If We Fly: A What If Novel

by Nina Lane

  Faint relief swirls through my shattered heart. If Nathan believes me, other people will too.

  But…

  I force my gaze to my sister. She’s staring at Nathan as if she’s never seen him before.

  “That…” She clutches her hands together. “That’s not true.”

  “It is.” He encompasses us both with a pleading look. “Josie, I’m so sorry.”

  “For…for what?”

  “Not telling anyone. Ah, hell.” He groans and drags a hand over his face. “It was my father’s investigation, and he was such a hard-ass, never thought I was good enough…I could never bring myself to stand up to him, and that night…I was just a rookie, and with all that was going on…no way could I tell him there were discrepancies in the evidence, or that what Danforth said didn’t make sense…”

  “A few bits of so-called evidence and you suddenly believe Cole has been lying for ten years?” Vanessa’s voice rises, and she backs away. “And you think your veteran police chief father wouldn’t have figured it out? But that you did?”

  Nathan’s face crumples. “No, I didn’t. But knowing Josie was driving…”

  “She wasn’t driving!” Panic flashes in her expression. “He was.”

  My chest aches. “Vanessa, I remember some of it.”

  “You remember what he told you to remember.” She presses her fingers to her temples, her eyes bright. “For ten years, you can’t remember the first thing about the accident, then a few weeks after coming back and starting up with Cole again, you suddenly remember driving the car only because that’s what he told you? You’re damned right Cole is lying. But he’s not lying to everyone. He’s lying to you. And you’re going to believe him over everything we know, regardless of what a rookie police officer thought he saw or heard? No.”

  Shaking her head, she backs away from both of us. “Don’t you dare do this to yourself, Josie. Don’t do this to me. Cole Danforth always has been and always will be the person responsible for killing our family. And I mean what I said even more now. Either you stay the hell away from him or you stay away from me and my son.”

  She strides off, her pace quickening.

  “Vanessa…” Nathan runs after her, a plea breaking his voice.

  “You stay away from me too.” She turns and skewers him with a glare. “You’re not even close to being the man I thought you were.”

  He comes to a halt, his chest heaving and jaw tight.

  “And you.” Vanessa shifts her gaze to me, her eyes hardening to chips of ice. “I wish to God you’d never come back.”

  She stalks toward the pier, her back rigid and fists clenched.

  This is where I lose my sister again.

  I approach Nathan cautiously and put my hand on his arm.

  “Give her some time.” I force a reassuring note into my voice. “I’ll try and talk to her again.”

  His mouth twists. “I don’t think she’ll be willing to talk anytime soon.”

  Neither do I. Vanessa does not let go of anger and bitterness quickly. If ever.

  Nathan turns to face me, letting out a long breath. “Are you okay? I know you’ve been trying to figure it out, but this…I never expected it. What are you going to do?”

  I stare at my sister’s retreating figure. “There’s only one thing I can do.”

  Chapter 10

  Josie

  * * *

  After declining Nathan’s offer of a ride, I walk to downtown Castille. Lantern Square bustles with the usual morning crowd. Forcing my gaze to the Snapdragon Inn, I look up at the fifth-floor window. Cole’s tall, distinctive shadow is etched against the glass.

  I go into the lobby, where the security guard waves me to the stairs without calling to announce my arrival. By the time I reach the office, Cole is already pulling the door open.

  His eyes are dark and smudged, his cheekbones hollowed. Lines crease his face, and thick stubble coats his jaw. Everything inside me crumples like a piece of paper crushed in a fist.

  He steps aside to let me into his office and closes the door. He skims his gaze over my face, his hands clenching.

  “Josie, I—”

  “No, don’t say anything.” I hold up my hands and drag air into my lungs. “I can’t…I’m so angry that you lied, even the other day at the pub when I asked you about the keys. For ten years, you…”

  My voice cracks.

  “I know. I’m so fucking sorry.” A helpless look rises to his eyes, and my heart constricts. Not once has he ever been helpless.

  “Are you sorry you lied or sorry I found out the truth?”

  His jaw clenches. “Both.”

  I grip my hands together. “Even if I could understand why you did it in that moment, how could you have kept such a lie for so long?”

  “Because I didn’t want you to know.” His throat works with a hard swallow. “I never wanted to tell you or anyone else the truth. The only thing that scared the shit out of me was that you’d remember. But the longer time passed, the less chance there was that would happen. I didn’t think you’d ever come back to Castille, and I sure as hell never planned to see you again. I just…I wanted you to live the rest of your life. To try and be happy again.”

  Tearing my gaze from him, I stare at the window overlooking the square. I’d once thought the dark was a place where you could go insane. Now I know it’s here, in this horrible disconnect between the lie I’ve believed, lived, for ten years and the truth.

  “But what…what about you?” The question splinters in my mouth.

  Cole blinks. “What about me?”

  “You took the blame.” Overwhelming guilt knifes through me. “You…for all of it. Everyone in this town believed you were at fault. You paid off my sister’s lawsuit, lost your trust fund, were forced to work for your father…your entire life went off track. Because of me.”

  “No!” He strides toward me, his eyes suddenly blazing, and grabs my shoulders. “Don’t you fucking dare think I wouldn’t have gone through that if it hadn’t been for you.”

  “But you wouldn’t have.” Tears burn my eyes and clog my throat. “You suffered for taking the blame. You still are. While I was still able to do what I’d planned.”

  “And that was what I wanted.” He flexes his fingers desperately on my shoulders. “For you to do what you’d always wanted.”

  “And didn’t it occur to you that I’d want the same for you?” Fresh anger fills me, though I no longer know where it’s directed—at him, at myself, at the whole goddamned universe for ripping us apart, tearing open old wounds, and still not allowing us to heal. “I still loved you, Cole! I still wanted you to live your life, and now I find out that every single dream you ever had died right along with my parents and Teddy. And it was my fault.”

  “It was not your fault.” His mouth compresses with responding anger. “It was an accident. You told me you’ve never blamed me for it, so you cannot start blaming yourself.”

  “That was before you lied! How can you have sacrificed your whole life for it? For me? Didn’t you know I’d be crushed to find out what happened to you? Didn’t you think I wouldn’t want you to do that, especially since not for one goddamned second over the past ten years have I stopped loving you?”

  Cole stares at me, breathing fast. My heart expands and contracts at the same time.

  Our life flashes between us, saturated with all the good, the frustrations, the hope. Everything spins and tumbles, all the little things that made us who we were together—pancakes, oil paint, salt-encrusted work boots, arguments about the calendar, cotton candy on the pier, sugary breakfast cereal. Bright, youthful love.

  The tension in the air suddenly breaks, like a balloon bursting. We lunge toward each other. He captures me in his arms, lifting me hard against his powerful chest. Our mouths collide in a firestorm of longing and despair. My dark, tangled emotions unravel.

  Oh, God.

  Despite this suffocating pain, or maybe because of it, my body respo
nds to him like a match set to dry tinder. Hunger explodes through me, an intense craving for all that he and I were together, everything we were just finding again. He puts his hand on my lower back, fitting our bodies together, and sweeps his tongue into my mouth. He tastes like everything I love—cherry candy, sunlight, Cole.

  I press my hands to his face, smoothing his coarse stubble against my palms. Our tongues dart together, seeking and exploring. He takes two steps, and my back comes up against the wall. I drag my lips over his jaw to his neck, pressing my face into the hot juncture between his neck and shoulder. Our hearts beat together, rapid like birds’ wings. I breathe him in. Cole.

  “I love you.” His words are rough, guttural against my skin. “Josie, I just…I love you so much. Tell me what to do to fix this. I’ll do anything.”

  Bring my parents and Teddy back.

  A chill rattles down my spine. Tightening my arms around him, I lift my head. Our gazes collide, sharp and desperate.

  “I hate what this has done to you.” I press one hand to his pounding heart. “Even now…people still see me as the tragic victim and you as the ruthless CEO. But when people find out the truth, they’ll finally know you aren’t who they’ve made you out to be.”

  He stills. “What are you talking about?”

  Apprehension prickles my neck. It’s no small consolation that word of this will change people’s view of Cole…but it will also change everything for me. I’ll go from victim to…what? Killer? Murderer? That’s what people said about Cole. No one cared that the police investigation had determined it was an accident.

  “I’m talking about telling people the truth,” I say.

  Cole releases me and steps away, his eyes darkening with shock.

  “Jesus Christ, Josie.” He flexes his hands. “You can’t tell anyone.”

  I stare at him. “What?”

  “No one knows, right?” He drags his palm over his face, his mouth bracketing with tension.

  “Vanessa and Nathan do. I told them this morning. Nathan has always suspected something wasn’t right about your statement, and now he knows why.”

  He curses, low and sharp. “I’ll talk to him. Tell him to keep it quiet.”

  “Cole.” Tenderness suddenly softens my anger. “It’s over. I’m not letting you keep taking the blame for something that wasn’t your fault.”

  “I could give a shit what people think about me.” He paces to the other side of the room. “I never have. They don’t deserve or need to know anything else. They’ll make up their own versions of the truth anyway, so why put yourself in the line of fire?”

  “Because I hate what people have been saying about you.” I clench my hands. “I hate that Vanessa sued you over something you didn’t even do. I hate that you paid her off. I hate that you’ve driven yourself so hard to build a fortress around you, to prove that no one can touch you. And now I hate that I’ve been the tragic survivor when I was the one who caused the accident. How can you think I wouldn’t tell people?”

  “To what end?” He spreads his arms out in frustration, his body stiff with tension. “You’ll be bringing up things that should stay in the past. Is that what you want? You want both of us to live through it all over again?”

  “No. I want us to stop living a lie!”

  “Goddammit, Josie.” His features twist with regret. “I fucked up. I shouldn’t have lied. But there is no way in hell I could have told the truth either. If I had to go back and do it all over again, I’d say the exact same thing. I would have lost my mind if I’d had to tell the police that you—”

  His voice breaks off, his mouth thinning.

  “That I was driving.” A sharp ache pushes between my eyes. I stare out the window. My gaze stops on the bright, colorful mural.

  The mural.

  The painting I’d created in honor of my parents. The art for my mother, the history of Castille for my father. It will be here for years, for the whole town, a constant reminder of them and of…me.

  “I have to go.” I start toward the door, my insides tightening. “I need to talk to Allegra, to tell her—”

  “No.” Cole darts in front of me and puts his hands up in a plea. “Don’t do this to yourself. Don’t do this to us.”

  Us.

  “How can you…” My chest hitches. “How can you think I could ever keep this a secret knowing what you endured? I didn’t just lose three people that night. I lost you too. And I can’t…I can’t live with this anymore. I won’t let you live with it.”

  “Josie, it was my choice, everything was my choice.”

  “What about my choice?” Fresh anger flares through me. “I never had a chance to choose anything because I didn’t even know what really happened. I didn’t know what I’d survived, what I’d been responsible for. I never would have come back if I’d known. And God knows I don’t deserve to do something in honor of my parents anymore.”

  “Don’t say that.” Desperation lines his face. “And please don’t do this. Whatever you think I went through…and I’d do it all again a hundred times over if it meant protecting you…will all be for nothing if you tell people.”

  “The truth is not nothing, Cole.” I yank open the door. “In fact, it’s all I have left.”

  “No. Josie!”

  I rush down the stairs and back outside. A shaft of sunlight blinds me. Instinct tells me to keep running, to escape, but the unfinished mural blocks my way.

  Coming to a halt, I struggle to pull in air.

  “Josie, don’t.” Cole hurries up beside me, his breath hard, his body vibrating with tension.

  “I’m done.” Grief and exhaustion crush my heart. “I can’t finish this. After what I did…”

  “Josie.” Grabbing me with one hand, he points at the mural. “That is just one of the reasons you came back—to do something good in the world, right? So don’t tell me you don’t deserve to paint it when it’s not only good, it’s one of the best things that’s happened to this community. Like you’re the best thing that ever happened to me. And we are getting through this together. I love you.”

  My heart squeezes into a tight, aching ball. Our love didn’t survive the accident. There is no possible way it can survive the searing truth.

  “Goddamn you, Cole Danforth.” Tears flood my eyes, and I pull away from him. “Goddamn you for lying, for leaving me, for making me believe we actually had a second chance, and most of all for loving me the way no other man ever will again.”

  He steps closer, pain filling his blue eyes, his hands reaching for me.

  A ghostly pale face, a man reaching for me, blood gushing from a cut on his forehead, brown hair ragged and soaked…terrorized, ice-blue eyes…

  I stumble back. Dizziness washes over me, spinning the world into chaos. I grab a bucket of red paint and pry off the lid. Time slows to a crawl.

  Tires screeching. Screams, thin as needles puncturing my eardrums. My mother. Teddy’s tiger. Smoke. Rain. Blood.

  No!

  I fling the paint at the mural. Red splashes over the panoramic design, drenching the sea creatures, the people gathered on the Water’s Edge pier, the bright lights of the carnival. Obliterating the happy scene with a mess of dripping, splattered paint.

  My chest heaves. Sweat runs down my back. People stop and stare.

  I drop the bucket and start to run.

  “Josie!”

  Knowing Cole will come after me, I head for the woods. Even now, over twenty years after I first encountered him there, I can lose him in the tangle of trees and brush.

  I keep going, desperate suddenly to run and keep running until the wind pushes me up into the sky, and I disappear.

  Chapter 11

  Josie

  * * *

  We were a family. We still are.

  I have one person left, and I can’t lose her again. I won’t.

  Coming to a stop in front of the house on Poppy Lane, I struggle to catch my breath. Red paint still stains my hands. It feels
like a million years since I discovered the truth, and yet it’s only been two days.

  Clouds gather overhead. A light rain falls. The windows are dark, and Vanessa’s car isn’t in the driveway.

  I let myself into the house. The light on the answering machine blinks. I push it and listen to a message from an OBGYN nurse telling Vanessa she has to reschedule the appointment she missed this afternoon.

  Shit. Where did she go? And didn’t she just have an appointment the other day?

  Pressing my hands to my temples, I try to think. She probably can’t drive far in her clunky old Dodge, but she could get to the train station and go…anywhere. And she could cut me off entirely.

  No.

  Determination stiffens my spine. I hurry back to the foyer. My gaze lands on the key rack beside the door—one of the few things from our father that Vanessa hadn’t put in the basement. Each hook is labeled for the key’s purpose—house, car, spare, garage, cottage, cabin.

  Relief fills me. I know where she is.

  * * *

  After a quick stop at Watercolor Cottage for supplies and extra clothes, I catch a bus to the base of Eagle Mountain. A sign marks the entrance to the woodlands scattered with hiking trails and camping sites. Hitching my backpack over my shoulders, I start hiking up Spiral Pass, keeping my thumb out in the hopes of catching a ride.

  The rain comes down harder, gray clouds mixing with the onset of twilight. To my gratitude, two college kids on their way to a camping trip drive me to the cabin my father called Heavenly Daze. They leave me off at the start of a narrow dirt road leading to the trailhead.

  Taking the left trail, I walk toward the cabin. I have countless memories of hiking in these woods with my family. Mom would always find a spot to sit and draw, waving Dad, Teddy, Vanessa and I on ahead while she stayed to create.