Chapter 39Rose
Chapter 39
Rose
“N ope, I haven’t heard anything from her yet—or her dad.” I grunted as I hefted the grocery sacks onto the counter. My phone, with Lauren on speaker, sat near Rafe’s Post-its where I’d left them this morning.
Duct-taped to the butcher block and going nowhere.
When she’d called, I’d just walked through the front door. I’d dropped the sacks on the floor to answer—and to fend off Pirate. The alarm system had come in a distant third.
Now the persistent beeping was driving me crazy—and it wasn’t a far trip.
“Hang on, Lauren—I’ve gotta disarm the alarm before they call.”
Luckily, in recognition of the leaping-for-joy-knocking-you-over greeting expected from an excitable Lab, I’d programmed my new system with 250 seconds—the max—to cancel the alarm. Well, re programmed, that is, after the default thirty seconds proved a no-go when the monitoring center had called five times in as many days.
“I’m back,” I announced. “Let me start getting things into the fridge and freezer while we talk.”
“All righty,” she agreed and paused as I rummaged around in the sacks. “How are you feeling?”
“About like you’d expect,” I shared. “My head aches, my eyes are gritty, and my throat is still craggy. I couldn’t stomach anything but coffee so far today, but that’s got to change. That’s why I stopped and got some food for the rest of the week.”
“Geez, Rose. You could’ve called on Jen or Mica to help out.”
“I know, I know. They were great last night at keeping me distracted. But I need to let them get back to their families. Hey, at least I managed to hold it together at the café this morning. The kids were pretty gentle with me—you know how they pick up on stuff. Or maybe Mateo said something. Anyway. Only one or two of the regulars asked when Rafe was coming back.”
“Oh, girl. What’d you say?”
“You know me—I had it planned out. Said he was already contracted elsewhere for roasting jobs the next several months. And that we’d all miss him.”
“So you didn’t see him before he left? You guys didn’t talk again?”
Wait. What the fido? Two unopened pints of Tillamook Chocolate Peanut Butter had been stuffed in the door rack of the freezer. I thought Finn had eaten us out of ice cream house and home when he was here.
Now I was trying to find room for my perishables down below—and not seeing a square inch of space.
“Rose? Rose? Are you there?”
“Lauren, can you wait another sec? I gotta go check something.” I slammed the fridge door closed and dashed over to the pantry. When I slid in and switched on the light, I froze. More shelves jammed full of evidence that Rafe had struck again.
I returned to the island and grabbed my phone. “Hang up, Lauren. I’m calling back for a video chat.”
“Rose, are you okay? Do you need help? Are you in danger?”
“Yeah, I’m in danger—of losing my mind. I’m okay, but I want you to hang up. I need to show you what Rafe left…when he left.”
It didn’t take long, and we were back on our call. Video this time, switched to the back camera.
“Why are you showing me the inside of your refrigerator?”
“Notice anything different?”
“Well, yeah. It looks like the produce, dairy and meat sections hooked up for a threesome and moved into your fridge with their love children.”
I stopped panning and started giggling. Which turned into coughing and hacking, thanks to my hoarse throat.
Lauren talked over me, not concerned at all. “Quit waving the damn phone around. You said you went grocery shopping so…?”
I recovered enough to lift my phone and show her the two obviously still-full grocery sacks sitting by my fridge. Circling the island, I stepped back into the pantry to train the camera on the shelves. Chock-a-block with canned goods, cereal, bags of pasta, boxes of rice, flour, sugar, raw veggies—you name it, it was there. In multiples. It looked like I was all set to survive a once-in-a-century-snow-ice-sleet-hail-storm the likes of which Portland had never seen. Maybe throw in an earthquake for good measure.
“Oh,” my never-at-a-loss-for-words bestie breathed out.
“Yeah,” was my equally brilliant response.
“A little over-the-top, even for Rafe.”
“Ya think? And that’s not all.”
I motored out to the island and held my phone over the row of Post-its. Starting at the left, I moved slowly along, giving Lauren plenty of time to read each. Her “oh” was followed by a series of gasps.
“But wait. There’s more.” I switched to the front camera and gave her “big eyes” before I thumbed the text icon to whisper, “ Just got in. Easy drive, no snow. Straight to roastery to meet owners. Sending house address later. Princess pissed at me. Set alarm? Eat breakfast? ”
“Wow. That’s a book for him. How did you respond? Or did you?”
“I was overwhelmed by all the Post-it action,” I said.
“Understandably,” she assured me.
I went on, “He must’ve texted right when he got to Boise this morning to let me know they were safe—as promised. Which meant they left in the middle of the night.”
“Rose, you did get back to him, didn’t you?”
“Yes, about an hour later. Short and not as sweet.”
“Uh-oh.”
“In my defense, I was still sorting out his Post-its, and I hadn’t seen his grocery shopping spree yet,” I wailed.
“What. Did. You. Text?” My girl wasn’t letting me off the hook.
“ Thanks for letting me know. Pirate pining. Yes. No. ”
She winced. “Harsh, Rose, harsh.”
“Lauren, I don’t know how to feel!” I almost, but not quite, shouted at my bestie. “When we met up yesterday, I laid it on the line. He cut me off—shut me down. I cried, got mad, cried some more. I said awful things to him, hurtful things.”
She made some comforting noises, but I steamed ahead. “Then I come home to find everything that Rafe’s bought for me. And that’s after everything he’s done for me in the past couple of months. When he knows I detest needing help or trusting anyone for help.”
“Does he know?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you tell Rafe why you’re afraid to count on anyone for help?”
“I’m not afraid of anything!” I protested. “I’ve got it all under control.”
“Sure, girl, sure,” she said soothingly. “But did you ever think that Rafe might be the one who needs to be needed?”
Ooh…with his past, with his growing up. Maybe I need to get over myself.
I squeezed my eyes shut and pinched the bridge of my nose. One tear worked its way down my cheek before I brushed it off with my fingers.
“Rose, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
I interrupted her. “It’s okay, Lauren. There’s just too much right now—I can’t process it all. You know what I’m going to do?”
“What’s that?” my patient friend asked.
“I’m going to cram my groceries in the fridge, take Pi-Pi for a walk and lock us in for the evening,” I informed her. “After wrapping up in my old flannel robe, I’m going to self-medicate with a pint of chocolate peanut butter and binge on Elvis movies. Hopefully, I’ll be tired enough to fall asleep.”
“Or crash from all that sugar,” she said helpfully.
“Hey,” I protested. “I figure the protein in the peanut butter cancels the carbs in the ice cream.”
Lauren snorted. “Girl, the only thing healthy about you is your imagination.”
We ended our call in the usual way— a kiss for Baby, an ear rub for your pup— and I proceeded to hunt down space in the fridge and pantry for all my stuff.
When I said, “Pirate, let’s go for a walk,” he nearly ran me down getting to the front door. I followed at a more leisurely pace, passing by the bookcases in the living room.
“Dusty, dusty,” I muttered to myself, sliding my fingers along a shelf. I hadn’t dusted recently, even for Thanksgiving. I stopped where there was a long gap between two framed pictures.
Huh. Did one of them fall? I glanced at my feet. Nothing. Shoved behind the other photos? I did a quick survey. No.
The penny dropped. While Rafe left a lot of things for me, he left with something for himself.