What You Said to Me

by Olivia Newport

  “What about my friends? Or are you adding kidnapping to the list of crimes this awesome lawyer is going to defend you from?”

  “Good one. Text them.”

  “How do you know I didn’t leave my phone inside?”

  “You always have your phone. Back left pocket.”

  Her hand moved as if in a reflexive response, confirming the phone was there.

  “All right,” she muttered. “You win this round. But only because I want my bike back. It’s the only thing that’s truly mine.”

  “You should be proud of yourself for winning it.”

  “Whatever.”

  Tisha slammed the door of the truck as she got in and again when she exited in front of the house. “I’m here. What about my bike?”

  “The conversation, remember? Jillian’s waiting inside.”

  “Jillian! You didn’t say anything about Jillian. This is, like, false pretenses or breach of implied contract or something.”

  Nolan laughed. “Seriously. Law school. Jillian doesn’t bite.”

  Tisha dragged her feet. “I don’t really want to go inside.”

  “Fair enough.” Nolan took out his phone. “I’ll call Jillian and ask her to meet us in the outdoor conference room.”

  Tisha rolled her eyes. “You have an answer to everything.”

  “I try to be prepared.” He pushed Jillian’s number. “Hey, we’ll be on the porch. Can you join us?”

  Nolan offered Tisha her choice of seats, and once she selected the rocker, he angled the double-wide wicker seat so he would be in a neutral position once Jillian took the remaining chair. If anything, he wanted to lean toward supporting Tisha. Jillian could stand solidly on her own two feet. Tisha was the one likely to try to bolt. With that thought, he also positioned his chair to make it a little harder for her to get around him.

  Once Jillian was also settled, Nolan laid out the facts.

  “Tisha, you’re in a legal pickle. You have a lot riding on making this alternative sentencing work, and you have a responsibility to give it your best effort. Jillian, you’re a professional with every right to expect someone working for you to meet expectations. So let’s see if we can figure out how to make the two ends of this problem come together in a way that works for both of you.”

  Tisha slumped back in her chair, arms crossed over her chest, jaw clamped shut.

  Jillian shifted in her seat, as if she might say something, and Nolan held up one finger.

  “If you don’t mind, Jillian, I think Tisha has something on her mind, and I’d like to hear it.”

  Tisha glared.

  Nolan waited.

  “Tisha, would you like to say something to Jillian?” Nolan asked.

  Tisha huffed. “It’s what you said to me.”

  “I’ve said a lot of things to you,” Jillian said.

  “Today. You said, ‘You’re never careful enough. You always make the same mistakes.’ ”

  Nolan nodded. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Sorry about breakfast.” Jillian settled her hand in the open palm Drew offered on Tuesday morning as they walked the final stretch of Main Street between downtown and the Duffy home. “I never realized how limited morning fare is in Canyon Mines until I started going out to eat with a chef.”

  “The company is all I care about.” He squeezed her hand. “Besides, Ben’s Bakery puts out an impressive spread for a casual ambiance.”

  “Ben makes everything himself. He doesn’t bring in frozen food from Denver like most of the other places.”

  “It shows. In a few more weeks, I imagine he’ll go crazy with Palisade peaches from the western slopes.”

  “It’s a peach-apalooza around here!”

  Drew moved his arm to Jillian’s shoulder, and she leaned into him. “I wish I could stay longer, but I’ve already had three text messages from Aunt Min verifying that I plan to be back at the ranch in time for the meeting with the zoning commission.”

  “Are you really going to sell off some acres?”

  Drew shrugged. “Just talking about it. It’s a generous offer, and the acres are in a corner of the ranch we rarely even ride out to anymore. It won’t affect the seasonal route the deer take up into the mountains and back down, which is something Min cares most about these days.”

  They reached the house, and Drew gathered her into a full embrace beside his truck. “Sorry again about the radio silence last week. I didn’t trust myself not to give away the surprise.”

  Jillian poked his chest playfully. “Well, don’t do it again. I’m incredibly insecure.”

  She tilted her face up and waited. He’d better not even think about leaving without kissing her.

  “Do you want to try again to visit the ranch in a couple of weeks?” Drew’s gray eyes danced above that dimple she loved, and she couldn’t resist touching the dark curls that perpetually clung to the back of his neck.

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  “I’m coming back up to do a concert at an alumni event at the University of Denver in September. I hope you can be there.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  “Don’t you need to check your calendar?”

  “I’ll reschedule.” Are you going to kiss me or not?

  “Maybe you have to go to St. Louis that weekend.”

  “I don’t.”

  Drew laughed softly, his warm breath spilling in gentle ripples across her cheeks. “Your father can come too, but you’ll have to explain that he really shouldn’t sing along.”

  “Done.”

  Finally, he lowered his lips to hers, lingering long enough for her to taste the rich, soft, sweetness of this man who had only entered her life two months ago. She’d very nearly chased him away by jumping to multiple erroneous and insulting conclusions about his genealogy before breaking through on the right path. What a shame it would have been if he hadn’t returned to hear her out and find the truth together.

  With a moan, Drew broke the kiss. “I really have to go.”

  “I know,” Jillian murmured. “Tell Min I said hello.”

  She stayed on the sidewalk long enough to watch him pull away and turn the next corner out of sight. Already she missed him. A day and a half weren’t enough.

  Tisha’s bicycle had appeared while Jillian was in town with Drew having breakfast. Nolan’s intervention the previous afternoon between Tisha and Jillian had been bumpy. It hadn’t lasted long enough to reach final resolution, but at least it had gotten a few things on the table. True to his word, Nolan was taking today off to construct shelving in the guest room, and he promised to occupy Tisha for at least three hours or as long as she would stay to help. A day of space between Tisha and Jillian—and perhaps reflection—might help reduce the temperature of their working relationship.

  Jillian’s phone rang, startling her, and she whipped it out of her pocket.

  “Is he gone?” Nia asked.

  “Just pulled away.”

  “Are you languishing dreadfully in despondence?”

  “Are we speaking to each other from a Jane Austen novel now?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do wish he could have stayed longer.” Jillian kicked a pebble. “Thanks for your part in getting him here and pulling off a second surprise party. That was crazy.”

  “My pleasure. The beauty was in the double whammy.”

  “You knew all along why he wasn’t calling me, didn’t you?”

  “I might have. That doesn’t mean I didn’t think he should.”

  “So when it comes to Tisha, you don’t want to meddle, but when it comes to Drew, you do?”

  “I’m glad we understand each other.”

  “You are a curious friend, Nia Dunston.”

  “Let me know if you want to talk.”

  “About Tisha or Drew?”

  “Boyfriend!” Nia’s exuberance erupted.

  “Okay, I’m going now.”

 
“Not yet.”

  “Yes?”

  “I do have one piece of advice about Tisha.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “When it comes to the work, what is she good at?”

  “What do you mean? There are certain things that have to be done.”

  “Because that’s the way you would do them. But maybe the starting point is wrong. Just think about it.”

  “Okay. I’ll try.” Jillian ended the call. Inside the house, she paused at the base of the front stairs.

  In one direction, she could see the papers still on the dining room table a week after Tisha’s first arrival. Before this, Jillian hadn’t imagined the room upstairs would have shelves before the papers even all had labeled file folders in boxes to go on the shelves. The St. Louis project was bigger than anything she’d ever done, and it had the potential to grow leaps and bounds larger than it already was. Though ideally most information would eventually be organized and stored electronically in ways that were backed up and secured from theft, corruption, house fire, flood—any number of things that could happen—Jillian knew her own brain. Undoubtedly there would be times when she recalled seeing an original paper document that came from a decades-old file or that she acquired by requesting future documents she didn’t yet know existed related to the placement of a particular stolen child and the generations that followed. Even in the twenty-first century, there was a place for properly managed paper trails. If nothing else, they would serve as a quality-control cross-reference to an electronic scanned document that could so easily be misplaced and never found again.

  In the other direction, Jillian could look up the stairs and listen to the sounds wafting through the hallway from the room above the living room and down the stairwell. The thud of boards being relocated and laid out around the bed in the larger of the two guest rooms. The occasional thwack of a hammer or the buzz of a power tool suggested the rearrangement of equipment. And laughter. Her father’s laughter was a familiar sound in the house. He laughed every day, and he tried to make Jillian laugh every day. Most days he succeeded. Today, though, the second voice cavorting with his had the light treble ring of a girl.

  Tisha was laughing. In an entire week, Jillian hadn’t even seen her smile. Roll her eyes, smirk, pop bubbles, scowl, glare, sigh. But not smile, and certainly not laugh.

  With placid steps, Jillian climbed to the landing and tilted her head to listen.

  A tool whirred in a swift barrage. Jillian recognized the sound of her father’s small cordless power drill.

  “Whoa!” Tisha giggled.

  “You’ve got it,” Nolan said. “It just takes a light quick touch—when we’re ready.”

  “I can put screws in with this?”

  “I recommend it, unless you prefer to be twisting screws in until your high school graduation.”

  “This is my jam.” Tisha pushed the button again for a few seconds. “At my house, we’re lucky if we have a clean table knife to turn a screw.”

  “This is so much better, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Way! Are we really going to build a whole bookshelf?”

  “Two! It would be a shame to burn all this perfectly good new wood in the fireplace.”

  Jillian moved through the hall and leaned against the wall outside the room.

  “Why does this house have so many fireplaces anyway?” Tisha said. “Don’t you have heat in these bedrooms?”

  “Answering that question would require a history lesson.”

  “This whole town is a history lesson.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Some sort of weird time capsule, if you ask me.” Tisha ran the power drill again. “Bet they didn’t have one of these when this house was built.”

  Nolan chuckled. “Doubtful. Maybe you’d like to holster that while we check to be sure the hardware store got all the measurements right on what they cut for me.”

  “Good idea. I saw a measuring tape in your toolbox.”

  “And we’ll cover all the furniture with old sheets so we don’t make a mess on anything we can’t sweep up. There’s a stack in the chair.”

  “Shouldn’t we be building in the garage or on the porch?”

  Nolan rapped his knuckles on something solid. “This is not press-board. This is the real thing. Which means it’s heavy. I decided I’d rather build in place than carry the finished product up the stairs.”

  “Makes sense, I guess.”

  “Because I’m of a certain age, you mean.”

  Tisha laughed. “Well. You said it, not me. How long are these boards supposed to be?”

  “We’re going to build two narrow, tall cabinets, one for either side of the fireplace.” A paper rattled as Nolan consulted his notes. “Four at eighty and three-quarter inches for the sides.”

  A metal tape measure shot out of its case and flopped around a bit. Jillian looked around the corner to see Tisha wrangle it and stretch it across a long pile.

  “Check. What’s next?”

  “Twelve at twenty-one inches for the interior shelves.”

  Tisha squared off in front of a stack of boards. “Check.”

  They worked their way through the cut list for shelves, backs, and trim. Then Nolan started explaining various types of screws.

  Tisha’s curiosity, questions, and attention to detail blew Jillian away.

  Jillian knocked and revealed her presence.

  Hands on his knees, Nolan greeted her. “Jilly. Hello. Want to help?”

  She shook her head. “I just wanted to say something.”

  “Of course. They’re your shelves.”

  “No, not about the shelves.”

  Nolan and Tisha, both squatting, looked at her. Jillian met Tisha’s eyes.

  “Tisha, I’m sorry. You were right yesterday. I haven’t been careful with my words. I haven’t given you the benefit of the doubt. I assumed the worst and had an attitude that I had to grin and bear it. We might still have a way to go in figuring out how to work together to get the job done, but right now I just want to say I’m sorry. I hope you’ll give me another chance.”

  “Um. Okay.” Tisha snapped the measuring tape back into its case. Her brown eyes were clouds of confusion, and she turned away.

  “Well, that’s all,” Jillian said. “I’m sure the bookcases will be great. I’ll be in my office if you need me.”

  She pivoted and started down the back stairs and was almost to her office before she realized her father was right behind her.

  “Jilly, that was very brave. Thank you.”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “I’m not sure it did any good. You had to notice she didn’t actually say she accepted my apology.”

  “I suspect that’s because she has very little experience with receiving apologies.”

  Jillian’s eyes flicked up the stairwell. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

  “You just did something she didn’t expect—and it probably shocked her. Give her some time.”

  Jillian nodded.

  “So we’ll build shelves, she’ll have fun with my power drill, and when I have a chance I’m going to see if I can set up a meeting with Brittany for later today while Tisha is in a positive state of mind.”

  “Do you really think that will help?”

  “I have to try to get somewhere with whatever is in the middle of the two of them. It’s going to take more than a battery-operated drill to get Tisha to see she has power over her own future.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Nolan promised to buy every unsold burrito and dessert at the Canary Cage if Clark Addison would close to business as usual at seven on Tuesday evening but allow him to bring Tisha over to meet Brittany Crowder privately.

  Clark harrumphed on the phone and said that if they wanted any food, they had to settle for paper plates and cups. He wasn’t risking his crockery on the likes of the Crowders in a mediation gone bad.

  “A fair compromise,” Nolan had agreed.

  He wanted a locatio
n that felt neutral—not the Crowder home—and close enough to Brittany’s workplace that she couldn’t claim inconvenience. She could come directly across the street from Candles & Cards when she got off. Once Tisha stayed through lunch, Nolan was sure he could keep her in a good mood the rest of the day building shelves, offer supper, and calmly explain what he had in mind for the evening.

  Jillian slipped out to meet Nia for an early dinner, purposely absenting herself so as not to make Tisha’s decision more complicated. Nolan’s gentle request—an offer of help—hung in the kitchen, mingling with the aromas of a hearty garden vegetable soup he’d invited the girl to help cook and Irish soda bread she was curious about because she’d never had it. With the bread in the oven and the soup simmering, Nolan posed his question.

  Tisha scrunched up her face. “Go to the Cage while it’s closed?”

  “Think of it as a private party.”

  “You asked my mom?”

  “I did. I called and caught her on a break at work.”

  “I can’t believe she said she would come.”

  “She said the same about you.”

  “But you hadn’t asked me yet.”

  Nolan shrugged and ran water in the sink to rinse utensils.

  “What if I don’t agree to go?”

  “I’ll still meet your mother there and try to hear her perspective in a calm way.”

  Tisha rubbed both temples. “This has been such a great day. I actually learned stuff today, and it was interesting. I built something! Why do we have to wreck it by talking to Brittany?”

  “I hope we’re not going to wreck anything, Tisha. But Brittany is your mother. Wouldn’t you like to build something with her?”

  Tisha shuffled over to the nook at one end of the kitchen and sat with her head hanging between her elbows. “This is not going to end well.”

  “How about this? You put your phone on the table, you set a timer for the number of minutes you choose. When it goes off, you can decide if you want to reset it and keep going or whether you’ve reached your limit.”

  “How much time? Do I really get to choose?”

  Nolan nodded. “I’d like to see fifteen minutes, and then evaluate, but if you’re more comfortable starting with ten, or even five, then that’s what we’ll do.”