by Liza Kendall
Charlie pushed open the door with a token knock to find Lila sitting at her glass desk—literally a thick piece of glass placed over two large urns full of yet more party paraphernalia—looking as harried and disheveled as she’d ever seen her. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Charlie asked, easing the door shut before it slammed.
Lila cocked her head, a pained expression on her face. “How bad?”
“Bad.” Charlie dropped the rose on Lila’s paperwork.
Lila studied the atrocity and then looked up at the ceiling. “Is Will sure he wants to commit himself to her for the rest of his life?”
Charlie sat on the sofa’s armrest and shrugged. “It has not escaped my notice that Will is not yet in town, though he’s getting married in a matter of days. I hope he didn’t bite off more than he can chew.”
“I feel that there’s a really gross joke in there somewhere,” Lila said, wrinkling her nose.
“Well, it’ll all be over soon.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Charlie felt a pang in her heart.
“Yeah,” Lila said. And then she went silent.
“What’s on your mind?” Charlie asked.
“I’ve been thinking about family . . . in general. And about my family in particular.” She hesitated.
So Charlie prompted with a soft, “Go on.”
“If it weren’t for this wedding, I don’t think Jake and I would be talking much still. Maybe there’s actually a chance my family can pull itself together after all this time. Literally and figuratively.” Lila smiled wryly. “Wouldn’t that be something?”
“I would so love that for you,” Charlie said softly. “I bet Jake would love that. And Declan. Well, I haven’t seen him yet, but it’s all he ever wanted.”
Lila fiddled with the pen in her hands. It was purple with an enormous tuft of feathers on the end, clearly some sort of event leftover. “It’s been hard enough trying to reconnect with Jake,” she said. “I can’t imagine being close to Declan again. I dunno. Declan will always leave the door open for us, but I think we broke his heart for good. We just didn’t appreciate what he was trying to do.” She cleared her throat, still fixated on the pen. “He was barely an adult, trying to take care of us all. He worked his fingers to the bone to keep the ranch afloat, to keep food on the table, to keep our family together . . .” Lila’s voice cracked.
“You were so young,” Charlie said. “We were all so young.”
“Everything we did and said told Declan he wasn’t good enough. We all left him. One after another, looking for greener grass, a real family.”
“Lila, Lila,” Charlie said, taking her friend’s hand across the desk. “You’d lost your mom and dad. You were hurting. Everything seemed wrong. Nobody knew what to do. And Declan tried his hardest, but it wasn’t what you wanted at the time. I remember how it was.”
Lila pulled herself together, clearing her throat. “Maybe it wasn’t what any of us wanted. But maybe it was what we needed. Maybe if we’d all just stayed and tried a little harder. He was the only one who even really tried. Maybe if Everett hadn’t left for boarding school and Ace hadn’t spent so much time at baseball camps and on the road with travel teams. If I hadn’t chased mother figures in every woman I saw, inviting myself to dinner with strangers while Declan’s sloppy joes and Hamburger Helper got colder and colder when no one showed up. Maybe if Jake hadn’t moved in with you . . .”
A lot of things might have been different if Jake hadn’t moved in with the Nash family. It was almost an accident how it all happened. Jake coming home to hang out with Brandon after school every day because things at the ranch were so dark. He’d told her all about it. About Declan trying to do too much. Running the ranch, putting food on the table, wiping Lila’s tears and frankly spoiling her, to compensate for the absence of their parents. Everett fighting with everybody because he couldn’t cry over the loss. Ace mentally checking out and shadowing his coaches and finally leaving to train for the pros.
Then it was just Declan and Lila waiting at home in a mess of uncertainty and sorrow. But Jake didn’t go home. He stayed for dinner at the Nash mansion—once, twice, and then all the time, like a member of the family—until her parents even gave him his own bed and treated him like Brandon’s twin brother. And suddenly, he lived there, part of the stable, normal family he craved. The one Declan couldn’t give him.
Charlie rested her hand on Lila’s back until her friend heaved a great sigh and pulled away.
Lila quickly plastered that old let’s-look-on-the-bright-side smile on her face. “Well, it is what it is, right? Just like everything else.”
There was something a little off about Lila’s forced cheer. Charlie cocked her head to one side, studying her friend’s face. “Like what ‘everything else’? Is there something else bothering you?”
Lila’s cheeks turned pink, but she didn’t say a word. Just tapped her pen against the paper like a manic squirrel. Charlie looked down at the purple feathers attacking the paper. Lila followed her gaze and froze when she saw the bits of feather littering her desk.
They both looked at each other again, and Lila’s body crumpled a little, almost in surrender. “I was all set to tell you that I’d met someone. Finally, right?”
“Uh-oh,” Charlie said.
Lila looked up, a desperate, reckless spark in her eyes as she forced the words out: “The guy I’ve been seeing. I mean, it started out as a fling, and then I thought it was getting serious . . . I was going to tell you that I’ve finally got a boyfriend who works in Dallas a lot, so you and I might be able to hang out more . . .”
Charlie took Lila’s hand, waiting for the kicker.
“Well, he texted me and confessed he’s married. He was supposed to pick me up for a date two nights ago, and I waited and waited, and then he finally sends this text saying he’s not coming. That he was afraid his wife would discover our affair, and he begged me not to tell. So. Gross. And then when I tried to reach him after that, he ghosted me.”
Charlie moistened her lips. “Oh, Lila,” she said, shocked.
“I messed with someone’s family, Charlie. I didn’t know. I swear.” She shook her head, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears. “He was a pathological liar and cheater. Obviously, I’m out now, but . . .” Lila took a huge breath of air, steeling herself. “Like I said, always looking to build a family in the wrong place. That’s a Braddock for you.” Charlie’s heart ached for Lila as she pulled herself together. “Anyway, I want to just, you know, put it all behind me.”
This wasn’t just about the latest lying not-boyfriend. This was about all the stuff Lila liked to put behind her.
“Let’s get a drink sometime soon,” Lila said. “Sit down for a sec and take a breather from this wedding.”
“Maybe we could also talk about what happened with this guy for more than a few minutes,” Charlie suggested gently.
“Yeah.” Lila shrugged. She sniffed and blinked her lashes a couple of times, and still no tears fell. “But not now. I’ve got to keep myself together long enough to get Felicity married. Speaking of the wedding, are you doing okay crossing paths with my brother?”
Classic diversion technique. But Charlie studied Lila’s face, saw how much it had taken her to even admit to the shame she felt about her cheater ex, and went with the change of subject. Am I okay crossing paths with Jake? If you count wanting to kiss him and break down crying all at the same time as doing okay, then I’m okay.
“Yeah,” she said. And then more gently: “But at some point, we are going to talk about what you just told me. And you’re going to be all right, too. Got that?”
Lila nodded. Then, to cut the tension, she picked up the nuclear rose and tossed it in the trash.
Charlie burst into laughter, and Lila joined right in.
Chapter 8
The crisp October sky was streaked with stripe
s of pink-orange clouds when Charlie bounded down the steps from Lila’s office and hopped back into Progress to point the green machine toward the hospital. She was running later than she’d meant to, and didn’t take time to fix it when she parked a little wonky.
Slinging her purse over her shoulder, Charlie anchored the pot of tulips against the passenger-side door, grabbed the cookie platter, and shut the truck door with her foot.
She headed to the nurses’ station and found an exhausted-looking Mia filling in a chart at the desk. The poor girl looked as if she rarely slept, though she was unfailingly cheerful and almost frighteningly competent.
“Good morning to you. Those are Kristina’s, aren’t they?” Mia exclaimed when Charlie came forward with the cookies.
“They’re for you,” Charlie told her. “You deserve combat pay for dealing with my grandfather.”
Mia laughed. “Oh, no. He’s not that bad. Definitely not a whole platter of Piece A Cake cookies bad.” But, smiling, she made room among the clipboards and brochure racks. “Thank you. The other nurses will be thrilled.”
“Well.” Charlie hitched her purse up onto her shoulder. “I just wanted to tell you and the rest of your team that I really appreciate your taking such good care of Granddad, Mia. I know it’s not always easy. By the way, Kristina’s going to throw a cake rejects party. You should come.”
“A what?” Mia looked mystified.
“She has a baker’s dozen of sample cakes that Bridezilla has rejected. So she wants us to come and help eat them so they don’t go to waste. It’s a good excuse to have a girls’ thing, right?”
Mia laughed. “Sure. Count me in! I need to follow up with Lila about the gifts in the bridesmaid bags anyway. I’m making all the beeswax and honey favors. Felicity wants the lip balm and the candles.”
“You mean, today she does. Tomorrow she’ll want face spray or lotion.”
Mia half laughed, half sighed. Then she just nodded.
Charlie left the nurses’ station and walked back to room 217, where Kingston lay in bed watching a cable news show at thunderous decibels.
“Hey, Granddad!” Charlie called over the meaningless gabble of some lacquered talking head. “What did I miss?”
Granddad cast a suspicious look in the direction of her cheerfulness and harrumphed.
“How are you feeling now?” Charlie asked in a pointedly loud voice.
“Just as lousy as before,” Kingston informed her, finally turning down the volume with the remote that lay on his bed. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you got out of bed, right? With Jake? And at least took a few steps?”
“Yep. Aggravated things all over again.”
“That’s partly your arthritis. But he helped you, right? And he’s . . . nice. You seemed to be getting along.”
Kingston snorted with gusto. “Nice? You think I was born yesterday, girlie? He’s sucking up to me to soften me up, trying to make himself indispensable, so that I won’t go after his job. You think I don’t know what he’s up to, that one?”
Charlie sighed. “I disagree. I think he actually wants to help you. Is that so crazy?”
“Don’t be gullible.”
“Fine. Then why did you agree to work with him? Why didn’t you just send him away?”
“Because I need to get my withered old butt outta this hospital bed so that I can kick his tax-sucking one.”
“So you’re using him? That’s . . . that’s just wrong, Granddad.”
“Damn straight. He’s not half-bad as a physical therapist. So he can do that for a living, and I’ll even write him a letter of reference! As long as he gets the hell off this town’s payroll, I don’t have a problem with him.”
Charlie looked him straight in the eye. “Yes, Granddad, you do. And, as I said before, isn’t it time we let the past go? Move on?”
The old man’s mouth worked, and his hands clenched around the remote.
“Don’t you dare throw that,” Charlie said.
“Let the past go,” he repeated. “Move on.”
“Yes.”
“Those are real nice notions, Charlotte. Real nice. But you see, not a day goes by that I don’t miss Babe. Your grandmother. My wife. The woman I loved. The woman I married and shared my life with and expected to grow old with! You hear? And she’s gone. Just gone. Because of stupidity and carelessness and that no good piece of—”
“Stop it!” Charlie said. “If you blame Jake for the fire, then you also have to blame Brandon. They both made the campfire in the backyard that night. Do you understand that?”
Kingston said nothing. Nothing at all. But his breathing was fast and shallow, his color almost purple. His nostrils were flared and his jaw was so tightly clenched she was afraid he’d break his dentures.
“Granddad? You okay?”
“No, Charlotte, I’m not. I will never be okay. I can, and I do, and I will continue to assign blame for as long as I draw breath, to the useless, lousy fire department that couldn’t get a few blocks over to save my wife before she died of smoke inhalation! So don’t give me any grief about using some jackass who’s paid to do nothing twenty-four seven, three hundred sixty-five days a year. Do we understand each other?”
Charlie exhaled. They sat for a long moment in silence before she nodded. “Yes, Granddad. I guess we do.”
“Fan-flippin’-tastic. Then you also understand that since I can’t get my useless bony old butt outta this bed on this coming Friday, you will be going to the town council meeting as my proxy. You will present my facts and numbers there, and you will vote in my place.”
Charlie gaped at him. “Wh-what?”
“You heard me.”
She felt the blood draining from her face. He wanted her to do battle in his stead, go up against Jake and the firehouse guys, lobby for the elimination of their jobs? “I can’t do that,” she said.
“Why the hell not?”
“Because, I—” Why couldn’t she? Because she still remembered the way Jake’s arms had felt around her when he’d caught her? How his body had felt underneath hers? The heat of him, seeping through her clothing and into her heart?
Maybe all of those things were true, but also because she didn’t believe what Granddad believed. She didn’t believe the things that Jake and the other firefighters did were a waste.
“I just can’t,” Charlie said.
“You can, and you will.” Granddad’s tone didn’t allow for argument. It was the same tone he’d used when telling her as a child to brush her teeth, to go to bed, to change the TV channel from something inappropriate for her age.
But Charlie was no longer a child. She was an adult woman who didn’t like being ordered around. “You’ll have to find someone else.”
“What did you say?”
Charlie shook her head. “You know that I love you, but I’m not going to go and lobby for the elimination of the fire department, especially after Jake Braddock was just here helping you try to walk again.”
Granddad’s color, which had been subsiding from beet red, darkened to purple. “You’re gonna give me a heart attack, girl,” he said through gritted teeth.
“You’re not going to have a heart attack, Granddad,” Charlie said, patting him gently on the chest.
“I ask you to do one little thing for me, and you say no? If you say no, I’ll just find somebody who will!” the old man blustered.
This sounded a little worse than usual. “I’ll think about it,” Charlie said in a rush, desperate to change the topic.
Granddad wasn’t having it. “This ain’t the end of this conversation.”
“Granddad—”
He folded his arms across his chest, his eyes narrowed, and glared at her.
“Are you giving me the silent treatment?”
He didn’t answer. And his color
was still making Charlie nervous.
“I know this is so hard for you,” she said. “All of this. And I hate that you’re stuck here almost as much as you do. Ask me anything else.”
Stony silence.
Charlie sighed. “I was thinking of visiting Grandma Babe,” she said softly. “I know you missed visiting her because of this injury. I picked up some of those striped tulips she loved. Anything you want me to tell her?”
Granddad’s arms stayed firmly over his chest; his jaw stayed clenched.
“I’ll tell her you love her,” Charlie said.
And though he still wouldn’t say a word, something deep in his eyes softened.
Charlie left Mercy Hospital and walked back through the parking lot, casting a wary eye up at the gray sky. Thunder rolled again in the distance, and a few raindrops spattered her on the way to old, dilapidated Progress, which sat lonely in the parking lot, a throwback to another era.
Progress. What irony. Who had named the old truck? It might have been her grandmother . . . Granddad had always laughed at the name, as if it referred to a private joke between the two of them.
A wave of pure longing washed over Charlie, and as tired as she was, she headed away from town toward the cemetery for what would hopefully be her final errand for the day.
But she never could just pass the ruins of the old mansion without stopping. Especially not today, with Grandma Babe’s tulips on the seat beside her. Planting them in October was probably silly, but they should survive for a while. As the burned-out foundation of the old mansion came into view, she found herself pulling right onto the lawn, such as it was. She climbed out of Progress and slammed the door on it, which seemed fitting, given her lack of success in getting Granddad to move on and leave the past behind. The high heels of her “idiotic” boots sank into the mud that underlay the weeds, but she could hardly bring herself to care.
She made her way through the yard to the tallest wall still standing, which was the back one. It was only three feet high now, and filthy, but Charlie plopped down on it anyway. Her jeans were black and couldn’t get any darker, besides which they needed a good washing.
