Winter Longing (12 page)

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Authors: Tricia Mills

Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Love & Romance

BOOK: Winter Longing
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He smiled wide, one of those smiles that stops females of all ages in their tracks, stunning them into blabbering idiocy. “I already did.”
Caleb winked at Linds, and for a moment, I thought she might melt.
“I’ll pay you back tomorrow.”
“No need. Not every day I get to buy a pretty girl lunch.”
Oh, he was smooth. I eyed him, trying to figure out if it was genuine. I glanced past him to Drew Chernov, and red flags went up. The company Caleb was continuing to keep was less than ideal.
Drew narrowed his eyes at me. “Hurry up. Some of us are hungry.”
Jackass. “Bite me,” I said.
Okay, that felt normal, too. Weird. As I grabbed my tray and led Lindsay away before she started drooling on herself, I realized that Drew was the first person who’d treated me carelessly since Spencer’s crash. Well, there’d been that less-than-happy look from Patrice the day she’d seen Jesse and I talking in the hall, but Drew was the first one to open his piehole and be an all-out jerk. In a very odd way, I was glad. Still didn’t mean I liked him. They’d be wearing bikinis in January in Fairbanks before
that
happened.
I’d noticed Linds stealing glances at Caleb every day, but I’d chosen to ignore it. Partly because I hadn’t had much to give in the past few weeks, and partly because he hadn’t stood up for her when Drew had opened his fat, idiotic mouth.
When we slid into chairs at our usual table, I saw her looking back toward where Caleb was taking a seat with Drew and some of the other charter members of the popular crowd.
“The crush isn’t going away, is it?”
She sighed and shoved her lima beans around on her plate. “No. I wish it would. But every time I see him, my heart rate doubles and I get all jittery.”
I knew that feeling well. I rode out a familiar wave of pain before I spoke again.
“Can’t say I like some of his crowd, but he seems nice.” I hoped anyway. Maybe if Linds found someone, at least she could start to heal from our loss. “Maybe just talk to him, act like the scene with Drew never happened.”
“Yeah, because that’s all kinds of easy.”
I shrugged, because I didn’t have a better solution or, honestly, any energy for matchmaking. Lindsay deserved to be happy, and if Caleb Moore could make her happy, I was all for it. But our short conversation about him was about all I could stand without memories of Spencer rendering me useless.
The need to strike out still roiled inside of me. I wanted someone to pay for something. The bark of Drew’s laughter across the cafeteria gave me the perfect target. When Lindsay glanced away, I closed my milk carton and slid it into a side pocket of my bag.
“I’ve got to run to the restroom. See you later.” I stood with my tray.
“Okay. See you in history.”
I forced myself to maintain a casual demeanor as I dumped my tray and left the room. I walked down the hall and turned the corner that led to Drew’s locker. A quick scan in each direction revealed I was alone, so I retrieved the milk and poured it through the slats in the top of the locker. I hoped he wouldn’t visit it until the milk got nice and stinky.
For the first time in weeks, I really smiled.
“I see your mom decided to increase the number of love quotes this year,” I said as I stepped inside Tundra Books. Quotes hung from or were tacked to every available surface.
“She swore it increased sales last February,” Spencer replied. “What do you think? Will this make people buy more romance and relationship books?” He extended a piece of white paste-board toward me.
I took it and read the quote:
“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much a heart can hold.—Zelda Fitzgerald”
I looked up at him and said, “Quotes do help people say what they can’t themselves.”
CHAPTER 15
 
“Name
the three groups of Southeastern Coastal Indians,” I said from my spot in the worn, red corner booth at Oregano’s.
Lindsay didn’t pause as she refilled the Parmesan containers on the tables. “Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian.”
I consulted my study notes as we prepared for the next day’s test in Alaskan history and culture. “Who founded the first permanent Russian settlement on Kodiak Island?”
“Grigory Shelikhov.” She snapped the Parmesan container closed. “Murdering bastard.”
I winced. But Shelikhov had, in fact, murdered hundreds of indigenous Koniag in order to establish Russian dominance on the island. Similar story as the one for the Lower 48, just different white guys coming from a different direction.
“Have you studied for the essay portion yet?”
Lindsay moved on to refilling napkin containers. “Some. I think I’ll be okay. Comes pretty easy to me.”
History was her favorite subject. She did well in it without really trying. She had a good chance of following in my sister Kristen’s footsteps to become a history teacher. That would certainly put her several notches above the rest of her family on the ambition scale.
“So, I have a question for you.” Lindsay stopped her tasks and leaned one hand against the booth across from me. “Any idea how milk got in Drew Chernov’s locker?”
“I think I tripped as I was walking down that particular hallway consuming my daily vitamin D.”
She barked out a laugh, the first I’d heard in weeks, and wrapped me in a crushing hug.
The ringing of the phone allowed me to breathe normally again. I studied my notes as Lindsay took someone’s order. Learning the names and dates and facts, which I’d always found interesting, held less appeal than it used to. Most things did. I thought of the untouched sketch pad on my desk, then refocused on my notes, trying to keep the image at bay.
“So, next question,” Lindsay said as she slid onto the end of the booth opposite me.
Before I could formulate a question, the front door opened. In walked Caleb Moore, alone. Lindsay slid out of the booth without looking to see who’d entered. When she saw Caleb, she started and turned to me. Her eyes had gone huge, and her body tensed. A sure sign she had it bad—nothing typically freaked her out like this.
“Calm down,” I said under my breath so Caleb couldn’t hear me. “Just treat him like any other customer.”
“Not that many hot customers come through the front door,” she hissed back at me before heading to the front counter.
True. Freddie McClain had passed up hot a long time ago—if he’d even ever been hot in the first place.
“Hey,” Caleb said with a smile.
“Hey.”
I hoped only I could hear the tremor in Lindsay’s voice because I knew her so well.
“What can I get you?”
His smile grew wider, and I’d swear I could see a blush beneath Lindsay’s dark skin tone.
“I’ll take an order of bread sticks and a Coke.”
Hmm, didn’t sound like a big, dinner-type order. Was it just an excuse to come in and see Lindsay? Did he regret how he’d allowed Drew to steer him away from her? If so, I had to give the boy some credit. Maybe by being new in town, he’d just needed time to figure out the lay of the land socially.
I tried not to be too obvious about staring as Lindsay wrote down Caleb’s order and called it back to Casey.
I watched Caleb’s face. He did have a nice smile, and his eyes seemed kind.
“I couldn’t work here,” he said as he leaned against the counter. “I’d be as big as a house.”
Lindsay quirked her eyebrow. “Somehow I doubt that.”
He leaned forward. “Maybe I should see if I can get hired on. Then we’d see who’s right.”
Lindsay nearly spilled the Coke she’d poured.
Caleb chuckled. “You okay?”
“Yes.” Lindsay, poor thing, wasn’t very convincing. She couldn’t even bring her eyes up to meet his.
Caleb, however, didn’t take his eyes off Lindsay. I was surprised the undercurrent wasn’t visible. If nothing else, I believed he was genuinely attracted to Linds.
If Drew got anywhere near the restaurant in the next few minutes, I’d tackle him and drag him across Town Park by his nostrils.
I caught Casey’s eye as she prepared the order, and she gave me one of those raised-eyebrow looks.
Caleb took a sip of his drink but still didn’t take his eyes away from Lindsay, even when she had to pause to take another order.
“I thought of something else I want,” he said the moment she hung up the phone.
“Okay.” She reached for the order pad.
Caleb placed his hand over hers. “You won’t need that.”
I held my breath, and I’m pretty sure so were Lindsay and Casey.
“Oh?” Lindsay said.
“I’d like to take you out for dinner sometime.”
“Oh,” she said again, disbelieving.
“What do you say?”
Lindsay opened her mouth, and for a few seconds, she looked like a fish out of water. She glanced at me, and I found myself nodding.
“Sure.”
“Chow’s, tomorrow night?”
This time, Lindsay smiled. And I saw a joy in her dark eyes that I’d never seen. It made me sad and happy at the same time.
“Sounds nice,” she said.
“Great. I’ll pick you up around six.”
Panic flared on Lindsay’s face, and I knew what she was thinking. She didn’t want Caleb to see her meager home, which sat above the confluence of the Naknek River and Pebble Creek.
“How about we meet there?”
Caleb, agreeing, didn’t seem to notice anything strange.
By the time he left, I was about to combust.
Lindsay waited until Caleb walked across the park and disappeared before bouncing back to our booth.
“Oh my God! He just asked me out!”
I saw the look of worry mixing with her excitement—worry that this would hurt me. Just because I felt Spencer’s loss had left a hole where my heart should be didn’t mean my best friend couldn’t move on and find a shred of happiness.
“I know. I heard.”
“Eavesdropper.”
I let out a laugh. “Tell me where I could be in this building and
not
hear what you said.”
She met my eyes. “Is this okay with you?”
It took all the willpower I could muster to keep the pain from showing on my face. I pushed the idea of the dates that never were back into the recesses of my mind. “Of course it’s okay. I’m happy for you.” I just hoped it didn’t end in heart-break for her. “Of course, if he hurts you, I’ll have to run him over with a snowmobile this winter.”
She smiled at me, and that joy I’d glimpsed seemed to glow within her.
“You know,” Casey said from the doorway into the kitchen. “If I were a decade younger, I’d give you a run for your money. I feel like a dirty old woman saying it, but that boy is not bad to look at.”
“Good thing you
are
old,” Lindsay teased her.
“Careful, missy, or I’ll dock your pay for being a smart mouth. Or for flirting on the clock.”
Lindsay made a dramatic show of covering her mouth. Casey, who was only about thirty and very pretty in a natural way, rolled her eyes and returned to the kitchen. “Good thing I’ve got a hot date with a pilot from Dillingham tomorrow night,” she said over her shoulder.
No longer able to concentrate on studying, I watched as Lindsay waited on two couples I didn’t recognize. Probably tourists staying upriver at the Brown Bear Lodge. They smiled, Lindsay smiled. Everyone looked happy to be alive—and happy to be part of a couple.
I swallowed hard and looked out the window at the darkness cloaking Tundra. I imagined Spencer walking out of the darkness. But no matter how long I stared out into the night, he didn’t appear.
I stopped in the middle of the school hallway and laughed. Spencer stood with his arms outstretched, showing off a longsleeved white tee with a green leprechaun pursing his lips and the words “Kiss me, I’m Irish” emblazoned across the chest.
“What, not going to take me up on it?” he teased.
I pushed past him, wishing I had the nerve to surprise him with a monster lip lock. Instead, I kept my tone light and teasing like his. “Maybe if you actually were Irish.”
“Not even a peck on the cheek?” he asked as he followed me.
Not even a peck on the cheek, because I would want so much more.
CHAPTER 16
 
After
finishing my homework and chores on Saturday, I retreated to my room, feeling tired and restless at the same time. The low clouds and lessening of the daylight hours didn’t help my mood. How was I going to make it through the darkness of winter?

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