Snow Falling on Bluegrass (16 page)

Charlie had been dating a Swedish milkmaid. Charlie was on the verge of a “complicated” relationship with said milkmaid. That's what he wanted to tell me before, that he was dating someone else.
After
he'd slept with me, he was going to tell me that he had a girlfriend.

I closed the Facebook profile and stared at the phone in my hand like it was an incendiary device.

10

In Which I Officially Hate Everything

Rage.

White-hot, follicle-singeing, supernova rage fueled my progress down the hall and up the stairs toward the room that Charlie and I had just christened. I didn't remember walking back past any of my coworkers. I didn't remember having coherent thoughts or a plan. I only remembered my mother's words to me on the phone the day before, “When men feel neglected, they stray
.
” And I wanted to scream. Charlie had strayed, all right, but he had used me to do the straying.

I threw the rec room door open to find him meticulously folding blankets. He offered me one of those lopsided grins, and I swear I felt my heart crack inside my chest.

“Hey there, I'm thinking for the next fort, we should do more of an Arabian Nights theme,” he said, gesturing at the pile of blankets and pillows.

“Awesome,” I picked up one of the scavenged pillows and swung it wide, smacking Charlie in the face.

“Ow!” he cried, toppling over the table.

“Laura sent you a bunch of texts. She sounds like a nice girl; you should get back to her.” I tossed his phone at him, and he caught it in one hand. He glanced down at his screen and confusion skittered across his features. “And don't even start with me about looking through your phone. Maybe it wasn't the most trusting gesture ever, but don't try to turn it around so somehow that's worse than you and your dickery.”

“Kelsey, wait.”

“No, what the hell is wrong with you?” I exclaimed. “What about me makes you think I would be okay with sleeping with you while you're dating someone else? You know! You know what I've been through, Charlie! I thought you were better than this! I thought you were different!”

“Kelsey, I tried to tell you earlier, but you cut me off.” Before I could whack him again with the pillow, Charlie caught me by the elbows and tried to drag me close to him. “I have been seeing someone. In fact, I dated a few girls in the last few months.”

“Why couldn't you tell me that?”

“I did tell you, I wanted to find someone to build a life with,” he said. “I wanted to have a relationship, get married, settle down. And that was never going to happen with you, not as long as you let Darrell cling to you like a barnacle. So I started seeing someone else. Laura's a nice girl. She's an old friend from school. You would like her, but I'm sure you know that now that you've read the texts from her.”

“Oh, don't play Mr. Wronged Party on His High Horse now because I ‘invaded your privacy.' You don't know—”

“No, I do know. I know that right now, you're acting off the script you've built in your head for dealing with that asshole. Stop treating me like him, Kelsey. And don't tell me I don't know what you've been through, because I'm the one who has watched you get run down over and over again. I'm the one who had to watch you get hurt.”

“Well, you can watch me get hurt all over again, Dr. Bennett, only this time you're doing the hurting. It's a real step up for you.”

“Kelsey, don't do this. Just talk to me.”

“No, I'm not going to do this again. I deserve more. I deserve better. And I . . . I just give up.”

I turned on my heel and swept down the hall, down the stairs, and through the lobby. Sadie called out to me as I passed, but I shook my head and pointed to the back door. My boss nodded, brow furrowed, but only said, “Dinner's at five, Kelsey.”

I burst through the door, gulping in as much freezing-cold air as I could. I trudged toward the lake, my boots sticking in the diminishing snow with every step. When I finally reached the water's frozen edge, I let out a scream that probably frightened whatever marine life fluttered underneath the thick ice.

“Sonofabitch!” I yelled. “No good, rotten, lying, cheating, mold-licking scumbag!
Twilight
fan!”

I fell to my knees in the snow, sucking in a shocked breath as the cold soaked through my jeans. This was sheer stupidity. I was courting hypothermia and ruined pants, but I needed this. I needed to rid my body of all this poisonous rage. I'd held it all in for so long, not just with Charlie, but with Darrell and my mother, just swallowing down their garbage and keeping it, because . . . what? I deserved it? I deserved nothing more? What was so wrong with me?

I was smart. I was capable. I was strong enough to put up with the combined bullshit of two of the most toxic personalities this side of
Dr. Phil
's stage. And I was hot, damn it. I'd taken the criticism from said toxic personalities over the years because it didn't seem worth fighting over. But I had a mirror. I knew what I looked like. Darrell's excuses about my body were just that, excuses. He couldn't perform because of his own issues or because he was so busy cheating on me, he couldn't maintain his stamina. He turned the focus on me to avoid talking about his receding hairline and blossoming waistline.

I deserved better than this.

“You okay?”

I turned to find Luke standing over me, hands outstretched to help me up. I took them and he pulled me out of my snow-crouch. “No. No, I am not.”

Luke hugged me and I pressed my forehead into the welcome warmth found in the crook of his neck. He rubbed his hands over my back, trying to keep me warm as I blinked tears into his jacket. “Didn't know about her, huh?”

“No, I did not.”

A long silent moment passed and Luke just held me, rubbing his hands over my back, trying to bring me comfort. “I'm more than willing to let you use me for revenge. Just think of my body as a big playground of naked vengeance.”

I gave an indelicate donkey bray of a laugh.

“You're so weird,” I told him. “And in a perfect world, I would climb you like my own personal monkey bars. But I've been in love with Charlie Bennett for years—I mean unrequited, dramatic, epic fangirl love. And he just ripped my heart out and did the safety dance all over the poor little sucker. I can't start something with someone else right now. You are a fantastic guy, and you deserve somebody who can handle all of this”—I gestured to him—“without all of my baggage.”

He gave me a little squeeze. “Well, if you change your mind, the offer stands.”

“Thanks,” I said, smiling up at him, which was almost a miracle in itself. He leaned close and kissed me, a soft, friendly brushing of the lips against mine. In the distance, I heard the scrape of boots marching through the snow. I opened my eyes to see Charlie standing a few feet behind us, his expression thunderous.

Frak my life.

“I hate to
interrupt
,” he spat. “But Sadie's looking for you.”

“Aw, sonofabitch.”

“You really know how to strike a blow, don't you?” Charlie seethed.

“Go away, Charlie!”

Charlie turned on his heel and walked off with his spine iron straight. But he paused about ten yards away, staring up at the lodge like he was debating going in.

“Sorry about that,” Luke said, seeming honestly mortified.

“At least he didn't hear me professing my undying love for him. I got to keep what's left of the shreds of my dignity.”

“I'll walk you back to the lodge,” Luke said. “You can't stay out here in the cold like this. As soon as the electricity is back on, we can have food that wasn't cooked over a fire. And I'll let you into any of the guest rooms you want, as far away from everybody else as you can get. Before you know it, the roads will be cleared up and you'll be out of here.”

“Are you trying to placate me? Like I'm a toddler having a tantrum?”

“That depends. Is it working?” he asked, leading the way toward the lodge.

“Sadly, yes.”

“Well, it's good to know that I can still pick up on some signs,” he said as we pushed through the back door, into the dining room. Through the entrance, I spotted Charlie storming through the lobby and into the guest wings. Gina was smirking at me so hard I thought the expression might become her new bitchy resting face. The rest of the staff were standing around the fireplace, still as statues, mesmerized by such un-Charlie-like behavior. Sadie turned toward us, brows furrowed, and said, “Kelsey, what the heck—”

An insistent mechanical whine interrupted my boss's perfectly reasonable question. With a steady flicker, the lights surged to life and the dining room was bathed in a harsh electric glow. We all blinked and shaded our eyes with our hands, our now-antiquated vision unaccustomed to newfangled 'lectric lamps.

“Everybody else sees the lights too, right?” Theresa asked, waving her hand in front of her face.

A triumphant roar rippled through the room, and everybody began hugging everyone else. But the others, even Bonnie and Sadie, knew enough to give me a wide berth. I watched as they danced and cheered, half expecting them to burn our chore boards in the fireplace. I wanted to be part of that joy. I wanted everything to rewind to thirty minutes before, when I was in the pillow fort love bubble, blissful and ignorant.

“Okay, okay, okay!” Sadie called over the din. “Everybody calm down. The electricity could go off again, so for now, let's make some dinner while the kitchen is operational. Luke, can you crank up the thermostat, try to get some heat flowing?”

“Will do,” Luke said, giving me a nod before retreating to the office.

“Dorie Ann, you're in charge of dinner,” Sadie said. “Something that doesn't come out of a can, if you can find it.”

“Yes, boss!”

“Gina, just be quiet and try not to cause any problems,” Sadie said, making Gina sneer. She turned to Tom and Jacob. “And you two, your beard-growing contest is a draw. There is no winner in this situation. Go shave,
now
.”

While everyone else was eating dinner, I moved my stuff into a guest room two floors away from the block of rooms Sadie had reserved. Excepting Bonnie and Sadie, I doubt anyone noticed my defection. They were too busy reveling in warm private rooms and well-lit showers.

For twenty-four hours, I didn't come out. Not for meals, not for drinks. I didn't even come down for the morning “Hey, the electricity's back on, here's how we behave now that we've returned to polite society” meeting. I took multiple long, hot bubble baths. I foraged for food after everybody else went to bed.

I took advantage of my newly charged computer and my cell phone wireless hot spot and caught up on missed e-mails. My mother called repeatedly, until she stopped. Darrell had left increasingly distressed messages. I managed a Skype chat with my boys to assure them that I was whole and healthy, if more than a little depressed.

I didn't care if it was unprofessional to pull my postmodern Howard Hughes impression. I didn't care if it was immature. I just needed some time to process and be alone for a little while.

The next morning, I woke up and pried myself out of bed, took extra care with my makeup, and slipped into a flame-red sweater dress that hugged me in all the right places—because screw Charlie, that's why—then sashayed down to breakfast as if I didn't have a care in the world.

In my absence, the others had worked some feat of housekeeping magic on the first floor. All signs that we'd spent the better part of two weeks camping out in the dining room had been cleared away. It was all so normal and mundane that I felt a keen sense of depression welling up from my belly. It was like our being snowed in had never happened. It hadn't meant anything. I snagged a cup of coffee from the buffet and diverted my steps outside onto the porch before anyone noticed me.

I knew I wouldn't last long outside without a coat, but it was worth the cold to know that I could go back inside to a fully heated, well-lit building. I just needed the air to clear my head, to help me focus.

“Please, God, I know that we haven't talked a lot lately, but if you can just get me home to Frankfort without having some sort of humiliating
Real Housewives
outburst, I would really appreciate it,” I murmured into my coffee.

I heard someone clear their throat and turned to find Will sitting back in a rocking chair with his feet propped up on the railing. He had a large buckhorn knife in one hand and a block of wood in the other. It sort of resembled a duck . . . or a turtle. Either one. He looked totally at ease, and for some reason that really pissed me off.

“Are you actually whittling right now?”

Will smirked. “I'll be honest, I have never done this in my life. Not once. But it was getting sort of noisy inside with everybody's gadgets back up in order, and I couldn't think of a way of sayin' ‘Your coworkers are drivin' me nuttier than squirrel crap' to Bonnie without hurtin' her feelings. So I came out here for a time-out.”

“That is a harsh sentiment.”

“Since nobody wanted me inside flashin' a big knife around, whittlin' seemed like the best solution.”

“You're a lot smarter than people give you credit for, Will McBride.”