Infatuation and Independence Read online

  Infatuation

  and

  Independence

  A Modern Austen Short Story

  Jennifer Becton

  A Whiteley Press, LLC, Book

  A Whiteley Press, LLC, Book

  Kindle Edition

  “Infatuation and Independence”: A Modern Austen Short Story

  Copyright © 2018 by Jennifer Becton

  http://www.bectonliterary.com

  The characters and events in this short story are fictitious or used fictitiously. Any similarity to real people, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Contents

  Part 1: Headboards and Hot Tubs

  Part 2: Ice Cream and Impersonation

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Part 1: Headboards and Hot Tubs

  Kitty Bennet had reached a crossroads. Literally and figuratively.

  She sat in her old, faithful Honda Accord at an intersection without the least idea of which way to turn.

  Thanks to the rough terrain of the North Georgia mountains, her phone had lost its signal twenty minutes ago, and her GPS had become a casualty shortly thereafter. Now, all she had to lead her to Colonel Michael Fitzwilliam’s cabin was a wrinkled paper map that had probably been published three decades ago.

  Kitty turned the map first one way and then the other, hoping that Mike’s cabin would be labeled. But of course, she had no such luck. Wishing she could call her older sister Liz or her brother-in-law Will for help, Kitty tried to remember the directions they’d given her. They made it sound so easy. Travel fifty miles on the highway or, as Will called it, “fifty miles of good road.” Then, take a few turns and a switchback, and there you are.

  As if Kitty knew what a switchback was!

  Of course it would seem like an easy trip to them. They often visited Mike’s place in Rosings Park. Mike was Will’s cousin, which kind of made him Kitty’s cousin too. Second cousins or cousins-in-law or cousins once removed. Or maybe they were cousins in name only. Kitty could never remember how that genealogy stuff worked. She’d always thought of Mike as an uncle anyway, so it didn’t really matter. Mike was active-duty army and was always looking for someone to watch his house while he was overseas. He said it prevented deterioration.

  Kitty had finally taken him up on his offer…if only she could make it there. The ancient paper map was absolutely no help. As far as she could tell, the road she was on didn’t even exist!

  Finally, she crumpled the map in her lap. “Why do mountain roads have to be so confusing?” she asked no one. “And why do all the road names have ‘bear’ in them? Are there that many bears here?”

  Knowing her luck, Kitty would run out of gas trying to find Mike’s cabin and end up surrounded by a flock of hungry bears.

  Did bears come in a flock? Or a herd? Maybe it was a pack.

  Did it matter?

  She absolutely refused to let herself get stranded on the side of the road with a bunch of hungry bears. She was going to make it to Mike’s no matter what the obstacle. Checking her phone one last time and still finding no service, Kitty looked around, wishing someone were here to help her. To point her in the right direction.

  She shook that thought right out of her head. Relying on other people’s opinions to guide her was Kitty Bennet’s problem. But those days were over. The time had come for her to start living on her own terms. That was why she decided to house sit for the summer in the first place. She had to start making her own decisions. Become an independent woman. To do that, Kitty needed time alone to figure out who she was and what she wanted out of her life.

  Who knew that just getting to the cabin would come with a big decision? Kitty looked along the road to the left, which appeared to lead down the mountain. She looked to the right. That road appeared to lead up the mountain. Shoving the map aside, she reasoned that Mike’s house was near the peak, so she should take the upper road. Feeling mostly confident, Kitty turned right.

  Almost immediately, she was rewarded with a small sign that pointed her toward Rosings Park, Georgia. As she continued along the twisting path, she began to recognize landmarks: the ice cream store near the cow pasture, the realty office that looked like a pyramid, the lush green golf course.

  Feeling fully confident now, Kitty knew that she was getting close. Just around the next turn, the town—with its grocery store, hardware store, and dozens of tourist boutiques—should appear, and then, it was only a few miles up more twisting roads to Mike’s place.

  Smiling, Kitty took the last sharp turn and saw the very last thing she’d ever expected.

  A bed in the middle of the road.

  Not just a mattress. But the whole frame. Pillows and blankets included.

  Kitty jammed her foot on the brake, but there wasn’t enough room to stop. She was going to be the first person ever to file an accident report for colliding with a king-sized bed! She yanked the wheel to the right, and the Accord squealed onto the shoulder, leaving a trail of burned rubber behind her.

  Having avoided the bed, the car bounced onto the weeds and gravel, pitching ever nearer to the metal guardrail. All Kitty could see were trees and a sheer drop down the mountain. Using the steering wheel for leverage, she stood on the brake as hard as she could.

  The car stuttered to a halt inches from the edge, narrowly missing the rail.

  Kitty blinked over the edge of the mountain. If her car hadn’t stopped when it did, she might have gone right through the guardrail. But it had stopped, and she was alive. A little shaken, but alive. She turned in her seat, looking around, and tried to think of what to do next. Her car might be about two inches from going over the side of a cliff, but otherwise, it seemed to be fine. It was still running. She should be able to continue to Mike’s cabin with no problem.

  But there was a bed in the road.

  Even though she could navigate around it, Kitty couldn’t just leave it there. The next driver might not be so lucky.

  Kitty put her car in park, turned off the engine, and pulled the emergency break for good measure. As she put one wobbly foot on the ground, an old pickup truck with an open tailgate puttered up from the opposite direction.

  “That must be the careless idiot who lost the bed,” Kitty muttered to herself, slamming the car door in preparation for the confrontation with the bed’s owner.

  As if to confirm her suspicion, the work truck stopped, turned, and backed up to the bed. A man wearing a dark blue baseball cap emerged from the cab. That had to be the driver responsible for dropping the bed and almost killing her.

  “Hey!” Kitty yelled, prepared to storm over to him and give him a piece of her mind.

  The man in the cap raised his head. “This your bed?” he called back.

  “No!” Kitty’s certain steps hesitated. “How would I fit a bed that size in a Honda Accord?”

  The man’s gaze shifted to the small sedan behind Kitty. “Good point.”

  “I thought it was yours,” Kitty accused. “You drive a truck…with an open tailgate.”

  “Nope, not mine.” He shook his head and turned to consider the furniture in the middle of the road. “I got a call to come out and pick it up.”

  They both considered the bed for a beat.

  “How do you think this happened?” he asked conversationally. “The blankets are still intact and everything.”

  The man sounded amused, inciting Kitty to storm closer. “You think this is funny?”

  Now that she could see under the shadows of his ball cap, Kitty saw that he was a young man—about her age—with dark hair and blue eyes. His broad shoulders tapered to a firm-looking chest and a slim waist. Lydia would call him a ho
ttie, but he was obviously not very concerned about the dangers of a bed in the middle of the road. He remained oblivious to the life-or-death situation she’d just encountered.

  Kitty waved at the bed and then at her car. “I almost died.”

  Clearly surprised, the man turned to face her and then looked over her shoulder at her car. “Are you okay?” he asked, stepping closer as if he intended to search her for injuries.

  “Yes,” Kitty said, stepping back to avoid his inspection. “No thanks to…whoever left that thing in the road.”

  The man walked toward her car while Kitty followed behind, trying not to notice how nice his butt looked in his jeans.

  He pointed to her front left tire. “I think that’s losing air.”

  “What? Oh no! I’ve got a flat tire?” Kitty squeaked. Now that she looked at it, she supposed that tire didn’t look as tight as the others. But it wasn’t flat. “It doesn’t look flat to me.”

  “It’ll be flat soon,” he assured her. “You probably ran over a nail or a piece of metal when you drove onto the shoulder.”

  “I didn’t just drive onto the shoulder,” Kitty protested in disbelief. “I had to swerve to avoid the bed.”

  “Swerve?” he repeated, mimicking her incredulous tone. “How fast were you going?”

  “Does that matter?” Kitty demanded.

  “People unfamiliar with mountain roads often drive too fast on these switchbacks. If you’d been going the speed limit, you would have had plenty of time to stop without getting anywhere near the guardrail.”

  Kitty stared at him. “I didn’t ask for a driving critique, thank you very much,” she said, plunking her fists on her hips.

  He might have a point about driving too fast on a sharp turn, but she would never admit it to him. He had no right to point out the obvious with such condescension.

  On a more positive note, at least now Kitty knew what a switchback was.

  She glared up at him. There was no point in arguing with him. They were never going to see each other again anyway.

  “How about you just get that bed out of the road and let me handle my tire?” Kitty suggested.

  The man studied her a moment and then presented a counter offer. “Or you could help me move the bed out of the road, and I’ll help you with the tire.”

  Kitty hesitated before responding.

  Having never changed a tire by herself, Kitty was tempted to take him up on his offer, but this was her summer of independence. And he was apparently assuming she couldn’t do it.

  In theory, Kitty could change a tire. Her father had made sure she and all her sisters learned how, but that had been years ago when she’d first gotten her learner’s permit. Still, she remembered the basics. Mostly.

  “No, thank you,” Kitty said, making it a point to be polite. “No matter what, I’m going to change that tire by myself.”

  Determined to succeed, Kitty emptied the suitcases from her trunk so she could get to the spare tire and tools. Meanwhile, the man was busy disassembling the mysterious bed and fitting it into the back of his truck. When he was finished, he pulled his rig off the road but didn’t leave as she’d hoped he would. Instead, he parked on the shoulder in front of Kitty’s car.

  Kitty glanced at him as he got out and rounded the truck. Part of her thought that his gesture was chivalrous. A gentleman would want to ensure that she was safe before he left.

  But the more skeptical side of her wondered if he just wanted to watch her struggle with the tire.

  Either way, Kitty was handling this herself.

  Already, she’d stuffed a rock behind one of the Accord’s wheels to keep it from rolling and positioned the jack.

  She pumped it a few times. Ha! It worked. The car inched upward, just enough to take the weight off the flat tire but not so much that the wheel would spin.

  The man showed up beside her just as she was about to move on to the next step: loosening the lug nuts.

  “I’m Josh Parrish,” he said to her back.

  Kitty could feel his eyes on her, so she turned to squint up at him. “Well, Josh Parrish, if you’re going to stand there and watch, at least you could be useful. Hand me that tire iron.”

  She nodded to the crossed piece of metal on the ground nearby, but just out of reach.

  “I thought you didn’t want help,” Josh reminded her unhelpfully.

  “I didn’t want you to change the tire for me,” Kitty corrected. “Handing me the tire iron doesn’t count.”

  “It’s a lug wrench. Not a tire iron,” he informed her as he went to retrieve the item. “A tire iron was a tool used to work with tires when they still used inner tubes. That was a long time ago. This is a lug wrench designed for modern tires.”

  “I don’t care what it’s called,” Kitty growled, glaring up at him. Now was not the time for a soliloquy on the history of tools. “Just hand it to me and be on your way.”

  He handed her the wrench but didn’t leave. “And you are?” he asked, clearly trying to complete their introduction.

  “Busy,” Kitty said as she worked to loosen the lug nuts. But the stupid things didn’t budge no matter how hard she pushed on the lever arm. “Did they weld these things on?”

  “They probably used an air wrench to tighten them down.” He leaned down as if to take the wrench from her. “I could—”

  “Don’t,” she said, standing and bracing her hands on the hood of the car so she could put a foot on the wrench. “I have to do this myself.”

  One foot wasn’t enough, so balancing on the hood, she added her other foot to the lug wrench. Using her full body weight, Kitty bounced a few times on the lever, and the lug nut finally moved a quarter turn. Victorious, she grinned at the man.

  She repeated the process with each lug nut, jacked the car up so that all the weight was off the ground, lifted the tire off the wheel base, and replaced it with the spare.

  Josh Parrish watched until she lowered the jack and stowed it and the flat tire in her trunk.

  “Are you going to tell me your name?” Josh Parrish asked.

  “Doesn’t look like it,” Kitty said, wiping her greasy hands on her denim shorts. After rolling around on the shoulder of the road while changing the tire, her whole outfit was already a lost cause.

  “That’s too bad,” Josh said. “Because I was going to ask you out for a beer.”

  Surprised at the offer, Kitty raised a brow at him. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because when a man is interested in a woman, typically, he asks her on a date.”

  Kitty blinked at him. Josh watched her with a hopeful expression, and to her surprise, her first impulse was to agree to the date. Lydia would tell her to go for it. Even Jane and Elizabeth might approve. After all, he hadn’t abandoned her on the side of the road even after she’d told him to leave. He might be a gentleman.

  Still, dating wasn’t part of Kitty’s plan, and no matter what, she was going to stick to her plan. Even if Josh was cute and chivalrous.

  “Much as I appreciate the sentiment,” Kitty said, reaching for her car door. “I’ll have to decline. I’m only here for the summer or until I get my life figured out. And dating isn’t part of the plan.”

  With that, Kitty got in her car, cranked the engine, and fended off the tinge of regret she felt as she left Josh Parrish in her dusty wake.

  By the time Kitty arrived at Mike’s cabin, the sun was dropping low in the mountains, casting the shadows of fir trees across the driveway. The trip shouldn’t have taken this long, but Kitty had finally made it. All by herself.

  Despite Will’s claim that between Pemberley and Rosings Park was “fifty miles of good road,” that hadn’t been her experience. That “good road” had forced Kitty to conquer a bad cell signal, a lack of GPS, a bed blocking two lanes of traffic, a car accident, a flat tire, and a guy who asked her on a date. After all that, the rough-hewn log exterior was the most welcome sight she’d seen all day.

  Pausing at the wrought-i
ron mailbox, Kitty pulled out about forty pounds of paper, noticing that most of the junk mail was addressed to a Richard Fitzwilliam. Kitty grinned. For some reason, half the world seemed to believe Colonel Fitzwilliam’s first name was Richard, and he’d never figured out why.

  Nor could he get people to believe otherwise.

  Kitty set the pile of letters and magazines on the passenger seat on top of her wadded up map and continued toward the house.

  She followed the driveway to the small garage and opened the door with the remote Mike had sent her. Once inside, she turned off the engine and closed the door behind her. She should unpack the car and bring in her cooler, but in a sudden burst of excitement at being in such a beautiful place for the whole summer, Kitty wanted to see it all now. She grabbed the door key and hurried inside.

  From the road, Mike’s cabin appeared small. But it was actually a vast living space with a modern kitchen, enormous fireplace, and oversized leather furniture. The back section of the house was almost entirely windows, providing a wide view of the valley below and the mountains that surrounded them.

  Kitty pulled open the french doors and stepped onto the porch to find a hot tub covered and waiting. At that moment, she decided her next life goal was to sit in that tub, enjoy a fruity beverage, and absorb the view.

  The house was just what she needed, and it was all hers for the summer!

  This was where she would find herself. Already that plan was working. She had relied only on herself and her own wits for a whole day. And she had plans for the evening.

  Now, she just had to figure out what she wanted to do for the rest of her life.

  Kitty’s time of solitary reflection endured all of one night.

  First thing the next morning, before Kitty even figured out how to work Mike’s coffeemaker, her cell phone indicated that someone wanted to video chat. Upon seeing that the Queen Mum—as her sister Liz referred to their mother—was the caller in question, Kitty groaned and contemplated pretending there was no cell reception in the mountains. It wasn’t a total lie. At least parts of the mountain had no service.