LITMIR.BIZ

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never have visited that rescue site.

      There was nothing she could do about that now. She’d make it up to him, somehow. How, exactly, she didn’t know. She hoped she could find someplace to rent that allowed big dogs that drooled and had a tendency to shed. Oh, dear.

      Her Black Friday was getting blacker by the minute. She left the house, punching in Cecily Sterling’s phone number on her cell as she walked.

      Ella and Cecily had been friends since high school. In fact, it was Cecily who had gotten Ella and Jake together. They’d lost touch when Cecily moved to L.A. but had reconnected when she returned to Icicle Falls earlier in the year. Cecily had been shocked to hear about the divorce but she’d been sympathetic and supportive. She had men interested in her, two to be exact, but she was done with men (or so she claimed), which made her the ideal dinner companion.

      “Have you eaten yet?” Ella asked.

      “Nope,” Cecily answered. “I just got in the door.”

      “I don’t suppose you’d like to go back out the door, would you?”

      “Maybe. What did you have in mind?”

      “I need a place to hang out for a couple of hours. Dinner at Zelda’s?” Even though it was Friday night and the town was packed with tourists gearing up for Saturday shopping, Charlene Albach could always find a table for her friends.

      “Jake’s still home?” Cecily guessed.

      “Yeah,” Ella admitted. This was silly. She couldn’t keep running over to Charley’s restaurant every time Jake was home.

      “I could go for a huckleberry martini,” Cecily said.

      Oh, yes, a huckleberry martini sounded good. Or two. Whatever it took to wash away the image of Jake in his boxers.

      * * *

      Jake slammed a pot on the stove and pulled a can of chili from his side of the cupboard. Canned chili. He might as well have been a bachelor again.

      Oh, yeah. He was.

      He frowned at the can as he secured it to the electric can opener. This sucked. His life sucked. From perfect to puke in less than a year.

      Was there a song in there somewhere? Probably not. He emptied the chili into the pot, along with a can of stewed tomatoes and a can of corn, his own secret recipe.

      Tiny was in the kitchen now and looking expectantly up at him. “Yeah, I know. You like chili, too,” he said to the dog. He opened another can and added that to the pot. “You know this will make you fart.”

      Tiny wagged his tail.

      “Yeah, you’re right. Who cares? We’re guys, it’s what we do.” And they also walked around the house in their boxers.

      Except not anymore, now that he and Ella weren’t together. Walking around in his boxers was no longer allowed. So maybe he should talk to her about leaving her bras hanging out in plain sight when she did the laundry. Did she have any idea how crazy that made him? All it took was one glance at those lacy little cups and he could picture Ella with him in that sleigh bed they’d found at an estate sale, going at it like rabbits.

      He heaved a sigh. How had he gone from happily married to miserably divorced so fast?

      He and Ella were meant to be together. They should’ve gone to counseling, worked things out.

      Aw, heck, they wouldn’t even have needed counseling if he’d explained when she first started singing her version of “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” accusing him of being unfaithful. He’d tried to, but she’d cut him off. Then she’d thrown those pictures down in front of him and he’d been so shocked that his mother-in-law would do something that outrageous, and so offended and just plain pissed…he’d lost it. Wounded pride and anger had escorted him to the edge of the matrimonial cliff and then pushed him off.

      It had been a fast fall and he learned firsthand that once the D word’s been said, there’s nothing else left to say.

      So here he was, broken and miserable. The woman who’d once thought he hung the moon now wanted nothing more to do with him.

      And his chili was burning. He swore and pulled it off the burner. “You’re getting the crusty part,” he informed Tiny. “You don’t care.”

      You don’t care. Ella had thrown those words at him, insisting he sign the divorce papers.

      “I’m not the one who filed for this,” he’d shot back.

      “Just sign it, Jake. Please.”

      When he’d seen those tears in her eyes, he should have pulled her to him and kissed her breathless. Then he should’ve torn up the papers, borrowed some money from Pops and moved them to Nashville. There was someplace he was sure her mother would never have followed. And that was probably what they needed. It could’ve been the two of them rather than the three of them.

      He put his culinary creation in a bowl, gave Tiny the rest and then went back to his room. His room. That sucked, too. This was the guest room. Someday it was supposed to have been the nursery. Now it was his room.

      He sat on the single bed that was six inches too short for him (a garage sale find), and sighed. Here he was, a squatter in his own home. Maybe Lily Swan was right. Maybe he was a loser. Maybe he had no talent. If he’d just admitted it, quit the band and taken a job in the warehouse at Sweet Dreams Chocolates, maybe he and Ella would still be together. There’d have been no groupies, no Jen, no reason to be jealous. Instead, he’d had to dream of a songwriting career and stardom. He’d tried to support his habit (and them) by working in the music shop on Fourth, but then the music shop had gone out of business. He still had a few guitar students but he wasn’t exactly getting rich. In short, these days he was a loser, unable to hang on to his woman and barely able to hang on to his dreams.

      He looked at the dresser and the diamond in Ella’s engagement ring winked at him mockingly. He’d made payments on that for a whole year. Then he’d bummed the rest of the money he needed from Pops, paid it off and asked her to marry him that same night. She’d given him back both the engagement and wedding rings the day she’d shoved the divorce papers in front of him. “I can’t keep them,” she’d said. Just like she couldn’t keep him.

      “No. I gave them to you. Keep them,” he’d insisted.

      Ella loved jewelry and she’d especially loved that engagement ring, but she’d shaken her head and backed away.

      Jake couldn’t bring himself to get rid of either ring. They still meant something to him, even if they didn’t to Ella.

      Damn, he was a walking country song.

      With a growl, he set aside his chili and finished getting dressed. No sense hanging around here any longer. He’d go to the Red Barn. Maybe he’d find some cute chick there who appreciated him and his music.

      Even if he did, he’d look at her and see Ella.

      And that sucked the most of all.

      3

      Charlene Albach, Charley to her friends, surveyed her domain with satisfaction. Six o’clock and all is well.

      Zelda’s restaurant was filled with diners, many of them out-of-towners who’d come up to enjoy a Thanksgiving weekend getaway. Charley had been happy to oblige. She’d hated to miss going to her sister’s in Portland to be with family, but the restaurant was entirely hers now and she simply couldn’t leave. So she’d focused instead on giving other families a spectacular holiday, serving turkey dinner with all the trimmings, including stuffing made from her great-grandmother’s recipe. Well, with a few new twists. That was part of the fun of owning a restaurant. You got to create new recipes, dream up taste sensations that would keep customers coming back for more.

      They were sure coming tonight. People had obviously worked up their appetites sledding and spending

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