“It’s not testing. It’s making sure we’re right for each other.”
“Really? So you just happened to, during the course of one shift, roll around in mud, get bear shit on you and get sprayed by a skunk?”
Okay, so that might have been a test. And Wendy had failed. “I bet when you were dating mom, she never looked at you like you were something she needed to scrape off her shoe.”
“You’d lose that bet.”
Matt seriously doubted that. His mom gave her husband some good-natured ribbing after a day of fishing or a trip to camp like the one they were on now, but Connie Barnett was never ashamed of the man she’d married.
Someday he’d find a woman who didn’t wrinkle her nose at him or nag him because he’d rather wear a T-shirt that came free with a case of beef jerky than a fancy button-up shirt from the mall.
Whether or not he’d find her in Whitford remained to be seen.
BY THE TIME Tori pulled onto Hailey’s street, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get out of the car. The new hiking boots had been tossed onto the floor of the backseat, but her muscles were already protesting the day’s adventure by stiffening up on her.
“You going to make it?” Tori put the car in park and grinned at her. “I’d offer a piggyback ride, but you’re a lot taller than me, so it would just be awkward.”
“The test will be getting out of the car. After that, I can crawl if I have to.”
“We should have invited our rescuer home with us. I bet he could have carried you inside without even breaking a sweat.”
With a body like that, he probably could. Unfortunately, the package as a whole didn’t do much for her. “What is it with you and trying to hook me up with that guy? He probably collects roadkill in his freezer.”
Tori frowned. “Who would do that?”
“Exactly.”
“Hailey, just because a guy is hairy, smells a little bad and has a hat so gross even a ten-year-old boy wouldn’t touch it doesn’t mean he’s not marriage material.”
She actually shuddered. “Then you marry him.”
“Oh, no. I’m never getting married. You’re the one who’s on the hunt for Prince Charming.”
“And that guy wasn’t him.” She reached into the backseat for her boots, wincing. “Next time, let’s go to a nightclub.”
“Whitford doesn’t have a nightclub.”
“Katie and I went to a great club on the Valentine’s Day before last. We’d have to spend the night at a motel, but we wouldn’t be in the woods.”
“Nice places?”
“Of course.” Hailey paused halfway out of the car. “Okay, not really. But they meet the minimum requirements of being a nightclub and motel.”
“Gee, I can hardly wait.”
Hailey managed to get out of the car without falling on her face. “I’ll call you tomorrow if I don’t drown in the tub.”
Boots in hand, she walked to her front door in her stocking feet. She’d never been so glad to see her house, and that was saying something. She was crazy about the little Cape and coming home at the end of the day was one of her greatest pleasures. It was also one of the reasons, besides loving her job, that kept her from leaving Whitford and moving someplace with a little more variety in its men.
There was a ranch-style house to her left and a young family lived there, but she couldn’t really see or hear them thanks to a strip of woods along the property line. On the other side was a smaller version of her own house. It was closer than she would have liked, but a couple whose only child had already moved out had lived there when Hailey bought her house. A few months ago, the couple had moved away in search of work.
The house hadn’t sold, though. Fran Benoit, who owned the Whitford General Store and was ground zero for all things gossip related, told her they never even got a nibble, so they were trying to rent it instead. While Hailey didn’t mind the lack of interest because new neighbors were always a crap shoot, she was starting to have reservations about it sitting empty. It would start going downhill and she didn’t want it dragging her property value down with it.
Ignoring the front door, with its sidelights and hanging pots, she let herself into the door she usually used, which opened into a mudroom between the garage and kitchen. After tossing the boots into the corner, knowing there was a good chance she’d never wear them again, she went into the kitchen. A bright room, with lemon walls and white cabinets and woodwork, it was devoid of clutter while still being warm and welcoming. It usually cheered her up after a long day at the library which, despite her best efforts, still had a lot of dark-stained oak going on, but right now she just wanted to grab a glass of iced tea and collapse.
Her living room wasn’t quite as bright as the kitchen, with pale mint walls and beige leather loveseats, and the master bedroom was more neutral with soft blues and peach tones, but overall her home was decorated in colors that made her happy. Most of the accent furnishings were white rather than wood, and she kept redecorating limited to a slight throw pillow fetish. Some women bought shoes. She bought colorful throw pillows.
Throwing herself onto a loveseat, Hailey sent a text to Paige Kowalski. Paige had only been in Whitford a few years, but they’d become almost immediate friends and she was still the person Hailey went to when she had something on her mind.
Are you busy/sleeping/covered in baby poop?
Within seconds, the cell phone rang in her hand and Paige’s name flashed on the screen. Hailey swallowed some iced tea and answered it. “Hey, new mommy. How’s it going?”
“Right now, it’s quiet. Which means right now is the greatest moment of my life.”
Hailey laughed. “Oh, come on. Sarah’s almost seven weeks old now. You don’t have the hang of it yet?”
“What I have figured out is that little Sarah Rose loves to sleep on her daddy’s chest. Poor Mitch has been trying to signal to me he has to pee for a half hour now, so I’m avoiding eye contact.”
“Didn’t you tell me he has to start traveling again next week?”
Paige’s sigh was loud over the phone. “He’s trying to keep it to a minimum but yeah, he has to go out of town next week.”
“Maybe you could get one of those man dolls people use to cheat their way into carpool lanes.”
“Mitch would probably like to think it wouldn’t be the same. Hey, aren’t you supposed to be paddling around in a canoe or something right now? I remember something about Liz covering for Tori because Tori and you were going on some kind of adventure hike. Then I was wondering if I hallucinated that because I only sleep five minutes a day now and I’d never heard your name and hiking used in the same sentence before, but I know Liz worked today.”
“Let’s pretend it was a postpartum hallucination.”
“Ooh, that good? Tell me. And tell me every single detail very, very slowly because Mitch won’t interrupt me while I’m on the phone. As soon as I hang up, quiet time’s over.”
Hailey told her every detail she remembered, pausing every once in a while so Paige could laugh at her or lecture her about new boots and trusting homemade concoctions from internet sites.
“Wait, tell me again about the guy that found you? Do you think he lived in the woods?”
Hailey realized she might have overplayed the poor guy’s Deliverance factor a little. Or a lot. “He said it was a camp, I think. And he said his family goes there.”
“So he wasn’t a weird hermit guy, then?”
“He had a satellite phone.”
“Oh, well then. There you go.”
“That’s what Tori said. I have no idea if hermits have satellite phones. But he heard me call him Jeremiah Johnson.”
“Jeremiah Johnson was kind of hot.”
Hailey rolled her eyes, even though Paige couldn’t see her. “No. Robert Redford, playing him in the movie, was kind of hot. In real life, I think Jeremiah Johnson was probably pretty gross.”
“In the movies, the guy who comes to the rescue is never pretty gross.”
Gross was a bit harsh. So the guy needed to be reacquainted with hot, soapy water and a razor blade. And laundry detergent. Those were all things that could be fixed. Underneath all that, he’d had a great body, a voice she could imagine would make reading the phone book out loud sexy, and there was something about his eyes. He had really pretty eyes. Brown, but lighter than hers, and thick eyelashes.
In the background, Hailey could hear Sarah start winding up to a full shriek and Paige sighed. “I bet he woke her up on purpose.”
“Go kiss Sarah for me and let your husband pee. Call me if you get bored or you need a break while Mitch is on the road, okay?”
They hung up and Hailey finished the rest of her iced tea. Next up was a long soak in a hot bubble bath.
And she’d put on an audiobook, too, to keep her mind from straying yet again to how jealous she was of her best friend. All of her friends, actually. They were all living happily ever after, while she was still waiting for her prince to come.
She wished she could be more like Tori. Tori had no interest in being anybody’s wife and intended to live the rest of her life having torrid and temporary love affairs with any guy who tickled her fancy, and then moving on before the fancy-tickling turned sour.