by Isla Bennet
“This debate’s been done to death, son. You act like the choice is solely mine. It’s not.” Nathaniel studied him for a moment. “I’ll take it with a grain of salt that you want no long-term involvement with Memorial.”
“Why do you look so pleased?”
“It’s a fine hospital. I put my wife in its hands, didn’t I? But you’re meant for better horizons. Think about your career. No question Johns Hopkins gave you a reasonable salary, but it can’t compare to what you’d find in Los Angeles.”
“I don’t want Los Angeles.”
“Then what do you want? What’s so much better than wealth and status? That right there is what opens doors! I’ve always known it. Anthony knew it.”
“I want to control my own career, my own life. I was lucky to go on that first mission in Sri Lanka, because I got the chance to help people who don’t have the resources we do in the States. After that I found out that it doesn’t even matter where you live or who you are when a hurricane or an earthquake hits.”
“Isn’t donating enough—”
“Not even close. Throwing money at a problem’s not always a cure-all. What good is money if there’s no one to treat an infection or perform surgery or even do something as simple as put up mosquito netting?” Peyton got up and braced his hands on the desk. “I have the know-how and the drive to help out people who can’t shove money at all their problems, and I’m asking you not to get in my way.”
Nathaniel only frowned.
“How can you not understand that, Grandpa? How could you have loved and married Grandma and not known who she was?”
“I’m a charitable man—the foundation in little Anna’s name is proof of that. But Estella was hell-bent on putting all her effort into her causes,” his grandfather said, and the words sounded bittersweet. “Your Valerie was one of those causes.”
“Valerie was a kid in a bad situation who needed help, and Grandma was there for her,” Peyton corrected. “My grandmother—your wife—had a purpose. So do I. Part of my purpose now is making things right with the people I care about. And that includes Valerie.”
“Patching up a few people in third-world countries won’t bring Estella back.”
“Forcing me to be the man my father was won’t bring him back.”
Nathaniel shook his head, considering. “Answer me this time, Peyton. What are you trying to do?”
“Be with my family.” He recalled Dinah’s note on the invitation. “Isn’t that what holidays are for?”
“You never cared about holidays before.”
I’m starting to. “Am I invited, or not?”
Nathaniel stood with his cane at the ready, removed a fistful of coins from his pocket and dropped them into the nearly full ashtray on the nearby table. “You’re invited.”
“Thank you. So what’s with the coins?”
“Doc says I shouldn’t be smoking anymore, not after the stroke. Every time I want a cigar, I toss some coins in the tray.”
“Decent plan.”
“If you say so.” Nathaniel shrugged and clapped Peyton’s shoulder; his signet ring caught the light as he motioned for Peyton to follow him out of the study. “Got a shift at Memorial today?”
“No.”
“Good. Let’s get you measured for a tux.”
Peyton nodded, unable to stop himself from comparing his wrinkled shirt and jeans to Nathaniel’s impeccable three-piece ensemble. “Turner brand?”
“Of course. Nothing but the best for my grandson.”
“NOBODY REALLY LIKES cold turkey.”
With a bottle of merlot in tow, Peyton had arrived at the ranch to find it in comfortable chaos: Jack muscled a turkey from the oven while Cordelia fussed over cranberry sauce and Dinah complained that a fork was missing from her collection of antique silverware. Lucy was lamenting to Coop, who’d dressed up his worn plaid and dungarees with a necktie and suspenders, that her mother’s food would be ice-cold and ruined by the time she returned from the stables.
“I like cold turkey. Makes a good sandwich,” Peyton said to Lucy, who, apparently designated as hostess, had not only delivered the merlot to Dinah, but politely introduced Peyton to Otis and Imogene Culpepper from the neighboring ranch who’d contributed deviled eggs to the Thanksgiving feast. “Why is Valerie at the stables?”
Lucy explained that Valerie’s favorite filly, Daffodil, had an injured hoof and needed fresh bandages and a thorough body massage to reduce her distress.
An hour later, the turkey had been carved and the side dishes served, and everyone at the table had cleared their plates except for Jack, who’d taken a second helping of every dish, and Cordelia, who had bolted to the nearest bathroom with an upset stomach, leaving her meal barely touched.
Even though Valerie had ducked in while her plate was still warm, she’d eaten in a rush and was out the door again so quickly it was almost like she hadn’t been there at all—like having her beside him at the table smiling and laughing in between bites had been a daydream.
Dinah had taken special care with the seating arrangements, but Valerie’s absence during most of dinner had foiled her little plot.
Peyton waited until everyone had retreated to the family room to watch football before he put a generous slice of citrus-glazed pumpkin-carrot cake, along with two forks, onto a plate, grabbed a throw blanket and the half-full bottle of merlot and went out to the stables.
Under the golden lamplight, Valerie stood at the injured filly’s side, running her gloved hands firmly over the horse’s flanks, uttering soft words.
Noticing him, she looked up with a smile that couldn’t hide the weariness in her face. “What’s all this?” she asked, nodding at the plate and merlot.
“You hardly ate any dinner, so I brought you some dessert.”
“That’s so …”
“Unexpected?”
“Actually the opposite. I mean, it’s something I’d expect from the old you. Thoughtful everyday gestures, the little surprises … I could always count on you for that.” Valerie gave the filly one last pat, then stepped back and pulled off her gloves. “All done here. Where’s everyone now?”
“In front of the TV.”
“Football?”
“What else is there on Thanksgiving?”
Valerie snorted. “Parades, maybe? Holiday movies?”
Peyton spread the blanket, and they sat with the plate between them. After sipping the merlot straight from the bottle, she offered it to him and sampled the cake. She was distracted, going through the motions of eating and drinking as her brow furrowed in a contemplative frown. He didn’t interrupt her, just watched her and ate in silence. When their forks touched with a clink, they both looked down to find the plate empty aside from a few leftover crumbs.
“Were you going through a mental to-do list?” He stood and pulled her to her feet, then picked up the plate and bottle.
“Reminding myself to mention a deep muscle massage technique for horses to Vet—something I read about online.” She rolled up the blanket. “Suppose that was rude. Sorry. Sometimes my brain stays locked on work even when I don’t want it to.”
“Don’t apologize. I’ve been there before.” Oftentimes the people on the receiving end—acquaintances, dates and even a few colleagues—weren’t so understanding, and found him preoccupied, single-minded and, yes, rude. “How’s Daffodil?”
“Fresh bandages always help. The girl just needed a little attention.” Valerie shrugged. “I guess I did, too, today. So thanks for coming out here.”
With the blanket tucked under one arm, Valerie led the way to the house, but at the sound of heavy footsteps approaching, they both stopped. A man’s shadowy figure appeared, and when he stepped into the light Valerie tossed the blanket to Peyton and broke into a run. “Chase, where the hell have you been? Dinah contacted your unit, and everyone said you’d left.”
“I did leave.” Chase set his jaw, frowning into the dark night at something only he could see in his min
d. “How’s Mama?”
“Come in and find out.” Valerie grabbed his wrist. “Oh, Peyton, this is Cordelia’s brother, Chase. And Chase, this is Peyton Turner. My friend.”
Peyton’s gaze found hers. Was that true? Were they really friends again, or was classifying him as a friend to her cousin just simpler?
Chase, sober and clean-shaven now but still haggard, nodded at Peyton with a look that straddled resentment and gratitude.
Valerie’s eyes narrowed slightly but she kept her tone light. “Jeez, you haven’t visited since you deployed to Afghanistan. How long has it been now? Three years? Lucy was in elementary school when you left.”
Peyton followed a good distance behind. He saw Valerie playfully jump up and grab her cousin in a headlock before she raced ahead and taunted him to keep up.
He’d thought all the hard knocks that had sculpted her into such a serious woman had eclipsed the playful, jubilant part of her that he missed. But it still existed, apparently waiting for a reason to resurface.
He hadn’t been that reason, and even though it made no sense, he felt on fire with envy.
Peyton remained in the background as they entered the family room. The Culpeppers had gone, but the room was still loud with Dinah and Cordelia laughing as Coop argued with Jack about the fairness of a touchdown ruling on the field.
The commotion amplified when Cordelia spotted Chase and hauled him into a hug. “I’m mad at you,” she said, before releasing him to their mother.
“Chase.” Dinah studied her son, and it must’ve been second nature for her to smooth his hair and straighten his shirt collar. “You’ve got to answer to your mama. We’ll talk in private.”
Chase avoided the interrogation by shifting the focus of conversation to Cordelia, who said she would gladly beat him up for worrying them but had a baby on board. Then Dinah patted him on the arm and said, “Dee and I’ll fix you a plate. I’ll be looking forward to that talk.”
After Jack and Coop said their hellos and trudged off to the kitchen for commercial-break drink refills, Valerie ushered Lucy forward and said to her cousin, “Remember her?”
“Nope,” he said with a headshake, and Lucy was momentarily crestfallen until he continued, “I remember an ankle-biter. A kid with a missing bottom tooth and a blister on her right middle finger from drawing day in and day out.”
Lucy, suddenly a tad shy, held out her hand. “Blister’s still there, but I have all my teeth.”
“How’re you doing, ankle-biter?” Chase shook her proffered hand. “It’s time I figured out a new nickname for you, Lucy. You’re not so short anymore. Guess we’re all different now. Hey,” he said, reaching into his pocket for his tattered wallet. “Think you can hold on to this for a while? I’m good at losing stuff, and this is important.”
Peyton watched him pluck a foreign coin from the wallet and flip it in the air. Lucy caught it and held it up for her parents to see. Part of the face of the coin was destroyed, as if it’d been blown off.
“A buddy in Afghanistan gave it to me,” Chase explained. “He’d never been to America and said if I brought this coin home with me it’d be like a part of him is traveling with me. The thing is, he didn’t want me to lose it. And it’s a lucky thing I managed to keep it this long. So, Lucy, think you can hang on to it?”
Lucy nodded solemnly, having also noticed how Chase referred to his friend in past tense. “Promise.”
“Cool.”
Peyton would guess that giving Lucy the responsibility of safekeeping something he undoubtedly treasured had made her his friend for life. When Dinah called him into the kitchen to eat, the girl followed.
“He’s good with Luce,” Valerie told Peyton once they were alone. “The last time he was on the ranch, he found a caterpillar and helped her make a habitat for it. But he left for his next tour before the butterfly broke out of the cocoon, and she wanted to keep it until he came home so they could release it outside together. I convinced her to set it free.”
“G.I. Joe handling a caterpillar,” Peyton said, finding it difficult to link the man she described to the hostile Chase that he’d encountered in Bull’s-Eye.
“Not much different from you with newborn Bowie,” Valerie said. “Soldier or not, Chase’s just that way, you know. Perceptive. Easygoing. Funny. Sweet, even.”
More like anxious, tense and guarded, from what Peyton could gauge. But it wasn’t his place to say so, especially on the man’s first night back home with his family.
When Coop left and Lucy went to bed early to be rested for Black Friday bargain-hunting in the city with Felicity Moss, Peyton took that as his cue to get going, too. In the foyer, armed with a bag containing an entire homemade pumpkin pie and an extra helping of stuffing, he saw Valerie come forward.
“When did you meet Chase?” she asked, her eyebrows raised, daring him to lie.
He thought back to when he’d seen Chase far past drunk and ready to hurt anyone who’d give him the chance. He couldn’t answer her point-blank question with anything other than the truth. “The night Pisces had her litter. I went to Bull’s-Eye, and he was there.”
“There’s something not right with him. Everyone can tell. How bad-off was he when you saw him?”
“Bad.”
Valerie sighed. “I’m glad he’s here though. That he’s home. And safe.” She went forward, took the bag from him and set it aside, and then slipped her arms around his waist.
The contact stunned him, but he held her for several moments, relishing the feel of her. “What’s this for?”
She rose up and pressed her soft lips to his jaw. “It’s Thanksgiving, after all.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
VALERIE MUTTERED A swear word softly under her breath as the string of clear-bulb holiday lights she was attaching to the two-story arch on the front of the house slipped out of her grasp and swung past to her left. Her attempt to catch it was feeble, and she had to climb another step higher on the ladder to reach it.
Plucking a fastener from her utility belt, she heard an upstairs window slide open. Lucy poked her head outside, her long toffee-colored hair wound around large rollers. “Mom, didn’t Jack and Will promise to help string the outside lights tomorrow?”
Valerie waited to respond, concentrating on securing the fastener to the edge of the archway and thankful that the December afternoon breeze was mild. “Yeah, but I figured it’d be best to get this done today.”
“Want me to help?”
The idea of her daughter scaling a seventeen-foot ladder gave her a nasty chill. “No.”
“Then can you please stop for now? It’s almost dark and we should start getting ready for Gramps’s party. Did you pick out a dress yet?”
After finishing the morning chores and taking Brute out on the trail, she’d stood in her walk-in closet debating the limited selection of formalwear she’d collected over the years and had worn to a variety of functions—hospital fundraisers, funerals, the wedding of one of Jack’s friends, who’d politely invited her so that she wouldn’t feel left out.
Not much to choose from, but several days ago she’d had to call on Vet Boone to treat three sick cows, and the bill was a pinch in her budget. So she wouldn’t be forking over the money for a new gown, especially not for a few hours of socializing in an environment she was hesitant to be a part of.
She wasn’t exactly comfortable with Nathaniel, even though he never outright made her feel lower-class and inferior. More than once she’d had run-ins with people from his world of wealth and privilege, and had felt the icy burn of slight.
More important than that, she didn’t want her daughter to experience it. So last weekend she and Lucy had joined Dinah for a shopping trip at a boutique in town, and she’d bought the girl a brand-new dress and shoes to match. She only hoped Lucy would have a good time—not to make the splurge worthwhile, but because she knew that mixing with Nathaniel’s world of fashion made her daughter, who sometimes spent hours on end sketching, happy.<
br />
“There’s something in my closet, for sure,” she said, feigning optimism about the prospects. So far the leading contender was a smart-looking beige full-length sheath.
“I just looked in your closet, and those dresses are all boring,” Lucy told her with an impatient sigh. “Cordelia might have something. You’re about the same size, right? I’ll call her over ASAP.”
“Don’t bother her,” Valerie warned, distracted by the crooked angle of the light string. She’d have to retrace where the fastening had gone wrong and correct it. “Get yourself ready to go.”
“We’ll be late anyway. And it won’t be fashionable.” Lucy leaned farther out the window, squinting into the distance. “You’re gonna have to finish the lights later anyway, Mom. Coop’s coming up the driveway … and he looks really mad.” With that heads-up, she retreated inside and shut the window.
Valerie considered finishing the task to avoid whatever complaint or criticism Coop had in store for her. Yet the possibility that one of the animals was in trouble or that there was urgent ranch business to settle had her abandoning the project and carefully descending the ladder.
She hadn’t even reached the bottom rung before Coop laid into her.
“Sell that damn gelding. Get him off this ranch—today.”
Brute. Of course.
Valerie reached solid ground and began unhooking her utility belt. “And why should I do that, Coop?” She tried to look into the aged man’s eyes, but they were shadowed by the low set of his cowboy hat. She headed for her storage container of outdoor holiday decorations that sat in the grass nearby, and he followed her.