Snow Falling on Bluegrass (18 page)

Charlie closed the call with an abrupt
beep.
“You don't need to hear that,” he said.

“So, I was wrong,” I admitted. “I am sorry, but you can see why I drew the conclusions that I did.”

“I will take your halfhearted apology. I never meant to keep anything from you. And I know this is not the best time to do this, but I want to tell you that I love you. I have loved you ever since the moment I met you and saw that Post-it stuck to the back of your skirt.”

He kissed me and I swear I felt my heart grow two sizes. Charlie loved me. He was a bit of a dumbass, but he loved me. Someone I could actually envision spending the rest of my life with loved me. I kissed him back, hard, and pushed him to the carpet. His hands swept up my back and pinned me to him. His lips traveled down my throat to my collarbone, and he buried his face in my neck, breathing in the scent of my skin.

“I'm so sorry that this fell apart so spectacularly,” he said.

“It's okay,” I promised him. “And I love you, too. I've loved you for such a long time, and I'm sorry that I was too scared to leave Darrell. I should have trusted my feelings for you. I should have trusted you, period. And I promise to come to you with problems in the future, instead of storming around like a crazy person.”

“And I promise that you can see my phone, my Facebook page, my e-mails, anything you want, anytime you want. Total transparency.”

“That's very sweet. And I will try not to take you up on that,” I told him, kissing him. “But when we tell our friends this story, we are going to tell them that you fell in love with me while I was rescuing injured puppies from a runaway go-kart or something.”

“I can do that.”

“And we're going to wait until after I spend some time alone and get my head together, so we don't end up crashing and burning after our first date. I know that sounds pretty backward, considering that I engaged in pillow fort sex with you just a few days ago, but I think we need to take things slow.”

“You're right,” he conceded. “You're right. I don't want to be your rebound. When you're ready, I want us to have one of those epic relationships that leads to shared living space and spoiled pets and embarrassing Christmas cards sent to our friends. I want all of that, when you're ready.”

He kissed me, nibbling at my bottom lip, and it took all the strength I had to push him away and catch my breath.

“When you say time alone, do you mean not seeing me at all?” he asked.

“No, we can see each other, just not naked.”

Charlie's face fell just a bit, but he was man enough to nod his assent. “All right.”

“This is going to be the longest six months ever.” I sighed.

“Six months?” he exclaimed. I shot him a significant look and he grimaced. “You're right. Six months sounds reasonable.”

“Are you always going to be this agreeable?” I asked.

“Only when we're locked in a closet.”

“Fair enough.”

He kissed me again, breaking free of my mouth to wonder aloud, “Why would those texts disappear from my phone?”

And that was the moment I remembered walking into the office and finding Gina unattended, with all the phones, including Charlie's, which didn't have a password lock.

“Sonofabitch.”

12

In Which My Friends Butter Up My Ex

It was amazing how quickly our last twenty-four hours at the lodge went by, now that we had electricity and I had some insight into Charlie's misguided distance.

After Charlie and I had a very long talk proposing revenge scenarios for Gina—and eliminating the ones that would get me arrested—Sadie let us out of the closet. And then she ran as fast as her little booted feet would carry her, because she didn't know what sort of weapons I had improvised during our imprisonment.

After Charlie convinced me that running Gina over with a snowmobile would be an obvious and ham-handed reaction, we went to bed, separately. I plopped my head on my pillow with a sense of lightness that was completely alien to me. I believe that happy people call this sensation “hope.” I would be cautious, but I would trust Charlie. I would give him a chance to prove himself without lying down and waiting for him to hurt me, as I had with Darrell. This time, I would be smarter.

In the morning, we woke to the sound of chainsaws. Now, under normal circumstances, this would be a little alarming, but in our position they were as welcome as the
Hallelujah
chorus. As the day went on, the noise of the chainsaws grew louder and louder. Luke reported that the road crew was working its way down the lane toward the lodge. Our access to the highway would be clear by the afternoon.

We were going home.

A strange mania swept through the lodge. The symptoms included frantic packing, thorough cleaning, and giddy laughter for no particular reason. It was like the last day of summer camp. Yes, we'd had a good time, but we were sick of the people we'd bunked with and were all anxious to get home.

While we ran about the hallways like the proverbial headless chickens, Luke made himself useful, helping Josh and Will clear the van of snow and jump-starting it when the long-dormant battery wouldn't turn the engine. I collected our work materials and meticulously sorted them into Sadie's plastic storage bins so we'd be able to find what we needed when we got back to the office. Slowly but surely we built our mountain of bags by the front entrance.

I was running through Sadie's “get out of Dodge” checklist when Luke stomped into the entryway, knocking increasingly slushy snow from his boots.

“It's sort of sad, but I'm really going to miss all of you,” he said. “I've never had to bunk down with guests for weeks at a time.”

“Well, those lovey feelings may disappear the minute you see the giant pile of towels, sheets, and blankets we left by the laundry room entrance.”

“That's okay,” he assured me. “The overtime form I'm going to submit will more than make up for laundry duty.” He cleared his throat. “So you and the Professor worked things out, huh?”

I gave him a winsome smile. “Not entirely, but we're working on it. And thank you for helping Sadie orchestrate the closet ambush.”

“Well, it's obvious that he's what you want, so I wanted to help you get him.” Luke gave me a sad little smile. “I'm rooting for you. Of course, if he screws it up, I will jump in and sweep you off your feet faster than you can say ‘highly aggressive possum.' ”

“That's good to know.”

He wrapped a companionable arm around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. “Keep in touch, Kelsey.”

“You know that I will.”

“Wait,” Josh yelled from the lobby.

“You know, I kept trying to find the right time to do this.” Josh sighed, tugging a small parcel out of his pocket. “I wanted to find some perfect romantic moment and they kept getting ruined by Scrabble fights and trying not to freeze to death and people being locked in closets. And now, I realize that's what our life together is always going to be, Sadie. These loud, insane moments of panic and mayhem, occasionally interrupted by you doing something awesome. So I guess there's no better time for me to do this.”

Josh got down on one knee and opened the small black velvet box. The ring inside, a small square solitaire flanked by tiny sapphires, was my personal pick after Josh had narrowed the search to a mere dozen possibilities. “Sadie, I love you. I don't think I really understood how much fun, frustration, and absolute insanity loving someone could be until I met you. Would you please marry me?”

“Now? You're choosing to propose now?” Sadie exclaimed, jerking her head toward the pile of luggage and dirty linens. “Now?”

“Yes,” he said.

A happy smile quirked Sadie's trembling lips as she lifted the ring box to eye level. “I noticed you slipped some UK blue into the setting.”

“It's your birthstone,” Josh said brightly. “The connection to my beloved and far superior alma mater has almost nothing to do with my choice.”

“Well, despite your misplaced loyalty, I love you,” she told him. “So I will marry you.”

“Yeah?” He sprang to his feet and threw his arms around her. She laughed, kissing him deeply while he tried—and failed—to slip the ring on her finger. “Fantastic. Also, I quit.”

“What?!” she exclaimed.

Our collective jaws dropped, and Theresa's eyes grew wide and frightened. “Nobody move,” she whispered. “If she sees you move, she might attack, like a velociraptor.”

I turned to Charlie. “Did Josh bring that up when he was brainstorming proposal scenarios?”

Charlie shook his head, and Theresa whispered, “Stop moving!”

Josh bobbed on his feet and gave Sadie his best “bad news” face. “As my spouse, you would not be allowed to supervise me. It's against department policy.”

“No! Josh, you can't leave; we've talked about this!” she exclaimed. “I don't deal well with change! And that would be a big change!”

“A bigger change than getting married?” Will whispered. I shrugged.

“That is why you are looking at the latest marketing director for the state department of agriculture,” Josh finished.

“That's in our building.” Sadie said, relaxing in Josh's arms.

“So we'll still see each other every day,” he said. “And I'll still be around to help you if you get stuck on an idea or in a panic cycle. I'll even come and help at the state fair if you want.”

“But I'll miss you,” she protested. “And I'm whining right now, which is probably ruining the whole proposal thing. But still, I don't know what I'm going to do without you.”

“It's for the best, honey. It'll be great. And I won't have to call you ‘boss' anymore, which will do wonders for my pride.”

“I love you, you insane person.” And with that, Sadie gave him a lingering kiss.

“You know what?” Gina exclaimed. “I can't take any more of this. Y'all are just a bunch of drama junkies, setting up these bizarre scenarios so you can act out some plot from a soap opera and pretend like you have lives! It's ridiculous and sad and I'm not going to have anything to do with it anymore!”

“Drama.” I snorted. “You mean like breaking into someone's phone and deleting texts and then baiting another coworker into looking at them so she'll draw some inappropriate conclusions?”

The color drained out of Gina's face, and for just a second her mouth flopped open like a guppy's. I heard Sadie whisper, “Quick, grab Kelsey's arms.” But I just stared at Gina with a perfectly pleasant, if slightly enigmatic, smile on my face.

Gina cleared her throat delicately. “I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Oh, I'm sure you wouldn't,” I said, giving her even more of the scary smile.

“When everybody is done feeding into Sadie's irrational need for attention, I'll be in the van!” Gina yelled, dragging her suitcase out the front entrance, smacking it against her legs as she rushed.

“It's nice that everything is getting back to normal,” Sadie said, kissing Josh. She turned to me. “And you, that was unusually restrained for you. I appreciate you not going with the nuclear option of beating the tar out of her the minute the closet door opened. It saves me a lot of paperwork.”

“Oh, Charlie and I talked about it and agreed that route was too obvious and potentially prosecutable,” I said as the others followed Gina's lead and lugged their bags out of the lobby. “So we're going the subtle route. I made a few phone calls last night and I don't think Gina is going to be our problem for very much longer.”

Josh pursed his lips. “I know I shouldn't ask, for the sake of plausible deniability, but what do you mean?”

“Well, for instance, did you know that Gina doesn't know how to use mail merge? Theresa does it for her every time she has to send out a mass mailing from the commissioner. Also, Gina doesn't know that you can't click on those ‘You have won a free iPad!' pop-ups every time you see one, and Tom is getting really sick of clearing all of those viruses off her hard drive. And the caterer that we use for department events? Refuses to deal with Gina after she called him a ‘useless waste of space whose crab puffs taste like crap,' so Carol over in hospitality services has to handle that for her. And the florist who remembers to send bouquets to the commissioner's wife on her birthday and anniversary without Gina reminding him? He's never really liked Gina. So all I had to do was call these people up, ask how they were doing, and remind them of all the little ways Gina has screwed them over the years, and mysteriously they don't want to do her little favors anymore. I predict her professional implosion within three weeks.”

Also, I may or may not have arranged for my boys to put Gina on no-fly lists for several federal agencies. But the less Sadie knew about that, the better.

“That sounds a lot like Protocol: Icarus,” Charlie noted.

“Augh, I keep forgetting to call that off!” I groaned. “Too late now.”

“Well, on that note.” Sadie threw her arm toward the door and announced, “Okay, everybody, let's get out of here!”

Stretching my sore back muscles, I stepped away from the ice-blue wall of my apartment and considered my almost-completed paint job. The coat of “Scottish Mist” had dried over the past few days. Charlie and I were now painting the silhouettes of tall, thin birch trees in shades of gray and white. It was simple, comfortable, and it reminded me of those days trapped in the snowy woods with my friends. And Gina.

“That looks really nice,” I told Charlie as he finished a particularly fractal branch. “I never thought I'd say this, but I sort of miss the lodge.”

“Yes, I too miss the sounds of Bonnie's snoring and the threat of death by canned beans,” Charlie quipped, ducking when I tossed a paint rag at him. I laughed and he pulled me close, kissing the tip of my nose, then my forehead, landing on my mouth with an urgency that still startled me, even after weeks of those kisses. “I don't miss the setting, but the company more than made up for it.”

“I will admit, the setting had its drawbacks. But it built our character, right?” I still had the marks of our ordeal on me. I still tried to use the bathroom without the lights on. I occasionally caught myself trying to return the milk carton to my balcony instead of my fridge. And I still based my prediction of how my day was going to go on whether I had fuzzy socks available.

“Trust me, Kelsey, you have enough character.” He gave me one last peck on the lips before returning to his tree.

I had stood my ground about not moving out of the Mayfair. But my apartment was going through a major post-Darrell overhaul, thanks to the extra cash I'd made from my ice storm photos. My work had been posted to several state agency Web sites, from the forestry department to human resources, demonstrating the ice buildup, the tree damage, and the effects of long-term confinement on employees. Because I was one of the few state reps to have the presence of mind to document the ice storm “up close and personal,” Sadie negotiated a healthy rate of compensation by other agencies that wanted to use my work. I was even getting offers to do freelance shots for the various state departments, and a 4-H agent from the Marshall County Cooperative Extension office asked me to shoot her wedding. So far, I'd made enough to pay for my apartment makeover and undo several of Darrell's less scrupulous dings to my credit.

The worst of those dings had been ironed out by the time we returned from captivity. Once again, my beloved Lost Boys had stepped in to save my behind. It turned out that one of the companies they developed software for sold vendor payment systems, giving the boys contacts at several different credit card companies. They didn't even have to break any laws to clear my name from the accounts Darrell signed up for without my knowledge. They just had to provide the right people with affidavits stating that the accounts were opened without my consent. Membership in the nerd herd had its privileges.

I'd spent the first week after the Retreat from Hell, as Josh was officially calling it, turning my apartment inside out. Sadie and Bonnie helped, in that they came over with booze and candy bars to do this breakup cleansing ritual right, something I'd never bothered with before because I never felt like the breakup was permanent. But now I knew with absolute certainty: I never wanted to see Darrell again . . . unless he ended up on the news for developing a rare strain of flesh-eating bacteria or falling in a sinkhole or something.