Kate Welsh - Small-Town Dreams and The Girl Next Door - Small-Town Dreams / The Girl Next Door

“You know, Joshua, you are the most incredible person I’ve ever met. Would you answer a burning question for me? How did you get your name?”

“Henry hated that they called me ‘John Doe’ at the hospital, so one day he balanced his Bible on the spine and helped me hold it between my hands. He told me we were going to let the Lord choose a name for me. Then he pulled my hands off the book and it fell open to Joshua. He closed it and did it again, and it fell open at Daniel. So I became Joshua Daniels. I even have a Social Security card and driver’s license under that name.”

“So your last name is Daniels. I thought you were their real son and that Daniel was your middle name. I guess your Lord was good to you. Think of the name you could have wound up with by using that method.”

They’d reached the truck where Bear was sleeping like a baby. “Bear!” Josh called out, and shook the truck bed. “Come on, boy. Wake up!”

Bear lay still as a rock.

“He’s kind of a deep sleeper,” Joshua explained, then clapped his hands loudly over the side of the truck bed near the dog.

The furry mound produced a paw that landed over a floppy ear. Other than that, he showed no movement except a sigh and deepened breathing.

“Maybe you should reach in and shake him,” she suggested.

Josh tried her suggestion, but to no avail. “I guess it’s time to pull out the big guns. Come on, Bear. Let’s go have dinner at Ma’s.”

A furry head popped up, followed quickly by the rest of the dog as he careened recklessly over the side of the truck, nearly knocking Joshua over. Bear was gone like a flash, running and barking down the road toward Irma’s Café.

“Will she feed him?” Cassidy asked.

“Sure. She’s crazy about him. But she may not feed me. I’m in for it when we get down there. He’ll go charging into the place and start begging for handouts. Bear’s just nuts for Ma’s cooking.”

“I imagine everyone in town is.”

“Yeah,” Josh conceded, then chuckled, “but they have lots better table manners.”

Two days later, winter had really begun to make her approach known. Fending for herself in Irma’s kitchen by subsisting on leftovers eaten in the privacy of her room, Cassidy had avoided Joshua like the plague. The quick dinner with him had been wonderful but, as she’d feared, dangerous. He was too compelling. Too comfortable with who he was. His grin was too charming. She just couldn’t concentrate around him.

So she’d hidden away, determined to think through her problems. And now Cassidy was tired of thinking. Especially because all it did was make her more unhappy since she’d come to a monumental conclusion.

She was miserable.

Not just miserable because she’d been passed over for a promotion. But miserable with her job at Jamison itself. And with her whole life.

She worked constantly and didn’t have the time to spend any of the substantial salary that she earned with all those hours she put in doing something she hated. And worst of all, Cassidy didn’t have a clue what she could do about it. Despite what she’d said to her grandfather and despite what she’d thought in the days that had followed their showdown in the office, she was all the old man had in this world. She couldn’t just desert him and destroy his dream of handing down his company to his descendants.

She’d call him. She’d talk to him. She’d at least let him know she was safe.

Before she could change her mind, Cassidy lifted the phone extension and dialed his office at Jamison Steel.

“Winston Jamison’s office. Rose Carmichael speaking.”

“Is he there?” she asked the woman who was as close to a mother as she’d had in twenty years.

“Oh, Cassidy, I’m so glad you called. He’s here. I’m just not sure we shouldn’t let him suffer a bit longer.”

“I don’t want him to suffer. At least, not any more,” she added wryly.

“Then you’re too generous. But then, we know that already, don’t we.”

Cassidy ran a hand agitatedly through her short hair. “I don’t want him to worry, Rose.”

“Suppose we compromise? I’ll tell him you called and that you’re fine but that you weren’t ready to talk to him. Once he knows that you’re okay, he’ll be fine. How’s that?”

“He’s not frantic, is he? Won’t he want to know where I am?”

“I wouldn’t call it frantic exactly, and I’ll tell him you called from Tahiti if he asks.”

Remembering that one of his prized assistants recently ran off to Tahiti with his Human Resources vice president made Cassidy chuckle. “You are bad.”

Now Rose chuckled. “And how do you think I’ve controlled the beast all these years? Cassidy,” she said, her tone suddenly sober. “I want you to promise me that you’ll kick back and think seriously about what you want out of life. Forget what your grandfather got you into here at Jamison. He’s a big boy and can take care of himself. Put anything to do with Philly out of your mind, rest and think. Please promise me.”

“I promise,” Cassidy found herself saying.

“Good. Keep in touch. ‘Bye now, sweetheart.”

Cassidy dropped the receiver into the cradle and stared at it. Now where did that leave her? Thinking some more? Considering crazy ideas of where her life had gone wrong?

The thud of an ax in the backyard seemed to mock her. She was a grown woman and she’d been reduced—No! She’d reduced herself to cowering in a room for fear of becoming attached to a wonderful man because her grandfather wouldn’t approve of him. How much, she wondered for the first time since that fateful day when her grandfather had taken charge of her life, did she owe the man who’d raised her? Surely not the rest of her life?

Joshua heard the back door close with its typical wooden slap. It was time to take the screen out and put the glass in for winter. In his mind, he ran a quick list of the winterizing he’d done so far and what he had yet to accomplish. He’d put up the storm windows in mid-October, but Ma liked to be able to let the heat out of the kitchen, so he’d waited for real winter weather to do the door. And Ma couldn’t deny that it was cold today.

Glancing at the pile of wood for the woodstove that he’d stacked up, he mentally checked that off as almost finished. That left getting the shovels out and ready, as well as mounting the plow blade on the truck, but it was early days for that yet.

He swung the ax again, and the log split from top to bottom. A frigid blast of air ruffled his hair, and he smiled. He loved winter, he thought as he took aim at another log. Summer heat sometimes depressed him, but winter revitalized him. He was determined not to speculate on why that was.

“Oh, I hate winter,” Cassidy grumbled at his back.

Startled, Joshua missed the log and buried the head of the ax six inches into the dirt. He pulled the ax out of the ground and spun to face her. “So the recluse has come out of her den. Don’t you know it’s dangerous to sneak up on a man who’s swinging an ax?”

“I didn’t think I was sneaking. That screen door slammed shut loud enough to wake the dead. And if that didn’t, Bear’s rather exuberant greeting would have.”

Josh glanced at his traitor of a dog, who at that moment sat next to Cassidy, a huge bone sticking out the sides of his mouth and his eyes glowing with puppy-love as he stared up at her.

“Cassie, you’ve created a monster. Now he’s going to follow you everywhere whining and hoping for more treats.” Josh was shocked by the stricken look on her now-pale face. He dropped the ax and went to her. “What’s wrong?” he asked as he reached out to grip her upper arms, afraid she might drop at his feet.