Josie Day Is Coming Home (36 page)

He said it proudly, as though he’d devised the perfect
reason she should stay at Blue Moon. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the reason Josie
was waiting to hear.

“That’s it?” she asked.

He spread his arms. “It’s enough. You can’t bail out on
your obligations.”

Completely disillusioned, she set her jaw. “Watch me.”

Not looking at him, she tucked her shoes safely between the
car door and her clothing pile. She added her hair extension to the niche below
the glove compartment. There. Everything was stowed. Everything except her.

“Your dance school is your dream,” he insisted.

She turned, her temper suddenly flaring. “You might not
have noticed, but my ‘dream’ is over with. I don’t have a dance school. I don’t
have a
place
for a dance school. Which is fitting, since I also don’t
have a job or a place to live.”

“Stay here.”

Her mouth gaped. “As what? Your live-in joke generator?
No, thanks. I know you must be bummed that the fun’s over with, but you and TJ
will just have to find some other stupid girl to laugh at.”

“It wasn’t like that. You know that.”

“You’re right. It was worse. Because I
believed
you.” She sucked in a ragged breath, determined to go on. “I guess
that’s just how stupid I am. Apparently, stupid showgirl Josie Day can’t tell
the difference between love and a lie.”

Luke frowned. If she hadn’t known better, she’d almost have
been persuaded by the grief in his eyes, by the defeated angle of his
shoulders. As it was, Josie hardened herself against both. She was finished
believing in him. Just like Luke was finished believing in her.

That was what hurt the most. She’d really thought he
believed
in her—believed in her dreams and in her chances for achieving them. She’d
thought he’d seen the real her and loved her. Instead, he’d only been
pretending. Lying, all along.

“I’ll buy you a new studio,” he said, sounding
exasperated and gruff. “I planned to all along. It’ll be better than Blue
Moon, better than that ballroom. There’ll be mirrors and a ballet barre. A
sound system. All that stuff you wanted.”

Revelation widened her eyes. So
that
was why he’d
dodged her about outfitting her studio. He’d known all along she would never
have it—would never succeed.

“Don’t do me any favors.”

“I
want
to do you favors. Any favors you
want.”

But she couldn’t believe him. Wouldn’t.

“You made a fool of me, Luke! You let me run around
town, fighting everyone.” She gulped in a breath, feeling tears threaten
again. “Fighting to make my dance school happen. All along, you
knew
I wouldn’t succeed. You knew I
couldn’t
! Not without Blue Moon. But you
didn’t care.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Enlighten me, then.” She crossed her arms.

He opened his mouth, stared into the distance, seemed unable
to muster a reply.

“I see.” Turning, she headed for her beat-up
Chevy’s driver’s side door, gravel crunching beneath her feet.

“Jesus, Josie! Give me a minute, will you?”

Looking frustrated, Luke gazed at her. Beseechingly, he held
out his arms. All she could see were the inky tattoos she should have heeded
all along.
Think twice.

“No. I gave you everything I had.” Summoning all
her strength, she palmed her keys. Opened her car door. “Obviously, it
wasn’t enough. Neither was I.”

Her vision blurred, but she refused to cry.

“You were all I wanted,” Luke said.

“Maybe.” Her throat squeezed, making the words
hard to get out. “Or maybe you wanted Blue Moon more.”

He scowled…but he didn’t deny it. That was when Josie knew
it was time to leave.

“You said you don’t have anyplace to go,” he said,
sounding aggravated, sounding disbelieving, sounding at the end of his rope—as
though
she
were the one causing all this hurt between them. “Where
do you think you’re going to go?”

As if he really wanted to know.

“Anywhere but here,” Josie said and finally drove
away.

Luke was still standing there when TJ drove up in his truck,
blaring the horn and grinning like an idiot. He parked in a flurry of dust,
then ambled over with a breakfast of a strawberry shake and curly fries in
hand. Smelling them reminded Luke he hadn’t eaten. Not that he cared.

“Dude! Wassup? Besides my bad, crazy self, I mean. What
a night…if you catch my drift.” He waggled his eyebrows—an impressive
feat, given the size of them. “Me and Amber totally hit it off.”

“She seemed like a nice girl.”

“Yeah. I’m almost tempted to stay in this Podunk town,
instead of going back to L.A.”

Back to L.A.
Luke had been so wrapped up in Josie, he
hadn’t thought about his plans to go back home.

Grinning, TJ munched one of his fries. He offered a couple
to Luke, who silently shook his head. With a shrug, TJ looked over his
shoulder.

“Hey, I thought I just saw Josie driving toward town. I
guess that repair job on her Chevy’s starter worked out okay, huh?”

Luke nodded. He put his hands in his pockets, feeling as if
he’d just been kicked in the gut. He still couldn’t believe Josie had gone.
Watching her leave him had been worse than his fight with his dad. Worse than
being estranged from his family. Worse than losing his former fortune. Worse
than all of it.

He’d thought Josie saw the real him—the real,
motor-oil-splattered self everyone else wanted to ignore. He’d thought she
loved him. But no woman who could bail out on him this easily could ever have
loved him, Luke decided in that moment.

TJ peered at him. “You look weird. Did you wake up to a
Clay Aiken song on your clock radio this morning? Eat a bad burger? Lose a
fight with your nose hair clippers?”

“Huh?” Snapping back to reality, Luke focused on
the last thing TJ had said. “I
knew
you borrowed those clippers.
Your Sasquatch schnoz is the reason they’re dull, you asshole.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault. Blame those
Queer Eye
guys.
I’m hyperaware of body hair now.”

Luke shook his head. He was in sorry shape. He couldn’t even
be bothered to give TJ hell about watching reality makeover TV. Next thing he
knew, he’d lose his taste for Ding Dongs.

Damn. There it went.

Aching, he turned away. He didn’t want TJ’s super-spy vision
detecting any other expressions of misery. Things were bad enough without
having to
talk
about everything.

“I’ve got things to do,” he said, keeping his
voice curt as he scanned the roofline and upper story of Blue Moon. “More
repairs to make. We’ve been slacking off. If I’m ever going to unload this
place, it’s got to be up to snuff.”

“Be serious,” TJ scoffed. “You’re never
unloading this place. Josie needs it for her dance school, and you’ve got
plenty of work in your carriage house garage. I saw that Kawasaki you got in
yesterday. Bent forks, right?”

“Josie’s gone. So’s her dance school.” Jesus. He
could barely force the words past his constricted throat. Swallowing against
the ache, Luke examined the estate’s grounds. Blue Moon was all he had now.
“My ‘garage’ is strictly small-time. I want more.”

TJ goggled. “Josie’s gone? Gone where?”

Luke shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

Frowning, TJ stepped forward. “Why did she leave? What
the fuck did you do to her?”

That did it. “I didn’t do
anything
to her! She
just left. She quit on her dance school and she…left.”

Yeah, Luke thought. Josie quit on her dance school, just
like she’d quit on him. It was her fault things had wound up this way. Hadn’t
he given her a chance to stay at Blue Moon? Hadn’t he offered to buy her a new
studio? A better studio?

Damned straight, he had. He’d been reasonable. She was the
one who’d pushed, who’d misunderstood, who’d run away.

“I don’t believe it.” TJ’s stance was rigid.
“Josie’s not a quitter.”

“You keep telling yourself that,” Luke said.
“Maybe you’ll start believing it.”

“I
do
believe it, you asshole.”
Dumbfounded, TJ smacked him on the shoulder. “What did you do to make her
go away?”

Pissed off and hurting, Luke stared him down. “Go on.
Smack me again. Give me an excuse to kick your ass.”

TJ shook his head sorrowfully. “Somebody ought to kick
yours,
that’s for sure.”

“Think you’re tough enough? Huh?” Luke shoved TJ’s
chest. “Come on.”

The contact enlivened him, made him feel purposeful for the
first time all morning. Adopting a fighter’s stance, he waved TJ forward. A
knock-down, drag-out fight sounded pretty damned good right now. Maybe if he
was busy pummeling TJ for being such a jerk, he’d forget the sight of Josie
walking away.

But TJ only held up both hands in surrender. He gave Luke a
look filled with pure disgust. “You’re pathetic. And you know what? I’m
glad Josie’s not here to see it. If you were thinking straight, you would be,
too.”

He got in his truck, offered a final glare, then drove away.
For the second time that day, Luke was left staring at the vacant drive,
wondering how his life had gone from perfect to empty in the space of a single
morning.

Force of habit made Josie hit the brakes as soon as she
turned into Pine Acres and passed the familiar handmade sign (
children
playing, please slow down
) posted on its weathered two-by-four stake.
Keeping a close lookout through her misery-hiding sunglasses, she gripped the
steering wheel and kept going at a fifteen-mile-per-hour pace.

The trailer park’s curvy asphalt streets were as mazelike as
they’d been when she, a gawky sixteen-year-old, had learned to drive on them.
They wound past every variety of mobile home, some with awnings and skirts,
most with patio slabs in tidy backyards. A few trailers looked worse for the
wear. They showed their age in sun-faded pastel siding and staked-out plastic
flamingos that hadn’t been pink in years.

Josie had thought coming here would be painful. Instead, she
found it strangely comforting. Driving past the same chain-link fences,
stubborn petunia beds, and broken-down cars up on blocks left her feeling that
some things really did continue. That goodness and comfort really could survive
in a world where your dreams got crushed and your job got lost and your dance
school went bust and your mansion went kablooey and the man you loved turned
out to be someone you didn’t really know at all.

Gulping back a sob, she kept going. All she had to do was
navigate another right turn, drive past the Pine Acres community rec center,
and then…there.

Josie parked her car in her parents’ drive, behind the
pimpmobile and her father’s old Toyota. She sat there for a minute, listening
to the pings and sighs of her engine cooling. She drew a deep breath.

The Day family’s double-wide trailer didn’t look very
different. It was still baby blue, still decorated with an awning and poured
concrete porch steps, still showed off swag curtains at the living room
windows. Josie remembered looking at those windows on her walk home from the
school bus stop, thinking that they looked like fancy eyelashes on her house’s
face. Then, she’d believed theirs was the nicest trailer in the park.

She wasn’t that naïve anymore.

It was probably just as well.

Straightening her sunglasses, Josie drew in another breath.
She opened her creaky driver’s side door and climbed out, sparing a glance for
her piled-up things—they’d be fine here for now—and for the yard to her left.
Marigolds grew in concentric circles at the base of the mailbox. They were
probably her mother’s handiwork. Nancy Day liked keeping up appearances.

She knocked on the door. It was Sunday, she recalled when
there was no immediate answer. Maybe her parents were still at church. Or maybe
they’d peeked out the swag-curtained windows and spotted her, and had decided
to give her a taste of her own medicine. Gripped with misery and a strong sense
of regret for having dodged them when she’d come to town, Josie knocked again.

The door opened, releasing the aroma of smoked bacon and eggs.
Her father stood on the threshold, dressed in his Sunday best Haggar trousers
and a short-sleeved checked shirt, his hair combed back. His expression looked
unreadable.

“Josie,” he said.

Oh, God.
Not this. Not him. Not now. She knew she
wasn’t strong enough to withstand another battle with her dad. She should have
gone to Jenna’s, Josie thought in a panic. But with two kids, Jenna and David
didn’t have room for company.

Blinking behind her sunglasses, Josie distracted herself by
adjusting her knit cap. It still wasn’t very warm.

“Hi, Dad,” she said awkwardly. “Is, um, Mom
home? Because I need…well, I need….”

To her mortification, she couldn’t force the words out. Her
throat closed up around a fresh onslaught of tears. She felt her chin wobble,
her face begin to crumple. No, no, no.

A harsh breath. “I need a place to stay for a
while,” she blurted.

Silence fell. The world looked too hazy with unshed tears
for Josie to gauge the expression on her father’s face. All she knew was that
he didn’t say anything for what felt like eons. He was right, she told herself.
Her parents didn’t have to help her. She was a grown woman. It was stupid to
come crawling home like this.

“Your mother’s here,” he said. “But I can
handle this.”

Oh, God. Oh, God. He sounded so…stern. So tough.

Had she ruined things between them forever by confronting
him? Steadying herself for defeat, Josie fisted her hands.

“You stay as long as you want,” she heard her
father say.

He opened his arms and hauled her to him. Josie stumbled in
her three-inch layer of wool socks, but she landed against his big, broad
chest, and her dad caught her securely. He patted her on the back, his manner
hearty and humbled and filled with compassion. His aftershave penetrated the
haze of her disbelief—and everything else within wilting distance.