Josie Day Is Coming Home (37 page)

“It’ll be all right, Josie,” he said, his voice
gruff. He held her apart from him, examined her face, tweaked her cheek the way
he had when she was twelve. “Nancy, bring this girl a blanket. She’s cold
just like you. I’m going to get all that rigmarole out of that car of hers.
When was the last time you had the shocks looked at on that heap, anyway, Josie
Marie? It could probably use a tune-up, the way it’s dragging on the ground
like that.”

“That’s just because it’s loaded up with all my stuff,
Dad. That’s everything I own in the world.”

“Since when do you own two tons of ‘stuff’? Must be all
those shoes, just like your mother….”

Still muttering to himself, he tromped down the steps. Left
behind, Josie looked through the doorway into the house.

Her mother stood there watching her, the Sunday paper strewn
at her feet. Her coupon organizer lay on the coffee table. Her special
coupons-only scissors rested beside it on top of a colorful circular,
everything ordinary and bland and wonderful. She spread her arms. Josie saw
that she was holding the crocheted afghan that had decorated the family sofa
since the eighties.

“Whatever it is,” her mother said, gesturing for
her to come closer, “we’re here for you, honey.”

And that was when Josie knew…you really
could
come
home again.

Chapter Twenty-One

The week after Josie’s Chevy had rattled and coughed its way
down the drive away from Luke was the worst he could remember. Determined to
crush his heartache beneath hard work, he took it outdoors. There’d be no wussy
wallowing around for him, goddamn it. Just work, work, work.

With that in mind, he lay belly down on Blue Moon’s front
yard. The smell of dirt and torn-up grass filled his nostrils as he wrestled
with a defective sprinkler head, trying to pry it loose. Every day that passed,
he told himself grimly, was another chance to get the estate ready for auction.

The L.A. property waited for him, promising exactly the
setup he’d always wanted. The setup that would impress his dad and finally put
an end to their stupid argument. The setup that would prove, once and for all,
that Luke Donovan could make his own damned way in life.

If he hurried, he figured he could make things happen in
time for Melissa’s wedding. All he had to do was unload this place—getting the
cash he needed in the process—then trade it all in for the mechanic’s shop of
his dreams.

Too bad he didn’t give a damn about it anymore.

Still, this was all he had, Luke reminded himself. He
scraped his fingers around the sprinkler head, digging a shallow trench for
leverage. This—Blue Moon—and his self-respect. He’d gone a long way to preserve
both. He sure as hell couldn’t be expected to pick up all his marbles and quit
now. Especially for a woman who’d leave him at the first sign of trouble.

A woman like Josie.

He had enough fickle people in his life already. TJ, for
instance. He’d gone batshit when he’d heard about Josie leaving, and he still
wasn’t over it. Whenever he saw Luke coming, he got an ugly look on his face and
headed the other direction. That was a fine way for a longtime friend to act.

“Asshole,” Luke muttered, pulling on the frozen
sprinkler.

TJ seemed to think
Josie
was the wronged party here,
not Luke. Even though Luke had explained about volunteering to let Josie stay
at the estate. Even though he’d explained about the substitute dance studio
he’d offered to buy her.

“Yeah. As
if
Josie’s going to believe
that,
”
TJ had scoffed, shaking his head. “You blew it, dude.”

Even remembering that conversation pissed Luke off. What
about loyalty? Solidarity between friends?
Right and wrong
? Christ. TJ
acted as if Luke had personally packed up Josie’s stuff and driven her away
himself.

And Tallulah. Tallulah, Tallulah. Where to start? She’d been
here every day, fresh from her hotel in Donovan’s Corner, specifically to
badger Luke—with her backup singer, Ambrose, on the coulda-woulda-shouldas.

“You’re as stubborn as your idiot father,” his
aunt was saying now, her litany unchanged from yesterday. She loomed over him
with a lemonade in one hand and a folding fan in the other, looking for all the
world like a bitchy, over-the-hill southern belle. “You couldn’t
compromise your way out of a wet paper bag.”

Luke went on digging.

“You’ve lost the ability to apologize. Worse, you don’t
even see a
need
to apologize! That’s your problem. That and the fact
that you view every last thing in black and white.”

Luke brushed away some dirt. Yanked. No dice.

Tallulah edged nearer, blocking out the sun. “You
couldn’t find your own backside with both hands and a map,” she announced.
“I’m ashamed to be in the same family with you.”

Luke pressed his lips together, struggling for patience.
“You’re standing on my sprinkler head.”

“I should stand on your
head
head!”

Great. Tallulah wasn’t budging. Neither was he. Now he’d
never get this sprinkler head out.

Ambrose stepped forward, a sun umbrella in hand. “What
my darling wife means is, she’s frustrated you didn’t tell her about your
problems with your father earlier.”

“Exactly,” Tallulah said.

“And she’s angry you won’t even talk with Miss
Day.”

“That’s right.”

“And she wishes you’d pull your head out of your
posterior and start acting like the man you’re supposed to be instead of a
sulky four-year-old.”

Tallulah and Luke both gawked at Ambrose.

He raised a brow with dignity. “The street of marital
influence runs both ways.”

Exasperated, Luke wriggled his hand from where it had gotten
wedged between the dirt, the sprinkler head, and Tallulah’s orthopedic shoe. He
rolled over in defeat. The grassy ground cradled him, flat and reliable beneath
his back. A fly buzzed over him, then flitted away on the pine-tinged breeze.

He just wanted to close his eyes and forget everything.

“Don’t you two know any knock-knock jokes?” he
asked.

Silence. He didn’t need to open his eyes to feel their
confusion. It beamed down on him as strongly as the sunshine.

“Josie used to tell knock-knock jokes,” he
admitted.

The minute the words left his mouth, Luke wanted to stuff a
dirt clod in his stupid yapper. Tallulah and Ambrose didn’t need to know how he
pined for one of Josie’s lame jokes. How he yearned to hear her laughter. How
he trudged through the mansion with his heart in his shoes, wishing she’d come
dancing through one of the rooms with her boom box in hand.

“She liked to clean,” he heard himself say. Shit.
What was his problem? At least he hadn’t confessed everything. Everything like,
The smell of Formula 409 still makes me think of her.

Oh, crap. Morosely, Luke flung his arm over his eyes to
block out the sun—and Tallulah and Ambrose’s undoubtedly befuddled gazes. If he
were smart, he’d stick his arm over his mouth and shut the hell up. If he were
smart…. If he were smart he’d never have let Josie go.

Tallulah cleared her throat, obviously getting ready to say
something. Probably something inspirational or sappy or otherwise
Hallmark-card-worthy. Luke didn’t think he could stand the sympathy right now.
Wincing, he waited for the Schmaltzapalooza.

“Maybe you can squirt some Formula 409 around your new
mechanic’s shop,” his aunt suggested. “To keep you warm at
night.”

“Pigheaded pride won’t tell you knock-knock
jokes,” Ambrose added.

Luke opened his eyes. His family—at least all its members
who were currently on speaking terms with him—loomed over him. They looked irritatingly
certain and impossibly self-righteous.

“Hit me when I’m down, why don’t you?” He pinched
the bridge of his nose, feeling a monster headache coming on. “You two are
brutal.”

“We’re right, and you know it.”

“Nope.” Wearily, Luke got to his feet. “What
I know is there’s still a lot to be done around here if I’m going to get a
decent offer on this place. See you around. I’ve got work to do.”

“Stubborn fool,” Tallulah muttered as he walked
away.

“Jerk,” Ambrose added.

Luke didn’t care. He’d had enough weakening for one day.
He’d lived without Josie once, and he could do it again. No matter how much it
hurt.

“Josie, you’ve got company,” Nancy Day called.

Reluctantly, Josie lifted her gaze from the TV screen. In
the murkiness of the swag-curtained living room, she could barely identify the
man who walked in…until he spoke.

“Whoa. It’s a freaking
cave
in here. Hey, are
those Funyuns? Pass the bag. Got any Pepsi?” He flopped on the sofa,
amiably nudging aside her swaths of blankets. He rested his elbow on her
dog-eared stack of
In Touch
magazines. “What are we watching?
Anything good?”

Cheerfully, he helped himself to the Velveeta-smothered
nachos on the coffee table. He munched one, glancing from the flickering TV
screen to Josie. Expectantly.

Of everyone who’d been pestering her to “just snap out
of it” for the past week, TJ was the one Josie found hardest to
disappoint.

“E! Entertainment Television,” she said without
enthusiasm. She’d been mainlining it pretty hard lately, trying to think about
something else besides missing Luke. “This is behind the scenes with
101
Hottest Heartthrobs
. Either that, or it’s
Fashion Police: Beyoncé
. I
can’t remember for sure.”

TJ nodded, surveying the snacks she’d laid out. After
several days’ practice, she was getting pretty good at selecting the best junk
foods for drowning her sorrows with. Bugles. Strawberry Nestlé Nesquik. Pop
Rocks. Between the Wonder Bread, the boxed mac ‘n cheese, and the sugary
goodness of Pixy Stix, Josie figured she hadn’t eaten anything without the
essential “artificial colors” food group since walking out of Blue
Moon.

But in spite of that, and in spite of E!‘s nonstop celebrity
coverage, she still couldn’t quit thinking about Luke.

“It’s going to be tough to do those ballet moves of
yours with a gut full of microwavable burritos,” TJ observed, squinting at
her paper plate. “You’ll blow your students out of class with ‘New
Hungry-Moose Size!’ farts.”

Josie guffawed. She couldn’t help it. “That’s ‘New
Hungry-
Man
Size,’” she clarified, pointing to the wrapper.

“
You’ll
be moose size if you keep shoveling it
in like this.” Looking concerned, TJ put down the Funyuns. He gazed into
her eyes. Solemnly, he announced, “It’s time to turn off E! TV.”

“No!” Josie grabbed for the remote.

Too late. Her parents’ nineteen-inch Zenith zapped off.

Moaning, she sank on her mound of blankets. She wasn’t quite
as cold these days, but she liked having their coziness around her. It made her
feel better. Doing without E! TV definitely did
not.

“You suck, TJ. Give me back that remote.”

“Not until I tell you some stuff I should have told you
a long time ago.”

She cast him a suspicious look. “Is it about Luke?
Because if it is, I don’t want to hear it.”

“It’s not about Luke. It’s about…Link. Yeah. This guy
named Link, who met this girl. Janie.”

Proudly, TJ grinned. Josie rolled her eyes.

“Eeeeeh,” she grunted, making her best
“time’s up” game- show-buzzer sound. “No, thanks. I’ve wasted
enough time thinking about Luke Donovan and his megabucks.”

“See, that’s where you’re wrong. He doesn’t
have
—”

With a stubborn display of her palm, Josie stopped him. She
felt way too miserable to argue today. A part of her had never quit hoping Luke
would find her and apologize. The rest of her still felt too hurt by his lies
to care.

All she had now was E!. E! and Cap’n Crunch. Wearily, Josie
grabbed the opened box from the coffee table. She plucked out a handful of
Crunch Berries. She passed the box to TJ as a sort of peace offering, feeling
relieved when he grudgingly accepted it. After all,
he
wasn’t the one
who’d stomped all over her heart.

The sound of crunching filled the living room. Josie ate her
Crunch piece by piece, saving the sweet pink “berries” for last. TJ
ate his by the palm full, cheerfully unbothered by the crumbs he dribbled on
his Donovan’s Corner Suds ‘N Duds T-shirt.

She nodded toward it. “Did you get that from
Amber?”

“Yeah. She’s the Laundromat attendant.”

“That’s nice. Good for her. Glad you two are
happy.”

More crunching. Increasingly, Josie wondered if TJ had
somehow figured out she wasn’t
quite
over Luke yet. She was still
vulnerable to thinking of him, dreaming of him…wanting him. Their breakup,
coming hard on the heels of their incredible night together as it had, had
really devastated her. She couldn’t risk actually
talking
about him. Not
yet.

“So,” TJ said offhandedly. “About Link. He’s
got this real hard-ass of a dad, see? And this dad, he’s always cracking down
hard on him. He thinks he’s a screw-up.”

“La, la, la. Not listening!” Josie sang out.

“When Link was just a little kid, his mom died.”

Oh, geez. “Come on, TJ—”

“And his dad, he just went to work after that. That was
all he did. Work, work, work. Building his freight trucking empire. He went to
work and shipped Link to boarding school.” TJ shrugged. “Boarding
school after boarding school. Link kept getting kicked out for taking things
apart. And drag racing. And amping up the power on the parents’ night
billboard.”

Josie had to know something. Determinedly, she kept her tone
light. “Was there really a pony? And a nanny?”

“I think so.” TJ frowned. “I met Link after
all that. By then, he was busy trying to be a big boss at, um, Blowhard &
Sons. Like his dad wanted. But it didn’t work out too well.”