Down on Love (25 page)

Oh, no. No, no, no. She would
not
fall prey to this . . . this . . . blatant attack on her ovaries. A gorgeous guy holding a baby? It was the oldest trick in the book. She would not be suckered. She would not be so . . . so . . .

God, he was beautiful.

She told her ovaries to shut the hell up and go back to sleep.

It did absolutely no good. She felt her center go all gooey, and the more she watched him with Amelia, the gooier her insides got.

A really good guy, Sera had said. Much as she never liked to admit it, maybe Sera was right. Just this once. And speaking of Sera...

“Where’s my sister?” she hissed.

“Downstairs trying to make muffins,” he whispered back, making little circles on Amelia’s back with his fingertips. “I don’t think she can cook.”

“I could have told you that.” She gestured for Casey to hand her the baby, but he shook his head and kept rocking gently. “Why are you here so early?”

“Time’s a-wasting, woman. Our grand opening is coming up, and there’s still a thousand things to take care of, so Sera and I figured we’d get this meeting out of the way so we can both get to work, have a full day.”

“You’re both crazy.” George watched him carefully for another few moments. “Is your arm cramping up? Amelia’s pretty heavy.”

“Nah. She’s fine.”

“How . . . how’d you learn to do that?”

“What, put a kid to sleep? It’s not rocket science.”

“Oh yes it is. You have some sort of magic touch. Where’d you get it?”

“You mean a single guy, no frequent access to babies? I shouldn’t be—”

“Comfortable around them. Guys of your ilk usually run screaming from stuff like this.”

“Well, I’m not like other guys, am I?”

Truer words were never spoken,
George thought.

“It just so happens,” he went on, “I used to help Celia babysit her cousins.”

“The twins?”

“The very ones.”

“Well, aren’t you versatile.”

Casey continued rocking Amelia, and George didn’t know whether to stay or go. She couldn’t leave him there with the baby drooling all over his shoulder, but she felt like a stooge standing there too.

“A thousand things to take care of, you said?” she asked. “Anything I can do to help?”

“Well, with your other family member’s track record with physical labor, I won’t ask you to tote hay bales or anything.”

“Thanks for that.”

“How about the Web site we talked about?”

George smiled. “It’s done.”

“Already?”

“I had some time,” she said. And some insomnia, she didn’t say. “Celia brought me the photos, and I pulled the text from your brochure. I’d like to add more, though. Some personal thoughts from you. I set it up so you could write the blog entries and post them yourself, cut out the middle man—that’d be me.”

“Oh.” Casey looked a little disappointed. “I—I thought you’d be doing it for me.”

“Yeah, well, I would, but I’m . . . going back to Boston.”

His face fell. “Really?”

“Yep.” She felt how he looked, but she tried hard to hide it. “Can’t stay here forever, right?”

There was a heavy pause, in which she could almost hear Casey thinking,
Why not?
Why not, indeed.

“So, uh, when are you leaving?” he rasped, looking away from her.

“Pretty soon. I have to get back in time for the Beanies. My blog won an award!”

She saw Casey swallow, his Adam’s apple working in his beautiful neck.

“That’s . . . great,” he said. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

More silence. Then, “Well, we sure hope you won’t be as much of a stranger as before.”

Ah, the all-encompassing, town-wide royal “we.” Distancing. That was good, right?

“Sure.”

“Do you think you could make it back for the farm’s grand opening?”

She took a breath. “Um, maybe.”

“I’d really like to have you there, George.”

She nodded. Dang. Speck of dust must have gotten into her eye. “I’ll see. I—I’d better get dressed. You can put Amelia in her crib, you know. If she stays sleeping, great; if she wakes up . . . well, it wouldn’t be a surprise. Thanks for . . . helping her get a little more sleep, anyway.”

“Sure thing,” he whispered, turning his attention to the baby.

George ducked out of the room.

Casey plucked a lump off the gummy muffin—was it supposed to be blueberry?—and stuffed it in his mouth. It stuck in his throat. He washed it down with a couple of gulps of coffee. At least the coffee was palatable. He made a mental note to encourage Sera to create only in her pottery studio. She was way better with clay than with food. Not that there was anything wrong with that. Some people were artists, some could cook. Big deal. Different strokes and all that. George did both pretty well, though, he recalled. He found himself longing for a piece of her apple pie. Or rhubarb. Did she make lemon meringue? Any kind, really. Anything but this muffin that might actually be made out of some of Sera’s leftover wet clay.

He wiped his fingers on his jeans. George had just come into the doorway a few minutes ago, cleared her throat, and hitched her head, beckoning her sister into the next room for a private conversation. Now he could hear heated whispers, and he had to force himself to stay in his chair instead of getting up and standing by the doorway to hear better. Whatever they were arguing about was none of his business.

Besides, now was not the time to try to figure out how he could be in the same room with George again. Once this morning was enough—actually more than his heart could stand. The way she’d looked when she came into the baby’s room, hair all tousled, not a scrap of makeup on her face . . . thank goodness Amelia was weighing him down like a sandbag; otherwise he wouldn’t have been responsible for his actions. He really wished he could see her first thing in the morning every day. Preferably waking up in his bed. He shifted uncomfortably. Not the time to think about things like that. Actually, never the time to think about things like that, according to George.

The sisters’ voices were getting louder.

“—just take off? Really?” Sera barked. “Real nice. Classy.”

George murmured something else, Sera stepped on it with her own angry words, and then George again. “—
have
to, Sera!”

“What about Amelia?”

“I don’t think she’ll notice!”

“—thought you’d changed. I thought you liked it here—”

“That’s got nothing to—”

“—
everything
to do with it! Goddamn, you’re just as selfish as you always were, aren’t you?”

Apparently Sera was so angry she’d forgotten her no-swearing rule. Now
that
was angry. Casey pushed away from the table, ready to intervene, but he stopped himself. None of his business, he reminded himself. Even if he wanted to know more about why George was leaving. And how soon. And whether it was permanent or temporary.

“I’m sorry,” George bit out.

“Sorry’s not good enough.”

“That’s all you’re going to get.”

“George.” Wow, that was startling—Sera’s voice actually dropped, and she sounded hurt instead of angry. “Come on. Tell me the truth . . . is it because of . . .”

Because of what? But Sera’s voice was an even lower murmur. George answered, also keeping her voice low, and Casey realized he was practically falling out of his chair trying to hear. Although he caught a word here and there in their muted exchange, he couldn’t get the gist of their argument. Then there was a rustling sound, and footsteps, and George’s voice got louder. Casey rearranged himself at the table and picked up his coffee cup, trying to look casual.

“I’ll call you from the road. Or maybe when I get there. Give Amelia a kiss for me.” It sounded like George’s voice cracked a little.

Then the screen door slammed.

Sera appeared in the kitchen doorway, her face drawn. She looked at Casey, and if he hadn’t known Serafina Down half his life— long enough to know this woman’s go-to emotion was anger, not sorrow—he’d have sworn there were tears in her eyes.

“George—?” he asked.

“She left.”

“Right now. No warning. Real nice, huh?”

“But . . . I mean, she told me she was going back to Boston, but I didn’t think it’d be—”

“I know,” Sera sighed. “But that’s George for you. Acts like this town gives her the plague. Family too.” She plopped down in the chair opposite him and pulled the notes about her pottery exhibition toward her. “I should’ve figured she wouldn’t stay this time either. Screw her. Where were we, Case?”

But Casey was already on his way out of the room. He ran down the hall, out the door, and down the porch steps, not really knowing what he was doing. What in the world could he say to keep her here? How could he stop her? Hell, who could stop George from doing anything?

She was still here. The Pink Lady was idling roughly in the driveway, and George was sitting still as stone in the driver’s seat, her hands over her face. He hurried up to the car, knocked on the window. She jumped, took her hands away from her face, brushed at her cheeks, pushed the tangle of reddish-blond hair out of her eyes. She rolled the window down, but only halfway. Casey gripped the top of the glass as if he could push it down farther.

“George, what—”

“Not you too, Casey. I’ve got to go. I told you.”

“But . . . right now?”

“Why wait?” she said softly, looking down at her lap. When she looked up again, her eyes were glassy. “I e-mailed you the password and instructions on how to post stuff on your Web site. Try to keep the blog fresh—put up something new whenever you can, to keep people interested. Updates on what you’re doing, scheduled events, you know.” She took a shaky breath. “And do one more thing, okay?”

“What?”

“Read the latest letter someone sent in to Down on Love.” She put the car in gear.

“So that’s it?”

She gave him a grim smile. In any other circumstances he would have loved gazing at her dark-honey-colored eyes, the scatter of freckles across her nose. But now all he could see was how pale she was, and panic coursed through him as he wracked his brain trying to figure out what to say to get her to stay. He didn’t want to be without her anymore.

“Goose, come on—”

“Gotta go, Casey. Take care, all right? Don’t work too hard. Good luck with the farm.”

“Tell me you’re coming back!” he called, but George just pulled out of the driveway and backed into the street, leaving him standing alone in the muggy morning, struggling to breathe.

 

George made it all the way to the next block before her escape was thwarted for the first time. She’d been doing the speed limit—assisted by the law-abiding person in a Buick directly in front of her. She wasn’t sure who was driving, but she could tell it was a senior citizen by the choice of car, the dutiful low speed, and the fact that she couldn’t see the person over the back of the seat, à la the old lady in
Ferris Bueller.
Even if an eight-year-old had boosted his grandfather’s sedan, he’d be going faster than this, she was sure.

“Hey, George!”

The shout came from a pickup truck going the other way down the street. The driver stopped in the middle of the road to chat—a common occurrence in Marsden—and she was forced to be sociable. The very last thing she wanted. It was Mike, the future fossil at Smithson’s Hardware.

“Hi, Mike,” she said reluctantly. Now that she’d made her decision, she was itching to get out of town. For the best, she kept telling herself. She didn’t belong here, she kept telling herself. Time to go. And she tried not to remember Sera’s disappointed face, Amelia’s fluttering eyelashes as she slept sweetly in her crib after Casey deposited her there, Casey’s stricken expression as he watched her pull out of the driveway.

“I hear you’re friendly with the competition now!”

“What?”

“You and Celia. That’s really nice.”

Oh God, had that just been last night? It felt like years. They’d done their best to squash the whole “town taking sides” thing, and George knew it might die out eventually, but she didn’t have the patience to wait for what could take years. She wanted a shortcut to the inevitable, a final nail in the coffin, and she was making it happen right now. If anyone let her actually leave town, of course.

“But what’m I going to do with my Team George shirt?”

“Burn it, Mike.”

“Aw, you don’t mean that,” he said with a chuckle.

“Isn’t it about time to open up the store?”

“Oh, hey, you’re right. Better get going. You have a good one, George.”

George didn’t give him a backward glance in her rearview mirror as she stepped on the gas. She left the window open, and as she sped up, the already-warm breeze ruffled her hair, tangling it and sending some into the corner of her mouth. She pulled it away and instinctively slowed down so she was just doing the thirty-mile-per-hour speed limit and no more.

Oh God, not only had she lost her edge when it came to blog snark, she’d also lost it driving.

She knew the fastest route out of town was a back road up over the hills, but she couldn’t resist one final cruise down Main Street. Gone soft indeed. Yikes. Even though she knew it was a bad idea, she turned the Pink Lady downhill and into the valley, picking up the main road at the corner closest to Missy’s Hits for Misses.

It was still early, and the town looked downright picturesque, all dew-laden and sparkly with morning sunlight. Shops weren’t open yet, but some proprietors were hosing down the sidewalks in front of their stores, café owners putting out tables and chairs. The most activity was centered around the coffee shop, where people waited patiently in a line to get whatever complicated concoctions they couldn’t make at home.

George wondered if she should stop for a caffeine fix of her own. She couldn’t imagine driving all the way back to Boston without one. In fact, she was so sleep-deprived, and jonesing so much for coffee and a gloppy chocolate-filled, frosted croissant, that her stomach hurt. Sure, that was it. It couldn’t be because she was leaving Marsden behind, could it? No. That was just crazy talk.

She forced herself to keep driving, promising herself she’d stop at the Dunkin’ Donuts in the middle of the strip of chain stores and fast-food joints outside town instead.

Sooner than she expected, George got to the last block of Main Street. She stopped at the last of the three stoplights—red, even though there was almost no one on the road besides her—where she stared at the town hall on her right. She sure didn’t need to see that and remember what happened the last time she was there. She looked to her left and spotted Suzette’s. Good grief, every single place held some sort of memory, all of them recent, too many of them painful. Now she desperately wanted to blast out of town, but the light stayed red. She sighed.

Her eye was drawn to a person jogging up the side street by Suzette’s, past Vinyl Nation, the music store. The person was running but didn’t look like a jogger. Then she spotted a mural, still wet and glistening in the sunlight—a flock of paper airplanes turning into birds, reminiscent of an Escher print. Marsdy. She’d missed him again. And now she’d never find out who it was.

The light turned green. She started to roll through the intersection, but another vehicle pulled out in front of her from her right, at the last minute. She slowed down before she rear-ended the very familiar, beat-up red pickup doddering along in front of her at . . . she checked her speedometer . . . Seventeen. Miles. Per hour.

George groaned. “Goddammit, Burt.”

The last thing she needed was another delay. Her head was messed up enough already. She didn’t need to be tootling along behind Burt; it only gave her more time to think. She had known it was going to be tough breaking the news to Sera that she was leaving, but she’d had no idea how bad it was going to get. Of course her sister took it personally, then threw in the guilt trip about Amelia, but George had been prepared for both angles of attack. What she hadn’t expected was Sera cutting to the chase, asking her if she was leaving because of Casey. And in such a soft, kind tone too. A furious Sera she could handle; a sympathetic Sera was just unheard of.

“Tell me the truth,” she had said. “Is it because of Casey? Because if you’re running away from him, you’d be really crazy. And stupid.”

Nice. Seemed she couldn’t remain sympathetic for long. This was Sera, after all.

But George had answered in as levelheaded a manner as she could muster. “I can’t handle it, Sera.”

“Why the hell not?”

George had scrambled for a reason. “He wants something from me that I can’t give him.”

“Stop saying that! You know why. I’m still recovering from being burned by Thom. I think Casey’s making a mistake, and he’d be better off with Celia instead. And this stupid town and its gossip doesn’t help matters.”

Sera had crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. “Son of a bitch, you sure have a million excuses, don’t you? But the truth is you’re just scared.”

George had started to protest, but her sister cut her off, holding up her hand, palm flat, like a traffic cop.

“Don’t even start with me, you chickenshit.” Apparently Sera had many months’ worth of profanities stored up, and she was going to use her whole arsenal in one last go-for-broke assault on her sister’s barricades. “It’s Thom’s fault. It’s Casey’s fault. It’s the freakin’ town’s fault. What else have you got up your sleeve, huh? Come on, I know if I shoot down these three you’ll come up with more. You freakin’ brat—it’s nobody’s fault but your own. You’re afraid of everything—which, by the way, makes
no
sense. You’re one of the strongest people I know. You have absolutely no reason to be afraid of
anything.
And I’d think you, of all people, would know better than to let other people shape your future. Who
cares
what other people think? Who
cares
what other guys ‘did’ to you? You’re stronger and you’re bigger and you’re better than all of that.”

George had been stunned. But instead of taking Sera’s words to heart, she’d pushed them—and her—away. “Don’t expect so much from me, Sera. I haven’t got it in me.” She’d sighed heavily and turned away. “I’ve gotta go.”