Willowleaf Lane

by Thayne, RaeAnne

  Dylan’s scowl lifted and he headed over to his sister, leaning in and kissing her on the cheek. “Anybody ever tell you you’re a stubborn thing? I told you I would pick you up. Just because I was ten minutes late, you didn’t have to hobble all the way over on your crutches.”

  “Didn’t you get my text? I told you I’ve been sitting all day and needed to move. Anyway, all the way over is only a block and my car was closer to the café than the candy store. So you had a flat tire?”

  Dylan took the seat across from her. “Yeah. Must have run over a nail or something or maybe a sharp rock up in the canyon. For all I know, I could have picked up a slow leak a week ago. Ever tried to work a lug wrench one-handed? It’s a hell of a lot harder than you might think.”

  “And you call me stubborn.” She made a grumbling noise at her brother. “Why didn’t you call somebody to help? Any of the brothers would have come out in a second.”

  “I managed.”

  The love between them was obvious. It always had been. When he was a kid, he had been fiercely jealous of the Caines. He could remember seeing them all together sometimes here at the café, squabbling, teasing, laughing. Envy had sometimes threatened to swallow him whole.

  Peyton finally returned to the table and picked up her napkin to wipe at her mouth then took a long drink of water.

  “You okay?” he asked, suddenly realizing she had been gone awhile.

  “I’m fine. I was, uh, just fixing my hair. It’s a mess after swimming. I hate how frizzy it gets.”

  It didn’t look any different to him, but what did he know? He was just her dad. Their conversation in the next booth must have attracted Dylan Caine’s attention. He stood again and approached their table.

  “Gregory. I heard you were back in town.”

  Spence rose and shook hands with him. What had happened to the man? And how the hell had they lost track over the years? His fault, he knew. When he left for Portland, he had basically closed the door on his life here.

  Though they were the same age, Dylan had been a grade ahead in school because of what Spence considered his lost year. Dylan had been his catcher all through high school and he had always trusted and respected him.

  He had joined the army the year before Spence signed with the Pioneers. Until the scouts started sniffing around his senior year, he had figured he would follow his friend’s example and do the same.

  “How’ve you been?” Spence asked, though the answer seemed obvious. The man looked as if he’d been through hell. His clothes hung on his frame and his eyes were shadowed.

  “Oh, you know. Can’t complain.” His light tone contrasted with his bleak expression.

  Out of the corner of his gaze, he was aware of Peyton trying hard not to gape at Dylan’s prosthetic hand.

  “It’s good to see you, man,” Spence said honestly. “I’d love to buy you a drink sometime and catch up.”

  The offer seemed to throw Charlotte’s brother off guard. “I might take you up on the drink,” he answered, his eyes shuttered and dark, “but skipping down memory lane isn’t really my thing.”

  Spence wondered what haunted the man. Suddenly his own demons seemed pretty damn mild in comparison.

  “We can start with the drink then.”

  Dylan nodded. Before he could answer, his father walked over carrying a tray. When he spied his son, Dermot’s steps faltered a little but he quickly straightened. “Two of my children here to eat my food. Am I forgetting my birthday or something?”

  Charlotte shook her head. “Dylan is taking pity on his clumsy sister and offered to meet me for dinner.”

  “And you both say I never get out,” Dylan said.

  “Neither of you should be needing menus then. You can tell me what you want just as soon as I’ve taken care of Spencer and young Peyton here.”

  Spence sat down again as Dermot set two plates on the table. “Two house burgers cooked to perfection, if I do say so myself.”

  His stomach rumbled in anticipation. “Thanks, Dermot. I can’t tell you how I’ve missed your food.”

  Dermot smiled with a kindness and welcome that overwhelmed Spence. “Then maybe you won’t wait more than a decade before coming back again.”

  “I can promise, I won’t.”

  The café owner gave him a smile and then turned to take the order of his son and daughter, leaving Spence alone with his own daughter, a delicious plate of food and years full of regret.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  AS AWKWARD MEALS went, this one ranked somewhere very close to the top.

  Between Dylan’s desultory conversation, Pop’s frequent stops to check on them, the throbbing from her ankle which should have been elevated about six hours ago and her overriding awareness of the neighboring booth’s occupants, she could hardly eat anything, even her favorite Cobb salad.

  She wasn’t the only one who seemed without an appetite. Dylan picked at his own salad and only took a few bites of his chicken sandwich.

  “You’re not eating,” she pointed out.

  “You’re one to talk.”

  “I had a big lunch.”

  “Liar.”

  She had packed a turkey sandwich for lunch and some fruit and had eaten on the little picnic table behind the store, enjoying the warmth of the sun.

  She sensed Dylan had something on his mind but it seemed every time she tried to encourage him to talk, he backed away. While her impulse was to push and prod, she forced herself to employ one of Pop’s better strategies and let her brother work his way around to what he needed.

  “So I could use a favor,” Dylan finally asked.

  Wow, her brother had invited her to dinner and wanted to ask a favor, all in one evening. If not for her sprained ankle currently throbbing in time to the country music playing on the jukebox, she might have thought this was her lucky day.

  “Of course! Anything.”

  “I hate when people say that. How do you know that until I ask? What if I want you on my support team while I become the first one-eyed, one-armed asshole to climb Mount Everest?”

  “Then I guess I’ll have to buy a better parka.”

  He rolled his eyes. “You’re a nut. You know that? It’s not quite that extreme. I just need a dog sitter. Can Tuck stay with you for a couple days?”

  “Of course!” she said immediately. She loved having that big goofy dog around to fill the empty spaces. He almost made her want to get one of her own, if she didn’t hate the idea of leaving the creature alone most of the day.

  “I hate to ask when you’re on the DL.”

  “Oh, please. I only have a sprained ankle, I’m not on the disabled list. I might not be able to take him for runs but I can still throw a stick for him in the backyard.”

  “Thanks. I’ll drop him off tomorrow on my way out of town.”

  “How long will you be gone?” she asked.

  “Two nights. Three at the most.”

  He didn’t offer any further explanation about where he was going. She desperately wanted to ask but forced herself to let the silence drag on.

  Finally, he sighed. “I’ve got to run into Denver to the VA for a couple adjustments. Should be easy enough, just a quick surgery, but they might have to keep me overnight. I don’t want to leave him at the house on his own or in a hotel room somewhere.”

  “I’m happy to have him stay. I love the company. I hope you know you can ask anytime. Do you need somebody to come with you to the hospital?”

  He shook his head, which she could have predicted. “It’s no big deal. I’ll be fine.”

  She wanted to encourage him to ask the doctors to refer him someplace where he might find help through his grim moods. The words clogged her throat and she forced them down. Dylan was reaching out to her—in a small way, yes, bu
t more than he had since he’d come home. She wasn’t going to push him and risk losing what little progress they had made.

  At the table next door, she heard Peyton make a snide comment to her father but missed Spence’s low reply. A moment later, Peyton climbed out of the booth and headed for the ladies’ room.

  “Do me a favor,” Dylan said, his eyes serious. “Don’t tell Pop or any of the brothers, would you? It’s a minor procedure. I don’t want anybody making a fuss.”

  He couldn’t have made that more clear in the past few months if he’d taken out a billboard. She could just picture a big one hanging over the entrance to his driveway in Snowflake Canyon, flashing ten-foot-high letters that blinked Leave Me the Hell Alone.

  It went against all her instincts, but she finally nodded. “What if somebody asks me why I’m keeping Tucker?”

  “Just tell them I had business out of town.”

  As far as she could see, the only business Dylan was conducting involved the liquor store and copious purchases of alcoholic substances, but she decided not to comment again. Instead, she pulled her crutches to the side and stood up. “I need to use the ladies’ room before I head home.”

  Her brother nodded and she hobbled through the diner dodging tables. She waved at a few people, hoping the crutches gave her a good excuse not to stop and talk.

  When she entered the ladies’ room, she was greeted by a retching sound coming from one of the stalls.

  “Peyton? Are you okay?”

  It had to be her, since Charlotte hadn’t seen her come out yet, but a long moment stretched out before she answered. “Yeah. Fine.”

  “That doesn’t sound very fine to me. Do you need some help?”

  “No. No, I’m okay.”

  She waited before going into the other stall, concerned for the girl. A moment later, the toilet flushed and Peyton came out wiping her mouth with tissue.

  Charlotte thought she looked pale, but that might have been the lighting.

  “I hate that feeling of throwing up. I’m so sorry.”

  Peyton rinsed her mouth with a little water she cupped from the sink. “I’m okay now, really. I don’t know what happened. I guess maybe I ate too much, too quickly. I was starving after I spent all afternoon at the pool.”

  “Why don’t we get you back outside with your dad and I can have Pop bring you some crackers or toast? That always helps me feel better.”

  “No. You don’t have to do that. I just probably need to go to bed early.” She fumbled in her messenger bag for a moment before pulling out a stick of gum, unwrapping it and sliding it into her mouth.

  “Hey, can I ask you a question?” Peyton asked after a few chews.

  “Sure.” Still concerned that she might be ill, Charlotte studied her carefully. Peyton didn’t seem at all fazed to be in here tossing her dinner.

  “What happened to your brother?”

  Okay, she hadn’t seen that one coming. She pursed her lips, trying to figure out how to answer in a way a young girl could understand.

  “Sorry. Was that a rude question?” Peyton asked.

  “Not rude at all. It’s just a little hard to talk about. He used to be an Army Ranger. He was wounded in an ambush in Afghanistan. He was...the only survivor. He shouldn’t have made it out at all.”

  “No shit.” Chewing gum forgotten, Peyton stared at her.

  “It was kind of a miracle, really,” she answered. She thought so, at least. Dylan didn’t seem as convinced. He seemed haunted by his survival, as if he believed he had done something wrong to walk away when the rest of his team didn’t.

  “Coming back from something like that can be hard,” she went on. “Dylan is having a pretty rough recovery, if you want the truth. He nearly died from a couple nasty infections and he’s struggling to learn how to do things that used to be easy for him.”

  “That’s way sad,” Peyton said.

  For all her bristly anger around her father, the girl seemed genuinely concerned.

  “Since he’s been back in Hope’s Crossing, he’s become something of a hermit, hiding out alone at this cabin he has in the mountains. It’s kind of a big deal that he invited me to have dinner with him tonight here. I’m hoping this means he’s ready to begin venturing out and about more.”

  Peyton appeared thoughtful as she touched up her lip gloss in the mirror then slipped it back into her bag. “Makes me feel stupid for bitching so much about having to leave my friends, you know? At least I can still text my friends and Skype them and stuff. They didn’t die in a bomb or something.”

  “Your friends are lucky to have you. Before you know it, you’ll make plenty more here in Hope’s Crossing, trust me.”

  On impulse, Charlotte hugged the girl. Peyton froze as if not quite sure how to respond. After a pause, she relaxed a little and Charlotte thought she almost hugged her back, but that might have been the crutches moving with the weight shift.

  “Feeling better?” Charlotte asked.

  The girl’s gaze slid away. “Yeah. Guess I’ll go back out. Thanks for telling me about your brother and stuff.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  When Charlotte walked out of the restroom a few minutes later, she was dismayed to see Spence and Peyton sitting in their booth, carrying on what appeared to be mostly a one-sided conversation with Dylan while Peyton’s thumbs once more danced over her cell phone screen.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Spence was saying as she approached. “I still think the recreation center is a great idea. A place for the community to gather and have fun together. Hiking trails, horseback riding, ski runs. It’s going to be fantastic when everything is finished. Just can’t help wondering if we could make it, I don’t know, something more.”

  “Like what?” Dylan had a faraway, unreadable look in his eyes, as if he was there in body but not really present. She was the recipient of that look quite often but Spence didn’t seem fazed by it.

  “I don’t know. Unite for some kind of common purpose, maybe. Hope’s Crossing has a lot to offer. Stunning scenery, a quiet kind of charm. Generally nice people. Maybe there’s some population out there we could help through the center. Inner-city kids, single mothers, visually impaired children.”

  Dylan didn’t answer, shifting his attention to Charlotte when she approached with half a mind to end the evening and head out while she was already on her feet.

  “What about wounded veterans?” Peyton asked suddenly.

  All three of them gazed at her with various expressions. Charlotte was stunned, touched again at her compassion, and sat down next to Dylan now to hear out this discussion. Dylan just raised an eyebrow and sipped at his drink, while Spence looked at his daughter as if he had never seen her before.

  “That’s an idea,” Spence said slowly. “Actually, it’s a really fantastic idea, Peyton. Wow. Wounded veterans. I’ll definitely have to think about that one.”

  “Waste of time,” Dylan said tersely. “Stick with your inner-city kids.”

  Peyton’s face fell and she shifted her attention back to her phone. “It was just an idea.”

  Charlotte wanted to smack her brother for hurting the girl’s feelings when she had only been trying to help, especially since it was just about the first positive thing she had heard Peyton say.

  “Why do you think it’s a waste of time?” Spence asked. “I can’t think of a population that would benefit more. Water sports in the summer, skiing in the winter, hiking and horseback riding. It seems like a perfect fit.”

  Dylan tossed his napkin onto his plate, apparently done moving his food around. “On the surface, maybe. But you don’t know Jack about what some of these guys have been through. Hate to break it to you, but a horsey ride won’t fix the damage an IED can do.”

  “I don’t know Jack. You’re right,” S
pence acknowledged. “But I’m willing to learn. Maybe you and I could talk about this over that beer sometime.”

  Instead of answering, her brother reached into his pocket and pulled out a couple bills. He tossed them on the table and stood up to go, long and lanky in the narrow space between the table and the banquette, leaving Charlotte no choice but to hobble to her feet to let him out.

  “Not interested. Point your little charity wand in another direction, why don’t you?”

  “Dylan,” Charlotte said.

  In one of his rapid-fire moods, tension rippled off him and she wanted desperately to make things better. This rude, irritable stranger wasn’t the brother she knew.

  “I should go. Tucker is home on his own.”

  His hound was perfectly fine by himself for a few hours and both of them knew it. Dylan obviously wanted to escape, and she didn’t know how to prevent it. She supposed she should be grateful she had enjoyed a relatively peaceful hour with him.

  “Thanks for dinner, Charley. I’ll drop Tuck off in the morning before I head out of town.”

  “All right.”

  A muscle worked along his jaw beneath the shadow of growth. “Good to see you again, Gregory. And to meet you. Peyton, wasn’t it?”

  She nodded, though she didn’t look at him. After that brief moment of clarity and kindness, she had apparently subsided back into her truculence.

  Charlotte watched her brother walk out of the restaurant without even stopping to say goodbye to Pop and she again wanted to smack him. People cared about Dylan. Their overflowing family wanted to help and support him through his transition back to civilian life.

  Yes, it would be a very different one than he had known before but that didn’t mean it had to be worthless.

  “Sorry,” Spencer said quietly. “Looks like we drove away your dinner companion. Why don’t you join us?”

  “I was finished anyway,” she answered. Even if she had only just received her order, she probably would have had Pop toss it into a take-out box rather than try to make conversation with Spence.