All He Ever Dreamed (The Kowalskis) Read online

  It was definitely cheerful. She didn’t plug in the lights when she wasn’t going to be around, but the garland had plastic candy canes hung in it, and all kinds of Christmas vinyl cling decals were stuck to the massive pane of glass. “Ho ho ho. Let’s go eat.”

  They went to the Trailside Diner, not only because it was really the only place to go, but because he hadn’t seen Paige in a while. She lit up when she saw them walk through the door, her dark ponytail bouncing as she half jogged over to hug each of them.

  “How’s Rosie?”

  “She’s getting better,” Katie said. “She’s starting to get grumpy, which is a good sign.”

  “Oh, good. When is she coming home?”

  Katie shrugged. “She’s not sure yet.”

  “When I talked to her on the phone yesterday,” Josh said, sliding into a booth, “she said her lungs weren’t as clear as they wanted yet. And she still has no appetite.”

  Paige sighed. “Even though she’s getting grumpy, it’s best if she stays there, then. They won’t let her vacuum or clean the ovens, at least.”

  “Katie’s going to move into the lodge for a little while to make sure she’s not cleaning our oven, either.”

  “Really?” Paige asked, but she arched an eyebrow and drew the word out, like reeeeeeaaaaally. He wasn’t sure what that was about. The Northern Star was practically Katie’s home. She didn’t sleep there and she wasn’t there every day, but she’d more or less grown up there.

  “Yeah, really. What’s Mitch up to?”

  Paige glanced down at the rings on her left hand and smiled. “He’s finishing up some advance work on a job in Southern California so when he comes home in a few days, he won’t have to leave again until the middle of January. One more week and then he’ll be home for a whole month.”

  “Be nice to have him around for a while,” Katie said.

  “I can’t wait.” After glancing around the diner, Paige pulled her order pad out of her apron pocket. “You guys know what you want? Gavin whipped up some amazing baked mac-and-cheese for the dinner special last night and, trust me, it’s even better reheated.”

  Gavin hoped to go to culinary school someday and Paige let him try out new recipes on the diner’s customers, provided the ingredients weren’t too expensive and tofu wasn’t on the list. Josh had liked some dishes more than others, but taking a chance on the kid rarely steered him wrong.

  “I’ll give it a try,” he said. “With a coffee.”

  “Ditto,” Katie said.

  When Paige brought their drinks and went to see to the other diners, Josh leaned forward. “So, I’ve been wanting to ask you something. It’s probably personal, but…it’s kind of relevant to me. Maybe.”

  Katie gave him a look he couldn’t quite decipher, but after a few seconds, she shrugged. “Ask. I’ll either answer or I won’t, as usual.”

  “It’s about Andy, actually.” He saw her expression change. It was subtle—her mouth tightened and her eyes narrowed just a little—but it was obvious she knew more about Andy’s story than she’d let on before. “What’s the deal there?”

  “The deal is that he pissed her off a long time ago, but she forgave him and now they’re actually friends.”

  “Gee, I couldn’t figure that out from the fact she didn’t talk to him for like thirty years and then she forgave him and now she’s knitting him a Christmas present.”

  “Then why’d you ask?”

  His least favorite Katie Davis trait. If she didn’t want to talk about something, she’d be a pain in the ass and annoy him to the point he didn’t give a crap anymore. “Don’t be a smart-ass. What did he do to piss her off?”

  “Why don’t you ask her?”

  “Because I don’t think she’ll tell me.”

  “Then she probably doesn’t want you to know.” She took a long sip of coffee, looking at him over the rim.

  “Come on. You know how much I love your mom, and the guy’s in and out of my house all the freaking time now. It bugs the shit out of me not knowing.”

  “When I was little, Andy and my dad went on a sledding trip. They grabbed dinner at a bar and Andy chatted up a woman and got her to go back to the motel with them. She had a friend and my dad cheated on Mom. She blamed Andy.”

  He sat back against the booth. “Holy shit.”

  “Yeah. She told me blaming Andy made it easier to forgive Dad.” She was turning her coffee mug around and around on the table, staring down into the swirling liquid. “I never knew. She didn’t tell me until you and Mitch hired Andy to work at the lodge and I asked her straight out.”

  Josh felt a slow burn of anger, but it was pointless. Earle Davis had been dead fourteen years. “You okay with Andy being around, because if you’re not—”

  She held up her hand. “I’m fine. I mean, yeah, if Andy hadn’t hooked up with that woman, Dad might never have cheated on Mom, but nobody held a gun to my dad’s head. It was his decision. And Andy lost his best friend out of it because he and my dad stopped hanging out after that.”

  “I had no idea it was that bad. I always thought it was probably something stupid or funny, like him saying her meat loaf sucked or something, and they were both too stubborn to get over it.”

  “Nope. Not stupid or funny.”

  Paige showed up then with their meals, giving Josh a couple of minutes to digest what he’d heard. In a town like Whitford, the fact it wasn’t common knowledge Earle had stepped out on his wife was nothing short of a miracle. And even if he could remember back that far, Josh probably never would have guessed Rosie’s marriage had almost come undone. She was more a stiff upper lip in front of the kids and cry in the shower kind of woman.

  “You let me know if you want to move the Christmas Eve party to my house,” Paige said, stopping to refill their coffees.

  Oh, damn. He kept forgetting about that stupid party. If he had his way, the whole thing would be cancelled. Or postponed until April or May, maybe. “She gave Thanksgiving over to you, but I don’t see her giving up Christmas Eve at the lodge.”

  “Mom’s a smart woman,” Katie said. “She’ll understand there’s only so much we can do and she’s sick and Paige has plenty of room for everybody. She’ll be reasonable.”

  * * *

  “We’re having Christmas Eve at the Northern Star and that’s the end of it.”

  Katie looked at her mother reclined against her pillows with her arms folded across her chest, and swore. But only in her mind, of course. She wondered what the chances were of flagging down a nurse and getting a sedative. For her, for her mom. Either worked.

  “The Christmas Eve party isn’t what’s important,” Josh said. “You getting better is all that matters.”

  “You listen to me. The party is important to me. I don’t know if Sean will come and Liz probably won’t be here, but Mitch and Ryan will and you four kids being home for the holidays matters to me. And it’ll be Paige’s first Christmas with us—her first with a real family of her own and I want it to be perfect.”

  Katie shook her head. “Because we are Paige’s family now, she cares more about you than a party.”

  “I’m having a Christmas Eve party.”

  Katie knew that tone. There would be a party at the Northern Star on Christmas Eve. She sighed. “We’ll take care of it.”

  Josh’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re going to throw a holiday party?”

  “No, we are going to throw a holiday party.”

  His eyebrows dropped into a frown and he opened his mouth, but Rose beat him to it. “You two can do it, if you work together.”

  Katie was still trying to wrap her mind around the fact she’d be sleeping across the hall from Josh every night. She figured she’d survive it because he’d be working outside a lot, while she’d be taking care of her mom and
doing housework. It was a big place. But planning a party together meant they’d have to talk. A lot.

  Sure, they talked all the time. They talked about football and hockey and baseball. Basketball. The weather. Trucks. Griped about their love lives when either of them had one. Katie had long ago fallen into a rhythm of “guy talk” that kept her from accidentally letting on that she’d like a one-way ticket out of the friend zone.

  Now they’d be playing house, and so much proximity was going to play hell on her nerves. The other night an image had popped into her mind of bumping into him in the hallway, his bare chest glistening from a hot shower and a small towel hanging low on his hips.

  She wasn’t sure if that would be the best or the worst thing ever, but she’d lost sleep thinking about it.

  “You’ll need to come up with a menu, of course,” her mom said. “Hopefully, I’ll feel up to baking a couple of pies, but you guys will have to take care of the rest. Josh, did you get the tree and the decorations up yet?”

  “Uh…no.”

  “The doctor said I can probably go home Monday if I don’t relapse at all, so I’ll lie on the couch and supervise.”

  Katie had no doubt he’d spend the next several days busting his ass getting the lodge decorated before Sergeant Rosie was there to nitpick the process.

  “I want music. Happy stuff,” Rose continued. “And candles and…well, you two can figure it out. But I’ll look over your lists, of course.”

  “Of course,” Katie muttered. In the meantime, she’d also keep her own business going while helping Josh run his. Haircuts, washing bedsheets and feeding the whole family—or most of it—a holiday meal that met Rosie’s standards. No problem.

  They hung around for a while, but her mom eventually shooed them off. There were rumors of some bad weather coming in as the night wore on. She didn’t want them driving in it, and she wanted to get her beauty sleep so she could go home Monday.

  It was dark already and the temperature had dropped pretty drastically but, unlike her Jeep, Josh’s truck warmed up quickly and she felt herself getting sleepy.

  “When are you planning on moving in?” Josh asked when they were on the main road, heading back to Whitford.

  “I was thinking if Mom’s getting released Monday, then probably Sunday. I can open the shop for a full day Saturday, then get settled at the lodge Sunday morning. That’ll give me time to freshen up her room. Change the sheets and stuff.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Unless you need help with the Christmas decorations. I assume you’re going to get it done before she’s home to supervise?”

  He laughed, and the rich sound seemed to fill the enclosed space of the cab. “You got that right.”

  “Do you need a hand with it?”

  “I think I’m all set. Probably.” He shrugged. “I’ll give a shout if I get too backed up.”

  “Good. Gives me time to stop by Max’s and…be nosy.”

  He turned his head and, in the lights from the dash, she could see the scowl. “No wiles.”

  “I don’t need to cheat, Kowalski.”

  “Maybe you should move into the lodge tomorrow so I can keep you busy. And keep an eye on you.”

  The shiver that tickled her spine had nothing to do with the snowflakes falling outside the truck. She wouldn’t mind him keeping her too busy to win their Max Crawford bet. But she suspected he was talking about dishwashers and furniture polish rather than tangled sheets.

  “Nothing against Liz’s room, but I’ll sleep in my own bed as long as possible, thanks.”

  Growing up, Katie had always been jealous of Josh’s sister. She’d hated leaving the Northern Star at the end of her mother’s workday and every year, when she made a wish on her birthday candles, she’d wished to live at the lodge. When she outgrew birthday wishes, she daydreamed about Josh realizing he was madly in love with her and asking him to marry her. As his wife, she’d spend her days helping him run the Northern Star and her nights in his bed. When her dad died, though, she turned her focus to saving the barbershop, and her dreams of being Mrs. Kowalski faded into the constant low hum of attraction that wouldn’t die.

  She must have nodded off, because the next thing she knew, Josh was nudging her arm, her neck felt permanently kinked to the right, and they were parked outside the barbershop.

  “Why didn’t you wake me up?” she asked, trying to get her head back in an upright position. And she was pretty sure she had a seat belt mark across her face. “I was supposed to keep you company while you drove.”

  “Figured if you nodded off, you must need the sleep.”

  After taking her seat belt off, Katie scrubbed at her face, trying to shake off the grogginess. She hated napping. Those first few seconds when she wasn’t in her bed and didn’t know what time it was always disoriented her.

  “Go eat something and get some sleep.”

  “Thanks for the ride,” she said, opening the door to a blast of cold.

  “Stay away from Max.”

  She might have argued the point with him, but it was too freaking cold to stand around having a pissing match. Instead she flipped him off as he drove away.

  She’d just unlocked her door, which was next to the barbershop’s door, and gone up the stairs to her apartment when her cell phone rang. The caller ID said it was Hailey Genest, the town’s librarian. “Hello.”

  “Have you eaten yet?”

  Katie flopped down in her battered recliner, which might have been as old as her Jeep, and sighed. She knew she had peanut butter and jelly, but she wasn’t sure the last loaf of bread she’d bought hadn’t become a science project already. “Not yet. Josh and I went to the hospital to see Mom and I literally just got home.”

  “How’s Rosie?”

  “Getting better. They seem pretty confident she’ll come home Monday.”

  “Good news. Now, how about you meet me at the diner for supper.”

  “It’s really freaking cold out there.” It would take forever to warm up her Jeep.

  “I heard you’re moving in with Josh.”

  Katie laughed. “Technically, yes.”

  “Diner. Fifteen minutes. You know there’s no sense in putting me off.”

  “Fine. But make it twenty.”

  * * *

  Katie waved to Ava, the older woman who worked the two-to-close shift at the diner, and then to Gavin in the pass-through window before sliding into the booth Hailey had chosen. It didn’t escape her notice they were sitting as far from the coffee counter as possible, which meant Hailey was expecting juicy details. She was going to be disappointed.

  “I ordered us both hot chocolate,” Hailey told her. “With extra whipped cream.”

  Hailey and Katie hadn’t been very close as kids. Hailey was two years older than Mitch so, other than a notorious tumble with him in the back of her dad’s new car, she hadn’t socialized a lot with the Kowalski kids and Katie was almost always with them. As adults, though, they’d become good friends. They even looked a little alike, though Hailey was curvier and her blond hair was lighter.

  “Hot chocolate sounds perfect,” Katie said, and she almost got whipped cream on her nose when she leaned down to inhale it the second Ava set it in front of her.

  “You girls know what you’re having?”

  “Do you have any of Gavin’s macaroni-and-cheese left?” Hailey asked. “I’ve been hearing about it since last night.”

  “I think there are three servings left. You want to try it, Katie?”

  “I had it for lunch and it lives up to the hype. I should be good, though. Maybe a grilled chicken salad.”

  Ava snorted. “Lettuce doesn’t go with hot chocolate. Beef stew.”

  “Beef stew sounds even better.”

  Once Ava walked away, Ha
iley focused all her attention on Katie. “Okay, spill.”

  “It’s not that big a deal. With the holidays coming and the first guests arriving at the lodge, there’s no doubt my mom’s going to fight taking it easy, so I’m going to stay at the lodge until she’s totally better. A third bout of pneumonia is not a charm.”

  “This is your best shot. Just imagine bumping into him in the dark with you wearing nothing but scraps of black lace.”

  She’d imagined it all too often, albeit with slightly different details. “I don’t own any scraps of black lace.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Why would I wear lace scraps?”

  “To feel sexy under your clothes.”

  That concept made no sense to Katie. “I like being comfortable under my clothes.”

  “Don’t tell me. White cotton, right?”

  “Don’t ask if you don’t want me to tell you. And there’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “Of course not.” Hailey rolled her eyes. “Just think, you can be a spinster like me.”

  Katie almost choked on a mouthful of hot chocolate. “Spinster? Seriously, does anybody even use that word anymore?”

  “Spinsters do.”

  “You are not a spinster, Hailey.”

  “Even better, I’m a spinster librarian.”

  Katie shook her head. “I’m pretty sure spinsters have to be virgins.”

  “Oh, maybe. That would disqualify me, I guess.”

  Ava stopped by with their mac-and-cheese and beef stew, which ended the spinster conversation, even if Katie suspected it was only a temporary reprieve. She hadn’t realized she was hungry until the smell of Gavin’s stew hit her. Not even bothering with salt and pepper because he seasoned everything to perfection, Katie dug in.

  “It’s best for me if Josh isn’t seduced by your comfy white cotton, you know,” Hailey said after a few bites.

  Katie frowned. Hailey knew Josh was off-limits to her, plus she’d never shown any interest in him, anyway. “What do you mean?”

  “Paige married Mitch. Lauren’s not only marrying Ryan, but she’s moving away. I need you to be whatever spinsters who’ve had sex are called with me.”