A Promise Of Home (A Lake Howling Novel Book 1)

by Wendy Vella

  Please stop.

  Branna wanted to put her hands over her ears to shut out his voice. She couldn’t breathe; his words were thrusting her back into that place filled with pain.

  “I brought more coffee.” The hand Buster put on her shoulder, was large and warm and she felt the support that came with it. Sucking in a breath, she slowly exhaled.

  “Thanks, Buster.”

  “You let me know if you need anything else.”

  “We will,” she said, giving him a quick look before lowering her eyes to the table once more.

  “You have friends here.”

  “Yes.”

  Declan O’Donnell sighed at her tone before he resumed his story.

  “That day, as I stood at the back of that auditorium and watched you sing, I knew what I had become and how I had let you down. I went home and began to make changes. I took you out for dinner that night and other than please and thank you, you said nothing to me, no matter how many questions I asked you.”

  Because I knew you blamed me for killing her.

  “I continued to try, but you seemed to grow more distant and then after your graduation you came home and told me you were leaving for WSU. Showed me the paperwork and that you had organized a place to stay. You calmly told me how you’d forged my signature and that the only thing you would need from me was some money to get there, as you had been given a scholarship and would get a job.”

  “I tried to talk to you, tell you I’d take you there, but you said in that cold calm way you had adopted that you needed nothing further from me. I stood and watched the bus take you away from me, my sixteen year old daughter who was a mere child and felt my heart break all over again.”

  “No!” Branna jumped to her feet and looked down at her father. “Don’t speak to me of love, not now, not when I don’t need or want it anymore.”

  “Branna—”

  “No,” she sliced a hand through the air. “You had your say, now I get mine.”

  “Sit then.”

  “I don’t want to sit. I want to talk and then I want to leave.” She sucked in another breath. “You blamed me for her death and turned your back on me when I had no one else to turn to. I was broken inside; I hurt so bad that just breathing seemed to take too much effort. I heard your words that day, heard you say there was nothing left for you now that she was gone.”

  “No, Branna, I never meant them that way.” His green eyes were filled with anguish, but she didn’t care; she wanted to hurt him like he had her.

  “You couldn’t even stand to look at me. I was a constant reminder of her death. So, I tried to be as quiet as I could, tried to keep out of your sight and then we moved here to Howling.”

  He was pale now; all color had left his face.

  “The other students had friends…a small community like this, everyone had grown up together, and there I was, an outsider who talked funny. So, one day I woke up and went through the house and found every pill I could, then I hid them in my room.” Branna fought the tears; she wouldn’t cry yet, not with him watching.

  “No, Branna—”

  He rose too, and reached a hand towards her, but she stepped back and it fell to his side.

  “I went to school for the last time that day, deciding that I’d take them that night and then the pain would be gone, then you’d be rid of me…the constant reminder of what you had lost.”

  “Dear God, don’t say it, Branna.”

  “And when I was huddled in that bathroom stall at lunchtime, like I had done every day since I started school there, waiting for it to be over so I could go home and find some peace, I heard a voice outside telling me to come out and that was when I met Annabelle Smith. She’s the only person who has ever really been there for me since the death of my m-mother and it is because of her, only her, that I stand here before you today.”

  “You wouldn’t have, I can’t believe you would—”

  “You know nothing about me,” her hand slashed the air again. “Nor of what I was capable of. After all, I had always believed you’d be there if I needed you, and that all changed, didn’t it?”

  She walked away from him then and never looked back. It was done, over, he would leave Howling now and she would once again attempt to pick up the pieces of her life.

  “Branna, you want me to take you somewhere?” Buster appeared beside her as she reached the door, his face lined with worry.

  “Thanks, but I just need a bit of time alone for now, Buster.” Branna wasn’t sure how she formed the words, when inside she was coming apart.

  “I’m worried about you.” The words came out so fast it took her a few seconds to unravel them.

  “I’ll be okay, Buster, really,” she added, before pushing open the door and walking out of The Hoot.

  Once she was clear of the window, she ran to her van. Fumbling for the keys, she got them in the ignition, backing out, she then pushed her foot down on the gas pedal and shot out of town.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Jake was exhausted. Ethan had arranged an appointment to see the psychiatrist for that day, so he’d flown into Brook and gone straight to see the man. He’d had more emotions wrung out of him in that sixty minute time slot than he’d experienced in years. Not quite years, Jake amended, thinking of the emotions Branna made him feel.

  “How you doing, bud?”

  Ethan folded himself into the chair opposite him. Picking up the beer Jake had brought him, he then took a long pull on it.

  “I feel like someone’s punching bag without the physical pain.”

  Ethan had lived in Brook for two years; it was the closest main town to Howling, two hours forty minutes by car, and twenty minutes by chopper. It had bars and cafes, shops, banks, businesses, and plenty of people.

  Around them were the usual sounds of a night just starting, greetings, the clink of glasses, stories being recounted.

  “It was always going to be tough, Jake. Besides me, no one else knows what you went through, and even I don’t know everything.” Ethan leaned back on the legs of his chair and let his eyes scan the room. Jake knew he was looking for women, because once he’d been the same way.

  “Branna knows some of it.”

  “Yeah?” Ethan whistled. “Must be love.”

  “I guess it must.” Jake said the words, testing how they sounded in his head. Did he love her? Was it love when you couldn’t stop thinking about someone? Couldn’t stop worrying about her and recalled everything about her right down to the smell of her skin.

  “I like her, if that helps.”

  Jake lifted his bottle in acknowledgment. “I live my life to please you, Tex, you know that.”

  Ethan laughed that deep rumble that made women go weak.

  “Doctor Nigel wanted me to ask you if I said anything that day you pulled me out of that school, or what was left of it?” They’d never spoken of that day, so the surprise on his friend’s face was real.

  “Blood, Eth, so much blood.” The words were softly spoken, each one slow and precise.

  “Anything else?”

  “I couldn’t help them all.”

  Jake didn’t remember much about the day, but he saw by his friend’s expression that he did.

  “It was like you were a zombie, Jake. You kept saying those words, blood Ethan, so much blood, and I couldn’t help them all, over and over again and all I could do was tell you it would be all right now.” Ethan took another long pull on his bottle. “I thought you were broken, that your mind had gone, and I wasn’t sure it’d come back. But after the long sleep and food, you were back, although then there was this blank look in your eyes, like you were just going through the motions of living.”

  “I was,” Jake said. “I really was in the beginning. And then I got angry and belligerent; I hated the world and everyone in it.”

  “Except me and Buster.”

  “That’s a given.”

  “And then you met Branna.”

  “And then I met Branna,�
� Jake confirmed.

  “And?” Ethan questioned, giving a shapely brunette a slow smile as she walked past their table.

  “And she has as many issues as me and the day I called you to make the appointment, we fought about them.”

  “Ah, now it makes sense.”

  “She deserves the best of me, Ethan, and I’m not sure whether that means I return to medicine or not. But right now, none of that matters, only getting the stuff inside here,” Jake tapped his head, “right.”

  “What’s between her and her father?”

  “A whole ton of shit that they need to work through.”

  “Well, boy, you got another session tomorrow, so how about a steak and an early night?”

  “What?” Jake looked at his friend. “You not on the prowl tonight?”

  “Nah, I’m giving you my undivided.”

  Jake watched as Ethan rotated his left shoulder joint.

  “What’s up with that?”

  “It’s been giving me trouble for a few days; I need to get it checked out. Hurt it throwing a curveball at Debronskie. Struck him out, though.”

  Scapular dysfunction, neurovascular compression, and inherent structural pathology in the glenohumeral joint, including the rotator cuff, labrum, and capsule.

  Jake didn’t try to push the dialog running inside his head aside this time. Instead, he tested the words and found they didn’t create as much panic as they usually did.

  “Have to say, I’m honored about having your undivided attention, Tex.”

  “As you should be.”

  They ate and talked and then he found himself in Ethan’s spare room staring into the dark as he thought about Branna. Was she thinking about him? Had she read his text? Would she talk to him when he got back? Did she love him? Closing his eyes, he let the questions come and go in his head until finally sleep claimed him.

  ***

  Branna drove back into Howling at two in the morning. She pulled up her driveway and saw the lights on in her house and the blue sedan parked in front of her barn. Sitting in the van, she contemplated her next move. Would people intent on scaring her have left their car in plain sight and the outside porch light on? Who did she know that drove a car that color? Was she about to walk into a mess; would there be other cat body parts pinned somewhere?

  Too tired to care, she grabbed her bag and the sack of luckily non-perishable groceries that had been in the back of her van all day and stomped onto the porch and opened the front door.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Her father sat in the chair beneath her mother’s photo facing the door. On his knees rested his laptop; he wore glasses perched on the end of his nose and she saw in a glance how tired he looked. Not that she cared.

  “I couldn’t be anywhere else after what you said to me before you left today. I had to be here, waiting for you.”

  “No,” she wasn’t angry now, she was done with that; she’d spent the day getting rid of that emotion. She’d cried and yelled as she’d driven and now she was just tired. “You don’t need to be here, now please leave.”

  He put down his laptop and regained his feet.

  “I went back to the McBrides’ and packed my things and came here. I can’t go back there now.”

  “You’re not staying here, Declan.”

  He winced as she used his name. Once, she would have called him dad.

  “I am because someone is trying to scare you; Buster told me about it today.”

  You’re dead, Buster Griffin.

  “And Jake’s left town, so I’m staying here.”

  “I can call Belle.” Where had Jake gone and when was he coming back?

  “I told her I was staying with you when she called. It’s two in the morning now, Branna, your other friends will be sleeping.”

  “Fine, do what you want, I’m going to bed.” She walked past him and slapped the grocery sack down in the kitchen. Maybe all her anger wasn’t gone. Then she walked upstairs and slammed the door to her room.

  The shower didn’t settle her, nor climbing into a cold lonely bed without Jake. How could she sleep when someone was in her house, her father, also settling in for the night? Once, she would have joined him, settled down on his bed to talk about the day, but not now, not ever again.

  Sleep came because she was exhausted and when she woke her eyes felt heavy and gritty, but she was determined to get through the day as if her life had not just been turned on its head. Jake had left Howling and her father was in her house. So much for coming here to find peace.

  After her shower, she pulled on a t-shirt and cut-offs, and contemplated using the ladder outside her window, but thought better of it. This was her house, not his; he could leave because she was staying.

  He was sitting on the porch with a coffee in one hand when she walked outside clutching hers. His hair was wet and he wore an old shirt that she remembered from when it was new and jeans with rips in the knees. His long bare feet were resting on the handrail.

  “Morning.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that, so she grunted, then walked off the porch to inspect her garden.

  Part of her was struggling with being rude to him…the irrational part that had always been respectful around the man who had raised her. Yes, they’d spoken hateful words to each other when last they’d met, but this was different, he was being nice now and although she was justified in ignoring him or even in being cold, she didn’t like it, which made no sense at all.

  “You should put in herbs.”

  “I don’t know about herbs.”

  “I do.”

  Aren’t you the lucky one then.

  “I’ve got work to do.” Branna felt his eyes on her as she walked back inside. Grabbing a cookie, she poured coffee and made for her office, shutting the door behind her. After checking her emails and social media sites, Branna lost herself in the world of her imagination. Two hours later, she came back to reality. She was done with her first draft and happy with the finished result so far. Hoping Declan O’Donnell was no longer lurking in her house, she made her way through it to the kitchen. Pulling a bottle of water from the fridge, Branna took off the cap and drank deeply.

  He wasn’t in here; did that mean he’d gone? Heading out the front door, she walked around the house, stopping when she heard his voice.

  “The soil has to be rich for the herbs to grow well, Mikey, so you need to fertilize it. But Branna’s soil is good to plant in already, which makes our job easier.”

  They had their heads together, looking over a long narrow box that had appeared along the back edge of her garden. Beside them were plants, herbs, Branna corrected, which she guessed were going into the planter box.

  “Hey, Mikey, you had food?”

  His smile was sweet. “Hi, Branna, I like your dad!” The boy jumped up and raced over to give her a hug, which he always did now whenever he saw her. “I’m hungry.”

  “Now, there’s a surprise,” Branna brushed a kiss over his head. “I’ll make you something. Releasing him without acknowledging her father, she went back inside.

  She made sandwiches, and because he was there and because that inner moral dilemma was still raging, Branna made Declan O’Donnell food too. Loading the tray with food and a pitcher of juice, she went back outside and placed it on the ground beside them.

  “Eat,” she said. Her father looked at her, but said nothing. Instead, he dusted off his hands and took the sandwich Mikey held out to him.

  “You going to help us plant your herbs, Branna?”

  “Do you mind if I go back inside, Mikey? I have heaps of work to get through and a cake to bake before I head out tonight.”

  “Will it be all right if I say out here then?” His face was eager, but Branna could see he didn’t want to disappoint her. She squashed the small petty jealousy that welled up inside her. Declan O’Donnell would not hurt the boy. In fact, he was good with children…it was just her he hadn’t wanted around.

  Mike
y would gain a different kind of knowledge out here, an important kind that included the basics of beginning to understand about nature and things that could turn you into a competent adult, just like she had at the hands of the man watching them.

  “Sure it will, and we’ll catch up on the homework I have for you another time.”

  “I can help him with learning.” Declan O’Donnell gave her a smile that once would have had her responding. Instead, she nodded.

  “He’s got the same IQ as me. Not sure if you know what that is, but—”

  “One hundred twenty-eight.”

  Surprised that he remembered, she looked away and rubbed Mikey on this head, then went inside and began to bake her Peach and Cornmeal upside down cake. She’d make a macaroni and cheese too; like her, her father had to eat, even if she didn’t want him in her house.

  The recipe wasn’t hard to find, as it was headed, Book Club Cake, and underlined in red, twice.

  “Let’s hope I don’t buckle under the weight of expectation, Georgie,” Branna muttered, as she melted the butter in the skillet.

  She thought about Jake as she sprinkled the sugar into the butter, wondering when he would come back, and if he would want to see her when he did. She missed him…it was that simple. He was part of her life now and she wanted him back in it.

  Maybe that was one of the reasons she had come back to Howling. Because she’d known that she wouldn’t be able to maintain that distance here and because, finally, she needed to belong to somewhere and to someone again.

  She’d felt something different with Jake McBride from the first day she came back to Howling. He’d challenged those barricades she’d erected and then smashed straight through them, and this time Branna feared that if he turned away from her, she would never be able to pick up the pieces of her heart again.

  Opening the oven, she slipped the pan inside, and set the timer.

  “One day at a time, Branna,” was what Belle used to say to her when she thought she would simply fold in on herself and disappear under the weight of grief. “Small, tiny steps, Bran, and I’ll be here to help you take each one.”