by Wendy Vella
She meant it, he realized. Thought she could tell him, her thirty-two-year-old son, to stay away from the Trainer family. A vision of Piper after he’d kissed her came into his head. Soft, wet lips, eyes filled with sultry promise, looking sexy as hell. If he recounted that incident it would probably put Mary Howard in bed for a week.
“Looks to me like Joe’s a good man, and his family seem the same. You also don’t get to tell me who I can spend time with anymore. I’m not a child.”
“They’re bad! That Joe Trainer conned this town into voting him onto the council.”
“Well hell, he should have been given life in prison for trying to support his community.” Dylan tried to rein in his anger in the face of his mother’s behavior.
“They’re bad.” Her face was closed tight.
“Let me make something clear to you,” he said slowly. “They are friends, and I will be spending time with them while I’m here. It’d make you look awfully foolish if you’re continuing this attack on them at the same time.”
“I forbid you to spend time with them!”
“Like I said, you lost the right to forbid me to do anything long ago. Let it go, Mom. It’s making you look bad, especially as it’s unjustified. They’ve turned their lives around, why can’t you see that. Why hold them responsible for me leaving, when we both know that was on me... and you.”
She didn’t speak again, and he hoped she had listened, but didn’t think the odds were in his favor.
CHAPTER SIX
Dylan left the house after a tense breakfast. Charlie had wandered down dressed in a silk robe, her hair immaculate, and proceeded to make herself breakfast, something in a blender that smelled as vile as it looked.
His mother had offered her a brittle good morning, still bristling from her exchange with Dylan.
Charlie had seemed oblivious to the tension in the kitchen. Ignoring him, she’d kept her eyes on her phone checking emails and her social media accounts.
Looking at the street as he drove down it, Dylan wondered why his dysfunctional family worried him now, when he hadn’t cared about them for the last sixteen years.
Stopping at the end of the street, letting his car idle while he thought about what had brought him back, besides his father. He hadn’t needed to come, his mother had told him Dad would recover, but he had.
“Be honest with yourself, Dylan,” he said to the windshield.
Closure. He’d wanted to come here and put to bed the bad feelings he had about this place. He’d left in disgrace, but there had been times when he’d loved it here. Loved living in Ryker with all its quirks and people who knew him.
A tap on his window had him lowering it. The man standing there was tall and thin and dressed for exercise in long-sleeves and thermal tights with pale blue shorts. At his side was a large black shaggy dog, wagging his tail at Dylan.
“You okay there, sir?” Dylan asked.
“Sure, you just looked a bit lost so I thought I’d see if you need some help. Name’s Mr. Goldhirsh. I run the Ryker Roadies, and this here is Buzz. Say hello, boy.”
The dog let out a deep woof.
“Dylan Howard.” He stuck his hand out the window.
“Mary’s boy?”
“The very one,” he said, waiting for the fallout.
“You here to visit your daddy?”
“Yes, just on my way there now actually.”
“Mind if we catch a ride? I need to get over to the hospital this morning, I’m doing some rehab with the seniors.”
“Ah....” Dylan turned to watch the rear door open behind him, and in jumped Buzz. Mr. Goldhirsh then made his way round to the passenger side. “Sure. Ready?” Dylan said, because... well hell, what else could he say?
“Ready.”
Only in a small town would he be driving down the road with a complete stranger and his dog.
“So, Dylan, you here long?”
“No, just seeing Dad.”
“Been a while since you’ve been home from what I gather.”
“Sixteen years. You know my family?”
“Of course. Your mother and I don’t see eye to eye, but your father and I jog together, and occasionally he comes to my book club poetry readings.”
“Huh,” Dylan said. He could honestly say he’d never thought about his dad and poetry at the same time. “Hard to get my head around that.”
Mr. Goldhirsh made a humming sound that Dylan had no idea how to interpret.
“It’s not until you don’t have family that you realize how important they are to you, Dylan. I don’t have any, but coming here from Germany, I made many friends, and they are now my family.”
“That’s good then.” Dylan had a feeling he was being lectured.
“It is, because only family and friends will have your back.”
This time it was Dylan who made a humming sound.
“How’s Ava?”
He released the breath he was holding.
“Not good then?”
“I’m pretty much public enemy number one there, Mr. Goldhirsh, and I know she wishes I hadn’t come back to Ryker.” He wasn’t sure why he was discussing this with a stranger.
“Give her time. A little girl needs her big brother, but you’ve been gone most of her life so it’ll take time to regrow that bond.”
“I won’t be here long enough, and maybe that’s for the best.”
“It’s not.”
He looked at the road as Mr. Goldhirsh fiddled with his stereo, and suddenly opera filled the car. Buzz started howling.
“He loves it.”
“How can you tell?”
“That’s his happy yowl. He’s Joe’s dog.”
“Trainer?”
“Yes. Now that is a family you can learn from, Dylan. They were torn apart, but found their way back to each other. Take the time to build those bonds with your sisters, boy. It’s important to you and them.”
As they were pulling into the hospital parking lot, he could only grunt something to the affirmative. It was a weird conversation to be having with a man he’d only met minutes before, especially considering Dylan’s aversion to anything personal, but then nothing since his return could be termed in any way normal.
“I think it would do you good to come for a run one Sunday with our club.”
“Oh but—”
Buzz gave a loud woof, and then he and Mr. Goldhirsh disappeared into the hospital.
“What the hell just happened?”
Hell if I know.
Getting out, he decided there was no way to work through the last twenty minutes and come up with a rational answer, so instead he headed up to see his father. He found Allan Howard sleeping. Walking softly to the chair beside his bed, Dylan sat.
He’d visited yesterday and the shock still hadn’t eased. The changes in the man who raised him were significant. He looked smaller than Dylan remembered. In his hospital gown with his face bruised, he was old and vulnerable. Dylan had to swallow down the lump as he thought back to the man he’d once believed the biggest and strongest man he’d ever known.
He’d never been strong enough to stand up to his wife though. Allan Howard was soft on the inside, and always took the easy road. They’d had fun with him when they were little, riding about on his back and shoulders, playing outside in the yard, but as they grew up he’d taken a back seat in raising them.
“Dad,” he whispered, placing his hand over the one on the bed before him. “I’m sorry I never came back.”
The guilt that had been sitting on his shoulders since he’d returned intensified. He’d left this gentle man and never looked back. The one parent who had loved him unconditionally. Sure, he should have done more to protect his children from his wife, and taken their sides, but it was hard not to love Allan Howard. Weirdly, most of Ryker Falls did, even considering who he was married to.
“Son?”
“Hey, Dad.” Dylan sniffed loudly. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt
like crying. “How you feeling today?”
“Better,” he lied.
“You don’t look it.”
Allan gave a painful huff of breath. “Okay, I didn’t realize you wanted the truth. I hurt like hell all over.”
“I’ll get the nurse to come.”
“No, having you here is all I need. It’s good to have you back, son.”
“I should have come sooner—”
“No, you’ve been busy, we understand that.”
His father was doing what he always did, being the peacemaker, the one who smoothed everything over.
“No, I should have found time, and now I will.’” Dylan gripped his father’s hand. Had he lost this man then the guilt would have been deep and heavy. This was a wake-up call. A reminder, that his family would not live forever, and could be taken from him at any time. He needed to make more of an effort to see them going forward.
“So what’s the deal with you and poetry? I don’t remember you reading us any at bedtime.”
His father snuffled because that was less painful than laughing.
“You’ve met Frederick Goldhirsh already is my guess. A wise man that one, and insightful. He’s a friend, and got me running. I repaid him by going along to a few of his readings, and found I liked them.”
“Mom go with you?”
“No. Your mother is not a comfortable woman to those she doesn’t know.”
She’s not comfortable to her own children. Dylan left that thought in his head.
His father sighed. “The truth is she’s disliked by many for her opinions, and I’ve tried to talk to her about that, but she won’t listen.”
“But the locals are still good with you?” Dylan wasn’t having anyone treating his father with anything other than respect.
“Strangely, yes. But we never touch on council business or Mary. She’s someone I love dearly, but only I get to see the softer side of her nature.”
Dylan had so many things he wanted to say to his father at that moment, but while he was lying there hurting in a hospital bed wasn’t the time. When he was better, they would sit down and talk, and Ava’s wish to be a hairdresser would be top of the list of things he brought up.
Dylan filled him in about his life. As he was talking he realized that it may sound busy and important, but in fact what it was, was empty. He’d convinced himself this was what he’d always wanted, but lately... well, lately he was struggling to believe it. Struggling to deal with the fact that he wasn’t tethered to anyone. There was no one who cared enough about him to share a homecooked meal, or go to a movie. It was a sobering thought.
He left his father when he fell asleep, and headed down the stairs. Nodding to people as he went, Dylan tried to make sense of what he was feeling. Was it simply that he was back here in Ryker? Would he return to normal when he went back to New York? Would his work once again be enough to ground him?
Opening the door on the lower level, he wandered toward the exit. Loud music had him moving to the right to look through the glass in the top half of a door. The room was full of seniors. Buzz sat leaning against a wall watching, and on a small raised platform stood Mr. Goldhirsh and Piper Trainer.
Opening the door, he let himself in—for no other reason than he needed a distraction, Dylan told himself. It was definitely not to see the brunette. Undetected, he lowered himself into a seat. Buzz saw him, however, and the dog trotted over for a scratch. Dylan obliged. Obviously they were now friends; after all, the canine had ridden in his car.
“Come and join in, Dylan!”
Dylan lifted a hand to say he was all good to Mr Goldhirsh, who had also noticed him.
“No freeloaders,” Piper said. “In or out.”
Her eyes dared him to join in, and he had to say those leggings with geometric patterns did fairly spectacular things for her already spectacular legs. Her sweatshirt covered up pretty much everything else, but he had an imagination, and already knew what she had under there, because it had been pressed against him last night.
“Out,” he said, giving the dog a final pat. He shouldn’t have even come in here.
“Come now, young man.” An elderly lady left her line and came to him. “You’re obviously at a loose end, so come and do something useful with your time.”
“Useful?”
“Exercise. It will stimulate your brain and set you up for the day. I’m Pearl.”
She wore white tights and fluffy pink leg warmers with a long-sleeved shirt in red. An odd combination, but the woman rocked it.
“I’m....” His words fell away as she reached for his coat and started on the buttons. “No, really—”
“Hustle it along, boy. I don’t want to miss the next set. It’s to Patsy Cline, and she’s my favorite.”
He was stripped of his coat, not an easy feat as he topped her by several inches, then she took his arm and urged him to follow. He could stop—he had several pounds on her—but Dylan had always been taught to respect his elders, and wasn’t sure how to do so without hurting her.
“Follow our lead, Dylan,” Mr. Goldhirsh told him.
Christ!
“Seriously, this is not my thing. Two left feet—”
“Oh now come on, young man. A handsome face like you have deserves to have the moves to go with it. I’ll get behind you and check your form.”
Hoots of laughter followed these words and Dylan could feel the slow flush of heat filling his cheeks as two other women grabbed his hands and urged him to move with them.
“Ah, I don’t think this is me... really.” He tried again to get away. Panic was the only word for the emotion gripping him. He was out of his depth, and Dylan never, ever allowed that to happen. Control was important to him.
“Come on, honey, give it a go and loosen up. It’s all in the hips,” Pearl said. She then started singing ‘Back In Baby’s Arms.’ This he knew, as it was one of his mother’s favorites too. The Howard siblings had endured many hours of Patsy in their youth.
In seconds he was floundering around totally out of sync with the others in the class... all of whom had a good forty years on him.
“You need to relax, boy. You can’t dance with a pole up your—”
“Thank you, Pearl,” Piper interrupted. “I think Dylan gets the idea.”
Christ, it was his worst nightmare come to fruition. Humiliation, incompetence, and people to witness it.
“That’s it.” He felt hands settle on his hips from behind, and if he’d been tense before, that just increased. He was surrounded by elderly woman, all with their hands on him.
Dylan heard someone giggling, and found Piper doubled over on the stage laughing so hard she was crying. He shot her a foul look and redoubled his efforts to get it right so they’d leave him alone and he could slink into a corner somewhere.
“I had a feeling you’d be one of them.” Piper was now in control. She came to stand before him after two more slow and extremely humiliating songs.
“Them what?” he said, attempting to do something Violet, the woman to his left, had called a grapevine, and failing.
“All looks and no ability.”
“Get me horizontal,” he said, tripping over his foot, “and I’ll show you ability.”
Piper snorted.
“Glad someone’s enjoying my humiliation.”
“Haven’t had so much fun in months,” she said, totally unrepentant. “Okay, ladies, I got him, you go on and enjoy the last of the class,” Piper said.
“You got your hands full with that one, Pip. Has no rhythm at all. Sorry, sweetie,” Pearl said, patting his cheek.
Piper giggled, and Dylan had to admit it was a sweet sound, even if it was at his expense.
“Now this is an easy move, Dylan. Left foot forward, right to follow in a wide stance, then right foot back, and left foot. Hands on hips, eyes up.”
“How the hell do you expect me to keep my eyes up when I need to watch that woman’s feet? And there’s also the fact I don’t want
to. Any chance I can just leave, and we forget this ever happened?”
“Left foot, right foot,” Piper said, ignoring him. “Stop whining and move. Good, now let’s work on the arms.”
“Do we gotta?” Dylan wined, refusing to admit that maybe... just maybe he might be enjoying it now, but only because she was right there for him to look at.
“Yes, we gotta. Now as you step out with the left, your arm goes out straight, same with the right, when you step back you lower them.”
“If you got in front of me I may be able to understand it better.”
“You want to look at my butt.”
“Really, Piper, get your mind out of the gutter. The thought had not entered my head. I merely wish to get the moves right.”
Piper snorted again.
Dylan spent the next hour moving between humiliation and laughter, being tutored by Piper, who was way too sexy in exercise gear. The seniors offered him compliments when he got it right, which was humbling, as they always got it right. He was hopeless, it was fair to say, but while he sat with them drinking tea after, he realized that he’d enjoyed doing something silly. Something that did not build his career or enhance his wealth. Something that was just... what the hell was it? Good for the soul, and totally out of his comfort zone.
He needed to take Pearl’s meatballs and sauce recipe and get out of Ryker Falls.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“I am not my cousin, Miss Marla.”
“No, but I want to check you don’t have the same abilities as Joe.”
“I don’t.” Piper adjusted the blindfold. “We established this the last five times you made me do this.”
She was in Tea Total, the Robbins sisters’ tea shop. It had the best scones in town, and may be a strange thing to have in a Colorado mountain town, but it worked, and tourists and locals loved it.
The Robbins sisters used to teach at the local school before branching into business, and between them and their niece, Mandy, they ran this place.
“I just came in here for some of my tea, Miss Sarah.” Piper heard the click of heels. The Robbins sister always wore heels and dressed as if they were going out on the town.