Jay
Another sleepless night didn’t make Jay a happy man. Part of it was worry for Gramps. Part for his finances. And part because he missed Penelope. A month ago, he would have never thought he would say it, but it was true. He missed every passionate, frustrating, and optimistic part of her.
Selling the statue of Zip hadn’t been as hard as he’d thought it would be. Not in theory, anyway. Of course, he hadn’t packaged it yet. Or arranged delivery, but the idea of parting with it hadn’t been as bad as he’d thought. Zip had been a hero in life, and now his statue would not only allow Jay to keep Gramps at home, but he wouldn’t have to sell his house just yet. Maybe selling more of his sculptures would allow him to keep his house.
Maybe Penelope had been right all along.
He checked the clock. Only five, but not much point to lying in bed pretending to sleep when he could just as easily sit at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and worry. When he walked into the kitchen, Gramps sat with the picture frame and the copy of the email. Jay popped in a filter and three scoops of coffee grounds. He needed it strong this morning.
“You sure you want to sell it?”
Jay stared at Gramps. This was the man who’d taught him everything from fishing to cooking to how to be a man. Even if Jay hadn’t owed him everything he was and would ever be, he wouldn’t let his grandfather be put into a nursing home. If Gramps wanted to be in his own house, sleep in his own bed, eat when he wanted—in front of the TV, even—then Jay would make it happen. “It’s just some wood.”
“I think we both know it’s more than that.”
And maybe it was, but not more important than his grandfather. “I’m ready to let go.”
“It’s about time. Your girl was here yesterday.” When Jay raised his eyebrows, Gramps chuckled. “The brunette.”
As if Gramps needed to clarify. There was only Penelope. His girl.
Had he not been a jerk to her—again—he would have liked the possessive sound of that. He actually did like the sound, anyway, just knew it wasn’t true. He slid a mug to his grandfather, then waited while Gramps set the frame aside as if it were made of precious jewels. When the picture was perfectly perpendicular to the edge of the table, Jay poured Gramps a cup. “What did she say?”
“She talked to the nurse, but I think the gist was to tell you she’d stopped by.” Gramps wrapped both hands around his mug as if trying to absorb his warmth. “Cute dog, too.”
He sipped his coffee. Why in God’s name had Nick told her she was ready when she wasn’t? She had something...instincts and a way with her dog that reminded him of how Zip reacted to him. But the broader knowledge just wasn’t there yet. She’d probably never even seen a rescue. It was one thing to prepare and test under perfect conditions—sunshine, warm or even semi-warm breezes—but not a lot of rescues happened without something treacherous causing the need for a rescue—floods, natural disasters, man-made tragedy. Confidence, in this case, just wasn’t enough, and if he was still her evaluator, he would have chosen the rainiest, most awful day for her testing. Let her see what she’d endure during a real callout.
If she wasn’t ready, she wouldn’t be safe, and that’s what had his craw bent.
“What are you thinking about?”
Jay shot his grandfather a blank stare. “Nothing.”
“Mmm-hmm. That’s why one minute you’re wide-eyed and starstruck and the next you have a frown so deep it looks like it’s painted on.” Gramps pushed his cup toward Jay. “You make horrible coffee.”
Jay chuckled. “I make horrible coffee because you taught me how.”
“Well, I didn’t teach you how to be bad with women. Where did all that come from?”
“Must’ve been from the other side of the family.”
Gramps nodded. “Well, are you going to call her?”
“I work with her. I’m sure I’ll see her later.”
Gramps rolled his eyes, sighed, then shook his head. “If she wanted to talk to you at work, she wouldn’t have hauled her cookies all the way out here, now would she?”
On a normal day, Jay loved and respected the words of imparted wisdom. God knew, on more than one occasion, he’d benefited from Gramps’s knowledge. But today, he could do without it. All of it. “Gramps, I don’t want to get into anything with her. She’s going back to New York City soon. She has a dog.”
Gramps grabbed his robe where it lay over his chest. “A dog, you say? Oh, dear. Well, that makes all the difference. She must be a horrible person.”
“Go ahead. Make fun.” Jay clicked his tongue against his teeth. His grandfather had seen the emotional toll losing Zip had taken on Jay. It wasn’t as easy as just bouncing back from something like that. This pain was too big to just walk off. And while Jay couldn’t control much else in his life, he could protect himself and his heart from suffering so deeply in his soul. “But I’m not getting attached to another animal. No dogs. No cats. No goldfish.”
Gramps shrugged. “Shame. She’s a sweet girl. Pretty, too. With your ugly mug, not much chance you’ll get another pretty one.”
“I should date her because she’s beautiful?” He pictured her standing in the sun, the way she’d been last week, smiling, her hand on his chest and her body nestled close to his.
Gramps’s lips twitched and his forehead creased—his laughing-on-the-inside look. “I’m just saying, one of these days, you’re going to have to stop using me as an excuse and settle down.”
How much more settled could he possibly be? He worked. Moved back into his childhood home. And he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had more than two beers. “Yeah. I’ll work on that.”
“Don’t sass me, boy. I’m telling you that when you talk about that girl, your face gets younger. Your smile is real. And I haven’t seen that in a long time. You let her go and you’re going to regret it.”
“I don’t even know her that well.”
Gramps shook his head. “I hear excuses. I hear you hiding your heart away because you’re scared.” He stood and leaned heavily on his new cane as he took his cup to the sink and poured it out. “What I don’t hear is a man who deserves a woman like that. If I was fifty years younger, she wouldn’t even be looking at you. And there are other men out there. How long you think she’s going to let you behave like a moron before she takes her business elsewhere?”
“She can take her business anywhere she wants.” The words tasted sour, sounded bitter. Another day, another lifetime maybe, he would have stayed and argued his grandfather into submission. Their verbal sparring kept them sharp, but this particular argument felt too close, too pertinent. He cleared his throat and poured himself another cup of coffee. “Do you like Trisha?”
The home health aide had spent half a day yesterday with Gramps without Jay as a buffer. Leaving him with a stranger yesterday had almost killed Jay, but he’d used all his paid time off setting everything up, painting and repairing his own house for sale, and moving into his old room, so going back to work wasn’t a choice as much as a necessity.
Gramps stared out the window. “She’s a babysitter.” He glanced back at his grandson. “You know she even set out my clothes this morning? Next thing she’ll wanna do is wipe my ass. I’m not an invalid. Yet.”
Jay hadn’t told Gramps his options—nursing home or home health aide—he’d just hired home health. But if Gramps didn’t like Trisha Kittredge, there were other aides out there. “Do you like her? If not, I can find someone else.”
“Well, she makes better coffee than you do.” He glanced down into his cup. “This tastes like motor oil.”
Jay laughed as Gramps drained his mug and held it out for another serving. Jay cocked an eyebrow. “Look at it like she’s a new friend. Teach her to play cards. Make her sit through the ninety-nine John Wayne DVDs you have. Tell her about your glory days. I interviewed her for an hour and a half. I really think if you give her a chance, you’ll like her.”
And if anyone could out-chat Gramps, he’d learned it would be his home health aide, Trisha.
Driving into work, Jay thought of Penelope. Which was nothing new. He thought about her when he showered, when he put on his uniform, when he walked to the truck. Aside from her determination, aside from her beauty, aside from the way she talked to him, he couldn’t think of one damned reason why he couldn’t get her out of his head.
Okay, that was a lie. There were a million reasons why she was like crack to his brain. And yeah, there was that. Crack was horseshit for your health.
He pulled into the lot and shut the truck off. He’d arrived before her on purpose. He wanted to get in, get his assignments for the day, and get out before she showed up. Seeing her wouldn’t help. Wouldn’t make not seeing her socially any easier.
In fact, he was determined not to see her outside of the office again.
Nick sat at his desk like he never left. When Jay walked in and sat in the chair in front of him, Nick looked up. “Need you at the check station today. Governor is doing a photo op and I can’t stomach another one of those.”
“All right.” He stared at Nick for a minute, picturing the absolute joy on Penelope’s face when she told him Nick thought she was ready for her evaluation. Setting her up to fail. “About Penelope.” No segue needed in Jay’s head since he’d developed the uncanny ability to connect everything in life to her. “She isn’t ready, and you shouldn’t be pushing her to test.”
Nick scrunched his brows together. “What?”
“She isn’t ready.” His voice, hard and angrier than the situation called for, boomed through the room. Probably through the walls, too.
“Were you ready when you went out the first time?”
“You’re damned right I was.” He’d trained for three years. Spent every waking minute on the trails. In the rain. The snow. Winds strong enough to carry both him and Zip to the far corners of the earth. He’d trained in rivers, flooded and rushing. And so far, Penelope had only trained in the Vermont on sunny days. God only knew what her training was like in New York. From studying maps, the terrain was pretty tame in and around the city. Nothing like up here.
Nick chuckled. “I was on that first rescue with you. Remember?”
They’d been called to a town in Iowa, ravaged by a tornado. He’d made mistakes. Newbie mistakes. Working Zip too hard, too long. And he almost walked away from it all when he stumbled on the bodies of a woman and her child who hadn’t survived. But he’d learned from it. Painfully. The face of that woman had haunted him so many nights after. “Yeah. I remember.”
“Then you know that you can’t be prepared for a scene like that. She’s trained hard and she deserves a chance to show her stuff.” He cocked an eyebrow at Jay. “I would think you would be happy for her.”
Jay grunted.
Nick shook his head. “You are so arrogant, so holier than thou. She’s ready, and you know it. You saw her out there. You saw the connection between her and her dog. And her training logs show she’s trained in inclement weather. Maybe not recently, but she has. Did you even bother to look them over?”
Jay hadn’t thumbed through her training log. There was no need. Her team leader back in New York had to sign off that she was ready when the application was sent into the national organization. But there was no mandate on how many days or how inclement the weather had to be.
Jay shook his head and stood. When he reached the door, he turned for one last parting shot. “She isn’t ready, Nick. If you do this, you’re putting lives in danger. Hers and everyone she’s called out to rescue.”
He slammed out of the office, spun tires on rocks as he left. Penelope Ramos had no business taking her test yet. She was still unsure, still lacked the confidence in herself to be able to deploy to a real emergency. Still needed to experience a variety of environmental conditions.
She needed time.
Fuck. He paused at a stoplight, not even sure where he needed to go.
I need time. It was slipping through his fingers as he made all the wrong moves with Penelope. If Nick thought she and Havoc were ready, she was another step closer to leaving Maple Falls.
And there was not one damned thing he could do to stop the test.