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“Don’t worry, Art. I won’t cramp your lifestyle.” The angry words spilled out before she could stop them.
“Hey, little sis, I didn’t mean it that way,” Art said, instantly remorseful. “It’s just, well, I’m kind of under the gun at work and things are piling up personally. Well, you know how things are with me and Abby…”
Beth made some appropriate noises even though she had a hard time feeling sorry for a man who had been putting off his wedding date for the past five years.
“So, well, that’s the deal. Uh, are you doing okay?” Art asked, giving his version of sympathy. “You know, with Jim gone and all?”
“I’m doing okay,” she said, her anger sifting away in the light of his confused concern.
“You still working?”
“Yeah. Part-time at the craft store and I—”
“Becker. Get out of there.” Art’s sudden yell made her jump. “Hey, Beth. Sorry. Gotta run. Becker’s digging in his dog food again.”
A click in her ear told Beth that the conversation and Art’s sympathy had come to an abrupt halt.
Though she should know better, Beth felt the prick of tears. Neither Art nor Curt were the storybook brothers her friends in school had thought they were. Thirteen years separated her and Art, the youngest of her two brothers. By the time Beth had come into the family, the boys were in their teens, interested in cars, women and anything but a little sister who cried a lot and, as she grew older, loved to dress up and play with dolls. Anything she had to say to them was greeted with grunts, blank stares and commands to get out of their rooms.
And shortly after she turned six, they both moved out, leaving her with a distant father and a mother struggling to keep her marriage together. A failing proposition, as it turned out.
Beth dropped the phone on the table and glanced at the clock. She had to get going if she wanted to meet Shellie at the store this time. She started for the kitchen to prepare her bag lunch just as she heard a scraping sound outside the house.
What was going on?
She opened the door a crack.
A flurry of snow flew through the air, then another, and through it, Beth made out a man, bent over, wielding a snow shovel.
Who…?
Then he straightened and Beth’s heart dropped into her boots.
What was Nick Colter still doing here? And why was he shoveling her sidewalk?
“Excuse me. Can I help you?” The question was rhetorical, seeing as how it was he who was supposedly helping her.
Nick brushed some snow off his dark hair and gave her a quick look, his cheeks ruddy with the cold. “I don’t think so. Not in your condition.”
“So…what are you doing here?”
Nick rested his hands on the top of the shovel and shrugged as he glanced at the piles of snow he had created on either side of her walk. “I’m guessing shoveling snow, but if you want to call it something else…”
“I thought you were leaving last night.” The remark came out more bluntly than she had intended, but his unexpected presence unnerved her.
“Me, too.” Nick bent over and pushed another pile of snow up, then tossed it easily aside. “Bob and Ellen asked me to stay for a night. They wanted to hear a bit more about Jim, I guess.” Nick grunted as he cleared away another space on her sidewalk.
“You don’t need to clear my walk.” She glared at him, as if to underline her message, but he wasn’t looking at her.
“You might not think so,” he returned, intent on his work. “But I don’t think your baby would appreciate you slipping and falling.”
Beth was about to say something more, then changed her mind. She had to get ready for work. Maybe he’d be gone by the time she was done.
But when she stepped out the door the second time, briefcase in one hand, bag lunch in the other, he was cleaning snow off the sidewalk that ran along the front of the house.
He looked up as she closed the door. “The snow here is really packed,” he said. “Has it ever been shoveled?”
“I’ve never shoveled it because it just leads to the back door, which I never use.”
Nick stopped his work, his expression puzzled. “You’ve been shoveling your own sidewalk?”
“Yeah.” Why did he sound so surprised? Jim was gone so much she had learned very early how to fend for herself.
“I thought Bob would.”
“He’s offered, but I take care of myself,” she replied, locking the door behind her. She caught him frowning at her again. “Is something wrong?”
“No. Nothing’s wrong.” He scratched his head. “I just figured you’d be glad for your in-laws’ help. I know they’re very concerned about you.”
“I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”
Nick nodded slowly, glancing at her stomach. “I’m sure you do.” Then he looked up at her and she saw a softening in his features that resurrected the shiver she felt last night when his hand brushed her neck. “I wish we could have met under other circumstances. I know Jim always talked about how he wanted to introduce you to me. Show me around the ranch.”
She gave him a quick smile, wishing he would stop talking about Jim and her as if they were some storybook couple. “I appreciate that you wanted to follow through on your promise to Jim and that’s admirable, but I have to move on.”
“I understand, but I also know how much it must hurt to have lost him. I know he loved you so much.” His voice held a wistful note.
“Jim was always a good storyteller,” she said, skirting the truth with a non sequitur.
“He sure was. When things were really hard and the fighting got close, I used to get him to tell me stories of the ranch and you. How you met, what you were like. He always obliged. And I know it sounds corny, but knowing you were here, waiting for him, made it a bit easier for me.” Nick released a short laugh, as if embarrassed of his revelation.
She wouldn’t see him anymore, Beth thought. What would it hurt if she gave him just a little bit of what he expected? He just delivered a message from his buddy. It wasn’t his fault Jim was not the buddy Nick presumed he was.
“Jim was a great guy,” she said. “He took care of me and…I loved him.” At one time, anyway, so it was partly true. “I know I’ll miss him a lot.” More than that she couldn’t give Nick. “Thanks again, I guess, for delivering your message.” She felt as if she should say a bit more. He had come all this way to deliver a message she didn’t want to hear, but he had come. That must have been difficult if, indeed, he and Jim were as close as Nick indicated. “I suppose you’ll be gone when I come back?”
“More than likely. Got a few things I need to do. Gotta get on with my life, such as it is.”
Beth fidgeted a bit more as a heavy silence rose up between them. A silence holding words that could not be given form. Words that would change too much between people whose only connection was the memory of a man whom they both saw so differently.
She looked into his eyes and saw curiosity behind the vague concern. But she also saw a man who kept a promise by coming here. “I guess this is goodbye,” she said, shifting her briefcase under her arm to hold out her hand.
“I hope things go well for you and your baby.” He shook her hand, his grip firm, decisive. “Will you let me know what you have when your baby is born?”
“I will.”
“I can give you my cell number,” he said, pulling out a piece of paper.
Beth paused a moment while he shifted his weight and unzipped his coat. He pulled a pen and a small notepad out of his shirt pocket, scribbled a number on the paper and ripped it out.
She glanced down at the number, then up at him. “Thanks. I’ll get Bob or Ellen to call you.”
He tipped her a crooked smile. Their eyes held a fraction of a moment longer and to Beth’s surprise she felt a remnant of a long-forgotten emotion.
Attraction? Appeal?
She shook the moment away then shoved the paper in her purse. “Thanks for cleaning my walk.”
“You’re welcome.” He held her gaze for an extra beat, as if he wanted to say something more.
She lifted her hand in a wave, then ambled off. But all the way to her car she felt his gaze on her. It unnerved her and as she got into her car, she felt a spasm in her abdomen.
She pressed her hand against her stomach, arching her back against a surprising jolt of pain. These Braxton Hicks contractions weren’t supposed to hurt.
“Easy now,” she murmured to her unborn child. “Just bide your time. Everything is going to be okay. He’ll be gone by this afternoon.”
And with him, hopefully, another reminder of Jim.
Chapter Three
Nick watched Beth’s car leave in a plume of exhaust, confusion and frustration vying for the upper spot in his mind.
When she said goodbye, a part of him rebelled. As he looked into her eyes he felt a stirring of a disloyal emotion. He didn’t want this to be the end.
But who did he think he was? Not some white knight riding in to save the damsel in distress. He was nothing but trouble and the farther he stayed away from Jim’s beloved wife, the better.
He turned back to his shoveling. This, at least, he could do for her.
When he was done, he straightened and a jolt of pain clutched his hip. He clenched his teeth, riding it out. Maybe cleaning her walk wasn’t the smartest thing to do.
As he took a long, slow breath, he looked around. His eyes followed the contours of the fields, softened by snow. A cluster of brown dots broke the white expanse beyond the cattle feeders. Some of the more adventurous cows had moved away from the corrals where they were fed and out into the field.
Nostalgia drifted over his mind at the scene. His parents’ ranch had been nestled along a lush river valley between two mountain ranges. The fields were long and narrow, rather than open and spread out, but it created the same feeling in his soul.
A yearning for a time when his life had purpose and a center. A time when he had a family.
He tried to laugh away the melancholy feeling as he shouldered the shovel and limped slowly back to the ranch house. It was better this way. When he talked to other men in his unit, men like Jim who had families, they always had the extra worry of wondering what would become of their people if something happened to them.
He had no attachments and no concerns. Today he was heading back to Calgary. Maybe he would rent a motel room there for a couple of nights. Then he’d be off to Vancouver to visit an old friend.
Or not. At any rate, he was leaving today.
“Nick. Nick…”
Nick paused, listening. Was that Ellen’s voice he heard over the running of the tractor?
She sounded scared, and he started running.
He hurried past the house, cursing his limp as he rushed toward the corrals and the sound of Ellen’s voice.
“Nick, please help.”
He clambered over the fence and saw Ellen on her knees, Bob lying on the ground beside the tractor.
“These look really good, Beth. Just beautiful.” Shellie laid the cards out on an empty table in the back room of the craft store.
Beth clenched her hands behind her back. “I’m sensing a ‘but.’”
Shellie pushed her long red hair back from her face and sighed. “Why are you insisting on keeping yourself so busy?” Shellie glanced down at Beth’s stomach. “I mean, you’re going to have a baby.”
“But I need to keep busy,” Beth said.
“Can I give you some advice?” Shellie put her hand on Beth’s shoulder. “Jim’s been gone less than three months. You’re nearly eight months pregnant and you’re still coming here and working. You need to let yourself grieve. This silence of yours isn’t healthy.”
Beth grew cold and taut as Shellie spoke, then turned away. “I don’t want to talk about Jim,” she said as she sorted through her cards.
“I know how much this must hurt.” Shellie continued, ignoring Beth’s comment. “And you don’t have to try to be so strong all the time. You are allowed to cry. Jim’s mom and dad are worried about you. They say you haven’t shed a tear since the funeral.”
“I’m okay,” Beth insisted. “I’m probably still in the denial stage of grief.”
“Maybe you are. I still think you need to talk about Jim.”
Beth pressed her lips together, holding back the words that at times demanded to be spoken.
Beth had learned the hard way that words didn’t change things. Would Shellie believe her if she told the truth about Jim? Would his parents? Dear Bob and Ellen Carruthers whose eyes would drift to her stomach whenever they came to visit, as if to reassure themselves that part of their son lived on in the child that Beth carried.
The child she would take away from them.
Beth knew she could never tell them about Jim. Part of her reluctance was knowing nothing would be gained by taking those memories away from them.
The other was her own shame. She had taken Jim back twice and he had cheated on her a third time. She didn’t want anyone to know that.
Thank goodness Nick would be gone by the time she got off work. At least she wouldn’t have to face him and hear his stories about how much Jim missed her.
Beth pulled a few more cards out of her briefcase. “I thought if you carried these, people would be interested in finding out how to make them, so I was thinking we could maybe have a Saturday craft class.” She slid two cards toward Shellie. “This one,” she said, lifting up an intricate card. “I’d love to do a video tutorial on this one. For a potential blog.”
As she laid out her plans she could almost feel Shellie’s impatience with her reticence washing over her.
“Beth, honey, we have talked about this before. I don’t think people would come to the classes. I don’t want to do a blog and I highly doubt video tutorials are going to make any difference for us. You’re reaching too far.”
Ever since Beth started working for Crafty Corners, she had plans and dreams for the store well beyond Shellie’s. Her boss had taken the store over from her mother when it was just a hobby store and seemed content to keep the store what it was—a small craft store that sold products for local crafters.
She wasn’t sure herself why she bothered trying to persuade Shellie to change the focus of the store when she was leaving. It was just that Beth knew the place had so much potential and it bothered her to see it go to waste.
When Shellie guessed Beth wasn’t saying anything more, she turned back to the cards. “I guess I could sell these,” Shellie said, picking up some of the Valentine’s cards. “And you can stick around for a bit this morning because you’re here already, but I want to see you leaving here at noon.”
Beth put the rest of her cards back in her briefcase and set it on the ground. “I’ll sort out the new inventory,” she said, stifling a sigh. She trudged to the back room where the new shipment of supplies had come in, a gentle hope extinguished. She didn’t know what she really wanted. For Shellie to be ecstatic about what she had created? For her to be excited?
Because if she had seen any encouragement from her boss, Beth might believe in herself a bit more. Might believe there was a way she could channel her passion for cards and paper crafts into something that could augment her widow’s pension. She poured so much of herself into her craft. The cards had started as a way of putting feelings she couldn’t express into words, into pictures, into colors and patterns. Her family may not have listened to her, but they did pay attention to her cards.
