by Jen Gilroy
“Let’s check the arena first. That’s where she went before.” When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Luc shepherded her toward his snow-covered truck.
But even if she was at the rink, how had she gotten there? Someone would have had to drive her. Cat held back a cry and scaled a snowbank to slide into the truck’s passenger seat. Ice pellets hit the window in a quick staccato, and the wind shrieked as it blew a thick curtain of snow across Main Street. Amy couldn’t be out in this weather. She clutched her stomach. There might not be a place in Luc’s life for her, but maybe there wasn’t one for him in hers, either. No matter how much they wanted it.
Chapter Eighteen
When Amy left the stable it was still light, but dusk had come on fast and now night was closing in. It was colder, too, and the snow that seemed pretty earlier from inside the warm riding stable tumbled from the overcast sky thick and fast, erasing the few familiar landmarks.
She looked all around, especially behind where her footprints were already half covered by fresh snow. She couldn’t stay in Firefly Lake now, not with how things were between her mom and the coach. And she couldn’t ever go back to school here. Not after what Mason had said. Once she made it back to Boston, she’d figure out what to do from there. Maybe her mom’s friends who were renting their apartment would let her stay with them.
Amy stopped at the edge of the trees and curled her clammy fingers inside her mittens. If she went into those dark woods, she might never find her way out again. It would be better to stay close to the road. The Greyhound stop was at the gas station on the outskirts of town. If she remembered the schedule right, there was a bus in an hour. Town hadn’t seemed far away before, but it had been daylight then and she’d been in a car.
At a rustle in the woods behind her, she flinched. The tracks in the snow at her feet were small, a rabbit maybe, but that noise was bigger. She hadn’t thought about wild animals out here. Heading away from the woods, she turned back toward the road and wrapped her hand around Uncle Nick’s wallet in her coat pocket. She’d pay him back, but he must be missing both the wallet and her by now. She’d slipped it from his jacket while he watched Kylie and Emma in the riding arena. Her stomach growled and she dug in her other pocket for the half-eaten Dove bar she’d stashed there earlier.
The narrow country road wasn’t much lighter than the dark forest that lined it on either side. Her heart racing, Amy walked along the shoulder, where snow had drifted into soft mounds. Was town this way? Her legs shook. That noise had scared her so much she’d lost all sense of direction. She slipped on an icy patch, dropped the chocolate, and fell butt first into the ditch to land atop a snowdrift.
Above her, yellow light shone around the curve in the road, and she crouched low to wait until the car passed. She wouldn’t hitchhike. Bad things happened to people who hitchhiked, and her mom had told her to never do it.
But the car didn’t whoosh past. Instead, it slowed, and Amy was trapped in the beam of light. She tried to scramble to her feet and run, but the snow was wet and heavy and she couldn’t get traction. As she flailed right, then left, her coat caught on something. Was it that animal? She screamed and lurched forward, her breath coming in short gasps.
A car door slammed, and a dark shape moved toward her. “Amy?”
At her aunt Georgia’s voice, Amy’s legs went out from under her again, and she tumbled farther back into the snowy ditch. “Yeah.”
“What are you doing out here all by yourself, honey?” A different voice, one that belonged to Charlie Carmichael, Aunt Mia’s sister, who, as a big-shot journalist, was almost as great a celebrity in Firefly Lake as Coach Luc.
“I screwed up.” Amy’s voice was a whimper. “Now I think I need some help. I’m stuck. I can’t…” She yanked at her coat and a piece of fabric let go with a ripping sound.
“It’s good we came along, isn’t it?” Charlie knelt at the edge of the ditch and held out her gloved hands. “Hold on tight. Let me pull you out.”
With two strong tugs, Amy hurtled up the sloping bank onto the shoulder of the road to land next to Charlie’s boots. She lay there panting and tried to catch her breath.
“The last time I did that was in the French Alps.” Charlie’s brown eyes twinkled in the car lights. “You’re a lot lighter than my photographer was.”
“Amy… sweetheart… thank God you’re safe.” Aunt Georgia bent down to wrap her in a hug. “Your mom’s frantic.”
“You talked to her already?” Amy tried to sit up. Her head spun and her heart felt like it was going to explode right out of her chest. Her mom would be so mad. She’d be lucky if she wasn’t grounded until high school.
“I called her while Charlie was pulling you out.” Her aunt’s voice sounded like she was going to cry, which was weird because Aunt Georgia was the most chilled-out person Amy knew.
“I’m sorry.” Amy shook so badly she couldn’t unzip her coat.
“Let me.” Aunt Georgia pulled off Amy’s wet coat and mittens, then replaced them with her own warm ones. “You’re frozen. Get in the car.”
Amy huddled into the backseat, where her aunt gestured, and took the blanket she held out. Next to her, baby Lexie slept in a car seat.
“Here.” Aunt Georgia waved her phone. “Your mom’s waiting. You have to talk to her.”
“I can’t.” The words came out more like a cry, and she tried to make herself as small as possible. “Tell Mom I’m fine and I’ll talk to her real soon, but I can’t, I have to…” Amy didn’t know what she had to do, but if she talked to her mom right now, she didn’t know what she’d say except for stuff that would make everything a whole lot worse.
Aunt Georgia turned around and said something into the phone that Amy couldn’t hear. Then she swung back around again and her words tripped over each other. “I should be mad at you, but I can’t be. Not right now, anyway. Nick’s looking for you everywhere and, to top it all off, he can’t find his wallet. It’s lucky he went to high school with one of the cops so he didn’t have to prove his identity. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?” Her eyes narrowed as she looked Amy up and down.
“I kind of like… took it. It’s in my coat pocket.” She gestured to the coat her aunt still had a hold of. “I didn’t mean to. It just happened.” The mistakes had piled up as dirty and messy as the snow the plows left in the big field at the edge of the arena. “I’m sorry.”
“You can save the apologies for your mom and Nick. If Charlie hadn’t seen something on the side of the road…” Her aunt’s voice cracked as she took out the wallet. “She thought an animal had been hit so we stopped. You could have been killed, sweetheart, out here alone.” She rubbed a hand across her face.
“I guess you were running away, huh?” From the driver’s seat, Charlie started the car and turned up the heat.
Amy stared at the melting snow that dripped across the car mat from her sodden boots. “I didn’t mean to, at least not exactly.” Inside the cozy mittens, she dug her nails into her palms.
“But you wanted to leave Firefly Lake?” Aunt Georgia got in on the passenger side and turned to look back at Amy. Her voice was kind and, in the half-light, her expression was understanding.
“Yeah.” Except now that she thought about it, the problems wouldn’t be so easy to leave behind, no matter where she was.
“I can’t count the number of times I wanted to leave Firefly Lake when I was your age, but here I am right back where I started.” Aunt Georgia fingered her beaded necklace and her laugh was as tinny as the canned laughter on a TV show.
“Sometimes you have to go all the way around the world before you find your way back home. In my case, it took a lot longer than it did for Georgia.” Charlie’s voice was so soft Amy had to strain to hear her.
“I never said I was staying, did I?” Her aunt glanced back at Amy and made a disbelieving face.
“You never know.” Charlie pulled the car back onto the road, then grinned at Amy
in the rearview mirror. “Did you know your fabulous aunt is teaching yoga to a group of senior women for free? I’m doing my bit by writing a story for the local paper. That’s why we were out here. The class is at a farm a few miles beyond the stable.”
“You should come with me next time.” Aunt Georgia’s face went pink and her smile was unexpectedly sweet. “The older ladies would love you right up.”
“Sure.” Amy muttered the word, then tucked her head into the collar of Aunt Georgia’s fake fur coat, soft like a cuddly teddy bear. Her mom probably wouldn’t let her out of the apartment unless it was for school. She might not even let her play hockey. Her stomach turned over. She’d messed things up so bad with Coach Luc, though, he’d probably never speak to her again, let alone want to share a rink with her.
Her eyes watered and she stared at Lexie still asleep beside her. Life was easy for babies. All you had do was eat, sleep, play, and poop. Everybody loved you and said how cute you were.
If you were a baby like Lexie, you had a mom and dad who were crazy about you and about each other. Nobody would ever say your mom was banging your coach, or that you got special help not because you were special but only because of your mom. If your parents were kissing, it might still be weird and disgusting, but they were your parents. They were supposed to be weird and disgusting; Kylie said so.
Even though Amy wasn’t cold any longer, she shivered again as the outskirts of Firefly Lake came into view. Through the snow, lights twinkled from the big houses up on the dark hill where her grandma lived. Not only had she messed up with her mom and Coach Luc, she’d messed up with everyone, and now she had to face the music.
“We’ve all made mistakes.” Aunt Georgia reached back and squeezed Amy’s hand. “Me, Charlie, and even your mom, despite her perfect GPA. The most important thing is that you learn from those mistakes. Nick and your mom will be okay with everything, you’ll see.”
Amy jerked her chin and bit down on her bottom lip. Her aunt wanted to help, but she couldn’t. The only mistake her mom had made was getting pregnant. But until today, she’d never thought that meant she was a mistake. But Mason had yelled it out so loud all the kids waiting for the buses must have heard. Coach Scott was there, so he must have heard it, too. It was a gazillion times more humiliating than anything that had happened to her back in Boston, and now she couldn’t get those words out of her head. How could she face all of them again? And how could she face her mom and Coach Luc?
Lexie opened her big, blue eyes and waved her chubby hands like she’d never seen them before. Then she made a gurgling sound that turned into a belly laugh.
Yep, life was easy for babies. Amy slipped off one of Aunt Georgia’s mittens and hooked her pinkie finger with Lexie’s, then hunched back in her seat. She’d been so determined to escape everything that had gone wrong, she’d taken what she thought was the only way out. But like Aunt Georgia said, she’d ended up exactly where she started, except this time in a whole lot more trouble than ever before.
“Georgia and Charlie should be here with Amy by now.” Cat pushed back the drapes that covered the big bay window in the living room at Harbor House and peered out into the night. The snow still fell and enveloped the trees that lined the drive like a shroud.
“It’s only been fifteen minutes since Georgia called.” Her mom joined her at the window and wrapped an arm around Cat’s tight shoulders. “The riding stable is way out of town, and we don’t know exactly where they found her.”
Each minute felt like an hour or even a day. Cat shifted from one foot to the other. Maybe she should have gone home, but Georgia had thought it would be easier for Amy if she brought her to Harbor House first. Now Cat wasn’t so sure. They’d have an audience here.
“What was Amy thinking? I know we had a fight, but why would she run off again?” And why wouldn’t Amy talk to her when Georgia called? Did she think Cat wouldn’t forgive her? Couldn’t she understand Cat would always love her, no matter what? Pain speared Cat’s chest, and she pressed her nose against the window to look out into the swirling snow.
“Twelve-year-old girls can get worked up real fast. You and Georgia were the same when you were Amy’s age.” Her mom rubbed Cat’s back in a gentle circular motion.
“My daughter was, too.” Ward joined them and held out a mug of tea. “For a few years there, it was like I was living in a permanent hurricane. If my wife hadn’t died, she’d have known how to handle Erica better, but I sure didn’t. All you can do is your best.”
Except, Cat’s best never seemed to be good enough. She shook her head at the tea. She couldn’t drink or eat anything past the fear in her throat. “Georgia and I never ran away.” But they hadn’t seen their mom kissing one of Cat’s teachers or Georgia’s gymnastics coach.
“One of my sisters ran away once.” Luc completed another circuit from the front hall to the living room with Pixie at his heels. “She was thirteen and mad because Mom wouldn’t let her buy this bikini she had her eye on. She made it as far as the railroad tracks at the edge of town before a neighbor spotted her. It was only a swimsuit, but from the way she carried on, you’d think the world had ended.”
“For a thirteen-year-old girl, it probably had.” Her mom pressed Cat’s arm. “Amy loves you. It’ll all work out, you’ll see.”
Cat wished she could be so sure, but this problem was too big and had gone too deep for everything to magically be okay. “Is that Charlie’s car?” She rubbed at a foggy patch on the window.
“Yep.” Ward moved toward the front door, but Cat reached it first and wrenched it open.
“Amy.” She ran across the porch in her sock feet and down the steps. She reached her daughter by the snow-laden maple tree at the front of the house and held out her arms.
Amy stumbled into them. “I’m sorry.” Her words came out in a hiccup. “I messed up so bad.”
“You’re safe. Everything else we can fix.” Whatever it took, no matter how long it took, Cat would find a way. She touched her daughter’s cheek, then her hair and hands, all reassuringly familiar. Amy smelled the same too, a faint whiff of lemon shampoo mixed with spearmint.
“Thank you.” Cat looked from Georgia, who hovered behind Amy, to Charlie still in the car. “Thank you both.”
“It’s okay.” Georgia gave Cat’s hand a brief clasp. “The weather’s getting worse, so Charlie has to get home with Lexie. If you need to talk, she said to call.”
After Charlie’s car slipped out of the drive, Cat turned back toward the house. “Let’s get you both inside. You must be freezing.” She rubbed Amy’s hands between hers. “And Georgie, your coat and mittens… you gave them to Amy.”
“She needed them more than I did.” Georgia shrugged and shuffled her feet.
Cat took one arm away from Amy to hook it around her sister. “You’re a big softie. Teaching yoga to older ladies for nothing and rescuing lost girls. What’s next?”
“I’m not the one who rescued her.” Georgia’s bottom lip wobbled. “When I realized it was Amy, I panicked like I always do. Charlie pulled her out of the ditch.”
“Don’t talk like that. You called me and stayed with Lexie.” Cat made her feet move up the porch steps and back into the house.
“I wasn’t lost, not really.” Amy voice was muffled as she was folded into her grandmother’s arms.
“Lost or not, you’re home now and safe.” Cat’s gaze connected with Luc, who stood farther back in the hall with Ward. His expression was so sad that her heart turned over.
“Coach Luc?”
“Yes?” His tone was gruff.
“I’m sorry I hit you and said that stuff about you and my mom.” Amy’s voice was high and thin—a little girl’s voice.
“Apology accepted.” Luc moved toward the sweeping staircase. “I’m glad you’re okay. I’ll see you at the rink whenever you’re ready.”
“You mean you’ll still coach me? After everything?”
Cat’s stomach knotted at the hope a
nd regret in Amy’s voice.
“I promised, didn’t I?” Luc’s smile was strained. “As long as you’re in Firefly Lake and the arena has ice, I’ll coach you. If it’s okay with your mom.” His smile disappeared and he glanced at Cat, like she was any other hockey mom. “Give me a call.”
“Yes.” Although the initial fear in Cat’s throat had eased, it had been replaced by another kind entirely. One that had nothing to do with Amy’s safety, but everything to do with what Cat’s love for her daughter would mean for her secret love for Luc.
Chapter Nineteen
Cat patted Amy’s legs through the green and white quilt with the starburst pattern they’d chosen together for her twelfth birthday. “You need to eat something.”
Amy toyed with a strip of toast, then set the plate on the nightstand beside the bed. Her eyes were puffy and red-rimmed from crying. She picked up the tattered sock monkey toy she’d had since she was a baby and stroked its tail. “I’m not hungry.”
Cat shifted on the single bed beside her daughter. She had to focus on Amy, not on the look in Luc’s eyes before he’d turned away and gone up the stairs at Harbor House, each footfall on the uncarpeted steps like a bittersweet but irrevocable good-bye.
“About this afternoon…” She stopped and glanced around Amy’s bedroom. The cream-painted walls were covered with hockey posters. Schoolbooks, clothing, and sports equipment were scattered across the floor. “I never meant for you to see Coach Luc and me kissing.” Her throat closed.
“You always say we’re a team, but now with him…” Amy pleated the edge of the quilt between her fingers. “It’s not like I didn’t know you were having dinner with him and stuff. You never hid that from me, and at first, I even wanted you to like him.”
“But that changed?” Cat needed Amy to be honest about her feelings, no matter what it might mean.