Glory Falls

by Janine Rosche

  Blue’s fingertips grazed the back of the frame. She gulped down the welling emotion and flipped it right side up. Ever so slightly, she caressed her belly in the picture, then nodded. This small gesture wasn’t much, but it was a start.

  On the kitchen table, she placed two sharpened pencils next to her three-ring, spiral-bound notebook where she’d jotted down some notes and scene ideas she’d been brainstorming ever since the festival. After all, she only had until January 2 to send the script to Teddy.

  According to her earlier conversation with her godfather, financing was falling into place. A production team would arrive in West Yellowstone to film this summer—all the benefits of having Teddy Woodward at the reins. And if that legendary actor, director, and producer put his trust in her, she could do anything. Even revive a dead career.

  * * *

  * * *

  The sound of Molly’s whine always had a strange melting effect on Thomas’s heart. Now, as she stood at the side door that led to Blue’s house, her brown eyes pleaded to go wherever his just-tied boots would lead him.

  “Sorry, girl.” Thomas kneeled and kissed her forehead.

  His phone buzzed in his back pocket. He sneaked a peek at the screen.

  Blue: Why don’t you bring Molly with you?

  Molly pranced about like she knew what the text said.

  Thomas bent his ear to his shoulder on one side, releasing a small crack in his neck, then repeated it in the other direction. At least if Molly were there, he’d have a distraction. A groan escaped him as he stood.

  “Fine, then. Let’s go. But you better behave.”

  The dog reared up slightly off her front paws again and again, while Thomas opened the door. Once he did, she raced past him onto the porch and down to the drive, then waited for him to lock up. Then, together, they walked back toward the mountain before cutting through the break in the fence.

  Thomas blew out a breath as he approached Blue’s home. Why couldn’t there be another way for Blue to rebuild her career? Weren’t there a million other stories she could write? The girl was a brilliant storyteller. She’d practically wound him up in all the tales she’d spun when they were kids. Only she could take him far away from his wretched childhood, even if just for an afternoon. But not this afternoon. She’d probably carve open his past and shove him headlong into it.

  Molly peered up at him.

  “Two hours. That’s it.”

  The dog yipped.

  “Don’t complain. Two hours is plenty of time for me to give her the facts—something she can work with. Then, we leave.”

  After lifting her nose in the air and giving a sniff, Molly galloped straight into the open garage, ignoring Thomas’s calls to heel.

  Thomas followed the same path he’d taken countless times into her garage and found Molly digging at the bag of trash tied next to Blue’s car.

  “Molly, leave it,” he said as he rapped on the door leading to the house.

  Foolish girl. When would she realize this was not Los Angeles? One whiff and she’d have a bear inside her garage.

  “I said, leave it.”

  The dog continued nuzzling into the opening. Thomas steered her face away, careful not to upset her balance with his redirection.

  “She might be the worst-behaved dog I’ve ever seen.” Blue leaned against the doorjamb, chuckling at him.

  “You want to train her?”

  “Nope. I like spunky dogs.”

  “Of course you do. Molly listens about as well as you used to with your parents.”

  Molly plowed into Blue, who welcomed her with pats and strokes.

  “I can’t imagine what you mean by that.”

  “Four words: Grizzly Bear Obstacle Course. Which you’ll be re-creating if you don’t secure your trash better.” He picked up the trash bag and deposited it in the bear-proof can at the front of the garage.

  When he turned back, her lips curved into a smile that he knew well. “Okay, you got me. No wonder she’s my buddy. Come on in. I’ve got some iced tea going for us and some carrots for her.”

  Thomas followed Blue and Molly inside, then up the stairs to the kitchen. Molly took to sniffing around, while Blue poured drinks for them. Glasses with iced tea for her and Thomas, and a plastic container with water for Molly.

  Blue clapped her hands twice, and Molly hurried over. The dog did figure eights around and between Blue’s legs. “Such joy. There’s something about having a dog around. I should’ve gotten a dog after the accident. Maybe it would’ve helped . . . I don’t know.”

  “Hey, if you ever need her, you only have to yell. She won’t mind.”

  Blue bent over and placed a kiss between Molly’s eyes, precisely where he’d kissed the dog earlier.

  As his heart did a slow roll, Thomas checked the clock on the wall. One hour, fifty-five minutes. “We should get started.”

  She’d placed their glasses next to each other on the table.

  A weight pressed in on his chest, but it didn’t lessen when he moved his glass to the seat across from hers. Maybe one more spot away.

  She watched him settle into his chair, a smirk clearly pinching back a tease, probably about his awkward behavior. Perhaps he was taking this too far. Val wasn’t concerned with him spending time with Blue. And why should she be? Just because he’d had feelings for Blue once didn’t mean he would again.

  Blue took her seat and flipped open her notebook. “First question: Why do you do it?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You know, why do you risk your life to save people, rescue animals in need, do good deeds all around the community?”

  “Because someone has to.” The words snagged in his dry throat. Even a couple gulps of tea didn’t help.

  “That’s not true. No one has to save anyone. What’s the real reason?”

  “Why does it matter?” With his thumbs, he smoothed away the condensation from the outside of the glass.

  “Every story needs a heart.” Her hand rested on his wrist, its warmth burrowing deep into his bones. “What about romance?”

  Thomas’s head whipped toward her, making her laugh.

  “My goodness, Thomas. I’m not offering it.” She removed her hand and jotted down a note. She’d always had the messiest handwriting. Through the years, he’d learned to decode it, but upside down and a yard away, he couldn’t make out her swoops and broken lines. “All the timeless stories have a certain element of romance to them.”

  “Not yours.”

  “Glory was only twelve. But she and Felix . . .”

  Thomas caught her eye. Beck and Blue. Felix and Glory. Maybe the latter two could’ve made it last. Maybe Felix didn’t have to let Glory go off on her own to college. Then maybe Glory wouldn’t have met someone else.

  “And her older brother had a girlfriend.”

  The older brother, Henry. Played by none other than Hunter Dean Lawrence, a rising star at the time. The man who stole Blue away from Thomas.

  A stone thudded to the base of his stomach.

  “Tell me about Val.”

  “Val?”

  “How’d you two meet?”

  “Last summer, Ryann got into some trouble and was hurt. I called an ambulance, and Val was the paramedic who showed up. She’d just moved to town, and I offered to show her around.”

  “So, she’s a hero, too?”

  “Yeah, she is.” He felt a moment of pride for his girlfriend. She was a great woman, for sure.

  “Okay, so I’ll have a scene where you two meet and hit it off—”

  “No, Blue. Val and I . . . I don’t know that we’re in it for the long haul.”

  “I know. She told me as much.”

  A pang hit Thomas’s heart. Val told Blue that this wasn’t going to last? Would it be the worst thing in the world for a
woman to imagine a future with him?

  “It doesn’t have to be forever. Just for right now. And Val is great. I could write that into a beautiful love story. And you know, if it doesn’t work out, in the sequel we can give you a new love interest. Like The Karate Kid Part II.”

  “You hated that.”

  “Yes, I did. But we need something.”

  “You can’t use Val.”

  “She wouldn’t be willing? She seems like she’d give the shirt off—”

  “Look. We enjoy being with each other. But it’s not the way you think.”

  “Wait. Have you not kissed her?” A flicker of mischief blazed in Blue’s eyes.

  Thomas glared in her direction. Kissing and telling was not his style.

  “Why haven’t you kissed her? You’ve been dating for how long?”

  These questions grated on him. Yes, he and Val had kissed. But unlike his friends who treated kisses like breaths they must have to survive, he chose a more reverent style. Not the passionate, swipe-everything-off-the-desk, lose-all-decorum feast he sometimes saw in movies. A mere peck on the lips to end the night suited him just fine. And Val had never complained, or thirsted for more, as far as he could tell. “Look, we kiss just fine.”

  “Do you kiss a lot?” Her raised brows and ridiculous grin brought him right back to high school when he’d gone on his first date with Jennifer Song. He’d never understood why Blue was so curious whether they’d “gotten to first base” or whatever. He hadn’t wanted the details of her kiss with Robbie in that closet, which explained why he and Robbie ended up in their only fistfight. High school Robbie was the king of Kiss-and-Tell Land. At least until he fell for Keira and his respect for her trumped his ego.

  “This is not up for conversation. And it will not go in your movie.”

  “Okay, okay.” Blue tapped her pencil’s eraser on the table. “We still need something. If we can’t use Val, has there ever been anyone you pined for?”

  Thomas grabbed at his iced tea, nearly knocking it over. He quickly corrected, lifted it to his chapped lips, then tipped it back.

  “Ryann, right?”

  His body rejected the swallow, forcing the tea down his windpipe instead. His nostrils burned. Great. Some came out his nose. Gasping for breath between coughs, he reached for a napkin and covered his face, although it wasn’t big enough to cover all of him. Ryann? Why on earth did she think he pined for Ryann? Sure, they’d tried dating, but Thomas knew something was off. Just because you dated someone beautiful didn’t mean you envisioned a lifetime with them.

  He expected Blue to laugh at the mess he’d made. Her face, though, was as still as the town cemetery’s concrete angel.

  “Why Ryann?”

  “Um, because you’ve had a crush on her for as long as I can remember.”

  “She’s engaged to one of my best friends.”

  “Before Shane. Back in high school, you were always watching her.”

  To keep from watching you.

  “And whenever she and Tyler were around, you would gawk at them.”

  Thomas shifted his attention to the sliding glass door behind her. It led to a covered porch that abutted the mountain’s slope. The same slope he used to climb to get to Blue’s bedroom window way back when. Then, together they’d lie on the roof of that covered porch with pillows and sleeping bags and stare up at the stars. He’d listen to her ramble on and on about all her goals in life, giving an occasional mm-hmm or that’s cool, but never once sharing with her how his feelings for her had changed one shooting star at a time.

  “I only stared at Ryann and Tyler because I’d never seen a couple like them before. Two people who actually loved each other. I mean, I saw glimpses of that with your parents and Mr. and Mrs. Matthews, but they were the ones that gave me an idea of what marriage could be. At least for a little while.” A heaving sigh stood in the place of what she already knew. Tyler’s clinical depression worsened after Blue left for college. Eventually, he’d taken his own life, leaving Ryann a widow on her twenty-first birthday.

  “What about the note you carried from her?”

  Note? His mind rewound time to find a small square of notebook paper that had grown dingy with repeated reads and handling. He must have kept that thing in his pocket for a solid month during the spring of his senior year.

  “Don’t give me that look. The note. The one you kept in your pocket at prom when you were my date. I saw it when you went to pay for dinner. It had your name on it in her handwriting.” Was that hurt flickering in her eyes? Even now, more than a decade later?

  Years of experience slapped him upside the head. Of course that must’ve looked bad. He had thought nothing of it at the time, though. What Blue had thought was a love letter had been a call to action. One he had never taken, but for a good reason.

  “How about it? Can I make Ryann the love of your life? Even if you didn’t end up together? She’ll be the one who got away. It’ll be perfect and make the audience feel sympathy for your character.”

  Audience. Sympathy. Character. None of this sounded right. He pulled the front of his T-shirt away from his chest. At least it was black so she couldn’t see the sweat dampening it.

  “Ryann was never the love of my life. Don’t write that in.”

  Blue dropped her head back and ran her hands through her hair. When she looked at him again, nearly all of the blond locks fell to one side of her neck, which reminded him a bit of her prom hairstyle. For a moment, he was back on that gymnasium floor beneath rows of strung lights, with his hands resting on her waist and all of his hopes for the future riding on one question: Should he kiss her or not?

  “Okay, no love interest.” Blue bit her lip while she searched the ceiling as if it might be mapped with other ideas. “What about a childhood wound?”

  “Like my broken collarbone?” Thomas asked.

  That too-loud laugh of hers ricocheted off the kitchen cabinets and back door until a chuckle of his own found its way to the surface.

  “‘I’ll double-jump you,’ you said.” Thomas shook his head. “You double-jumped me off that trampoline and straight to urgent care.”

  “Come on. It was fun for the brief moment before you landed on your shoulder, wasn’t it?” Her expression sobered. “I mean, something from your childhood that hurt enough to change you and how you chose to live the rest of your life. A childhood wound.”

  The hard seat dug into his tailbone. He shifted to get comfortable, but it was no use.

  “I always liked your parents, Thomas. They were nice to me, but they were horrible to each other. And I’m sorry to say it, but they were incredibly self-centered. All those times they’d have screaming matches, forcing you and Cassie to sleep in the barn?”

  His pulse thrummed in his temples, harder with every beat. Like poison, his blood sped through his body as the memories of his childhood arrested his thoughts and replaced them with blinding colors. Blue like the lights on the cop cars at night. Red like the bloodied lips of his parents after a physical fight. White like the blizzard Thomas had found a frightened Cassie in on her fifth birthday when the screaming had been too much. “Blue . . .”

  “I’m just wondering if that made you want to live an others-centered life.”

  “My parents are off-limits.” They’d all left those years behind them. His mother, finally happy with her new husband in Louisiana, didn’t need any more reason to distance herself from him. And his father? Well, he didn’t need any more reason to drift, drink, or gamble.

  Blue looked at him for a long moment, and a calm washed over him the way it always had when they were kids. One glance at her, and Thomas knew without a doubt that there was goodness and joy in the world. But then her lashes fanned down over her prominent eyes, and she kept them shuttered.

  Shame jostled Thomas’s nerves. Those eyes should never be hidden. He�
�d gone too many years not seeing them, although he thought of them whenever he peered at the sky on a clear day, directly overhead where the blue was most concentrated.

  “Can you give me a list of heroic deeds you’ve done over the past ten years? Or the people you’ve helped? That way, I can reach out to people in the community and, hopefully, get some actual material for this screenplay.”

  Faces flashed through his head to the sound of an old film reel. Dozens of faces, some old, some young. Some nameless, some close as kin. His thoughts halted on one, though. Ella, with her blond curls weighted with river water, her last breath long since taken. He’d found her, just like he’d promised Blue. But he’d been too late to save her. And too late to undo his action that stripped her away from the riverbank in the first place.

  A pounding on the table shook Thomas back to the present. Blue’s fists clenched so tight he expected the pencil to snap.

  “Thomas, I don’t know what to do here. You’re giving me nothing to work with.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She blew out an exasperated breath as she pushed away from the table and rocked her chair back onto its rear legs. Thomas’s awareness spiked as he pictured her falling back. He quickly calculated the time it would take to get around the table and put his body, or at least his hand, between her skull and the tile. He tensed his legs, at the ready should she tip any more. Molly raised her head like she sensed something, too.

  “It’s more than this screenplay. Even more than me trying to reclaim my career.” Blue chewed her fingernail. She leaned forward, righting her seat, but Thomas’s sense of danger didn’t diminish.

  “I guess I thought if I came back to Montana, everything would be like it was before I left. Before Hunter. Before Ella’s accident. I needed some semblance of home. I needed you to be the same friend I counted on summer after glorious summer. I needed Chips Ahoy, board games, stargazing, and creek jumping. And I needed to remember why life is worth living and stories are worth sharing.” She released a frustrated sigh, leading Molly to leap up and rest her chin on Blue’s thigh. Blue dropped her gaze to his dog and stroked her head. “But we aren’t kids anymore, and life is no longer simple, is it?”