by Nicole Helm
“And you won’t be hanging out in a townie bar tonight, Vivian Armstrong. I’ll pick you up at four.”
Vivian huffed over that, but she followed Rose to her car. And the whole way down to Blue Valley, she chattered. About everything. About how much she loved the mountains and how hot she thought Gabe was and a million other things, and Rose’s heart ached a little bit, because she missed her sisters.
She saw Delia pretty frequently, but Delia wasn’t a chatterer. Get Billie, Elsie, and Steph together though, and they could chatter on about anything, just like Vivian. Vivian would fit right in with the younger Rogers girls, the two families clicking together.
Which will literally never happen.
Rose pulled into the parking lot behind the bar and gauged Vivian’s expression.
“It’s a glorified shack,” Rose supplied, because Vivian was looking at the rough-hewn boards like they were magic.
“It’s amazing,” Vivian breathed. “It’s like the Wild West. A saloon! So authentic.”
“Yeah, authentic,” Rose muttered. She got out of the car and led Vivian to the back entrance. Vivian exclaimed happily at everything, so much so that Rose didn’t even show her the hidden apartment, because she was afraid Vivian would come unglued at the authenticity of it all. And still Rose smiled, because it was sweet, this enthusiasm. She hadn’t felt it for a while, that simple joy in something kind of cool.
“And here’s the bar.”
Vivian squealed. “How do you stand how perfect this all is?”
“I guess cleaning vomit off the floor will do that to a girl.”
Vivian rolled her eyes. “There are always downfalls to a job you love, but you love this, don’t you?”
Rose looked around her bar. She did love it. She loved watching people and even serving people. She loved everything to do with Pioneer Spirit. She’d always thought loving this junk hole was just more proof she wasn’t quite right. How could anyone else love it too? But Vivian was so impressed, and Rose didn’t know what to do with that.
She gave Vivian the job of putting all the chairs down. Rose checked the liquor stock and started filling dishes of peanuts. Tonya would arrive in about half an hour, and Rose hated the idea of explaining Vivian to her, but she’d deal.
“Rose?”
Rose froze as Delia stepped in from the back hallway. Oh crap, what was her sister doing here when she had Vivian underfoot?
“Delia, what are you doing here?” she asked, trying to sound casual.
Delia stood in the doorway staring confusedly at Vivian. “Did you hire a new bartender?”
Vivian perked up and came over to the bar, leaning over it. “Oh my gosh, do you need a bartender? I could so sell my store and move here and become a bartender! Wouldn’t that be amazing?”
“You cannot do any of those things. I do not need a bartender,” Rose said sternly. She was not going to be the woman who punched Jack’s brother and ruined his sister’s future.
Rose looked uncomfortably from Delia to Vivian. How was she going to explain this? Well, maybe she could work her way around it without actually—
“I’m Delia. Rose’s sister,” Delia said, holding out her hand.
Vivian grinned and took her hand. “Oh, I should have known, you guys look so much alike! Rose, you never said you had a sister.” Vivian tsked. “I’m Jack’s sister Vivian.”
Delia released Vivian’s hand and looked at Rose questioningly. “Who’s Jack? The kissing guy?”
“Shouldn’t you be sitting down?” Rose asked, trying and failing to lead Delia away. “She’s pregnant and very, very sick,” Rose explained to Vivian.
“I’m feeling much better. The doctor gave me this medicine pump thing to wear, but that’s beside the point. Are you going to explain this?”
“Later.”
“I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?” Vivian asked, looking suspicious and maybe hurt.
“Vivian, you’re fine. I just—”
“Hadn’t told your sister about your boyfriend?” Vivian supplied for her, accusation in her tone.
Rose closed her eyes, because she recognized that look on Vivian’s face. She’d seen it on Jack’s face often enough, a kind of protective determination. Vivian was going to stand up for Jack’s honor, and no amount of liking Rose was going to change that.
“Look—”
“Don’t blame Rose,” Delia interrupted. “She’s a very private person, and we can be very overbearing when it comes to guys. I’m sure she was just trying to keep Jack safe from our interrogation. Right, Sissy?”
“Something like that,” Rose muttered, feeling beyond shitty. Now Delia was lying for her.
“Oh. Well. I’m sorry I ruined it,” Vivian said uncertainly.
“No, don’t be.” Rose forced a smile. “It’s long past time I told them I was dating Jack.” She turned to Delia. “Jack’s family is visiting from Indiana, and Vivian wanted to see the bar.”
Delia nodded. “Well, um, if you have a minute and you don’t mind, Vivian, I have something kind of private to talk to Rose about.”
“I can go walk around town and—”
“Stay here and put down all the chairs. I’ll talk to Delia in the back and be right back.”
“Okay,” Vivian said.
Rose took Delia into the back hallway, feeling a headache brewing. How…how was she going to untangle all this?
“Look, it’s just pretend—”
“Don’t lie to me. We will be having a very long discussion about what the heck is going on with your boyfriend later but…” Delia sighed heavily. “I don’t have much time. Caleb’s trying to wrangle both chores and Sunny, and Summer had some mysterious appointment, and anyway, Aunt Beth called me last night.”
“Why?”
“I guess Mom wanted me to know, without having to contact me. Dad is…really sick. Like dying.”
Rose had to reach out to steady herself. She tried to grab for the wall, but in the end, it was just Delia. Clutching her hand in hers.
“Aunt Beth didn’t know any details. She only knew that it was bad and he’s refusing to get any sort of help, obviously.”
“So he really isn’t a threat.”
“No. And I called the sisters. You won’t like it, but I think we all need to go see him.”
“What? Why would we do that?”
“Closure. Good riddance. Not our last respects—he doesn’t deserve that. A chance to tell him, to really tell him, what shit he is. To show him that he didn’t win and he deserves whatever’s coming to him. Maybe it won’t make us feel better, but I don’t know. I have to do it. I have to have that kind of closure. And I think the other girls feel the same. Do you?”
Rose couldn’t meet Delia’s gaze. She couldn’t process all this. Dad was dying. Dad wasn’t a threat. And Delia wanted them to all go talk to him. All of them.
“You don’t have to decide right now. I just wanted to tell you in person. This isn’t phone news, and you’ve been scarce.”
“I haven’t been scarce,” Rose replied automatically.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on with this guy?”
Rose opened her mouth to lie, to minimize, to blow it off, but Delia was staring at her with those furrowed, big-sister eyebrows. “Honestly? I don’t know. It was supposed to be pretend. A favor. And now he…”
“He what?”
“He likes me. God knows why, but he seems to think we could…” Rose swallowed. Too much. All of it. “I don’t know. I just don’t. On all fronts.”
“You like him,” Delia said quietly.
Rose didn’t know what to say to that, especially when it hadn’t been phrased as a question.
“It’s hard,” Delia said. “It’s a hard thing to trust in someone else, but you’re not a coward, Rose. Never have been.�
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Rose managed a smile. Funny how Delia should echo Jack’s statement from this morning, but unfortunately, Delia didn’t get it. Delia had been afraid to trust Caleb, because there’d been no one to trust in their lives. Especially men. Rose didn’t have any compunction trusting Jack. He was infinitely trustworthy. It was herself she didn’t trust.
She’d failed her own sister so spectacularly, how could she not fail a guy like Jack?
“Think about the Dad thing. The sisters are working on a few days they can all get off work.”
“If I need to chip in to get Steph home, let me know. She’s not going to miss class over this, is she?”
“We’ll figure something out so she doesn’t have to.” Delia frowned, studying Rose’s face. “You okay? Really?”
“I’m fine.” Rose knew this was the time to let it all out. That there was a possibility she was pregnant. A very large probability she was falling in love with a guy she could never be with. She should take a page out of Jack’s book and talk, and maybe things would stop feeling so horrible.
All she could think about was Delia’s family though. She had a daughter waiting on her and a medicine pump keeping her from puking her guts out so she could have another kid. Rose thought about Caleb and Sunny’s first steps and all those things that just…
They weren’t in the cards for her, and talking wasn’t going to change that.
“Go home to your girl. Let me know what day the sisters decide.”
“So you’ll come?”
Dad was dying. Dying. Rose didn’t know that she wanted any come-to-Jesus moments with him, but if her sisters needed her, she’d do it.
“I’ll come. I better get back to Vivian. I can’t imagine we were very smooth in our lying.”
“Very unlike us.” Delia pulled her into a quick hug. “I’m checking on you in a few days, fair warning. If you’re still this mopey, I will be forcing you to tell me what’s actually up.”
“I’m not mopey.” But Delia wasn’t listening. She was striding down the hall, and Rose scoffed into the empty hallway.
Now she had to brace herself for Vivian’s million questions. When Rose stepped back into the bar, Vivian was sitting on a stool, toying with a glass of something she’d poured for herself.
“That’ll be five bucks.”
Vivian offered a smile, but it was faint, not one of her excited, vivacious grins. “Hope that includes tip.” She frowned down at it. “Rose, I’m only going to ask once, so please, don’t lie to me. What’s really going on? Why hadn’t you told your sister about Jack?”
Rose knew she should lie. This was all Jack’s idea anyway, and it should be his job to tell her.
“Rose. Please. The truth.”
“I was just pretending to be Jack’s girlfriend,” Rose said, exhaling slowly. “Your mom said something about Madison not thinking he was over her, and I happened to need a favor. So we decided to trade favors. It was all pretend.”
Vivian frowned. “Was pretend, right? I mean Jack’s a pretty smart guy, but he’s a crappy actor. If he didn’t have feelings for you, it wouldn’t be written all over his face like they very clearly are.”
“I’m not saying we don’t have a certain amount of chemistry,” Rose said carefully. “And whatever else there is.”
“Love?”
Rose winced. God, she hated the word love. It was a weapon or armor more than anything worthy of poetry.
“He’s already been hurt. You can’t hurt him like this.”
“Vivian, I have tried to be up-front with the guy, but you have to understand. I own and run a bar. I have tattoos everywhere and grew up in really shitty circumstances. I am not Armstrong material.”
“That sounds a lot like Mike’s excuses for his life, Rose.”
“Hey. That isn’t fair.”
“Isn’t it? Are you implying that because you had a rough life, you live a rough life, you’re not good enough for Jack?”
“Exactly. Actually.”
“Except Jack is so clearly in love with you. And look, I was around when he was with Madison, and I’m around right now. I can tell that—”
“What? He never loved her, but I’m some miracle?”
“No. He loved Madison, but he was also a teenager and so very Jack. I know when he loves someone, because he looks at them like they matter, and no matter how stoic our family is, he’s never been able to hide that. With you, it’s different. You grab his hand when you can tell he’s upset, which is no easy feat. He wraps his arms around you when you’re about to bolt. You two fit like puzzle pieces, instead of the same puzzle piece stacked on top of each other.”
“That’s a great analogy, but I’m not…I am very much not good enough for your brother. Okay? He’s going to realize that soon, and nobody will get hurt.”
“If he doesn’t?”
There had to be an answer to that question. An answer that wasn’t “blow it all up and disappear.”
“Maybe instead of being convinced you’re not good enough for him, you could find a way to be good enough for him.”
Rose stared at her bar, that fluttering panic taking up the entire expanse of her chest. It was a really tempting thought, this idea she could suddenly change the way she’d always been. That, much like she’d decided to win this bar or to put her father behind bars, she could just decide to be good enough for Jack—that from here on out, she could be what he needed.
But her father was dying, and she would have to face him. She’d have to stand in that old nightmare and remember, no matter how much she loved her sisters, she’d failed all of them.
She forced herself to smile at Vivian, just like she’d forced herself to smile at Delia and Elsie and Billie and Steph a million times over in their childhood. “I’ll think about it.”
Vivian grinned and reached over the bar, pulling Rose into a perfume-scented hug so much like Mrs. Armstrong’s. “I know you can do it, Rose. You two are so good together.”
Rose pulled away from Vivian’s embrace, fake smile plastered on her face. “Thanks,” she said firmly, even though gratitude was the absolute last thing she felt.
Chapter 22
Jack stood by the RV, his family gathered around, and didn’t know how the two weeks had passed in the blink of an eye. Mom, Dad, and Vivian felt like part of the landscape now, and it would be hard not to have them here anymore.
Vivian was openly crying, and Mom was trying very hard not to. Jack kept scanning the horizon for Rose. She’d texted that she was running late but had given no explanation, and Dad was eager to get on the road.
“I want to beg you to come home, but that just wouldn’t work, would it?” Vivian asked with a sniffle.
“No, it wouldn’t. I’m glad you came, Viv. And you know you can always come back whenever you get another break from the store.”
She flung herself at him as she’d done when she’d arrived, as she’d done when he’d left for the navy and deployment all those years ago. Vivian had always been the brightest of all of them, the most effervescent. She wasn’t a paragon of unveiled emotions, but she’d always been sweet. She always hugged him when he went away, tighter and longer than everyone else.
“I’ll miss you, kid.”
She sniffled into his shoulder. “I love you, Big Brother. Tell Rose bye for me?”
“I’m sorry she didn’t make it. I don’t know what could have happened to her.”
Vivian released him with a sad smile, which meant he had to address Mike and Madison and little Croy.
Jack offered Mike a hand. They’d never be buddies, but they were still brothers, and as much is it brought Jack a little joy to still see the mark of Rose’s punch around Mike’s nose, Jack didn’t want to leave the resentment to simmer after they’d gone. “I wish you the best of luck, Mike.”
For a second, Mike acte
d as though he wouldn’t acknowledge the gesture or his words. Madison gave him a nudge, and he finally took Jack’s hand. “I’m…” He cleared his throat. “I’m glad you found a place here.”
Mike quickly turned and headed into the RV, and Jack was going to pretend like his brother meant it.
Madison was next, and Jack didn’t want to hug her, but it seemed weird to shake hands. All of this was weird still, and probably always would be. Maybe that was just something to accept as the new Armstrong normal.
“It was good to see you,” Jack offered a little stiffly. “Thank you for bringing Croy. I hope you’ll send pictures and keep me up-to-date with how he’s doing. I do want to be part of his life.”
“I want that too.” She hugged him then, wriggling Croy between them. “I’m glad you’re happy,” she whispered, giving him a squeeze before letting him go. Madison climbed into the RV.
Jack scanned the horizon again, but there was still no sign of Rose. He was starting to get a little worried. Rose didn’t love all the family stuff, but she also didn’t promise something and then not follow through. So something had to have happened.
“When she does pop up, let me know so I don’t worry about her,” Mom said.
“I will.”
“She’s a nice girl.”
“She’s something else,” Jack returned with a smile.
Mom pulled him into a tight hug. “I love you, and I’m so proud of you. I miss you so much. I expect you home for a visit one of these days. You understand me?” She pulled away.
“Yes, ma’am,” Jack said, giving her a little salute.
He shook his father’s hand and mainly kept it together as they piled into the RV and turned down the gravel drive.
Jack watched the RV move away. There’d be something nice about getting back to real life and not having to worry about everyone entertaining his family. He’d always miss them when they weren’t around, and yet this life he’d built here at Revival Ranch in Blue Valley was everything he never could have dreamed of in that rehabilitation center.
The RV came to a halt before it disappeared down the hill, and that was when Jack realized Rose’s car had appeared. He stood where he was by the house, watching as Mom, Dad, and Vivian each stepped out of the RV and gave Rose a hug before getting back in and rolling away.