He shook himself and stepped out of the truck. The packed snow crunched under his boots. When he stepped onto the side porch, the kitchen door opened and Pansy dashed past him into the yard, immediately bounding into the snow. Stella stood in the doorway, grinning as she watched Pansy run in mad circles through the snow.
“Hey there,” he said.
Stella glanced to him. “Hey! I figured you were here. Pansy got all excited about something. Come on in.” She stepped through the door onto the deck and gestured inside.
Travis walked into the kitchen to find Janie putting dishes in the dishwasher. He distantly heard Stella calling Pansy’s name. One week. One single week since he’d seen Janie, and it was all he could do not to step to her, lift her in his arms and carry her to the closest place he could find. It wasn’t simply the driving need to be with her physically, but the deep need to connect with her intimately. Pansy dashed by him and came to a sliding stop in the middle of the kitchen. She stopped and shook, sending snowflakes in a swirl around her.
Stella closed the door, cold air whooshing in behind her. As she started to skip across the kitchen, Janie closed the dishwasher and looked up. “Stella, take it easy. Your ankle’s better, but don’t overdue it.”
Stella wrinkled her nose and rolled her eyes, but she obediently slowed to a walk and plunked down on a stool by the counter. Janie had yet to address him directly, but conversation carried on with Stella chattering blithely. At some point, she got distracted by a text and meandered out of the kitchen, texting back and forth with Parker. Travis glanced to Janie. “I guess texting is the modern version of talking on the phone for kids, huh?”
Janie burst out laughing. “Absolutely! She almost never makes calls to her friends.”
He couldn’t help but smile, it was so good to hear her laugh. As they stood there, her smile faded and she looked over at him. “You said you wanted to talk,” she finally said.
His chest tightened, and his heart jumpstarted. He managed to nod. “I did. Can I ask you something first?”
She was holding a dishtowel and began to twist it between her hands. After a moment, she nodded.
He didn’t have much of a plan for how to have this conversation, and he was definitely navigating uncharted waters, seeing as no woman had ever mattered this much to him. He took a gulp of air. “Have you been avoiding me?” he finally asked.
Her eyes widened, and the towel slid in a loop between her hands. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before shrugging. “Not on purpose, but maybe that’s what ended up happening,” she finally said.
Her words were a glancing blow. For a second, he reacted to the idea she was avoiding him, but then he managed to absorb the first part—that she hadn’t been avoiding him on purpose. He held onto that.
“Okay. I, uh… Look, I don’t know how the hell to explain any of this. It seemed like you were avoiding me, and well, I, uh, I miss seeing you. I guess we haven’t talked about us and maybe I should’ve said something sooner, but this is all new to me, so I didn’t. Here’s the thing…” He paused to catch his breath when he realized his words were tumbling out in a jumble. When he looked over at Janie to gauge her response, her eyes were pinned to him. He couldn’t read her expression. For a split second, he almost decided to forget it. He mentally gave a hard shake and forged ahead. “The thing is I think I love you.” That was it. That was all he could say. With his heart hammering, he gulped in air.
The words dropped like a stone in the room. Janie’s mouth opened and closed. Her eyes widened again and her breath drew in sharply. The long silence wasn’t exactly encouraging. He couldn’t say what he expected because he hadn’t thought about expecting anything. He’d simply wanted to make sure she knew how he felt.
The towel was twisting in a rapid loop between her hands. She finally spoke. “I…I don’t know what to say. I never…” She paused and shook her head sharply. “This is a lot, this thing with us. I won’t say I was consciously avoiding you, but I just needed a little time to try to think straight. You see, I don’t really do this kind of thing.” She dropped the towel from one hand and gestured between them. “I don’t know how I feel because I feel half-crazy inside. Can you give me a little time to slow down?”
Travis started across the kitchen. Maybe six feet separated him from Janie, and he fought the urge to close the distance and kiss her. He needed to show her what he meant. He knew what he felt when they were together. Maybe she didn’t know if she loved him, but he knew she felt something and something powerful, or it wouldn’t feel as if they were bound together by invisible threads. He forced himself to take a deep breath. Disappointment was nearly crushing him. Footsteps sounded in the hallway upstairs, reminding him Stella was here. In another second, she was jogging down the stairs.
“Mom, Parker wants to drive me to the dance next weekend? Is that okay?” Stella slid across the hardwood floor in her socks, skidding to a slow stop beside Janie.
Janie looked to her, her expression blank for a moment. Her eyes came into focus and she started to nod and then paused. “As long as the weather’s not bad. I don’t want him driving you two around if the roads are slick.”
“Mom, but…”
Janie shook her head firmly. “That’s the deal. If the weather’s bad, his mom and I can decide between us who’ll do the driving.”
Stella cast her eyes in Travis’s direction, but he whole-heartedly agreed with Janie. Not to mention, he wasn’t about to put himself at odds in this situation. He shook his head and gestured to Janie. “Don’t look at me. I completely agree with your mom.”
Stella rolled her eyes and quickly began texting something on her phone as she walked over to the couch in the living room and plopped down. She snagged the remote and turned the television on. Travis looked to Janie who had returned to twisting the dishtowel in her hands. Much as he wanted to insist she see to reason, or more accurately to heart, now wasn’t the time with Stella as an audience. “Look, I’ll get outta here. If you wanna talk some more, let me know.”
Something flashed in her eyes. “Travis, I didn’t mean…”
“It’s okay. Now’s not the time. You know how I feel. Unless I hear from you, I’ll give you the space you’re asking for.” At that, he tore his eyes away from hers and turned to the door. He was relieved for the low hum from the television, keeping Stella’s attention off of them. When he reached the door, he called a good bye to Stella and quickly left, not trusting himself to look in Janie’s direction again.
His heart was pounding so hard, he thought he might break a rib. As he drove away, he felt crushed. He didn’t know what he’d hoped for, but he’d definitely hoped for a little more than that from Janie. He supposed it was better that she knew how he felt, no matter what it meant for her.
Chapter 19
Janie walked down the hallway to her classroom. She’d woken to another gray day, which suited her mood perfectly. Almost a week had passed since Travis stopped by and announced he thought he loved her. In the intervening time, she felt torn to pieces. The truth was, she was pretty sure she loved him too. But she felt like a fool for how she’d reacted when he told her how he felt and one thing after another kept getting in the way of her finding a time to talk with him. Stella had recital practice every night right now, along with the weekly performances themselves. This time of year was always busy at school with students ramping up for testing and the interruptions of the holidays making mischief in the classroom, especially for students who needed routine almost as much as they needed air and water. Her days were filled with managing tiny behavioral outbursts, teaching to tests and racing home to take Stella to practice.
In the meantime, the gossip mill was abuzz over Randy’s return to Diamond Creek and his arrest. It seemed like every time Janie turned around, someone was breathlessly asking her what she thought about it. Over and over, she was reminded of his outsized presence in her mother’s history and her own encounter with his fist. His presence was a painful reminder of why she’d chosen a life of independence.
A child raced past her, reaching the door to her classroom seconds before she did. “Danny! Slow down,” she called.
Danny skidded to an abrupt stop, his brown hair bouncing comically as he did. He looked up at her when she reached his side. “I didn’t wanna be late.”
She ruffled his hair. “I’d rather you be a few seconds late than running.”
He managed to speed walk to his desk and plop down just as the bell rang. Her day passed in a blur, while most of the time she had trouble focusing. She kept replaying the scene in the kitchen with Travis. By the end of the day, she was frazzled. After the last bell rang and her students hurried out of the classroom, she savored the quiet as she did a quick check of the classroom, tidying a few areas. She’d returned to her desk and was gathering some papers when she heard her name. She glanced up to see Tess walking through the door.
“Hey, what brings you here?” she asked, inordinately pleased to see Tess. She could use a few minutes of Tess’s warmth.