by Liz Isaacson
A flash of what life would be like if Norah had a lot of money stole through her head. Yes, the sports news feeds had been full of Poor Sterling Maughan. His career is over just as it was picking up momentum. And too bad about his girlfriend being such a cheater….
But “poor Sterling Maughan” was anything but poor. He wasn’t working two jobs and going to school at night just to pay the electric bill and put food on the table and make sure his mama had the medicine she needed.
Norah tasted the bitterness of her situation on the back of her tongue, and it was too familiar. She hated feeling this way, and yet she couldn’t push down the negative vibes.
She stuck a smile on her face as she tied the now-full trash bag. “Hey, can I ask a huge favor? My half-brother is a big fan of yours. Could I get a picture with you?”
Sterling looked up, his eyes half glazed from the pills. Strong jealousy Norah hadn’t felt in a while surged through her. She managed to push it away.
“Sure, I guess.” The disinterest in his voice didn’t fall on deaf ears, but Norah whipped her phone from her back pocket anyway. She wanted to spray an entire can of disinfectant on his nest before she touched it, but she flopped down on the blanket at his side like it was a throne fit for a queen. A puff of foul-smelling air surrounded them, but Norah contained the cringe.
“Okay, smile.” She focused on the two of them, but Sterling’s smile looked more like a grimace. Maybe she’d jostled his leg too much. Something whispered inside her that it wasn’t just his leg giving him trouble.
Norah snapped the picture and turned toward Sterling. Close enough for her breath to brush his cheek. He kept his mouth steadfastly shut, and if she had to guess, she should be happy she couldn’t smell his breath.
As she watched him, she felt his sadness penetrate her defenses. Felt his helplessness. Her mother had always told her she had a compassionate heart and was able to sense someone in distress.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, unable to break eye contact with the damaged once-pro-snowboarder.
He blinked, shrugged, laid his head back, closed his eyes. “It happens.”
Norah stood, haunted by the finality in his tone. Help him, she prayed, unable to do much more than that for the man who wore his emotional turmoil so openly. As she went back upstairs to finish preparations for her girls, she promised herself she’d check in on Sterling over the next couple of days. Even though he had nurses coming, he seemed like he could use a friend.
2
Norah maneuvered down the mountain from Six Sons Cabin, careful to stay near the center of the road. March had been brutal in the weather department, and the merrily shining sun only lent light, not warmth. Certainly not enough heat to melt the snow and ice this high above sea level.
She checked the clock on the dashboard and eased up on the brakes. She needed to return to Silver Creek before two o’clock so she could take her girls to their weekly riding session. After that, they usually went to dinner in the cafeteria, but tonight, they’d load into a Silver Creek van and head up to the cabin. She was glad, because the cafeteria was currently under construction in preparation for a complete makeover.
Norah was planning a cookout and had quickly swept the snow off the second-level deck before leaving Sterling to his painkillers and cooking shows. The image of his sunken eyes pulled at her heart. On TV, he’d always been full of life and quick to pump his fist after a successful run. The man she’d met had become a shell of the one she’d seen on TV, a ghost of who she saw in the pictures scattered around the cabin.
You need to help him. The thought entered her mind unbidden, and Norah felt its power. Her fingers tightened on the wheel as she rounded the last bend in the road before it straightened out and dipped into the valley.
“How?” she asked herself. She had no idea how to deal with an injury like Sterling’s, though she did understand why people smoked, or drank, or turned to cutting. Having experienced similar home conditions as the girls she worked with, she’d dealt with her share of problems and temptations.
The pull to escape her life just for an hour threaded through her. A single painkiller would give her those sixty minutes.
The constant emotional effort she had to expend to take care of her mama sometimes weighed Norah down to the point where she couldn’t get out of bed until she psyched herself up.
Normal twenty-seven-year-olds didn’t care for their half-brothers full time, play nursemaid to a woman who should be able to take care of herself, or mother eight troubled teens. As Norah turned a corner, she wanted the life that single women her age enjoyed. And with that yearning came a punch of guilt that hit her right in the lungs.
She pushed away the tide of bitter feelings. Her three half-brothers depended on Norah for everything, and with their mama sick, Norah certainly couldn’t add another invalid to her plate. And yet, she felt a strong attraction to Sterling that went beyond his celebrity status.
She parked in the staff lot and leapt from her car, determined to think about Sterling later. As she stopped by the administration office to turn in the girls’ permission slips, she found Dr. Richards dictating a job notice to his secretary.
Norah listened as she flipped through the pages she already knew were in order. When Dr. Richards finished, Norah handed him the papers. “We’re headed up to Six Sons tonight. We’ll be back on Monday in time for dinner.”
Dr. Richards didn’t look at the permission paperwork. “Sounds good, Norah. I want you to pay particular attention to Genn while you’re up there. She had a hard session this morning.”
Norah nodded and swung her chin toward the secretary. “You need a new counselor?”
Dr. Richards handed the paperwork to his secretary and stepped into his office, a sigh filled with exhaustion escaping his lips. “Yes, Will quit today. He’s staying on until the end of this cycle.” He settled at his desk and pulled a file toward him. “I know you’d take on another group, but I need a male.”
“I might know someone.” Norah spoke before she could think. Or maybe Sterling had never really left her mind.
“Oh?” Dr. Richards glanced up and held her gaze. “Who? What experience does he have?”
“Well, he probably doesn’t have any.” Norah twisted her fingers around themselves. Why had she spoken?
“Is he over twenty-five?”
“Yes.” Norah had seen Sterling snowboard countless times, had watched a couple of interviews on ESPN, and knew he was twenty-six.
“He’s not employed?”
Norah thought of Sterling’s nest, the greasy texture of his hair, the length of that beard, the smell of his dirty socks. “He…he used to be a cop. But he got hurt.”
Dr. Richards perked up. “A cop? Maybe he could work with our at-risk group.”
The at-risk boys that came to Silver Creek often had violent histories, usually involving weapons rather than drugs.
“Maybe,” Norah said.
“Get an application from Shelly,” Dr. Richards said. “See if he wants to apply.”
Norah said good-bye and stepped into the outer office to get an application for Sterling. With the single sheet of paper in her hand, she felt like she had something concrete to do for him.
Ten minutes later, she stood at the end of the hall on the second floor of the girls’ building. “Team Silver Bow!” she called. The four doors nearest her opened within a few seconds of each other and her eight girls entered the hall.
They each wore the required horseback attire: long pants, long-sleeved shirts, and boots. They carried coats and hats and gloves. Norah smiled at each girl, noticing that Genn’s eyes stayed on the floor, and her roommate, Hailey, seemed to have been crying.
Though her motherly instincts kicked in, Norah kept quiet. It wasn’t her job to provide therapy. She was there to facilitate their schedules, get them to meals on time, establish the rules, and be a listening ear should the girls choose to tell her something. Nothing the girls told her was private, and Nor
ah hated that, but it kept her out of difficult situations.
“You ready to ride?” she asked.
Varying responses came from the girls, ranging from mild interest to sarcasm to genuine enthusiasm. Norah stepped to the head of the line and led them downstairs and around the building. As they entered the March wind, Norah sucked in a breath and prayed for an early spring.
“Just think, ladies,” she said over her shoulder. “In just a couple of hours, we’ll be sitting by a huge fireplace, sipping hot chocolate.”
Natalie, a bubbly fourteen-year-old, cheered from behind her. “Can I ride Kimchi today?”
“You ride who you’re given,” Norah said. “But I’ll try to line you up with her.”
The girls entered the barn, where Silver Creek’s wrangler had eight horses already in stalls. He came out of the tack room, saw the girls, and adjusted his white cowboy hat. “Afternoon, ladies.”
One of the girls giggled, and Norah sent a glare down the line. The strict non-fraternizing rules sometimes wore on the girls, especially the flirtier ones. They hadn’t seen or spoken to a boy in six weeks, besides Dr. Richards and Owen, the horseman now smiling down on them in all his Montana cowboy glory.
He pointed to the horses behind him. “We got a new gelding this mornin’. His name’s Pompeii. Who wants to ride ‘im first?” Owen’s gaze swept the girls, his keen eyes searching for something Norah didn’t understand.
“Genn?” Owen asked, leaving Norah to wonder if Owen could read more than horses.
“Sure.” Genn stepped over to the unfamiliar dark horse with a black mane and tail.
“Nat,” Norah hissed. “Trade places with Felicia.”
The two girls switched, and Natalie got assigned to Kimchi, the brown and white paint horse she preferred. Norah stayed in the barn as Owen reminded the girls how to mount the horse and hold the reins. Her chest filled with love as Genn leaned over and patted Pompeii’s neck, a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. Norah had experienced many “hard sessions” during her time at Silver Creek, and as much as she didn’t want to, she saw herself in Genn. A good girl, without the resources or support to do much with her life.
But in the six weeks since Genn arrived, Norah had seen strides in her she hadn’t experienced herself. Genn’s parents had started coming to the group counseling sessions, something Mama had never done for Norah.
Warmth expanded in Norah’s chest. Genn would make it. She’d do something great with her life, not be confined to Gold Valley and her childhood home the way Norah was. Norah wanted nothing but success and happiness for the girl, for all her girls.
For Sterling too, she thought, startled by how easily the man had wormed his way into her mind. She’d spent maybe fifteen minutes with him—which was fifteen more minutes than she’d spent with someone of the opposite sex in quite a long time.
That’s why, she told herself as she waited for the girls to return from their ride. Since she still lived at home with her three younger half-brothers—and her sick mama—Norah didn’t have time to go on many dates, what with two jobs and a night class. And she wasn’t all that interested in growing close to a man only to watch him leave when things got hard.
She’d seen that too many times in Mama’s life. Their front door seemed to rotate with men. But when the bills piled too high, or the baby cried too loud, or Mama got too demanding, those men left.
Norah had never left. She couldn’t. Especially not now with Mama’s lung disease so advanced and so debilitating. The swell of resentment reared again, nearly choking her.
Her phone rang, and she swiped open the call from her half-brother, Javier. “What’s up?”
“Hey, Norah. Mama said it’s your girls’ weekend, but I want to go to the movies with Sarah and Mateo.”
Norah smiled at the rush in Javier’s voice and waited while he presented his case.
“So I went and got a movie for Alex and Erik, and they’re set with popcorn and hot chocolate. I just wanted to run it by you, make sure it’s okay.”
A pinch behind Norah’s eyes reminded her that she wasn’t the only one paying the price for Mama’s illnesses. “Do you have enough money for the movies?”
“Yeah. Anthony paid me this morning.” Javier worked for the Mexican grocer as much as possible, but Norah could never take his money, even if she sometimes needed it. A senior in high school, Javier would have to make his own ends meet soon enough.
“Okay. Who’s driving?”
“Mateo.”
Norah nodded though Javier couldn’t see her. Sarah had slid into a snow bank last winter, and Norah felt safer with Mateo driving. “Sounds like you’ve got it worked out.”
“I do, Norah. Thanks.”
She hung up, glad for her girls’ weekend. She needed the time away from Mama’s depression, her medication schedule, her pessimism. Sometimes Norah wondered if she babied her mother too much, but she wasn’t sure how not to. She’d been forced to act as mother way before she should’ve, and a sticky film coated her mouth as she tried to swallow back the trapped feelings. They came every so often, and Norah couldn’t help wondering if her mind was as messed up as Mama’s.
To prove she wasn’t a slave to her demons, Norah poured everything she had into taking care of her girls. At least with them, she could witness growth and change and healing—something she’d never see in her mama. Sadness filled her, and her soul ached for a solution to her mother’s mental and physical challenges. She wanted to help, she just didn’t know how.
Again, Sterling’s handsome face filled her mind, and a smidgeon of annoyance sang through her.
Sterling heard the girls enter the cabin shortly after five o’clock. He’d just come out of the bathroom, where he’d showered and shaved for the first time in several days. It had been as hard as he’d anticipated, even with the shower bench that provided some relief for his leg. Simply getting the brace off had taken him five minutes.
Frustration flooded him as he considered the brace. He really didn’t want to put it back on, but he felt the weakness in his leg without it. He didn’t want his recovery to take longer than necessary, but reasoned that a few more minutes without the brace wouldn’t set him back that much.
He picked up his phone—no messages, no calls—and almost slammed it back onto the kitchen counter. Before the accident, he hadn’t been able to keep up with the number of people wanting to talk to him. Family and friends. Those who wanted to be friends. People who wanted an interview, or to talk about a sponsorship, or to film his practice session.
Gratitude filled him that no cameras or reporters had been at the practice session when he’d fallen. The last thing he needed was to watch that horror over and over again on the Internet.
“Sterling?” Norah’s voice bounced down the steps. Her body followed a few seconds later, screeching to a halt when she found him leaning against the kitchen counter. Her eyes brightened, slid down the length of his body. When they returned to his again, he saw the same look he’d seen in other girls’ eyes. Appreciation. Maybe something a bit warmer.
“You’re up.” Her voice sounded flirtier, and Sterling couldn’t help the zing of satisfaction spiraling through him. He’d been desirable once. Even though his phone sat silent, here was a woman looking at him as if she liked what she saw. That had to count for something.
She grinned at him, and he found himself returning it, thinking maybe she could be his friend. “You shaved.”
Sterling rubbed his hands along his jaw. “Yeah, it was time.” His gaze lingered on her curly hair and sparkling eyes, his face heating when he realized he liked what he saw too.
“I’m making hamburgers and hot dogs for the girls.” She hooked her thumb over her shoulder toward the stairs. “You want one?”
Sterling’s stomach grumbled. “Sure.”
“Which? Hamburger or hot dog?”
“Yes,” Sterling said, and Norah laughed.
“Okay, both. It’ll be a few minutes.”
“Take your time.” Sterling watched her head back up the stairs before he allowed himself to scan the living room. His clothes still lay scattered around and the room seemed too dark.
He limped over to the window and opened the blinds that faced north, but they let in very little light now that the sun had started to go down. Still, with the view of snow-covered pines and a dusky sky, new life entered his body.
He bent to pick up his clothes. After one trip to the laundry room, Sterling’s leg throbbed in protest. He took the time to strap on the brace before he finished tidying up.
Norah returned with two plates filled with a hamburger, a hot dog, coleslaw, potato chips and baby carrots. Embarrassment flooded Sterling’s cheeks. “Wow, you think I can eat all that?”
“I have three brothers,” she said. “I know you can eat all that.”
He chuckled as she set the plates on the kitchen counter. “And you even made sure I got vegetables.” Sterling slid her a glance, hoping she’d hear the teasing note in his voice. “You make your girls eat all their vegetables?”
She stared at him with a blank face. “Absolutely. Carrots are the building blocks of nutrition for wayward girls.”
Sterling settled onto a barstool as he laughed, glad when Norah joined in. “This might be the first meal I haven’t eaten on the couch or in bed since my accident.”
Norah leaned against the pillar next to the fridge. “Is the burger cooked okay?”
Sterling bit into it, immediately categorizing the meat as overcooked. Charred might be a better description. He forced himself to chew, chew, chew, and swallow. “Delicious.” He picked up a bottle of water and downed half of it to get the dry beef to slide down his throat.
Norah seemed to swell under his compliment, and a kernel of interest popped inside Sterling. What kind of person was she? Why did she work with addicted teenagers? How did she come to be cleaning cabins in this exclusive gated community?
“So you don’t have any sisters?” Sterling asked, skillfully avoiding taking another bite by engaging in conversation.