Magnolia Sky

by Susan Crandall

  His ability to bury his emotions amazed her. Even though they were still alone, Luke was showing respect for her precarious position and had taken an emotional step back, treating her as if nothing had transpired to change their relationship in the past twenty-four hours. He was so good at it, even she could almost believe nothing had changed.

  Even so, she found it hard to look at him, difficult to fall into bland conversation.

  As they sat side by side in the silent car, Analise wished she’d made a different decision and left him at home. She could tell, Luke was taking his cues from her; her distance was probably hurting his feelings.

  When they arrived at the hospital, Olivia was standing outside Cole’s room talking with Dave. He was dressed in his uniform and had a grim look on his face as he used his hands to demonstrate something that looked suspiciously like a description of the wreck. The horrible sight of the twisted vehicles illuminated in the rescue lights flashed fresh in Analise’s mind.

  Olivia noticed their approach. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here.”

  Although it was only eight-thirty, Analise felt a little wash of shame for not getting here earlier. She’d taken an extra-long shower before they came, trying to get the feel of Luke off her skin. But it had been useless; he’d ingrained himself much more deeply than skin. She just hoped she was as good at projecting the image of guiltless propriety as Luke seemed to be. She handed a bag containing fresh clothes to Olivia.

  Luke asked, “Any word on the other boy?”

  Olivia nodded toward Dave. “That’s just what Dave was telling me. He’s still unconscious. Poor child.” Then she added, “Dave’s been checking on the accident investigation—”

  Dave interrupted her. “Liv, I think we should keep that between us. Don’t want any suggestion of misconduct. Even if the investigation absolves Cole of legal charges, Travis’s family still could bring civil suit.”

  Olivia blanched. “I don’t see what would be wrong with telling Ana.”

  Dave looked pointedly at Luke.

  Olivia said, “Luke’s family.”

  At that both Analise and Dave looked at her with surprise. She didn’t seem to notice and went on sharing what she knew. “Dave said there’s a witness that saw Cole take off after Travis from Darcy’s house at a high rate of speed.”

  Since Luke had shared what Cole told the sheriff with both Olivia and Analise after that meeting, Ana knew the story. “That’s exactly what Cole said happened.”

  Dave shifted his weight from one shiny black shoe to another. “Trouble is, that’s the only eyewitness we have. No one saw them at the drive-in, no one saw Cole leave first.”

  “You’re saying the sheriff thinks Cole chased Travis down?” Ana couldn’t keep the panic out of her voice.

  “We’ll have to wait and see what story Travis tells—if and when he’s able,” Dave said seriously. He put a hand on Olivia’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. He probably won’t remember anything. I can take care of any problems from the inside.”

  Olivia’s eyes cut quickly to his. “I don’t want you to do anything you shouldn’t—”

  “Oh, no, no.” Dave looked uncomfortably toward Luke. “That’s not what I meant at all.”

  But, as Analise looked between Luke and Dave, she got the impression that was exactly what he was suggesting.

  By noon, Cole was ready to go home. The four of them sat in the car, avoiding talking about the obvious question eating at all of them: Would Travis recover? They’d been spared seeing his parents at the hospital. Mr. and Mrs. Benson were vacationing in Las Vegas. Apparently, Travis had been left at home in the charge of his eighteen-year-old sister. By the time their parents had been located and notified, Travis was already being airlifted to Memphis.

  Once back at Magnolia Mile, Olivia and Analise fussed over getting Cole settled in his room. He had no medical restrictions, but the doctor suggested taking it easy for a day or so. He’d prescribed mild medication for the aches and pains, cautioning them to be certain to bring Cole back immediately if he complained of increased headache pain or problems with his vision.

  Olivia set a can of Sprite on Cole’s nightstand. “Are you sure you don’t want something to eat?”

  “Yes.” There was an edge to his answer that said he wanted to be left alone. Then he softened it by saying, “Maybe in a little while.”

  “All right. One of us will check back in a bit,” Olivia said as she pulled the door closed behind her.

  Analise followed her down the hall, unable to keep from casting a glance into the green room. A few of Luke’s personal items marked the room as his—his electric razor, his sport coat on a hanger on the closet doorknob, a pair of balled-up athletic socks on the floor. Her gaze ran over the bed and a little shiver of remembered passion coursed through her. Luke hadn’t merely had sex with her—he’d made her feel loved in a way she had never experienced, and doubtless would never experience again. She refused to give in to the little tug of regret—not for what she’d done, but for what she was giving up to keep her family whole.

  Before they reached the stairs, the telephone rang. Analise hurried into her bedroom to answer it.

  “Hi, this is Darcy.” There was a pause. “The hospital said Cole had been dismissed.”

  “Yes, he’s home.” She pressed her lips together to keep from saying more.

  “Can I . . . talk to him?”

  Common sense said the accident wasn’t Darcy’s fault, but Analise couldn’t help but hold the girl responsible for setting this all into motion. “I’ll get him.”

  When she knocked and opened Cole’s door, he was on his side, facing away from her. “Cole. Darcy’s on the phone.”

  “Really?” There was a bubble of hope in his voice. He sat up and grabbed his head with both hands. “Whoa.” Then his face shadowed. “I don’t want to talk to her.”

  Several emotions fought for center stage in Analise’s mind. She would have been truly relieved if she hadn’t heard that optimism in Cole’s voice right at first. She could tell he wasn’t over this girl—which only meant more pain waited around the bend.

  Cole passed on dinner, staying in his room. Luke could see Olivia’s worry as the three of them ate quietly in the kitchen. He was actually glad for the silence. It made his duplicity seem less offensive.

  What made him for one single minute think there was anything right about what he’d done? In his mind he’d justified making love to Analise because Calvin had been an unfaithful husband. Had he thought it was tit for tat—what’s good for the goose is good for the gander? Or had he thought he could give Analise what Calvin had not? That thought was almost comical. The only thing he’d done for Analise was to put her in an awkward position in her own home.

  He glanced at the two women. He could tell neither had the energy to feed herself, let alone carry on a conversation. When they both stopped eating before their plates were empty, Luke said, “I’ll clean up. You two go on upstairs.”

  The confirmation of their exhaustion came when they both just nodded and left the table.

  Once the dishes were done—there hadn’t been many, as they’d had turkey sandwiches for dinner—Luke stepped out on the front porch. There was an unusual evening breeze that kept the worst of the early-season mosquitoes away. That probably meant rain. His supposition was further enforced by the ache between his shoulder blades. He rotated his shoulders, trying to work out some of the pain as he sat down on the steps, avoiding the homeyness of the old wicker furniture that sat on the porch. He didn’t deserve the comforts of this house.

  He’d been sitting there several minutes when he heard the door open behind him. For a brief second he brightened, thinking it was Analise. When he turned he saw Cole’s outline against the hall light.

  “Mind if I come out?” the boy asked.

  “Come on. The fresh air’ll do you good.”

  Cole closed the door behind him and sat on the step next to Luke, groaning a little as he did.

/>   “Getting pretty stiff?” Luke asked.

  Cole nodded slowly, as if the action hurt his neck—which it probably did. After a minute, he asked quietly, “Do you think Travis is going to die?”

  Luke put his elbows on his knees and laced his fingers in front of him. “No. He’ll probably live.”

  “You said that like it’s a bad thing.” There was real fear in Cole’s voice.

  “It could be,” Luke said slowly. He decided he wasn’t going to sugarcoat this, wasn’t going to blindly reassure. Cole needed to see the reality of the consequences of what had happened. “There are things worse than death.” Like causing someone else to die in your place and living with it every day. “He was hurt pretty seriously.”

  Cole unsuccessfully tried to stifle a choked sob. Luke let him be for a moment. There was a reason Cole had sought Luke out and not his mother. He wanted the harsh truth, needed it.

  “Why didn’t I stay home?” It was no more than a quivering whisper.

  Luke let it ride. Cole didn’t really want an answer to that question.

  “I tried to walk away.” The boy thumped his fisted hands on his knees. “I knew it was going to turn out bad.”

  “Sometimes, even when you think you’re making the right choice, bad things still happen.” Luke knew all too well the futile desire to recover one single second and make a different choice.

  “He chased me.”

  “Did you speed up?”

  “Yeah.” Cole rubbed his face and spoke through his fingers, “I didn’t know . . . I thought he was going to try to run me off the road.”

  “He might have.”

  Cole’s gaze snapped to Luke’s face. “So I was right to run?”

  Luke shook his head. “There’s no right in this, Cole. Right stopped being a possibility when you took that Jeep out on the road after your mother had taken away the privilege.”

  “Is it totaled?” He sounded completely miserable.

  “Can’t see how it wouldn’t be. It was twisted like a pretzel.”

  “I promised Calvin I would take care of it,” Cole whispered.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  He huffed. “What’s the point. I wrecked it.”

  “Not the Jeep. About Calvin.”

  For a long while, Cole was silent. He bowed his head, his hair falling over his brow.

  Then Luke heard him crying softly. He didn’t move to comfort him. This boy didn’t need more reassurances, more platitudes. He needed to talk about what was really going on inside.

  The twilight moved to darkness; Luke thought that suited things just fine. It was so much easier to make your confessions to the darkness.

  After a long exhalation, Cole said, “Everybody thinks I should be over it.” He paused. “At first it was different. Everyone felt really bad, they understood why I felt so awful. Then they just seemed to forget him—even Mom and Ana. It’s like he just disappeared from our family and everybody went back to what they were doing. Now everybody thinks there’s something wrong with me because I’m not treating Calvin like he went out with last week’s garbage. They think I should be over it.” He turned and looked at Luke. “How do you get over something like that?”

  Luke drew a deep breath. He rubbed his hands together. “You don’t.” He knew the truth of that firsthand. “Somehow you have to learn to live with the way things are, though.”

  “Why can’t I do that? I’m just so wound up inside all the time. It’s like there’s something ready to explode just under my skin. Now Darcy’s making everything worse.”

  “Do you think the two are unrelated?”

  His gaze snapped to Luke’s face, as if he’d never considered such a connection. “You think Darcy dumped me because of Calvin? That doesn’t make any sense. She was great. She even stayed here for a couple of days at first, taking phone calls and helping with all of the food everybody brought.”

  “And then?”

  Cole lifted a shoulder. “Things were okay for a few weeks.” Anger inched its way into his voice when he added, “Then she started saying I’d changed.” He pounded his knee again. “Fuckin’ right I changed. My brother came home in so many pieces that we couldn’t even open the casket!”

  Luke felt those words as if they’d been delivered on the tip of a sword. They were true, too true. “There’s no way something like that won’t change you. You just have to make sure it doesn’t destroy you. From what I’ve seen, you seem bent on wrecking yourself.”

  “You’re saying I ran Darcy off because I want to be alone?” That anger pushed at its boundaries.

  “Maybe Darcy isn’t ready for the kind of relationship that gets difficult.”

  “She said she loved me.” There was a bitter edge to his words.

  “There’s a huge difference between love talk and love. Saying you love someone is easy. It’s what a person does that speaks the truth.”

  “She didn’t love me. If she had, she wouldn’t have left me just because I’m still messed up over Calvin.”

  “I’m not saying that. I don’t think it’s that simple. Darcy probably loved you when things were fine and easy. It takes a very special kind of love to stick around, to do things you don’t really want to do when things get hard. She’s very young; that kind of love takes a lot of maturity.” He shifted his weight and straightened out his knee. “But I think you’re missing what I meant. I think this goes beyond your relationship with Darcy. You’re doing some very damaging things to yourself—by choice.”

  Cole put his elbows on his knees and ran his hands into his hair. “I can’t seem to make sense out of anything. Nothing matters anymore.”

  “Your mother?”

  He fisted his hands in his hair and pulled. “She doesn’t understand.”

  “Well, how about Ana? From what I’ve seen, she matters to you.”

  He blew a long breath between his lips. “That feels upside down, too. I mean, Calvin’s gone. What’s to keep her here with us?”

  Luke measured his words carefully. From what he’d seen, Analise was as dedicated to this family as if she’d been born to it. And yet, Cole was right, she was a young widow. Her life might take a different road in the future. “I guess there aren’t ever any guarantees that the people you want beside you will remain close. If circumstances change for either of you—keep in mind, you might be the one leaving—and your relationship with Analise has to change, that doesn’t mean it will end. It’ll be up to you to make it work.”

  Cole sighed. “I’ll just screw it up like I did with Darcy.”

  “Oh, Cole. Ana and Darcy are on two different planets. Nothing you can do will make her not love you.”

  “You can’t be sure of that.”

  “Go to bed. Think about what’s important to you and what you’re going to do to protect those things. We’ll talk later.”

  Cole got up, but didn’t move toward the house. “I want to go see Travis.”

  Luke looked up at the boy. “I don’t think they’re letting anyone other than his family in right now. Besides, Memphis is two hours away.”

  Cole put his hands on his hips, looking like he was thinking.

  Luke asked, “Were you two friends—before Darcy?”

  “No. I hated his guts.” At that, Cole went into the house and closed the door behind him.

  Well, Luke thought, that put a different complexion on this whole emotional trauma. No doubt, at one time or another, Cole had wished ill upon Travis. Now the two of them had been in the same accident, and Cole as much as walked away, while Travis had been seriously injured.

  Luke sat for a while, just staring into the dark woods. Had anything he’d said to Cole tonight made a dent? It says something that he chose to talk to me. Maybe something good would come of his being here after all. Maybe the good he could do for Cole would outweigh the unease he’d caused Analise. Maybe.

  Chapter 12

  It seemed the longer Luke remained at Magnolia Mile, the more complex h
is entanglements became. All he’d intended to do was offer condolences, express his sorrow over a mother’s loss. But Calvin’s family was much more complicated than he’d anticipated. In his conversations with Cole, Luke had challenged the boy to take an honest look at himself. In doing so, Luke had been forced to do the same.

  He was falling in love with Ana. Everything about her intrigued him. Ana—Calvin’s widow. As much as he’d tried to deny it to himself, it was an unalterable fact.

  Obligation said he should stay, help fill the void he’d caused. But the longer he stayed, the harder it was to conceal his feelings. He had to leave soon, or Olivia, perceptive woman that she was, would surely see.

  The only way Luke found any peace was by pushing his body so hard throughout the day that his mind didn’t run him in circles all night long. He’d even begun to sleep without the intrusion of nightmares.

  He and Ana were four days into the three-week job at Holly Ridge Park, and already they were two days behind schedule. Late Thursday afternoon, as Analise moved a load of topsoil with a rented Bobcat and Luke shoveled gravel into a trench for a drain, Cole came walking into the park. Luke looked up and wiped the sweat out of his eyes with the sleeve of his T-shirt.

  Much to Luke’s surprise, Cole had faced his classmates without seeking excuses, going to school on Tuesday despite his bruised face and the uncertainty of Travis’s condition. Still, he’d been understandably quiet and pensive all week. A situation which Deputy Dave didn’t seem to be helping; he continually stopped by or called with assurances that there “probably” wouldn’t be any charges filed. If that was the case, why didn’t the guy stop bringing it up and upsetting Olivia and Cole?

  As Cole approached, he raised two cans of Coke. “Thought you two could use some refreshment and another pair of hands. I can’t go back to soccer practice until the doctor signs a release.”

  “Thanks.” Luke took one of the drinks and looked over his shoulder at Analise. As he raised a hand to get her attention, Cole stopped him.

  “Don’t call her yet.”