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When Knox arrived, Mormor was dead. He’d found her sitting in her recliner, a word search puzzle on her lap, her cat Tonto curled up beside her cold form. Trudie’s mom had gone next door when she’d seen Knox’s truck. She said Mormor looked peaceful, as if she’d simply drifted off to sleep.
As death went, everyone agreed Mormor’s had been good. The woman had valued her independence and never wanted to be a burden. She’d always said that a quick exit beat a slow decline. So, from that perspective she’d been granted her wish. But the loss was...well, it was dreadful.
While Knox agreed her death was exactly what Mormor would’ve wanted, he’d become remote and withdrawn. He was distant with Trudie. Her mom had reassured her, it was simply part of the grief process, but it was confusing for Trudie.
Although she had moved into her own apartment years ago, when she visited her folks, she always dropped by to visit Mormor, even if it was only for a minute. Mormor had been like a surrogate grandmother to her.
Trudie missed her, too, but she wasn’t dealing with it by pushing Knox away. He was the one who had bailed on their weekly dinner for the last month. It didn’t make any sense to her. Over the years she and Knox had talked about everything, but since Mormor’s death he wouldn’t talk to her about anything.
And now this? He was opening his grandmother’s house to strangers and selling it? Granted, she didn’t quite know what she’d expected him to do—he had his own place near his vet clinic, but she’d thought perhaps he’d hold onto the house or maybe move in. It seemed so cold and callous to just sell a house that held so many memories. She didn’t get it. At this point, she didn’t understand, but how could she when he wouldn’t talk to her. This was the longest conversation they’d had in weeks, and quite frankly she’d been surprised and excited when he’d suggested they meet for one of their late-night hikes, which had become a rarity rather than a regular event.
Knox shrugged his broad shoulders but didn’t look at her. The sun, quickly sinking toward the horizon, threw his beloved features into relief—the straight, strong nose, the firm jaw and square chin, the slight curl to his hair where it lay against his neck. “Elsa says it’s the best way to handle it. She says it’s all junk and she’s right.”
Trudie’s hand itched. She didn’t know who she wanted to slap more or harder—Knox or the beautiful Elsa Borjeson. Elsa and Knox had met a couple of months ago when she’d rear-ended him at a traffic light. Over the years, Knox and Trudie had dated people that the other one wasn’t so wild about. Come to think of it, they’d never particularly liked each other’s choices. However, there was something particularly offputting about Elsa.... Mormor hadn’t liked the cool blonde either.
“Since when did your grandmother’s life and her things become junk?” Trudie asked through gritted teeth.
He at least had the grace to look ashamed. Elsa’s influence hadn’t totally erased all traces of her friend...yet. “Well, Mormor’s stuff isn’t exactly junk.” He shifted on the rock and his shoulders stiffened. “But she’s gone and it’s time to move on.”
That didn’t even sound like Knox. He might as well be reading from a script penned by Elsa. Trudie wrapped her arms around her bent legs and rested her head on her knees, studying him as the light bathed him in a golden glow.
He glanced at her, inquiry in his denim-blue eyes at her silence. “What?”
An ineffable sadness filled her. “What’s happened to you?” she said softly. Her words seemed to float on the breeze that riffled her hair against her face. “I don’t know you anymore.”
It was a whisper, more of an aside to herself, yet he heard her.
A remoteness shadowed his eyes, rendering him inaccessible to her in a way he’d never been before. “I grew up, Trudie. Maybe it’s time that you did as well.”
The harshness of his words made her wince. Although his physical features were familiar, his heart was not the same. She loved him, but she couldn’t, at this moment, say she liked him. So, if this was his version of growing up and he wanted her to join him on this path...well, no thanks.
“Not if it means becoming what you’ve become.”
He looked away from her. “If that’s the way you feel.”
Trudie wished she could snap him out of whatever mind set he had slipped into. While she knew everyone in life was responsible for themselves, it was as if Elsa had Knox under a spell, as if she’d smudged all the good things, clouding the way he saw the world. It wasn’t particularly fair to lay the blame all on Elsa, but the more time Knox spent with the woman, the darker his outlook became, the more cynical, and the more distant he grew.
Trudie had never censored herself with Knox and she didn’t plan to start now. “Yeah, that’s exactly how I feel. I don’t want to get to the point where I consider my past junk.”
“That’s just as well,” Knox said. “Our relationship makes Elsa a little uncomfortable so maybe it’s best if we take a break from one another.”
Elsa uncomfortable... Take a break.... Surely Trudie had heard him wrong. “What?” Their respective dates had never gotten in the way of them—Trudie and Knox—before.
“Elsa doesn’t really understand our relationship. I’ve tried explaining that you and I are just friends, buddies, sort of the same as me and Danny, but she doesn’t get it. It makes her uneasy when I’m with you.”
“So, you’re telling me you don’t want to spend time with me because your girlfriend doesn’t like me?”
Push had come to shove a couple of times before. David Peters, her senior prom date, hadn’t liked Knox. She’d dumped David. Missy Fairington, one of Knox’s girlfriends, was bitchy about Trudie. Missy had become history pretty quickly. Trudie and Knox’s friendship had always superseded other relationships...until now.
“It’s not so much that she doesn’t like you—”
“Don’t insult me by lying to me.”
“She doesn’t get you. She doesn’t get our relationship. She doesn’t understand that you and I can just be friends and that’s all there is to it.”
If a woman was going to break up their friendship, it could’ve at least been someone who would love him, care for him, bring out the best in him—someone who would make him happy. That, Trudie could swallow. But, Elsa was doing none of that.
She drew a deep breath, and then laid it on the line. “Knox, I don’t think she’s good for you.”
“She said you were jealous of her.”
Trudie had already searched her soul. She wasn’t jealous of Elsa, although the other woman was beautiful and obviously Knox was smitten. Trudie didn’t like her because, plain and simple, Elsa wasn’t a nice person. She was cold, calculating and manipulative...and it was insane that Knox couldn’t see it. Love must have truly blinded him.
She didn’t know what had happened to her friend, but even worse, there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. Mormor had always said everyone had to choose and walk their own path. Tears burned at the back of her throat. She swallowed hard.
“I’m not jealous of Elsa,” she said, her voice calm and flat.
He ignored her comment. “I’ll call you in a couple of weeks after the dust settles.”
He wouldn’t call because there was no dust to settle. There was only Elsa.
The sun, in one powerful final illumination before it retired for the evening, cast him in a golden glow, and in that moment, her entire world shifted. She loved him. She’d always loved him, but this was different. She loved him in the way a woman loves a man, a partner. She was in love with him. It was as if she had to lose him to discover the truth of what he was to her.
The realization shook her. Shattered her. Left her uncertain.
Trudie stood, her legs not quite steady beneath her. She placed her hands lightly on his broad shoulders, resisting the urge to curl her fingers into his solidness, his warmth. She leaned down and pressed a kiss against his temple, his scent enveloping her, her cheek brushing against his hair.
He was so dear to her.
Knox caught her fingers in his. “I’ll call,” he said, repeating his earlier...assertion...vow...platitude.... No, he wouldn’t. “You’re okay, right?” No, she wasn’t okay and she wasn’t sure that she ever would be without him. She wavered, almost blurting her discovery, but it would just be awkward. He was all hung up on Elsa so what was the point in baring her soul?
She tugged her hand free. “I’m fine.”
Trudie bent and scratched Jessup behind the ears. His gaze was nothing short of woeful as he looked up at her. The dog knew as surely as Trudie did that Knox wouldn’t call.
She turned and walked away, the sun setting behind her, as she headed into the shadows. Technically, she was fine. No one actually died of a broken heart...even if they felt as if they might.
