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22
Gretchen didn’t want to go out. Her very bones ached, and she was so tired of thinking. Everyone around her had so many questions, and everyone looked to her for the answers.
She led Will out to the back parking lot, but his truck wasn’t there. “Oh, you came in the front.”
“I can walk around,” he said. He ran his hand up her arm and along her neck. “Gretchen, you—we don’t have to go out. Do you want to just go home?”
Tears pricked her eyes, because Will did know her so well. She nodded, and Will did too. “I’ll follow you there,” he said. “I can go get something in town and bring it out.”
“Okay,” she said, closing her eyes. The past six weeks had been a living nightmare, and sometimes Will had eased her stress, and sometimes he’d added to it. She felt stretched thin, and she wasn’t sure how much more she could take.
She told herself it would all be over tomorrow, because Taffy was going to re-open in the morning. But she knew what her bank account looked like, and she knew what the business books looked like, and she’d be paying for this fire for a long, long time still.
The nightmare wasn’t over yet.
“How about that wood-fired corn pizza?” she suggested.
A shadow crossed his face, but he said, “Okay. I’ll see you at your house in a bit.” He didn’t kiss her before he turned and went back into the shop through the back door.
Gretchen didn’t have the mental energy to analyze his behavior. She had enough other things to worry about, and he was a grown man.
She went home, calling her daddy along the way so she wouldn’t have to think about him once Will brought dinner. She fed Elvis and texted Max that his cat missed him.How are you?she asked her brother, because he’d been telling her about an upcoming talent show for his oldest daughter, who really wanted her mother to come see her tap dance.
She sat and texted with Max for quite a while, not realizing how much time had passed until Max said he had to go so he could get his youngest to bed.
“Bed?” Gretchen asked herself, looking up from her phone. She glanced at it again, realizing she and Will had split ways over an hour ago. Almost ninety minutes, in fact.
She tapped to call him, but his phone only rang once before going to voicemail. It was probably dead, and Gretchen got to her feet, which ached as she did.
Her stomach growled at her, and she cracked the front door, the whine of the hinges still loud enough to alert Elvis that a door had been opened.
She quickly stepped outside, a hint of worry gnawing at her. Just then, bright LED headlights cut through the darkness, and she recognized the rumble of his truck’s engine as he turned the corner at the end of her street.
He arrived in her driveway a few seconds later, and he got out, slamming doors left and right. Oh, boy.
He came toward her with two pizza boxes in his hands and the power of darkness in his eyes.
“I tried calling you,” she said. “Your phone must be dead.”
“Yeah, because I waited at Pizza Five-Twelve for the last two hours.” He stomped up the stairs, and Gretchen suddenly didn’t want him there.
He went into her house, leaving the door open, and she caught a streak of gray tabby cat as she turned.
Her own anger sprang to life, and she followed Will into the house. “You let out Elvis.”
“Sorry,” he said, but he didn’t sound sorry. He tossed the pizza on the counter and wouldn’t look at her.
Gretchen usually didn’t mind her grumpy cowboy. He’d respected her wishes these past few weeks, and he’d asked her about Taffy all the time. He’d taken her away from the chaos on the weekends, and he hadn’t left her side in some of the worst moments of the past six weeks.
“Just go home,” she said, joining him at the counter.
He looked at her then. “What?”
“I can’t handle your grumpy side tonight,” she said, trying not to be cruel. “Thank you for the pizza. But really. Just go. You’ve probably been up since four, and we should’ve just had something here.” She opened the top box to find the wood-fired corn pizza she liked. The dobs of ricotta all over it made her mouth water.
“You want me to go?”
“Yes,” she said, glaring at him.
