Page 39 of Something Old

Grant reached down and stroked his dog’s silky ears while they studied the tree line together. Not for the first time in his life, and most likely not for the last time either, Grant wished he had some kind of time-stopping device. Or, better yet, a device that could roll back time. Something you could program with the exact time you wanted to stay in, perhaps with a repeating loop. Yes, that would be perfect. He wanted these sexy, lazy summer days with Madeline to go on and on and on. Nothing had happened between them, not really—and yet, everything had. They had a spark of something, something really good, slow-burning but real. And if that was only friendship, he was grateful for it. And if it grew to be more, the way the heat that so often flared between them—increasingly so, in fact, despite their best intentions—suggested it might, he was open to that too.

Him. Grant Graham, aka “Super Grouch,” as Madeline sometimes teased, open to the possibility of a relationship again, wanting it, yearning for it even—yet also strangely okay with nothing more than what he already had. It boggled his mind.

Of course, he couldn’t fool himself or hide from the truth completely. Yes, the majority of his desire to freeze time was due to wanting to prolong the lovely time he was having with Madeline—but an almost equal percentage of it stemmed from wanting to avoid seeing Holly.

Please have her change her mind, he found himself wishing too often for comfort. Please, please, please. His brain ran rampant with thoughts of her again, but very different ones than he’d ever had before.

He no longer pined for her. He wanted her to move on, to leave him be. He no longer rewrote scripts in his head under the general working title, Things I Could Say to Win Back Holly, or constructed elaborate plans regarding projects or trips that might lure her back. He couldn’t help but compare her negatively with Madeline. But comparing Holly—who, for him, had been the epitome of femininity, beauty, and desire—negatively with anyone? Again . . . it was mind-blowing.

And yet, Madeline was just so . . . full of life, despite how she said it pained her to be. Their day and subsequent evenings at the beach—stolen whenever they could over the past week—frequently played in his mind’s eye. The memories made him smile at the oddest, most inappropriate moments, like when he’d been at Jack’s Hardware and Kelsey seemed to think his smile was directed at her. Really, he’d just spotted a curvy ceramic mermaid on a spring attached to a suction cup in the shelves of merchandise by the tills—silly things, meant to suck you in while you were waiting in line. He got two—one to tease Madeline with and one to put on his dashboard to remind him of her—as if he needed a reminder. The thing even had Madeline’s auburn tresses. Auburn tresses? Now he was coming up with romantic descriptions for her hair? Great! But in his defense, it wasn’t simply brown. It needed a fancier word. It had copper and blond and everything under the sun. He still couldn’t get over how Madeline would sit in the sand, happy to get totally filthy. How she’d unselfconsciously let her make-up become raccoon eyes—he thought it was kind of cute, honestly. How she went in the water in a sensible swimsuit—that was somehow way sexier than the barely-there suits Holly looked so—intentionally—hot in.

Come to think of it, he’d never seen Holly get her hair wet in a pool, lake, or ocean current—not even when they’d gone to Hawaii for their honeymoon, or on two separate beach vacations, one to Mexico, one to Costa Rica, She had, unquestionably, looked gorgeous, but . . .

He shook his head with frustration. It didn’t need to be a competition between Holly and Madeline. And it wasn’t. Holly was his past—by her choice. And Madeline was . . . Madeline. The future was . . . a mystery.

He had fun with Madeline; that was the thing. Everything they did together, from working really hard, to eating a meal, plain or fancy, or to actually playing . . . was fun. He’d had passion with Holly that he hoped wasn’t completely one-sided the whole time . . . but he didn’t know if they’d ever had fun. And if they had? Well, it hadn’t been much, and it wasn’t their norm. That made him feel sad, but also . . . regretful. Maybe that was why she’d cheated on him. Why she’d left. Maybe she craved some fun. Once upon a time, he would’ve said that was a shallow pursuit, but now he knew better. It seemed important—critical, even.

“Get back to work, Graham,” he muttered, but there was no inner self-loathing or criticism in the command—or not as much as usual, anyway. It was just time. He placed his mug by the door to bring in later and headed down the steps, smiling. Even with limiting himself to an hour or so’s work before he commenced his “real” workday at his father’s place, his secret project was coming along nicely.

He tried to keep his mind fully immersed in the moment, but he was in the finishing stages and could probably paint in his sleep since he’d done so much of it over the years. His mind kept returning to its favorite hamster wheel. He hadn’t told Madeline about Holly’s call or impending visit. Why not? Well, the time never seemed right, for one. He’d meant what he said at the lake about not wanting to put a damper on their night by boring her with his lame drama. And then, though she didn’t bring it up again, he didn’t want to ruin any of their other evenings either. And honestly, who knew if Holly would even follow through on her plans? Besides, why would Madeline even care if his ex-wife came to town? Holly would leave again, and he could just skip the potentially awkward conversation with Madeline altogether. Fine. Good. So, what was his problem then? Why wouldn’t his thoughts stop cycling?

He realized suddenly that he’d stopped painting. His hand was paused mid-air, and his angle-tipped brush was dripping butter-yellow paint onto his work surface. He sighed heavily, irritated with himself. If he was ever going to accomplish anything, he was going to have to face his issues. The problem was that his feelings for Madeline were terrifying. He was just using his worries about Holly’s reappearance in his life to mask his real concern, chiefly that he didn’t want to ever care intensely for someone ever again. There was too much potential for insurmountable pain, and, as he’d already proven, he wasn’t a good judge of character. Madeline seemed the furthest thing from Holly, but didn’t people have a particular type they unconsciously went for time and time again? What if Madeline was like Holly on some level that he was blind to? Why couldn’t he stick to light affection for Madeline? Keep her purely in the friend zone in his mind like she wanted? Because he was weak, that’s why, and she was . . . terrific.

He sighed. Yep, there was no way he was escaping having his heart stomped on again. No way at all. And it wouldn’t be Madeline’s fault. It would be his for not doing a better job of locking down his emotions.

He did not feel better for confronting his messed-up brain head-on, but he did finish the painting job he was working on. That was something, at least.

Chapter 20

Madeline entered the shop behind Boots and flicked on the lights without bothering to relock the door, even though it wasn’t quite opening time. Then she moved through the shop with a soft cloth, dusting and restoring items shuffled around by shoppers the day before to their proper spots or placement, so they looked their best. These quiet moments before the shop opened were still her favorite. As she worked, she wondered idly what Grant had on his agenda for the day.

He’d been busy the past week, and so had Madeline. To be honest, it was kind of a relief, even though her whole body ached to be with him—exactly why the distance was good. Not spending every spare minute with Grant was a much-needed break for her libido and for her brain. She had a business to run! More time at the shop in the evenings was definitely handy. She’d sorely underestimated how busy she’d be during the day and how much time the bookkeeping, advertising, website maintenance, and online storefront would consume. She was keeping on top of it all, but barely. Financially, however, it still felt too risky to hire someone to take on any of those tasks. Maybe, if her sales continued as they had so far, it would be viable at her six-month mark? It would be great to have help in time for Christmas.

She glanced out the window into the jungle of a backyard—and winced. If not for Christmas, definitely by spring. Someone to take care of the lawn and flowerbeds would be one of the first jobs she outsourced. She was terrible at keeping on top of them, plus didn’t know a lot about gardening. She loved flowers—to look at, but that was about it. She understood the town’s name now. Greenridge was very green. With its overabundance of rain and cool weather, grass, weeds, and plants of every variety went crazy.

Oh, well. There was nothing she could do about the yard at the moment, and fretting wouldn’t help. Madeline busied herself tidying and rehanging a rack of vintage dresses ransacked by a group of excited teenage girls the day before, checking her phone for the time every so often as she did. Aisha was due any minute because she’d agreed to cover some shifts in the store while Madeline made her first buying trip since opening. Madeline needed to give her keys and go over the point-of-sale system. Exciting! Even with the addition of some of Grant’s bigger pieces of gorgeous furniture, the shop had spaces she’d like to see filled. Grant. How easily and often her mind turned to him these days. It was terrifying.

The door jingled. Madeline stepped around the dress rack with a big smile, grateful for the distraction, expecting to see Aisha and, with any luck, funny little firecracker Mo, too.

It wasn’t Aisha, however. It was Gwen, an equally nice surprise. Since their very personal chat, they’d only seen each other a couple of times, very briefly. First, when Gwen brought her grandkids for a picnic in the yard as she’d promised Madeline would. Second, when Gwen had dropped off the blackberries that Madeline took to the lake for her and Grant—

She cut off that thought. Stop obsessing about him, she begged her head. Just. Stop.

“Hello,” she called.

Gwen, who’d been glancing toward the front counter and seemed distracted, visibly jumped.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Gwen shook her head, coloring. “Don’t mind me. I’m just a goose today.”

It was such a funny expression that Madeline laughed. “Okay, goose, so to what do I owe this honor? You’ve got a day pass again?”

Gwen finally relaxed and smiled. “And it wasn’t even due to good behavior this time.”

“Now, that sounds fun.”

“Nah.” Gwen shook her head. “I just wanted to sound interesting.” She held up a bag, sort of shyly. “I came by because I have something for you.”