by Leigh Riker
After everyone ate, Lanier led her to the center of the room where a wedding cake was on display, an exact replica of their cake from the day she and Lanier had married. At least tonight she hadn’t been forced to wear the elaborate white dress she’d worn then, her grandmother’s gown heavily trimmed in ivory lace.
The five-tier cake was covered in white icing, the palest pink sugar roses and a scattering of live purple petunias, and sat on a white-clothed table beside a gleaming silver knife. “Got a good, sharp blade,” Lanier said.
She glanced across the ballroom at the banner once more. It glowed and glittered under the lights.
Owen...and Sarah.
“Frankie,” Lanier prompted her. He looked baffled by her hesitation.
Emma and Christian, Grace and Rafe were watching. So were a couple of hundred other people.
At a signal from Christian, the band began to play another old standard about falling in love. It was still her song with Lanier.
No matter the heartache, the losses they’d endured...this was their life.
And the lessons of Miss Ellie’s classes were engrained in Frankie like the letters on the inside of her wedding band. Together. Forever.
She looked at Lanier, then at her son, her granddaughter. At Emma.
“Thank you,” she all but whispered before she raised her voice to be heard. “Thank you all for being here tonight, for being...part of my life. Even when, at times, you probably wanted to run away,” she added, pleased when the line brought laughter. Then she sobered. “When Lanier and I lost our Sarah, something in me died, too. I tried to pretend that she’d never been born. I was so afraid of losing you, Christian, that I kept you at a distance. The other day I almost did lose you,” she said, “because of how I’d treated Emma.”
“Frankie,” Lanier murmured. His eyes looked misty. He wasn’t one to make public confessions.
“Christian, Emma, I’m so grateful to you. If you had never found each other, never married, there would have been no Owen. Would there? I love you both, my son...my daughter of the heart.”
For a moment there was total silence. Then Christian began to clap, softly, and the others joined in. Frankie rushed from behind the table to fold her son in her arms and his kiss warmed her like a sunrise. Emma hugged her, too, a bit tentatively at first because there were still things to be said between them, then Grace and, finally, Rafe. He was part of Frankie’s family now. They all were.
She had so much to live for, to be grateful for.
Frankie looked once more at the banner across the room—she couldn’t seem to keep her eyes from it—and smiled. How had she ever objected to this evening? She didn’t remember moving after that, but she was at the table again, Lanier’s hand joined with hers on the silver knife held above the first tier of the wedding cake, as they’d done so many years ago. “I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you, too, Frankie Owen Mallory.”
And, together with her husband, Frankie cut the cake.
EPILOGUE
A FEW NIGHTS after the foundation launch, Emma sat in the passenger seat of Christian’s truck. She wasn’t sure she could get out. He’d parked outside the building where the grief support group met, and Emma had already seen Jody go inside. At least there would be one friendly face here tonight...
“I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Sure you can,” he said.
And she would. All the nights spent waiting for her mother to come home, shivering in that cold apartment, wondering if she’d show up with yet another strange new “uncle” in tow, feeling isolated within herself...all of that was gone now.
She slipped down from her seat and, clutching Christian’s hand, walked into the building, where Jody spotted her immediately.
“Emma, welcome back.”
The woman who conducted the meetings was already standing in front and sent Emma a wide smile. “Please. Join us again.”
A few people spoke before Emma. Then, finally, it was her turn. On her way to the podium with Christian beside her, she almost turned back. But Christian would stand like a bulwark against anyone who might try to hurt her—like Thad. In the middle of the room, the gray-haired man gave her a thumbs-up.
She cradled her still-flat stomach with one hand. Yesterday Emma and Christian had moved back home. The new kitchen was finished, and Bob’s anxiety after spending so many nights in the kennel had finally disappeared. They’d left her sleeping on the sofa on Owen’s blanket.
On the way to the meeting they’d stopped at Max’s shop, where Emma had seen the carousel pony for the first time. Finished by Christian’s own hand, which made it even more special. Emma had cried but not in sorrow. The pony was absolutely gorgeous.
“I’ve decided,” she’d told Christian. “I want the pony for the playroom. It will be perfect for our new baby.”
Emma was eager to finish the room before she gave birth. New life, she thought, and the chance to experience wonder in the world through a child’s eyes. There would be no more silence in the house.
Christian squeezed her hand before she leaned closer to the microphone.
“Hi, everyone. If you don’t remember me, I’m Emma. I’m thirty-five years old and married—to this wonderful man.” She and Christian exchanged glances before he nodded at her to go on. “A year ago today, we lost our three-year-old son. His name was Owen. He had blond hair, though it probably would have darkened over time. He had his father’s eyes.” Her voice thickened. “He loved horses and...gummy bears. He loved us and we loved him. So very much.”
The words no longer made her heart ache. She and Christian had talked lately far into the nights, and Emma no longer felt as sad. She could indeed do this. She had to. “Let me tell you what happened...”
As Emma spoke her voice gained strength, and she felt the rest of the past fall away. Her guilt would always be there, but not all-consuming, overwhelming her, like before. They would keep the pony, as Christian would keep the General, and she told his story now, too.
“In closing,” she said, watching the rapt faces, and seeing a few tears, “I’m reminded of a saying the woodcarvers have. In winter, the carousel ponies go to sleep, all winter long. But they always come back to life in the spring. Like hope,” she murmured.
Spring would come in a few more months. Winter never lasted long in Tennessee. By March the flowers she and Owen had planted would bloom again. Like the love she shared with Christian.
To a round of applause, she stepped down from the podium with him at her side and, together, they went on.
* * *
LATER THAT SAME NIGHT, Emma and Christian walked down the path away from the Coolidge Park pavilion. In the night sky stars winked on and off to light their way.
“I’m going back to work,” Christian announced, lightly swinging Emma’s hand between them. “I can’t leave Dad in the lurch like that. He’s counting on me—and he’ll need my help as he gets older.” He added, “And with the baby coming, we’ll need the money.”
Emma leaned against his shoulder. “I can’t say I’m sorry you won’t be driving a truck any longer, but are you sure?”
“Absolutely.” He smiled. “Chet Berglund can have my job as VP of Sales. I’ve decided to join the marketing team. That’s a better challenge for me, more creative. I’ll have to work my way up there but I have some ideas...and there’s something else, Em,” he went on. “I’m having a great time learning from Max. So I’ve been looking into creative arts programs—like the one I bailed out of years ago—and a couple of them really appeal. One’s right here in town at
UTC. I can go part-time, even online, I think.” He took a breath. “I’m going to apply.”
Emma snuggled against him. “But will you have enough time with the foundation? It promises to be very busy.”
“As long as you’ll help,” he said.
“I’ll find the time.” Emma had already had calls from prospective clients all over town, in part thanks to Melanie. No More Clutter promised to be better than ever, but Emma wouldn’t have to work at home or keep looking for new space.
“I still can’t believe your mother offered me that loan so I could re-sign my lease downtown.”
“She knows you’ll pay her back.”
“I will. With interest.” Emma smiled up at him. “You know what else she said? That I’m an independent woman—she respects that—and she envies what it took for me to start my business.”
“We’ll give Mom more responsibility at the foundation. You know how she is with her charities. She’s an executive in her own right.”
“We’ll work together,” Emma said. “You and me, Frankie and Lanier, Rafe and Grace.”
“Speaking of Grace, she’s eager to head up that riding program at the barn, which gives her more time to spend with Rafe, too. When I can’t find time to exercise the General, she’ll step in.”
“I’ve thought a lot about this, and I think Rafe was right,” she said. “The General didn’t mean to hurt Owen. Maybe I should take a few lessons, too. They’d certainly be therapeutic.”
“Great.” He hugged her. “There’s something else I want to do right now that should get you in the spirit, and I think it’s equally important.”
She looked up. They were standing by the carousel, which was closed for the day. Christian tugged at her hand. “Come on. Max got us special permission,” he said, beginning to smile. “You’ll have to imagine the music, though.”
Emma didn’t hesitate. She knew exactly which horse she wanted to ride.
Christian boosted her up onto the hard wooden saddle, then climbed onto a big dappled gray charger beside her. She picked up the leather reins, which reminded her of being in the arena with the General, just as the carousel started to spin, slowly, as if in a dream. But this was real. Emma was here, not only with Christian but with Owen, riding his black-and-white pony.
“He would have loved this,” she murmured.
“He does,” Christian said, holding Emma’s gaze.
There was no calliope music playing tonight, but the stars winked overhead, and with their hands entwined they rode round and round in the darkness, joined by their best, and happiest, memories of their child.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from SWEET JUSTICE by Cynthia Reese.
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Sweet Justice
by Cynthia Reese
CHAPTER ONE
BLACKNESS.
A solid wall of blackness.
Andrew Monroe crawled farther into the darkness, the grit of the floor biting into his knees, the heft of the fire hose under his right arm. His left hand secure on Eric Russell’s turnout gear, the only way he even knew his fellow crewmember was ahead of him.
And the girl they were trying to find? Who knew where she was? Or was she even here?
Eric had called out to her, but the only noise that penetrated the darkness was the rasp of their own breathing.
Captain had said that her roommates weren’t sure the girl, Katelyn, was still in the house—if you could call the tumbledown two-story much of a house. It seemed to go on forever, just room after room. It was like so many of the big old homes in this college town—taken over by students in search of cheap rent, and who cared if the place was nothing more than a firetrap?
The roommates, Cap said, weren’t even sure this girl, Katelyn, had even come home the night before. No one had seen her since yesterday afternoon.
She was probably out for an early-morning run or getting coffee or had slept over at a friend’s—at least, she was if she was lucky.
Whether she was in here or not, it was Eric and Andrew’s job to clear the structure and make sure no one was still in the house. So they started at the bottom, intent on working toward the stairs.
Eric moved forward, and Andrew crawled behind. He heard Eric’s muffled call for Katelyn again, then his waiting silence.
Only the sound of their air packs answered. Andrew’s heart sank. This was a mess, and he could sense time was running out for her if she was in here. She was just a college kid.
Nobody needs to die that young.
Eric pulled up short, and Andrew almost crashed into him. He stayed still, listening. Yeah—there it was again, ahead and above them...on the stairs?
A girl screaming. Even through his mask and the rest of his gear, Andrew could hear the panic in her voice.
Why do they always go up?
Was she coming down the stairs? In this smoke? She’d be dead—better for her to stay where she was until they could get a ladder setup outside, pull her from one of the upstairs windows.
He felt more than heard her as she dashed back and forth across the landing above their heads.
Hasn’t anyone taught you to get on your knees in a fire? Sheesh. You’re like a jackrabbit up there. Slow down, otherwise you run out of air. Get to a window.
Had Eric heard? Andrew signaled to Eric, who was in charge of their two-man sweep team. They needed to radio the captain. As the guy in charge, that was Eric’s call to make.
Once the girl was safe, Captain could assess whether it was worth the risk to save this heap of junk.
Eric and Andrew’s history of teamwork paid off. Andrew sensed that his buddy had either heard the girl himself or realized that Andrew had.
Eric moved—for his radio? To tell Andrew to make the call?
Andrew didn’t have the time to figure it out, because in the next breath, the floor next to Eric gave way. Hot air belched upward, along with a cloud of blackness tinged with an unearthly glow from the flames beneath them.
His buddy would have dropped into that glow if Andrew hadn’t h
ad a hold of him. Even so, Eric slipped, his hands scrabbling for purchase, his feet digging into part of the floor that still held. Andrew tightened his grip on him, praying that the floor wouldn’t give way beneath them.
C’mon, c’mon, hold still!
For a heart-stopping moment, Andrew was sure they were going to tumble into the yawning pit of darkness below, the heat billowing up...
At least I’m not married. I won’t leave a wife like Dad left Ma.
Something in Andrew fought back at that and doggedly held on. They were too young to die in a death trap like this, Andrew was twenty-five to Eric’s twenty-eight. Fire couldn’t have them today.
Not today. Maybe someday, but not on my watch.
The big firefighter swung sideways and Eric’s head rammed into something thick and heavy. The sickening thud reverberated through Andrew’s fingers and arm.
Andrew seized the safety strap on Eric’s gear and began to drag him away slowly, every muscle protesting at Eric’s weight plus the added burden of air packs and boots and turnout gear. The intense heat from the fire and the strain left Andrew gasping.
One more tug. One more pull. And another. And another. Andrew’s arms felt as though they would be yanked out of their sockets if he didn’t get Eric to a safer spot.
But at least he’s breathing.
The blackness got even blacker and Andrew knew what that meant.
The fire’s spread.
As Andrew reached for his radio, he felt a shudder in the floor beneath him. He had to get them out before the whole place went. He scooped Eric under the arms again and began dragging him backward, along the line, to the door.
Above him, a girl was screaming, “Don’t leave me! Don’t let me die!”
Or was it his imagination? Was the fire playing tricks on him?
The front door and help felt an ocean away...and the girl, Katelyn? She might as well be on the moon.