Winter Reunion (Aspen Creek Crossroads Book 1)

by Roxanne Rustand

  “And down here?”

  “Kayak and inner tube rentals. Customers could practically step outside the door and go right into the water. Of course, there’d have to be van service of some kind for return transport.” Dev felt a glimmer of excitement building in the pit of his stomach. “Rock-climbing gear, cross-country and downhill ski equipment…there could be something for every season.” Dev cleared his throat, a little embarrassed. “For whoever might be crazy enough to take the risk, that is.”

  “Crazy? Sounds like a great idea to me. Of course, I never did get into all of that sporting stuff,” Frank said with a wistful smile. “I’m just a stuffy old man who wouldn’t know a kayak from a duck boat.”

  “It’s not too late.”

  “Even in my younger days I wasn’t all that coordinated.” Frank gave a self-deprecating laugh. “So…if some stranger was to pursue that dream of yours, what might he do with that strip of land between the back of the building and the river?”

  “Picnic tables, maybe, so customers and staff could come out and have lunch. Think it would work?”

  “Sounds great. How soon can you open?”

  Dev choked back a startled laugh at Frank’s subtle persistence. “Like I said—”

  “Sounds like you’ve been doing a lot more thinking about this than you realize, son. If I were you, I’d put a pen to paper and see if it’s possible. How hard could it be? You need a new career. This building is yours—or it will be—and it’s perfect.”

  “You make it sound easy.”

  “Maybe not easy, but it could be a lot of fun. New beginnings can be a grand adventure.” Frank pursed his lips. “I’ve found that praying hard on something helps guide me in the right direction…unless God has better plans. You oughta give it a try.”

  “Now you sound like Beth.”

  Frank gave him a keen, penetrating look. “Well, she’s a believer, and she’s a young woman who set out to accomplish things on her own and did them well. So I guess I’ll take that as a real compliment.”

  Back up on the main level, Frank followed Dev out onto the street and watched as he locked the door.

  Dev hesitated. “I have to admit I thought about this place last night, when I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about display cases, and merchandise, wondering if it was even possible.”

  “Well, I can tell you that there’s not another business like it within twenty miles of Aspen Creek, and the tourist trade has been increasing every year. Good steady business all summer long, and they expect at least twenty thousand visitors during Fall Harvest weekend. Last year, they came from a hundred-mile radius. Not bad for a little town like ours.”

  “I’ll give it some thought.”

  “Good timing,” Frank mused. “The Fall Harvest Festival is in two weeks. If you get on it, you could put in a few display cases and racks, and at least bring in a little merchandise to showcase your plans for the future. That could really get some word-of-mouth going for you, with all those people trampling through.”

  “Sounds like a great idea, but I don’t know where I’d even begin…and that’s not much time.”

  Frank rocked back on his heels, rubbing his chin as if deep in thought. “You wouldn’t need to get the whole place pulled together by then. But some nice big outdoor sports posters might be just the ticket.”

  Dev stepped back toward the curb and studied the front of the building. “And bright flags out front—with a few colorful kayaks leaning against the wall.”

  “And it wouldn’t take that much to get started, inside. Shelving, some displays. Figuring out what to order would be the hardest part, but I might just know someone who could give you some tips. After the festival, you could work on getting stocked in time for winter sports, and you’d have all winter to do the place up right and be ready for spring.”

  Dev laughed. “You are a dreamer.”

  “Of course, it’s a big job for one guy. If you decide to go ahead and need some help, a few hours a day with a screwdriver or hammer wouldn’t kill me. Not for pay,” Frank added quickly. “I’d just be returning a favor. I’m sure you’d rather be anywhere else than this quiet town, riding herd on a bunch of older folks.”

  Dev felt a flash of guilt. It was true, and he couldn’t think of a single thing to say in response.

  “Days get a little long when you don’t have a job and can’t find one that suits,” Frank added into the long silence. “But I’ll understand if you don’t want anyone in the way.”

  With the exception of the bomber hat he liked to wear, Frank looked like an elegant old guy, and he was certainly well-spoken. But the melancholy in his voice revealed the toll his situation has taken. “No luck with the job hunt, I take it.”

  “I sent out another two résumés this week. But one look at my long years of experience, and anyone can guess my age. Yet I’m too young to retire, and have too many good years left to want that. And I will not consider public assistance.”

  From the first moment he’d heard about his role in his mother’s last wishes for Sloane House, Dev had planned to do only what he had to, while guarding his personal distance from the boarders.

  Camaraderie could save your life, but real friendship only led to sorrow when a good buddy died in action. Over the years he’d lost too many, and he’d developed a tough hide and an instinct for emotional survival.

  But Frank, with his stubborn pride and the way he painstakingly dressed up each day in a well-worn suit and tie, as if doing so might help make his own dreams come true, was a man Dev was beginning to admire. “Maybe I could use help. An employee.”

  A corner of the man’s mouth lifted in a wry smile. “I didn’t mean to play a sympathy card, son. I don’t know the first thing about all this high adventure outdoor stuff. I’m just an old man talking.”

  In coming here today, Dev hadn’t meant to open a store, much less offer a job, but the unbidden words had tumbled out of his mouth. Yet now, the possibilities in front of him sounded better by the minute.

  “I’m going to crunch the numbers, like you suggested. If it looks good, I’ll let you know.” Dev felt his excitement over the idea growing. “But I sure couldn’t do it by myself.”

  “Well…” Frank hesitated, though the new sparkle in his eyes gave him away. “Then I guess I’m your man. Just say the word.”

  “I know you’re looking for a better career than this, though. There’ll be no hard feelings if you come across something else.”

  Sirens wailed in the distance. Faded, then grew louder as they wound through town.

  Frank’s snowy eyebrows drew together. “There’s a sound I never want to hear. In a small town like this, all too often they’re coming for someone I know.”

  Both men turned toward the sound. A second later, an ambulance careened around a corner several blocks down and came roaring up the street, its sirens deafening and flashing lights blinding as it skidded to a stop in front of Beth’s bookstore.

  Beth? Frozen in place for a split second, Dev stared. And then he started to run.

  Chapter Nine

  “Help is here,” Beth said, gently placing a throw pillow under Janet’s head. “You’re going to be just fine.”

  “I’m just glad there aren’t any customers here. If I’d landed on someone…” Janet groaned, her hands protectively laced over her belly and her eyes closed. “I can’t believe I did this.”

  “It could happen to anyone,” Beth soothed. She looked up expectantly when the front door crashed open and two fresh-faced young EMTs rushed in.

  “She twisted her ankle.” Beth stood and stepped back out of their way as the two young women knelt at Janet’s side. “She fell over that step stool by the bookshelves. She didn’t want me to call nine-one-one, but I was concerned about the baby.”

  The blonde, with “Teresa” embroidered on her shirt pocket, checked Janet’s pulse and flashed a penlight at her pupils while the brunette pulled out a stethoscope. “How far along are you, ma’am?”


  “Seven months.” Janet looked up at her with a faint smile. “My teenage boys think I did this at my ‘advanced age’ just to embarrass them.”

  The bells over the front door jangled again, and this time Dev burst through the door. He surveyed the situation, watching the EMTs continue their initial assessment for a moment, then he turned to Beth and gently gripped her upper arms. “I heard those sirens and thought something had happened to you.”

  Flustered, she met the intense, searching expression in his eyes and tried to smile in return. “Sorry, but you’re still stuck with me for the next six months.”

  He made a sound of frustration deep in his throat. “That isn’t what I meant, and you know it.”

  The bell over the door rang as more people crowded inside. Frank Ferguson. A few of her regular customers. And, Beth realized with chagrin, her mother.

  Maura frowned as she quickly dismissed the woman on the floor and glanced between Beth and Dev. “What’s going on here?”

  Beth took a step back to release Dev’s hold on her. “Everything is fine,” she called out to the gathering crowd. “Janet just took a little fall.”

  “But you’re all right,” Dev said in a low voice. “Thank God for that.”

  “I do thank Him. Every single day.” She turned back to Janet and the EMTs. “Is there anything I can do?”

  One of them was talking rapidly into a cell phone. The other one double-checked the air splint they’d just placed on Janet’s left leg, then sat back on her heels. “We’ll be taking Ms. Baker in. She needs to be seen by a physician.”

  Beth held a hand at her throat. “Is it serious?”

  The EMT shook her head. “That’s confidential, ma’am.”

  Janet lifted her head a few inches, her skin pale. “They want to make sure the baby is okay,” she whispered. “My husband is out of town. Would you call my sister, and let her know? She can tell the boys.”

  “Absolutely. I’ll follow you to the hospital, if you want me there.”

  “That would be wonderful. If anything happens to this baby…” Janet’s lower lip trembled. She turned toward Teresa. “Please, can she ride in the ambulance with me?”

  The EMT hesitated. “Well…there’s room, as long as you’re stable.”

  “I’ll follow,” Dev said, resting a hand on Beth’s upper arm once more. “I can wait with you and then give you a ride home.”

  Maura drew in a sharp breath. “I could go instead.”

  Beth looked between Dev and her mother, feeling the exponential rise of tension sparking between them. “Mom, this could be a long wait, and you said you didn’t sleep well last night. Dev can help me out.”

  Maura looked between the two of them, then her gaze locked on Devlin. She gave a reluctant nod.

  With rhythmic precision the EMTs positioned the gurney next to Janet, transferred her, then raised it with a clang. After looping thin, clear oxygen tubing over her head and adjusting the nasal cannulas beneath her nose, they pushed her out the door.

  “Gracious,” Frank murmured as he watched the ambulance pull away from the curb. “You just never know.”

  Dev nodded, feeling a twinge of guilt at his relief over the fact that it wasn’t Beth lying prone on that gurney. “Janet must be in her early forties, but she looks healthy enough. She’ll probably be home in no time.”

  “Maybe.” But the hint of sadness in Frank’s voice belied his words.

  “Is she a good friend?”

  “No, I just see her at church. Nice gal.”

  Dev frowned at Frank’s grim expression. “Then what is it?”

  “Just…remembering.” Frank’s shoulders sagged. “I think I’ll finish my walk, if it’s all the same to you. If you see Janet at the hospital, tell her I’ll be praying for her.”

  Dev jingled the keys in his pocket as he watched Frank start down the sidewalk with a heavy step, all evidence of his upbeat mood over his new job gone.

  At Frank’s age, he’d probably experienced plenty of loss…parents, friends, maybe siblings. Accepting the cycle of life for all its joys and sorrows didn’t make it any easier. And without a wife, facing the inevitable, inexorable increase in losses as one grew older had to be a lonely business.

  Exactly what Dev knew he’d experience himself someday, alone. Unless he managed to get back into active service again, and some random sniper or chance roadside bomb in the Middle East got to him first.

  Dev found Beth in the Trauma Center waiting room, her arms folded across her midsection. As usual, her hair had escaped its tidy knot and wild, chestnut tendrils curled at the side of her face giving her a look of vulnerability.

  Vulnerability brought into sharper focus by Maura’s earlier words of warning still ringing in his ears, and the realization that holding Beth’s arms for the brief moment in the bookstore had reawakened more than just a landslide of memories.

  He’d felt the same electricity, the same sense of completion he’d felt with her all those years ago. And how was he going to deal with that now?

  Distance.

  Beth’s obvious relief was palpable when he walked into the empty waiting room, and he felt a flash of guilt. “Where’s Janet?”

  “I got to be with her in the E.R., but now they’re doing some sort of tests. Her sons and her dad got here a few minutes ago and have gone to the cafeteria for some Coke. If you want to leave…”

  “No rush.” He settled into a chair across from her “Is she doing okay?”

  “She did break her ankle.” Beth bit her lower lip. “I just feel so bad for her. If I hadn’t been there, she could’ve waited a long time for some customer to come in and see her on the floor. And if she’d been up on the bookshelf ladder…” Beth shuddered.

  “But that didn’t happen. She’ll probably be out of here in no time flat, and back to work as usual.”

  “Not if her dad as anything to say about it. He wants her and the boys to come stay at his place for a while so he can take care of her, because her husband travels for a week at a time.”

  “She’s lucky to have family close by.”

  Beth looked down at her folded hands. “I’ve been praying there’s nothing more serious going on. The doctors seem to be concerned about the heart rate. If she loses her baby…” Her voice broke. “Oh, Dev. I’ll feel so responsible. The thought of putting anyone else through that…”

  She bowed her head lower, and now her slender shoulders were shaking. Was she crying?

  Feeling way out of his element, he clasped his hands in front of him and shifted in his chair. “I don’t know much about this. But surely one of these little critters can handle a few bumps along the way. It has to be the most natural thing in the world, having a baby.”

  She didn’t answer.

  He scooted his chair a couple feet closer. “You ought to see the terrible conditions in the remote areas of the Middle East. No medical care. Poor sanitation. And yet there seem to be babies everywhere…doing just fine. Your friend is receiving the best medical care, so she should be perfectly—”

  “I think you’d better stop. This is not an easy topic for me.”

  Wisps of flyaway chestnut hair hung about her face like a veil, but now he saw the teardrops glistening on her hands, and realization dawned.

  They’d married so young, well before any thought of taking on such a grown-up role…and as time passed he’d skirted the topic whenever it came up, the image of his demanding, critical father shouldering its way into his thoughts, filling him with a frightening sense of inadequacy and fear.

  What could he possibly know about being a loving father?

  Now he remembered the quiet hurt in Beth’s eyes that he’d tried to ignore, the longing way she’d cast glances at the little ones in other women’s arms. Guilt washed through him. Had he selfishly denied her something she’d wanted more than anything?

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, leaning forward to cover her hands with his.

  She froze, then pul
led her hands away and slowly raised her tear-filled eyes to meet his. “Why?”

  He struggled to find the right words, at a loss for what to say. “I guess a lot of women your age start thinking about families. Thinking it’ll be too late.”

  “My age.” Her voice turned to ice. “I’m only thirty-two.”

  “I suppose it’s hard seeing your friends…. well, like Janet. So you need to find the right guy and you can have kids, too.” He floundered on, the words already tasting sour on his tongue. The thought of any other man even asking her out hit him like a punch to the solar plexus. “Uh…right?”

  “Right. It’s all as easy as can be.” She bit out each word.

  He shifted uneasily in his seat, knowing he’d just ended up in a dense minefield without a clue about how he’d gotten there, much less how to escape.

  He sighed heavily. “Again, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  And now another realization struck with the force of a Mack truck.

  “You said that the thought of putting anyone else through this upset you. What did you mean by that?”

  “It really doesn’t matter.”

  “I think it does.” He reached for her hands again, but she jerked them away and folded her arms over her stomach. “Tell me.”

  She glanced around the empty waiting room and lowered her voice to a harsh whisper. “Why do you think you have a right to know anything at all? Where were you, all of our married life? And when did you ever care?”

  He flinched. “I was military.”

  “There are strong, loving military families, Dev. You used it as an excuse for distancing yourself from me. When you demanded a divorce, it shouldn’t have been such a surprise. You’d walked out of my life emotionally a long time before.”

  A rush of memories crashed through his thoughts. Blood and screams and fellow soldiers dying in his arms. The smell of death, of bodies lying mangled under heaps of concrete.