for now, he wasn’t going anywhere.
Chapter 11
Kirby sipped her coffee and shuddered at the volcanic strength of it. But she desperately needed something to kick-start her into the day. Day One of her personal thirty-day death march. Well, her inn’s death march, anyway.
She stared at the computer monitor and the online bank statement she’d opened up; then she finally slid her glasses off and closed her eyes. She’d been juggling bills for almost three months now, pretty much since the day she’d opened. Initially, she’d still had a little something to juggle with. She’d known that without a sudden drop in temperatures and some snow, she was courting total failure. But she’d been trying to remain hopeful, positive. After all, how long could the damn heat wave last? It was unnatural. She’d honestly thought that things would turn around.
The call yesterday evening from Albert, a local tax accountant she’d hired early on to help her set up her books, had made it clear that her turnaround time was pretty much over. Her tax bill come April was going to be the felling blow, but the bank was already grumbling about her loan payments and Albert wasn’t sure she’d even make it long enough to be worrying about the IRS.
At the moment, she was numb. Too numb to even cry. She’d poured so much of herself, of…well, everything she’d had left in her after the disastrous end with Patrick, and every bit of what she’d been able to summon up after her life had taken such a drastic new course. She’d been determined to look at the ending with Patrick as the beginning of herself.
This was her rise from the ashes; this was her celebration of what her life could be. This was the middle finger she’d given to Patrick, to fate, and anyone else who’d ever made her feel like she couldn’t take care of business. Which, when it came down to it, she’d realized, was all on her. As Aunt Frieda had said often enough, “Just because folks don’t understand, respect, or support what you think is true about yourself doesn’t mean you have to listen to them.” Kirby had only needed to listen to herself. But she’d let the other voices, so many of them, drown her own out.
It had taken seeing her chosen partner for who he really was—who he’d always been if she’d just been more willing to see the truth—and the following hard look at what she’d allowed herself to believe, to accept as okay, for her to finally, at the age of thirty-seven, examine her life, her choices, and what she was going to do about it—moving forward.
And she had moved forward. She was proud, almost fiercely so, of what she’d accomplished here. The one thing she knew now was that if the current combination of events conspired to end this new dream, this new path…well, she’d simply find another one.
She dropped her forehead to the edge of her desk. “I just really, really don’t want to.” It would be so easy to wallow, to blame fate, to sink into that place where it was all about being the victim and not being in control of her life. She wouldn’t do that. Couldn’t. But, right at that very moment, she simply didn’t know where she was going to find the strength to rise again.
On a surge of anger, aimed at both the world in general and at herself in particular for not having an immediate plan of action, she shoved her chair back, took up her mug, and stalked into the kitchen. She hadn’t eaten since the middle of the day before and that wasn’t helping the hollow pit of dread in her stomach. Of course, the thought of food at that moment was abhorrent, but it was something she could do instead of staring and swearing. She popped the fridge door open and saw the neatly stacked containers of pasta and sauce. Her stomach gurgled. Pasta for breakfast. She reached for the container. Why the hell not?
She was heating up a bowl of noodles when Brett walked into the kitchen. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey.” She kept her gaze on the microwave door. As if that was going to speed things along. But she didn’t know what to say to him, so it was a handy distraction. The bell dinged and she slid the bowl out.
“Pasta for breakfast?” he said, coming closer but stopping at the cook island.
“Sounded like a good idea at the time.”