by Lenore Wolfe
SIX
SOPHIA
Sophia picked up her three-year-old daughter, turning one more time to look at the empty apartment they were putting behind them. She stared at the place where they’d lived for the three short years of her daughter’s life. This room held a lot of Kira’s firsts.
Her first word, her first steps, her first sentence.
Sophia’s swallowed against the tears threatening to spill, not ready to walk away. Not that she didn’t want to leave this apartment—she did. It was time.
They needed more. More room. More friends—more family.
That wasn’t it.
Simply—she didn’t really want to leave this town. One that she’d always called home, except for the few months she’d lived in one nearby—when she’d married Kira’s father…. She’d regretted leaving then, and she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, again.
She gazed at the room. Well, this was it. She could see no help for it.
She took one last long look, picking up her daughter’s Minnie Mouse suitcase with her free hand and setting it outside the door. Then, she closed and locked the door behind them.
A cab waited in the drive. The sight of it made her sick. This was happening, then. That cab proved she would leave her motherland for good. She walked toward the car with sinking dread. This must be a little like what it felt to walk the plank.
Nowhere near the same, she scolded herself. Stop being so melodramatic.
She closed her eyes for a moment, reminding herself those poor people walked to their deaths while she walked toward a new—if changed—future. A different life.
Didn’t she?
She placed her daughter on the back seat and waited for the man who drove the cab to place their bags in the trunk.
When she slid onto the backseat, near her daughter, and closed the door, he pulled out of the driveway. A single tear slipped down her face as he backed away from their apartment. She tried not to turn and stare at the remains of their lost life, the loss of their hometown, as he drove away.
He dropped them at the bus, helping her to get her bags onto the shuttle. The shuttle would take them to the airport in the nearby city of Denver.
A lump formed in her throat when she saw the airport, an hour and fifteen minutes later. Suddenly, it all became too real. She had to leave. She’d nowhere else to stay in Red Bluff. She’d gone over and over it in her mind, these past weeks. She couldn’t figure a way out.
She thanked the shuttle driver, debarking and waiting for their bags, one arm holding her daughter on her hip. He put their bags on the sidewalk, and with her free hand she put her handbag on her shoulder and tried to grab both her and her daughter’s suitcase, but her bags fell over.
Swiping at her angry tears, she reached down to pick them up. Stuff fell out of her bag.
“Here, let me help you,” a woman said.
She looked up into the kind gaze of a stunning woman with dark chestnut hair. “Claire?”
“Sophia?”
The two women flew into a hug, laughing until the little girl between them started objecting to being squished between them
They giggled in excitement as they parted, both looking down at her daughter.
“Wow! Sophia, she’s beautiful. I heard you had a little girl. What are you doing at the airport?” Claire’s gaze narrowed on her bags. “You’re not leaving, are you?”
Tears filled Sophia’s eyes. “I lost my place,” she managed to get out.
Claire’s green gaze now narrowed on her. “Well, you’re coming home with me.” She started gathering Sophia’s bags. She’d rented a cart, and now easily lifted both bags onto that cart before Sophia had even managed to get one word out of her mouth.
Her brow shot up. This was so like Claire, she grinned, suddenly realizing all her worries no longer mattered. Claire was back—and she wouldn’t have objected to a chance to stay even if she’d wanted to—which she didn’t. She wouldn’t have stopped Claire from taking her back home—because there was nothing in this world that she wanted more than this miracle that had just walked into her life. She looked down at her daughter and laughed. Everything in her had wished for this, even though she knew it would change all the hard work she’d done, given all she’d done to keep from returning to the magickal world of the sisters.
Right now, she didn’t care.
They were together again—and they were going home.
She smiled inwardly. Yeah, going home meant she’d be thrust right back into the world she’d fought to leave behind. She didn’t know exactly how she should feel about that. But being back with her friends—well they weren’t just friends. They were family. How could she turn around and walk away from the chance to be with them again?
Claire headed toward a car waiting at the end of the sidewalk, and Sophia followed with her daughter still on her hip. A set of twin guys got out of the car, and Sophia laughed with bubbling excitement as she watched Claire greet them with a loud hoop—and a joyful hug.
One of them, Jack poked his head around Claire to see who stood behind her, and when he spotted Sophia, his face split open into a wide grin. “Sophia!” he said, coming around Claire to give her a big bear hug like she’d also been gone.
She hadn’t. She’d been right there in Red Bluff. Yet they’d all been split up as effectively as if she had.
Sophia thought her bones would pop from the hug he gave her, but she couldn’t help but grin. “Wow, the whole gang is back together,” she said.
By that time, the other twin, Jake, had let go of Claire and swept Sophia into a hug as equally exuberant as his brother’s. “I’m sorry we didn’t keep in touch,” he apologized quietly in her ear before releasing her. He let go of her hand last, giving it a gentle squeeze.
She shrugged. It hurt, but she didn’t want to admit that. She tried to smile.
“We knew you married,” Jack tried to explain. “We even tried to come and visit you, right after you did, but he seemed pretty angry to see us.”
Sophia stared at him. “I wish you would have told me,” she said.
A hooded look crossed Jake’s eyes, and she realized he wished they’d done so, too.
Claire and the twins bent to pick up their bags, placing them in the trunk, and Sophia stared after her. She couldn’t believe this was happening. A few hours ago, she couldn’t imagine what would happen to her and her daughter. She’d felt lost and lonely—and now suddenly here she stood, surrounded by the people she loved most.
Yes, she could have gone home. Her mother would be deeply insulted to know she’d felt she couldn’t. But she wasn’t part of her mother’s people. She didn’t know what to feel about letting her daughter be a part of her mother’s world. It had been too long. The time for changing it—any of it—had passed. Her father prevented her from spending time with her mother. Made her afraid of going back there herself. Now, she didn’t know if she wanted any part of it—or if she just felt too terrified to make the changes that getting to know her mother’s people would require.
She flushed, a bit shy, as Jake turned his spring green gaze on her. He smiled, and something in his smile made her heart flip.
She quickly dismissed it. Things were different. That’s all there was to it. The twins were always too loud—too boisterous—and way too quick to play practical jokes on them as kids—let alone they’d had a head full of red curls and freckled faces, and long, lanky limbs….
She’d loved them dearly because their hearts were the size of Texas, and they would both give the shirts off their backs to help anyone in need—but she’d never been attracted to either of them.
And she wasn’t now, she reminded herself, even if they’d more than grown into those long, lanky limbs, she told herself, taking her daughter’s hand. After all, she’d escaped the confines of her ex-husband’s controlling ways, and the deep, painful wounds of their relationship. The last thing she needed was a go-around with someone else right now.
No. This—this reunion w
as years in coming. This was huge. She couldn’t believe their good fortune, with the gang coming back together. Would they be able to overcome what happened that night? That remained to be seen, but she knew it could be done. She knew that better than any of them—and she knew of only one way to do that.
They needed to come to grips with the truth of what happened—and why.
She slid onto the backseat, beside her daughter, and Claire slid in on the other side. She smiled over her daughter’s strawberry blond curls at Claire, and Claire reached over Kira to squeeze Sophia’s hand.
Sophia sighed. She couldn’t believe how fast this had turned around for them when that morning she’d felt like this was the worse day of her life. She smiled up at the universe. “I shouldn’t be so surprised.” She sighed, again. “Thank you,” she whispered to Spirit and beyond.
One of the twins, Jake, slid in behind the wheel, and the other, Jack, slid onto the passenger seat—and just like that, they were off.
They drove away from the airport and started the drive back up to their sleepy mountain town, the four of them chatting happily, exchanging updates about the last few years as Sophia’s daughter stared up at them through clear spring-green eyes, giggling whenever one of them laughed—her strawberry curls bouncing.
Sophia smiled down into the face of her beautiful daughter, and for the first time, in a long time, she knew they’d be okay. They were with family. In fact, these friends were the only real family she’d ever known.
Suddenly, her whole world looked brighter.