“There was an emergency. I’m sorry.”
Her face didn’t change. She’d probably heard a million excuses. I bet you haven’t heard this one.
“Where were you, Uncle Dixon? We’ve been waiting and waiting.” Sienna’s piercing blue eyes locked on his, more accusatory than her words.
“Uncle Dixon!” Ginger ran and leaped into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist.
His chest tightened and his lungs seemed to shut down. He loved these girls so much. They had giant hearts, boundless energy and huge spirits. How would this tragedy harm them?
He would not let them suffer. He would keep them safe and secure, and make certain they knew they were loved. He loved them more than words could say already, but he would love them more. He would love them the way his brother had, the way their mother had.
Was that even possible? How could he possibly replace their parents?
He felt like he was running on air. He didn’t dare look down.
The girls clambered into their booster seats.
“Are you hungry?” he asked. “How about Bernie’s Burgers?”
“Yes! Yay! Bernie’s, Uncle Dixon. Bernie’s, Bernie’s, Bernie’s!” Ginger bounced up and down.
“Mom said only once a week because of the salt and the bad fat,” Sienna said. “We already went.”
“It’ll be our little secret,” he said, sick inside.
Soon the car filled with the comforting smell of fries and hamburgers. He bought milkshakes, too, which was too much, especially for Ginger, whose eyes were bigger than her tiny stomach.
He didn’t care. And when they started a French fry fight, he didn’t try to stop them. Go for it. Enjoy every last second of carefree fun. He listened hard to the light music of their sweet voices, the cheerful shriek when a fry hit its mark. How long before they would laugh like this again?
He blinked against the blur before his eyes.
At the house, Dixon set the girls up at the kitchen table to eat, leaving his own food untouched. Why had he even ordered? His stomach was in turmoil, and a bitter taste clogged his throat.
Once the girls were occupied, he grabbed Brianna’s emergency notes and the phone book, and ducked into the guest room to make the necessary calls. He left a message on his mother’s cell phone and alerted the cruise line, which would make contact with her.
Now Aubrey. Holding his breath, jaw clenched, he braced for her reaction, but the call went straight to voice mail.
“This is Dixon Carter. Call me. It’s urgent,” he said. He wasn’t about to leave the terrible news on a recording.
Next he called the mortuary with the largest ad, figuring they’d be busy and efficient. The funeral director would contact the mortuary in Reno, then call back to schedule a time to arrange the funeral.
The funeral.
The word rang in his head. Images poured in: flowers, caskets, gravestones, hymns, everyone in black and sobbing. Meanwhile, the girls chattered happily in the kitchen, oblivious to what he was doing.
Dixon was finishing with the funeral director when he heard the landline ringing from the kitchen. By the time he reached it, the caller was leaving a message: Hi, guys. Rachel here, checking to see if you need anything for the party Saturday. Should I bring ice? An appetizer? Watch the girls? Is there any way I can help?
Rachel was Brianna’s best friend. He picked up. “Hello, Rachel. It’s Dixon.” Glancing at the girls, he carried the handset down the hall. “There is something I need you to do....”
She could call everyone and tell them that instead of attending the couple’s anniversary party, they’d be attending their funeral.
* * *
HER SPEEDOMETER HOVERING at ninety-five, Aubrey Hanson scanned the interstate for highway patrol cars lurking on the shoulders. She didn’t have time for a ticket. Not today. Not with the good news she had to share with her sister.
Every time she thought about it, an electric thrill ran through her, making her forget altogether the scrapes and bruises she’d gotten in Norway.
She was this close to being sponsored by ALT Outdoors, the top recreation outfitter in the U.S., possibly the world.
The timing was crucial, since her inheritance was almost gone, and the ads on her blog and podcast barely paid her rent, let alone her travel costs.
She’d been saved. She could keep doing what she loved and get paid for it. She couldn’t wait to see the sunburst of pride in Brianna’s brown eyes when she heard. She couldn’t wait to hug her sister, jump around with her, shrieking their joy to the sky. Why did Phoenix have to be almost four hundred freaking miles from L.A.?
It wouldn’t quite be real until she’d told her sister. Brianna alone knew how much this meant. With the sponsorship, Aubrey’s blog—Extreme Adventure Girl: Ordinary Girl on an Extraordinary Journey—would reach thousands more women—hell, millions—and change more lives.
Calm down. It’s not official. The test run would be at the adventure race in Utah next month. Still, she was so close she could taste the triumph.
She was especially glad to tell Brianna because of the odd talk they’d had on their mother’s birthday—they always called each other then—right before Brianna left for Tahoe and Aubrey for Norway.
Brianna’s question had come out of the blue:
You’re sure this is what you want—the blog and the travel and all?
Aubrey had sucked in a shocked breath. Of course. This is what I’ve worked for. You know that.
Aubrey’s blog and her podcast shared her trips and challenges, mostly outdoors. Her purpose was to prove women didn’t have to be amazons or athletes—or even that coordinated—to achieve difficult challenges. The secrets were training, tenacity and guts.
The women who followed her lead became empowered. They found the courage to break up with bad boyfriends, demand raises, go to graduate school, snatch stars they’d thought out of reach. Aubrey was proud to have had an impact on their lives.
I’m saying you don’t have to push so hard, Brianna continued. If you wanted to quit, have a family, go to school, whatever, you can. You’ve done more than Mom could ever have wanted.
Their mother’s bedtime stories had been tales of all the places she’d biked, hiked, climbed and kayaked before she’d had them. They’d lost her to breast cancer the summer after they graduated high school.
Where is this coming from? Aubrey had asked, her stomach bottoming out at her sister’s abrupt doubts about Aubrey’s chosen path. Brianna was her number one fan. I feel like you’re out there for Mom and for me, she’d always said. Now she wanted Aubrey to quit?
Then it hit her. Wait, it’s the money, huh? You know I’m running short. You don’t want me to feel bad if I have to quit and get a regular job, right?
I just want you to be happy.
Relieved, Aubrey had rushed on. You don’t need to worry. I might have big news when I see you. I have a meeting about a possible sponsorship.
Brianna had been excited, but after they got off the phone, Aubrey still felt a shiver of unease. That wasn’t the whole story. Her sister had sounded melancholy. She’d mentioned wanting to find their grandparents, who’d been estranged from their father, who’d been killed in a ski accident before Aubrey and Brianna were born. The girls need more family.
Brianna did have a point. Their other grandparents were gone—their grandfather at forty due to diabetes, their grandmother two years later from pneumonia.
The conversation had gnawed at Aubrey until she finally figured out what was going on with Brianna. She misses you. She’s lonely. The family the girls need more of is you.
Once she’d figured it out, Aubrey burned with the need to fix this, to make it right, to be there for her sister...and for her nieces.
How had she been so blind? Shame f
lared hot on her face. She’d fooled herself that the Skype chats and occasional visits had been enough.
They grow up so fast, Brianna always said. She’d been gently warning Aubrey, and Aubrey had missed it completely.
Brianna always filled Aubrey in on the cute things the twins said and did, sent Aubrey videos of them at gymnastics and martial arts—classes Aubrey had paid for. They didn’t need more classes from their aunt. They needed more time with her. It made her ache to think that Brianna had held back her feelings for so long.
Aubrey knew why. Brianna understood the pressure Aubrey was under to keep her blog fresh and interesting. To keep her advertisers, Aubrey needed thousands of people glued to her blog and downloading her podcasts. That meant constant travel, research and training. Stay fresh or die was a fact of life in the blogosphere, where it was rare to make a living wage.
Brianna had been too understanding. Aubrey would visit more, starting with this trip.
“Meow.” Her cat, Scout, offered up an opinion from her spot on the passenger seat, where she sprawled to catch the sun that shone on her spotted fur. She was a Belgian leopard cat—a blend of domestic cat and Asian leopard. Scout was brilliant and bold, and could practically read Aubrey’s mind. Because she went with Aubrey on her adventures, usually tucked into a special pocket in Aubrey’s backpack, her fans had dubbed her Scout the Adventure Cat.
“I know it won’t be easy,” she said to her doubtful cat. The ALT sponsorship would escalate her travel schedule, add promotional appearances and other obligations, but it had to be done.
Scout gave a disdainful blink of her topaz eyes.
“I’ll make it work,” she insisted. Family matters most.
Determination caused her to sit taller, drive faster. She’d set off for Phoenix right from the ALT corporate offices, stopping only to grab gifts for the girls, along with flowers, champagne and an anniversary card for Howard and Brianna, as well as a new burner phone. She’d lost hers somewhere in the snow-packed fields of northern Norway. Aubrey went through phones like tissues.
Scout didn’t look convinced. Aubrey projected far too many human emotions onto the cat, but in her mind, a good cat was worth three bad boyfriends any day.
Scout was worth double that.
Not that Aubrey had had all that many boyfriends, bad or otherwise. She had fallen in love only once. Rafael Simón was a freelance travel writer heavy into extreme sports. They’d seen each other for nearly a year. Aubrey had broken it off once it was clear they wouldn’t work out.
Aubrey rubbed her grainy, sandpapery eyes. She was bone-tired and jet-lagged from the flight from Norway.
She finished off the last of her third energy drink, tossed the empty can onto the floor of the backseat, where it rattled against the ice chest containing the champagne.
Maybe they sold caffeinated date shakes at the Date Ranch Market—the halfway mark to Phoenix. She had to stop to get the girls’ favorite treat—the special red licorice only available there—and to use the huge, sparkling restrooms. When they traveled, Scout usually did her business hidden by trees, but Scout liked the Date Ranch facilities, even though people gawked and exclaimed over a cat using the toilet.
Aubrey sat up straighter, widened her eyes and blew out a breath. Stay awake. Think about the girls.
She’d love to bring Brianna and the twins on her adventures. In a couple of years, they could handle a white-water raft trip on the Colorado. Howard would likely have to be talked into it.
He was cautious and overprotective anyway, but the plain painful truth was he didn’t trust Aubrey with his girls. It had started when she made the mistake of buying sparkler birthday candles for their second birthday, excited to see the girls’ surprise and delight. Instead, the sparks had stung their cheeks. Sienna had shrieked and Ginger cried. The next day, Aubrey had offered to watch the girls while Howard and Brianna went out to dinner and she’d overheard Howard tell Brianna he wasn’t comfortable leaving the girls with her.
He hadn’t liked the bikes and helmets she’d bought last year, either. She’d confirmed on her blog that four-year-olds could ride bikes, and she’d gotten the proper sizes and everything.
It hurt that he thought she would endanger the girls, but he would come around over time. She hoped he’d like her anniversary gift as much as she knew Brianna would. Through one of her advertisers, Aubrey had gotten a great deal on an adventure trip for two in New Zealand, a haven for outdoor recreation, with breathtaking scenery. Aubrey would watch the girls while they were gone. The only hitch had been that Brianna and Howard would have had to buy the plane tickets, and she knew they saved every extra dime for their agency.
But now, with the sponsorship, Aubrey could buy their tickets, too! She smiled, thinking how delighted Brianna would be. She’d give them the gift right off, not wait for the party.
If her timing was right, she’d reach Phoenix not long after Brianna and Howard returned from Tahoe.
She couldn’t wait to make it up to her sister and her nieces for the time she’d lost with them. She was as determined and driven as she was when she faced a new adventure. She couldn’t wait to see her sister’s face when she opened the door and saw Aubrey on the porch, gifts in hand.
Copyright © Daphne Atkeson
ISBN-13: 9781460321799
BRINGING MADDIE HOME
Copyright © 2013 by Janice Kay Johnson
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