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He’d felt so numb, so anchorless when Mormor had died.... And Elsa had been there to fill the void. She’d seemed to wrap herself around his numbness.
Trudie had had a problem with Elsa, had seemed totally oblivious to the need Elsa filled. Elsa wouldn’t have wanted him calling Trudie, but Trudie knew where to find him and she hadn’t bothered. Neither had he. It had just been easier that way.
“Hmm,” Merrilee said, her look full of speculation.
Knox shrugged off the question in her eyes. “Things change.” He glanced around. “There are more pictures on the wall than the last time I was here.” The log wall held an assortment of photos that relayed the history of Good Riddance and its inhabitants. “It still smells the same in here and welcomes the same—” the life-size moose replica in a Santa hat next to the decorated tree had been a staple for years
“—but there are changes.” He nodded toward the two men sitting opposite one another at a chess table. He didn’t have to say it. One of the old codgers who’d been a permanent fixture there had passed just as Mormor had. A grey-haired man who was something of a sophisticated dresser, especially for Good Riddance, had taken the spot.
“True enough, things change. I expected... Well, you and Trudie were always so close.” She shook her head as if clearing it. “Regardless, it’s nice to see you again. We’re glad you’re here. How’s the animal-doctoring business?”
“I can’t complain. I just took on a partner.” He’d known when he joined Mack Beasley’s vet practice a couple of years ago that Mack was planning to retire soon. He’d done so a year and a half ago and Knox had been so swamped with work he could barely breathe. He’d have been hard-pressed to attend Chrismoose if Luke Farmington hadn’t come on-board a couple of months ago. Relief vets were one thing but the real relief was having Luke to share the practice. “He’s a nice guy who moved to Anchorage from Denver.”
“That’s wonderful. You should’ve brought him to Chrismoose.”
The Twelve Days of Christmas started playing on the boombox over on the table. Damn—his and Trudie’s song. He could hardly change it.
Knox forced a grin and tried to focus on the conversation at hand. “Someone had to stay behind to take care of the business. It looks as if things are going well here. I noticed some new buildings when we were coming in.”
Merrilee nodded and was on the verge of saying one thing when something caught her eye. Like an internal alarm shrilling, the hair on the back of Knox’s neck stood at attention.
“Well,” Merrilee said, “you and Trudie are about to have the opportunity to catch up. She just walked through the door.”
He’d known it before she said it. He’d felt Trudie’s presence the way he always had. He could also feel her animosity. She was still pissed.
Damn, he might as well go ahead and get this over with. He turned.
He felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. It was as if he was seeing her for the first time. She was familiar, but had he ever really looked at her?
The curve of her cheek, the sensual line of her lips, the hug of her jeans to her hips. And her hair was different.
Trudie Brown was a beautiful woman.
* * *
SHE’D HEARD he would be here since Elsa was coming in her capacity as Snow Queen. She’d known she’d see him. She’d thought she was prepared. She’d thought she was over him.
She wasn’t.
Knox. She stood immobilized. And that song... Seeing him was like ripping open an old wound. All the missing, wanting, hurting, surged through her anew. Yet she couldn’t stop looking at him, soaking up the sight of him. She’d cried and ranted and tried so hard to forget him. She had kept herself busy, throwing herself into work, joining friends for outings, dating. But busy hadn’t remedied the sleepless nights when she’d longed for him, ached for the sound of his voice, the magic of his smile.
So many times she’d thought about calling him and telling him she loved him. But their friendship hadn’t meant enough for him to salvage. Why would he possibly want to know she loved him like a woman loved a man? So, she’d kept that part to herself, not even sharing it with her girlfriends.
Now here he was in front of her, all sturdy six feet of him. His dark hair was a little longer. He was perhaps a bit thinner. There were a few lines bracketing his eyes that hadn’t been there before. He looked weary...but wonderful.
Thunk. Instinctively she reached back and braced her hand against the wall, barely staying upright. Jessup, all eighty-something pounds of him, was on her, licking her neck. Obviously his joy at seeing her outweighed his obedience training.
She’d missed Jessup almost as much as she’d missed Knox.
“Jessup, down!” Knox commanded in his most censuring tone. The dog glanced back at his master, but just couldn’t contain his joy at seeing Trudie. She buried her face in the fur of his neck. “Hey, sweet boy. How’ve you been?”
Jessup licked her hand and her neck again as if to say he’d been okay but he was much better now that she was here.
Trudie straightened and dredged up a smile as she walked forward, Jessup glued to her side. “Merrilee,” she said by way of greeting as Merrilee enveloped her in a hug.
“It’s so good to see you again, Trudie. How are you?”
“Fine, thanks. And you?” God, she felt so awkward with Knox in the background. Funny how their lives had been so intertwined—they’d shared some of the same friends, liked to eat at the same restaurants—but they’d still managed to avoid one another for the last year and a half. Trudie found it richly ironic that she and Knox were crossing paths in a place where the town slogan was Welcome to Good Riddance, where you got to leave behind what ailed you. Apparently, she was an exception because she was coming face-to-face with what ailed her, or had ailed him.
“No complaints,” Merrilee said by way of answering Trudie’s inquiry.
“That’s good.” Okay, just say it. Do it. She finally spoke directly to him. She tried not to stare. She’d missed him so much it was hard not to soak him up like a dry sponge. “Hi, Knox.”
“Hey, Trudie.”
She wasn’t sure what to do and neither was he. They both stepped forward, reaching for one another. Should she hug him? Shake his hand? Neither seemed right. She stepped back to where she’d started and Knox mirrored her. It all felt incredibly awkward but also rather wonderful to see him again. It felt as if it had been forever.
“It’s been a while,” she said. She hadn’t intended to sound accusatory, but the censorious note crept in nonetheless. And Jessup was still by her side.
Merrilee looked from Trudie to Knox and nodded. “Excuse me, I need to check on something and I’m sure you two are eager to catch up.”
Merrilee had neatly backed them into a corner. Either of them could hardly declare they had no interest in sitting down with the other.
“So, how have you been, Trudie?” Knox said. “You look good. Real good.”
A shiver slid through her at the tone of his voice, at the words. How many times, in the last year and a half, had she wondered what it would be like if he saw her as a woman? Now it seemed that perhaps he did. “Thanks. I cut my hair.”
She’d always kept her light brown hair long. Now it swung against her shoulders and bangs feathered her forehead. The hairdresser had woven in low lights and the style framed her face.
“I like it.” The look in his eyes sent heat coursing through her.
Trudie nodded. “So do I.” She wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself and she was suddenly burning up. She unwound the scarf from her neck and tugged it off. It didn’t do much to cool her down. “You look good, too.”
“Thanks,” he said. He shoved his hands in his blue-jean pockets and shifted from one foot to another. “Want to grab a bite to eat next door?”
She hesitated. She should say she had other things to do. She should politely decline because he was here with Elsa. She should just let him...it...them go...but Trudie found she couldn’t. How much harm could come from a half-hour lunch?
She thought she’d steeled herself for seeing him again, but she wasn’t immune to him. She wasn’t so much hungry for food as she was to know how he was and what had been going on in his life. Half an hour, an hour tops. “Sure. You know I can always eat.” She tacked on the last bit so that he didn’t think sitting down at Gus’s, the restaurant right next door to the bed and breakfast and the airstrip center, was personal.
Of course, Gus’s was the gathering place and news spread in Good Riddance like wildfire during a drought. Elsa would know Trudie and Knox were eating together before they finished the meal. She almost asked him if that was going to be a problem but decided to keep her mouth shut.
Knox knew how things were in Good Riddance. But he was a big boy, and if his sharing a table with Trudie posed a problem with Elsa, then that was between the two of them, wasn’t it?
