Love a Little Sideways (6 page)

Chapter Six

After a few days of popping into the diner for lunch, Drew realized he really liked Liz. Not just liked thinking about the amazing sex they’d had or her amazing smile or how great her ass looked in jeans. He liked her.

Because he liked to be in the office if Barbara wasn’t going to be, he ate lunch later than the norm, and the diner was fairly quiet whenever he went in. He’d chat with Liz while she restored order after the lunch rush and got the place ready for Ava to come in and do the supper shift, and he’d discovered there was nothing Liz couldn’t talk about.

Politics, books, movies, history. It didn’t matter what random subject popped up, she’d talk about it. And if she didn’t know a lot about it, she’d listen and ask questions.

The best part of his day was when Liz leaned her hip against the counter and talked to him.

He wanted to take her on a date. A real date, with dinner somewhere other than the Trailside Diner. That would mean a long drive, but he wouldn’t mind because he liked her company.

Part of him was starting to wonder how Mitch would take it. Maybe there was a way to beat around the bush and see how his friend would feel about Drew dating his sister without actually coming out and saying he was interested in her.

It had the potential for disaster, though. And some logical part of his brain really wanted to know if it was worth risking his relationship with Mitch when that same part knew that before Liz came back to town, Drew had promised himself he was going to stop feeling sorry for himself and go out and find the mother of his children. Liz had never said she didn’t want kids, but that wasn’t something that came up in casual conversation. But he did know, or at least strongly suspected, that it wasn’t something she was thinking about now.

That meant there was a possibility Drew could invest himself in a relationship with her, at great risk to his friendship, only to have her realize down the road she had other things she’d rather do than be a mother.

It was a frustrating circle of what he wanted versus what he needed, and it was enough to keep his mouth shut.

“You’re looking pretty serious today,” Liz said, breaking into his thoughts as she set his bowl of chicken soup in front of him. Drew never missed Gavin’s chicken soup days if he could help it. While it wasn’t quite as good as Rose’s, it ran a pretty damn close second and nothing beat a good bowl of chicken soup.

“Lot on my mind.” Before she could open her mouth to push for more, he kept going. “You know, if you need to go into the city to stock up on more than what the Mustang can hold, just say the word. We can take the SUV. I just fill it on my personal card before I leave town and nobody complains.”

It was almost a date. He wasn’t a big fan of shopping, but at least he’d get to spend some time with her away from her family and the rest of the town.

“Thanks, but I stole Josh’s truck and made a run the other day after work. There are enough vehicles there so he didn’t miss it and, if he really needed a pickup, the gas mileage in the old plow truck doesn’t hurt as badly if he was just running around town.”

Deflated, he tried to shrug off the missed opportunity. “Settling in okay?”

“Yeah. I haven’t done a lot of shopping for the house yet. Mostly I needed to stock up on staples and fill the fridge and pantry. As much as I love Fran, that kind of shopping gets expensive at the market and it’s worth the trip to the city.”

“I know you’ve got plenty of family, but you can still call me if you need anything.”

She smiled, handing him a few extra packages of crackers for his soup. “Thanks. I appreciate it. Hey, did you see on the news they caught the guy that was breaking into the camps on the lake?”

They talked about the news while he ate his soup and he would have lingered, but dispatch called him out for a possible bear in a backyard report.

An hour later, he’d coaxed a massive black dog he hadn’t seen around town into his SUV, and radioed ahead to Barbara to let her know he was bringing her another stray and to give her a description. She’d start reaching out to see if he’d been reported missing anywhere local, then take the poor guy home with her. They didn’t have much in the way of animal control outside of the police department, and Barbara always fostered the rare displaced or lost pet. They almost always traced them back to a vacationing family.

Because nothing popped immediately and the dog had obviously been wandering a while, Barbara left early. She’d make the half-hour drive to the vet, then take him home and get him fed and bathed. That left Drew as police chief-slash-office staff.

As soon as he sat down at his desk, he remembered something he’d wanted to tell Liz. She’d probably left work and, after a little bit of hesitation, he decided to call her. He’d given her his cell number earlier in the week in case she needed anything, so it had been natural for her to give him hers at the same time.

She answered on the second ring. “Hello?”

“Hey, it’s Drew. Are you busy?”

“Nope. I just left the diner. Still in the parking lot, actually. What’s up?”

“I meant to tell you when I stopped in for lunch, but I forgot. There’s an all-wheel-drive wagon for sale in the paper for short money.”

“I saw that. I was thinking about calling them when I get home.”

“Don’t bother. The guy selling it picked it up dirt-cheap at auction because its previous owner accidentally put it in a pond where it sat for two days before he finally confessed it hadn’t been stolen after all. I’ve had some issues with this guy selling questionable vehicles before and he might have managed to clean it up enough to sell it, but it’s going to have problems.”

“Wow. I should have known the description and the price didn’t add up.”

“Sorry to burst your bubble.”

She laughed, the sound almost musical over the phone line. “I’d rather know now than after I gave him my money.”

“If a deal doesn’t feel right to you, make sure you call me. And my dad’s got a knack for cars. You should take him with you if you go look at something. Not that you’re not capable of a test drive, but a second opinion never hurts.”

He knew he was talking just to keep her on the phone, but he couldn’t help it. At the rate he was going, she was going to start thinking he was stalking her and wouldn’t that be an awkward complaint for his department to field.

But then she mentioned she was on her way to see Rose and they talked about the lodge for a while, and then his dad and Rosie’s relationship, which seemed to have come out of nowhere. Before he knew it, almost twenty minutes had passed.

“You’re not still sitting in the parking lot, are you?” he asked when she finished telling him how she had a very hazy memory of being hidden at the end of the couch the day Rose told Frank Kowalski that if Andy Miller was allowed to visit the Northern Star, she’d quit. The fact they were thinking about eloping to Vegas still boggled their minds.

“Yeah, I am. I didn’t want to start the car because your engine’s a little loud, plus there’s the whole talking on the phone while driving thing. I’ve heard the local police frown on that.”

“They’re real hard-asses,” Drew agreed. “I’ll let you go before Rose thinks you stood her up. I’ll probably see you tomorrow for lunch.”

“It’s a date,” she said nonchalantly, and hung up.

It was just an expression, he told himself. But he still got barely any work done that afternoon.

* * *

Still in her Trailside Diner T-shirt, Liz drove up to the front of the lodge and killed the engine. She’d promised Rose she’d stop by after work and, after sitting in her car talking on the phone with Drew for far too long, she was running late enough so she didn’t go home and change first.

Paige’s car was in the driveway, too, which meant there would probably be tea and visiting before they got around to whatever it was Rose wanted a hand with, or to talk to her about or whatever.

Sure enough, the two women were sitting at the kitchen table when she went in, and there was a plate of fresh-baked brownies on the table.

“How was work, Liz?” Rose asked, going to the stove to pour her some tea.

“It was good. It’s a different climate than the truck stop I worked at last and I really like it.”

Paige drew her hand over her forehead in a gesture of exaggerated relief. “Thank goodness. I’ve gotten used to having a little more free time when Mitch is home.”

They talked about the diner for a few minutes. Paige’s schedule was going to be fairly fluid. She’d spend more time at the diner when Mitch was traveling or during times the ATV traffic would be heavy, but she’d be more hands-off when her husband was in town. That worked just fine for Liz.

“Speaking of schedules,” Rose said, “I talked to Mary this morning and she had a wonderful idea.”

Uh-oh. A wonderful idea cooked up by Rosie and Aunt Mary couldn’t mean anything good for anybody named Kowalski. “Do I want to know?”

“Every year they go camping for two weeks. All of them—the kids, grandkids. It’s become a family tradition, I guess.”

Liz didn’t hear anything but the words
camping
and
two weeks.
Her brain added the word
no.

“That sounds fun,” Paige said. “My mom had a boyfriend who liked to camp when I was a kid. We went a few times and I loved it, but then they broke up and we never went again. I should talk Mitch into camping.”

Liz could see Paige playing right into whatever hand Rose was about to play, and she was tempted to kick her under the table.

“I’m glad you said that,” Rose said, “because Mary and I want to make it a family reunion.”

“I’ll never get Mitch away from work for two weeks. And I know Ryan’s busy.”

“Everybody’s busy,” Liz echoed, trying to keep her expression regretful.

“With not a lot of notice and everybody’s schedules, we know two weeks is out of the question, but we can all go over for a week.”

“I bet Mitch can make that work if I push,” Paige said. “And Ryan can delegate. What about the lodge? If Josh and Katie go, how can you and Andy go, too? You have to be there.”

“If we go up on a Thursday and leave Wednesday, we’ll only be away one weekend. There’s a big ATV event in central New Hampshire the first weekend the family will be at the campground and everybody seems to be going there. That means we have no bookings to worry about and there’s also plenty of room at the campground.”

“This is going to be so fun,” Paige said. “Doesn’t it sound fun, Liz?”

Not really, but rather than come off as a wet blanket, she tried going with the practicality first. “If the diner’s so busy you were able to hire me to take up some slack, how can we both be gone for a week?”

“Ava and Tori will understand this is a big deal for the family, so they’ll be willing to hold down the fort for a while. And, like Rosie said, most of the four-wheeling crowd will be at that other event anyway.”

“I don’t have any camping stuff.”

Paige shrugged. “You could probably bunk down in somebody’s RV. They all have couches.”

Yeah, and they were mostly newlyweds, parents or—in the case of her uncle Leo—snored like the early rumbles of a major earthquake. But with Rose and Paige both looking at her so expectantly, practically vibrating in their eagerness to start planning this family adventure, she knew it was as good as done.

She tried to muster a smile to match theirs. “There will be s’mores, right?”

Within seconds, a notepad appeared on the table and the two women were talking over each other in a rush to make a list of everything they’d need. Liz sipped her decaf tea—which she liked a lot better than decaf instant coffee—and watched them work. Once they started coordinating with Aunt Mary, she knew this would be the best-planned camping trip in the history of the great outdoors. All she had to do was relax and enjoy the vacation.

“Somebody should tell Drew right away,” Rose said, looking up from the list. “The department’s small, so covering for him might be a problem.”

Liz almost choked on her tea, but she thought she covered it well. Of course they were going to invite Drew. He was Andy’s son. There was a good chance at some point in the future, he’d be Rosie’s stepson.

But Drew was becoming a problem for Liz. She already knew they had great sexual chemistry, which was bad enough. Now she was slowly discovering they seemed to have great chemistry in general, and that was worse. If they lived anywhere but Whitford and he was anybody but her brother’s best friend, they’d be spending a lot of time together. Maybe going out to dinner or to a movie. Sitting on her futon, talking about who knew what at the end of the day.

She knew they wanted different things right now. From what she’d heard, he was looking to be on the fast track to marriage and babies, and she was still hovering at the Start line, wondering if that was a path she was willing to take. But there was still something there, whether it made sense or not.

“It would be so much fun to have Drew along,” Rose said in a totally innocent voice Liz knew was covering up a devious mind.

“I’ll have Mitch talk to him today,” Paige said, because there was no way Liz could ask Rose to rethink inviting Drew, of course. Not in front of her sister-in-law. “After I’ve broken the news to Mitch, of course, and knocked down all of his excuses.”

“He went a few years ago, though only for a couple of days, and he had a good time.”

“If I have to go, everybody has to go,” Liz added.

A week in the woods with Drew. And Mitch. What could be more relaxing than that?

* * *

Today was one of those days when Drew wished time machines were real so he could go back and politely but firmly refuse the appointment as police chief. The budget was a constant wrestling match requiring mathematical gymnastics that made his head hurt. He’d fielded a complaint from a mother about the new part-time officer not understanding how things were done, such as looking the other way when her little darling tried to bribe an adult to buy her alcohol. Papers were multiplying in his inbox at an alarming rate and the number of emails to the department’s address that had been flagged for his attention made him want to “accidentally” spill coffee on every keyboard in the station.