Chapter 6
All day Monday, the anticipated pizza date-but-not-really-a-date with Ryder proved to be a distraction.
Will asked Elizabeth for the week’s receivables, and she delivered last year’s. When the phone rang, she answered, “Ella’s Diner,” and during the afternoon marketing meeting, she kept drifting off, staring out the window.
Was pizza at Angelo’s a date? It felt like a date. Rather, she wanted it to be a date. She still remembered how her hand felt in his that one Sunday morning. How his hand tight around her waist made her feel like she was his. How his touch sent a thrill through her when he examined her ankle.
Late Monday afternoon, Will entered her office and sat. “What’s up with you today?”
She gave him her surprised look. “Nothing. Typical day.”
“Anything bothering you?”
Part of her wanted to come clean and confess I think I have a date with Ryder, but we’re calling it a consolation prize. But the confession sounded so benign. Who cared about one date when she was leaving in six weeks? Her imagination was making too much of this pizza dinner.
“Does your distraction today have anything to do with tonight?” He sounded like her big brother-cousin. The one who cared for her. “Pizza with Ryder?”
“You know?” She sat back with a sigh. “What is with this family? Everyone knows everyone else’s business.”
“We look out for each other, support each other, and cheer each other on.”
“I’m not used to it, that’s all.” Elizabeth shuffled papers around, keeping her gaze averted. Will’s piercing eyes made her feel vulnerable, as if he could read her thoughts. “Mom and Dad raised Jonathan and me to be independent and self-reliant.”
“Don’t kid yourself. Pops and Granny raised all the Dorsey kids to be independent and self-reliant. Where do you think your parents got the idea? But they also raised us to care for each other, to be friends as well as family.”
“That’s well and good, but aren’t some things in life private and personal?”
“Yes, but some are meant to be celebrated.” Will headed for the door.
“Maybe you don’t want people to know because you’re hiding, Beth.
Not from us, but from life’s options. You think the only choice for you is education and a Fortune 100 company.
But what if the best for you is here, in Hearts Bend, with the family, with Ryder Donovan? ”
“Oh, really? Why don’t you just say what’s on your mind, Will?”
“I think I just did.”
“He’s in one of his moods,” Cheryl warned, nodding to Travis’s office, her eyes heavy with longer and thicker false eyelashes.
Ryder sighed. He’d woken up with a weak and throbbing knee—the race had been foolish—but his consolation, non-date pizza with Elizabeth tonight, eased a bit of the pain.
His nine a.m. appointment with his doctor went well. Yes, he’d given him the stink eye for running a three-legged race, but he’d predicted the knee’s full recovery and given him a shot of cortisone. Next week, he could return to regular duty if he took it easy.
Ryder planned to approach Travis about the fire tower refurbishment. He could do that without stressing his wounds.
“What’s triggered him this time?” he said to Cheryl, setting his water bottle on his desk adjacent to hers. Travis’s mood had been even more temperamental lately. He came in late. Worked behind the closed door. Scrutinized everything and everyone.
“I have no idea,” Cheryl said.
Leaning on his cane, Ryder hobbled to Travis’s office door, knocked, then peeked inside. “You wanted to see me?”
The large man jerked with irritation. “The refurbishment budget. What are you buying, Donovan, gold-plated screws and platinum nails?”
“No, sir.” He hadn’t done anything with the project in weeks. Since ordering the original pine and hardware. “You know what I ordered. I showed you the invoice.”
Travis leaned toward Ryder with narrowed, mud-brown eyes. “I’m getting heat from accounting. This is taxpayer money you’re spending, Donovan.”
“I’m not spending it.”
“Well, it’s charged to your refurbishment account.” Travis read from a printed-out report. “Cherrywood?”
“I ordered pine boards, which are still in my work shed.” Ryder hated being on the defensive.
“Not according to accounting’s records.” Travis rose to his feet and placed a hand on his thick hip. “Tell me now. Are you the one behind this illegal logging gang? We didn’t have this problem until you showed up.”
“Illegal logging…?” His skin burned under his collar. “No. And why don’t you tell me what this is really about?”
“Havoc in my department.” Travis pounded the desk. “Out-of-control spending. Losing valuable forest to chainsaws.”
“If you’re accusing me, then form an investigation. I’ll be happy to clear my name.” The job offer from Enzo paraded across his mind with great appeal.
“I’m not accusing you of anything. Yet,” Travis said. “But I’m up for promotion, and I won’t have my career toppled by you.”
“And I won’t have mine toppled by you.”
Back at his desk, Ryder dropped into his seat, his knee aching like a banshee.
Cheryl sashayed over. “I told you he was in a mood.”
After a moment, Ryder grabbed his keys, headed for his truck, and drove out of town. What was going on? Travis had been the reason he returned to Tennessee and the Cheatham WMA. Now the man treated him like the enemy.
Down River Road toward Wade Reed and the dilapidated fire tower, Ryder shook off the conversation with Travis.
The tension of the argument eased a little as he gingerly made his way up the tower’s rickety stairs, careful of the weather-worn boards.
Someone was messing with the department’s finances.
With illegal logging. And trying to pin it on him.
Will had some nerve, didn’t he? Suggesting she’d discover the best for herself in Hearts Bend? With the family. With Ryder. Which was crazy. He’d not so much as romantically held her hand or kissed her. He was nothing more than a good friend.
She reached for her phone a half dozen times to cancel the pizza not-a-date dinner. When she chickened out of that, she called Tina to see if she needed help at the diner.
No! Go to pizza with Ryder. Have fun, girl. You’re young.
Go to pizza with Ryder? Did the whole town know? Was it in the Monday paper or posted on the Gardenia Park bulletin board? Will’s comment about celebrations sat at her mental table. Some things are meant to be celebrated.
True. And nearly winning a heat in the Fourth of July three-legged race was toast-worthy. But who was she kidding? Tonight was about more than pizza with a friend. She felt it—the beginning of something lovely that, if she gave in, could overtake her.
She started when her phone rang. It was Ryder. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Maybe we should cancel tonight.”
Ryder scanned the panoramic view of lush green trees and rolling hills from atop the fire tower, waiting for Elizabeth’s response. Yes, he was worked up over Travis’s accusations, but that’s not what caused him to conclude Elizabeth wasn’t all that excited to join him at Angelo’s.
“Oh,” she said, a hint of a question in her voice. “I-I was sort of wondering the same thing. You think we should?”
“Do you? I think I talked you into pizza. You’re too nice to say no.” He raised his binoculars to check for signs of smoke. Among the green, he spied patches of dried, fallen limbs among dried brush. With another week of no rain, the WMA really needed to issue a fire ban.
“Give me credit, Ryder. I know how to say no.” The question in her voice turned to a lilt. “Will said something this afternoon about celebrating. And even an almost-win is worth celebrating.”
“He makes a good point.”
She sighed. “If I sounded like I didn’t want to go, I’m sorry.
It’s just I’m not used to everyone knowing my business.
Not used to a social life. I’m so behind in school, and I feel like if I don’t go to grad school and get that MBA, I’ll regret it as long as I live.
This is one of those do-it-now-or-do-it-never moments. Being sick—”
“You were sick?”
“Yeah, I was. For over two years. I don’t really like to talk about it. Anyway…you’d better not back out on me on pizza. I skipped lunch to be ready for garlic rolls, soda, and all the pizza I can eat.”
“Two years is a long time, Elizabeth. Are you doing okay?”
“I am. I just can’t overdo it. And remember the part where I said I don’t like to talk about it?”
Yeah, he’d heard, but that wasn’t good enough for him. He wanted to know everything about her—from her favorite color to her pet peeves to how she’d recovered and graduated from MIT with honors.
“Can I say you look beautiful and healthy?”
“All day, every day.”
Gladly. Ryder loved the laugh in her voice. “So, are we canceling tonight?”
“One does have to eat, and Granny doesn’t cook on Monday nights. She claims she has to recover from Sunday’s family dinner.”
“No one does Sunday dinner like Granny D. If we go to Angelo’s, we can order tiramisu.”
“I love tiramisu.”
“Then see you at six?”
“Six thirty,” she said. “Hey, Ryder, where are you? I hear birds.”
“At the old fire tower. Travis was…Never mind. I’ll see you tonight.” He felt dumb enough calling to cancel. He wasn’t going to whine to lovely Elizabeth—who’d battled illness for over two years—about his boss.
A warm breeze whistled through the broken boards of the tower, and Ryder vowed to give it all the love he could muster. Because broken things always needed love.
As Elizabeth got ready that evening, Granny fussed around Elizabeth’s room, up and down the hallway, humming the same tune over and over as she pretended to organize the hall closet.
“It’s no big deal, Granny. Just pizza,” she called, digging her white flip-flops out from under a pile of shoes.
Granny peered inside. “Did you say something?”
Elizabeth laughed. “I know you’re hanging around to see what I’m wearing.” She glanced in the floor mirror, then at Granny. “Well?” She wore white shorts, a navy-blue tank top, and her hair scooped into a top knot with curly tendrils around her neck.
“You look beautiful,” Granny said. “Can I give you some advice?”
Elizabeth pursed her lips and tipped her head to one side. “If I say no, will that stop you?”
“Doubtful.” Granny pulled out the desk chair and sat down. “Have fun, Beth.”
“That’s your advice?” Elizabeth searched her jewelry box for a pair of small blue diamond earrings. A gift from her brother Jonathan one Christmas. “Have fun?”
“You’ve been working sixty, seventy hours a week. It’s okay to let go a little, exhale, see how the other half lives. You don’t want to arrive at Wharton worn out. Your immune system is—”
“Fine, Granny. The virus isn’t active.”
“No, thank the Lord, but you can’t wear yourself out.”
“I won’t, I promise. Pizza with Ryder is me having fun.
” Elizabeth sat on the bed across from Granny.
She was so beautiful with her carefully combed silver hair and steady blue gaze.
“I try not to be stoical and serious, but after being sick for so long…I should be graduated by now and at my first job.”
“Beth,” Granny said. “It’s one thing to be sick. It’s another to let it steer your decisions after you’ve healed. Use what happened to you as a reminder that life is short. We never know what’s coming. Give yourself to the things you can take with you when you die.”
“And what would that be, Granny?”
“How well you’ve loved others. What you’ve done with your time, words, and money.”
“I try to do well with those things. It’s just that—”
“Oh, Elizabeth.” Granny hugged her close. “It’s just that you hate to give up on a plan.”
“Does that make me the bad guy? Inflexible?”
“No, it makes you determined. But don’t forget the importance of love along the way. Now go.” She turned Elizabeth toward the door. “Have fun tonight.”
Elizabeth had just arrived at Angelo’s when her phone pinged with a message from her friend Jordie.
Jordi
I got into Kellogg!! They took long enough to tell me. I was getting scared. But I’m in. If Wharton hadn’t accepted you, I’d beg you to come with me to Evanston. We could’ve roomed together. How’s it going in…where are you again?
Elizabeth
Congratulations! You’re going to kill it. Yeah, Kellogg is a great school. I’m in Hearts Bend, TN. Working in the finance office of the family biz.
Jordie
Great experience! When do you leave for Philly?
Elizabeth
First of August.
She hated lying, but confessing she’d been wait-listed felt like defeat. She simply had to keep believing.
She jolted at a tap on her window. Ryder. Leaning down, peering in, a soft expression on his very fine face. Elizabeth popped open her door.
“Sorry, texting with a friend. She got into Kellogg.” Elizabeth grabbed her bag, held her head high, and shut the car door with resolve. There was no need to tell Jordie, or anyone, the truth. Her good news would come any day now.
“Kellogg?” Ryder said. “Wow. I didn’t know you could get an advanced degree in Special K, Cap’n Crunch, or Rice Krispies.”
She laughed. “Really, yes, it’s all the rage among the Ivy League these days. And Cap’n Crunch is a Quaker Oats brand.”
“Wow, so you really can get an advanced degree in cereals. Who knew?”
Just like that, Ryder Donovan eased her anxiety. Like he’d always done in days and summers past.