Dylan turned to Lisa. “It sounds as if Jude’s cottages will be nice when Kyle and Chip are done. We were discussing doing a group vacation, or renting them for a weekend and moving game night up there. What do you think?”
“I think it sounds like fun,” Lisa replied. “Hey, then we’ll be in Toni’s neck of the woods.”
“Oh, I don’t live there anymore,” Toni said. “I live just north of Milwaukee, now.”
I leaned to Lisa and lowered my voice. “They’ve only just started dating. How about we table this conversation for another time?”
Lisa blushed and redirected us to the game. “Cassandra, you go first. Girls against the boys.”
Cassandra drew a card and looked off into the distance. Lisa and Toni and I gathered around while she drew on a pad of paper.
“Dress,” Toni guessed.
Cassandra shook her head and kept drawing, filling in details.
“She’s a fashion designer,” Lisa told Toni.
“Formal?” I guessed.
Again, Cassandra shook her head, although she sent me a significant look.
“Wedding dress!” Lisa said.
Cassandra sat back and pointed at her. “Wedding.”
“Speaking of which,” Dylan said, turning toward Kyle, “have you two set a new date yet?”
Kyle rotated his shoulders and winced. “Do you think I wouldn’t tell you?” He took another slug of his beer, but didn’t glance my direction.
Dylan raised his eyebrows toward me. “Just asking.” He pushed the deck of cards toward Lucas. “Your turn.”
“We’re holding off until I find a new job,” Kyle added.
“Aren’t you working with Chip?” Toni asked.
“It’s a filler job,” Chip told her. “Like how I’m in Door County when I’m not working at the firehouse, except Kyle’s working on the cabins full-time while he’s between positions.”
“Between positions,” Lucas repeated, wagging his eyebrows, which made the group laugh. The best I could muster was a half-smile. Kyle couldn’t even manage that.
“I guess we know what you and Cassandra will be doing later,” Chip joked.
Cassandra blushed and pushed the cards closer to Lucas. “You guys are just trying to distract us so we don’t notice how badly you’re going to lose. Again.”
“Them’s fighting words,” Dylan joked. “Our honor’s at stake, Lucas. Make it good.”
Lucas drew a card and the game went on.
In spite of the uncomfortable start to the evening, the laughing and kidding lightened the mood. When it was time to go, Dylan clapped Kyle on the back. “Didn’t mean to stir up trouble asking about the wedding. As your best man, just wanted to make sure there wasn’t something more I should be doing to move things along.”
“Not unless you know a police department that’s hiring.”
“Keeping my ears open anytime we go to the extra alarm fires. Not sure why you’re waiting to get married, though. You don’t want to let this woman get away.” He gave me a wink.
I knew Dylan was trying to tease him, but the sullen look on Kyle’s face indicated it wasn’t working. Dylan knew Kyle as well as I did, if not better. I gave Dylan a hug and shook a finger at him. “Don’t give him new things to worry about.”
After hugs all around, Kyle and I followed the footpaths home, again in silence. Ash met us at the door and I scooped her up. I carried her to the workroom and checked on the essential oils steeping on the shelves by the windows. No books lay open on my work table, but then, tomorrow was Sunday—my day off from the boutique. I set Ash on her favorite perch in the window. Kyle hovered in the doorway.
“Too bad you can’t whip up a spell to get me a new job,” he said.
“Want me to try?” I asked.
He scoffed. “At the end of the day, the magic you do is all the power of suggestion, isn’t it? You can’t manufacture a job out of thin air.”
I’d tried to reveal myself to him a little at a time. If we planned to build a life together, he had to accept me for who I was, including the awkward talents I possessed. The way he discounted them now made me grind my teeth.
“I guess I’ll head home,” he said.
“You do that,” I said under my breath.
“What?”
I forced a smile. “I can make breakfast tomorrow. You said you wanted to talk. Unless you want to take the time now?”
“I’m pretty tired.”
I met Kyle in the living room, taking his hands in mine. “I know you have this manly thing going on, where you think you need to protect and provide and all that macho BS, but I hope you know I don’t need that from you.”
“It’s who I am. I’m old fashioned that way.”
I pursed my lips. “I want to marry a partner. Not a bodyguard.”
He pulled away. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
There was no point going through the whole better or worse thing again. Tears stung the back of my eyes. After all the times he’d pressured me, insisting I commit to a wedding date, now he had conditions on what happily ever after looked like. “Maybe we don’t want the same things anymore.”
His eyes blazed. “We can talk about it over breakfast.”
Leaving me to wonder what was left to say. I watched him leave and retreated to my workshop.
Chapter 6
I glanced out the window Sunday morning. Kyle paced his front sidewalk. He was obviously working through whatever conversation he wanted to have. I opened the door, an invitation, and he looked up. Symbolic or literal, I’d offered him a way in.
He walked inside, his head bowed. “I’m all sorts of messed up and I don’t know how to fix it.”
“Some challenges you just have to work through.” An adage I’d adopted from Nora.
“Tell me you understand where I’m coming from.”
I set my hands on the counter and looked out the window. “I think I have. Repeatedly. The problem is we weigh this problem differently. For you, it’s a deal breaker. For me, it’s a hurdle we’ll get over.” I spun to face him. “Life is full of hurdles. If we were already married—and
