Just a Summer Fling (18 page)

“I can’t decide if I should be calling Kevin up and trying to get my twenty bucks back or not,” was the opening line, delivered by a smirking Scott Mason. “I mean, maybe your threesome didn’t happen that night, but—”

“Watch your mouth,” Josh said as levelly as he could. He tried to make the warning sound like an expression of concern, not a threat. “You can talk about me, but you don’t want to drag other people into it.”

“Is that what they like?” Scott leaned in a little as if inviting a confidence, but his voice was loud enough for the whole café to hear. “The chivalrous thing?”

“You should probably fuck off now, Scott.” Josh turned away and willed Abi to make her damn sandwiches a little faster.

“Don’t be so touchy,” Scott said, and he clapped a hand onto Josh’s bruised shoulder, pressing just a little too hard to make the contact feel like an accident.

Josh refused to wince, or to reply. Scott had always been an asshole. This level of hostility felt like part of something more, but it wasn’t clear what the bigger picture might be. Josh didn’t want to get involved in something he didn’t understand.

“What’s she like?” It was a female voice now, younger and sweeter than Scott’s. Josh turned to find Emma, the cousin he’d taught to ride, standing with a friend he vaguely recognized. Emma had just graduated from high school, but she sounded younger as she gushed, “She’s so beautiful, Josh. Does she spend a lot of time making herself look so good?”

Josh shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Are you guys, like,
going out
?”

Josh almost wished Scott would start talking again, but the asshole was just standing there smirking instead. “Sorry, I need to order,” Josh said, and then turned hopefully toward the counter. Abi was still working on the other order but she gave him a sympathetic smile and then said, “We did good business this weekend. Lots of hungry tourists.”

It should have been a good topic change, but Scott had apparently decided to get back into things, saying, “Celebrity scandals must make people hungry.”

“Are you done eating, Scott?” Abi raised her eyebrows and looked toward the door. “We don’t encourage loitering.”

Scott snorted in disbelief but Abi stared him down. And Scott finally turned, grumbling, and headed out the door.

“Thanks,” Josh said when Abi turned to him.

She just made a face. “What did you expect?” She reached for his favorite multigrain bread. “You’re the talk of the town, until something else comes along. Suck it up.” She slapped some cheese on the bread and slipped it in the toaster oven while she sliced the avocado. “And Josh? If you and Ashley . . . I mean, she seems really nice. I like her, I think. But if you and her keep going? You’d better get used
to this stuff. You know?” She softened her words by giving him extra turkey and bacon without making him ask for it.

He ate his lunch on the way to his next job, and was relieved to find no one home to fire him. He mused about planning the rest of his week that way; he could do work on all the empty homes and put off getting fired by the rest of his clients for as long as he could. But it would just drag out the pain, he figured. He didn’t want to spend the whole week waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The entire thing would have been easier if there was anyone but himself to blame for it all. But there wasn’t. He’d made his mistake, and now he was facing the consequences.

Mindful of his near-useless morning, he worked late, right through the heat of the afternoon into the cool of the evening. As his bruises complained, he let himself think about Ashley. Her smile, her warm body . . . and the way he’d frozen her out that morning. At least he’d salvaged a bit of that with the kiss good-bye.

He wanted more kisses. And more of everything that might come after kisses. It was time to pack up his tools.

He knew he should go home and get cleaned up and then call her as she’d requested, but instead he pointed the pickup toward the lake house. Maybe they could go for a swim and let the cool lake water cleanse him of his sweat, if not his sins.

There were two people walking down the side of the road as he neared the cottage and he slowed to make sure he didn’t startle them, then recognized them and felt his stomach tense. After everyone else, it would be too much to have one final rejection. Especially from the Ryersons.

But they smiled and waved as he drove past. It made him wonder whether they’d heard about it all, and then he decided not to think about that anymore. They were okay with him right then. And Ashley was waiting for him right then. So he’d live right then, and not worry about the next day.

That positive attitude got him all the way up Ashley’s driveway, parked, and heading for the front door. And it blossomed into something strong and buoyant when he heard a peal of her laughter from inside the cottage. He’d had a hell of a day, but he was about to be with Ashley. Everything would work out.

Nineteen

“THEY FIRED YOU?
I mean, the McArthurs . . .” Ashley combined her shrug with a sort of burrowing movement, snuggling her way further into Josh’s warm, strong chest. “That’s not exactly a shock. But other people did, too?”

“You heard them making the threats,” Josh said. He sounded exhausted, but even in that state it had taken Ashley almost an hour to drag the story of his day out of him. They’d driven out to the cabin after he’d stopped by the lake house; he’d needed to get home to look after the animals, and she hadn’t minded the prospect of a little privacy. Now, stretched out on Josh’s sofa with Daisy curled up at their feet, Ashley was almost completely content. If only Josh wasn’t having such a bad time, and if only Ashley had gotten the same chance to audition that Charlotte had. But she was focusing on Josh right then, not herself. His voice was resigned as he said, “If they make me, they can break me. That sort of thing.”

“But they didn’t make you!” Then Ashley realized that
she wasn’t exactly sure that was true. “I mean . . . did they? You worked hard, right? You do good work at a reasonable price? That sort of thing?”

Their fingers were twined together, their joined hands resting on Ashley’s stomach. He’d squeezed hers just a little as she spoke, and she knew it was meant as a gesture of gratitude. “I’d like to think so,” he said, and he kissed the top of her head. For a man who’d started off as prickly as a hedgehog, Josh was surprisingly snuggly once she’d reached his soft underside.

“So they’re just being bullies, then!”

Ashley could feel his chest rise and fall as he sighed. “They
did
give me a lot of referrals. I guess they’re just taking them back now.”

“That’s not what referrals are supposed to be, though! I referred my cleaning lady to Charlotte, but that was a favor to Charlotte, not to my cleaning lady. I had a friend who was looking for someone to provide a service, and I knew someone who could provide that service. That doesn’t mean Charlotte has to fire my cleaning lady if I get mad at her!”

“What if your cleaning lady did something really bad? What if she stole from you?”

Ashley shook her head vigorously, even though the motion temporarily disturbed her snuggling. “That’s not what happened here! Jasmine McArthur is not something that can be stolen. She was the instigator in all this—you told me that yourself. If I hired a cleaning lady and then I . . . if I planted some of my jewelry in her purse, and then beat her up over it, and
then
told Charlotte to fire her? What would I be?”

“Totally psycho,” Josh said. He shifted a little, sliding down so he was stretched out a bit more on the couch, making their bodies line up in an interesting new way. “But I don’t really know what you’re talking about, anyway. All this stuff about people getting fired? That’s stuff that happens
out there, right?” He kissed her as his hands began to roam with a little more purpose than they’d had thus far. “But we’re in here. And in here, none of that matters. Right?”

She smiled into his next kiss and then squirmed around so she was lying mostly on top of him. “Right,” she said. “We’re in here. And this is all that matters.”

Those were the words she said, but later, lying in the darkness of the bedroom and listening to Josh breathe beside her, she decided the words weren’t exactly true. The whole thing with Jasmine had flared up because Ashley had come to town and gotten involved with Josh, so the results of the flare-up were Ashley’s fault. And as bad as it was to think of Josh hurting, it was even worse to think that he was hurting because of her.

She might be powerless in her own career, but that didn’t mean that she had no influence whatsoever. Maybe she couldn’t help herself, but she could damn well help Josh. And she damn well would.

*   *   *

JOSH
figured he’d lost about half his clients in the space of three days. Not bad, he told himself. Or, at least, it could have been worse.

And there was a bright spot on the work horizon: the Ryersons had spontaneously come up with a plan for a sort of pavilion on a big rock above the lake and wanted Josh to build it.

“It’s for storm watching,” Mrs. Ryerson explained. “Both of us love a good storm, but we’re a little too old for standing out in the rain and getting soaking wet. We figure if we wear raincoats and have some shelter, we can still get a good view of it all.”

“I should look into a lightning rod or something,” Josh mused. “And we’ll have to make sure that the path up there is nonslip. But still, you could get hit by lightning on the way from the house, couldn’t you?”

“That’d be a hell of a way to go,” she replied almost wistfully. “But take whatever precautions you think we need, if there’s something you think would make it safer. There’s no point in being a fool about it.”

Josh was up on the site measuring and checking the slope when Mr. Ryerson made his way up and sat down on the bench that had always been there. “We were lucky to get you for this job,” he said after looking out at the lake for a while.

Josh knew what the old guy was getting at. “I guess so,” he said. “I’ve got a lot more time than I thought I would, all of a sudden.”

And apparently that acknowledgment was what Mr. Ryerson had been waiting for. “I’m sure it’s a bit uncomfortable for you,” he said slowly. Then he looked out at the lake again, long enough that Josh finished up his work and began to wonder if it would be rude to leave. Finally, Mr. Ryerson said, “We used to have a Sheltie. You know the dogs? Like Lassie, but a quarter the size.”

Josh nodded in general agreement, and Mr. Ryerson said, “She was afraid of thunder and strangers. And cats. Any sort of machinery.” He shook his head. “She wasn’t much of a dog, really. But you know what she was good at? We took her to a farm once, visiting a friend, and she saw a herd of sheep and took off after them like she was possessed. Herded them up together, ordered them around the farm from pillar to post. No reason for it, of course. The poor sheep were just supposed to be eating grass. But the dog just did it because she could.”

Mr. Ryerson smiled at the memory, then turned to Josh. “I think those sheep liked being herded. They wanted someone to tell them what to do, even if it was just a yippy little dog who was afraid of her own shadow.”

Josh was pretty sure he was getting the point of all this but he didn’t think he could really go along with it. “David McArthur isn’t afraid of his own shadow. He’s . . . I don’t
know what the hell he is, but he’s a powerful man. Rich and successful.”

Mr. Ryerson didn’t object to Josh’s interpretation of his little dog story, but he didn’t seem impressed with Josh’s rebuttal, either. “So just imagine how those sheep would have reacted if a real dog had been chasing them around. If it had been Lassie instead of Yippie.”

“Your dog’s name wasn’t actually Yippie, was it?”

“Might as well have been.” Mr. Ryerson shrugged dismissively. The dog’s name wasn’t important. “I’m just saying, don’t take all of this personally. You know? The people who are firing you are sheep, that’s all. It shouldn’t be something you worry about, not deep down.”

“Mr. Ryerson . . .” Josh didn’t want to say it, but he also didn’t want this kind old man laboring under false impressions. “I was sleeping with David McArthur’s wife.
I
did that. I snuck around with her, doing something I knew was wrong—”

“If it’s any consolation, I don’t think you were nearly as sneaky as you thought. Seems like the whole town heard about it long before David McArthur found out.” He raised one of his over-bushy eyebrows. “And nobody had a problem with you until the sheepdog started yipping.”

“
I
had a problem with me!”

“Well, that’s different. That’s something to worry about.” He looked out at the lake for a while, then said, “Were you unhappy because she was married, or because she was just using you and you let her?”

Jesus, when had this innocent measuring session turned into whatever the hell this was? Josh was tempted to leave, but Mr. Ryerson looked so kind, and so gently expectant. Josh thought about the question. “More because I let her use me,” he admitted.

“Good. I’ve always thought it was the responsibility of the people in the marriage to look after it, not everyone else.”
He looked at Josh for a long moment, then slowly said, “At least, that’s what I told myself when I started wooing Mrs. Ryerson, even though she was married to another man.”

Josh froze, then slowly turned to look at the old man on the bench. Mr. Ryerson nodded slowly. “I’m a homewrecker,” he said. He didn’t sound ashamed, exactly, but he wasn’t laughing, either.

It took a moment for Josh to collect his thoughts. “You really love her, though,” he said.

“I do. So I fought for her. I didn’t let anything get in the way.”

Josh didn’t want to admit that he’d barely even liked Jasmine McArthur. “I don’t think it’s quite the same thing,” he managed.

Mr. Ryerson nodded. “Nope. Not the same. I’m just saying, there’s always going to be people ready to judge other people. Ready to jump on any bandwagon. I think it’s best to just ignore those people and consult
yourself
. Your own conscience. And your own sense of compassion.”

Josh probably didn’t want to know the answer, but he found himself asking the question anyway. “So this shelter I’m building, is this your sense of compassion at work? You throwing some business my way to help me out?”

Mr. Ryerson looked out at the lake again, and when he turned back he was fighting to control a smirk. “This shelter is purely selfish on my part. Mrs. Ryerson? In a storm?” The smirk broke free for a moment. Then he managed to curb himself and add, “A little electricity in a marriage is a good thing, Josh. A little extra excitement, even if it’s externally provided—”

Josh held up his hands in quick surrender. “Okay. I get it.” He gave his head a shake to clear the images, then made his voice businesslike. “So I’ve got two possible footprints laid out here. You want to take a look and decide which one’s best?”

“Well, I’d better call Mrs. Ryerson up to get her opinion, too.” The old man stood and headed for the path, then looked
over his shoulder. “A little electricity in life is a good thing. Remember to enjoy it.”

He shuffled down the hill, and Josh took a moment to check his phone messages. There were two waiting for him. The first was from a client who’d called two days earlier to say he didn’t think he really needed the boulders along his driveway rearranged after all. Now, apparently, he’d changed his mind and hoped Josh could get the work done as soon as possible. The second was from Larry Washburn, saying he’d reconsidered the latticework for his deck; since Josh had started the job, probably Josh should be the one to finish it.

It made no sense. Josh had considered the possibility that some of the lost clients might come back, eventually, when they got tired of being outraged and realized how hard it was to find a good handyman in the busy summer season. But two days was nowhere near enough time for that to have happened.

So what was going on?

The Ryersons arrived then, and Josh was distracted by their decision making. But as he was pulling out of their driveway half an hour later, he got another call, this one from a New York stockbroker who’d been one of the first to call and tell Josh his services wouldn’t be needed anymore.

Josh knew the rule about looking a gift horse in the mouth, but he wasn’t going to be able to just sit back and accept this good fortune. “I appreciate the interest, Sebastian, but I need to ask. Why’d you change your mind?”

Josh’s stomach tightened as he listened to the answer. And as soon as the call ended, he turned the truck toward Ashley’s lake house.

*   *   *

ASHLEY
was in a good mood, and seeing Josh’s truck pulling into the parking area at the lake house only intensified her feelings. But the happiness shifted to apprehension when she saw him stalking toward the door, a dark scowl on his face.

She heard Charlotte and Kevin greet him on the porch, heard him growl something back at them, and braced herself. “What’s wrong?” she asked as he pulled the door open.