My mouth drops open, and I sag into a seat in front of Barney’s desk. “Of course, why didn’t I think of that?”
“You were thinking bigger, and in Cedar Hill, that was the right thing to do. In Old Harbor, I was looking a little closer to home. She can’t drug all her customers, that would make it too easy to pin her down. But I think one out of every three, four hundred customers, eventually she’ll get everybody who wants a sugar fix now and then. All it takes is a taste.”
I wince. I know how true that is.
“What are your plans?” he asks.
“I was snowed in with Rick Mercer during the blizzard. The Portland Pioneer sent me up here to get an interview, and he was kind enough to let me stay.”
Barney grunts. “He doesn’t talk to anybody. I’m surprised he didn’t throw you out on your ear.”
“It was close, but by then it had already started to snow.”
“Did you get your interview?”
I quirk the corner of my mouth. I forgot about asking because our relationship turned into so much more. “No. I fell in love and wouldn’t have printed it even if he would’ve talked to me.”
“I like it. But what are you telling me for?” he says, turning a hand in a circle, urging me to continue.
“Because when I go back to Portland, I’ll go back emptyhanded, and I won’t have a job. I have to relocate my sister, who’s taking classes at the U of Portland and get her situated here, but before I do that, I’m headed back to Cedar Hill. Rick told me about his accident, and my reporter’s nose started twitching. I need to sate my curiosity before I move here.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “For Mercer?”
Poking my tongue into my cheek, I say, “Well, it’s difficult to get married when you live in one town and he lives in another.”
Barney laughs, his white teeth gleaming against his dark skin. “I suppose it would be. What time frame are we looking at? January?”
I have enough savings to last me until then, but it would be great if I didn’t have to rely on it. “I can spoon feed you stories remotely for a while. I’ve got a bunch of ‘Life in Minnesota’ articles that would be okay for your Lifestyles section. Otherwise, while I’m looking into Rick’s accident, I’ll keep my ear to the ground and write some gossipy Cedar Hill stuff. Filler.”
He sinks behind his desk. “Okay. I’ll put you on the payroll starting tomorrow. Email me your CV—I need it for HR. I’ll hire you on salary. Less than what you were making at the Times, but more than what you’re making at the Pioneer, I bet. The second you get a chance, send me what you have. I’ll have my Lifestyles and Entertainment editors take a look. My Lifestyles editor is going on maternity leave in February. She isn’t coming back. What would you think of that?”
“Would I still be able to work on my own things?”
“Devyn, I didn’t just hire you to sit around and proofread someone else’s articles. When you get situated, I’m going to need your help getting Sweet off my streets.”
I stick out my hand. “Then you’ve got a deal.”
I’m buzzing when I step into Century 21’s offices and introduce myself to a realtor who’s going to help Talia and me find a place to live. Our living situation is tricky right now. Love is strange. I can love Rick, be so desperate to be with him I’m willing to move my sister, settle her into a new college, and find a new job for myself, yet, I barely know anything about him. We’ll need to date—I’m holding him to those Milk Duds—and once we know for sure this is going to work, decide what we’ll do. He likes the lighthouse, but it would be too small for the three of us. It’s not that I don’t think Talia can’t live on her own, it’s that I don’t want her to if she doesn’t have to. Moving into a house with an apartment attached would be the best of both worlds, but that will be something I’ll need to speak to Rick about if he’s not so spitting mad he doesn’t want anything more to do with me.
He told me to leave this alone, but I can’t.
It’s the way I am, and he’s going to have to love that part of me if he’s going to love me at all.
I pocket the woman’s card and promise to call when I’m ready.
The coffee I bought at the gas station is almost cold, but the conversation I had with Barney was worth it.
I text Talia I made some headway and that I’m on the way home.
The roads are clear, and each mile I drive away from Old Harbor, my heart grows heavier and heavier. I miss him like crazy. The tender way he’d hold me, or the way he’d slowly push into me. He went at me hard last night, trying to show me what he couldn’t say.
Rick won’t pursue me, and that’s okay, I understand. Maybe he would have if his ex-wife wouldn’t have left him the way she did, but the damage is done. He doesn’t believe she hurt him, but I think she hurt him more than the crane’s boom falling and crushing him into the ground. I’ll have to prove that I’m in it for good, but it’s not like I haven’t had to prove myself in other ways.
When I’m close to the Portland city limits, I call Rick wanting to hear his voice. His cell rings and rings and after it goes to voicemail, I hang up. I don’t know what I would say in a message. I text him instead and use the voice-to-text feature to let him know I made it safely and to have a nice night. If he’s already starting to pull away from me, thinking this isn’t going to work, we’re going to have a problem. I’m not going to let him do that. I’m rearranging my life to be with him. The least he can do is be on board.
We should have said the words.
He wanted to.