I never planned on living my life alone. Does anyone ever really plan on that? I don’t think human beings are meant to be single. If not for certain choices, maybe I would’ve had a husband and children like most other women. But I can’t complain. I’ve had a good life overall, with supportive parents, a roof over my head, plenty to eat. That’s more than a lot of people have.
“What are you doing?” Brant asked, poking his head into the bedroom.
Talulah closed the book as she glanced up. She’d dropped one of Phoebe’s journals while trying to slip them into a box she was going to put in her SUV. It’d fallen open to a page halfway through, which she’d started reading. “I’m packing up Phoebe’s journals. I haven’t read this one yet, but I was curious to see if I should put it in the box for later or keep it closer at hand.”
“And? What’s the verdict?”
“The box. She’s much older in this one. It’ll take me a while to get to it.”
“Did she keep a journal of her whole life?”
“Not day by day. Not even year by year. But there are probably ten volumes.”
He leaned against the doorjamb. “Where are you at in her story?”
“Volume two. I’m right where she joins the military as a nurse to help in the war effort in 1941.”
“She was a nurse in World War II?” he asked in surprise.
“She didn’t have any training. But back then, training wasn’t required.”
“Did she see combat?”
“She did. According to what I’m currently reading, she’s working in a makeshift hospital in Bataan, which is in the Philippines somewhere, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.”
“Did she ever talk about being stationed in the Philippines?”
“No. Never mentioned the war, either. Her early life is all new to me. Maybe that’s why I find it so interesting. She was my great aunt, and yet she was almost a stranger to me.”
“So many people saw things they’d rather forget,” he said.
“When I mentioned her stint in the military to my mother yesterday, she said she was too little to remember much about it, but that Phoebe had once told her a large number of the nurses she’d worked with were captured by the Japanese after she came back to the States.”
“They became POWs?” he said. “For how long?”
“Something like three years.”
“Did any of them survive?”
“According to my mother, they all did.”
“Sounds like you’ve got some interesting reading ahead.”
Talulah leafed through some pages of the journal, examining her aunt’s spidery script, before putting it in the box. “Growing up, I saw Phoebe as a crotchety old lady—someone who was demanding and unyielding and not that relevant to my own life. But...”
“You’re starting to like her?” he said.
“I am. She was an incredible woman.”
“So are you.” Coming up behind her, he slipped his arms around her midsection. “It’s so hard to let you leave me.”
“I’d like to say it won’t be for long, but...”
“I know. I won’t push you. If you come back to me, I want it to be because you love me, not because you don’t want to disappoint me.”
“Thank you for that,” she murmured. Brant was the first man she’d been with who seemed to care whether her feelings were as strong as they should be. And the fact that he was willing to give her the space and time she needed made her love him all the more.
“I’ve got the portable AC unit in my truck.”
Talulah sighed heavily as she glanced around the bedroom. It was bare, but not nearly as empty as the other rooms in the house. She purposely hadn’t sold the bed, in case she needed to use it in the future. She hadn’t sold the dressers, either, since they matched the bed.
“I can move this stuff out of here and store it for you, or sell it once you list the house,” he said, gesturing at the furniture that remained. The window he’d ordered for her had come in, and he was going to install that, too.
She turned to face him. “Thank you, Brant. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you—for everything.”
He rested his forehead against hers. “I wish you weren’t leaving.”
“So do I. I don’t know what’s waiting for me in Seattle, or how I’ll deal with it.”
“You’ll call me, though, when you get in, to tell me you’re safe?”
He’d offered to drive her to Seattle and fly back, but if he did that, one of his brothers would have to go to Bozeman to pick him up at the airport. And if he took her home, that would only cause more problems with Paul, who wouldn’t be leaving for his family reunion until Friday. He’d messaged her to ask if she was still returning on time, so they could talk and she could get back in the groove of taking care of the diner; she’d agreed, hoping that accommodating him might mitigate some of his anger. “I will,” she promised.
“Paul had better treat you right,” Brant muttered.
She closed her eyes as she held him close. “Whether I come back or not, I want you to know this.” She looked up into his face. “I love you.”
The drive through Missoula and across Idaho was some of the prettiest country Talula had ever seen. She’d admired it the entire time she was coming to Coyote Canyon. But she paid little attention to it on her way back. She didn’t seem to be the same person who’d made this trek a month ago, before the funeral, before getting closer to her family, before confronting her past—before Brant. But she had so much unfinished business in Seattle. She had to go back, regardless of how it all played out.
As she was passing through Coeur d’Alene, a message came in from Paul, which the computer in her car read to her. Are you coming today?
She used Siri to reply. On my way.
When will you get in?
Late. I didn’t leave Coyote Canyon until after noon.
Just had to fuck Brant one more time, huh?
He had no idea how much work she’d had to do while she was in town. But he didn’t care about that.
Really? Do you have to be so crude?
Call me when you get here. I’ll be up.
Talulah wasn’t convinced she’d have the reserves to deal with Paul tonight. It wasn’t until midnight that the lights of the city appeared in the distance ahead of her. But she decided she might as well see him right away—get it over with.
I’ll be at my place in thirty.
See you there.
He had a key to her apartment. He’d agreed to bring in the mail and water the plants. Since he’d become so hostile to her, having him inside her house felt like an intrusion, but when she’d made the arrangements, she’d never anticipated that their relationship would go in this direction. Now he seemed like too big a part of her life in every aspect.
Once she parked in the underground lot and grabbed what she could of her bags, she dragged them to the elevator and pushed the button for the tenth floor.
Sure enough, when she let herself into her apartment, she found the lights and TV on—and Paul sitting on her leather couch with a beer.
“Welcome home,” he said sarcastically.
“Are you going to make this terrible?” she asked, leaving her bags in the entryway and proceeding to the kitchen to get a glass of water.
“Do you think the last few weeks have been fun for me?”
“No, and I’m sorry for that. But I couldn’t have changed anything.”
“You could’ve refrained from cheating on me.”
“I didn’t cheat on you. I made it clear that we weren’t together.”
“You slept with me right before you left!”
Because she’d felt so much pressure to finally advance the relationship, and she’d hoped it would bring her some clarity as to whether she wanted to be with him for the rest of her life. “One time! And when we talked about it afterward, I told you I wasn’t sure about us, that I needed to take it slow.”
“You were worried about how it would impact the diner.”
“Not only the diner, Paul. I didn’t know my own heart. I made no secret of that. You said, ‘Take as long as you like.’”
“Which was nice of me. I’ve been patient all these years, but that was obviously a mistake. I had no idea you’d—”
“Stop.” She lifted her hand. “Just...stop. Let’s not do this. What happened in Coyote Canyon happened. I can’t change it now. So where does that leave us?”
He turned the beer can in his hand. “You tell me,” he said, coming to his feet. “Are you finished having your fun? Are you home for good?”
“What do you mean by home for good?”
“Is everything going to go back to the way it was before?”
She walked over to the window and stared out at the city lights. She loved Seattle, enjoyed her life here and had never dreamed she’d consider leaving. She also loved the dessert diner. But she’d left her heart with a cowboy in Coyote Canyon. “I’m hoping to have the answers we both need by the time you get back from Europe.”
He set his beer can aside and walked over to her. “I’m sorry for how I’ve behaved,” he said as he came up behind her. “If...if we could just forgive each other and start over, maybe we’d be able to save everything.”
“I’m sorry. That’s not possible,” she said. Because now that she knew what love really felt like, she could easily say her feelings for Paul had never progressed beyond friendship.
When Brant saw Charlie come into Hank’s with some of the guys they played poker with, he turned away. It’d been three weeks since Talulah left. She’d stayed in close touch, but he knew Charlie didn’t believe she was coming back. Charlie was probably hoping she wouldn’t. He wanted Brant to feel the heartache and rejection he’d felt, and the longer her absence went on, the more confident he became that Brant would be the next guy to get burned.
“Nice shot,” Kurt said as Brant banked the four ball into the side pocket. Brant had needed that shot and could stand to make a few others like it. Kurt was winning for a change. But Brant could tell his brother was equally distracted by Charlie, who was making a big deal about buying drinks for everyone in his party. “Look who’s here,” Kurt muttered after he missed what should’ve been an easy shot.
“I saw him,” Brant said.
Doug Stringham, who’d gone to high school at the same time they did, had come in with Charlie, but the moment he saw Brant, he walked over to say hello.
“Hey, man,” he said as Brant sent the cue ball into the three ball with a solid crack that sank it into the side pocket. “Where’ve you been lately? I haven’t seen you at poker in ages.”
Brant hadn’t felt like being around Charlie. He’d been busy at the ranch, too, getting ready for fall. It wouldn’t be long before they were once again facing the cold winter months. And there was the window to repair and some dry rot he’d been taking care of for Talulah at Phoebe’s place. “I’ve decided to let you keep a little more of your money for the time being,” he told Doug, who was married and had three kids.
“But now there’s no challenge,” Doug joked. “Tell me you’re coming back. It’s not the same without you.”
“I’ll be there eventually,” Brant told him. “I’ve just been busy.”
Doug lowered his voice. “Charlie says it’s because of him. That the two of you aren’t speaking.”
Brant shrugged. “I don’t have anything to say to him.”
“He can be a dick sometimes,” Doug said, but he was grinning, making the statement more playful than derogatory.
“Maybe I’m the dick,” Brant said. “I fell in love with the wrong woman, but I didn’t do it on purpose.”
Doug watched Kurt set up a tricky shot. “You and Talulah are for real, then?” he said. “She always was gorgeous. But she has one hell of a reputation. I hope you won’t get hurt.”
Brant didn’t say anything. It was his turn at pool. He sank one ball, but missed the second, and by the time he looked up again, everyone Doug had been with had joined them, including Charlie.
“Hey, are you two ever going to let this Talulah thing go?” Leo Spagnoli said, gesturing between the two of them. “Because it’s really starting to get in the way.”
Leo had moved to Coyote Canyon after Talulah left, so he’d never even met her.
“I’m happy to let it go,” Brant said. “But we might have another problem when she comes back.”
“Poor deluded bastard,” Charlie joked. “He doesn’t know she’s not coming back. Why the hell would she move all the way out here when she has a thriving business in Seattle?”
He’d kept his voice down, as if he was talking to the guys standing next to him, but Brant would easily hear. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he told him, instantly angry.
But deep down, after Talulah’s conversations about the diner and all the daily details of running it, he was beginning to believe Charlie might be right.
Talulah sat in the diner long after the employees had left. It was late on a Saturday night. She’d turned the open sign facing the busy street to Closed over an hour ago. But she hadn’t been able to make herself leave. She’d wanted to stay in this place she’d created—amid the many tables and chairs she’d chosen, glass cases she’d helped to purchase and confections she’d baked herself. She’d selected the name, the location, the logo and the look she’d wanted for the diner, as well as putting together the menu. Paul had come in to share the risk, join his credit to hers and split the rent. He also helped with the baking each day. But the idea, the entire concept, was hers.
As she sat behind the counter, she navigated to Yelp, where she read the many wonderful reviews posted by customers who’d tried her cakes, pies and ice cream creations. She’d worked so hard. With Paul’s help, she’d made the diner into what she’d hoped it would be. A dream like that rarely became a reality, not for someone as young as she’d been—someone who’d started with nothing.
The business was finally bringing in some good cash, too. If they were careful and managed their money wisely, she and Paul probably could open a second location, as he’d been nagging her to do.
They could serve twice as many people and make twice as much money. Maybe they could even become a chain one day.
But opening a second store would only create another bond to the Seattle area—and to Paul.
What was she going to do?
Her phone buzzed with a text. She glanced down to see that Brant had sent her a message. Miss you.
She missed him, too, but she didn’t know when she’d be able to go back. She’d spoken to Paul several times to assure him that all was well at the diner, but he refused to talk about the future. He said he had the right to take a month off and enjoy himself, just as she’d done, and they’d go over anything business-related once he got home. But she already knew he’d make it as difficult as possible if she wanted out of the partnership.
“It’s so ironic,” she mumbled. She’d finally fallen in love—and it had to be with one of the boys from her hometown.
She wished she could call her sister. She knew that both Debbie and Abby were doing great. She checked in often. But if it wasn’t so late she would’ve called again. She needed to talk to someone besides Brant. She didn’t want him to know how much. She didn’t want him to know how much she was struggling with the decisions she had to make.
She glanced at the giant clock on the wall. Although it was nearly midnight on the west coast, it was morning in most of Africa. She hadn’t turned to her mother for advice in years, especially when it came to men, but she found herself eager to hear Carolyn’s voice.
“Hey,” she said when her mother answered.
“Hi, honey. How are you?”
“Good.”
“Everything’s okay at the dessert diner?”
“Yep. Things are going well.”
“Even without Paul?”
Despite all the extra work, which now fell on her, she’d been enjoying the peace and calm—the absence of any animosity or pressure. “Even without Paul.”
“There’s something wrong,” her mother replied. “I can hear it in your voice.”
Talulah slumped over. She was sitting on a stool while leaning her elbows on the counter. “I don’t know what to do,” she admitted.
“About what?”
“About Brant.”
“Do you love him?”
“Absolutely. For once, I’m sure about that.”
“Okay, then. Where would you be the happiest?”
“If I knew that, I’d have my answer.” She sat taller and busied herself straightening the items around the register. “Do you ever regret making the sacrifices you’ve made for Dad over the years?” she asked.
She’d expected her mother to immediately say she didn’t regret a thing, so she was surprised when her mother didn’t answer right away.
“Mom?” Talulah said, confused.
“It was different back when I married,” Carolyn hedged.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I probably did make more sacrifices than I should have. But I believed it was the woman’s place to put her husband first, and I took that to heart.”
Was she still doing that? Talulah had wondered if the mission—at least such a long one—had been her father’s idea. “You’re saying you do have regrets.”
“If I’m being honest, I have a few.”
“What am I supposed to make of that?”
“Don’t give up the diner too soon,” her mother said, and then her father must’ve come into the room because she immediately changed the subject.
“Dinah called me recently and told me that while you were in Coyote Canyon, someone threw a rock that shattered the window and you were cut.”
“Yeah. I bet you can guess who did that.”
“Charlie?”
“Or Averil.”
“You think Averil would do something like that?”
Talulah remembered finding Mitch’s teddy bear behind the barn, so she knew Charlie wasn’t the only one coming by late at night. “I don’t want to believe it. But it would have to be her or Charlie. There’s no one else it could be.”
“Dinah says Averil insists it’s Charlie. But she doesn’t believe it. She says it has to be someone else.”
“Of course she’d say that. She’s his mother. But no one else was mad at me. Not enough to—” Talulah let her words drift off as she remembered that there was one other person who was mad at her. Paul had been mad at her, and he hadn’t been picking up his phone for several days right about the time it happened.
He was in Seattle at the time, though, wasn’t he?
A strange feeling came over her as she jumped to her feet. “I’d better go, Mom. It’s getting late, and I’m still at the diner.”
“Okay, honey. I’ll talk to you again on Sunday,” Carolyn said, but after she disconnected, Talulah didn’t pack up her tote. Her heart was pounding as she considered possibilities that’d never occurred to her before. Could Paul have come to Coyote Canyon earlier than he’d said? “This is a long shot,” she muttered, and yet the hair on her neck was standing on end. Since someone wouldn’t be likely to drive that far twice in such a short time, she grabbed her laptop from under the register and logged into his Southwest account. It was only an hour-and-forty-minute flight. Because they had a Rapid Rewards credit card they used for the business, which earned travel miles, and those miles belonged equally to both of them, Talulah had the username and password.
She kept telling herself that she was being ridiculous, that this was the most unlikely of scenarios. Paul had acted so surprised when he saw her arm. He’d asked about the stitches. It couldn’t be him.
And yet...
She sank onto the stool, scarcely able to believe what she saw. He’d booked a ticket to Bozeman, where he must’ve rented a car, the day she’d been cut.
Brant hadn’t heard from Talulah today. She hadn’t even responded to his text. He could feel her slipping away from him and didn’t know what to do next.
“What’s wrong with you?” A gust of wind slammed the door as Ranson came into the living room from outside, followed by Miles. They’d just returned from a friend’s house. They’d invited Brant to go with them to play beer pong, but he’d said he had stuff to get done.
“Nothing,” Brant replied. “Just tired. I’m about to go to bed.”
“Whatever show you were watching is over, dude.” Miles gestured at the TV. “In case you haven’t noticed, the screen’s frozen.”
“I told you, I’m about to go to bed,” Brant responded, but he couldn’t have said how long it’d been since the show ended. He couldn’t even have explained what the show had been about. He’d been lost in his own thoughts for so long, trying to figure out what he was going to do if he had to go on without Talulah.
“You’ve been moping around all week,” Ranson said, grabbing the remote and diving onto the couch.
“I haven’t been moping,” Brant said, but he was feeling so terrible he couldn’t mount much of a defense.
Miles seemed to understand, because he gave Brant’s shoulder a squeeze. “Don’t worry, bro. She’s coming back.”
“Yeah, I know that,” Brant said, but once he got to his bedroom, he pulled out his phone and texted Charlie.
Go ahead and laugh, dude. I think you were right.