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“Sure.”
“It’s really tiring sometimes.”
“Looking on the bright side?”
She nodded. “Sometimes I just want to cry and say it’s not fair. Maybe even throw something.”
Janie held on to that sincere, desperate look and let it sink into her heart. Oh, how she knew how that felt. Painting smiles over storm clouds, laughing instead of crying . . . This girl was her soul sister when it came to that. The only exception for Janie had been Hunter.
With him she’d let stone-cold mad settle into place and kept it there. Perhaps because he was the only person on earth with whom she’d ever truly been her whole broken, not-always-sunny self. Even Hazel didn’t know the layer that cried at the loneliness. That still felt the ache of abandonment left by her dad’s leaving. The stifling imposter syndrome and feeling certain that at any moment she’d fail and everyone would know that she’d never had it in her to be successful in the first place.
Gemma was an eleven-year-old, red-haired, copper-eyed reflection of Janie’s secret self. What would eleven-year-old Janie wish for right then?
She knew exactly what. Janie unfolded her legs and stood. “I think you should do that.”
“What?”
“Right now. I’ve got some rolls to check downstairs in the café’s kitchen. You’ll have the whole apartment to yourself. Go lock yourself in the bathroom with that pillow.” Janie pointed to her small fuzzy throw pillow. “Throw it at the shower. The mirror. The door. Whatever you feel like. Let it all out. Everything you feel about your parents taking off for Europe, having to move to Montana, your brother getting hurt. All of it. Yell. Scream. Do what you need to do.”
Wide copper eyes stared up at her. “You . . . I . . . really?”
“Yep.” Janie tucked a loose tress of Gemma’s hair behind her ear. “I’ll be back in about ten minutes. The place is yours. Let it out.”
Janie planted a kiss on the top of the girl’s head. Then she headed for the door leading to the stairs, leaving a stunned Gemma Crofton sitting on her sofa. Hopefully with the freedom to pour out some real emotion so it didn’t become toxic sludge inside her beautiful young heart.
Janie flipped on the kitchen light and opened her side-by-side refrigerator. Yep, there were those rolls, just as she’d left them earlier that evening. Ready to bake in the morning and then be served to the after-church crowd, along with her peppered pot roast. Satisfied that all was well—and more importantly, that she wasn’t a liar, saying she was going to check on the rolls—Janie shut the cooler doors and leaned back against them. Tipping her head back and crossing her arms, she allowed a long exhale.
Lord, it’d been a day. It felt like a week had gone by in less than twenty-four hours. First, with Hunter showing up at the café and finding out she was going out with Grady. That had bothered her way more than she’d anticipated. Truth be told, it still bothered her.
Then the afternoon with Grady . . . had been a perfectly nice afternoon. A nice hike, a nice picnic, with a nice man. Why did that evaluation feel . . . flat?
Janie shut her eyes. “What am I doing?”
The empty kitchen gave no response.
“God, what am I supposed to do?”
Still, only the gentle hum of the refrigerator at her back . . .
And a muffled knock at her back door?
Janie pulled herself straight, head tilted to hear and eyes studying the solid back door.
Yes, there it was again. Someone was at her back door. With a heart jolt at the possibility that yet another catastrophe had hit, Janie scurried to answer the knock.
Brown eyes peered at her from the thickness of the night. Oh man. He could still take her heart captive when he looked at her like his soul was bare, his heart was raw, and he needed . . .
Her.
A tremble rolled through her middle. She swallowed, pulling open the door wider. “Hunter.” Why did his name make her heart skip? Why did her imagining that he’d come to claim her again send fiery electricity through her veins?
She must be tired. Exhausted. After all, it had been averylong day.
“Hey. Is it okay if I come in?”
Since when did he ask such things? Especially when she’d clearly opened the door to him?
“Of course.” Great. Her voice cracked. Like she was nervous about him picking her up for sophomore homecoming or something equally juvenile. Clearing her throat, she brushed up her friendly smile. Good reminder—she’d determined to seek friendship with Hunter so they could at last cease this volatile seesaw of emotions between them.
