Small-Town Dreams and The Girl Next Door: Small-Town Dreams / The Girl Next Door

“Yeah,” Josh conceded, then chuckled, “but they have lots better table manners.”

Two days later, winter had really begun to make her approach known. Fending for herself in Irma’s kitchen by subsisting on leftovers eaten in the privacy of her room, Cassidy had avoided Joshua like the plague. The quick dinner with him had been wonderful but, as she’d feared, dangerous. He was too compelling. Too comfortable with who he was. His grin was too charming. She just couldn’t concentrate around him.

So she’d hidden away, determined to think through her problems. And now Cassidy was tired of thinking. Especially because all it did was make her more unhappy since she’d come to a monumental conclusion.

She was miserable.

Not just miserable because she’d been passed over for a promotion. But miserable with her job at Jamison itself. And with her whole life.

She worked constantly and didn’t have the time to spend any of the substantial salary that she earned with all those hours she put in doing something she hated. And worst of all, Cassidy didn’t have a clue what she could do about it. Despite what she’d said to her grandfather and despite what she’d thought in the days that had followed their showdown in the office, she was all the old man had in this world. She couldn’t just desert him and destroy his dream of handing down his company to his descendants.

She’d call him. She’d talk to him. She’d at least let him know she was safe.

Before she could change her mind, Cassidy lifted the phone extension and dialed his office at Jamison Steel.

“Winston Jamison’s office. Rose Carmichael speaking.”

“Is he there?” she asked the woman who was as close to a mother as she’d had in twenty years.

“Oh, Cassidy, I’m so glad you called. He’s here. I’m just not sure we shouldn’t let him suffer a bit longer.”

“I don’t want him to suffer. At least, not any more,” she added wryly.

“Then you’re too generous. But then, we know that already, don’t we.”

Cassidy ran a hand agitatedly through her short hair. “I don’t want him to worry, Rose.”

“Suppose we compromise? I’ll tell him you called and that you’re fine but that you weren’t ready to talk to him. Once he knows that you’re okay, he’ll be fine. How’s that?”

“He’s not frantic, is he? Won’t he want to know where I am?”

“I wouldn’t call it frantic exactly, and I’ll tell him you called from Tahiti if he asks.”

Remembering that one of his prized assistants recently ran off to Tahiti with his Human Resources vice president made Cassidy chuckle. “You are bad.”

Now Rose chuckled. “And how do you think I’ve controlled the beast all these years? Cassidy,” she said, her tone suddenly sober. “I want you to promise me that you’ll kick back and think seriously about what you want out of life. Forget what your grandfather got you into here at Jamison. He’s a big boy and can take care of himself. Put anything to do with Philly out of your mind, rest and think. Please promise me.”

“I promise,” Cassidy found herself saying.

“Good. Keep in touch. ‘Bye now, sweetheart.”

Cassidy dropped the receiver into the cradle and stared at it. Now where did that leave her? Thinking some more? Considering crazy ideas of where her life had gone wrong?

The thud of an ax in the backyard seemed to mock her. She was a grown woman and she’d been reduced—No! She’d reduced herself to cowering in a room for fear of becoming attached to a wonderful man because her grandfather wouldn’t approve of him. How much, she wondered for the first time since that fateful day when her grandfather had taken charge of her life, did she owe the man who’d raised her? Surely not the rest of her life?

Joshua heard the back door close with its typical wooden slap. It was time to take the screen out and put the glass in for winter. In his mind, he ran a quick list of the winterizing he’d done so far and what he had yet to accomplish. He’d put up the storm windows in mid-October, but Ma liked to be able to let the heat out of the kitchen, so he’d waited for real winter weather to do the door. And Ma couldn’t deny that it was cold today.

Glancing at the pile of wood for the woodstove that he’d stacked up, he mentally checked that off as almost finished. That left getting the shovels out and ready, as well as mounting the plow blade on the truck, but it was early days for that yet.

He swung the ax again, and the log split from top to bottom. A frigid blast of air ruffled his hair, and he smiled. He loved winter, he thought as he took aim at another log. Summer heat sometimes depressed him, but winter revitalized him. He was determined not to speculate on why that was.

“Oh, I hate winter,” Cassidy grumbled at his back.

Startled, Joshua missed the log and buried the head of the ax six inches into the dirt. He pulled the ax out of the ground and spun to face her. “So the recluse has come out of her den. Don’t you know it’s dangerous to sneak up on a man who’s swinging an ax?”

“I didn’t think I was sneaking. That screen door slammed shut loud enough to wake the dead. And if that didn’t, Bear’s rather exuberant greeting would have.”

Josh glanced at his traitor of a dog, who at that moment sat next to Cassidy, a huge bone sticking out the sides of his mouth and his eyes glowing with puppy-love as he stared up at her.

“Cassie, you’ve created a monster. Now he’s going to follow you everywhere whining and hoping for more treats.” Josh was shocked by the stricken look on her now-pale face. He dropped the ax and went to her. “What’s wrong?” he asked as he reached out to grip her upper arms, afraid she might drop at his feet.

She blinked as if she’d just realized where she was. “Cassie,” she said, her voice shaken and low. “No one calls me Cassie. Not since Cassie went on vacation and came home Cassidy.”

“I’m sorry,” he apologized immediately, though he still had no idea what he’d done or what her cryptic comment meant. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It was just…I guess a blast from the past is the only way to describe it.”

Josh sat back against the hip-high stump of a long-dead tree that he’d been whittling away at for the past several weeks. He took his baseball cap off and wiped his brow with the sleeve of his plaid flannel shirt, all the while considering her. “I understand how that can be,” he said carefully. “I never know why it happens. But you do. Do you want to talk about why hearing a nickname turned you three shades of pale?”

“When I was a young child, my parents called me Cassie. We went to Colorado for a skiing holiday when I was six. They loved to ski and so did I. They taught me before I could ride a two-wheeler. One minute we were singing by the fire in our rented cabin, and the next there came this roar that I’ll never forget. I can still see my father jump up and run to the big window that faced the mountain. My mother was right on his heels. He turned back and opened his mouth to say something. But he never got it out. I remember that the windows were black as the night, and in a split second they turned white, then burst inward behind him. The next thing I knew I was being swept away into a world that was cold and white—then everything went black.”

“Avalanche?” Josh guessed, horrified for the child she’d been.

Cassidy nodded, biting her lip, her eyes full of tears. “I woke up a few times before the rescuers found me. I remember crying for my parents. Being cold. Then even the cold faded. I woke in the hospital with my grandfather sitting by my bedside. ‘Cassidy,’ he said, ‘you’re going to have to be very brave. Your parents are dead. We’re all the family each other has now. We have to stick together so we can carry on the Jamison name.’ Until that moment, I was just Cassie. After this, I was Cassidy Jamison, heir to Jamison Steel. And you know what? I don’t mind you calling me Cassie at all because I think I need to be her again.”

“That’s an awfully large burden to put on a child,” Joshua commented, then realized that he was holding her again, albeit loosely by her forearms. He let go quickly and stepped back, saying a quick prayer for strength. He was supposed to counsel her, not hug her. He was supposed to care about her, not come to care for her. It was a probably a fine balance, but he was sure there was an almost physical line—and one he could not cross. He didn’t have the right.

He cleared his throat. “So while you’ve been playing hermit up there in Ma’s prize guest room, you’ve been thinking,” he quipped, hoping to sound at ease. “That’s good. But dwelling on your problems too much is as bad as pretending they don’t exist. I have an idea. I visit an older woman who lives up the mountain. She’s a shut-in. Would you like to go along for a change of scenery? The view of the valley from her back porch is spectacular.”

Josh held his breath, waiting, hoping she’d agree. He could see that she needed a break. Maybe if she saw how difficult someone else’s life was, she’d forget to dwell on her own unsettled circumstances. And maybe exposure to a woman like Maude would fan the flames of the hunger for spiritual things that she’d given him a glimpse of that night outside Earl’s.

“Are you sure she wouldn’t mind a stranger showing up out of the blue?”

“Maude loves company. She just can’t get in to town much anymore.” Josh decided to take her question as an indication that she wanted to tag along. “You’ll see. She’ll love another person to talk to. Especially a woman.” He picked his watch up off a nearby log and checked the time. “I just need a little time to get washed up. Give me five minutes, and I’ll meet you at the truck.”

Josh left his ax where it was and rushed off before she could change her mind. He tried to put the anticipation that bubbled through him down to the thrill of victory, but he was very much afraid what he felt was excitement over the opportunity just to spend time with her.

Cassidy had already climbed inside the pickup by the time Josh returned. While they traveled, he told her several stories about Maude Herman that were steeped in local color, hoping to prevent the kind of intimacy he’d felt the last time he invited her to ride with him. He failed miserably.

When they arrived, Cassidy jumped out of the cab before he could get his door open, just as she had at Earl’s after they’d look over the Swenson house. But this time she looked ill at ease when he met her at the tailgate. Did she feel the same attraction to him that he felt for her?

No. That wasn’t possible. After all, what had he to offer compared to all the professional men she knew? And that was another reason he’d told Henry he didn’t want to come to care for her. He had absolutely nothing to offer her. It must be that she was still uncertain of Maude’s welcome, he told himself, though he thought uncertainty seemed very un-Cassidy-like.

“You’re sure about this?” she asked, her gray-blue eyes endearingly shy.

“Maude will love having you. Come on.” He took her arm and fought to ignore the electricity he felt flow from her.

“What exactly do you do when you visit her? And why is she a shut-in?” she asked, still a tentative note in her voice.