by Davis Bunn
Even if it meant staying alone for the rest of her life.
There was a book she had read once. Novels had become a mainstay of her nightly routine. Climb into bed with a good story, read until she could finally give in to sleep. A while back, she read about a woman vacationing on a Caribbean island who, after a solitary dinner, agreed to go on a moonlit walk with a man she had met in a bar. Midway through the walk, the woman had declared, “I positively ache for a man.”
Stella had thrown the book across the bedroom. Who was this woman to speak like that to somebody she had just met? Were there really people out there who were so utterly able to disconnect from their normal lives and do whatever they pleased?
Well, not her.
Then she noticed something new. A group of mothers often congregated by the three benches that lined the school’s front walk. They chattered like gay little birds. Stella had joined them a few times, but never connected, so now she waited in her car. Today, the women kept glancing over at the massive oak that shaded the principal’s parking space. One of them said something, the others laughed. And they kept looking.
When the school bell rang, Daniel stepped out of the tree’s shadows.
Despite all the reasons she had to feel the opposite, Stella definitely agreed with the ladies. That was one strikingly handsome man.
She found herself filled with all the conflicting emotions of an awkward teen. Which was just completely ridiculous. She had done the right thing for all the right reasons.
Still . . .
Then she saw that big golden dog of his go on full alert. Goldie barked once—and bolted. The change was so swift it caught Daniel completely by surprise, and before he could respond, the dog had pulled her leash free from Daniel’s hand.
Daniel called after her and started running . . .
Toward Amber.
“Goldie!”
The shout did not come from Daniel as he chased after his dog. Instead, Amber showed her trademark unbridled joy and knelt to greet Goldie with an ecstatic hug.
* * *
Daniel felt a thousand eyes follow him across the school’s front yard. He knelt on Goldie’s opposite side and watched Amber pet his dog. Amber had the look of a young elf, illuminated by some ethereal force, with a stroke as gentle as a summer breeze. Goldie sat immobile, panting softly. She looked like she would be happy to stay there all day.
There was no reason from their three previous meetings for Daniel to be as fond of Amber as he was. First at the grave of his ex-fiancée, then at a dinner when Chloe blew the roof off her home, and finally when Amber’s mother told him to go away. He was searching for the right thing to say when Amber spoke softly, “My mommy needs a friend.”
Daniel found himself shoved into a seated position. Not because of what Amber said. Rather, because of the thought that came to him.
He knew exactly what Amber was saying.
Since going through what Daniel thought of as his turning, his own world had become framed by friends, including Travis and others he had come to know through the AA group, and a few people who had helped him settle into Miramar. All were aware of what he had left behind and the shadows he carried still. They had helped him meet the daily challenge of staying sober.
And now there was Nicole. She was a new friend. A true one.
But he knew what it meant to be alone, and in need of someone who offered a caring hand simply because they could.
So when Stella rushed up, Daniel rose, dusted off his trousers, and said, “I need to ask a favor.”
Clearly this was the last thing she expected to hear from him. “I . . . what?”
“I understand you can’t make room for romance. At least, not with me.”
“Daniel . . .”
“No, please, let me finish. I’m facing two huge issues that have caught me completely unaware. One of them is named Nicole, the other . . .”
Daniel stopped talking because Amber rose to her feet and stood on her tiptoes to hug his waist. He had absolutely no idea what to do with his hands. So he just stood there, looking down at the top of her head. Then he glanced at Stella and saw how the tears had gathered at the corners of her eyes, and the whole day just got better.
Daniel gently pried Amber free and sort of passed her over to Stella. The young girl’s response was curious, a sort of dimming of the light. Which did not go unnoticed by her mother. But somehow all that only made his idea seem much better. “Look, Chloe is doing her first-ever shoot this weekend.”
“Shoot . . . oh, you mean with a photographer.”
“Right. Veronica is also a professional cosmetician. This afternoon and tomorrow we’ll be working mostly in her studio and at my place. Headshots and some fashion stuff.”
Amber’s light resumed its remarkable glow. “That is so cool! Mommy, can I go watch?”
Daniel could see the effort Stella required to clamp down on her automatic refusal. She breathed. Again. Then asked, “What do you think?”
Daniel directed his question to Amber. “Can you be completely silent?”
“Totally!”
“I’m not talking about a few minutes. This will make some very long hours for everybody except—”
“I want to see!”
Daniel shrugged. “She can try it this afternoon. She’ll probably get totally bored by the whole deal—”
“I won’t! I promise!”
Stella stroked her daughter’s head as she asked Daniel, “What was it you were going to say?”
“Right. The normal stills should be done by tomorrow. Veronica wants to find someplace where she could do some location stills.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“Somewhere isolated, a location that holds a singular beauty. There’s a place I went to a long time back. Tranquility Falls.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“It dried up in the drought. I went back . . .” Trying to remember exactly when that was brought back nothing but vague, shadowy recollections. “Years ago.”
Amber’s eyes went entirely round. “You mean, like, a waterfall?”
“The last time I was there, the falls and the lake both had dried up,” he warned. “But with all the rain we’ve had the last two seasons, maybe it’s come back.”
“Mommy, please, can we go!”
Daniel finished, “The hike is about two hours from the trailhead.”
“We love to hike!” The dog responded to her excitement with a whoof of her own. “Goldie wants to go! Mommy, say yes!”
Daniel leaned in close enough to see a reflection of his own lonely state in Stella’s gaze. He said so softly the words were for her alone, “Friends. Nothing more.”
He actually saw the tension vanish, swift as smoke on a sudden breeze. “Thank you,” she replied. “We would love that.”
CHAPTER 29
On Saturday morning, Daniel slipped from the house while dawn was merely a faint smudge over the eastern hills. In his sleepy state, he opened the passenger door and waited for Goldie to hop inside, then realized the dog was still camped inside Nicole’s room.
Nicole’s room. So many changes to his life crammed into those two small words.
He drove to the church he sometimes attended, took the stairs to the basement, walked the long corridor, and entered the largest classroom. Saturday AA meetings were always jammed.
As expected, Travis was seated in the back row, showing the world an unaccustomed scowl. Even with people standing by the rear wall, the chairs to either side of Travis remained empty. Daniel slipped into the seat to his right. They sat in silence, bonded by all that remained unspoken. Only when the class broke up and the room filled with the Saturday morning din did Travis say, “Appreciate what you did.”
Daniel waved to Veronica, the photographer, then shook his head when she started over. He told Travis, “You don’t need to say that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You’ve been there for me too many times to c
ount. I won’t say it was a pleasure, but it was good to be able to help you out.”
“I needed that. Help.” Travis leaned back, causing the chair to squeak in protest. He saw the photographer pretending not to watch them. “Ricki said Veronica and Chloe stopped by yesterday. They went through both mother’s and daughter’s closets.”
Daniel nodded. “I stayed outside. They loaded my pickup with about a thousand outfits. They spent yesterday afternoon and evening at Veronica’s doing posed studio shots.”
“And?”
“Veronica showed me a few of the best. The camera likes Chloe. A lot.”
Travis sighed. “What’s happening now?”
“Today we’re shooting at my place. Tomorrow I’m taking them into the hills. Veronica wants to do some outdoor shots for the portfolio. She says activity wear is the new big thing, at least for models who can pull it off.”
Travis disliked that intensely. “My daughter the bikini model.”
“It’s a lot more than that, and you know it.”
“Knowing and accepting are two different things.”
Daniel saw no need to respond to that.
Travis lumbered to his feet. “I guess I better go tell Veronica thanks.”
“She knows what you and Ricki are going through,” Daniel replied, hurting for his friend. “Do you want to come along on Sunday?”
The big man worked through a hurricane of emotions. All he said was, “Better not.”
Daniel watched him move away, as light on his feet as a ballerina. He had asked because he had to. But Travis was right. This hike was about a lot more than Chloe getting her picture taken.
* * *
Saturday passed in a state of perpetual motion for everyone except Daniel. Veronica was a real pro, taking time between each shot to study the subject and the setting, rearranging much of his house in the process, then setting up the lights and using Nicole and Amber to hold the reflectors. Veronica did her own makeup, a throwback to the era when she was still trying to break in. Back then, she photographed the lesser models and did PR photography on studio sets. Throughout the long day, Nicole and Amber remained fascinated by what to Daniel was an extremely boring process.
Chloe was so excited she kept leaking tears, which meant Veronica repeatedly had to stop and redo her makeup.
No one complained.
That evening Chloe called her parents because Daniel insisted, then retreated to her bedroom as soon as she finished dinner. Nicole found a dusty chessboard in her closet and ignored his protests that it had probably belonged to his almost in-laws and he hadn’t played in years. She beat him soundly three games straight, but neither of them cared much. Certainly not Daniel.
Daniel slept very little that night. Finally, around five he knocked on the girls’ doors, expecting moans and draggy expressions and complaints over leaving while it was still dark. But the only objection to the hour came from Goldie, who drifted sleepily around, bumping against his legs and generally making her displeasure known as he fixed breakfast and called the photographer and Stella.
When they left the house, dawn was as lovely a greeting as Daniel could have hoped for, cool and windless and not a cloud in the sky. Even so, the baggage he had unpacked during the night remained a heavy burden. Not even the two girls and their sleepy cheerfulness could erase the fact that he had, at some deep level, taken another step beyond his boundaries.
* * *
An hour before she needed to rise, Stella gave up on the quarrel she was having with her bed. She dressed for the day, which meant layers. She put out clothes for Amber. She entered the kitchen and made coffee. She drank it staring at her reflection in the dark window, wishing she had the good sense to nip this in the bud. For once and for all.
And she tried as hard as she could to ignore the yearning pleasure she felt over spending the day in that man’s company.
She carried the dirty-clothes basket to the garage, put a load in the washer, and returned to the kitchen to find Amber pouring cereal in a bowl. “I was just about to come wake you.”
“And now you don’t need to.” As cool and matter-of-fact as a teen in a polite sulk.
“Do I get a kiss?”
Amber managed to slip over, kiss her cheek, and return to her stool, all without actually making eye contact. Which hurt a great deal. But Stella could not find a way to bridge the divide. So she remained silent and busied her hands making sandwiches. Amber finished her bowl and joined her, filling six baggies with apple slices and grapes. “Darling, there’s only five of us.”
Amber paused long enough to give her mother the sort of look perfected by young teens everywhere. “There are six, Mommy. Veronica’s coming too, remember?”
Stella was about to ask who Veronica was when Amber went from cool and silent to as excited as an eleven-year-old could possibly be. “They’re here!”
She stepped into the foyer and watched Amber fling open the front door, race down the walk, hug the shaggy blond dog, and say, “Hi, Daniel. Mommy made lunch for an army.”
“Then I better go give her a hand.”
Hastily, Stella finished packing their lunch, her actions sped up by the sound of Daniel’s boots on the front walk. She had no idea why it seemed so important that Daniel not enter their home. She snagged Amber’s forgotten case, scurried across the foyer, and slammed the front door just as he started up the steps. “Good morning.”
“Hi.” His smile seemed slightly canted, as if some unseen weight tugged down one side of his face. “Can I give you a hand with that?”
“Sure.” She followed him to the truck, where she discovered the three girls crammed into the rear seat, with Goldie by their feet. She watched Daniel stow the two packs in the rear hold and close the hinged top, then opened her door and climbed inside. “Thank you again for inviting us.”
“I just hope there’s actually something for us to see when we get there.”
They left Miramar by the main highway, turned north, and followed the seaside boundary of the central hills. Twenty miles later, Daniel took a county road that ran along a dry river gorge. Dawn shadows streaked the lowlands, while the rising sun rimmed the eastern hills. Stella rolled down her window and breathed the crisp spring air, redolent of sage and creosote and coming heat.
The girls chattered gaily in the back seat, their words a constant happy rush, as strong as the wind. Every time Stella glanced back, Amber was stroking the dog and glowing with that singular light. If she even noticed Stella’s looks, she gave no sign.
Daniel, on the other hand, remained cloaked in shadows strong enough to defy the growing daylight. Stella moved in closer and softly asked, “Is something the matter?”
He made no attempt to deny it. “This place and I have a history.”
“Terrible thing, histories,” she said.
He was quiet long enough for her to assume he was not going to say anything more. Then he surprised Stella by rolling down his own window. Speaking so softly that his words were almost lost to the rushing wind, he said, “My ex-fiancée brought me here the first time I came to Miramar. It all seemed so simple then. So full of promise. I had just started my regular television gig, she was a mid-level producer with CBS, everything was going our way.”
She recalled meeting Daniel at the woman’s grave and could think of nothing to say except, “I’m sorry.”
“We came back twice more, but the drought had dried up the lake.” He turned off the county road onto a smaller lane ribbed by ancient repairs. “The falls were nothing but a stain on the high rocks.”
“Daniel, why are you bringing us here?”
“With all the rain we’ve had, I thought maybe the falls had returned.”
“That’s not what I asked, and you know it.”
The grip he had on the wheel bunched his shoulders. “I thought . . . to tell the truth, I don’t know what I thought.”
But she could read the answer on his face. Handsome, tanned, lean, and troubled. “You
thought maybe it was time to lay the old ghosts to rest.”
He tried for a smile, and failed. “It won’t be the first time I’ve gotten things terribly wrong.”
CHAPTER 30
Stella was still trying to come up with a response when they pulled into a graveled parking area. The rocks were almost covered in places by weeds, and the sign pointing to the trailhead was rusted through. A late-model Nissan SUV was the only other vehicle. As Daniel cut the motor, a slender Hispanic woman in her late fifties got out of the SUV. Chloe waved out her window and said, “That’s Veronica. She did runways and even did covers for Vanity Fair and Cosmo and everybody.”
Veronica greeted Daniel with, “Glad I made it to the correct middle of nowhere.”
“I hope I haven’t brought everybody out here for nothing.”
Veronica smiled at Chloe. “I’m sure we can get a few good shots, waterfall or not. Right, dear?”
“Count me in.”
“That’s my girl.” Veronica was tall, with a delicate build and a well-lined face. Stella suspected there was a core of latent strength hidden behind those knowing dark eyes.
“I’m Stella, Amber’s mother.”
“Your daughter is the second-best unpaid assistant I’ve ever had.” Veronica waved at Nicole. “Ready for another long day?”
“You bet.”
Daniel opened the rear hold’s door. “How long have you been waiting?”
“Not long.” She turned her attention back to Amber. “I’ve been thinking. How would you feel about having me shoot some pictures of you as well?”
“Oh no,” Stella cried, then clamped a hand to her mouth. “Sorry. That just slipped out.”
Amber replied, “It’d be okay, I guess.”
“Well, just okay doesn’t cut it. Not in this business.” She turned to Stella. “Let me know if that changes. I see potential.”
“What does that mean, Mommy?”
Stella was still searching for a decent reply when Veronica indicated Chloe and said, “You have to want it as much as this young lady.” She pulled a case from the rear seat and slung it over her shoulder. “The camera always knows.”
