The Long Road Home (These Valley Days, #1)

by Bethany-Kris

  Malachi chuckled a wonderful sound. It reminded her of the way he’d sounded tucked naked against her back while she’d been lamenting her piss poor alcohol intolerance. Just like that, with a memory he triggered from the sound of his voice, she was left shivering where she stood alone on the boardwalk.

  “Secondly,” Malachi said, bringing them back to the conversation at hand, and she could almost imagine his sharp blue gaze turning on her like he expected her attention. “You were the one who told me it was a nice night for a run down the boardwalk. Or was that not the text I got an hour ago?”

  Damn him and his second point.

  She’d hoped he’d forgotten about that message.

  “Then why are you asking what I’m doing tonight if you already know?” she questioned.

  “Just checking,” he murmured.

  “For?”

  “I don’t know, maybe you’re getting bored—looking for something fun.”

  Someone.

  She heard what Malachi didn’t say.

  “I’m too busy for fun,” Gracen replied. “A jog on the boardwalk is the most fun I’m having lately. And even that’s getting old.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Care to make it better?”

  Malachi laughed. “We’ll definitely make it better soon.”

  “How soon?”

  “I’m working on it, Gracen.”

  No doubt, that was the most she would get out of Malachi on the topic of returning to the valley. She had not been the one to bring up the idea first over their many phone and text conversations. He did.

  Gracen just wasn’t ready to let the idea go.

  “Did you already jog the boardwalk?” Malachi asked, then.

  Gracen stared across the street to the waiting house with bay windows in the front; all the shades had been pulled, but Delaney’s figure could be seen moving around the kitchen behind the light fabric. Lately, she could only pull Delaney out to jog once in a blue moon. “Yeah, it wasn’t bad. I just got back home.”

  Next door, the empty lot taunted her.

  Gracen had done well to ignore the sight as she went up one side of town and then down the other. Not even the headphones in her ears and music blasting through the speakers straight to her brain had been enough to keep her from glancing back every so often.

  “Did Nader get settled into a new place?” she asked Malachi. The guy had been scarce in town for a while, but that wasn’t uncommon when Malachi mentioned his friend worked a lot.

  He sighed, the air cracking through the phone. “Back at his parents’ place, I guess.”

  Gracen’s eyes widened. “Really?”

  “Yep. He also won’t answer my fucking phone calls.”

  That was even more interesting news.

  Or rather, concerning.

  “Why?” Gracen asked. “I mean, the fire wasn’t—”

  “He’d been living there for a couple of years—out on his own, you know what I mean? The fire happened so fast, maybe he just needs some time to recalibrate everything. Time to figure out what’s going on.”

  A fire was traumatic.

  That still didn’t explain the man’s lack of contact with someone he apparently considered a good friend.

  “Anyway,” Malachi said, “I better let you get back to your night.”

  “Even if it’s not very fun?”

  Could he hear her pout?

  Sometimes, their calls didn’t last as long as she would like.

  Malachi always found a way to surprise her. “Call me back when you’re in bed later. I’m sure the two of us can figure something out.”

  Chapter 16

  The Valleyview manor had become sort of an escape for Gracen. She woke up on Tuesday mornings with something different on her docket, and an interesting workday ahead of her, never failed. It only took a couple of weeks for her to figure out that every Tuesday would be a little different than the last depending on who would be sitting in her chair.

  Every senior in the complex had their own story. A whole life they couldn’t wait to tell her about as soon as she wrapped the black smock around their shoulders. It became apparent very fast that she could just as easily leave with a smile on her face as she could with tears in her eyes.

  For as many families as she was able to meet and shake hands with when one of the residents sat in the stylist chair, because they just happened to be visiting on the particular Tuesday Gracen worked at the manor pro bono, three times as many saw no one.

  Or hadn’t for a very long time.

  She couldn’t count the number of elderly who squeezed her hand for extra long—clinging tighter with every passing second—with their smiles and thank yous that felt more genuine than any other she’d received in her lifetime. It wasn’t uncommon for the residents to get little to no visitors, and even thirty minutes, or longer sometimes, in Gracen’s chair was the most excitement to dawn their day ... next to taking a walk outside or across the complex to the rec center.

  Gracen tried to keep that in mind every time she entered the manor with her work bag slung over her shoulder. It reminded her to smile wider, even if she was tired that day or just not on her game. She saw her Mimi in every face that greeted her through the manor’s hallways, and so she tried to behave as if they were all her family. Because that was the most she could hope for when it came to her own grandmother, and this place.

  They were Mimi’s caretakers.

  Practically her family.

  The only people there everyday.

  She needed and hoped that everyone else who walked through the manor’s front doors treated the residents the same way as her—with the same love and respect. A pipe dream, sure, but Valleyview and the visitors Gracen had met really did seem to put extra care and compassion into their work with the residents.

  “Look who’s turn it is next,” came the singsong voice in the hallway just outside what the residents and staff affectionately called their Beauty Room.

  Mimi sat in a wheelchair in the doorway, the wheels creaking with her joy as she smiled wide and wiggled in the seat. “It’s me!”

  The LPN—Licensed Practical Nurse—maneuvering Mimi’s wheelchair through the door only laughed at the old woman’s antics. Mimi’s crown of white-blonde curls bounced as she reached for Gracen before she was even close enough for a hug.

  Not that it mattered to Mimi. Mimi knew good and well what she wanted when it came to Gracen, and distance had never been a problem for her before.

  “Get over here,” her grandmother demanded. “They made me wait all godda—”

  “Not that language again, Miss Mimi,” the nurse admonished with a pointed look over her shoulder as she headed for the door.

  “Well, they did,” Mimi shot back.

  The nurse, who’s name tag said Nanci, pretended as if she hadn’t heard Mimi’s accusation. She looked to Gracen with her next question. “Call me when she’s ready to head back?”

  “Could I walk her back to her room? She’s my last one today. I think Piper in HR worked out the schedule for me that way, so I could get a bit of time with her before visiting hours ended,” Gracen explained.

  She did add how she had specifically asked Piper to do that after two Tuesdays in a row where Gracen had needed to leave after her shift. Not taking a lunch hour, and putting Mimi at the end of the schedule on the days she would be sitting in Gracen’s chair, fixed the issue with no problems. For the Tuesdays she wouldn’t have to do Mimi’s hair, if her grandmother couldn’t get time with her throughout the day, she still had that extra hour at the end of the day to make something work.

  After all, the whole point of her starting this side project was to spend more time with Mimi. However, she was glad it brought a smile to the faces of the residents she was able to meet, as well. Things had a way of working out.

  If she let them.

  Nanci waved the query off, unbothered. “Yeah, no worries. Just let her block desk know, okay?”

  �
��Right, I can do that,” Gracen agreed.

  The block desks were huddle and rest spots for the nurses and other staff, but there was one for every corridor of residents. Only so many residents, and not all the residents, could be designated to a certain block of private suites where they spent most of their days and called home, for the most part. Mimi was in block four.

  Once the LPN had exited the Beauty Room—a small salon with the basics and necessities for a stylist to work, including a sink, mirror, chair, and a handful of products and tools just across from the cafeteria and dining room—Gracen turned on Mimi with a smile.

  “Are you sitting in that or my chair?” she asked.

  Mimi eyed Gracen. “Did you remember the purple?”

  Not once did her grandmother’s sharp gaze waver even as Gracen reached over to pull out the surprise from her bag. All month, Mimi asked. Every Tuesday despite the fact she was not due for a haircut because the manor’s regular stylist, Carol, had done her grandmother’s regular monthly trim.

  “Oh,” Mimi squealed happily, taking the bottle of royal purple dye from Gracen’s hands. “It’s perfect.” Then, her grandmother beamed up at Gracen. “Don-n’t you thin-nk?”

  “It’s gonna look just like that because your hair is so light. But—”

  Mimi playfully scowled. “But what?”

  Gracen didn’t want to waste a lot of their time together going over the facts of how hair follicles absorbed—or didn’t—color. None of that would really make a difference to Mimi, and Gracen had already thought far enough ahead to take care of any problems that her grandmother might face because of the new vibrant hairdo she wanted to sport.

  Out of Gracen’s kit came another item.

  A shower cap.

  “I have on-ne of those,” Mimi said to Gracen.

  “I know, but this one has the little hearteye emojis,” Gracen replied. “I thought you’d think it was cute, so now you have an extra. The less you wash your hair, the better the color will stay in. Okay?”

  “Twice a week?” Mimi asked.

  “Once, if possible.”

  Mimi made another face that said she wasn’t very impressed with that answer.

  Gracen had a plan for that problem, as well. She really should thank Delaney—who had reminded her of the shower cap and extra item—that would help Mimi after getting the purple dye job. She produced a can of dry shampoo from the black bag.

  “A little goes a long way with this, and I will show you how to use it when we’re done,” Gracen told her grandmother. “It’s not hard, but it will keep you looking fresh, fresh.”

  Mimi didn’t look scared. Ready for the new color, if anything. After today, she would certainly stand out in the crowd of residents when Gracen came for her regular visit on Sunday.

  “How’s it go—the way you used to say it?” Mimi asked. “Super cute?”

  Gracen laughed and nodded. “Yeah, Mimi, it’ll keep you super cute.”

  “I’m n-nervous but excited to get started,” Mimi said, her hands tittering in her lap in the same way she’d used to do when Gracen was younger.

  That was all that mattered.

  “So, are we doing this in your chair?” Gracen asked again. “Or mine?”

  Either was perfectly fine.

  *

  Gracen couldn’t contain the smile at Delaney’s response to the picture of Mimi with her vibrant purple curls.

  “Look at her big grin,” Delaney had texted back almost instantly. “Obviously a winner.”

  Oh, yes.

  Mimi had loved every second of getting her hair done, and the way it turned out in the end. The color likely wouldn’t stay in more than a handful of washes, if that. And only if her grandmother tried to wash her hair with as cold of water as she could possibly stand. As it was, Mimi’s hair didn’t have pigment to change, so it was all a matter of upkeep for longevity.

  When I tell you she had to show EVERYONE on her way back to the block, she texted back to Delaney. Gracen added in a second text: No joke, Laney. Everybody on that side of the complex saw her by the time she was back in her room.

  Mimi deserved the attention, though. Something to make her feel extra special because not long after she got her grandmother back to her suite of rooms in her block, Gracen’s time at the manor was up. She’d been able to stay just long enough to get a snack and drink for them both, and start the evening news, but the announcement to end visiting hours came shortly after.

  More interested in her phone than the surrounding parking lot, Gracen barely gave a passing car any attention even when it slowed as she approached her own vehicle. She opened the passenger seat after unlocking the Civic, and tossed in her kit and purse as Delaney’s latest reply popped up on their chat thread.

  Another new, unread text caught her attention, too. Malachi’s text would have to wait, though.

  See you in a few, Delaney had written.

  Gracen was in the middle of shooting Delaney a quick confirmation when a car door slammed closed, and a familiar voice called her name.

  “Yeah, that is you, Gracen. I thought it was.”

  For a split second, she was almost able to pretend like she hadn’t heard Sonny Masterson speak just a couple of parking spots away. Except he kept talking, and by the time she turned around, he stood an arm length from the driver’s door of her car.

  At least, he stayed over there.

  Gracen couldn't muster a smile for the sight of her ex, but time treated Sonny well, all the same. He was still the same tall, dark, and handsome that she’d fallen head over heels for way too young for more than a few stupid reasons. She saw his face at least once a day because his realty signs popped up all over town alongside the rest of his family who took to the business of selling houses.

  She never had to speak to him, though.

  Not face to face.

  He’d given her that respect, at least. Perhaps all their years of foolish teenage, first love had meant something to him. Or it could have been that Sonny simply realized it meant something to Gracen, because after their sudden split, he’d never tried to overtake her space or place in their shared town.

  Hell, she didn’t know—and didn’t even give a fuck—who cut his hair in town, but it could only be one of a few people. All of whom she knew on a first name basis, but who never mentioned any contact with Sonny.

  Gracen didn’t mind.

  That’s how she liked it.

  “Sonny,” Gracen greeted.

  Not impolitely.

  She didn’t croon it with joy, either.

  “You’re a little late,” she told him, gesturing over her shoulder with a pointed thumb in the direction of the manor’s entrance. “They just called the end of visiting hours. The doors will be locked in ten minutes.”

  Sonny never glanced toward the building although the parking lot buzzed with a bit of activity from leaving vehicles and chatting people near the front doors. “Yeah, I know.”

  He offered nothing else.

  Gracen thought to call him on it, but Sonny had already moved on. Or rather, his attention did when another figure exited from the manor, and a smile swept away any other emotions on his features.

  “Hey!” he called, waving to the young woman with a matching smile as wide as her cheeks.

  Alora Beau still wore the scrubs she must have been working in—black from the pants to the cinched-waisted tops. It was the first moment in the month’s time that Gracen had been coming on Tuesdays where she laid eyes on Alora. Rumor had it ... well, there was no rumor about it. Delaney had the details on Alora and shared them when Gracen had outright asked.

  As it went, Alora had held a part-time job in the laundry department for the better part of her high school career after a co-op program with her private, church-funded school got her started volunteering at the manor. Scrubs, top and bottoms, were required by the staff despite some of the faculty who protested for their religious right to wear appropriate skirts. The thing was, there were appr
opriate scrub skirts. They simply weren’t approved by the church.

  Gracen didn’t give a shit what the staff wore at Valleyview as long as the residents, and her grandmother, were taken care of when it came right down to it.

  The sight in the parking lot was like a train wreck that Gracen couldn’t look away from. Alora found her waiting fiancé’s open arms, but it was the length and closeness of the hug that eventually made Gracen turn around.

  She had to focus the sudden rush of anger—that she didn’t want to feel in the first place—somewhere. Gracen’s gaze dropped back down to her phone, and she pretended to be scrolling a conversation while she rounded her car to get in the driver’s side. Unfortunately, that also put her damn near side by side with the lovebirds.

  She refused to drop the act with the phone even when Sonny told her, “I just wanted to say it was nice to see you, anyway. It’s been a while.”

  “Yeah, same,” she replied.

  An echo of her usual self.

  Gracen hated that, too.

  It didn’t matter, though, because more than anything, she wanted this random meeting to be over. If Sonny would do that for the both of them—all the better. It saved Gracen the time and energy.

  “It’s Gracen, right?” Alora asked at Gracen’s back before she could pull open the driver’s door. She didn’t turn around. “Sorry, I only wanted to say hi. We didn’t get a chance to meet that day at your salon.”

  Gracen shot a careful smile over her shoulder, but kept her gaze low to avoid them seeing the irritation just being near her ex caused inside. “No worries. It’s always kind of busy there—things get crazy.”

  “I told Delaney it kind of feels like I know you, anyway. Between how she talks about you, and Sonny—”

  “I can’t imagine what he would have to tell you about me.” Gracen couldn’t get the driver’s door open fast enough after those words passed her lips. There was no way to hide the heat in her tone—the remnants of hurt.

  Before she got inside her car, though, Gracen turned on the young woman and a now-quiet Sonny who kept a protective arm around Alora’s waist. Gracen kept her glare on him—it really wasn’t meant for Alora even if her words triggered the anger—when she said, “No, I mean I really can’t imagine he’d have anything to say about me at all. Did he tell you that everything was fine up until the second he called to say it was over?”