He refused to turn from the window until he knew she’d gone. His soul ached at the sound of her car starting up, the engine revving as she shifted and backed out. Finally, she must have put it in Drive. He heard the faint sounds of tires crunching gravel. He stared at the faraway mountains as the sound of her engine faded away.
Behind him, Slim whined. To Jameson, that whine—forlorn, bewildered—said it all.
He turned and met Slim’s worried eyes. “It’s okay, boy,” he lied. It was not in any way okay. “We did what we could.”
Slim followed him over to the long gray sofa. The dog sat and stared up at him through sad, soulful eyes. Dropping to the cushions, Jameson put his head in his hands. With another mournful whine, Slim rested his head on Jameson’s knees.
Chapter Eleven
Van got home before Callie. She went straight to her room and threw herself across her bed.
She cried for over an hour, stopping now and then to blot her streaming eyes and blow her nose—only to start sobbing all over again.
Finally, Callie tapped on her door and asked apprehensively, “Van?”
She considered trying to tell her friend she was fine. But it would be a flat out lie, a lie that Callie wouldn’t buy, anyway. And Van desperately needed the comfort her friend would give her—comfort she knew she didn’t really deserve.
She grabbed the tissue box again. Too bad it was empty. With a low moan, she called, “It’s not locked!”
Callie pushed open the door enough to poke her head through. Her pretty face fell. “Oh, honey. What’s happened?”
Van cast a sad glance at the pile of used tissues in drifts all around her and held out the box. “I broke up with Jabesud, ad I’b all out of tissues.”
“Oh, sweetie...” Callie came to her, swept a pile of tissues off the bed, dropped down beside her and wrapped her in a hug.
Half an hour later, Callie coaxed her into the kitchen and pulled out a stool for her at the counter. “Sit. This calls for tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich.”
Van blew her nose with a tissue from the fresh box Callie had found in the hall cupboard. “I’m not hungry.”
“Too bad. Tomato soup and grilled cheese are what Dr. Sheldrick ordered. You will sit there and take your medicine, are we clear?”
“Ugh. Fine.”
Callie whipped up the comfort food and served them both at the counter.
“Thank you,” muttered Van after she’d savored the first gooey bite of grilled perfection.
Now Callie looked at her sternly. “I love you a lot. But you’ve made a giant mistake breaking up with that man.”
Van sipped a spoonful of soup. “Noted. Can we talk about something else now?”
Callie changed the subject, and Van loved her all the more for letting it go. Later, they streamed a movie and shared a giant bowl of popcorn.
In the morning, Van got up and went to Happy Hearts. She kept it together, getting through the day’s workshop, hanging around afterward to muck stalls and groom horses, mostly sweet old nags who would no longer be breathing if Daphne hadn’t provided them a loving place to live out their twilight years.
“Stay for dinner,” Daphne urged when Van came in from the stables. “The family is coming.” She meant Wanda, Grandma Daisy and Winona, not the Taylors. The situation between Daphne and her dad had not improved.
Van started to decline the invitation, but why? It wasn’t as though she had somewhere else to be. Callie didn’t need to spend another evening babysitting her. This way, she would have a reason to keep a smile on her face—either that, or she would have to get honest with the people she loved.
No. Never mind honesty. They didn’t need to hear how she’d gotten way too serious about a Bronco man. They wouldn’t understand her original plan anyway, how it was all supposed to be fun and casual, something she could easily walk away from. And then she’d gone and let her heart get involved and so had he—which meant she’d had to end it a month early.
None of that would make a lick of sense to them.
Really, would it make any sense to anyone? When she laid it all out like that, she just felt like a fool on top of having a broken heart—one she’d inflicted upon herself.
No.
She would be cheerful and upbeat, and none of them would ever have to know.
