She set her eyes on the back table where Keira sat with two unmistakable redheaded siblings and another man. Robbie Matthews saw her first. He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Six and one . . .”
“Let’s get it done!” she yelled back. Before she could say another word, Robbie bounded from his seat, then squeezed her hard enough to realign her spine. A hug from a grizzly bear would’ve been gentler. But that was the Robbie she remembered. The familiarity of him and even this stink hole soothed her jaded soul.
When he finally released her back onto her heels, he slung an arm around her neck, like she was one of the guys. “Shane, this girl—this hoity-toity, Beverly Hills private school girl—transferred to West Yellowstone High for our senior year and, get this, joined the football team as our kicker.”
“I had to. You guys didn’t have a girls’ soccer team.” She wrenched free from his grip.
“And we let her because having a girl in the locker room was our dream come true. Even this one.”
“Oh, like I would’ve stepped foot in there? Please.” She recognized Shane Olson immediately. The video of him fighting another man on his church’s stage had gone viral two years ago. He’d been vilified, sent to jail, then exiled to Montana, so to say. Last summer, when Blue’s own life was in crumbles, she’d seen the news story about his redemption at River’s Edge. A modern-day Moses with tattoos. “Hi, Shane, I’m Cecelia Lawrence—”
The name caught in her throat. Professionally, she’d remained Cecelia Walker. But personally and legally, she was Cecelia Lawrence. Had been for the past five years. If the group noticed, they didn’t say anything.
“We call her Blue because, well, look at those gorgeous eyes.” Ryann stepped out from behind her fiancé and embraced Blue. “It’s so good to have you back, girl. Welcome home,” Ryann said in her ear. She’d been a big sister to all of them, which was why Thomas’s crush on her was so weird.
“Thank you.” She held on a few moments too long, likely making her the weird one, but she didn’t care. Most of her friends stopped coming around after Ella’s death. The remaining ones dropped away after Hunter moved out. Her mourning had run them all off. She resolved not to do the same thing here. She’d be the spunky girl she’d once been before a series of plot twists turned her romance into a bigger cryfest than Marley and Me.
Blue took a seat between Keira and the two empty chairs near the corner.
“I heard Keira told you all about how we got back together,” Robbie said. “You know—how she chased me.”
“Wait.” Keira held up a hand between them. “Who chased who?”
Robbie dodged the hand and planted a kiss on her cheek.
Blue snickered. “I see you two are still making out every chance you get.”
“Right?” Ryann said. “It’s so gross.”
Robbie cocked a brow. “Whatever, sis. What were you and Shane doing in the laundry room yesterday?”
She sent an icy glare his way. “Laundry.”
“With the door locked?”
Shane nearly choked on something. A pretzel, maybe?
“Don’t listen to him, Blue. It was innocent.” Ryann put her arm around Shane, who was trying to clear his cough with a drink of soda. “But after we get married, game on.”
The soda in Shane’s mouth spewed onto the table. Keira giggled, while Robbie pretended to heave.
“Hey, Thomas is here,” Ryann said.
Goose bumps raced down her arms. She gathered a breath and turned in her chair.
Thomas followed the brunette from earlier between the lines of tables. Thomas’s gaze locked on hers, his hint of a smile fading. He’d definitely changed since college. Pretty had become chiseled. Lanky had become, dare she say, hot.
Blue stood from her seat. “It’s been a while.” She went in for a hug, but Thomas turned at the last second, and she slammed into his side. His arm came around her and gave her a quick pat on the upper arm before releasing her. Had he just . . . side-hugged her?
“Cecelia, this is my girlfriend, Val.”
“Cecelia?” Robbie guffawed. “Thomas, why are you so awkward?”
Thomas glowered at him. So he was still getting picked on, eh? Even with all those muscles? Funny. He’d never really minded the teasing while growing up. When anyone did it, Thomas would look to Blue. Sometimes Blue would unleash her fist, heel, or finest spitwad on the bully. Sometimes, if the teasing were done in friendship, like in this moment, Blue would don an exaggerated grin as if to say, “This one means well.” Old habits must truly die as hard, because Thomas looked to her for that same reassurance now.
Blue was happy to do her part, and she grinned. “Hey, Val. I’m Blue or Cecelia or if you’re my mom, Cecelia Theodora Walker. I’ll answer to anything.”
“Oh, I know who you are.” Of course she did. Everyone who’d ever stood in a checkout line next to the gossip rags knew her. Val wasn’t starstruck, though. Instead, her eyes shone with kindness. Good. Thomas deserved someone kind. “You’re in all of Thomas’s stories.”
Blue glanced at Thomas, but he kept his eyes trained on Val as they took their seats. At the table, the six inches between Thomas and Blue were filled with more tension than a Scorsese film. They didn’t speak or even look at each other. Yet Thomas was no different with his girlfriend. While the other couples in the group each showed moments of affection—Robbie and Keira being the worst, of course—Thomas and Val barely seemed to acknowledge each other.
As they dined on the finest artery-blocking food on Highway 287, the group made plans to attend the Gallatin County Harvest Festival next weekend. When Keira, the seasoned travel blogger and television show host, explained that the festival had more apples, pumpkins, and amusement park rides than any other in the state, Shane’s face lit up.
“That’s it. We’re going,” Shane said. “Did you know Ohio is—”
“The roller-coaster capital of the world,” the whole group chanted together.
Shane’s brow lowered. “Oh, I’m sorry. I bring up one thing about a state other than Montana, and you all flip out.”
“Careful. He’ll start telling us this is pop, not soda,” Robbie said, holding up his glass.
“Don’t worry, Shane. I get the same thing when I bring up Colorado,” Val said.
“You’re from Colorado?” Blue asked.
“Yeah. A small town in the mountains. Near Breckenridge.”
“We have a place in Aspen.” Blue caught her lips between her teeth. “Had, I mean.” Blue swallowed, hoping the sting behind her eyes would remain just that. A sting, not tears. Every pair of eyes in the group darted elsewhere. But not Thomas’s. They focused directly on her, compassion pooling in their copper depths.
Or was it pity? Please, no. Anything but that.
* * *
* * *
The nightmare was always the same. This time, though, a swift tumble off her bed shook her awake in the midst of it. And while Blue was thankful for the interruption, she could’ve done without knocking her head on the nightstand.
She rubbed the spot above her ear with the heel of her hand, then wiped her tears with the sleeve of her pajamas. The alarm clock read 3:13 a.m. There’d be no more sleeping tonight. At least she could nap later. It’s not like she had anything better to do.
Groggily, she headed down to the kitchen. She filled up the teakettle and put it on the stove before pulling the tin of huckleberry tea from the cabinet.
While she waited for the water to heat, she turned on the small lamp near the bookshelves in the family room. She perused the titles, bypassing The Dragon’s Lair, on which her father’s show was based. Fantasy adventure wasn’t her favorite genre. Instead, she settled on a nonfiction book about the 1959 Hebgen Lake earthquake. If anyone could understand the devastation that the Madison River could cause, it was surely the author writi
ng about that tragedy. When a 7.2 magnitude earthquake caused the top half of a mountain to slide into the river just a few miles from her parents’ cabin, the blockage caused massive flooding. That night, twenty-eight people had lost their lives in the same canyon as Ella.
On the back cover, she read the author’s bio. The man looked to be only a few years older than her and lived in Boca Raton. He became interested in studying the disaster after a family visit to Yellowstone in high school.
Blue reshelved the book. No. Studying loss was not the same as experiencing it, feeling it, or seeing it in an empty toddler bed night after night for two years. No one could understand it. She was alone in her anguish.
Ticka ticka ticka.
Blue jumped. The noise came from the other side of the front door. Probably just a critter on the porch.
After settling her nerves, she moved to the window and peered through the curtains. No animal that she could see. But a light caught her eye on the left.
When the entire landscape was pitch-black on this moonless night, the light from Thomas’s sunroom glowed bright. Inside, she recognized Thomas. He was running on a treadmill. Not a mere jog, either. A full-out sprint . . . at three in the morning. Just watching him made it hard to breathe. What was he doing?
The little breath she had hitched when he stumbled off the back of the apparatus, hitting the floor hard. After a long moment, he rolled into a sitting position. He inspected both legs, then dragged his hands through his hair. He was okay.
On the stove, the teakettle began to whistle quietly. Blue started to back away from the window, but Thomas stood. He stared at the treadmill long enough for her teakettle to get screaming mad. Then, he jumped back on the machine and continued with another sprint.
Apparently, she wasn’t the only one who had trouble sleeping. She knew her reason, but what was his?
Chapter Four
Molly, wait up!” Thomas jogged until he got to the pines lining the rear boundary of his property. He didn’t have to guess where his dog had gone. He ducked beneath limbs until he came out by the creek. He followed the paw prints along the muddy stream to the clearing where Molly splashed water all over Blue. “Molly, no!”
“Is she yours?” Blue giggled like a little kid, patting his yellow Labrador retriever’s back. In her blue jeans and Coldplay concert T-shirt, and with her blond hair pulled back, she looked like she’d stepped straight out of 2008.
The sight forced Thomas to suck in a breath. “She is.”
“Hi, sweetheart. Aren’t you cute with your floppy ears and”—Blue froze, then looked to Thomas, her expression perplexed—“and three legs.”
He shouldn’t say it. He shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help it. Thomas searched the ground around him. “Oops. The other one must have fallen off somewhere.”
Blue’s jaw went slack.
A grin tugged at his lips. He might not be as funny as Robbie, but Blue had found his occasional joke humorous enough. But that was before.
She tilted her head, and although she narrowed her eyes at him, her smile beamed. On this part of the mountain, only dappled sunlight reached the ground, but a disproportionate amount seemed to land on Blue. The girl glowed. Even now, after all she’d been through.
He came closer but stopped across the creek from Blue, letting the water and his dog keep a proper amount of space between them. The last thing he needed was another awkward side hug. Why did he have to be so weird all the time? “One of my old coworkers at the dam had Molly as a puppy. When they found cancer in her rear left leg, he couldn’t afford treatment or surgery. He was going to put her down.”
“So you adopted her.”
Thomas shrugged. “She doesn’t let that missing leg stop her. Every day she goes running out here to splash around.”
“Good. Someone has to keep those pirates and giants away. I’m sure my mom kept my old Tom Sawyer costume. Probably your Huck Finn hat, too.”
Again, Thomas’s cheeks pulled at the memory of the two of them hopping across this small stream, pretending it was the Amazon, the Nile, or the mighty Mississippi. He bent down and patted Molly’s side. “Out for a walk?”
“You could say that. I was wondering if our waterfall had dried up after all these years.” She glanced over her shoulder to the small trickle of water that coursed over a few stones, then dropped a whole twelve inches to the pool below before continuing down the creek.
“It had dried up in July and August, but we’ve had some rain recently.”
“Remember how excited we’d get when it would rain? We’d come running out here with our toys as soon as the lightning stopped and act out all sorts of movies.”
“Like The Fugitive?”
“Your Lego guy did a great Harrison Ford impression.” Blue gazed dreamily at the stream. “A waterfall all our own.”
“Glory Falls,” Thomas said. “That’s what you named it.”
“That’s right. ‘His voice was like the roar of rushing waters, and the land was radiant with his glory.’ Wow. I can’t believe I remember that verse.” Her smile fell a touch. “God and I haven’t exactly been on the same page recently.”
Thomas’s parents weren’t religious, but they’d allowed Blue’s parents to take him and Cassie with them to the community church in town. Perhaps allowed wasn’t the right word. They’d been too wrapped up in themselves to even notice their children were gone on Sunday mornings. Nevertheless, he owed his foundation of faith to Blue and her family, even if that foundation had quite a few cracks these days.
“Not the same page. Not even the same screenplay. I thought my life was shaping up to be a nice family-friendly flick. Turns out God prefers tearjerkers.” She raised her shoulders in a casual shrug, as if the losses she’d faced were mere inconveniences.
What could he say? Words couldn’t fix all that had been broken, and they certainly couldn’t explain how deep in his soul his remorse dwelled.
Molly rolled in the creek, shimmying side to side on her back. She stood and shook, drenching them both with water.
Blue squealed and held her hands out, but it was no use. Her jeans darkened with the spray.
“Molly, you’re a pain.”
“She’s fine, really. You must forget how I used to smear lightning bug guts on my skin to see if I could glow in the dark.”
A chuckle rose from his belly. “You were a gross one, weren’t you?”
“I was, but if I recall correctly, you let me smear it on you, too.”
“I’ve tried to forget. But then you went and put it in your movie.”
“Well, I wanted a more lighthearted scene to show Glory and Felix’s friendship.”
Thomas stiffened, the back of his neck growing warm. “So Felix was based on me?”
“What? No. It was fiction.”
While Glory was the brave, fearless one, Felix was weak, sickly, and neglected. Thomas had known his childhood wasn’t huckleberry pie with his parents fighting all the time and the custody battle, but was he that pitiful?
Blue stared at Thomas, her expression hard. “Would that be so bad if he was based on you? Felix was a great character. The real hero of the story, in my opinion. When Glory was ready to give up, he wouldn’t let her.”
Molly hopped out of the creek. She nosed the ground and followed a scent trail to a branch. She grabbed the end of it in her jaws and began dragging the four-foot-long tree limb back toward Thomas’s house.
“I guess we’re heading back,” he said.
“Me, too.”
As they passed through the trees, Thomas held the branches so they wouldn’t thwack her in the face. He’d let that happen once, and she’d never let him live that down.
“What happened to the barn?” she asked as they passed the spot where their old pretend soundstage had been.
“It got struck by lightning a few ye
ars ago. Went up in flames.”
“Kind of like my career? That’s fitting.” She gave a wry laugh. “I’m starving. Do you want to share some Bagel Bites with me like old times?”
“I probably shouldn’t.”
“Because they’re Bagel Bites?” Her blue eyes widened. “Oh. Because of Val. I get it.”
“No, she’d be cool with it. She knows our history. I’ve just got chicken noodle soup going already.”
“A firefighter left the stove unattended? Do you have a death wish or something?”
Thomas’s tongue tied in a knot. His footsteps were the only ones he heard. He paused and glanced over the space he’d placed between them.
She stood perfectly still, watching him. Strangely vulnerable. Like she didn’t belong here. But if not here, where did she belong?
“It’s in the Crock-Pot.” He lifted his chin to the sky. The sun would dip below the hills soon, taking with it the leftover warmth from summer. Autumn would quickly turn to winter with its long, dark nights. He imagined Blue returning to her empty house. For someone whose name was known across the country, she certainly didn’t seem to have anyone on her side, except maybe her parents. But even they weren’t here. It was just her and a box of Bagel Bites.
“Why don’t you come over?” Thomas swiped the back of his hand across his brow.
“Okay,” she said too quickly.
“About an hour?”
“Perfect.”
* * *
* * *
On the sheet pan, Thomas’s chocolate chip cookies were as flat as Shane’s pastor jokes. Their charred smell singed his nostrils. So much for dessert. “You sure this is okay? The last thing I want to do is disrespect you,” he said in the direction of his cell.
Glory Falls Page 4