Stardust Valley (Firefly Hollow Book 9)

by T. L. Haddix

  Harold and Renny had known something was wrong that night, but Sophie wasn’t willing to talk. She discovered something about herself that evening—she could be every bit as stubborn and strong-willed as Erica if she had a good enough incentive.

  By Sunday afternoon, she was numb from having fought the pain all weekend. She’d waited and waited for Noah to call, thinking surely to God there’d been some mistake, that he hadn’t meant what he’d said, but the phone never rang. At least not for Sophie.

  Erica spent a good portion of Sunday afternoon on the phone, chatting in a low voice to someone. She hid in the pantry each time Sophie came into the kitchen, first for something to eat, then for a drink. She was returning her dishes when Erica finally ended the call.

  “I tried to tell you he really wanted me, that he was only going out with you to hurt me. Stop moping around the house already, would you?”

  Sophie stopped in the doorway and stared at Erica for so long, so coldly, that her unflappable cousin shifted uncomfortably.

  Then she simply walked off. There was nothing to say. Nothing.

  Life went on. Noah never came back to school. He transferred to the other high school in the county, moved in with his grandparents until the end of the school year, and once he’d graduated, he hightailed it to Europe. Sophie didn’t see him again after that, not for several years.

  He never tried to contact her. Never tried to explain, never apologized for using her. And she had no doubt he had used her. If he hadn’t, he’d have been on his knees, begging her to let him explain. Noah, or at least the guy she’d thought he’d been, never lied. Not even when it would have benefited him. As she came from a family who was quietly devious in a multitude of ways, that straightforwardness had been one of his most appealing features.

  So she was left with no other choice but to believe that he’d played her, used her, just as Erica said.

  Erica and Eli continued dating, and they ended up getting married two days after their own high school graduation. That was exactly one day after Eli joined the Army, and two days before Zanny, Eli and Noah’s mother, announced to the family that she was battling breast cancer.

  Even though Sophie and Noah had gone their separate ways, she and Eli had somehow remained friends. Zanny’s news, coming on the heels of his nuptials and the fractious two years he’d spent at home after Noah had left, had devastated Eli.

  His turmoil had ripped at Sophie. She’d always been welcome in the Campbell home, even considering everything that had happened between the boys—which, it turned out, had been mostly Erica’s fault—and Eli came to Sophie to talk. That hadn’t endeared her to Erica on the one hand, but on the other….

  “At least he’s not nagging me about it. I don’t like the cow. She and John have always looked down their noses at me.”

  Sophie’d been stunned by her cold, callous attitude. “Erica, she could die.”

  “So? Think he’d inherit anything if she did?”

  Sophie knew then that whatever Erica’s reasons for marrying Eli had been, they weren’t anything approaching love.

  Sophie had made plans to leave town upon graduation, not having had a real reason to stick around any longer. She thought about staying in Hazard to help with Zanny, but when Eli called from Lexington, the large city two hours away where the family was staying while Zanny underwent a double mastectomy, he told her Noah had returned.

  “He didn’t know she was sick, just felt like he had to come home.” Eli’s voice was quiet, subdued, and none of the anger that had been there in the past when he’d talked about Noah was present. “So I don’t have to feel so guilty about shipping out for Basic now, I guess. He’ll be here to save the day like he always has been.”

  “Yeah, well, you need to grow a pair and be thankful for that,” she told him. “Quit thinking of yourself. Think about your mother.”

  He was quiet for a long minute, then he sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. Look, Erica’s yammering at me. I have to go, but I wanted you to know he’s here.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate the heads-up.”

  Knowing Noah was back stamped out any desire she’d had to stay in town. So she hit the road.

  Over the next few years, she crisscrossed the country, going here, staying there. She fast-tracked through an associate’s degree mostly to get it over and done with. And after navigating some rough relationship waters with Erica, somehow, someway, Sophie settled in Fayetteville, North Carolina, close to where her cousin lived in a small apartment with Eli, who was gone most of the time on deployments. Things went well for a while, and Sophie was even able to start building a life separate from her past.

  Then one fateful night four years ago, when Sophie was twenty-five—again, thanks to Erica—the world turned upside down a second time. Well, a third time. Maybe a fourth. By that point, Sophie’d stopped counting. Regardless, the life she’d been building crumbled like fragile stone, leaving her cut wide open and alone again.

  Now, as she moved back to Hazard, to a town and a life she’d never thought she’d return to on a semi-permanent basis, she couldn’t help but think about how much her life had come full circle.

  Erica was gone, killed in the wreck that had changed Sophie’s life. Eli was out of the Army thanks to an accident that had left him a lower-limb amputee, and he was living in Hazard. Moreover, he was residing and working with Noah, with whom he’d finally mended fences. And Eli was having the time of his life, falling head over heels with a sweet girl Sophie really liked, one she thought was truly good for him.

  “Then here I come, mixing things up again.”

  She’d be working for Owen Campbell, Noah and Eli’s grandfather, helping him put together at least one book on local genealogy. The job would include a lot of days spent at Owen and Sarah’s farm, working side-by-side with Owen as they went through, catalogued, and formatted more than fifty years of genealogy notes into volumes for publication.

  She didn’t know where she fit in, or even if she fit into their lives, other than peripherally, though she considered Eli her best friend in the world. Truthfully, she didn’t know if she wanted to fit in. There was a lot of emotional risk involved in letting herself be a part of a family again.

  As far as her feelings for Noah… well, those were all best left in the past, dead and buried. Her heart was far safer that way, and if there was one thing Sophie had learned over the last few years, it was that staying emotionally safe was the key to her survival.

  Chapter Four

  Thanks to a busy schedule at the small, custom woodworking shop he owned, Noah hadn’t had a chance to do the usual late-fall garden cleanup at his grandparents’ house. Things finally slowed down enough for him to catch his breath on the Tuesday afternoon before Thanksgiving. Since Eli, who’d recently joined him as a partner of sorts, had an appointment in Lexington for the fitting for his permanent prosthesis, Noah took the opportunity to get Owen and Sarah’s garden cleaned up.

  “I appreciate you doing this, sweetie,” his grandmother said as she sat on a blanket in a sunny spot on the flat, stone top of the short wall of the kitchen garden, which lay between the main farmhouse and his grandfather’s studio. “I’ll miss being able to walk out here this winter and see all the baby veggies growing.”

  “Hopefully we won’t have a long winter,” he said as he raked the dead vines of the bean plants into the wheelbarrow. He enjoyed seeing the new growth as much as she did. “And you know I’ll take any chance I can get to put my hands in the dirt.”

  “You remind me so much of your uncle Ben in that regard. It’s going to be nice to see everyone Thursday.”

  “Will Lee be here?”

  She nodded, a tiny frown marring her brow. “The last couple of days have been so hard on him and Rachel.”

  Lee Harrison was Noah’s aunt’s fiancé, and th
ey’d had a very difficult time in recent weeks. Thankfully, that trouble seemed to be past, but the bruises and scrapes were still healing—quite literally in Rachel’s case. She’d fallen the night before and severely sprained her ankle.

  “You said there were some things you wanted to talk to me about regarding Lee.” He paused to take a drink.

  She picked up a small twig and rolled it between her fingers. “He has an ability he’s been struggling with for years, and his family is less than accepting of it, of him because of it. He isn’t a medium like you are, but he can see scenes where traumatic death has taken place. I gather it almost plays out like a very realistic movie in his head.”

  From the time Noah was a very small boy, four or five, he’d been able to see, hear, and communicate with the dead. The ability came from his mother’s side of the family, an ability that stood out even in a family with a smattering of shape-shifters and other paranormally talented members.

  “Just how unaccepting are they?” he asked, sitting beside her.

  Her lips tightened. “Their heads are so far up their… well, never mind about that.”

  Noah grinned. Hearing his grandmother speak so frankly always stunned him and made him appreciate how feisty Sarah Campbell was.

  “But that bigotry, for lack of a better word, is the main reason he and Rachel were apart for a while,” she continued.

  When she explained the confrontation Lee and Rachel had endured just that morning with Lee’s parents, an argument she and his grandfather had witnessed firsthand, his humor faded. It sounded like a terrible experience, one that would leave emotional bruises. He knew how devastating those could be.

  “What can I do to help?”

  She clasped his hand and smiled. “That’s my sweet boy.”

  He shrugged sheepishly. “I like Lee. He’s a nice guy.”

  “He is. And he loves Rachel. I don’t have a doubt in my mind about that. As to how you can help, maybe lend him your ear if he asks.” She glanced past him at the studio, where Owen and Sophie were working. “I think that young lady in there with your grandfather is another hurt soul. She hasn’t said anything specific to us, but having known her for a number of years now, I can tell something’s changed. She’s not as open as she once was. I hope we can help with that.”

  Noah sighed and turned his gaze to the smaller, wood-siding-clad structure. “I don’t like that she’s here, Grandma. I don’t trust her.”

  “I know, sweetie. But we do. If your grandfather didn’t think she was trustworthy, do you think she’d set foot on this farm?”

  “No.” Why Owen believed in Sophie was something that didn’t make any sense to him, and Noah told Sarah as much. “She’s not vile and vindictive like Erica, okay? I know that. But she’s… dangerous in her own right.”

  Sarah didn’t say anything for a long moment, just studied him. “I’ll be blunt with you, Noah James, because I know you appreciate that sort of plain speaking. The only threat Sophie presents here is to you and the sanctuary you’ve built around your heart. You don’t see her the way the rest of us do because you were hurt so very badly when you were seventeen. And I’m not discounting that the girl hurt you. Sweetheart, I remember those days well, and I wouldn’t put you through that again for all the world. It broke my heart, and your grandfather’s, to see you go through that.

  “But the way you see Sophie… it’s a tainted vision, Noah. It’s your reality, but maybe you need to come to terms with the fact that it isn’t the actual reality of who she is or even who she was. Stop thinking with your heart,” she said, tapping his chest, “and start thinking with your mind. You’re running the risk of tunnel vision.”

  For all the bluntness of her words, her tone was soft. She stood and placed a kiss on the crown of his head. “Consider what I’ve said, dear. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go inside before the weather seeps into my old bones and turns me into a statue. I’ll sit out here all winter like a gargoyle if I don’t move.”

  Despite the disturbance her words caused to stir inside him, he couldn’t help but chuckle. “Grandma, are you trying to politely tell me to pull me head out of my butt?”

  She winked at him. “That’s one interpretation.”

  “Let me know if you need anything,” he said as she headed for the house.

  Sarah waved to let him know she’d heard.

  After she’d gone, he got up and worked on the opposite side of the garden. As he raked and gathered dead plants for the compost pile, her words echoed through his mind, as did memories of the past.

  Noah didn’t like thinking about that period of his life. He’d been so uncertain, so unsure of himself, vulnerable and just starting to figure out how the world worked and what his place in it was. He’d done his best not to let that uncertainty show, but despite his best efforts, he’d ended up getting ripped apart and left bleeding.

  But he couldn’t continue to deny what he was seeing with his own two eyes. Eli, who’d been rash and reckless as a teen, had matured into a responsible, trustworthy adult. And as a responsible adult, he was close friends with Sophie, something Noah’d seen a few weeks back when Eli and his girlfriend, Haley, had hit a rough patch.

  Noah hadn’t been surprised when Sophie rushed to Eli’s side, but that she’d gently scolded Eli and encouraged him to reconcile with Haley had taken Noah somewhat aback. If anything, he’d expected her to do her best to widen the rift between Eli and Haley.

  As much as he hated admitting it, Sophie had genuinely helped push his brother back toward Haley. Or maybe shoved would be a better term. And she’d done the same with Haley, shoving her toward Eli with common sense and plain talking.

  Those interactions had boggled Noah’s mind.

  Then there were his parents, his grandparents, his sister Molly… and pretty much the rest of his large, meddling, loving family. Noah had a tremendous amount of respect for his elders, and he’d always thought his baby sister had a great deal of common sense about people. They all respected Sophie.

  “Maybe Grandma’s right,” he muttered. The idea of admitting he was wrong about Sophie felt foreign and made him uncomfortable. “Maybe I need to take a step back and reevaluate. Maybe.”

  So as he finished prepping the raised beds for the winter, he thought about what Sarah had said, what he’d seen in recent weeks and months. As reluctant as he was to admit—even to himself—that Sarah had a point, he couldn’t come to any other conclusion except that she did.

  Chapter Five

  Owen stood at the wide window on the first floor of his studio, hands shoved in his pockets, and watched his oldest grandchild frown his way across the garden. Back and forth Noah steadily went, moving loads of dead plants onto the compost pile. He was obviously working something out in his head given that frown, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the “something” probably had a lot to do with the young woman who’d just sighed softly behind Owen.

  No, it didn’t take a rocket scientist, but instead a grandfather who saw more and more of himself in a certain young man with every passing day. And not necessarily the good parts of himself.

  Turning, he looked at Sophie, who had her head down as she read through some of his notes. She was a beautiful girl, Owen had to admit. Stunningly pretty, really, and not only on the outside. She was one of the sweetest young women Owen had met in a long time—well, who wasn’t related to him at any rate. His and Sarah’s five children had produced some truly wonderful offspring.

  He’d known Sophie since she was a teenager, first as Noah’s girlfriend who’d come to Sunday dinners at the farm, shyly interacting with Owen and Sarah’s noisy brood, then as a true friend to Eli after everything went to hell between the boys. Much like Noah had, Owen had been tempted to paint her with the same brush as her cousin. But he’d seen the truth fairly quickly, unlike
his grandsons.

  Sophie was nothing like Erica.

  However, Owen had largely been the one who’d picked up the pieces when Noah fell apart after his fight with Eli thirteen years earlier. And though Owen was fairly certain Sophie and Noah each still had feelings for the other, he worried that those feelings might tear them further apart. It could go either way, and he was almost afraid to find out.

  Hiring her as his assistant in compiling the information for the books had been a risk, one he’d discussed extensively with Sarah.

  “What if it backfires?” he’d asked one night a few weeks ago, after his first meeting with Sophie to talk about the job. “What if she comes here and they hurt each other again? It wouldn’t be fair to her or to him, and he might feel like we’ve betrayed him by bringing her here.”

  Sarah, who’d been snuggled under his arm as they curled up under the bedcovers, smoothed her hand over his chest, a motion that, after more than fifty years of marriage, felt as familiar to him as his own heartbeat.

  “I don’t think it will,” she said. “I’m relying on the boy’s innate curiosity and common sense, not to mention a healthy dose of thwarted hormones, to help bridge the gap. His eyes follow her everywhere when he doesn’t think anyone’s looking. He still wants her.”

  Owen wasn’t convinced. “I can still see him out there in the barn, covered in cuts and bruises, coming apart at the seams from the pain. I don’t think I can handle seeing that again.”

  The day Noah and Eli fought, John had brought Noah to the farm. Noah’d flat-out refused to stay in the same house as Eli, and after the truth came out about what Eli had done, Owen hadn’t blamed Noah one bit. No one had.

  “He told her what I could do, and she told everyone.”