Sugar Pine Trail

CHAPTER TWO

“SERIOUSLY? WE HAVE Book Club in less than four hours, and you’re only now checking out the book we’re supposed to be discussing?”

Samantha Fremont shrugged and swiped at a lock of auburn hair that always seemed to be falling into her eyes.

“I’m sorry, but I was in the middle of a Coco Chanel biography and I couldn’t put it down. Fascinating stuff, that. Anyway, I just need a copy to skim through on my lunch hour. You can tell me what happens, can’t you?”

Julia sighed and handed over a copy of Filling Your Well, the feel-good self-help memoir that had been chosen by this week’s discussion leader, Roxy Nash.

“It’s all about designing your life the way you want it, about taking chances and pursuing your goals,” she said,

“Oh. One of those books.” Sam made a face. “I should have known. Maybe I’ll stay home and watch reruns of Project Runway.”

“You have to come. We had a last-minute venue change, and it’s at my house.”

“Ooh. In that case, I’ll definitely be there. I understand Jamie Caine is living upstairs from you in all his glorious gorgeousness. How is it? Tell me everything!”

Julia rolled her eyes. “He’s lived upstairs from me for all of three hours now, and I’ve been working that entire time. It’s a little premature for me to offer an opinion.”

Samantha was a flirt of the highest order. In that, at least, she and Jamie were perfect for each other, though he was about a decade older.

“If Jamie lived under the same roof with me, I would never want to leave my house.”

Funny. Julia had the opposite reaction. She was wondering if she could bring a few blankets and pillows and camp out on the sofa in her office.

“I mean, think about it,” Sam went on. “He’s going to be showering up there. And sleeping, too, all warm and tousled and cuddly. I wonder if he wears pajamas.”

Julia’s imagination began to drift into dangerous waters, until she yanked it back safely to the shores of reality.

She cleared her throat. “Do you want to check out any other books to go with this one?” she asked, holding out Filling Your Well.

Sam gave a dreamy sigh. “No. This will do. Unless you know any hot romance novels featuring tall, gorgeous pilots.”

Julia could name several off the top of her head, but she had a feeling Samantha was only joking.

“I’ll make you a list and give it to you tonight. Maybe you can pick one for the next time you lead the book group,” she said, knowing perfectly well Sam’s tastes usually ran to celebrity memoirs and the occasional meaty historical drama.

“Perfect. So you said Jamie’s been there three hours. Has he brought any women home yet? Are they gorgeous?”

Oh, cripes. She hadn’t even thought about that.

“Again. I’ve been working here the entire time. I don’t expect I’ll have much reason to talk to the man at all.”

Sam looked disappointed that she didn’t have more dirt to dish up about her new tenant. “I might have to find some kind of excuse tonight to borrow a cup of sugar from your upstairs neighbor.”

“You would probably be disappointed. I’m not sure how many groceries he’ll have on hand. He seemed to be traveling light, just a duffel and a couple of boxes. One of them might have sugar, but I have a feeling baking cookies isn’t his primary goal in life.”

Sam snickered. “From what I hear, that’s an understatement.”

Why, oh why, had she ever said yes to Eliza?

Julia sighed and finished checking out the book for Sam. “Here you go,” she said.

“Thanks, sweetie.”

“Bundle up. It looks nasty out there,” she said, as her friend slipped the book club selection into her slouchy hand-sewn purse.

Sam tightened her scarf and pulled on matching mittens. “The perfect weather for an afternoon of cuddling by the fire with hot cocoa and a certain someone. I don’t have a fireplace or a certain someone right now, so I might have to settle for hot cocoa and the latest episode in the series I’m glomming right now.”

That actually sounded like a lovely afternoon to Julia, if she didn’t have to work.

“Here’s an idea,” she suggested. “You could always actually read the book you just checked out. We don’t meet until eight tonight.”

She would have preferred earlier, but the late meeting was a concession for those who had small children and liked to get bedtime out of the way first.

“Maybe. I’ll have to see. Catch you later tonight. Give Jamie a kiss for me.”

She rolled her eyes as Sam gave a cheery wave and headed out the door.

Sam always made Julia feel ancient. She wasn’t sure why. Yes, she was a few years older than Sam’s twenty-six, but thirty-two didn’t exactly make her a tottering old crone, did it?

Give Jamie a kiss for me. Why did Sam have to put that particular image in her head? The very thought of it left her feeling slightly breathless.

What was she going to do about this ridiculous crush she had on the man?

For the rest of the afternoon, she tried to put thoughts of Jamie out of her mind. It helped that the library was far busier than she expected for the Monday before Thanksgiving. She would have thought everyone in town would be too busy grocery shopping or cleaning their houses for upcoming family parties. Instead, a regular stream of patrons came through, renting videos, seeking reference information, or trying to go online. And plenty of her patrons still checked out books, much to her continual delight.

“Here you go,” she said as she scanned in Muriel Randall’s regular weekly allotment of cozy mysteries. “That should hold you for a few days.”

“I figured I had better stock up. We’ve got snow coming tomorrow, plus you’re closed on Thursday and Friday. I would hate to run out.”

Julia smiled at the neatly dressed older woman whose late husband had once run the butcher shop in town. “What are you doing for Thanksgiving dinner?” she asked.

Muriel slipped the books into her library bag with a smile that looked more than a little forced. “I was supposed to go to my son’s house in Boise, but his wife decided they should go to her family’s again this year. I’ll probably cook a turkey tenderloin and cuddle in with a good book.”

Julia’s throat tightened, both at the lonely image Muriel painted and because it felt entirely too familiar, given her own circumstances. “I’m helping to serve at the nursing home in Shelter Springs this year,” she said. “We can always use another set of hands. Why don’t you join me?”

“What could I do?” Muriel held up her shaky, wrinkled hands. “I’m not much good in the kitchen these days. I’m afraid I would cut myself.”

“There’s plenty to do. You can help set the table or set out water glasses or be the official greeter. I would love to have the company, and I would be happy to give you a ride.”

Muriel looked touched. “Thank you for the invitation. That’s very nice of you. It might be better than sitting home by myself.”

“Is that a yes?”

“It’s a maybe. I’ll think about it,” she said.

She smiled. “Perfect. Unless I hear otherwise, I’ll plan on picking you up about 10:00 a.m. on Thursday.”

“I said I’ll think about it,” Muriel said in an exasperated tone. “Give me five minutes to do that, would you?”

“You can have from now until 10:00 a.m. on Thursday,” Julia said.

The older woman snorted as she picked up her book bag and headed for the door.

After she left, Julia glanced at the clock. The library closed early on Monday nights and only a few patrons remained.

She walked through, reminding those stragglers that the library would be closing in ten minutes. To her surprise, in one of the alcoves in the children’s section, she found two young boys she had seen come in hours earlier after school.

They must be dedicated readers, since she had seen them here Friday and most of the day Saturday, too.

As a librarian, she certainly couldn’t find fault with that, though she did think it a little odd, especially since she hadn’t seen them here very often, prior to the previous weekend.

They looked up when she approached them. “The library is going to be closing in a few moments,” she said, glancing out the window where the gray light of early evening was punctuated by a few stray snow flurries. “Do you have someone coming to pick you up?”

The younger boy opened his mouth to answer, then closed it again with a quick, somewhat nervous look at the older boy. Up close, it was obvious the boys were related. Both had wavy hair the color of rawhide, a scattering of freckles across their respective noses and eyes the same shade of green.

The older boy, who looked to be about eight or nine, placed a hand on his brother’s arm—whether in reassurance or warning, she couldn’t quite tell. “Yes,” he said. “We can get a ride.”

“Good. It’s dark out there and can be dangerous for pedestrians, especially this time of year when the roads are icy.”

“We’ll be fine. Come on, Davy. Let’s put these books away and get our coats on.”

His brother didn’t look thrilled at the order, but he obediently scooped up the large stack of picture books beside him.

“You know you can just put them in the return cart, right?” Julia said. “That way we can make sure they’re reshelved in the right place.”

The younger boy nodded. “If they get all mixed up, people won’t know where to look if they want to read them. That’s what Clinton told me.”

“Clinton is exactly right,” she said. She always admired when children could be respectful of others. “Thank you so much for your help with keeping the library organized.”

She had other duties that occupied her attention for the next few moments, while she prepared to close down the library. Still, she kept an eye out for the boys as they returned books and loaded their belongings into two ragged-looking backpacks.

Who were these boys? She couldn’t remember them ever coming in with a parent or guardian. Come to think of it, she didn’t know if they had ever used a library card that might have an identifying name on it. They never checked out books, only seemed interested in reading storybooks in the library.

There was a time when she knew just about everyone in Haven Point. The town was growing so much these days, with the development of the new Caine Tech facility a few years earlier. New people were moving in all the time, and she found it hard to keep up with them all.

After she checked the library one more time, then turned off the lights and locked the door, Julia hurried outside. Her new matador-red Lexus SUV was the only vehicle in the parking lot, and when she unlocked the door, the intoxicating smell of glossy leather seats greeted her.

The engine purred to life, and she sighed with guilty pleasure. She loved this vehicle, even if it was a big reason her cash flow had slowed enough that she had to rent out the top floor of her house.

As she carefully pulled out of the parking lot, she noticed the two boys passing under a streetlight about a block down the road.

She frowned, troubled for reasons she couldn’t quite identify. They had lied when they said someone was picking them up. Though in retrospect, they hadn’t actually said that. We can call someone to pick us up. That’s what the older boy said, not we will call someone.

She hoped they didn’t have far to walk. Those stray snowflakes on the November wind could bite into bare skin like tiny, vicious arrows.

Where did they live? If the boys came in the next night and again stayed until closing, she would investigate further.

For now, she had to worry about the book club showing up at her house in twenty minutes.

And, of course, the man who suddenly lived upstairs.

* * *

ROXY NASH STOOD in front of the book club and gave a sharp smile that filled Julia with apprehension.

“Tonight I thought it would be fun to try something different,” she said.

“You mean like actually read the book?” Samantha asked in an undertone that made everyone sitting close enough to hear laugh.

“Since the theme of Filling Your Well is wringing every drop of joy out of life while you can, I thought it would be so fun for us to write down some of the things on our own bucket lists. We’re about to head into a new year. What better time for a little self-reflection?”

Beside her, Megan Hamilton groaned. “I already don’t like this,” she muttered.

Julia completely agreed.

“At least the booze is good,” Sam said, taking another sip of the autumn sangria Roxy had so thoughtfully provided for the book club.

Julia had to agree with that sentiment, as well.

“Ask yourself, what am I not happy about?” Roxy said to the room of twenty or so women gathered in Julia’s large living room. “What would I like to change about myself? Remember, this is not about resolutions. This isn’t about saying you want to lose ten pounds, though that might be a worthy goal. I want you to think a little deeper.”

“Fifteen pounds?” Julia murmured, which made Megan laugh.

Roxy didn’t seem to find their side comments amusing. She gave their corner of the room a stern look before she pulled out a stack of papers from a pink file folder.

“To help you out a little, I’ve printed out a form for each of us. At the top, it says, This year I want to... For this exercise, I’d like you to put at least five things on the list, things that have been hovering on the edge of your mind, things you might not even have admitted to yourself you want.”

“I want more sangria. Does that count?” Megan asked, making both Julia and Sam laugh and earning another glare from Roxy, which made Julia wince.

Considering she was the hostess for the gathering, maybe she should be setting a little better example. She dutifully got up to help Roxy pass around the papers, along with pencils from a tin she kept in her kitchen.

When everyone had a paper and a writing instrument, Julia returned to her seat and gazed down at the paper, not sure what to write.

For so long, her goals in life had involved taking care of others. Her parents, her library patrons.

Maksym.

She wasn’t very good at projects like this. Whenever she was forced to take a good, hard look at her life, she rarely liked what she saw.

“Can I put something involving Jamie Caine and his pecs?” Sam asked, tilting her head to look at the ceiling as if he might somehow appear there and wink down at them—and perhaps flex said pectorals.

Julia took another sip of her sangria. The man wasn’t even home, though she didn’t bother telling Sam that. She hadn’t seen his vehicle earlier. When he did get home, he wouldn’t be able to pull into the driveway, as it was filled with the vehicles of her book group friends.

“Really?” Roxy said. “Is that the first thing that comes to mind when you look at what would bring you joy next year?”

“Yes,” Sam said emphatically.

Megan laughed, though Sam’s mother rolled her eyes from across the room.

“What’s wrong with that?” Samantha said. “You specifically wanted us to think about something missing from our lives. I would have to say that is definitely missing from my life.”

“Thanks,” Wynona Emmett said with an eye roll of her own. “Now we’re all thinking about Jamie’s pecs.”

Megan snorted. “Why would you care about that when you have a hot man in uniform waiting for you at home?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.” Wyn said with the sort of self-satisfied smile that made Julia ache with envy.

Once, she thought her life would turn out like Wyn’s, married to a man she loved, with children and a home too small to hold in all her happiness.

Things hadn’t quite turned out that way.

She gazed down at her paper as all the wasted years seemed to march across the empty whiteness.

“You can put whatever you want on your list,” Roxy said. “There’s no right or wrong here. It’s your list. Your dreams. But be honest with yourself. Like we learned in the book, you are the chief architect of your life. No one else. I’ll give you ten minutes to finish this.”

To set the scene, Roxy turned on the music she had brought along, tuned to some kind of new age harp music playing Christmas songs. Julia didn’t find it necessarily very helpful. Between the music and the sangria, now she just wanted to take a nap.

She stared at her paper for a long moment while a hundred thoughts chased themselves around in her brain. The sad truth was, she didn’t have a problem coming up with things missing in her life. The problem was narrowing the list down so she wasn’t writing a novel about it.

She took another sip of her drink and finally wrote the first thing that came to mind.

Drive my new car on the Interstate.

She had owned the Lexus for a month and so far had avoided any highways or freeways that might require her to put the pedal to the metal. That was fine when she was running around town, but it was becoming apparent to her that she was starting to go out of her way to avoid having to travel too fast. What was the point in owning such a fine vehicle, if she was afraid to drive it?

And while she was thinking about speed, another lifelong dream popped into her head, and she wrote it down before she had time to think.

Learn to ski.

She lived in the mountains, for heaven’s sake, where they could have snow upwards of seven months out of the year. How could she have lived to be thirty-two and not ever have tried the area’s most popular winter sport?

“Learn to ski. That’s a good one!” Megan said. “Can I use that one, too?”

Julia fought the urge to cover her paper. “Um, sure. If that’s your dream.”

“One of many, hon. One of many.”

“No peeking at each other’s papers,” Roxy said sternly. “You can share later if you choose, but for now I want you to do this on your own.”

Megan sat back in her chair. “Wow, harsh. Roxy is as bad as Miss Chestnut. Remember her?”

“Oh, yes,” Julia said. Agatha Chestnut had been the librarian in Haven Point for years. She had a dour, pinched face, a beehive hairdo and cat glasses that magnified her eyes about a hundred times. All the children had been terrified of her.

“Okay, you should have written down at least half of your list,” Roxy said.

Julia had exactly two items. She looked down at her list and quickly wrote the next thing that came into her mind.

Fly in an airplane.

How humiliating that she even had to write that one down. She had more than three decades on the planet, for heaven’s sake, and a long list of places she wanted to go.

Her family had taken vacations when she was young, but her father never had much time away from his business, so they usually only traveled places they could drive to in a day.

She had always dreamed of seeing India, China, Paris.

The Ukraine.

She should have gone home with Maksym.

Old, long-familiar regrets haunted her. How different her life might have been if she had followed the instincts of her twenty-one-year-old heart and chosen love over obligation.

If only she had taken a chance, once in her life.

“Okay,” Roxy said. “Only five more minutes. You need to be wrapping things up now.”

Julia gazed down at her mostly blank paper. She wasn’t writing a stupid novel here. No one else needed to see it. She only needed to write down a few of the many things she longed to do. How hard was that?

She took a long, fortifying drink of sangria and wrote quickly, forcing herself not to self-edit.

Try escargot.

Kiss someone special under the mistletoe.

Get a puppy.

That one made her stop. Why didn’t she get a puppy? Her parents had never wanted one when they were alive, but they were gone now. There was nothing really stopping her, was there?

“Okay, one more minute. You’ve got time to add one, maybe two more things to your list.”

All the possibilities crowded through her mind, and she quickly wrote one that seemed bigger than the rest.

Make a difference in someone’s life.

“I know I said we were done, but now I want you to add one more.”

Everyone groaned, but Roxy just gave an evil grin.

“I want you to write the very next thing that comes into your mind. Don’t edit it or run it through any internal filters. Just write it.”

Julia stared at the page, her mind a jumbled mix of the book they had read—of the author’s heated relationship with a hot-blooded Spaniard she met on her journey of self-discovery—all tangled up with memories of Maksym and her own brief time with him, when she had been too young and naive to know herself and what she needed.

She swallowed the last of her sangria and wrote quickly, before she could change her mind.

Have an orgasm, with someone else.

The moment she wrote the words, she wanted to cross them out, but it was too late. Besides, they were written in purple Sharpie. She folded her paper, hoping like hell nobody else saw it.

“Now, wasn’t that fun?” Roxy beamed at them all.

“Sure,” Megan muttered. “Next time, let’s all go get colonoscopies together.”

“Anybody want to share something off her list? Remember, this is a no-judgment zone.”

Barbara Serrano was the first to break the silence. “I want to stay home this Christmas Eve and not have to cook a single thing for anyone.”

“Hear, hear,” Charlene Bailey said enthusiastically. “And I’d like to go on another cruise, one to Alaska this time.”

Everyone seemed inclined to share something on her list. Julia was going to remain quiet and let them have all the fun, but on impulse, when the conversation began to wane, she blurted out the least embarrassing thing on her list.

“I’d like to get a puppy. I’ve always loved dogs, but my parents never wanted one. My mom always had cats and my dad thought dogs were too big of a mess and bother.”

“Oh, you should!” Andie Bailey exclaimed. “We adore our dog.”

“What’s stopping you?” Katrina asked.

Julia shrugged and poured another drink. She wasn’t driving home, so why not?

“I live alone and I work long hours. I don’t have time to give a puppy the attention it deserves—to train it and walk it and play with it. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“Get two puppies,” Eppie Brewer suggested. “That way they can entertain each other.”

And chew up every antique in the house, too.

“I think I’ll stick with one of the other items on my list.”

She would stick to driving her car on the freeway or trying escargot.

Right now, anything more seemed wholly out of reach.

* * *

THE REST OF the book club meeting was much more enjoyable. Roxy—clever girl—brought out more sangria to go with the potluck meal. By the time everyone decided to pick up their lists and go home, Julia realized that for the first time since McKenzie Kilpatrick’s bachelorette party a few years before, she was more than a little tipsy.

The best kind of guests always cleaned up after themselves. And her friends were the absolute best. Julia looked around her gleaming kitchen, touched that she didn’t have hours of dishes ahead of her. The only thing left was to take out the last bag of trash.

She opened the door to her guest bedrooms, where she had contained the cats for the evening so they didn’t bother her company, then picked up the garbage bag and headed out, propping her door behind her.

Outside, a cold November wind blew through her sweater, making her shiver. They were supposed to have a few inches of snow that night, and the air had that funny, expectant, heavy feeling to it.

A black SUV was in her driveway, and she gazed at it for about five seconds, wondering if one of the book club guests might be in the bathroom, before she remembered it belonged to Jamie Caine.