JJ WASN’T SURE how long she stood gripping the table. Night crept in and still she stood there, inexplicably holding the tears at bay. She was alone and could certainly let them fall.
There was no point in crying, of course. There was no point in feeling.
Grandma’s advice sucked.
It was the first thing that jerked JJ out of the trance she’d been in. JJ could almost feel the rap on the back of her head over such blasphemy as thinking Grandma’s advice sucked.
She let go of the table, surprised to find a vicious ache in her hand. Surprised to find hours had passed since Cade had walked out of the house.
Out of your life.
He’d said it would be easier. What would ever be easy about not having him? Hadn’t she been considering changing her entire life for him?
He didn’t want that. Just we can’t do this anymore.
She trudged up the stairs, but instead of turning into her room—and the bed she’d been spending hours in with Cade—she turned to Grandma’s room.
She stared at the darkness, then did something she hadn’t considered doing this entire summer.
She crawled into Grandma’s bed. JJ spread her body out, trying to take up as much of the bed as possible for some reason she couldn’t put into words.
She needed to feel like Grandma was here. Like there was someone here who cared about her at least as much as they cared about themselves.
The breeze drifted through the window, cool enough to feel like Grandma’s roughened palm sliding over her forehead. JJ closed her eyes and let that silly fantasy lull her into sleep.
She awoke to the sun shining on her face. There was a strange noise outside. An engine, puttering.
She bolted into a sitting position. Oh, Cade was back. He was back. She darted into the bathroom to look at her reflection. Puffy and blotchy, so she quickly splashed cold water over her face. It might not fix everything, but it could hide a few things hopefully.
He was back and he’d changed his mind. Her heart danced with anticipation, and her chest swelled with hope as she moved down the stairs to the front door.
When she opened it, it wasn’t Cade climbing the stairs of the porch.
“Dad.” Her heart sank, but if she was waiting for signs from the universe, wasn’t this it? Her father, the man she looked so much like, was actually visiting her on her birthday.
Time to go back to your old life, JJ. Your real life.
“You haven’t honestly been living here, JJ. My God. It looks like a serial killer’s house.”
She ignored the harsh words because he’d remembered her birthday. Hope and love twisted knots in her stomach that she thought she’d untied long ago.
She’d finally done it right so someone cared. “Dad, you’re here.”
“I knew I couldn’t convince you over the phone.”
He still hadn’t said happy birthday. He wasn’t even pretending to be happy to see her. He was annoyed.
Didn’t she know better than to get walloped, let alone twice in one twenty-four-hour period? “Convince me?” she echoed flatly.
“To come home early. We’re barely scraping by without you. You’ve only got a few weeks left of this nonsense. Come home. You did your duty to June. You can leave a little early.”
There it was. The hard crash when he inevitably wasn’t capable of giving her what she hoped for. “What day is it, Dad?” she asked, exhausted beyond measure.
“Huh?”
“What is today?”
“How am I supposed to know? You’re my calendar, JJ. You take care of everything and we are lost without you. I muddled through for months, but you’ve had your time. Come home now. So things can go back to normal.”
Normal sucked. She thought Cade’s rejection meant she could go back to her old life. That she had to.
She couldn’t. The changes she’d made this summer made going back impossible. “I don’t want to take care of everything anymore. Not like this.”
“I knew this summer, this awful house was a mistake,” Dad muttered as he spun away and kicked at the porch’s front post.
“It’s not awful.” It was her heart, this house. When she thought of home, she thought of this porch, and Grandma’s kitchen. And Cade’s girls, and him fixing the porch, and love.
“Look at it,” Dad returned, whirling around and flinging his arms toward the house. “It’s falling down around your ears. This is just another one of June’s schemes.”
Dad had always called the ways Grandma had made her feel loved schemes. Twenty-six years she’d tried to be good enough, useful enough for him to notice, but he was incapable. He couldn’t—or wouldn’t—change, not while she kept running his life for him.
She was glad he’d come and reminded her. Reminded her that she’d changed, and she couldn’t go back. No matter what had happened with Cade. This wasn’t about Cade. It was about her.
“I quit,” she said, maybe too loudly in the quiet morning.
“Well, I’d quit this house, too.”
“No, Dad. I quit my job. I quit Frost Greenhouse. All of it. I’m not coming back to Plainview. I’m staying here.”
“You can’t quit. You can’t stay here.” The horror in his tone might have swayed her, but she saw too clearly that horror was born of never, ever trying to understand her. Only ever seeing her how he wanted to see her—as a helper, as the scheduler and organizer of his life.
“I have to quit. I can’t be your calendar or your cleanup crew anymore. I have to be something for me.”
“Frost is yours, too.”
“I don’t want it.” It was a shock how true that was. “I never really did.”
“News to me.”
“Me, too. I put all that work into it because you wanted me to, and I wanted you to notice me. Not because I cared. Not because it mattered to me, but because it mattered to you.” And you’ll pretend you just love your job, not that you’ve been trying to ensure your father’s love and pride since you were a little girl.
Grandma had known, of course. She’d seen it, and tried to show JJ all the other options she had, but JJ had refused to listen.
Until this summer.
“It’s my birthday, Dad. My birthday.”
Dad grinned. “Well, of course it is, princess! Why do you think I’m here? To bring you home on your birthday.”
I am home. “Don’t lie to me like that. Not now.”
“If it slipped my mind today is your birthday, it’s only because you weren’t home to remind me. I’ll take you home and I’ll take you out to dinner. Chinese food. Your favorite.”
“That’s not my favorite, Dad.”
He looked so puzzled by that, she couldn’t even muster anger. He couldn’t look outside of himself. And that was his cross to bear, not hers.
Not. Hers.
She walked back inside and grabbed the keys and purse hung on the hook by the door. Then she marched past him and toward her truck.
“Where are you going?” he demanded.
“I don’t know. But not with you. Go home, Dad. Find someone to replace me. I’ve made up my mind.”
“No, you haven’t.”
She wanted to laugh, but she swallowed it down. “Yes, I have.”
“You’ll change your mind. You will. I will be gracious enough to take you back. I can’t hold that job forever, JJ. You remember that. A week, tops, and then I expect you back.”
No. She wouldn’t be back. Couldn’t go back. So she got in her truck and drove away.
She drove into Jasper Creek and parked at the edge of town. It was her birthday. She wanted cake. She’d buy a book for herself at the pretty new bookstore. She’d treat herself to...something.
Maybe she was alone, but she was home.
She got out of the truck, the heat of day already making the air sticky. She was still in the clothes she’d worn yesterday and probably looked like some lost hiker stumbling out of the woods.
She didn’t care. She walked up the sidewalk, taking in the pretty shops and restaurants that brought in tourists despite the isolated location.
She’d walked these sidewalks with her cousins and her sister, buying treats from the little general store with the change Grandma had given them. Poking through the junk at the old antiques store until the surly old man who used to run it had told them to buy something or get out.
This was the landscape of her childhood, and she had given it up trying to be something she was never comfortable being. She’d lost so much time, but she was still young enough to fix that. To change.
She was twenty-seven as of today and she’d finally found home. She barely noticed stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, tears tracking down her cheeks. It was both joy at a new beginning and pain at Grandma not being here to see it.
“Are you all right, dear?”
JJ looked down at the small woman who took her in with great concern.
“You’re one of June’s, aren’t you?” the older woman asked.
One of June’s. Always. “Yes, Mrs. Kim. I’m JJ.”
“Of course you are. You’re crying, dear,” Mrs. Kim said, delivering that news on a whisper.
“I know. It’s okay. I just miss her, is all.”
“Of course you do.” Mrs. Kim bustled her off the sidewalk and nudged her onto a bench. She then dug in her purse and pulled out a crumpled tissue. “Clean yourself up.”
JJ did as she was told.
“I don’t suppose this has to do with that Mathewson boy. Word is he’s been spending a lot of time at June’s.”
JJ managed to smile at Mrs. Kim even though tears still fell. “No, it doesn’t.” It had to do with her. She would cry over Cade, no doubt, but in this moment she needed to let go of a future she’d been dead set on, even though she hadn’t really wanted it.
“JJ? Are you... Oh, my God, what’s happened?”
JJ looked up at Keira rushing over and managed a smile. “Nothing.”
Keira squeezed onto the bench next to her. “You’re crying. In public.” She glanced at Mrs. Kim, who nodded firmly, as if all was taken care of, before she walked away. No doubt to spread the word JJ had been crying about Cade.
“Apparently that’s not the end of the world,” JJ offered to Keira.
Keira slid her arm around her, squeezing tight. “Amazing, isn’t it? What changes in that house?”
JJ nodded. “I’m not going back to Plainview. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m staying. This is home.” Keira had stayed. Maybe it wasn’t Grandma’s plan for all of them, but maybe it was.
“Does this have to do with Cade?”
JJ shook her head. “No. It doesn’t. It has to do with me.” No matter what happened in the future with Cade, this decision was hers and hers alone.
“Okay. I wasn’t going to press because I thought you’d have... Well, come over tonight. I’ll bake you a birthday cake.”
“Can you two come over to the farmhouse instead? I want my birthday there.” She wanted to celebrate this new year with Grandma and the house that had built her.
“That’s perfect. And don’t do a thing. I’m bringing dinner and cake and everything.” Keira squeezed.
JJ nodded. “Thank you. It’ll be fun.”
“Yes. I can kick Remy to the curb for the night, have it be a girls-only party.”
“No. Not tonight. Remy’s part of your life, and that makes him part of mine.” She looked into Keira’s dark eyes, and even though she’d kept in the best touch with Keira, it hadn’t been good enough. “We’re family. We should all start acting like it.”
Keira grinned. “I have the strangest feeling that’s what Grandma had in mind.”