Chapter Sixteen
F riday evening, Deirdre pulled up in front of the Three Bears. Time for groceries. No dinner with Calvin tonight. An hour ago, he had texted that something had come up.
She knew an excuse when she heard one, but whatever. It wasn’t like they were in a real relationship. Could someone be stood up if they weren’t actually dating?
She hadn’t been looking forward to a dinner out with him anyway. Too many kind but probing questions delivered in his calm, understanding manner would wear her armor away like ice slowly eroding a glacial ravine. Questions she wasn’t prepared to answer now, or possibly ever.
Truth be told, she couldn’t look at his caring, gray eyes for an hour and not break.
With cooler temperatures in early April, the slush had tightened up once again. She zipped up her coat over her tan sweater and rubbed her gloved hands on her wool pants. As she put her hand on the Subaru doorframe, she glanced at the Yukon Valley Diner next door to Three Bears and froze.
Entering the diner was a man with a familiar tall frame, although he slouched tonight, a winter coat collar pulled up over his neck. Despite the twilight, she could see him in the glass entryway of the diner. Calvin.
He had declined dinner with her tonight.
He was here, at dinnertime, tonight. In the place they were going to have a meal together.
She gripped the handle of the car door, unable to move. Sadness. Irritation. Relief. Betrayal and embarrassment rushed through her, like frigid debris and ice-laden water churning downstream to the ocean. She couldn’t filter it fast enough. Couldn’t pull that armor around her.
Damn it.
She mentally shook herself. Deal with it. He had something else to do, and it didn’t involve you. Things come up. Or he didn’t want to go out tonight.
There was no actual relationship.
No way was she going to explore why the situation bugged her, beyond the fact that she missed having the halibut special tonight. You weren’t actually dating. There was never anything to get over.
Deirdre and Calvin knew that, but the other folks in this small town didn’t, which was why they had set up tonight’s very public dinner to take away the need for friends and family to meddle. The plan was something along the lines of see all of this dating, folks? Good. Now go bug someone else.
As she closed the car door to head into the grocery store, a man in slacks and a puffy jacket strode quickly from an SUV into the diner. Something about that man seemed familiar. His jacket strained over a generous midsection, and he ran a hand through his dark hair that was thinning at the temples. When he glanced in her direction, she bent and pretended to search in her pockets for her key.
Who was that guy? She racked her memory.
Then Deirdre froze. The hairs on the back of her neck rose.
No.
No way.
She’d only met him once, in the lodge in early February. She hadn’t seen him in a jacket then, but the hairline and stature fit. He sported a light beard now, but the man sure looked like the jerk, Randy, who had tried to sue Deirdre and Mav’s lodge into foreclosure so that he could buy it out from under them and exploit the mineral rights on the property. Rubbing her eyes, she looked again, but he had entered the diner.
Couldn’t be him. Here? She thought he had run out of town scared after the incident.
What about the guy who stopped by Bruce and Aggie’s house and pressured them recently?
What if those two people were connected?
Her blood iced.
Calvin was in the diner shortly after canceling their date. Randy was in there. It had to be a coincidence that they were both in the same place at the same time.
How many coincidences were too many?
Doubt stopped her cold in her tracks. She had to know for certain.
Easing out of the car and closing the door softly behind her—as if someone would specifically hear her in the parking lot versus any other patron—she slowly strolled toward the diner. A family of four exited, chattering and juggling to-go boxes as they piled into a vehicle. Once they had pulled out of the parking lot, she slunk toward the nearest window and peeked in. Twilight meant that someone inside might see her. It also meant that she could see inside, though not as clearly as she would have liked.
She squinted. In the back of the diner sat Calvin and Randy in a booth, both visible in profile as they faced each other across the table. They appeared deep in discussion, and Calvin waved off the waitress so that he could continue talking.
Trying not to act like a complete stalker—who was she kidding, she was totally acting like a stalker—Deirdre pulled up her hood over her head and walked past the diner to the gas station, ducked inside, and made small talk with the cashier who, of course, knew her. She bought a few overpriced items and put them in a bag. Exiting after a few more minutes of idle conversation, she once more ambled by the diner.
Calvin and Randy were still there, only Calvin had stood. He stuck out his hand and after a two-second beat, the other man shook it with a curt nod. Calvin’s face in profile seemed hard. Clenched.
What was she seeing?
Her mind whirled.
Did it matter? Deirdre had already assumed the worst. Even if Calvin was having an innocent chat with the man who had tried to ruin her family’s business and steal their property, the act still seemed pretty underhanded.
Calvin had lied straight to my face so that he could meet with Randy.
She stumbled on a rough patch of slush and rock.
Yet, he hadn’t lied. That was the worst part.
Hurrying to reach her car in front of the adjacent grocery store, she fumbled for the keys.
Behind her, a bell clanged against metal. The front door.
Hurry. The keychain snagged on a thread inside of her pocket. Damn it.
“Deirdre?” Calvin’s voice reached out to her, ringing clear in the cold air.
Come on, come on. She ripped the keys from her pocket and hit the fob so the car unlocked. Slipping in, she didn’t bother with the seat belt as she engaged the engine and backed out, focusing solely on the rearview mirror.
Safety first, right?
If he jogged toward her car, she didn’t notice it. Not at all.
As she shifted into drive, she glanced out of the corner of her eye. Calvin’s mouth was open, but, with the closed windows, she couldn’t hear him. He half-lifted a hand.
She concentrated on the road like it was mission critical.
Petty? Maybe.
Dramatic like a high schooler? Not going to answer that question.
Ignoring another wave of stomach-clenching, adrenaline-powered unhappiness, she pulled onto the state highway and drove the mile or so to her house.
She quickly pulled into the garage and closed the door. There. Felt safer already. Her stomach growled.
So much for picking up groceries for dinner. Leftovers and gas station snacks would have to do.
She dragged herself into the house and made a sandwich out of cold cuts, sitting at the table and staring blankly at the wall. If the meal had flavor, she couldn’t detect it.
Ten minutes later, the sound of a car door closing outside made her lower back tingle. Then came footsteps on the front stairs and pounding on the door that made her drop the rest of the sandwich.
“Deirdre?” Calvin’s voice drifted through the wood. To her ear, his tone sounded guilty. “I know you’re there.”
There was no legitimate reason for him to be here. She had little sympathy for his frustration.
If he felt shame, it wasn’t because he had ditched her—it was because he’d been caught ditching her. He had met with the enemy, as far as Deirdre was concerned.
More knocking. “Let me in.” His words weren’t angry. More… pleading.
Hey, he’d stood her up, fair and square. Not like he could spin it in a way that would convince anyone with an ounce of pride. He would have known that she had seen him with the guy who tried to ruin her and Mav.
Not much more to say.
“Please, Deirdre. I can explain.”
She couldn’t hide forever. As much as she did not want to confirm her feelings and conclusions, at the end of the day she was a fully formed adult who did not back down from uncomfortable conversations. Unless they involved her personal life, apparently.
With a tug to straighten her sweater hem, she lifted her chin and strode to the front door and opened it.
Calvin’s chest rose and fell under his black winter coat, like he’d been running. She peeked out. His sedan was parked in front of her house. His face fell into strange shadows with the fading light behind him and lamp light from her house in front of him.
“I want to explain,” he bit out.
“There’s nothing to explain. You don’t owe me anything.”
“I think I do.”
“Why? You’re an adult. You can do what you like. We aren’t an item.”
He scrubbed at his face. “We kind of are. Or we should be. Or… damn it.” Another big breath moved his coat up and down. “I know that I canceled dinner without giving you an explanation. Then you think you saw me in the restaurant, but I wasn’t there standing you up.”
“You weren’t there? At the diner where we were supposed to eat?”
He leaned a fist against the doorjamb. “Yes. Okay, I was at the diner.”
“Then I did see you there. With that guy who tried to hurt my brother and me.”
“Yes, but I didn’t have dinner. With that guy.”
“So, you canceled on dinner, met Randy the asshole at the restaurant instead, and the fact that you didn’t consume food is the win in this scenario?”
“Fair.” He looked over his shoulder. A neighbor slowly walked their dog past Deirdre’s house. “Can I come in for a sec?” He held up his hands. “Please?”
Too emotionally wrung out and too exhausted to argue, she said, “Fine.” Then she stepped back.