Page 70 of Tumbleweed Temptation
“Most people in Broken Wheel work with their bodies so I don't think you’re going to have a lot of people interested.”
“But I might have some.”
“Maybe.”
“You can go to sleep if you want. It’s a long drive.”
“No, I’ll be fine.” She took her mum from the dash and smoothed it on her lap. “I wonder who won the game.”
“I’m surprised Poppy or someone didn't text you.”
“My phone died. She might have.”
“Hey, you know who I haven't seen? Your grandpa. How is he doing?”
She drew her legs up on the seat and wrapped her arms around them. “Retired now, and some days it’s hard to get him out of the house. He did some battling with lung cancer a few years ago, and had the lower lobe of his right lung removed.”
“What was his regimen? Did he get through it okay?”
She rested her cheek on her knee to look at him. “It was a rough time. We had to go to San Angelo five days a week, and he’d come home and be so sick, and then we’d have to get up and do it all again the next day. Janine was so good about giving me the time off. I really owe her for that. And she made sure we ate, too. I mean, Patrick couldn’t eat much, and I was pretty stressed from all of it, but I didn’t go hungry, thanks to her.”
He tucked the coffee cup in the cup holder. “Did you ever make peace with her after you quit to come work for me?”
“I didn’t. I mean, she was so upset, and I never really knew what to say to her. Our relationship is pretty complicated.”
“She loves you, though, and you love her. Look, if we learned nothing else this weekend, we learned that life is short. Go talk to her, Gin.”
*****
GINNY STOOD OUTSIDEthe diner door for a minute, gauging how busy the diner was, and how she would get Janine on her own. She felt a twinge of guilt for not helping, after working for so many years.
She caught sight of the blond woman near her office and, taking a deep breath, Ginny pushed through the door.
Janine turned at the sound of the bell and stiffened. “What are you doing here?”
Her tone was sharp and unwelcoming, and Ginny forced herself not to wince. “I came to talk to you. Is that okay?”
“What about? Did you decide to take your contest somewhere else?”
“No, I mean. We’d still like to have it here, if that’s okay, but that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.” How much easier would their relationship be if it wasn’t so weighted by guilt? Guilt for surviving, for leaving, for being forced to stay.
“What about?”
“I hate how we left things. I don’t like the idea of a rift between us.”
“I didn’t cause the rift.”
“No, of course you didn’t, but I hate the idea of thinking that I can’t come back to this place where I spent so much time, can’t talk to people who I’ve loved for years.”
“If you loved us, why did you leave us?”
“I love my grandfather, too, and we don’t work together. I love Poppy and Lacey, and I couldn’t do what they do. Love doesn’t mean we have to spend all day together. Love means we want what’s best for each other.”
“I do want what’s best for you,” Janine insisted, her head angled like she couldn’t believe Ginny was suggesting otherwise. “I told you, I was ready to make sure this place belonged to you, but now you don’t want anything to do with it.”
“Janine, I appreciate that more than you know, but this was never my dream, and I’m sorry if that hurts you,” she plowed through when Janine would turn away. “I don’t want resentment between us. I don’t want you to resent me for not wanting this place, and I don’t want to resent you for not even asking if I did. I want to keep our relationship apart from the diner. I thought we had one, but maybe we didn’t.”
Janine’s jaw was tight. “All I had to give, I gave to you.”
