense, rich girl who’d become short with him when he’d touched a nerve. And the sentimental dreamer who’d so clearly fallen in love with the Swenson place. He’d really like to get to know that person.

The trouble was that since she’d arrived she had stirred up too many feelings inside him. Some he understood, like his attraction to her. But others were shadows and whispers of a past that seemed lost to him. And he had felt them again when she’d related her story of being passed over for the promotion by her grandfather. He’d felt her pain as if it were, and had once been, his own.

There was also the problem that most times when he said anything that called her life-style into question, she got angry. That was a huge roadblock. He shrugged. Maybe he needed to take another route with her. Maybe he could show her how the other half lived. Maybe if she saw firsthand that money and power weren’t the way to true happiness, that knowledge would stay with her when she returned home to the rat race of her life in Philadelphia.

“Want a ride home?” he called after her retreating back.

Cassidy stopped and pivoted toward him. “I thought I’d stop and see how much closer Earl is to looking at my car. I honestly don’t see why he can’t just look at it sooner. If he’d looked at it this morning, he could have ordered the part it needs by now. I’d be that much closer to getting on the road to Mountain Top or one of the other resorts up here.”

Josh could easily have offered to take her on to one of those high-priced resorts. They weren’t all that far away. But he knew Henry was right. Cassidy’s unhappiness was deeper than just ill health and being passed over for a promotion. She needed to recognize that she must find a new direction for her life, or she’d never really get well. Doctors would cure the ulcer…and then her tension headaches would blossom into migraines or she’d have to battle high blood pressure. Something else would buckle, and her strong will would carry her forward on what he’d begun to suspect was the wrong path for her.

“Mind if I tag along?” he asked as he caught up with her.

“I’m on foot these days, but suit yourself. You could point out the other points of interest in town. We’ll call it a walking tour.”

Josh grimaced. “You may as well hop into the truck. I need to stop at Earl’s for gas, and you just saw our only point of interest. Everything else is closed up till summer. We don’t get the ski trade here. The hunters who come through don’t need more than gas at Earl’s, the occasional hot meal at Irma’s and the odd item at The Trading Post, so the shop owners don’t bother to stay open in late fall or winter.”

Joshua found his attention snagged by the look in her stormy blue eyes. He would swear he could see the wheels turning behind those arresting eyes of hers.

“Maybe you could talk Earl into looking at my car sooner.”

“Earl’s been known to be pretty stubborn,” he warned.

She grinned. “But we’ve already established how stubborn each of us is. If we double-team him, we can talk him into looking at it today.”

Before he could protest his unwillingness to put undue pressure on Earl, she barreled around the truck and opened the passenger door. Joshua stared at her over the hood, not knowing what to say. Sometimes she reminded him of a steamroller, and others, like when he’d seen her staring up at the Swenson house, of a sad little girl. A honk of the pickup’s horn made him grin. He guessed she was a little of both.

“I’m coming. You’ve got to slow down, little lady,” he drawled. It was a southern parody of Earl’s upstate Pennsylvania twang, but it was the best he could do. “You’re on Mountain View time now.”

She shot him a look full of exasperation. “Hopefully not for long.”

“You know, I’m starting to get real insulted on behalf of everyone in town over this hurry of yours to get out of our little burg.”

“I’m sorry,” she said on a sigh. “It isn’t what the town is so much as what it isn’t. Let’s just say this isn’t my idea of a vacation.”

“Well then, what is?” he asked as he started the car.

“I don’t know. Maybe a day or two lying by a pool and sleeping in—but then I’d want to do things. See things. Go places. Make memories to take out and remember when life drives me crazy.”

“Sounds like just another variation on your everyday life. To me, a vacation would be to live in a way I don’t usually live. I see your idea of a vacation as the kind I should take and staying in Mountain View as exactly what you need.”

He made a left into Earl’s and took the opportunity to glance at Cassidy to gauge her reaction to what he’d said. She looked thoughtful, if nothing else. A little progress, he thought, but before he could enjoy the triumph, he brought the truck to a stop and she jumped out of the car. By the time he’d set the brake, she was already off searching for Earl.

“…but this is the same car you were working on yesterday,” she was saying when he came upon them inside the garage after he’d pumped his gas.

“Well, now that’s mighty observant of you to notice, little lady. And I do appreciate your concern. I had a devil of a time loosening the bolts to…Oh, there I go running off at the mouth. You wouldn’t know a water pump from a fuel pump, would you?”

“No, I’m sure I wouldn’t,” Cassidy admitted, her tone aggressive and businesslike. “And yes, I am concerned. You said you couldn’t look at my car until you did the work on the other people’s cars who were in line ahead of me. But now that won’t be for another day longer. I need to get out of here.”

Joshua noticed Earl’s eyes shift to him as he stepped behind Cassidy. There was something calculating and shrewd in his expression that Josh had never noticed before.

“How’s Irma and Henry today?” Earl asked as he reached out to take the money Joshua held out. “I haven’t even had time to stop for lunch so I didn’t get on over to the diner yet today.”

“It was Molly’s day to work the morning and early afternoon shift. Ma’s probably there by now. You really ought to stop and rest for a while.”

Earl glanced at the car he had on the lift, then back to them. “You know, I think I will. In fact, I may call it a day. You headed for the diner, too? If you wait while I wash up, I’ll walk along with you.”

Joshua gestured toward the money. “I’ve got the truck. I’m just headed back from the Wilsons’.”

“I’ll be seeing you there then, I suppose,” Earl said, and ambled off toward his washroom.

It only took a split second for Cassidy to round on him. “You were supposed to talk him into looking at my car sooner, not get him to stop for the day!”

“Didn’t you notice how tired he was? Earl’s not as young as he looks. He needs to take it a little easier. Tell me, what is your big hurry to move on?”

“I told you, I want a vacation.”

“So roll with the punches and make this your vacation. What you need is time to think, not just time away from work. Everyone needs to evaluate their choices in life occasionally. Maybe you didn’t land in Mountain View by accident. God may have put you here. This town and your car trouble may be His way of speaking to you. I think He’s telling you to slow down and take some time to think things out. What better place to do it than here? You have to admit that there’s very little to distract you.”

Standing there in the center of Earl’s garage, Joshua waited to hear her tell him to mind his own business. That God didn’t speak to people like that. He was even prepared to hear that in her opinion God didn’t exist. But none of those things happened. Cassidy nodded and walked quietly—thoughtfully—away.

At the doorway she stopped and turned to him. “’In God we trust.’ It’s on the penny. I told Him to send me where He wanted me to go if He really existed. I flipped it every time I needed to choose a direction. I never stopped to think that He’d actually answer me. Maybe He did send me here. Thanks, Joshua. I’d forgotten. I’ll give it a few days.” She started to turn away, but stopped and looked around. “Your God really has a sense of humor, doesn’t he.”

Confused, Josh frowned. “With a dog like mine and Him being the Creator, that’s a hard one to argue, but why in particular do you think that?”

“My regular mechanic has a cappuccino bar and leather sofas in his waiting room.”