Chapter 2
“I know it’s late,” Blue said as he stood at Jo’s lemon-yellow front door, still in his uniform. He sniffed the air. “Something smells delicious.”
“Enchiladas.”
“Do you have any left over? I didn’t eat dinner.”
Jo sighed. “Come in.”
He closed the door behind him and stood there, one hand on the door frame, the other at his side. He didn’t make a move to hug her.
She waited for a beat, then walked back to the kitchen.
Across the street, through the kitchen window, Jo watched Knox meet Junie at the front door. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her under the porch light, then they went inside together, his arm across her shoulder, with Junie leaning into him and laughing.
She looked away.
Jo stared at Blue, who stood awkwardly waiting at the counter as if this was the diner. He hadn’t called in two weeks; he’d blown through their vacation, and he’d walked through her door like it was a restaurant. And now he wanted enchiladas.
At least he had the decency to look sheepish.
“It’s been a long day,” he said.
“Aren’t they all?”
Jo went to the refrigerator and pulled out the baking dish she’d put in a little earlier. She set it on the counter, peeled back the foil, and plated two enchiladas. She didn’t bother heating them. She added a scoop of guacamole on the side and set the plate in front of him at the kitchen counter.
Blue sat down on a stool and looked at the food. He picked up a fork but didn’t eat right away.
“Do you have any beans and rice?”
“That’s only at the diner,” she replied sharply.
He looked at her and raised his brow.
“This isn’t the after-hours diner, Blue. If you wanted the full plate, you should have come in for the dinner special.”
His expression shifted. Hurt flickered in those deep blue eyes. She hadn’t expected that. She’d seen Blue absorb a lot of things, but he’d always been sensitive about food. Not the food itself, but what it meant when someone cooked for you.
Food had always been their love language.
He picked up his fork and took a bite. “These are really good, Jo.”
“Junie seemed to think so.” They’d be better if they were hot, she thought. He was trying.
“You had dinner with Junie?”
“I made plans with her when I couldn’t reach you.”
Looking down at his plate, he said, “I’m sorry I didn’t pick up messages. A lot was going on.”
He ate another bite, then another.
Despite herself, she brought a container of salsa from the fridge and set it beside his plate, along with a glass of water, without a word. She knew what he liked.
“Thanks,” he said.
They were silent while he ate. Jo washed the dishes from dinner and watched him from the corner of her eye, waiting for him to talk. Something was off about him tonight, beyond the usual awkwardness of a man who’d made a mistake and didn’t want to talk about it.
Even though he said they needed to.
Blue kept rotating his neck between bites like he was working up to something.
Finally, he said, “Sadie and Elyse say hello.”
She’d never gone with him on his trips back home because he never invited her. He didn’t visit often, though.
Still, she liked his sisters. They were Chicago through and through. Straightforward, down-to-earth, the kind of women who said exactly what they thought. She’d met them when they’d visited the island, and she’d gotten along with them, although they had never fully warmed to her.
Not in any way she could point to or complain about. No harsh words, no cold shoulders. Just a vague sense that she was temporary. A placeholder in a seat they were saving for someone else. Another woman, maybe from Chicago, who understood the family and what they’d been through.
Their mother was kind to her, but that was all. Jo was just the girlfriend.
Jo knew the Blumenthal family had been grieving for years, especially the eldest sister, Sadie. Charles was still sorely missed.
She watched him finish the enchiladas and pushed his plate forward.
“That was awfully good, thanks for making those for me.”
“You’re welcome.” She’d started to correct him but decided that would be petty.
Whatever was going on between them, she wasn’t going to be cruel. Blue was a decent man, just complicated.
And he was clearly building up to something.
He raised his hand to his mouth and coughed.
Jo’s pulse quickened. “Yes?”
“Could I have more water?”
Her heart dropped, but she took his glass and refilled it. As he drank, she studied him. He looked like he was at a crossroads. Maybe it was being back with his family, visiting his brother’s grave, or sleeping in the house where he grew up.
A thought occurred to her.
Was he getting up the courage to ask her an important question?
That question?
Of course she loved him. As upset as she’d been when he hadn’t returned after determining his mother was fine, Jo had to admit that she still loved him.
No one else had ever come close. She loved him even though his resistance to commitment had kept them in a holding pattern for years.
But that didn’t mean she had to sacrifice herself for him.
In truth, she’d also resisted this relationship. She didn’t want to be her mother. Jo had watched that wreckage up close. She’d promised herself she’d never rush into a relationship or settle for less. But she was in her thirties now.
She’d seen another friend go through IVF and come out the other side with a beautiful little girl. The window she’d always told herself was wide open was starting to narrow, and she could feel it.
If Blue was going to propose, she needed to be ready to answer this time.
Finally, she couldn’t stand this non-conversation any longer. “What’s on your mind?”
Blue took a breath. “When I got back to the station yesterday, Lieutenant Torres asked me to do another promotion for the department. Sort of like the calendar.”
His eyes shifted to the spot on the wall where her calendar had hung, though he didn’t comment on its absence.
“Are you shooting another one?” Her boyfriend as a cover model wasn’t something she was likely to forget.
Blue rubbed the back of his neck. “Not exactly. The chief got a call from a reality TV producer who’d seen the calendar. They want to interview me and follow me around for a while. Torres says it will be good for tourism and the community.”
Jo put her hand to her cheek in disbelief. Of all the things she had imagined he was going to say, this was not on the list. Not even close.
“So, you’ll be on TV. For how long?”
“Just one episode, I guess. Unless they want more. They said I had the look they wanted, whatever that is.”
“Oh, you know what that is.” She allowed a small smile.
He dipped his chin. “I hope you won’t be upset if it attracts attention.”
Jo lowered her hand and looked at him. Blue Blumenthal, who hunched his broad shoulders if someone looked at him too long, and who’d once left the diner because a woman got too familiar and insisted on taking selfies with him in uniform.
This man was going to be on TV?
Part of her wanted to laugh. Because this wasn’t what was making him so nervous. The show might be embarrassing, but once it was over, she suspected Blue would secretly enjoy having done it, as he had with the calendar.
Blue was a man who’d survived real trauma. A TV interview wouldn’t make him avoid eye contact with her.
Something else had happened in Chicago.
“Is that all that was concerning you?” she asked.
Blue only shrugged. “Can we start over?”
He came around the counter and wrapped his arms around her. His badge caught a button on her blouse, and she shifted against it.
“I missed you, Jo. I really did.”
He held her close, and she let him, because his arms were warm and familiar, and she was tired of being angry.
“What do you want, Blue?”
“I want us to go back to the way we were,” he said, nuzzling against her neck. “I know I ruined our vacation. You were looking forward to Yosemite, and I should have come home sooner. I’ll make it up to you.”
“When? You have no more vacation days.”
“I’ll figure it out. I promise.”
Jo stood in his arms, warming to him. His heart thumped against her cheek pressed to his chest, and she detected a trace of the bergamot and cedarwood cologne she’d given him.
As good as he felt, hollow promises weren’t what she wanted. Going back to what they’d had was the problem. She’d been treading water in this relationship for too long.
“I need to think, Blue.”
He pulled back and looked at her. “About what?”
“What I want for my future.”
She saw a flash of concern in his eyes. “We’re good together, Jo.”
Why wasn’t he understanding? He wasn’t dense. He knew what she was getting at. She’d thought he might propose on their trip to Yosemite.
Instead, she said, “Go home. You need your beauty rest, Mr. TV star.”
“See, I knew you’d be upset.”
“Not about that. But I have a lot on my mind right now. The diner, the coffee project, everything.”
Blue nodded slowly and pulled away. He picked up his keys from the counter and walked to the door, where he paused.
She wanted to call him back, but she couldn’t.
After the door closed, Jo stood in the kitchen surrounded by vintage family dishes and the lingering smells of enchiladas and cologne.
Something wasn’t right about that Chicago trip. She could feel it the way she could feel a shift in the weather before a storm gathered.
If Blue wasn’t going to tell her, maybe there wasn’t anything. Or maybe he’d come out with it later, the way he usually did, when the pressure built up enough to break through the wall he’d constructed around the problem.
For now, she had other things to think about. Her coffee project was sitting in a folder on her kitchen table. If Blue could take two weeks to sort out his life in Chicago, she could take a few days to sort out her own.