“Have you managed to gather it all?” she asked.
“I have, actually.” She could hear a rustle of papers. “I’m heading out in a few minutes. I promised I’d help my mom with the Wi-Fi. Why don’t I drop it all by your place when I’m done there?”
“Is that a good idea?” she asked.
“I could have Cheryl scan it and email it over. She’s working on a big project for a case, though, so it might take her a couple of hours to get to it.” There was a pause. “Look, Sadie, we’re going to have to work together, and I can promise you that I won’t be crossing those lines again. If you’d prefer to work with someone else—the mayor maybe—”
“No, no,” she interrupted. “We’re both adults. I’m sure we can find a balance.”
“Thanks.” He sounded grateful. “That wouldn’t look great on a report, I have to say.”
Sadie smiled. True—he had a professional reputation to worry about, and kissing the event planner was frowned upon. “That would be nice if you could drop everything by. I’m on a tight deadline, so—”
“Point taken,” he said, a smile in his voice. “I should be there about six. Will that cut into your dinner?”
“No, I’ll have eaten by then. Nana’s going out tonight, so it’s an early supper.”
“Okay. I’ll see you then.”
“See you.” Sadie hung up her phone and looked down at it for a moment, wondering why she felt slightly ruffled after that conversation. The truth was, she was embarrassed by that kiss. She hadn’t just been kissed—she’d kissed him back. Whatever feelings Chance inspired inside of her, she was responsible for her actions, and that embrace hadn’t been right. She needed to keep her attention on her job and focus on the things she could control. Work made sense, and these jumbled feelings for Chance did not.
Chapter Nine
Chance’s parents, Bonnie and Patrick Morgan, lived on the far south side of Comfort Creek in a little brown house at the end of a street. Their backyard opened onto an empty field that their dog ran through most of the day. Twenty-eight years ago, it was ten-year-old Chance and Noah wandering that field together, poking at stuff with sticks and talking about what they’d do when they were grown-up. They’d had a yellow Labrador retriever back then—Nancy. Chance had loved that dog...
Those walks had stopped when they got to be teenagers, when Nancy was an elderly dog and the boys had outgrown their romps. There was always a part of Chance’s heart that saw the image of two young boys tramping across a snow-encrusted field when he looked out at it this time of year. Childhood was fleeting, but those boyhood memories had turned into a foundation for his and Noah’s relationship. They were opposites in so many ways, but they’d always been brothers who could open their hearts and talk it out while they poked at things with a stick in the middle of a field.
Chance parked in the driveway of his childhood home and hopped out. The outside of the house hadn’t changed too much over the years. There had been some fresh coats of brown paint—always brown—and a tree had been toppled by a storm in the front yard, but other than that, it was the same. The driveway was clear. His father had used the snowblower that morning, it seemed. Patrick Morgan was a handy kind of guy. If you gave him duct tape and a hammer, he was likely to fix whatever was broken, except the Wi-Fi—that still fell to Chance.
“Chance!” His mother opened the side screen door with a clatter. A black mutt dashed out behind her and met Chance with some chaotic licking and a wriggling rear end.
Bonnie Morgan was a petite, round woman with chin-length brown hair with only a hint of gray tucked behind her ears. She waited until Chance was finished with the dog before she added, “You’re here.”
“Miss me?” he asked with a smile.
“Always, sweetheart. Now please fix my internet.” She wore a flower-print apron over her jeans and sweater, almost like an afterthought. She’d done that when he was growing up, too.
Chance followed her inside, the dog coming up behind. He kicked off his snowy boots and stepped into some slippers waiting for him. He gave the dog an extra pet while he was bent down there, anyway.
“You hungry?” his mother asked.
Chance headed into the den where the router was located. There was a faded couch in there, and a woodstove. It always smelled a little bit like fire, and he liked that. He bent down next to the familiar router and modem, and the dog flopped down on his bed next to the couch.
“I’ll be okay,” he said. “I’m dropping some papers by Sadie’s place after this, so I don’t want to take too long.”
“Ah.”
There was something in her voice, and he glanced over his shoulder. Her eyes had misted. That meant she was thinking about Noah, and that sparked more guilt. He’d wanted to bring those papers to Sadie himself because he wanted to prove that he could—that he’d had a weak moment, and that was it. He needed to prove it to himself, and to Sadie. If they were going to be coexisting in this town, then they needed to get that kiss behind them.
“Sadie and I have to work together on that remembrance ceremony, Mom,” he said. “I don’t have much choice.”
Obviously, there was more to it, but not the kind of information a guy gave his mother.
“I know, I know...” She sucked in a breath and shrugged.
“Speaking of which—” he was reminded of the mayor’s request “—they’re wanting us to share some personal stuff about Noah. Childhood pictures, that kind of thing.”
“Actually, that sounds really nice.” His mother’s expression grew sadder. “As long as you keep the spotlight off of your father and me. We don’t want to do any speeches or anything like that. I don’t think I could handle everyone staring at us—not at a time like that. So if you can do that much for me, I’ll leave the rest up to you, son.”
They shared that aversion to the spotlight during their grief. His parents had taken their son’s death very hard. Susan Scott wasn’t the only one who’d been crushed. They were both silent for a couple of beats.
“How is Sadie doing?” his mother asked.
An image rose in his mind of Sadie with that blanket wrapped around her shoulders, snowflakes caught in her chocolate-brown curls, and he quickly pushed it back.
“Fine,” he said, more abruptly than he meant to. He unplugged the modem and the router, then sat back on his heels.
“Has she mentioned your brother at all?” she asked.
“She’s talked about him a lot, actually.”
“And?” Her expression was cautious, and he knew what she wanted to know. It was the same thing they’d been trying to figure out for the last five years: why had she left like that?
“She didn’t love him enough,” Chance replied.
“I guess we knew that much.” Bonnie sank onto the side of the couch and watched Chance as he plugged the boxes back in. “Your brother was the only one who didn’t.”
“And me,” Chance retorted. “Gotta say, I expected a bride that day.”
Regardless of what happened the night before the wedding. She’d had five years of dating his brother, after all, and that should have counted for a whole lot more than his bumbling expression of his feelings.
“Well, hindsight is twenty-twenty, right?” his mother said quietly. “You know, we should have let him cancel.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That time Noah and Sadie had that big fight after the invitations went out. You talked him back into marrying her, remember?”
That wasn’t fair, though. Couples had fights, and that didn’t mean they stopped loving each other. Noah had been frustrated with all the wedding drama going on. There was something about Sadie wanting a smaller wedding, after all...
“You took him out for a coffee—”
“A steak, actually,” Chance corrected her.
“—and y
ou told him he’d be crazy to lose Sadie Jenkins.”
That part was accurate. Noah had looked dismal sitting across that restaurant table. Everything about him had been deflated. Noah said that Sadie kept pulling back. She’d already suggested a couple of times that they just elope, but while she didn’t have too much family in Comfort Creek, Noah did, and he couldn’t just pare down the guest list without seriously offending a lot of people he cared about. Besides, Noah didn’t want a wedding on a beach, he wanted a wedding in their local church, and contrary to popular opinion, a wedding wasn’t only about the bride.
But Chance could also see that Sadie was the best thing that had ever happened to his brother. She brought energy and life into his brother’s orderly existence. Noah’s success in business could be attributed to his nitpicky attention to detail, but Sadie had shaken up Noah’s world in a good way.
Chance had forgotten about that episode, though, and now that he was reminded of it, a surge of guilt rose up inside of him. He’d convinced Noah to go ahead with a doomed wedding, and he’d flustered Sadie the evening before the big event. If he’d just kept his distance, everything might have gone forward without a hitch. He was a worse brother than he’d thought.
“I think we put Sadie in a tough position,” Bonnie said. “I don’t think we gave her a way out. We were all so enthusiastic about that wedding. Maybe we were...too much.”
The only thing that had been too much was one mistake on her porch. He wasn’t going to take responsibility for the rest.
“Yeah, forgive us for being supportive.” Chance nodded toward his mother’s laptop. “Pass me your computer, Mom.”
She handed it over, and Chance clicked through the start-up menu.
“We didn’t give Noah much of a way out, either,” Bonnie continued. “We all assumed that they wanted to get married, and we were excited about that. I mean, Sadie was delightful. We all loved her. Maybe a few more naysayers in our midst would have been good for those two. They could have had their convenient exit and then blamed us for the rest of their lives for having meddled.”
And Noah might still be alive. He knew what his mother was thinking. She’d rather have him blame her for a failed wedding than have him dead.
Should Chance have seen this coming? Should he have read between the lines and helped his brother call the whole thing off? Chance wasn’t going to encourage his brother to lose the best woman Larimer County had to offer because of his own jealousy. But looking back on it now, maybe if Noah had been able to end their relationship on his own terms, he wouldn’t have felt chased out of town by the humiliation. And maybe if Chance hadn’t been blinded by his own attraction to his brother’s fiancée, he would have seen that.
“I honestly thought I was doing the right thing by telling him to go through with it,” Chance said.
“We all did.” Bonnie shook her head. “Don’t blame yourself, son. Most of the time families feel regret that they weren’t more supportive. They see a couple who they think are doomed for marital failure and refuse to give their full support. And then the couple stays together and never forgets. You never think your mistake will be being too supportive, do you?”
But Chance had regrets of his own that his mother had no idea about. Like falling for his brother’s fiancée. The Wi-Fi signal on his mother’s computer popped up, showing that she was connected, and he passed the laptop back.
“Done,” he said.
“Thank you, Chance.” Bonnie put a hand over her heart. “You’re a good son.”
She’d always said that to her boys, and Chance still liked to hear it. He was a good son who took care of his mom’s Wi-Fi. He’d just failed in being a brother. He glanced at his watch. He still had time.
“Maybe I’ll grab a sandwich before I go,” he said.
“Alright.” His mother rose to her feet and the dog did, too, out of canine solidarity with his mistress. “I have some Crock-Pot mac and cheese, too, if you’re interested...”
Being too nice wasn’t what made Sadie walk away. That run from the altar was on Sadie...and possibly on him. But there was no way he could blame his mom.
* * *
Sadie heard the knock on the door from where she sat at her laptop in the kitchen. Her heart sped up a little, and she attempted to calm her nerves. They’d talked about that kiss, and they were moving forward professionally. Which was important, because she wasn’t finished with Chance yet, either. She still needed to get his okay on the information she’d use for his brother. And, if she had to be brutally honest, she’d missed him.
As she pulled open the front door, Chance looked every bit the reserved cop. His shell was back in place, it seemed. A frigid wind whisked past him, curling around her legs, and Sadie shivered.
“Come in, quick!” she said, and when he did, she slammed the door shut behind him. She pulled her sweater a little closer.
“Hi.” He had a manila envelope under his arm, and he handed it over. “As requested.”
“Thanks.” The envelope felt heavy. “I appreciate this. I need to get the write-ups done tomorrow so that I can get the booklets delivered to the printer.”
Professional. She was rather proud of herself right now.
“Great. Glad to help.” Maybe it was the uniform that did that—gave him some extra steel. “I should probably—”
“I needed to go over what you’re okay with me sharing about Noah,” she interrupted. “If that’s okay.”
“Right.” He cleared his throat. “Sure. I could do that.”
Sadie caught him looking at her, and when she met his gaze, his cheeks colored slightly and he looked down. This was hard for him, too, she realized. If they could just get past it... But first things first. She needed his approval for something—some small piece of information he could give his blessing for. As Chance had said, they still needed to be able to work together, and neither of them wanted to tell the mayor that they couldn’t keep it professional.
Chance hung his coat on a peg and stepped out of his winter boots. He followed her through the living room, into the kitchen, and she could sense the bulky comfort of his presence behind her.
Sadie dropped the envelope on the table. “Are you hungry? There’s some leftover blueberry pie.”
“Your grandmother’s pie is hard to turn down,” he said with a grudging smile. “Sure.”
Sadie dished him up a slice. When she turned around, she caught Chance’s gaze on her again. His blue eyes met hers for a moment, and then he accepted the plate.
“Are we okay?” Sadie asked cautiously.
“As far as I’m concerned,” he said with a nod, but there was a flicker of something softer in his eyes. Was that friendship? She felt a wave of relief so strong that she had to blink back a mist of tears.
“Because I don’t want to change things between us,” she added. “I miss us getting along. Buddies might be too much to hope for, but I liked where we were at before.”
“Yeah, me, too,” he agreed. “We’re okay, Sadie. I promise.”
She pulled open a drawer for a couple of forks.
“So I just came back from my parents’ place,” Chance added.
Sadie had really liked Bonnie Morgan. She’d have been the ideal mother-in-law. She loved her boys dearly, but she had a very balanced view of them, and she wasn’t one to push into their relationships. She’d been funny, too, and chock-full of marriage advice gleaned from a very happy, forty-year marriage.
“So how do they feel about this ceremony?” she asked.
“My mom was the one I talked to, and she’s okay with it.” Chance took a bite of pie and swallowed before he spoke again. “She just doesn’t want the spotlight on them. They don’t want to do any speeches or anything like that.”
Did that change things for Chance? she wondered. She watched him as he took another bite, his expression grim. Sa
die put her plate down on the table and opened the envelope. She sorted through the contents—some pictures of each man, a write-up of their personal histories and their service in the military. There seemed to be some anecdotal stories included in different handwriting. When she got to Noah’s information, it was sketchy—his military information and one picture of Noah in uniform that Chance must have provided.
Her heart stopped for a beat as she looked down at the familiar face. Noah had been a handsome man—and that photo brought back his memory in a rush so hard that it brought tears to her eyes. She might not have been the right woman to marry him, but she had loved him.
“When I left your brother, I honestly thought that I’d have to face his life without me,” she admitted. “He’d meet someone new—or someone who’d been waiting in the wings. Then I’d come home to visit, and I’d see Noah with his wife and his kids. Maybe in the grocery store, or in a park. I’d drive past the house I was supposed to share with him, and I’d have to find a way to deal with everything I gave up.”
“And you were okay with it?” Chance asked.
“I dreaded it.” She smiled sadly. “But given the alternative, I wish I could be in that uncomfortable situation instead.”
“You and me, both,” Chance agreed.
They were silent for a couple of beats, and then Sadie pushed back her melancholy. They had work to do, and she had deadlines.
“Okay, well, we need a few memories of Noah that we can share during the ceremony. We’re going to have some personal stories that show the kind of men they were. You said your mom wants to keep out of the spotlight, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll make sure anything that’s read from the front doesn’t come from family. That will keep your parents out of the middle without being obvious.”
“Thanks for that.”
“But I’d need to have something I can share about Noah.” She leaned forward. “Something you’d sign off on, so to speak.”
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