A Date with the Other Side (Cuttersville #1)(62)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“Gran . . . I can’t do that. I can’t live in Chicago, away from all of you. What kind of job would I get? It’s not practical. I’d hate it there.”

“How the hell do you know?” Gran asked with a vehemence that had Shelby opening her eyes wide. “You’ve barely ever even left Cuttersville. You might love it there.”

Which was what Boston had said and what someone always says when they’re trying to convince you to do something you don’t want to do. “I don’t want to leave my family.”

Gran’s face softened. She put her wrinkled hand on Shelby’s cheek. “Shelby, honey, I don’t want you to go either. I’ve loved having you here in the house with me for the last three years. But the good thing about family is you can take us for granted. We’ll always be here, we’ll always love you, and there will always be room for you.”

“For six hundred dollars,” Shelby retorted, though secretly pleased to hear Gran liked having her around.

“Wiseass.” Gran patted her face, then dropped her hand. Her eyes, the same cocoa brown as Shelby’s own, studied her. “But you’ve got to have your own family now, honey. You deserve to have a husband who loves you and children of your own to raise. Home is where your heart is, Shelby Louise, and your heart is with Boston.”

Shelby felt all the weight of logic pressing down on her, all the pain of the last two weeks, and knew that her grandmother was absolutely right.

It didn’t matter where. She truly wanted to be with Boston for the rest of her life.

Boston was coping. Or so he told himself as his mind wandered off his work for the nine-millionth time. He spun his chair around and faced the wall of windows in his office, gazing out at the Chicago skyline and to the snatches of Lake Michigan in the backdrop.

The day was beautiful. Bright, sunny, a balmy eighty degrees, with thick puffy white clouds in the sky, as July slid into August. He should be ecstatic to be back home. He should be gorging himself at exotic restaurants every night, hitting the theater and cheering on the Cubs.

Instead he was working long days, but not getting a whole lot accomplished, then returning to his apartment and staring into space while claiming to be watching television. Funny how he’d never noticed until now that his apartment was lacking in warmth, full of cool grays and blues, and that he’d never bothered to take the time to meet his neighbors.

Boston tossed down his pen and focused on his computer screen. Moping around like a bad poet was not helping. He needed to distract himself from how much he was missing Shelby, and work was the most productive way to do that.

It helped for an hour. He was so deep into problem solving on a new account out of Indianapolis that he didn’t hear his office door open.

“Boston.”

His head snapped up and he took in Amanda, heading right for his desk, waving something in her hand, sending her yellow tank top dangerously high on her midriff.

“Hello, Amanda. How are you?” His day had only lacked this. “When did you get back to Chicago?”

“Three days ago.” Her yellow plaid bag slid forward on her arm, and a white cotton ball popped up.

“What is that?”

“Huh?” Amanda looked at her bag. “Oh, this is Baby, my new dog. Isn’t she sweet?”

Baby’s head was about the size of a quarter. All Boston could see was floppy white fur and a black nose. He eyed it skeptically, wondering if the breeder had given her a hamster and tried to pass it off as a dog.

Amanda petted the head and dropped the papers in her hand on his desk. “Anyway, pack yourself a bag. We’re going back to Cuttersville.”

“Excuse me?” Boston picked up two airline tickets to Columbus, Ohio. “I’m not going back to Cuttersville. And didn’t you just leave there?”

“I came back to Chicago for a wardrobe exchange. I don’t want to waste the rent on the house in Cuttersville, so I’m going to hang there for the rest of the summer. And you’re going with me.”

He’d rather be sent through a paper shredder. “I don’t think so. Sorry you wasted money on a second ticket, but it’s not going to happen.”

“My dad paid for the tickets.” Amanda grinned. “And I think it’s going to be absolutely hysterical when my dad finds out I went back to Cuttersville. He totally won’t understand it, and that will drive him insane.”

“I’m sure it will. Have a nice flight.” Boston looked down at his computer.

Amanda snapped the lid closed, almost taking off his fingers. “Okay, here’s the thing. You’re coming with me whether you like it or not. Shelby’s moping around back there, and you’re doing the same thing here, and I won’t put up with it.”

Like she had any say in it. Contrary to what Amanda thought, the world wasn’t hers to order around. He had learned that himself very painfully. Yet instead of giving her a scathing set-down, he asked, “Shelby’s moping around?”

“She’s turned it into an art form. I’m actually jealous. I don’t think I could elevate heartbroken to that level of sincerity. People are baking for her, Boston, that’s how pitiful she looks.”

He was sorry to hear she was so upset. Yet at the same time, he thought, Hah. Now she knew what it felt like.

“You need to go down there, marry her, settle in, and have a couple of starched-up kids.”

“Excuse me? I can’t live in Cuttersville, Amanda. My life is here.” And some life that had turned out to be. Work, a lonely apartment, and acquaintances rather than true friends.

She rolled her eyes and set her bag down on the desk. “Wake up, Macnamara. If you want the prize, sometimes you have to sacrifice for it. You certainly wanted Shelby to sacrifice for you. You asked her to give up everything—her home, family, career, such as it is—and move to a strange place that you know she probably won’t like. And what were you willing to give up in that little scenario? Nothing, buddy, exactly nothing.”

His mouth opened to protest hotly, but he clamped it shut as Amanda pulled her minidog out of the bag. He couldn’t refute what she was saying, because she was right. A conversation with Mary, his supposedly dead housekeeper, popped into his head. She had told him Shelby was worth the sacrifice, and damn it, she was right.

Shelby was worth it. He wanted her, at any cost. Even if that meant putting his career on hold, settling for VP of operations in Cuttersville. His eyes fell on the picture of him and the other Samson guys at the Fourth of July picnic. He’d framed it and stuck it on his otherwise sterile desk, in a move that had startled his secretary almost as much as he’d startled himself. But those were real people in that snapshot with him, who cared about their neighbors and their community. They had welcomed him, accepted him.