Choosing You

by Stacy Finz

  She laughed unable to remember the last time, if ever, she’d been called “smokin’.” “Thank you. And thanks for taking Henry. He’s beyond excited. Fishing has become his latest obsession. But, Ethan, I’m worried about the boat. Getting in and out. It won’t be easy. And he won’t be able to swim.”

  He stepped closer. “Brynn, you trust me?”

  “Yes,” which was the absolute truth. But she’d trusted Mason, too.

  “I’ve got a life jacket for Henry but he won’t need it. Nothing risky here. I’ll get him in and out of the boat, which by the way at full throttle only goes five miles per hour. You don’t have anything to worry about.”

  She hesitated, then acquiesced. Ethan wouldn’t do anything to put Henry in harm’s way. Unlike Mason, he didn’t thrive on adrenaline pumping adventure. He’d seen too much of the damage it could cause. Beyond that, there’d never been a person who’d made her feel safer than he did.

  She pulled a light-weight jacket from the hall closet. “Make sure he wears this. It may be spring but it’s still chilly.”

  His lips kicked up. “You got it, Mama Bear.” He pulled her in for a hug, even though the children were right there in the living room, and the rest of her uneasiness melted away. She’d worked herself up over nothing.

  “How was the party?”

  He leaned his shoulder against the wall and in a soft voice said, “Not great to be honest. A lot of tension between Joey’s brother and me.”

  And there it was, the thing that had likely been bothering him last night and had kept him from her door. “Why? Over the divorce?”

  “The divorce.” He nodded. “Custody of Veronica.”

  She wanted to say, what did the brother expect? His sister was forging prescriptions under Ethan’s name. But she held her tongue, careful when it came to anything regarding Joey. She wasn’t altogether clear on the nuances where Ethan’s ex-wife was concerned. What she had witnessed was that he refrained from badmouthing her, unlike most exes. To Brynn it was admirable but also confusing where he stood on Joey.

  “Did he say anything?”

  Ethan let out a mirthless laugh. “The guy never shuts up. But some of what he said hit home.”

  She could see a mountain of sadness hiding in his hazel eyes. “Is that why you didn’t come over last night?”

  He sidestepped the question by kissing her. Luckily, the children were oblivious to anything outside of the Sunday cartoon they were riveted to.

  “We have company,” she reminded him when he took the kiss to the next level, pulling her tightly against his body and plying her mouth with his tongue.

  He reluctantly broke away. “I guess we should hit the road and let you get off to your meeting.”

  But neither of them moved, caught up in each other’s spell. From the second she’d fallen for him, she’d known going back to New York would be unbelievably difficult. She now recognized that that had been an understatement. Try gut wrenching.

  But would it be the same for him?

  “When are we going, Daddy?” Veronica stood on the couch, leaning over the backrest. The cartoon was over and a cereal commercial Brynn had made was playing. An oldy but a goody, she smiled to herself.

  Ethan swooped Roni up. “Since when do we stand on furniture? You want to go? Then let’s hit the road, daylight’s burning.”

  Ethan herded both kids into his truck and tossed Henry’s wheelchair into the back where he’d tied down an aluminum boat.

  “Be careful,” she called as they drove up the hill. Ethan stuck his arm out the window and waved.

  She let out a deep breath. It was the first time she’d been alone since they’d gotten here. A year ago, she would’ve embraced an afternoon to herself. But now it left her with a sense of foreboding. Counselors told her it was a residual of the accident, a kind of PTSD for the survivors of a catastrophic incident. In the months that followed the crash, when Henry returned to school, Brynn would go into her bedroom, hold Mason’s pillow to her nose, and curl up into a ball.

  Not today. She gazed out over the majestic pines, took a big whiff of fresh air, and hugged herself. Here, in this magical place, she’d found purpose. She was still working on forgiving Mason and was making strides. Every day, her resentment for him slowly ebbed away.

  She found a shawl and although she didn’t need it, took it anyway. Griffin wanted to meet at his office above the Gas and Go. The space, an old apartment that had been converted, was as grubby as his mechanic shop. But she suspected Griff liked it that way. Posters of souped-up motorcycles hung on the wall and a big metal desk took up half the floor. There was a small kitchen and a bathroom off the hallway.

  Griffin went into the kitchen and stuck his head in the fridge. “You want a soda or a cup of coffee?”

  “I’m fine.” She opened her laptop at Griffin’s desk and pulled up her profile of Sierra Heights’ target market.

  Griffin hovered over the screen with a cola in his hand. “Show me what you’ve got.”

  He pulled over another chair and for the next forty-five minutes she made her pitch. It had been years since she’d met with a client, staying mostly in the background. But going through her proposal in person was exhilarating. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it.

  At the end of her presentation, Griffin rose to his feet and applauded. “Damn, I’m gonna sell some houses.”

  “That’s the plan. We still need to flesh some things out, including the cost of ad buy-ins. But I have staff at the Barnes Group working on that. I’d say in another week, we’ll be ready to start.”

  “Right on!” Griffin pumped his fist in the air.

  She noted the time and gathered up her laptop. “I’ve got to dash. What do you say we meet after I get those numbers? Then we can choose which platforms will give us the most bang for your buck.”

  “Sounds good.”

  She made it to the barbershop and found Darla at the front desk, eating Bun Boy fries.

  “So good, right?” She slid the basket across the counter to Brynn. “Help yourself.”

  “None for me, thanks.”

  She cleaned her hands with a wet wipe and set Brynn up in a chair.

  She finger combed the ends of Brynn’s hair, turning her face from side to side in the mirror. “You’ve got too much weight on the bottom. See how it’s bringing your face down? Your color looks good, though. Just a root touch up and maybe a few highlights. I’m thinking something in the chestnut family.”

  “Nothing drastic, though.” Brynn hoped she wasn’t making a mistake. She went to a great salon in the city and had never noticed that her cut brought her face down.

  “Nope, I’ll just clean you up. You’ll see.” Darla went to the rear of the barbershop to mix Brynn’s color. “How’s your son doing?”

  Brynn had gotten used to the gossip mill in Nugget. Everyone seemed to know everyone else’s business. She didn’t mind. Henry’s fractures weren’t a secret and people genuinely seemed to care about his wellbeing.

  “He’s holding up.” Normally, she would’ve left it at that, but hairstylists were a lot like priests and bartenders. And soon she was spilling her troubles to Darla like a water spigot.

  “Well, you’re in good hands,” Darla said. “Ethan is world famous. If he can’t heal Henry’s breaks no one can.”

  The comment was meant to be reassuring but it made Brynn a little sick to her stomach. The fact was Ethan was her final hope. There was no backup plan. This was it. All the specialists she’d talked to had basically said the stem cell procedure was her best and only option. If it didn’t work she had to face the reality that her son wouldn’t walk again.

  Sensing that the conversation had veered into depressing territory, Darla quickly changed the subject to the Lumber Baron’s high tea. “It’s the last one for the season, so all the locals are going. S
oon, the inn will be crawling with tourists. No room for us yokels.”

  Apparently, Brynn fell under the yokel category, even though she and Henry were only here temporarily. Oddly, she quite liked being a yokel.

  While Darla let Brynn’s color set, she gave Ethel, the owner of the Nugget Market, a trim. Unlike the boisterous weekdays when the Nugget Mafia gathered in the barbershop to keep Owen company while he cut hair, the place was quiet. Just Darla’s chatter and the swish and snip of her scissors.

  “Are you usually open on Sundays?” Brynn asked.

  Darla waggled her hand from side to side. “It’s on an as-needed basis only. I’ve got a couple of clients who live in Quincy who can only get here on weekends and like to come after church the second Sunday of every month for their blowouts. It helps to have the flexibility when I’m sharing the shop with my dad, who swears he’s going to retire.” She snorted and Ethel laughed.

  “He’s been saying that as long as I can remember,” Ethel said.

  After Ethel left, Darla washed out Brynn’s color and started on her cut. Though Brynn had said nothing drastic, she watched in panic as lock after lock of her dark hair hit the floor. Before Brynn could protest, Darla got out a big round brush and began blowing out her hair.

  Afraid to look, she closed her eyes, letting the heat of the dryer lull her into complacency.

  Darla flicked off the blow-dryer and straightened the chair so Brynn had a front view in the mirror. “What do you think?”

  She slowly opened her eyes and stared at her reflection. Brynn saw exactly what Darla had been talking about. The cut, a series of subtle layers, had given her an instant facelift. It was fabulous. “Wow, you know your stuff.”

  “So good, right?” Darla rubbed the ends of Brynn’s hair with styling gel.

  Brynn turned her head from side to side and looked at the back of her head with the help of a handheld mirror. “You’re an artist. Seriously, you’d make a fortune in Manhattan.”

  “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

  They walked over to the Lumber Baron together to a full house of women, many Brynn knew and some she’d never met.

  The furniture in the front parlor had been replaced with at least six round tables. Each one was draped in white linens and set with antique china and silver serving pieces laden with finger sandwiches, pastries, and scones. It was picture perfect. Brynn snapped a few photos with her phone and sent them to her mother, a lover of all things old and traditional.

  Maddy waved her over to her table and Darla joined a group of younger women closer to the fireplace, which was roaring even in April.

  “Love the do.” Donna ran her hands through Brynn’s new haircut.

  “Darla is beyond talented.” Brynn never could’ve imagined that a small town in the middle of nowhere would be chock full of flair. This hotel, the tea and Sierra Heights were perfect examples.

  “We’re lucky to have her,” Emily said. “Before Darla joined her dad at the barbershop, we all used to trek to Reno.”

  The conversation flowed like the bottles of wine that were delivered to the table more frequently than the tea. When the discussion came around to Henry, Brynn repeated the same thing she’d told Darla.

  Maddy leaned in and gave Brynn a hug. Although they were barely acquaintances, the embrace broke something inside Brynn and much to her mortification she began to cry. Maybe it was because Maddy was a mother with a child close to Henry’s age as well. Or perhaps it was simply weeks of pent up worry that needed an escape. Whatever it was, Brynn lost it.

  She tried to rush to the bathroom but the eight women at the table, most of them strangers, circled around her like a protective shell. It wasn’t so much what they said—because, really, other than empty platitudes what can anyone say to a mother trying to do the best for her child?—it was the outpouring of support that shored her up.

  She took that support with her all the way home.

  Chapter 23

  Over the next several days all Henry talked about was his boat ride with Ethan and Roni and how they caught a fish “this big,” which he demonstrated with his arms held wide. Each time he told the story the fish got bigger, reminding Brynn of the old joke.

  “Eat up, baby.”

  She bustled around the kitchen, cleaning up the mess from her weak attempt at making pancakes. They might not look pretty but at least they were edible.

  She was still riding the buzz that Henry’s test results had come back negative. No osteoporosis and no rickets.

  The bad news was they couldn’t pin his bone non-unions to anything in particular. Either the stem cell procedure had failed or Henry was a scientific anomaly in that his bone tissue was taking its sweet ass time regenerating.

  Even Ethan, who in his persevering, doctorly way had always been cautiously optimistic, admitted to being concerned.

  And her time here was running out.

  She had committed to returning to the helm of the Barnes Group by May, which was only a week away. Layla and Rich had everything under control. But as the CEO, she couldn’t neglect the company much longer. And although there had been no pressure from the Bentley Foundation, the cottage came with an eviction date. Eight weeks, the estimated time it would take for Henry to recover and for Ethan and his team to document the progress.

  Ethan.

  They’d spent every night together this week but neither had spoken about her leaving. What was there to talk about really? It was an impossible situation. Yet, the idea of living nearly three-thousand miles away from him made her chest squeeze.

  “Mom, can we go fishing?”

  “You have to do your schoolwork and exercises first. I also have work to do. After that, we’ll talk about it.”

  He started to whine and she gave him the look she’d perfected since he was old enough to talk. When the kitchen was cleaned up, she set him up at the table with his worksheets and grabbed a spot on the couch with her laptop.

  There was an email from Rich, detailing plans for the Ohm Super Bowl campaign. She grimaced and picked up her phone.

  “I don’t like it,” she said by way of greeting. “It feels very toxic masculinity.”

  Rich instantly knew she was talking about the car ad. “Eighty-four percent of the owners of the Model Nine are male, according to Hedges and Company.”

  “Still, this feels wrong. It feels like a muscle car ad, not an ad for an electric car. This is their car for the masses, right? I think we should be playing up the affordability of it. A Cadillac for the price of a Hyundai, something along those lines.”

  “I disagree. Fifty-five percent of Model Nine owners live in the nation’s top wealthiest zip codes, meaning consumers don’t care about price, even though MSRP is around thirty-five thousand. They care about the brand.”

  He made good points. Still, the tone of the ad turned her off. It was too alpha and too aggressive. “Can we take it down a notch? Maybe not have a guy who looks like Hulk Hogan doing donuts in the snow.”

  Rich laughed. “You didn’t like that idea? The company wants to push the car in the cold states.”

  “Fine, keep the snow but ditch the donuts. Perhaps a mountainous, snowy road.” An image of Nugget instantly popped in her head. “And a cowboy, instead of a gym rat.” Ethan came to mind. But cowboys drove trucks not electric cars.

  “I’ll tweak it. When are you coming home?”

  “Soon.” She tried to convince herself that it was time, that life had to go back to normal. Henry needed to be in school and she needed to run the company she and Mason had built.

  “Good. We miss you.”

  Did they? She’d been working in the shadows ever since Henry was born. Now she would take the reins. Be the boss.

  It had always been her trajectory. As soon as Henry was old enough, she’d planned to go back full-time and run the agency alongside Mason, lead
ing the creative side of the Barnes Group. It had always been that simple.

  So, why now had the plan suddenly lost its appeal?

  * * * *

  Ethan stood at the window with his coffee. He didn’t have surgery today and was planning to work from home, something he occasionally did. The plan was to get a few hours in, then sneak off to get in a little alone time with Brynn.

  Alma had volunteered to take both kids to town for ice cream at the Bun Boy after Roni got out of school.

  The sound of a car coming up the driveway pulled Ethan away from the kitchen to the front porch. It was Lou Ellen’s Ford Fusion. He hadn’t seen her since the party and it wasn’t like her to show up unannounced.

  She got out of the car and shielded her eyes as she squinted up at him. “Your office said you were out today, so I thought I’d find you at home.”

  She could’ve just picked up the phone. The fact that she hadn’t, gave him a sinking feeling. Joey.

  “Everything okay?”

  “You tell me.” She climbed up the stairs.

  Thirty years ago, she was the spitting image of her daughter. If not for the dated clothes and the teased hairstyle, he wouldn’t have been able to tell one from the other in pictures.

  Her face was harder now, with a trail of deep grooves that she tried to cover up with too much makeup. And her hair had gone from blond to brunette to red in the years he’d known her. Today it was a combination of red and brown.

  “You have any more of that?” she pointed at his coffee mug.

  “Yeah. Come on in.”

  Alma had gone for her morning walk. It was probably better that way. She liked Lou Ellen even less than she liked Joey.

  He poured her a mug, got out the milk, and passed her the sugar.

  She gazed around the kitchen, tilting her head back to stare up at the open-beam ceilings. She’d been to the house a handful of times since he, Alma and Veronica had moved in. But she always acted like she was seeing it for the first time, her lips pursed in condemnation for trading up after leaving her daughter.