Page 55 of Whisper of Love (Whisper Lake 1)

CHAPTER 20

Ali sat on the picnic table in the courtyard next to the rental shop and tried to focus on the Excel spreadsheet in front of her. Since she’d always planned on running the rental shop with her brother, she’d gone to college for accounting and business management. And she’d graduated with honors. This should be the part of her job she excelled at, no pun intended. But she wasn’t doing a very good job. She kept getting distracted, checking Facebook and Twitter, or mindlessly surfing the web.

Not that it mattered. It’s not like she was getting much work done anyway. Her mind kept wandering to the same place.

Kade.

She’d never understood the true agony of something being so close and yet so far before. He was a carrot dangling in front of her; her wildest fantasies wrapped up in the perfect male specimen that she’d been in love with her entire life.

Irritation and resentment bubbled just beneath the surface. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep up her facade. She ran her hands through her hair and reminded herself that although Kade was the reason for her aggravation, it wasn’t his fault. It was her situation.

She tried to be grateful. She was alive. The sun was shining. Birds were chirping. Spring break kicked off tomorrow and the weather was supposed to be in the nineties all week. Tourists would come in droves and people would be out on the lake, and that meant dollar signs for her. The boys were out with Ethan on their dirt bikes for the first time since their dad had been gone and that was something she hadn’t been sure would ever happen again. And she and KJ’s relationship seemed to be getting back to normal. They’d had real conversations where he volunteered information and even asked her questions and laughed at her corny jokes. She’d forgotten how much she missed his laugh.

She should be happy. Elated even. But instead, she was anxious, antsy, and borderline miserable.

“Hey there, beautiful. How’s the ankle?”

Ali turned and saw Laura Lopez sidle up beside her. The brunette beauty ran The Snack Shack housed in the building adjacent to hers.

“It’s better. I can put weight on it now.” She’d been icing it all week at Kade’s insistence. He was a broken record reminding her to keep it elevated and wasn’t letting her do anything herself. He’d been waiting on her hand and foot at home and accompanying her to work every day where he insisted on doing all the lifting, heavy or otherwise. It was driving her crazy. And not in a good way.

“Well, thank goodness Kade came home when he did. I’ve noticed he’s been doing a lot around here.”

That statement was like nails on the chalkboard of Ali’s soul.

She bit her tongue and inhaled slowly through her nose, doing her best to keep her face neutral as she made a noncommittal noise, “Mmm.”

Kade had been back in Whisper Lake exactly one week. Seven days and people were acting as if he were literally a knight in shining freaking armor. Every time she turned around someone was telling her how lucky she was that he was there. People kept saying how great he was with the boys. There was practically a choir singing his praises about the manual labor he was doing around the shop. Manual labor that she’d been unable to do because of her injury and which she’d tried to hire other people to do.

It wasn’t that Ali didn’t appreciate all Kade had done. His skills in the kitchen alone were enough to earn him brownie points in her book. She hadn’t had to choke down a barely-edible home-cooked meal in seven days. And there was life and laughter in the house again. KJ’s room was somewhat clean. Ricky was talking more. Yesterday morning she’d woken to KJ mowing the lawn and when she went downstairs Kade was sparring with Ricky.

The list went on and on and they were all incredible developments. Kade had accomplished a ton in a week.

But it was one week.

What about the seventy-eight weeks that she’d been there?

It wasn’t that she wanted credit for taking care of literally everything and not having a nervous breakdown. It was just that she was tired of people acting as if she should be grateful for Kade because they never would’ve survived without him.

Were things easier with Kade there? Sure.

Did she have everything under control before he got there? Yes.

Barely, but yes.

Before he’d returned people had either treated her with pity, or like she should be nominated for sainthood. Now everyone was treating her like a princess who’d been rescued from a tower. No one needed to feel sorry for her. Many people had it a lot worse than her. And she certainly was no saint. But she also wasn’t some damsel in distress that needed him to slay dragons for her.

All she wanted was for things to go back to normal, to be treated like she was normal, but she was beginning to think she didn’t even know what that was anymore. Lately her normal was simply trying to avoid Kade because being around him was absolute torture.

“Kade’s been staying with you, right?” Laura twisted the cap off her bottled water as she committed one of Ali’s biggest pet peeves, asking a question she already knew the answer to.

“Mmm, hmm.”

“It must be nice having him around.” Laura winked before taking a sip of her water.

“Mmm.” She made another sound instead of using her words and hoped that Laura would get the hint.

“I wouldn’t throw him out of my bed, if you know what I mean.”

---