Brennan stood up when she came back into the shop area. “Much better,” he said. “Now, have you eaten?”
“Eaten?”
“Yes. Food. It goes in your mouth and you chew it . . .”
“Not today, not yet.”
“Well, I guessed as much, so Sloane’s doing us a favor. She’s making a delivery.”
“A delivery? But the diner doesn’t do deliveries.”
“That’s why this is a favor. You aren’t paying very close attention.” He reached out and gently chucked her jaw. “Tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich will be here in about ten minutes.”
Tomato soup . . . she loved tomato soup. Brennan knew that, and he’d ordered her some. Tears welled up in her eyes again for reasons she couldn’t explain. “Thanks,” she said, swallowing hard.
One customer came in while they were waiting for Sloane, a man who was looking for an eighteenth-birthday gift for his daughter. Brennan helped him while Cara finished calming herself. She concentrated on the careful placement of each and every jewelry tray in each case so no one would look at her face and notice her red-rimmed eyes.
When Sloane arrived, Cara saw that she’d placed the food in a box rather than the typical diner takeout bags. That was so thoughtful—lunch looked like a UPS delivery instead of contraband. Cara set the box in the back room so as to maintain a professional appearance out front.
“Come talk to me later,” Sloane said under her breath as she told Cara good-bye. “And don’t worry about the tab right now—we’ll settle up later.”
“Thanks, Sloane,” Cara said. She really was blessed with friends. What was it about tragedies that not only humbled you to the dust, but showed you how blessed you were? And was it possible to really understand gratitude without those humbling experiences? Cara was starting to doubt it. She was also starting to think like a fortune cookie. She was grateful when the customer left and she was able to dig in to her lunch.
When she opened the box, she was glad to see that Brennan had ordered for himself as well. As she took the lid off her tomato soup, she realized that she hadn’t told Brennan the news that would impact him the most. She filled him in on Mr. Marchbanks’ financial situation and what the possible ramifications might be for them.
He stopped with his ham and cheese sandwich halfway to his mouth. “I figured something was up. I just hadn’t realized it was so bad.” He set the sandwich down. “What can we do?”
“He said he just needs us to sell, sell, sell.”
“That’s all very well and good, but that won’t be enough. If he’s in so much trouble that he could lose his whole business, the small margin of profit he makes on each sale will just be a drop in the bucket. He needs an infusion of cash, and fast.”
Cara suddenly felt a little ill. She hadn’t thought about it like that, but it made perfect sense. By the time he paid his overhead, including her wages and Brennan’s, he wouldn’t have enough to solve a problem of nearly any size, let alone one of these proportions.
“What do you think he should do?” Cara asked.
Brennan glanced up as a woman passed by on the sidewalk outside. They were eating in the back room, true, but had positioned themselves so they could still see the door and keep an eye on the storefront. When the woman continued by after examining their window display, he replied, “I think he ought to talk to my dad.”
That’s right—Brennan’s dad handled investments of all kinds.
“He might be able to hook Mr. Marchbanks up with someone who would float him the cash in return for a percentage. Of course, it really all depends on what Mr. Marchbanks is willing to do,” Brennan added. “He might not want to give up any percentage of the business. In a case like that, the investor might be willing to consider it a loan to be repaid within a certain timeframe and with interest. Either way would work, but I just don’t see Mr. Marchbanks pulling out of this without help.”
“Would you be willing to talk to him about that?”
“Of course. And if he’s willing, I’ll help him set up an appointment with my dad.”
Cara jumped when her phone chimed in her pocket. Once again, it wasn’t her mom—this time it was Morgan, saying she was sorry to hear about Cara’s dad. Regan had just told her.
“It’s being shown to me over and over again what good friends I have,” Cara said, sliding her phone back in her pocket. “Thanks for getting lunch, Brennan. You’re the best.”
“Hey, you were just a convenient excuse. I was starving.”
They cleaned up the mess, and Brennan took their garbage to the Dumpster in the alley behind their building. They didn’t want the whole shop to smell like tomato soup, after all.
“So, are you going to tell me what you’re waiting for?” Brennan asked when he came back inside.
“Waiting for?”
“Yeah. You keep checking your phone, and when it chimed a minute ago, you jumped and got a little flustered.”
“Oh, that. Yeah, um, my mom’s not talking to me right now.”
“She’s not?”
“No. She left during the duet the other night—you remember that—and she won’t answer my texts or return my calls. When I asked my dad about it, he said I’d have to ask her, but it’s kind of hard to ask someone why they aren’t talking to you when they aren’t talking to you.”
“That is complicated,” Brennan said. “What about going to see her?”
Cara thought about that for a second. “It might be the only way,” she said at last. “I was trying to give her some space, but there comes a point when you do have to get in people’s faces if you’re ever going to resolve the issue.”
The jewelry store was closed on Sundays, as were all the other non-essential businesses on Main Street—the gas station, the diner, and the grocery store stayed open. This meant that if Cara wanted to head down to Denver on Sunday, she could do it without having to ask for time off. “Okay, you’ve talked me into it,” she said. “I’ll go on Sunday. But she’d better answer the door.”
“Do you think she’d actually refuse to let you in?” Brennan asked.
“No, she wouldn’t do that. But on the other hand, I never thought she’d refuse to take my calls, either.” Cara shook her head. “Who even knows? I feel like I’ve gone through a portal into an alternate dimension, with everything that’s changed over the last few weeks. I’m not even sure this is still my life.”
* * *
Cara perched on the edge of the couch and cleared her throat. Everyone was there—Morgan and Rory, Laurie and Logan, Max, Regan, and Brennan. It’s a good thing she didn’t have any more close friends because the small apartment in the living room wouldn’t hold another person.
“Okay, so, you know about the concert Max and I are doing on the twenty-third,” she said. “Max already has his music picked out—and he wrote it all.”
“Show-off,” Morgan said, and everyone laughed.
“I, on the other hand, am not sure what I’m going to perform, so I’ve gathered you here to help me choose.”
“Whoohoo!” Regan clapped. “We want Cara. We want Cara.”
Cara flipped her hair over her shoulder and flexed her fingers a couple of times. She’d start them out with something popular and touching. Sarah McLachlan was a good choice. When she was finished, everyone gave her their nod of approval.
Next she sang something a little more classic, her own take on Eric Clapton. Then without any introduction at all, she launched into a song she’d written herself. She debated with herself for a long time about whether she should let it out in public, but she was determined not to remain a victim of her own insecurities. It was time for her to peel back the next layer of the onion.
When she ended, all her friends came to their feet with applause. She hadn’t expected a standing ovation, especially not in her own living room, and it was kind of odd. But it was also pretty wonderful, and she couldn’t help the tears that sprang to her eyes. Ever since she’d bawled her eyes
out on Brennan’s chest, her emotions were very close to the surface, whether positive or negative.
“That was amazing,” Max said as everyone sat back down. “Cara, you’ve got a gift. And as much as I love your renditions of these other songs, I don’t want to hear any more of them. Play us something else you wrote.” The others in the room nodded.
Cara took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said.
For the next half hour, she played them all the songs she’d been working on over the last year. Some were polished and some were still rough, but that didn’t matter so much to her now. At first, she looked down as she played, but after the first song, she started glancing around the room. Her friends nodded and gave her encouraging smiles, and several times after a particularly emotion-packed line, one of them would wipe away a tear. This was amazing—she wasn’t just sharing her own emotions. She was eliciting them in other people. This was different from the other little living-room concerts they’d been having recently. This was on a totally different, more personal plane.
When she finished the last song, she set her guitar to the side, and everyone applauded again.
“I’m going to call some of my friends from Denver and tell them they need to come out here,” Logan said. “This is going to be far better than anything they’d hear at that club they like.”
“Cara, can you make me a list of your titles? Then let’s go over them and decide what order we should do them in,” Max said. “I think we should open with the one about your high school graduation day.”
“You want me to open? But this is your thing,” Cara began, but he held up a hand.
“Hey, we’ve been through this. This is our thing. I’m thrilled to be sharing this journey with you. Besides, you’re not tagging along after me. Maybe it’s you they really like and I’m tagging along after you.” He winked. “Either way, you know what? It doesn’t matter. We’re both being given a tremendous opportunity, and we’d be stupid not to grab it.”
“You’re right.” Cara pushed back that incessant little voice that loved telling her how unworthy she was and focused on this moment. This was reality—she had a talent, she was appreciated for that talent, and the naysayers were the ones telling her the lies.
* * *
Cara didn’t know how things were going to go at her parents’ home, so she packed a small overnight bag just in case. Although he did it grudgingly, Mr. Marchbanks agreed to let her put Cindy on standby in case she needed to take Monday off. She’d decided that not only did she need to talk to her mother, she needed to talk to her father, and she had a long list of questions about his final arrangements and his last wishes and so forth. Now that she had started to internalize what was happening, she needed more information, and she’d be able to understand the answers now like she wouldn’t have the other day.
Brennan pulled up just as she was carrying her suitcase out to her car. He climbed out and raised a hand in greeting. “Hey,” he said. “I just wanted to come and wish you well. I know this won’t be easy for you.”
“Thanks, Brennan. I appreciate that a lot. And yeah, it’s going to be rough.” Cara grasped the handle of her suitcase a little tighter. “Things have always been a little . . . different in my family. I don’t know how to explain it—there’s just this wall between me and my mother that I’ve never been able to see over. It reminds me of a playground where I used to go as a child. There was a high brick wall that surrounded it, and if I got on the swing set and pumped really hard, eventually I’d go high enough that I could see over the wall and catch a glimpse of the beautiful garden on the other side. It was private property, so it’s not like I could just walk around the wall and see it, but those brief glimpses showed me the most amazing flowers I’d ever seen. Roses in every color imaginable, tulips and daffodils—depending on the season, of course—were all planted on a little rise that was just elevated enough that I could see them from the swings. And that’s my relationship with my mother. If I work really hard at it, sometimes I can catch a glimpse of something beautiful behind her walls, but then it’s hidden again.”
“I’m glad you’re able to see the beauty behind those walls. It takes a special kind of person to keep looking for beauty where it might not be obvious.”
“But am I special, or am I insane? I don’t know, Brennan. My whole life, I just wanted a normal relationship with her. I wanted to come home after school and tell her about my day and help her make dinner and set the table. I wanted to go on long, boring family vacations and roll my eyes when my dad told the same joke for the hundredth time—I wanted to be like a normal family. But instead, nothing was ever right unless I was conforming to what she had dreamed up for me, and I didn’t come that way. I was like the alien mutant coming into their perfect world to mess everything up.”
Brennan took a step closer and put his hand on his shoulder. “You do not mess everything up, Cara. I can’t even name all the ways you make everything right.”
“Can you tell my parents that?” She laughed. “That would be really helpful, actually. I’ll have all my friends sign a letter stating that I have not messed up their lives.”
“And I’ll sign it. In fact, I’ll draft it.” Brennan rubbed her shoulder with his thumb. “And in it, I’ll tell them all the ways in which my life became a thousand percent better when Cara Malone walked into it.”
Cara had no idea how it happened. All she knew was that one minute, she was standing on the sidewalk talking to Brennan, and the next minute, he had gently brought her forward and was kissing her. When his lips first touched hers, her instinct was to pull away. What was he doing? But not even a split second later, she took a tiny step toward him, inviting him closer. She’d never imagined kissing Brennan. He was her co-worker. He was her friend. Romance? Not even on the radar. But this . . . this was amazing. This was fireworks on the Fourth of July, the comfort of a giant quilt, and the excitement of a roller coaster all at the same time.
Brennan ended the first long kiss but immediately began another, not even pulling away between the two. His hands moved from her shoulders up into her hair, and she loved the feeling of his fingers as they threaded through the strands. How could such a completely chaste kiss leave her feeling so breathless?
Brennan stepped away and reached around her to take her overnight case from her hand. “You’d better be going,” he said, putting the case in her car for her. She stood there a little bewildered, wondering what had just happened. They were talking, and then they were kissing, and now he was loading her car. What?
“Yeah, I’d like to spend as much time as possible in Denver before I have to head back,” she said lamely, casting about for something to say. Did he feel as awkward as she did? Was he regretting what happened? She didn’t, but . . . did she wish it would happen again? She had no idea. She needed time. Time to figure out what she felt and to find out what he felt—time to step away and think about this. Maybe her lips just got in his way. Or he tripped on the sidewalk, and her face broke his fall. It could happen.
“Call me when you get back. Have a safe drive.” And then Brennan was gone.
Totally unsettled, Cara got into her car and started the engine. She’d probably just imagined the whole thing. That was the most reasonable answer. But was she imagining the way her shoulders still tingled from his touch?
Chapter Eight
By the time Cara reached her parents’ home in Denver, she had mostly succeeded in blocking Brennan from her mind. He was a mystery, one she’d need to solve later. Her mother was also a mystery, and she needed to focus on solving this one now.
As she walked up to the front door of the villa in the retirement community where her parents lived, she kept reminding herself to look behind the brick wall. Her mother had many good qualities. Something must have happened to make her hide them away. Was she scared of being vulnerable? The thought of Maureen being scared of anything nearly made Cara laugh out loud. It might not be that, but something had created this woman who w
as reluctant to let anyone inside the fortress she’d built around herself.
Gerald answered the door. “Cara,” he said, his voice not masking his surprise. “It’s good to see you again.”
“You said I should talk to Mom. So I’m here to talk to her.”
“Oh, that’s right. I’m sorry—please come in. I wasn’t expecting to see you, that’s all.”
“I know I haven’t been by very much lately,” Cara said as she stepped over the threshold and onto the nicely tiled floor of the entryway. “I’ve just been really busy.”
“We understand. And we knew when we left Aspen Ridge and moved here that we might see less of you. We don’t like it, but we know that’s just how it is.”
Cara sat down on one of the overstuffed chairs in the living room. “So, where is Mom?”
“I think she’s lying down. I’ll go check.”
As Gerald walked down the hall toward the master bedroom, Cara noticed a little shuffle in his walk. Was that because of his illness, or was it caused by the bedroom slippers he wore? And she didn’t want to spend every minute of her visit examining all his actions for signs of sickness. That wasn’t why she was here.
When her mother didn’t come immediately, Cara stood up and walked around the room. Maureen had decorated this retirement cottage much differently than she had the old family home in Aspen Ridge. Cara chuckled, looking at the pictures on the walls. Many of them were the classic posed family portraits from the nineties, with a few random landscapes thrown in. The clothing styles, not to mention the hair—she was sure glad times had changed. But then she noticed something. All of the pictures were taken after her high school graduation, after her surgery. Not one picture hung on the wall that showed her in kindergarten or middle school or junior high. It was almost as if she’d been plunked down into the family as a fully formed young adult, with no past.
But she had a past.
When Maureen stepped into the living room, Cara turned around. She wanted to face her mother this time. “Where are my kindergarten pictures?”
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