Love a Little Sideways Read online

  “It’s a date,” she said nonchalantly, and hung up.

  It was just an expression, he told himself. But he still got barely any work done that afternoon.

  * * *

  Still in her Trailside Diner T-shirt, Liz drove up to the front of the lodge and killed the engine. She’d promised Rose she’d stop by after work and, after sitting in her car talking on the phone with Drew for far too long, she was running late enough so she didn’t go home and change first.

  Paige’s car was in the driveway, too, which meant there would probably be tea and visiting before they got around to whatever it was Rose wanted a hand with, or to talk to her about or whatever.

  Sure enough, the two women were sitting at the kitchen table when she went in, and there was a plate of fresh-baked brownies on the table.

  “How was work, Liz?” Rose asked, going to the stove to pour her some tea.

  “It was good. It’s a different climate than the truck stop I worked at last and I really like it.”

  Paige drew her hand over her forehead in a gesture of exaggerated relief. “Thank goodness. I’ve gotten used to having a little more free time when Mitch is home.”

  They talked about the diner for a few minutes. Paige’s schedule was going to be fairly fluid. She’d spend more time at the diner when Mitch was traveling or during times the ATV traffic would be heavy, but she’d be more hands-off when her husband was in town. That worked just fine for Liz.

  “Speaking of schedules,” Rose said, “I talked to Mary this morning and she had a wonderful idea.”

  Uh-oh. A wonderful idea cooked up by Rosie and Aunt Mary couldn’t mean anything good for anybody named Kowalski. “Do I want to know?”

  “Every year they go camping for two weeks. All of them—the kids, grandkids. It’s become a family tradition, I guess.”

  Liz didn’t hear anything but the words camping and two weeks. Her brain added the word no.

  “That sounds fun,” Paige said. “My mom had a boyfriend who liked to camp when I was a kid. We went a few times and I loved it, but then they broke up and we never went again. I should talk Mitch into camping.”

  Liz could see Paige playing right into whatever hand Rose was about to play, and she was tempted to kick her under the table.

  “I’m glad you said that,” Rose said, “because Mary and I want to make it a family reunion.”

  “I’ll never get Mitch away from work for two weeks. And I know Ryan’s busy.”

  “Everybody’s busy,” Liz echoed, trying to keep her expression regretful.

  “With not a lot of notice and everybody’s schedules, we know two weeks is out of the question, but we can all go over for a week.”

  “I bet Mitch can make that work if I push,” Paige said. “And Ryan can delegate. What about the lodge? If Josh and Katie go, how can you and Andy go, too? You have to be there.”

  “If we go up on a Thursday and leave Wednesday, we’ll only be away one weekend. There’s a big ATV event in central New Hampshire the first weekend the family will be at the campground and everybody seems to be going there. That means we have no bookings to worry about and there’s also plenty of room at the campground.”

  “This is going to be so fun,” Paige said. “Doesn’t it sound fun, Liz?”

  Not really, but rather than come off as a wet blanket, she tried going with the practicality first. “If the diner’s so busy you were able to hire me to take up some slack, how can we both be gone for a week?”

  “Ava and Tori will understand this is a big deal for the family, so they’ll be willing to hold down the fort for a while. And, like Rosie said, most of the four-wheeling crowd will be at that other event anyway.”

  “I don’t have any camping stuff.”

  Paige shrugged. “You could probably bunk down in somebody’s RV. They all have couches.”

  Yeah, and they were mostly newlyweds, parents or—in the case of her uncle Leo—snored like the early rumbles of a major earthquake. But with Rose and Paige both looking at her so expectantly, practically vibrating in their eagerness to start planning this family adventure, she knew it was as good as done.

  She tried to muster a smile to match theirs. “There will be s’mores, right?”

  Within seconds, a notepad appeared on the table and the two women were talking over each other in a rush to make a list of everything they’d need. Liz sipped her decaf tea—which she liked a lot better than decaf instant coffee—and watched them work. Once they started coordinating with Aunt Mary, she knew this would be the best-planned camping trip in the history of the great outdoors. All she had to do was relax and enjoy the vacation.

  “Somebody should tell Drew right away,” Rose said, looking up from the list. “The department’s small, so covering for him might be a problem.”

  Liz almost choked on her tea, but she thought she covered it well. Of course they were going to invite Drew. He was Andy’s son. There was a good chance at some point in the future, he’d be Rosie’s stepson.

  But Drew was becoming a problem for Liz. She already knew they had great sexual chemistry, which was bad enough. Now she was slowly discovering they seemed to have great chemistry in general, and that was worse. If they lived anywhere but Whitford and he was anybody but her brother’s best friend, they’d be spending a lot of time together. Maybe going out to dinner or to a movie. Sitting on her futon, talking about who knew what at the end of the day.

  She knew they wanted different things right now. From what she’d heard, he was looking to be on the fast track to marriage and babies, and she was still hovering at the Start line, wondering if that was a path she was willing to take. But there was still something there, whether it made sense or not.

  “It would be so much fun to have Drew along,” Rose said in a totally innocent voice Liz knew was covering up a devious mind.

  “I’ll have Mitch talk to him today,” Paige said, because there was no way Liz could ask Rose to rethink inviting Drew, of course. Not in front of her sister-in-law. “After I’ve broken the news to Mitch, of course, and knocked down all of his excuses.”

  “He went a few years ago, though only for a couple of days, and he had a good time.”

  “If I have to go, everybody has to go,” Liz added.

  A week in the woods with Drew. And Mitch. What could be more relaxing than that?

  * * *

  Today was one of those days when Drew wished time machines were real so he could go back and politely but firmly refuse the appointment as police chief. The budget was a constant wrestling match requiring mathematical gymnastics that made his head hurt. He’d fielded a complaint from a mother about the new part-time officer not understanding how things were done, such as looking the other way when her little darling tried to bribe an adult to buy her alcohol. Papers were multiplying in his inbox at an alarming rate and the number of emails to the department’s address that had been flagged for his attention made him want to “accidentally” spill coffee on every keyboard in the station.

  He never thought, back when he was a rookie, he’d ever long for the days of being out on patrol, listening to motorists spin creative tales to explain away their vehicular sins.

  A cheeseburger would help, he thought. Especially if it had bacon on it. But the only place to get one, short of going home and grilling one for himself, was at the diner. Liz was working today and the more he saw of her, the more he wanted to see of her.

  And not just see more of her, as in more of her skin. He wanted to spend time talking to her. Maybe take her to dinner in the city, or to a scary movie so he could play the big, brave cop and offer to check her dark home for boogeymen when he dropped her off. He wanted to read the newspaper with her, swapping sections as they finished, and then talk about what they read.

  He wanted company. But with each passing d
ay, it became less about just somebody to keep him company and more about Liz’s company. Maybe she wasn’t interested in the same future he was, but in the right here and now, she was in his thoughts whenever he wasn’t concentrating on something else. He’d been working even more hours than usual lately.

  After skimming through email to see if there was anything either urgent or something his standard copied-and-pasted response could deal with, he leaned back in his chair and put a hand to the back of his neck, rolling his head from side to side.

  Mentally playing eenie-meenie-minie-mo with his to-do list while he stretched his muscles, Drew looked toward his office window in time to see Mitch walk into the station. He hated the way his normal happiness at seeing his best friend was now tainted by his guilt for thinking dirty thoughts about the man’s sister.

  But he smiled and waved him in when Mitch headed toward his office. Guilt or no, he was still enjoying seeing more of Mitch since he’d come home for a brief visit, only to fall for Paige and settle back in Whitford.

  “I’ve come to make you an offer you can’t refuse,” Mitch said as he stepped into the room and nudged the door closed behind him with his foot.

  “Does it involve a bacon cheeseburger?”

  “No.”

  “Then it’s an offer I can refuse.”

  “I guess it’s not really an offer, anyway. Aunt Mary decided to turn their annual camping trip into a family reunion and she got Rosie on board.”

  “In other words, you’re going camping for two weeks.” More importantly, Liz would be going camping for two weeks. Drew could use the break because pretending he was indifferent to her was exhausting.

  “We can’t get away that long, but we’re going for a week. I want you to come, too.”

  Whoa. Drew shook his head. “Not happening.”

  “You used to be fun.”

  “Yeah, but I’ve never been crazy.”

  Mitch frowned. “My family’s not that bad.”

  “I’m also not a part of it, so I don’t really need to reunite with everybody,” Drew pointed out.

  “Since your old man has hooked up with Rosie, he’s practically family and you’re his son. You’ve also been my best friend for as long as I can remember. Why shouldn’t you go?”

  What was he was supposed to say? Well, at your wedding, your sister and I snuck off for a quickie and now things are a little awkward between us. And he wasn’t sure he could keep his hands off of her, which would make things a whole lot worse than a little awkward.

  “Look,” Mitch said. “When’s the last time you took a vacation?”

  Drew rocked back in his chair and thought about it. Taking the odd fishing or sledding weekend off the table, it would have been...huh. “I went down to Florida for Red Sox spring training.”

  “What year was that?”

  “Ninety-four?”

  Mitch leaned in for the kill. “Think about it, Drew. Mud. Wheelers. Meat cooked on sticks over an open fire.”

  “No cell phones.”

  “Crushing beer cans and tossing them over our shoulders.”

  “Like men do.”

  Mitch nodded. “We have to pick them up after, though, or the women will make us suffer.”

  Women. Kowalski women. Liz was a Kowalski woman. “I don’t know, Mitch. I’ve got a lot going on.”

  “Everybody does. That’s why it’s a vacation. It’s not a vacation if it’s a break from doing nothing.”

  “I could use a break,” he admitted, looking over the cluttered top of his desk. “But—”

  “Before you start thinking up excuses, you should know Rosie has her heart set on you going.”

  “Shit.” He may as well start preparing the station for his absence. “I think I have some camping stuff in the garage.”

  “Don’t worry. My aunt Mary will probably write out a master packing list and make sure everybody gets a copy.” Mitch stood. “I’ll tell Rosie you’re in. I’d stay longer, but I have to head to Portland tonight. Early flight in the morning so I can try to get ahead of schedule on some things before the trip.”

  Drew stood and shook his hand. “I’ll tell you right now, if I get locked into this camping gig and you use work to back out, I’ll shoot you. And I know how to get away with it.”

  “You’re already locked in. Be on the lookout for a list from Aunt Mary. If nobody gives her your contact info, she’ll just email it through the department’s website.”

  Liz came by her stubbornness honestly, that was for sure. “Since I haven’t been camping since before I was old enough to drink, I don’t have a problem with lists.”

  “Dust off the fishing gear while you’re digging around the garage.” Mitch started walking toward the door, glancing at the clock on the wall as he went.

  “Hey, Mitch,” he called after him. “We don’t really have to cook our meals on sticks, do we?”

  Mitch shrugged. “Depends on how badly we piss off the women. Word to the wise, behave yourself on burger night because it’s a bitch to keep them on a stick.”

  Drew opened his mouth to tell Mitch to forget it—that he’d changed his mind—but the door shut and the moment was lost.

  And part of him didn’t want to back out. It had been a long time since he’d taken a vacation, and four-wheeling with the guys during the day and kicking back with a beer around the campfire at night sounded like a good time.

  Chapter Seven

  Liz looked down at the list her aunt had sent to everybody and then at the pile of stuff in her cart while mentally adding up the price tags. Then she put back the nice two-room tent that she could almost stand up in, and grabbed the small nylon tent with the red clearance sticker. It wasn’t as though she’d be spending a lot of time in it, so all it had to do was keep her dry while she slept and save her from having to have any camping roomies.

  Most of the stuff on Aunt Mary’s list was probably basic stuff but, since Liz couldn’t remember the last time she’d camped, she needed all of it. She doubled up on bottles of bug spray and splurged on a small battery-operated lantern, but went cheap on the sleeping bag. It probably wouldn’t be thirty degrees below zero at night in July, even in northern New Hampshire.

  Cringing as she paid for the items, she told herself it would be worth the cost. She’d moved home because she missed her family, after all. What could be better than having her brothers and cousins all in one place?

  Once she’d loaded her purchases into the Mustang, she assessed the rest of the list. Aunt Mary had included every imaginable item that could be classified as toiletries, most of which she already had. The food stuff she was going to wait and buy at the last minute. She was afraid it would go bad or she’d eat it all and have to buy the same stuff again.

  She had also included a list of who was bringing which games, so they didn’t end up with six Monopoly games and no cribbage boards. Liz didn’t own anything but a deck of cards and they seemed to have those covered.

  Books. That’s what she needed. Rather than part with any more money, she decided to drive back to Whitford and get a library card.

  She slowed down when she passed the town line. Bob Durgin had been out on patrol a lot lately and she knew there would be no sweet-talking her way out of a ticket from him. The last thing she wanted was to give him the satisfaction of busting her in his boss’s car.

  Judging by the parking lot, the library wasn’t very busy, so hopefully it wouldn’t take long. The one food item she’d bought was chocolate and, with no air-conditioning in the Mustang, she was beginning to fear for its survival. And she wanted to get the tags and stickers off everything she’d bought and repack it for her trip.

  The librarian looked so happy to see her, Liz couldn’t help but return her smile.

  She and Hailey Genest hadn’t been
close friends growing up, but they’d known each other. And Hailey had been at Mitch and Paige’s wedding, as well. From what Liz understood, she was very good friends with both Paige and Lauren.

  “Liz! I heard you’d come back to town. I was going to let you settle in before I started hounding you to get a library card. The trustees love when I find new victims. Especially if you’re in the habit of paying overdue fines.”

  Liz laughed. “Not too many, I hope. But I’m going camping and, from what I’m told, part of camping is sitting around reading.”

  “Camping? Ah, yes. I heard Rose and your aunt in New Hampshire decided to make your family reunion a trip into the woods.”

  “I’ve been promised s’mores.”

  Hailey gave her a thumbs-up. “I’m a big fan of s’mores. Especially without the marshmallow and graham crackers.”

  “I’ll be bringing a private stash.”

  “Kind of a bummer to go on vacation and be related to every single guy there. Well, except Drew, I guess. And his dad.” Hailey paused in copying the info from Liz’s freshly minted Maine driver’s license onto a big yellow card to look up at her. “If there’s only going to be one single guy available, Drew’s not a bad one to have.”

  Liz wasn’t sure what to say to that. “He’s a great guy.”

  “He really is. I guess you’re off-limits because of Mitch, which is sad. He’s off-limits to me because I’m friends with his ex-wife. So much opportunity lost.”

  Liz wanted to ask why everybody seemed bound by rules left over from high school, but sometimes it was best to let sleeping dogs lie. “I don’t think a family camping trip’s the place for romance, anyway. I mean, Rose and Aunt Mary both told me if I had sex it would ruin my life forever. Granted, I was probably thirteen at the time, but that kind of conviction can stay with a girl.”

  Hailey’s laugh echoed through the quiet library and got her shushed by a guy using one of the computers. “Oops. Embarrassing when the patrons have to tell me to be quiet. Okay, so tell me what you like to read so I can help you find some perfect camping books. Fun stuff, though. Books that go well with s’mores, like romance or horror.”