Love a Little Sideways (2 page)

“You need a ride up to the lodge?” Butch asked.

Before Liz could answer, Drew stepped in. “She can ride with me. I’ve got all her stuff in my cruiser, anyway.”

“Okay, then. Liz, you can stop by anytime and I’ll give you an update. Make sure you call your insurance company tomorrow.”

She nodded, and then Drew collected the orange safety triangles he’d set out before gesturing for her to get in. Trying to ignore how weird it felt to have Liz Kowalski riding shotgun with him, he put the SUV in gear and headed for town.

“Where are we going?” she asked when they’d hit Whitford and he turned away from her sister-in-law’s house.

“Need to stop by my house first.” Not that he’d be inviting her in, because that could be a recipe for disaster. And to make sure he didn’t have a moment of weakness, he wasn’t even going to unlock the front door.

It only took a few minutes to reach the small farmhouse-style home he’d had to buy half of from his ex-wife, and he was glad it was dark. Since Mallory had left, he was having a little trouble with her flower beds and all her hanging plants, so the property looked a little shabby around the edges.

She didn’t say anything as he pulled up the right side of his driveway and then reached up to hit the button to open the left-side door.

“Hold on a sec,” he told her as the overhead door started to rise, and climbed out.

Once the door rattled open, he hit the light switch, illuminating his prized possession. It was a 1970 Mustang, the Boss 302, in brilliant orange with black racing stripes. He opened the door, slid into the leather seat and turned the key. It fired right up, the throaty engine purring like a kitten.

After letting it run a moment, he drove it out of the garage and parked it alongside the cruiser. After he got out, he closed the overhead door and gestured for Liz to join him.

“You can drive this until you figure out what’s up with your car,” he said, when she’d climbed out of the SUV and walked over to him.

Her eyes grew huge as she looked back and forth between him and the car, and then she shook her head. “I can’t borrow your Mustang, Drew.”

“Needs to be driven and I spend most of my time in the SUV, so you’d be doing me a favor. And it’s insured.”

“Nice try. Look, I appreciate the offer, but—”

“Did you know this car was the only one to beat Mitch’s Camaro in the quarter-mile back in the day?”

She smiled, running her hand over the black-striped hood scoop in a way that made him think of sex. “He’s always claimed he missed a shift.”

“Maybe my car was better or maybe I was the better driver but, either way, seeing the car annoys him. You driving it would
really
annoy him and I like keeping Mitch on his toes.”

Drew knew he was poking the sleeping bear, so to speak. The last thing he wanted was for Mitch to find out he’d slept with his sister. Parading Liz around in his Mustang probably wasn’t a step in the right direction.

But she needed a car and he had a car. And if it gave him some kind of primal thrill seeing Liz behind the wheel of his pride and joy, nobody needed to know that.

* * *

Enveloped in the scent of old leather and Drew Miller, Liz followed the big SUV through Whitford. Her fingers slid easily into the grooves decades of the man driving the car had worn into the steering wheel and she tried not to dwell on how sexy everything about the car—the look, the sound, the smell—was as she focused on the road.

It was better to think about how bad it probably sucked on gas, although whether or not it was worse than her own car remained to be seen. And just how much it would suck if she put so much as a door ding in the thing.

She’d continued to argue with him for what had to be another half hour after he’d given her the lame spiel about him wanting her to drive it to annoy her brother. There weren’t any car rental places within a reasonable distance of Whitford, but there had to be an extra vehicle kicking around the lodge she could borrow.

But he wouldn’t take no for an answer and, eventually, she’d gotten tired of arguing with him. So now she was driving the car she’d drooled over from afar during high school, though she’d never wanted a tour of the backseat like most of the girls had. Not that it would have mattered. Even if she hadn’t been nothing more than Mitch’s little sister to him, Drew only had eyes for Mallory.

Unfortunately, when Drew’s turn signal started blinking, Liz realized she hadn’t been paying attention and they’d arrived at Lauren’s small ranch-style house without her knowing quite how they got there. She’d jotted down the directions her brother Ryan had given her over the phone, but she suspected that scrap of paper was still in the console of her car, along with the fast food and gas receipts she’d accumulated along the road.

And Lauren didn’t have a garage. Or rather, Liz didn’t have a garage, and she could imagine Drew sitting in the SUV he’d just shut off, cringing at the thought of his baby being exposed to the elements.

He didn’t say anything when they were both out of their vehicles, though. He just opened the back of the SUV and grabbed a box while Liz retrieved the key from where it had been taped under the mailbox for her. After unlocking the door, she opened it and felt along the wall for the light switch.

“It’s very...empty,” Drew said from over her shoulder, and she stepped aside so he could carry the box in.

Her new home was indeed very empty. There was a futon in the living room and, judging by the familiar quilt draped over the back, it was Rosie’s doing. Next to it sat an upside-down milk crate with a pile of paperback books on top, probably to distract her from the lack of a television. She went into the kitchen and smiled at the smallest microwave she’d ever seen, so new it still had the stickers on it. It was the only thing in the kitchen besides the stove, the fridge and a basket covered by a towel and a note.

She peeked under the towel first. Banana bread and pumpkin muffins, freshly baked judging by the smell. Then she read the note, written in Rosie’s familiar handwriting.

Welcome home!
I
know you said you didn’t need anything
,
but I brought in a few things so you could at least have a place to sit.
Call me when you get in.
Love
,
Rosie.

Home, she thought. Maybe all she had to sit on was a hand-me-down futon, but she was home.

The first bedroom she came to was empty, and the bathroom had the bare necessities. Liz smiled when she recognized the towels and hospitality toiletries used by the Northern Star. It cheered her up, knowing her family had ignored her when she said she’d be fine and didn’t need anything.

The big bedroom almost made her cry. Somebody had been busy, basically disassembling her room at the lodge and moving it here. Her bed was made with her favorite quilt, and everything from her dresser to her ancient unicorn lamp had made the trip.

“Liz?”

She jumped, turning back to the hallway. She’d forgotten about Drew, who probably thought she’d abandoned him to carry everything in by himself.

“None of the boxes are marked, so I put them in the living room.”

“Thanks. I’ll help with the rest. I didn’t mean to run off on you.”

“It’s done. You don’t really own a lot, Liz.”

“I’m starting over,” she told him. “Sorry I’m not starting over in a place with a garage, though. It’s not too late to change your mind about the Mustang.”

“It’s a car. Won’t kill her to sit outside for a few days.” He shrugged. “I’m going to head out. If you stop by the station, we’ll write you out a police report for the insurance company.”

“Thanks for your help.”

“All in a day’s work, ma’am,” he said, and she laughed.

Once he’d left and she was alone in the empty house, her amusement faded. She sat on the edge of the futon and rested her chin in her hands, staring at the pile of her belongings. What the hell had she done?

One minute she’d been on the phone with Rosie, listening to news about the family. And somewhere between hearing about her sister-in-law Emma’s pregnancy and Rosie wondering whether Ryan and Lauren or Josh and Katie would make it to the altar first, the homesickness had hit Liz so hard she could barely breathe. Between her cousins and her brothers, the family was awash with love and marriage and babies. And since they’d all recommitted to helping Josh make the Northern Star Lodge a success, it seemed her brothers were closer than ever.

And there she was, all the way across the country with a dead-end relationship behind her and nothing but work ahead of her.

“I’m moving back to Whitford,” she’d told Rosie before she could talk herself out of it.

The housekeeper had only been quiet a few seconds before she said, “Your room will be ready.”

The idea of moving into the lodge didn’t appeal to her, though, and her brother’s fiancée having a house sitting empty had seemed like a sign she was doing the right thing.

She was still pretty sure she was doing the right thing, but it seemed a lot scarier now that she was sitting in a house so empty voices echoed. A house she was going to have to pay for all on her own. Hopefully the good citizens of Whitford were as generous with their tips as truck drivers could be.

With a sigh, Liz stood up. First, she was going to heat up some of that banana bread in the microwave because nothing improved a person’s outlook on life faster than Rosie’s baked goods. Then she’d start spreading her stuff out in the living room so it could all dry.

The glint of orange outside the living room window caught her eye as she walked to the pile of boxes. It had started raining hard again, but she forced herself not to cringe at the sight of the Mustang in the driveway.

And tried not to think about its owner.

Chapter Two

A knock on his already open office door made Drew look up from a stack of a paperwork with relief. He hated paperwork and welcomed distractions, especially when the distraction was Mitch Kowalski.

“Hey.” He gestured for his friend to come in and sit down. “I thought you were...somewhere. Working.”

“I’m only home for a couple of days.” Mitch sat in the visitor’s chair and crossed his arms. “I need you to do something for me.”

“Last time you said that, I had to repaint half my truck.”

Mitch grinned. “I told you not to get caught.”

Drew got his license before Mitch and the favor was to pick up Drew’s girlfriend and deliver her to the pond where Mitch planned to take her for a ride in the canoe he’d “borrowed” from his old man. Sure, Mitch told him not to get caught. What he’d neglected to mention was that his girlfriend’s dad was not only paranoid, but had impulse control issues and a shotgun loaded with bird shot. The girlfriend hadn’t pulled off the sneaky part of sneaking out.

“That’s just one of many times doing something for you has been a pain in the ass for me,” Drew said.

“This time there are no women involved. Except my sister.”

Drew concentrated on not looking like a guy who’d been caught with his hand in the wrong cookie jar. “What is it you want me to do for you?”

“I want you to tell me why there’s a picture going around Facebook of your Mustang parked in Lauren’s driveway with no lights on in the house and a time stamp of just after midnight.”

“Since when are you on Facebook?”

“Paige is, since she has an account for the diner and helps with the lodge’s.”

“Was there also a picture of Liz’s car on Butch’s ramp truck with the fender caved in?”

Mitch leaned forward in the chair. “What happened? Is she okay? I got in late last night and I haven’t talked to Rosie yet, but she would have called my cell if Liz was in an accident.”

“She’s fine and it wasn’t much of an accident. I don’t know if Liz has even told Rose yet. She hydroplaned and sideswiped a tree, so I lent her the Mustang until she can get the insurance stuff sorted out.”

“You’re letting Liz borrow your car? Why would you do that?”

“Because I’m a nice guy. It’s just sitting in the garage and I’d rather it be out on the road where I can see it and remember the day I smoked that Camaro of yours.”

“I missed a shift.” Mitch relaxed in the chair again. “Since Paige knew Liz was supposed to arrive yesterday, she thought maybe you were there with her. Like spending the night. But I told her she was crazy.”

There was nothing confrontational in the way he said it, but Drew saw the opportunity to come clean. More than an opportunity, it was the window for confession. If he didn’t say anything now, it would be so much worse if Mitch ever found out.

They were all adults. He was almost certain Mitch would be reasonable if Drew and Liz wanted to be in a relationship, not that they were there yet, if ever. Their two interactions in the past year had been a forbidden quickie and his response to her accident. Whether he was attracted to her or not, that was hardly a relationship. But, hell, maybe Mitch would even be happy for them if they were.

But that little bit of doubt kept him from spilling his guts. He and Mitch had been friends a long time. Mitch had been his best man when he married Mallory and the shoulder he cried on the night she moved out.

If Mitch felt betrayed—if Drew saw that in his eyes—it would cut him to the bone.

“Crazy,” he repeated to buy himself more time to think.

“I told Paige you’d never do that. You’re my best friend and she’s my little sister. I told her you’d cut your own balls off before you’d ever lay a hand on her.”

So much for reasonable. If Mitch would rather Drew castrate himself than touch Liz, it was probably best he keep his mouth shut.

“I knew there was a good reason,” Mitch continued. “Though I never thought you’d let anybody borrow that car.”

“She needed one and I had one. Simple as that.” More or less.

Mitch hit a button on his cell phone to check the time. “Gotta head to the diner. Paige isn’t feeling so hot this morning, so I called in a take-out order.”

“Feel free to take some of those tart things over there.” Drew pointed to the far corner of his desk, where a paper plate filled with some kind of baked thing with fruit in the middle and covered by plastic wrap sat untouched. Since his divorce, he’d noticed an upswing in the amount of baked goods brought to the fine men and women of the Whitford Police Department.

Mitch took a peek and then grimaced. “I’m all set, thanks.”

Drew couldn’t blame him. They’d both been spoiled by Rosie Davis. And, since Drew’s dad had surprised them all by getting Rosie to fall in love with him and moving into the lodge, Drew got enough of the good stuff so he was reluctant to make do with not-quite-Rosie’s baked goods.

Once Mitch left to pick up his wife’s food, Drew looked down at the paperwork again, but the words on the papers didn’t register in his head.

Maybe he should call Liz and give her a heads-up on the whole Facebook thing. Once the same people who wondered why his Mustang had been parked in the driveway of Lauren Carpenter’s empty house realized Liz Kowalski had been in the house at the time, the needle on the gossip meter would redline.

Calling her would have been easier if he’d gotten her cell number, he realized. He could always take a ride over there and tell her in person. See how she was making out with the house. She might need to make a shopping trip for more stuff than would fit in the Mustang or something like that. He could check on her, at least.

I told her you’d cut your own balls off before you’d ever lay a hand on her
.

Or he could do his paperwork and let Liz’s family take care of her so he didn’t get himself into any more trouble than he’d already swept under the rug.

* * *

Liz stared at the unfamiliar ceiling, willing herself to get up and start the day. The only way it could be worse than yesterday was if she tripped and fell in front of a bus. Since Whitford didn’t have any buses, except school buses and school had just let out for the summer, today was bound to be better.

After wallowing for another ten minutes without going back to sleep, she got out of bed and threw a mug of water into the microwave before hitting the bathroom. Then, with a grimace, she dumped one teaspoon of instant coffee and two of sugar into the mug. While she’d packed those into a small box of food in the trunk of her poor car, she didn’t have any milk to add since she’d been too exhausted to run to the market. She hadn’t thought instant coffee could be any worse, but it could. Without milk, it was very much worse.

After years of waiting tables in a truck stop and putting up with a boyfriend who did nothing but drain her of money and energy, her stomach and blood pressure had been a mess, and she’d been having trouble sleeping at night. Once she’d cut Darren and multiple pots of coffee every day out of her life, things had gotten much better. Now she had a one-cup-of-instant-coffee-in-the-morning-and-no-men rule and—other than a couple cups of high-test that left her jittery halfway through her drive east and that one incident with Drew—she hadn’t broken it.

Time to make a list, she told herself when the meager amount of caffeine she allowed herself started kicking in. Calling the insurance company had to be a priority, as was checking in with Butch at the garage. The insurance company would probably want an official report so, as Drew had said, she’d have to stop by the police station. She desperately needed milk. Rosie would expect her to show up at the lodge for a real welcome-home hug before the day was over, and she should stop in at the diner and see Paige, who was not only her sister-in-law, but her new boss.

The Whitford Diner first, she decided. Eggs. Bacon. Home fries. Raisin toast. It was enough to propel her into the shower and then out the door.

Where she lowered herself into the driver’s seat of Drew’s Mustang and stuck the key in the ignition. But she paused a moment before firing up the engine, looking through the windshield at the house she’d rented for who knew how long. It was small but tidy, with gray vinyl siding and white trim around the windows. There wasn’t much for landscaping, but the lawn had been mowed recently and she wondered by whom. She hadn’t explored the backyard yet, so she had no idea if there was a lawn mower lurking in a shed, if one of her brothers had done it, or if the real estate agent had arranged to have it done before Lauren took it off the market.

She’d felt pretty sorry for herself last night and before she rolled out of bed. She’d wrecked her car, her house echoed and she had to start a new job. But now she breathed in deeply through her nose and blew it out through her mouth.

She had a friend who cared enough to lend her his classic Mustang. She had a lovely house that wasn’t filled with somebody else’s stuff, but was waiting for her to find new treasures to fill it up. She had a family who loved her enough to make sure she had the bare necessities even though she’d told them she’d be okay. And, thanks to her sister-in-law, she had a job waiting for her.

For somebody making a fresh start, she had an awful lot going for her.

With a much better outlook on life, she backed the car out of the driveway and headed in the direction they’d come from the night before. She concentrated on shifting, making sure she didn’t grind any gears while getting used to the clutch. It had been a while since she’d driven a standard. Since the town hadn’t changed much, it didn’t take her long to get her bearings and, before long, she was pulling into the parking lot of her sister-in-law’s restaurant.

It wasn’t busy, but Liz hoped to chat with Paige a bit, so she took a seat at the counter just as the swinging door to the kitchen opened. A young woman who wasn’t Paige stepped out. She wore a Trailside Diner T-shirt with a little plaque that said Tori pinned to it. Tori’s dark blond hair was pulled into a short ponytail, and her honey-brown eyes crinkled when she smiled in greeting. “You want coffee?”

What Liz wanted was to dump sugar and cream straight into the full, fresh pot and down the entire thing, but she shook her head. She’d had her cup of instant for the day. “A small OJ and a large ice water, please.”

“So you must be Liz,” Tori said when she returned with the drinks.

“What gave me away?”

“Tall, with dark hair and blue eyes like your brothers, and you’re driving Chief Miller’s Mustang.” She laughed, pulling an order pad out of her apron pocket. “Plus, Paige told me you’d probably show up looking for breakfast.”

“Rose left me some banana bread and pumpkin muffins, but I need bacon.” She also ordered the eggs, toast and home fries to go with the bacon. “I take it Chief Miller doesn’t let a lot of women drive his car?”

Oh, that was subtle. Liz wanted to kick herself, but sipped her water and forced herself to look only mildly interested instead.

“I’ve never seen anybody else drive it, but I figure for your family, he’d make an exception.”

Right. Because Drew and her oldest brother were best friends. “A tree jumped out and crumpled my fender in the rainstorm last night.”

Tori laughed. “Hate when they do that. I’d have wrecked my own car, though, if I’d known that beast was available as a loaner.”

The cook yelled Tori’s name and she left to deliver a tray of food to a table in the back. Liz sipped her water, trying to pretend it was coffee and failing miserably. She should have scrounged up enough change to get a newspaper from the rack out front or brought a book to distract her.

“Is Paige around?” she asked when Tori moved within earshot.

“She’s off today. Mitch flew in last night to spend a couple of days, so she asked me to cover for her. Ava comes in for the afternoon shift, but you probably already know that. When are you starting?”

Liz wasn’t sure, actually. “She told me to take a few days to settle in, so maybe next Monday or Tuesday. I’ll have a few days to get my bearings before the weekend.”

It occurred to Liz there was a possibility Tori wasn’t her biggest fan and was hiding it well. If Paige had exaggerated how much business had picked up so she’d take the job, having Liz around might cut into Tori’s tips.

“It’ll be nice having you on board,” the younger woman said, and she sounded sincere. “I’m supposed to be very part-time, just to get out of my apartment and meet people, but between the increased business and Paige cutting back to spend time with Mitch, I’m here a lot more than I intended to be.”

The cook yelled Tori’s name again and she walked away again before Liz could respond. She kept herself busy reorganizing the sugar packets in their container until Tori set her plate in front of her. The bacon went a long way in bolstering her new and improved positive attitude.

Once she was done, she left her money on the counter, took a menu from the stack by the register so she could familiarize herself with it, and walked out into the sunshine. It was getting hotter and the humidity didn’t help. She’d forgotten how much more humid it was in New England, and she cursed herself for not putting her hair into a ponytail before leaving the house.

Since there was a good chance somebody was already telling Rosie that Liz had been spotted at the diner, she decided to make the Northern Star her next stop. She could visit for a while and still have time to do the rest of her errands in the afternoon.

Liz kept her foot light on the Mustang’s accelerator through town, but once she was free of the downtown proper, she opened it up a little. The car was made to run, and, since it didn’t have air-conditioning, she needed the extra air flow through the windows.

She was almost to the turnoff for the lodge and about to let up on the gas pedal when she heard the siren and glanced in the rearview mirror to see flashing blue lights.

* * *

Less than twenty-four hours, Drew thought as he watched Liz put on her blinker to pull over. Not even a full day and the woman was being a pain in the ass.

She hadn’t even seen his SUV through the break in the trees where he was waiting to pull out after doing a wellness check down a long back road. He’d been in the process of looking both ways when the Mustang—
his
Mustang—had blown by him.