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Chapter Four

“ A nd I’m going to have Josiah fix the rose trellis. The rosebush got so heavy it tore it down. That was years ago, and the bush has all but died. I don’t know if I can bring it back if I get the trellis fixed or not.” Grandma had her cane as she and Claire walked around the old farmhouse.

Claire had taken her children to Blueberry Beach that morning, registered them for school, and they’d gone straight to their classes.

She’d come back home and started talking to her grandma about fixing up the old farmhouse.

Turns out her grandma already had a plan, and Claire had to admit it was a pretty good one.

The only problem was, she’d be seeing a lot of Josiah McMurtry if Grandma’s plan came to fruition.

“Aren’t there any other handymen around?

” she asked hopefully. She wasn’t sure why Josiah brought such bad vibes out in her, but he did.

Well, she had a pretty good idea, but she didn’t want to examine it too closely.

That kiss was one of them—it had been a terrible kiss.

Maybe that was the problem. She’d been surprised she’d liked it as much as she had.

After all, it was Josiah, and she’d had zero attraction to him.

She’d been afraid for a really long time that she was some kind of weird pervert who enjoyed kissing anyone, if she could enjoy kissing Josiah .

And then there was the tragedy. Josiah hadn’t been there, and he hadn’t been involved, but he had been friends with them and had been affected almost as much as she had.

“Why would I want another handyman?” her grandma asked, sounding aghast. “Josiah is a local guy, honest, and his work is unparalleled.”

“Okay,” Claire said, seeing that her grandma felt very strongly about it. She doubted she was going to convince her that she shouldn’t have Josiah doing anything. And why? Just because Claire didn’t have good vibes from him?

She really didn’t have good vibes from the idea of meeting anyone in town.

And that wasn’t anyone else’s fault but her own.

She’d not been very kind to Josiah, and she’d lain in bed last night thinking about that fact.

She owed him a sincere apology, although she’d already apologized a couple of times.

She just…wasn’t happy to be back, wasn’t happy to have her family torn apart.

She loved her grandma and was glad she got to spend time with her, but coming back to Raspberry Ridge had not been an easy thing, and she was struggling with memories.

Struggling with the fact that her life hadn’t gone the way she’d wanted it to.

Struggling with the fact that she was basically coming back a loser.

She hadn’t expected to return to town this way. She’d expected to return triumphantly—successful, rich, confident, and the envy of the town. The town’s darling, perhaps.

If she ever came back at all. Memories of what had happened here tore at her heart and soul, and she figured Josiah was correct. She was going to need to face them eventually.

There were a lot of ghosts she could run into, and if she ran away from every one of them, she would never be able to show her face in town.

“I appreciate you coming back so much.” Her grandma rested her hand on top of her cane and turned to face her fully.

“I feel rejuvenated. Like maybe there’s a reason for living after all.

I suppose I always feel like that after a particularly long, difficult winter.

But the older I get, the harder winter is, even when it’s really not that bad. ”

“I’m here now. And I don’t have any intention of leaving, unless you kick me out.

” She wasn’t sure whether she could afford it, particularly if her ex didn’t continue paying child support, but she’d figure that out when the time came.

In the meantime, she had a couple of things she was doing online, including an e-commerce subscription website, which hadn’t exactly taken off but gave her a couple hundred dollars of extra income every month.

“I’m not going to kick you out. I’m so happy to have you,” her grandma said.

“Tell me more about what you plan to do.” She looked at the crumbling old farmhouse. It needed some paint, and she’d like to paint.

“Rather than have Josiah paint the house, why don’t I do it?” she said as her grandma mentioned that very thing.

“You?”

“Sure. What else am I going to do around here all day?”

“Well, I did think you’d help me work in the flower beds some, and I’d love to have a big garden, but it’s been getting smaller and smaller every year because I just can’t keep up with it.”

“I can help with the garden and the flower beds and still paint the house. It’s not like you have to paint the house in a day. I could spend the entire summer working on it, couldn’t I?”

“I suppose so. I really don’t know much about painting, though. You’d have to talk to Josiah about it. He’s got plenty of experience.”

It seemed like her grandma was throwing Josiah at her every chance she got. Or maybe that was just Claire’s imagination, exacerbated by the fact that she was trying to avoid having anything to do with Josiah.

“I can talk to him about it. When’s he going to be here next?”

“He had a job to do this morning, something at his mom’s, and then he was coming here. He’ll spend most of his time here, except when he goes and works on the big yachts at Blueberry Beach.”

“He works on yachts?” she asked, curious despite herself.

Josiah didn’t seem like a highbrow kind of guy.

He seemed like a humble, sweet hometown kid, the kind that she probably should have married instead of the jerk she’d ended up with.

But Josiah had never been attractive to her.

She…seemed to be attracted to jerks, much to her dismay.

That was why she had sworn off dating forever.

She was just dumb when it came to picking out the man she should spend her life with, and now not only was she suffering, but her kids were suffering too.

Someone like her should not be allowed to make their own decisions about the person they were going to spend their life with.

Too many people were liable to get hurt.

“Yeah,” her grandma said. “That’s where he makes most of his money. That’s why he’s able to work here without charging much of anything at all.”

“He doesn’t charge you the going rate?”

“I’m not sure what the going rate is, but he charges about half as much as anyone else I’ve gotten to do any work here. And I only do that if it’s an emergency and Josiah isn’t available.”

She hadn’t realized her grandma was so dependent on Josiah. And that Josiah did so much work around the place.

She looked up at the old farmhouse. There was a lot to paint. It wasn’t a small house.

But she needed a project like this. Something big, something challenging, something that would keep her mind and body tired enough to sleep at night.

“I’ll figure out what I need to do in order to paint it.

If I run into something I can’t handle, I’m sure Josiah will help me out.

” He seemed like that kind of guy. The kind of guy who was always kind and eager to help.

Well, maybe eager was too strong a word.

Ready. He was ready to help. Solid and dependable. He didn’t move fast.

He was almost the exact opposite of Ted in every way. Ted was quick, sure, didn’t let any grass grow under his feet, and he was more than content to let someone else do the helping while he helped himself.

She thought about that for a little bit and realized there was a lot about Josiah to admire.

Maybe it was best that she do the painting and have him there as little as possible.

She didn’t think there was any danger of her falling for him, but she didn’t want to take any chances. She was not going to get married again.

It ended up that Josiah got called out to do some kind of emergency work on a yacht, and he was going to be gone for an entire week.

That suited Claire just fine, and in that week, she and her grandma settled into a routine.

The kids got up early enough to gather the eggs and feed the chickens before school.

One of the kids made breakfast, and her grandma was always there with homemade jelly and to pack lunches for the kids.

Claire was kind of surprised that her kids didn’t really mind.

Back in Boston, they had never wanted to pack their lunch, but for some reason—maybe it was because other kids took their lunch, because peer pressure was a thing at that age—they seemed to enjoy the fact that Grandma packed their lunch.

Claire didn’t want to think that maybe Grandma packed a better lunch than she did, but she supposed that was possible.

Still, after that, Grandma made coffee and sat down with her Bible while Claire took a walk down the cliff to the beach and spent an hour walking beside the lake while she listened to her Bible through her headphones.

There was something about hearing God’s word in one ear and the waves crashing against the shore in the other while the wind lifted her hair off her shoulders and sometimes gusted strong enough to threaten to knock her off her feet.

She loved the lake and the wildness of it, but there was still a nagging feeling that she wanted to get away. She didn’t want to get too close, and she never let the water touch her.