by Liz Isaacson
Patsy stopped at the kitchen table, where Laney had spread out the photographs. They were in color, at least, but there was so much brown and so much orange in the coloration. Patsy loved old things, and her interest in these photos intensified.
“Anyway,” Laney said. “Some are of my class and whatnot, but then there’s several of your family, Patsy. I thought you might like them.”
“Are you going to throw them away?”
“I can’t imagine what I’d need them for,” Laney said. “So yes, I’m going to throw them away.” She settled one hand on her stomach while the other picked up a photograph. “I’ve just been trying to go through a cupboard or a closet every now and then to clean things out. Anything I don’t need, I’m getting rid of.” She turned the photo toward Patsy. “But look. That’s me.”
Patsy took the photo, and she could see the youthful version of Laney standing on the edge of the orchard, squinting into the sun. A sense of happiness, of easier times, flowed from the picture, and Patsy wanted all of them.
“I see that,” she said, smiling. She hadn’t seen any of her mother and father though, and she went back to the array of pictures on the table. “What year were you in ninth grade?” she asked.
“Oh, let’s see,” Laney said with a sigh. She sat down at the table, and she looked tired. Bailey had said Ronnie was sick, and Patsy determined not to leave without asking Laney if she needed dinner. A break. Something. She certainly looked like she could use both. “I turned sixteen in tenth grade. I’m forty-six now.”
“Nineteen-ninety,” Cy said without hardly missing a beat. Both women looked at him, but he just reached for a photo.
“I was born in eighty-nine,” Patsy said. “I would be a year old in these.” She started looking for herself as a baby, and only three pictures later, she found one. Her mother held her in her arms, a bright smile on her face as she held out an apple to Joe, who was probably seven in the picture.
Patsy marveled at the emotion on her mother’s face. She looked so happy, something she claimed she hadn’t been in Coral Canyon. She’d said the orchard wore on her, and she just couldn’t live surrounded by apple trees for the rest of her life. Patsy didn’t understand her, because all she wanted to do was live under the shade of the apple trees.
“Your mom and dad,” Cy murmured, sliding another picture on top of the one Patsy couldn’t look away from.
She blinked and took in her parents sitting on the bench they’d kept in the garden for years. They had more than one family picture on that bench, and Patsy pulled in a tight breath. They were holding hands and looking at each other while they laughed.
Joy filled her next breath, and she knew it came from the picture. So something had definitely happened in the following years, because her mother had certainly been in love with her father at this point.
“Aren’t they great?” Laney asked. “Anyway, I thought you might want them.” She sighed as she stood, using both hands against the tabletop to do it.
Patsy stacked the pictures. “I do want them,” she said. “I’ll take all of them if that’s okay.”
“Totally okay.”
Patsy did like seeing the trees from thirty years ago, because these ones closest to the house were so much bigger now. The house had gotten bigger over the years too, and Patsy wanted to take the pictures to the orchard and compare them to what was there now.
“You can stack them all in that shoebox,” Laney said. “Take the whole thing.”
She and Cy packed up the pictures, and while Cy put the lid on, Patsy turned to Laney. “Are you okay, Laney? Want me to bring down some lunch? Dinner?” She glanced toward the mouth of the hall, where she assumed bedrooms were. “How’s Ronnie?”
“He’s very sick,” Laney said with a weary smile. “Graham went to get some things in town for him.”
“Will he be okay?” Patsy asked.
“We took him to the emergency care center this morning,” Laney said. “He has the flu. Liam told Graham what to get, and yes, he’ll be okay.”
Patsy sensed there was more, and she wondered if this was one of those feelings Cy had talked about. “Are you feeling okay?” she asked, wondering how much to press Laney.
“Just tired,” she said, turning away.
“We’ll bring you dinner, then,” Cy said, his voice rumbling through Patsy’s soul. “What’s your favorite thing?”
Patsy expected Laney to protest and say they were fine. Instead, she looked up and said, “If you’d bring us a pan of scalloped potatoes from Mama Marie’s, I would love you forever.”
Cy chuckled, and even Patsy smiled at Laney. “I’ll call them right now,” Patsy said, and she pulled her phone out to get the job done. She wandered down the hall while she talked to the girl about doing a take-out order. Her own stomach growled, and she saw no reason not to get food for her and Cy too. Perhaps they could go back to his house and eat and enjoy the rest of the day together.
She couldn’t believe she was going to take the rest of the day off, but as she turned back toward Cy, her decision solidified. “I got us food too,” she said. “Drive me down the canyon to get it?”
“Of course.”
“We’ll be back in a little bit,” Patsy promised Laney, and she waved to them.
Out in Cy’s truck, Patsy buckled her seatbelt and said, “I thought we could take her the potatoes and then you could take me on a tour of your shop and your house.”
“Oh, there’s nothing to see at either of those,” he said with a light laugh.
Patsy debated about how to respond. Maybe I just want to get you alone again. Too bold.
Maybe she could say, I took the whole day off to spend with you. That gave away too much.
Thankfully, Cy said, “But we can do that, if you want. I’ve been working on this new mailbox for Gray and Elise, and it’s pretty cool.”
“I’d love to see it.” Instead of saying the bold things inside her mind, Patsy reached over and took Cy’s hand in hers.
He glanced at her and squeezed her hand, and Patsy suddenly felt like the radio was playing a chorus of angels. He didn’t say anything, and Patsy’s mind wandered around her to-do list at the lodge, the pictures in the shoe box between her and Cy, and what was really wrong with Laney Whittaker.
Chapter Eleven
Cy blended the greenish-gray paint with the beige paint, making it look like the gradient coloring on a cutthroat trout. Gray and Hunter loved fishing with their whole souls, and they’d fed him more than one trout dinner this past summer and fall when Cy had first looked at relocating to Wyoming.
He wanted to do something to fill his time while he waited for his building to be finished, and Gray didn’t have a mailbox at his new house. Cy had a certification in welding, and he’d been using the back shed here at the house he rented, which had a workshop and plenty of heat.
He’d made a great fish-shaped tube, and the paint was really bringing it all together. The front of the mailbox, which Gray or Hunter would open to get their mail, would be the fish’s mouth, and Cy couldn’t wait to show it to them.
The radio played, and the heater pumped, and Cy worked. He never paid attention to a clock anymore; he much preferred choosing a time to be done working and setting an alarm. That way, he didn’t have to constantly wonder if he’d be late. This strategy had alleviated some of his anxiety in general, and it allowed him to relax and enjoy whatever he was doing.
When his alarm went off some time later, Cy quickly finished dabbing on a few more dark spots for the trout’s skin, and reached over to tap off the chiming noises. His shoulders ached a little, and he rolled them out as he surveyed his work for the day.
He started cleaning up, and when he had the brushes soaking in paint thinner and all the newspapers in the recycling bin, he reached for the radio and turned it off. He had to trek through the frozen wilderness to the house, but it was only about thirty yards. In the house, he wished he had a dog to keep him company, and Patsy had told
him about a great dog rescue operation in Dog Valley.
They’d made plans to go after the New Year, and Cy had been telling himself to be patient for several days now.
Tonight was New Year’s Eve, and that meant it would be “after the New Year” in literally two days. Gray and Elise would be back from their honeymoon on the second, and Cy wanted the mailbox done by then. So he could wait to get a dog to take care of.
He showered, scrubbing extra hard to get all the paint flecks off his skin and hopefully all of the fumes out of his hair. He shaved and brushed his teeth, styled his hair—which he really liked—and dressed in what he hoped would be a fashion statement but not embarrass Patsy.
They were going to the New Year’s Eve ball at the community center, and Cy’s nervousness increased in relation to his excitement. When he was with Patsy, he didn’t experience nearly as much anxiety and worry. When he wasn’t, he could feel himself spiraling.
His parents had gone back to Ivory Peaks with Ames a couple of days ago, but Cy could still hear his brother’s counsel from breakfast a few days ago. You need to go see someone, Cy. There are medications for this kind of thing.
He knew there were. He’d taken them before. He didn’t like them. They made everything in his mind soft. They put a wall between him and his feelings, and he didn’t like it. He liked feeling all the things he felt—at least he liked feeling over not feeling.
He’d rather flip a rubber band on his wrist to calm himself than exist behind a medicated cloud.
He looked at himself in the mirror, thinking the jeans were normal. He wore a cream shirt with a greenish-brown tie—very much like the skin of the trout he’d been painting that day—and he shrugged into a suit coat jacket he’d found at the secondhand shop here in town. It was at least thirty years old, with wide lapels and boxy shoulders and a ton of charm.
He loved the jacket, and he’d been pleasantly surprised that it fit as well as it did. He’d paid seventeen dollars for it, and he made sure everything lay right in place before reaching for his cowboy hat.
“Only one more thing,” he muttered to himself, picking up the shades he’d also found at the secondhand shop. His brothers didn’t understand why he went there; they sat and reminded him of how much money he had. But to Cy, it wasn’t about the money at all. It was about finding something rare. Something used and forgotten and breathing new life into it.
With the shades on—he could still see his eyes through the brown lenses—he completed his New Year’s Eve look. He wouldn’t wear the glasses inside, and he probably wouldn’t wear them at all except for the few moments where he stood on Patsy’s porch to pick her up for the ball.
They completed the outfit, that was for sure, and he hoped he’d have an opportunity to use them in the future.
As it was, he was ten minutes late leaving to pick up Patsy. As he grabbed his keys and wallet from the kitchen, he paused. Right there in the bowl where he kept his pocket items sat the rubber band.
He wanted to take it, if only to help him focus on the drive up the canyon. In the end, he walked out without it, still cycling through his thoughts about medication and homeopathic remedies for his anxiety and nervousness.
Thirty minutes later, he stood on Patsy’s porch, smoothing down his jacket after he’d knocked. The door opened, and Sophia stood there, wearing a pair of black leggings and an oversized sweater. Jonas, the little black and white dog that had taken to Cy, rushed right out onto the porch.
“Oh, my goodness,” she said, scanning him from boot to hat. A smile spread across her face, and she shook her head. “You are something else, Cy.”
Cy took that as a compliment, and he grinned back at her as he scooped Jonas into his arms. “I’m assuming Patsy’s here.” He chuckled as the dog licked his face, and he leaned away saying, “No, buddy. No licking.”
“She’s finishing her makeup,” Sophia said. “Come on in. I’ll go warn her.”
“Warn her?” He laughed, though he supposed she should be warned. Although, if she didn’t know he was going to show up in something a little off the beaten path, then she didn’t know him at all.
He’d like to think she did know him—at least a little bit. They’d gone out a few times since Christmas, and he talked to her every day, either on the phone or through texting.
He waited in the living room with Jonas while Sophia left, and because the cabin was so small, he could hear their female voices in the bathroom. He glanced at the fireplace where he and Patsy had made s’mores, and then into the kitchen where he’d flirted with her shamelessly as they’d made pizzas.
He sure did like her, and so far, there were no red flags or obvious sirens telling him not to fall for her.
When she came around the corner in a devastatingly beautiful bright blue dress, Cy dang near leapt off the cliff. He’d go anywhere and to any length to have this woman on his arm. She smiled at him, her lips painted a bright red.
“Oh, wow,” he said, wanting to laugh but suddenly not knowing how. Her dress had a high collar, short sleeves, and fit her like a glove to the waist, where it flared.
“Not quite a ballgown,” she said. “But a party dress.” She spun on the toe of a bright yellow pair of pumps, and Cy was floating toward heaven now.
“You’re gorgeous,” he said, and Patsy glowed. He took a step toward her, and in this small space, he only needed to take two more to reach her. “That dress is amazing. Brings out the color of your eyes like crazy.”
“What about the earrings?” she asked, her voice full of fun.
And if there was one thing Cy really liked, it was having fun. He could barely tear his gaze from her mouth to look at her earlobes. When he did, he found a dangling pair of yellow rubber chickens, and he burst out laughing.
He took those two steps and swept her into his arms. “I should’ve gotten a memo about the color scheme,” he said, still chuckling. “I could’ve worn a blue tie, at least.”
“Oh, no,” she said, grinning up at him, her hands securely on the back of his elbows. “It would have to be mustard yellow to go with this jacket.”
“You like this jacket, don’t you?” he asked, clearly teasing her.
“You know what? I do.”
“It’s from nineteen-seventy-four,” he said. “I wasn’t even alive then.”
Patsy tipped her head back and giggled, and Cy basked in the happiness the two of them could produce together. “So we’ll take a bit of the past with us into the future,” she said.
“That’s right.” He backed up slightly and cocked his elbow, a zing moving up and down his legs and into his spine. “Shall we?”
“We shall,” she said with a slight British accent. Cy forgot all of his manners and didn’t say good-bye to Jonas or Sophia. He didn’t even close the door behind him. He wasn’t sure how he’d gotten from the cabin to the truck, but he had.
“Seat heaters,” he said, finally breaking out of the trance he’d fallen into. Patsy smelled like something petally and soft, and he wanted to hold her close and dance the night away with her.
Luckily, that was exactly what they’d signed up for, and when they entered the dimly lit gymnasium in the community center, it had been transformed into a fairytale ball.
“Wow,” Cy said, trying to take everything in at the same time. Purple and green fabric had been stretched from the walls to the ceiling, and white tea lights were the only source of light. Vines snaked up the walls, and a perfectly round carriage sat in the corner nearest to him. People stood by it, clutching their significant other while a photographer snapped pictures.
“I thought this might feel a little like high school prom,” he said. “But it’s great.”
“It’s wonderful,” Patsy said, glancing around. “I don’t even know where to look.”
In the middle of the room stood a statue, and it looked like a goblin or a troll to Cy. He supposed that made sense, since they had literally just entered the enchanted forest.
“The
buffet is on the far side,” a man said, and Cy brought his attention back to his near proximity. The man there wore a navy velvet suit and a top hat, and Cy thought Ames would simply love this ball. “There are drinks on the other side of the carriage. Pictures on this side. Plenty of space to dance in the woods.” He beamed at them like this was going to be the best night of their lives, and Cy actually thought it would be.
“Do you want to eat first?” he asked. “It’s not too crowded yet.” They’d gotten there a little after eight, and dinner had started at seven-thirty. It went until ten, so they had plenty of time.
“Sure,” Patsy said. He kept his hand on the small of her back as they navigated the “woods” to the other side of the gym. Nothing had been overlooked, that was for sure. Little woodland creatures peered out from behind fake tree trunks. A pumpkin patch took up the front part of the gym, with a family of rabbits up on their hind legs, sniffing out danger. “It all looks so real,” he said.
“Can you imagine doing this?” she asked. “I need to know who did this and recruit them to the lodge to be my activities director.”
“Still looking for one of those?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s really hard to find people right now. There are so many job openings in Coral Canyon.”
That was very good news for Cy, and though he’d heard it before, the fact that he wouldn’t have a problem hiring people to work in the shop always made him happy. “Maybe I could do it,” Cy said.
Patsy slowed and stopped, gaping at him. “You?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Me. I ran a motorcycle shop, Patsy. I can put on a few events at a luxury lodge.” He took her hand and tugged her gently to get her moving again. “I’m not doing anything right now. The shop won’t be done until at least March. Why not me?”
“Well.” She opened her mouth to say more, but nothing came out. “I don’t—I don’t know. What experience do you have putting together events?”
“Uh, none,” he said. “But I know how to build a custom bike. I know how to get people on the same page. I can schedule a snowshoeing…thing, and get the boys in the stables to feed the horses on time.” He knew what the event coordinator at the lodge did. And if he didn’t, he could literally call his sister-in-law and ask her. Bree would help him, and he said that next.
