Twenty more minutes and she’d be standing in Hayden. Facing Nana and Ethan. Facing the life before…
She pushed her shoulders back and lifted her chin. It was an appointment, nothing more. She’d done hundreds of meetings, many unpleasant, in her time as a prosecutor. This didn’t need to be any different. Go. Get it done. Move on.
Her phone rang from the seat beside her. Knowing the caller, she glanced at the dashboard clock—6:50. Good grief, E. I said I’d be there around seven. He hadn’t been this annoying when they’d been teenagers. What was his deal?
With a huff, she picked up the phone. “I just passed Steamboat.”
“Okay. Hi to you too. Listen, we’ve got a change of plans. I have to head out to Brock’s, so just meet us out there.”
“Brock’s?” Shouldn’t that guy be living in some multimillion-dollar lodge built on his own mountain by now?
“Yeah. You remember how to get to his grandpa’s place, right?”
They’d spent a fair share of their summers out there—the boys fishing or tubing the river, and she, as always, Ethan’s little tagalong sister following them. Yeah, she remembered. Still didn’t answer the whole what on earth was Brock still doing in little Hayden question.
“Look, Ethan, I’ve been traveling since four o’clock this morning. I’m not up for it. I’ll just head to Nana’s, and we’ll catch up in the morning.”
“No can do, sister. I’m taking Nana with us, and I’ll need you to pick her up. Brock called while we were waiting at the Hi Way, and he needs us to hang out there while he takes care of a kid. Nana won’t want to stay that long, so just keep driving. It’ll only be a little bit longer. You’re a tough girl. You’ll manage.”
Kid? Why would Brock King-of-the-Slopes Kelly need help with a kid? Men…and children. Neither her favorite types of people.
But there wasn’t a loophole in this kink. If Nana needed her to pick her up, then—wait. If Nana wasn’t well, what the heck was Ethan doing taking her out?
“Hey. Are you still there?”
“Yes.” Cheryl spit out the word like a mouthful of ocean water. “Why is Nana out?”
“I thought I already explained that.”
“You said she wasn’t well.”
“I said I needed your help with her, and I do. So get out here and help.”
Clearly she wasn’t going to get any real answers over the phone. Fine, Ethan Pain-in-the-Butt Thompson. But they weren’t done with this.
“Are you coming?” he asked, clearly all patience and false excitement over their reunion gone.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“Fine. See you in twenty. Have Nana ready. I’m not staying.”
“Gotcha, Captain Party Pooper.”
Cheryl shook her head. “Glad to hear that you’ve grown up over the years.”
“Right back at you, kid.”
His end clicked, and her phone made that little call dropped sound. Cheryl clenched a death grip on her steering wheel. Two weeks was definitely way too generous. She’d be gone in a matter of days.
Five miles before the Hayden town limits, Cheryl gently applied the brakes. Gramps Kelly’s turn had always snuck up on her, and more than once as a teenager, she’d had to back up on the highway to make the turn. That’d been forever ago, so who knew how hidden the little drive was now.
Not very, that was how much. Two substantial posts, hewn out from large lodgepole pines, supported a sign over the dirt turnoff. Kelly’s Ranch had been branded into a rough plank of wood spanning the space.
Well, that sounded like Brock. Never one to blend in, he always made a statement. In school. On the slopes. Now, apparently at his grandfather’s ranch. Clearly he hadn’t lost any of his flair for life—or himself—along the way.
She followed the three-quarter-mile drive toward the heart of the valley where the river bent and rolled. The quickly fading dusk settled a pink hue over the bright-green grass of the spring pastures. Once, several years back, she would have sat back and released a sigh of contentment.
The muscles at the base of her neck tightened. She hunched over the steering wheel and groaned. One day. Just one day without the tension would be amazing.
When a small cabin came into view at the final bend that was supposed to lead to Gramps’s home, Cheryl sat up straight. What the heck? Another identical structure sat on the opposite side of the road just a half a football field length away. And then another. She counted six before she pulled up to a lodge that overshadowed Gramps Kelly’s modest ranch home.
Anger locked her biceps tight. What was Brock doing? Hayden hadn’t wanted to become the little Steamboat down the road. The people liked their quaint town, their “normal” lifestyle, and their familiarity. Gramps Kelly had been one of the most vocal about that opinion.
Clearly, Brock had his own ideas.
Tired, tense, and now ticked, Cheryl jammed the gear into park, popped out of her little rat-mobile, and slammed the door shut. Cool, crisp air hit her full on, fresh, thin, and tainted with the definitive musk of wood smoke. A faint tickle of laughter drifted from the east side of the new lodgey building. She directed her stride in that direction, certain she’d find her brother entrenched by his circle of friends, and Nana waiting in a lonely chair off to the side.
She did not expect to find a host of kids circled around a stone fire pit. Or Ethan in the midst of them, laughing and handing out marshmallow sticks. Or Nana perched on the edge of a bench playing some clapping game with a tenish-year-old girl.
“Sherbert!” Ethan left his distribution post and strode toward her, his arms open wide.
Cheryl cringed and braced herself for an exuberant impact. What happened to the irritated brother she’d spoken with on the phone?
He didn’t give her a chance to examine it before he crushed her in his arms. It took a moment for her to command her stiff body to embrace him back. Her arms circled his torso, and she patted him twice on the back.
“Hello, Ethan.”
He snorted. “One of these days, Sherbert, we’ll find the fun girl again.”
She’d never been “fun.” Not like Natalie Rice, who had a punch line ready in the blink of an eye, or Amanda Clipp, who had never met a dare she couldn’t put down. Cheryl had been reserved in high school, even before her life went sideways.
“Good luck with that.”
With one long arm draped over her shoulders, Ethan laughed again, shaking her at his side. “The fam’s together again. Come on now—that’s gotta make you smile a little.”
Sure. Cheryl arranged a small grin.
Moving them toward the campfire, Ethan inhaled. “Take that in, sis. You can’t buy air that pure in LA.”
“How would you know?”
He glanced at her, his look almost pleading. For what? This wasn’t a homecoming for her—not the way Ethan was playing it. It was more like torture, not that he’d know or understand. He could hold on to the good times they’d had, keep their moments of joy. Her personal timeline had been slashed with a razor. Before and after. Everything that was before was unreachable, and trying to grasp at it meant digging into that moment that had changed everything.
She couldn’t. Forward was her only option.
They reached the warm circle of people, mostly short people, gathered around the bonfire, before Ethan dropped his arm. Nana stood, hugged the girl she’d been doing clapping games with, and came toward the reunited siblings.
“My girl.” Nana brought Cheryl into a hug, her thin arms belying the strength of her grip. The arms of a baker, one who still kneaded her own dough and lifted the long sheets of yeasty goods from a hot oven.
There was nothing wrong with this woman.
Cheryl curved her arms around Nana’s shoulders, and at once her irritation melted. Nana held her as if she knew. Not the substance of the secret, but the ache of it.
“I’ve missed my girl,” she whispered.
Emotion clogged Cheryl’s throat. S
he inhaled, long and silent, and willed the unexpected feelings away.
Collateral damage. She hadn’t banked on these sorts of shrapnel wounds back then.
The sound of gravel under rubber tires saved Cheryl from the hollow moment. Swallowing, she lifted her chin and dropped her arms.
Nana was not so willing to let go. She kept an arm snugged around Cheryl’s waist. “My sweet girl, you’ve come home.” Another squeeze.
Torture.
Cheryl clenched her teeth.
A car door slammed, followed by two seconds of silence and then another report of a door.
Ethan pinched Cheryl’s shoulder and turned to walk back up the walkway. “That was quick, bro.”
“Doc was on it, dude.”
Brock. Had to be him. The tenor of his voice was deeper than she’d remembered, but then again, she hadn’t seen him in years. He’d be all man by now—even if he did still carry a hint of the slope-junkie swing in his speech. “It’s minor. So-J here will be fine.”
Both men stopped just behind Cheryl, and the air paused before someone tugged on a strand of her dark hair.
“Who do we have here?”
Cheryl turned her neck, lifting an eyebrow at the man standing directly behind her.
“Naw-uh.” His smile quirked. “Bro, you said your sister was coming back. This beautiful woman can’t possibly be the little Sherbert who used to follow us around.”
Ethan laughed. “The one and only.”
“No.” Cheryl turned to meet Brock’s gaze with a serious warning. “That girl is gone.”
“I see that.” He winked.
Flirt. And she knew flirts.
Filling her chest with air, she reached for Nana. “We were just leaving.”
“Oooh.” Brock made a face that would have befitted a serious crash on the course. “Sherbert, I think somewhere along the way you got frost bit.”
Cheryl straightened, lifting her chin as if she were cross-examining a snarky witness. “Do not call me Sherbert.”
With her hand on Nana’s arm, she marched toward her car. Behind her, she could hear Brock suck in air through his teeth. “You’re right. Definitely not the same girl.”
Good. Just so they were all clear on that matter.
~*~
Brock frowned as he concentrated on the fire. Holy frozen tundra. Someone needed to take a heating blanket to that woman. Or stand her close to the flames that were dancing in the semidarkness.
That was not the Cheryl he’d known.
Didn’t matter that much, and he wasn’t sure why it bothered him to the extent it did. Rolling his head from one shoulder to the other, he mentally shrugged it off. Or tried.
Ethan nudged him with an elbow to his arm. “She’s special, isn’t she?”
Was he that transparent?
“What happened?”
Staring at the fire, Ethan blew out a long breath. “Not sure, exactly. She just snapped, you know? Somewhere in the first couple years of law school, something happened, and she seemed to freeze up. I have some ideas, but nothing concrete. She won’t talk about it.”
Something twisted in Brock’s stomach. When kids turned upside down like Cheryl had seemed to, alarms started ringing. Usually it was a sign of something dark and awful.
The knot of pain moved into his heart.
With an intentional mental heave, he shoved it away. He had more than enough to deal with on the ranch. And he was done with women. If Ethan couldn’t break through to his own sister…well. Just well. Brock wasn’t involved.
Crossing his arms, he played at indifference. “How’d she respond to the news?”
“Didn’t tell her. Didn’t even introduce her to Brandi.”
“Why?”
“Because you saw about as much of her as we did.” Ethan shoved his hands into his pockets. “It’ll keep for tomorrow. She’ll have to come back out here though. Unless you’re going to give Brandi the day off.”
“Wish I could, bro.” Truly, he did. The thought of having Cheryl back on his property gave him chills. Literally.
“I know. It’ll work out.” Ethan shook his head, lifting a hand to rub his hair. “I just have to keep reminding myself. It’s going to be fine.”
Brock nodded, but not because he felt confident in Ethan’s hope. Now he knew why E hadn’t told his sister over the phone. Nothing concerning Cheryl Thompson would be easy.
“Sign here.” The woman tapped a line at the bottom of the page.
“Why?”
“Because it says that you understand.”
I paused. I understood, right? It was okay. Happened all the time.
The woman huffed. “Hurry up.”
Tension gripped my shoulders. Rolling them back, I eased it away. Who wouldn’t be nervous? Totally normal. It was going to be fine. With a good grip on the pen supplied beside the paper, I signed.
Perfectly legal. Which meant it was all okay.
~6~
If her room hadn’t been dust-free, Cheryl would have sworn it hadn’t been touched over the years. The same pictures on the wall, same gray-and-blue spread on her bed. Even her corkboard, tacked with 4H ribbons and her acceptance letter to UCLA, still hung slightly crooked. Exactly as she’d left them.
Cheryl dropped her travel bag—the only luggage she’d unloaded from the rat-mobile’s trunk, because she wasn’t staying nearly as long as she’d thought—and moved back into the hall.
“Nana?” She lifted her hand to tap on the older woman’s door. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, sweet girl, just changing out of these smoky clothes. I love a good campfire, but I don’t want to sleep with it.” She cackled a laugh, and a few moments later her door opened. She looked Cheryl up and down. “Now, come on, my girl. You didn’t even bother changing. How are we going to enjoy a Dr. Quinn rerun if you’re still stiff in that business outfit? Can’t be comfy.”
Dr. Quinn wasn’t on Cheryl’s radar. Who cared if she’d been obsessed with the show back in high school? “I’m sorry, Nana. I just wanted to make sure you’re settled in before I go to bed.”
“It’s only seven thirty.”
Cheryl shut her eyes. “I know but…”
“I’m not that old, girl. Come on now. I set back some of my cinnamon knots. We’ll douse them with maple frosting. Girl’s gotta eat, right?”
Cinnamon knots…oh, so not fair. “I don’t indulge the way I used to, Nana.”
Nana poked at Cheryl’s lower ribs. “I can see that. Ridiculous, child. God did not intend for us to show our skeleton through our skin. Food nourishes our bodies and our spirits. I think yours are both a little too lean.”
Cheryl rolled her eyes. “Gluttony is a sin, right?”
“So is self-obsession.” Nana raised her eyebrows. “Can’t be any fun either.”
She wasn’t self-obsessed. Everyone she knew counted calories, steps, sleep patterns, work-out intervals… Cheryl looked away, rubbing her neck. How had this conversation happened anyway?
Nana laughed again. “Okay, girl. You live your own way. But, me? I’m too old to submit to self-inflicted torture. I’m having a cinnamon knot and a sit-down on the sofa. I’ve worked all day doing what the good Lord made me capable of doing, and I’ve earned it.” She patted Cheryl’s hand and began to move down the hall. “You’re welcome to join me if you decide.”
That was that. Nana descended the stairs, and Cheryl moved back to her childhood bedroom. After changing into those comfy clothes Nana had been talking about, she pulled out her tablet and surfed the social networks. Nothing good—situation normal. Candy Crush it was, until she ran out of lives. Then…nothing.
Cheryl stared at the ceiling for over an hour. Sounds from the television drifted from the front room downstairs. Dr. Quinn, no doubt. She should have sat with Nana. Shouldn’t have bickered about something as stupid as cinnamon knots. Shouldn’t have been her normal, icy self.
Why did protecting her heart have to mean wearing this frozen armor?
She didn’t know any other way. To warm up would mean to feel again, and to feel again would mean to feel all of it again. She couldn’t. She would be crushed under the weight.
The closing music signaled the episode’s end. Cheryl listened, waiting to hear Nana’s shuffled footfalls in the hall. They didn’t come, even several minutes after the television fell silent. Sitting up with the covers wrapped around her waist, Cheryl strained to hear.
Snuffling.
She’d made Nana cry.
Setting aside the comforter, Cheryl placed her feet on the floor, pulled a sweater over her head, and moved from her bedroom. After softly descending the stairs, she paused and listened again. This time silence. She crept around the wall dividing the stairway from the front room and found Nana still perched on the sofa, staring at the black TV.
“Nana?”
The older woman didn’t stir. Cheryl stepped into the room. Nana sat transfixed. With a hand to her shoulder, Cheryl gave her a small squeeze.
Nana looked up. “Oh, hello there, dearie. Did you find what you needed?”
What?
“We’re out of most goods, I’m afraid, but if you come back in the morning, I’ll have more cinnamon knots ready.” She chuckled, shaking her head. “My granddaughter, she loves those things. She’d eat three or four in one setting, bless her.”
“Nana—”
“That’s right. You probably don’t remember her. She’s been away for a while. I keep praying she’ll come back, like her brother did, but something happened…” Nana’s eyes glazed. “Do you know, sometimes the worst hurts are the ones we can’t see?”
Cheryl’s heart thudded hard. Nana didn’t know. There was no way Nana could know, was there? Breathing suddenly became difficult.
“She’ll find her way back.” Nana squeezed her hand. “She’s a good girl, my little Sherbert is. She’ll come home.”
Flustered, Cheryl cleared her throat and reached for Nana’s elbow. “How about we go to bed?”
Nana looked up, though she still had that far-away quality cloaked over her eyes. “Of course, sweetheart. You know I always go to bed right at nine. Lots of work to do in the morning, and I’m going to keep doing it until they put me into the ground.”
Red Rose Bouquet: A Contemporary Christian Novel (Grace Revealed Book 2) Page 4