by Becky Wade
Three
The next day Nora stood sentinel on the covered front porch of Bradfordwood, the home she’d grown up in. The gray sky slid by like a moving watercolor painting. Raindrops plinked off the roof, the stone steps, the red bricks that formed the driveway. The murky, opaque quality of the light was the result of both the rain and the fact that somewhere beyond the clouds, the sun had begun to set.
Nora slipped her hands into the pockets of her sweat shirt. She’d dressed in work-out gear this morning because she’d had an industrious plan to hit the gym at some point this Saturday. But then she’d spent ages agonizing over how much to charge John before finally crafting and emailing him a bill. She’d picked up the Silverstone Chronicles, sunk two hours into reading, visited her favorite fiction blogs, updated her progress on Goodreads.com, and switched out her winter wardrobe for her summer wardrobe. She never did make it to the gym, yet here she stood in her yoga pants, Hogwarts Alumni T-shirt, and sweat shirt.
Her older sister, Willow, was due to arrive any minute, and tradition dictated that the family be standing outside, waiting and waving, when she pulled up. Nora was certainly one for tradition even if Willow’s string of arrivals and departures occasionally made her feel dull. Trusty Nora. The sister who’d never lived outside of Merryweather except during her college years. Still here. Rooted in the town of her birth.
The truth? She loved Merryweather. She’d actively chosen to live here, so there was no reason for her choice to make her feel drab—
Nora almost snorted. When had any comparison between herself and Willow or Britt not made her feel drab?
She could still remember the moment that had crystallized her role in her family in her mind. She’d been thirteen and sandwiched between her sisters, sharing the same bathroom mirror as they prepared to leave for a stage production of The Lion King.
She’d peeked to one side and watched fifteen-year-old Willow lean forward to apply mascara. In the light from the wall-mounted bathroom fixture, Willow’s face looked breathtakingly lovely. She had big, almond-shaped eyes and amazing cheekbones. Perfect bone structure, really.
Willow was the beautiful one.
Nora peeked to the other side and watched Britt brush her thick, long hair. At the age of nine, Britt had already been recognized by their parents as a creative genius. For months, she’d been churning out dessert masterpieces that seemed better suited to magazine covers than to their family’s table.
Britt was the talented one.
Nora then turned her attention on her own reflection. Mouse-brown hair, because she hadn’t started dyeing it red until midway through college. Ordinary face and body. Braces.
Okay, she thought pragmatically. The reality of her sisters hadn’t snuck up on her, after all. She’d been living with the truth of their extraordinary qualities all her life. But in that one moment, the truth demanded a decision from her.
Your sisters will always be prettier and more naturally talented than you are. How are you going to respond, Nora?
She’d firmed her lips and lifted her chin. I’m the smart one. That’s how.
That choice had informed everything that came after. Nowadays, Nora looked back on her plucky thirteen-year-old self proudly because that awkward girl had chosen the right track.
The year Willow left home to attend UCLA, she was discovered by a modeling agent. She’d been circling the globe ever since, captivating the world with her beauty.
A freight train couldn’t have stopped Britt from following her passion. She aced culinary school, then studied abroad for two years under legendary French pastry chefs. She became a Master Chocolatier and opened a shop in Merryweather Historical Village named Sweet Art.
Willow and Britt had done very well for themselves, yes. But Nora knew them through and through. They had flaws and vulnerabilities, too. Also acres of goodness. She loved them. She was closer to them than to anyone else in the world.
These days she spent very little emotional angst on the topic of her appearance or her God-given talents (or lack thereof) relative to theirs. She did sometimes make wisecracks to herself about it. And it did prick her when she was introduced to people and they responded with a baffled, “You’re Willow’s sister?”
But emotional angst? Not much.
She’d been looking forward to Willow’s homecoming.
How long had it been since Willow was home last? Five months? Even though they made an effort to visit each other—Nora had flown to LA for a long weekend in February—they were never able to spend as much time together as Nora would have liked.
This particular visit promised to be extra special because Willow would be staying in Merryweather for more than six months. She hadn’t spent that much consecutive time in Washington since she’d left for college.
Footsteps approached, bringing Britt to a halt next to Nora. “No sign of her yet?”
Nora shook her head and lifted her phone. “Any minute now, I’m guessing. I’m waiting for her usual, ‘I’m at the gate turning in’ text.”
They watched the rain sprinkle the drive. “I escaped out here away from prying ears so I could get the scoop about your meeting yesterday with the Navy SEAL.”
“He has a girlfriend.”
Britt wrinkled her nose. “Well, that stinks.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“Maybe they’re about to break up,” Britt suggested hopefully.
“Their relationship looked pretty well established to me. They were holding hands, and she was beaming at him. They seemed at ease with each other.”
“Perhaps what appears to be ease is really serious dissatisfaction on both their parts.”
“Yes, and perhaps Adolphus Brook will come cantering up this driveway on a stallion, pull me onto the saddle with him, and ride away with me.”
“I’d pick John Lawson over Adolphus Brook any day of the week,” Britt said.
“Blasphemy!” Nora had spent three years watching and rewatching episodes of Northamptonshire and mooning over Adolphus, one of the characters on the show.
Britt zipped her puffy vest up to her neck. “Brr.” The wind teased free a few sections of her hair and sent them wisping around her forehead and cheeks. She’d caught the rest into a topknot that looked effortlessly chic. “How did things go between you and John before his girlfriend showed up?”
“Things went very well. He’s . . .” Nora groaned. “I can’t adequately put it into words. . . .”
“That’s a first for you.”
Nora chuckled. John had that effect on her. He foiled words! Even artful words. “He gives off this aura of complete . . . ability. It’s in his face and his bearing and his body language. It’s not pretentious or anything. It’s just . . . well. I’m guessing he has a crazy amount of confidence.”
“Go on.”
“If a dragon had swooped down during our meeting, I think John would have stood up, wiped the crumbs from his hands, and taken care of it.”
“I love men who can fell dragons.”
“I can fell dragons.” The masculine voice came from behind them.
Nora angled to watch Zander exit Bradfordwood’s grand front doors carrying a plate covered with six small and crispy potato pancakes, each topped with a swirl of sour cream, a thin slice of smoked salmon, and a sprig of dill.
“At the moment,” Nora told him, “the ability to steal Valentina’s appetizers is a skill I value above felling dragons. I’m starving.”
“How’d you manage to sneak these without Grandma noticing?” Britt asked him.
“I have my ways.” A twist of humor on his lips, Zander extended the plate toward the sisters.
Alexander “Zander” Ford and Britt had met when they’d both been in the ninth grade. They became the best of friends. Zander had spent so much time with the Bradfords over the years that he’d earned a place as a de facto family member.
Sometimes, when Nora looked at Zander, she could still see the shadow of the ashen, undersized, sullen kid he’d once
been, though he was a grown man now. His almost-black hair and the dark shadow of scruff on his cheeks contrasted with his fair skin and ocean-blue eyes. Sleeves of tattoos covered his arms down to his wrists. He always dressed starkly and simply. Today’s outfit consisted of worn jeans and a black T-shirt.
Zander and his older brother had lived with his aunt and uncle during their high school years because Child Protective Services had removed them from their mother and father’s care. Nora hadn’t forgotten his aunt and uncle’s junky house on Merryweather’s ragged edge. Nor had she forgotten the tough, street-kid clothes Zander had worn like protective armor in those days.
He no longer needed armor. His lean, six-foot-tall body communicated toughness very well all by itself. He was serious and introverted, with a dry sense of humor you’d never be treated to unless you’d gained his hard-won friendship—or happened to be standing next to him when he murmured something funny under his breath.
No stranger would guess that the guy with the tats and the intense eyes had a photographic memory. But they might guess, if they were very observant or especially skilled at deciphering the charge in the air, that Zander was in love with his very good friend Britt. And had been for a long, long time.
“When you were inside,” Britt told Zander, “Nora told me that the Navy SEAL has a girlfriend.”
“The ones who can fell dragons are usually taken.” He tipped up his chin and popped one of the potato pancakes into his mouth whole.
“Dating words to live by.” Nora nibbled on the delicious appetizer. Zander had only stolen two for each of them. It would require willpower to make her portion last.
“You’re going to be seeing him more,” Britt said to Nora. “Right?”
“Right. I’m helping him research his genealogy.” Which was the extent of what she’d divulge to her sisters or anyone else on the subject. John had told her he hadn’t yet informed his parents about his search for his birth mother. She certainly wouldn’t be the one to shatter his privacy.
“You never know what might happen between the two of you in time,” Britt said. “The future is wide open.”
“Yeah,” Zander agreed. “The Navy SEAL might get eaten by the dragon.”
“John Lawson would never get eaten by a dragon,” Nora replied, with no small amount of indignation. “You serfs clearly haven’t read Uncommon Courage.”
Zander and Britt laughed. “Your sister called us serfs,” Zander said, flicking a potato crumb in Britt’s direction.
“Calling John’s prowess into question will always get you categorized as serfs,” Nora assured them.
“You big serf you,” Britt said to Zander.
“You’re such a serf, Britt.”
“You are.”
“No, you.”
“Where’s Willow?” Nora frowned toward the point where the driveway disappeared in the direction of the road. The actual road couldn’t be seen from the porch. Bradfordwood reigned over a two-hundred-acre plot of land. “She said she’d be here in ten minutes what seems like fifteen minutes ago.”
Just as she awoke the screen on her phone to check the time, a text from Willow arrived.
Turning in, it read.
“Good! She’s here. Hide the evidence.”
Zander slid the plate and napkins out of sight beneath one of the porch chairs.
Nora leaned inside the front door. “Grandma,” she called. “Valentina. Willow’s driving up.”
Willow stored her white Range Rover near Sea-Tac airport. Each time she flew in, personnel from the storage facility brought the SUV to the gate to meet her. The car’s headlights glided into view.
Nora, Britt, and Zander started waving. Grandma’s diminutive frame and Valentina’s plump one took up places nearby, also waving. Even though there were five of them, their welcome party seemed woefully small without Mom and Dad, who were usually such an integral part of every porch greeting and farewell.
When the Range Rover stopped, they all hurried forward. Willow hugged them, smelling of Chanel and bringing light to the overcast day with her bright green eyes and gentle smile. “Hi, Nora. Britt! So good to see you, Zander. Hi, Grandma. You look wonderful. Valentina, did you make the potato pancake appetizers you promised?”
Willow wore black skinny jeans and a pale gray sweater that sheathed her body like a stylish cocoon. At five feet nine, Willow was on the short side for a model. Nonetheless, as they climbed the steps and entered the house together, Willow stood four full inches taller than Nora.
Willow answered their questions about how her travel day had gone while they made their way past the front dining room and sitting room, the library, and a powder room. For all Bradfordwood’s ten thousand square feet, the family mostly congregated in just two rooms: the kitchen and den. Those spaces flowed together and lined the rear of the first floor. Enormous windows captured the view off the home’s back terrace, a long sweep of manicured lawn that stretched downhill to the Pacific water of the Hood Canal. On the far side of the canal, land rose into a hump that resembled the back of a great, green slumbering dinosaur.
“Eat!” Valentina encouraged in her thick Russian accent, her stout arms motioning to the appetizers she’d set on the bar. “I make potato pancake for you, miss! Yummy. So yummy!”
Their father had hired Valentina as their housekeeper/nanny when Willow was a baby. Valentina’s round, pink-cheeked face complemented a personality that shined with a perennial case of happiness.
Grandma, in contrast, must have excused herself to use the restroom right at the moment when the Holy Spirit handed out the fruit called joy. “I’ll just take a broccoli spear,” she said in her usual anguished tone. Nora suspected it gave her pleasure to slight Valentina by never eating anything but mouse-sized portions of her cooking. “There’s dairy on the potato pancakes and dairy doesn’t agree with me.”
Each morning, Grandma donned her trademark pearl earrings and rolled her long white hair into an elegant bun at the nape of her neck. She’d been gifted with the smoothest and prettiest complexion of any seventy-nine-year-old woman alive. Never had she spent a day in the hospital. She had enough income to live comfortably and to dress gorgeously, yet she could look on any glass brimming to the top with Dom Pérignon and find a way to regard it as half empty.
The rest of them helped themselves to the potato pancakes, mixed nuts, and crudités. This spread was a mere precursor to the roast Nora could smell baking.
The room’s lamps and recessed lights cast them all in golden light as they made themselves comfortable in the den with their plates, glasses, and paper napkins.
“I don’t know why she didn’t use the good linen napkins,” Grandma groused to Nora.
“Has anyone heard from Mom and Dad since the group email they sent out a few days ago?” Willow asked.
“No, that’s the last one I got, too,” Nora answered. “They’re still in Zambia receiving discipleship training.”
“I love that they’re finally fulfilling a dream that Mom’s had for so long.” Britt sat cross-legged on the sofa, plate balanced on one knee. “Some of my earliest memories are of her reading books to me about Africa and missionaries.”
“She read those to me, too,” Willow said. “Was it their anniversary, do you think, that finally tipped the scales and motivated them to serve overseas?”
“I think so,” Britt answered. “It made them take stock.”
“I agree,” Nora said. “My theory is that Dad wanted to give Mom the only anniversary gift he hadn’t given her yet.”
“You would take the romantic approach.” Zander had remained standing, one shoulder casually braced against the fireplace. “I think their anniversary reminded Garner that they’re getting older, and if they were ever going to be missionaries, it needed to be now.”
Nora arched an eyebrow. “You would take the death-is-imminent approach.”
“Overseas missionary work is for the young,” Grandma put in. “Kathleen and Garner are too old fo
r it, as I’ve told them more than once.”
“I don’t think there’s an expiration date on service,” Britt said calmly. They were all used to disagreeing with Grandma.
“They’re not too old for service,” Grandma explained. “It’s overseas missionary service that they’re too old for. I certainly believe that the Lord expects all of us to suffer in His service until death.”
“Um.” Britt pulled a skeptical frown. “I don’t think that suffering necessarily has to be a part of the service.”
Grandma sniffed and held her broccoli spear airborne between two thin fingers. “In the Bible it says, ‘Take up your cross and follow me.’ Our service to the Lord should cost, otherwise it’s not service.”
“What about the verse that says, ‘God loves a cheerful giver’?” Nora asked.
“It’s entirely true. We’re called to suffer cheerfully for God.” Spoken by the lady who wouldn’t recognize cheerfulness if it served her a hamburger.
“Well!” Nora made her voice bright to counteract Grandma’s gloom. “Even though I’ll miss them, I think it’s great that Mom and Dad took the opportunity to go to Africa.”
“And all because you”—Britt extended an arm with a grand flourish toward Willow—“made it possible.”
In some ways, Willow had kept to the oldest-child stereotypes. She was hands down the sister who’d achieved the most. And like most firstborns, she was a rule follower. She wasn’t pushy or bossy, however. If and when she guided the family, it was always through listening first, thinking second, and then speaking in her thoughtful way. “I’m glad I could take over the Inn at Bradfordwood so that Mom and Dad could go. I don’t get many chances to help them these days.” She rubbed a fingertip into the sofa’s chenille fabric. “I needed a break from work anyway.”
Grandma launched into a monologue about how the current generation worked too hard and never turned off their electronics—Guilty, Nora thought—and how they were too ambitious in general.
Nora would have loved to see Grandma try to scold Frederick Bradford about ambition, seeing as how all three sisters had his ambition to thank for this home, their family’s company, Bradford Shipping, and their charmed upbringing.