Love on the Outskirts of Town Read online

  She laughed gently in his ear. “Okay. Have fun with that.”

  “I won’t. Ah, maybe I will. I do like-like you after all.”

  “I like-like you too.”

  He had the goofiest grin on his face as he ended the call and slid into his text messages.

  Dean: You told Jake first?

  Sean: Seriously, WTF? I just saw you this morning. No heads up for your favourite brother?

  Dean: You are not the favourite.

  Sean: By all objective measures I am.

  Jake: Guys, I told you that in confidence and now I’m putting Calvin down for a nap. Can we do this later?

  Dean: Oh, we’re going to be doing this for days, don’t worry, you’re not missing anything. Matt has a girlfriend? This is gold material.

  Matt: I can see you all, you know. You’re ridiculous.

  Sean: Whenever you want to talk, I’m here for you.

  Matt: Thanks. I can feel the love.

  Sean: Do you want to come over now?

  Matt: Not a chance in hell. I have to rack out. Later.

  He was still grinning, though. They were jerks, but they were his jerks.

  Chapter Sixteen

  After breakfast, Natasha and Emily got to work.

  For Emily, this meant carefully packing which stuffed animals to take over to the apartments while Mommy worked. For Natasha, it meant packing all the garbage bags and household cleaners she could carry at once.

  She scrubbed the floors and stripped the walls of remnant wallpaper. Emily helped by spritzing water on the walls. It felt good, like any other Mommy-and-Millie day, until the late afternoon.

  Right on schedule, Emily curled up beside her, clutching a teddy bear, a frown pulling her little eyebrows together. “I miss Nollie.”

  Of course she did. This was the time they should go and pick her cousins up from school.

  “We’re going to go to see her day after tomorrow,” she said reassuringly. She was doing a couple of evening shifts at Bailey’s a week up until Meredith left, to line the coffers a little more and to give the girls extra time together before they lived on opposite sides of the province. “Do you want to call her in a little bit?”

  “Mm-hmm. And a cuddle now.”

  “Of course.”

  They were sitting on a blanket on the floor in the living room, their picnic snack stretched out in front of them. Crackers and cheese and juice boxes.

  Emily crawled into Tasha’s lap and closed her eyes.

  “You have been such a good help today,” Tasha said as she stroked her daughter’s hair and cheeks. Endlessly soft, effortlessly perfect.

  Emily didn’t answer, just snuggled deeper. Because she’d always worked nights, Emily had always slept on her own, but suddenly Tasha felt like she’d missed a chance the night before. “Hey, do you want to have a sleepover in Mommy’s bed tonight?”

  Emily laughed. “No.”

  Oh, fine then. Tasha grinned. “No?”

  “I like my bed.”

  “And do you like it here?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  Relief swelled in Tasha’s chest. “That’s what I was hoping to hear,” she whispered, too overwhelmed to speak any louder.

  “Mommy?”

  “Yeah, baby?”

  “Do you want a sleepover in my bed?”

  She laughed out loud. “No, but thank you.”

  That new house joy lasted for three more days. Then she got an email from David.

  Since she wanted everything in writing, it said, he was officially asking for a full weekend with Emily over Christmas. She fired back a quick reply—yes, of course he could have time with her. Could they maybe do a single overnight visit before the holidays as a test run?

  He took his sweet time replying, but finally said he wasn’t sure his calendar would allow it, but he’d come up for another day trip at the very least.

  Sweet mother of mercy.

  She exhaled slowly, then picked up her phone.

  He answered right away. “I thought you wanted a paper trail of all our communication.”

  Sure, she had said that. But then they’d had what she thought was a decently productive conversation where she shared the changes in her life, so… “We can follow up with email summaries of this call,” she said more smoothly than she felt. “But it’s easier to just hash this out over the phone.”

  “That’s been my point all along.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Okay. Good. How about if I bring Emily to Toronto for a night? I have friends I can catch up with, and then you won’t be out any travel time. And I’ll also be close by if she needs me.”

  “She won’t.”

  How would you know? “Just as a backup option, of course.”

  “Don’t you need to work?”

  She winced. Right, that minor detail. “Well,” she carefully said. “I’ve cut back my hours at the bar since we’ve moved.”

  David didn’t say anything. He was silent long enough that she thought he might actually hang up on her, but then he cleared his throat. “Is that wise?”

  It wasn’t any of his business, she wanted to point out. “I have a plan. It’s fine.”

  “I looked up Wiarton.” She could just imagine him Googling small-town Ontario with disdain. “It’s quite a bit further from the city. One could make an argument that’s a passive aggressive move on your part.”

  “Not really. Straight shot up the highway, no need to turn left now.”

  “Don’t make light of this. You moved my daughter further away from me.”

  “I already told you, it was for economic reasons. Real estate is much more affordable up here.”

  “Real estate. You bought a house?”

  Oops. Maybe she’d left that minor detail out. Then again, maybe it was none of his God damned business.

  “I did.”

  “And you cut back your hours?”

  To almost nothing, but he didn’t need to know that, and it was time to point out the unspoken truth now. “That is none of your concern.” I have a plan. A Big Dream Plan. It’s going to be awesome. “Anyway, please think about a single night visit first.”

  They ended the call on that standoffish note, which didn’t feel great.

  When she arrived at Meredith’s house in Port Elgin the next night, she told her sister about the conversation.

  “Has he gotten back to you yet?”

  “Nope. And I emailed after the conversation, too. No response.”

  Meredith shook her head. “So frustrating.”

  “Yep.”

  “And how’s your sexy paramedic?”

  “Matt’s good. He wants to help me paint.” She took a deep breath. “And he told Jake we’re friends. Apparently, it went well.”

  Her sister beamed.

  “Say it.”

  “I told you so.”

  Natasha laughed. “You did. But you get why it stressed me out, right?”

  “Yeah, of course.” Meredith glanced at the clock. “Okay, you should get going to work.”

  “Thanks for watching Emily tonight.”

  “Thanks for taking my kids to school tomorrow.” Meredith was winding down her job and packing up their house. Three more weeks, and they’d move to Ottawa—just in time for Christmas. Until then, Natasha was going to work at Bailey’s a couple days a week and crash on Meredith’s couch, but they were slowly disentangling their co-dependent lives.

  It was harder than she’d thought it would be, and she’d thought it would be brutal.

  It was nice to go to the bar, though, and do something she was effortlessly good at for a few hours.

  When she got back to her sister’s place after midnight, Meredith was still up. They had a cup of herbal tea together, then Tasha got out her computer. She hadn’t set up internet at her house yet, so she took this opportunity to do some banking and emailing that was easier on the computer than on her phone.

  Then she went to social media and did something she hadn’t do
ne in months—she lurked on David’s profile to see what he’d been up to. Apparently, he’d been up to all sorts of everything with Sable.

  Meredith craned her neck over to look at the screen. “Are you creeping on David’s girlfriend’s Facebook?”

  “I’m checking out the supposed grown-ups who will be responsible for my daughter for two whole days over Christmas. And technically it’s his profile, not hers, although it’s hard to tell.”

  Meredith snorted.

  “Do you realize she always takes exactly the same picture of herself? Like, what’s wrong with the right side of her face? We’ve seen it in person, it’s perfectly acceptable.”

  “Creeper,” Meredith said in a sing-song voice.

  “It’s a reasonable question.”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “Right.” Tasha poked through a few more pictures, but really, there wasn’t anything to learn there. She sighed and closed her laptop. “It’s going to be fine, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m totally going to freak out as soon as she leaves.”

  “Yes.”

  She sighed again. “Why is being a mom so hard?”

  Two days later, they were back in Wiarton, in their big empty house that needed so much work it made Tasha nervous and excited at the same time.

  It also made her want to curl into a ball in a blanket fort, but that wasn’t possible. For one thing, she didn’t have enough blankets to build a proper fort. For another, she didn’t have time for that kind of thing.

  One day, they’d have a Mommy-and-Emily blanket fort staycation and it would be glorious.

  On Thursday, she threw herself into gutting the studio apartments. During the day, she did the stuff that Emily could be around. And once her daughter was in bed, she carried a baby monitor with her and did the more dangerous demolition on her own.

  By late Friday night, she had two pretty much empty spaces.

  They needed a hell of a lot of work still. New paint, new trim, new floors.

  She’d been watching the flyers like a hawk. She’d set herself a strict budget for each apartment and she was going to come in under it, no matter what. So she needed to get the best price possible on the big-ticket items, like flooring and new cabinets for the kitchenettes.

  The bathrooms terrified her, though. They would be expensive no matter how she cut it, and the more she learned about tiling and shower drainage, the less she wanted to tackle that herself.

  One thing at a time.

  Once she was back on her side of the house, she dragged her weary bones upstairs and ran the bath. Bubbles and a good long soak would help.

  Which reminded her, she needed to text Matt again.

  He’d sent her texts all week. Playful ones, sweet ones, even a couple of innocently dirty ones that made her blush. He had a way of reading her mood from a distance and no matter which tack he took, it worked to make her smile.

  Which didn’t mean she didn’t worry, too.

  Every time her heart soared, she told herself to keep a lid on her feelings for him. That it was still, essentially, nothing. A friendship with some flirtation that could be yanked away from her at any moment.

  It didn’t feel like nothing, though.

  It felt big and round and happy.

  So she grabbed her phone. Her heart pounding, she took a cute, nervous, hopefully adorable selfie of her face. Then she got into the tub and held her arm further away, angling it above her so she caught a good slice of cleavage and bare leg bursting out from the floating bubbles, reaching for the far side of the tub.

  It was magical what perspective could do. Her leg looked long and sexy and really, this was how all photos of her legs should be taken.

  She messed around with an app to filter the photos just right, then texted them to Matt.

  Natasha: End of a long day. Taking a bath and thinking of you.

  She was blushing after she hit send, and she closed her eyes. Would he like it? Would he text back and ask her for more?

  The phone rang in her hand and she blindly answered it. “Did you like my picture?”

  “What picture?” David asked.

  Natasha shrieked and her leg slipped off the edge of the tub. Into the water she slid, her phone thankfully tumbling the opposite way.

  When she hauled herself out of the water and looked over the edge, her phone was lying on the towel, and David’s name and number were on the screen.

  Crap.

  “Sorry,” she called out, quickly drying her hands before she picked up the phone. She carefully leaned out of the tub, not wanting to risk dropping it again. “Okay, hey. Hi. What’s up?”

  “You didn’t send me a picture.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “You said—”

  “You must have misheard me. I think I said something like, ’This is a surprise’.” She winced. That sounded ridiculous. But he bought it.

  Sort of. He sighed in her ear. “I cleared my schedule. I can drive up tomorrow and pick Emily up. I thought we might take her to the family cottage in Collingwood, because that’s where we’ll be for Christmas. Familiar space and all that.”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “We’d arrive around lunch.”

  She cast a wild-eyed look around her falling down bathroom, with the chipped tile and the peeling paint. No, there was no way David could come here tomorrow. “How about I meet you in Collingwood? I need to drive into Owen Sound to get paint anyway, and it’s halfway there.” Sort of. Crap. There went an entire morning of driving.

  “Is everything okay?” He sounded suspicious, and for good reason.

  She was acting like a loon. “Totally fine.”

  He hesitated before continuing. “Do you remember where the cottage is?”

  “Yep.”

  “I can send you a map.”

  “I’m good.”

  “Because—”

  “I have to go. We’ll see you tomorrow.” She ended the call and sagged, letting her phone tumble back to the towel on the floor and resting her cheek against the curved edge of the tub.

  From the floor, she heard her phone vibrate.

  Maybe it was Matt texting back. Maybe it was David sending her detailed instructions on how to get to a cottage she’d been to half a dozen times.

  She didn’t care. She slowly sank into the hot, soapy water and closed her eyes. Her baby was going to spend the next night away from her.

  Sure, she’d left Emily with Meredith hundreds of times, but never all the way overnight. In three years, Natasha had always been there when Emily woke up—in the middle of the night, in the early morning.

  And now she was going to have to trust David and Sable, the annoyingly nice selfie queen, to be there instead.

  Matt was working his last shift for the week, and feeling the drag of four shifts in a row. Tasha’s photo made his night, though, and saved him from barking at the new ride-a-long student, Marco, who wasn’t nearly as competent as the last one. He’d already snarled twice, and now he was painfully aware that he wasn’t being a great instructor on this night shift.

  The text from Natasha had been just what he needed. A little rush, a little zing. A big zing, actually.

  It took him a while to respond properly, because they’d been stuck in an off-load delay and he didn’t have any privacy. Now they were back at the station, and Will took the kid into the break room, so Matt stayed in the ambulance bay and dug out his phone.

  Matt: I keep looking at this. It made my night.

  Natasha: Now I’m all squeaky clean and curled up in bed.

  Matt: I like that too. Lucky bed.

  She’d started the flirting, but he didn’t want to be too forward. He changed the subject to something more…courting.

  Matt: Maybe I can visit this weekend? I’m not working.

  Natasha: I’d love that. Emily’s going for her first overnight with David, though, so fair warning, I might be kind of mopey.

  Ma
tt: In that case, I should bring dinner and wine.

  Natasha: That would be amazing. The Kingsley kitchen has a limited menu right now, mostly just instant oatmeal and crackers and cheese.

  Natasha: Oh, and I’ll be painting in the afternoon, so there will be fumes.

  Natasha: I’m really selling this date.

  Matt: I promise I can’t wait. See you tomorrow.

  The radio squawked with a new call-out, in support of a midwife at a home birth. The labour was progressing quickly, and her backup midwife might not arrive in time. Even as Matt was listening to the dispatch, Will and the now-more-than-ever-nervous Marco were hustling onto the ambulance.

  Out into the night they went. It took twelve minutes to arrive at the farm just off highway 6. The wide-eyed father-to-be answered the door, inviting them into a quiet kitchen.

  “Exciting night, eh?” Matt asked, snapping on a pair of blue gloves. “Where are they?”

  “Through here.”

  He followed the dad to the living room, where the labouring mom was on her side on the floor. He didn’t recognize the midwife kneeling beside her, but he knew his sister-in-law, Jenna, was the second one on her way here.

  “Hey,” he said. “Matt Foster. We’re here if you need us, but we’ll stay out of your way if you don’t.”

  “Thanks,” the dark-haired woman said, flashing him a quick smile. “I’m Kerry. This is Teresa. She’s fully dilated and baby is descending quickly. She’s doing her best not to push, but some of the contractions are moving the baby along without her.” She leaned forward and listened to the woman’s belly. “They’re both doing just fine, so I don’t want to ask her to wait any longer.”

  Protocol and best practice dictated there be a medical professional caring for both the mother and the baby once delivery took place. Matt had only attended one other home birth, so he was more than happy to be bossed around here. “Sounds good.”