Country Bride

by Debbie Macomber

  Taryn wanted to yell at her, tell her to stay so someone would talk to Hannah but Evie left too soon.

  Hannah looked down at her legs. They were chubby but tan. At least her brain could make them work. Finally she looked up. “Your dad said it was okay if I came to visit you, but you don’t really want much company, do you?”

  No. Go away. She shrugged.

  “I know we haven’t really been friends since about sixth grade. I understand. You’re smart and pretty and popular and all that stuff. I’m, well, not. But even though we haven’t been best friends in a long time, I’m superglad you didn’t die in the accident. Everyone is.”

  She wasn’t. She should have died.

  Taryn frowned. Lots of words crowded her throat but she couldn’t say them. Hannah was still pink. She looked at the door but Evie didn’t come in.

  “This is a really nice room,” she said after a minute. “I love the view. You can see all of Hope’s Crossing from here.”

  Taryn didn’t pay it much attention most of the time, except at night when she saw the lights.

  “I’ve never been up here to your house before. It’s a lot bigger than the house you lived in by us on Glacier Lily Drive, isn’t it? It’s nice.”

  Taryn remembered her old house. Her little bedroom, the swing set in the backyard, Hannah just across the street. They’d played Barbies and listened to music all summer long.

  Fun. Hannah was always fun.

  “Do you remember how you used to stay over at our house and we would dress up in my mom’s clothes and make up dance routines to old songs? And we were going to have our own band, remember? You were going to be the lead singer and I was going to play the drums. We called ourselves the Danger Girls and we even painted a sign to put on the bass drum of the set I planned to learn how to play. I found it the other day in the back of my closet. I should bring it over sometime for you to see. It was really terrible.”

  Taryn laughed out loud, even though her heart hurt a little. She missed that time when she could dance and sing and be silly. She missed it so much.

  Hannah laughed with her but then her smile died. “I guess you probably heard my dad moved out earlier in the summer. He’s living in Steamboat Springs now.”

  “Sorry.” She wanted to say more but the words weren’t there.

  “I know. It sucks.” Hannah’s chubby chin quivered a bit and Taryn wished she could help. “I’m doing okay but it’s been hard on my brothers. My little brother, Jake—remember what a cute baby he was and how we used to push him up and down the street in his stroller so my mom could have a rest—he’s six now and he cries a lot more than he used to. It really gets on everyone’s nerves. Caleb is even more of a pill than ever. He’s nine. Daniel thinks he’s too cool to be upset but he’s grouchy all the time.”

  Even though she was talking about sad stuff, Taryn thought it was nice to have Hannah here.

  “My mom. She cries a lot. She had to get a job and it’s been pretty hard. I have to watch my brothers a lot more and cook dinner and stuff. That’s why I’ve been working so much at the Snow Chalet, so I can help out a little.”

  She was quiet for a long time and Taryn wanted to say something. “It will improve, right? Remember how we used to dance to that old Howard Jones song, ‘Things Can Only Get Better’? I heard that on the radio the other day and it made me think of all the fun we used to have together. I felt good, you know?”

  Tears burned Taryn’s throat, remembering. Hannah had been her best friend once. What had happened?

  “Working at the shave-ice stand isn’t that bad. It’s only for another week, until school starts. Just about everybody in town stops in sometimes. Lots of tourists come there, too.” She smiled, pretty. “Cute boys, too. Yesterday a couple of guys came in from California. I didn’t have any other customers so they stayed and talked to me for a while, asked me about hiking trails and stuff like that.”

  Hannah laughed a little. “If you’d been there, you would have known how to flirt with them. You’ve always been so much better at that than I could ever be. I just gave them their tiger’s blood shave ices and took their money and mumbled something stupid about how they should take the Woodrose Mountain trail for the best view of town.”

  “It’s...nice.” Taryn meant the trail but all of this, too. Having Hannah here, that she remembered to bring her a shave ice, that she brought back memories of fun and being a kid.

  “I’m really sorry about what you’ve been through, Taryn. You didn’t deserve to have such a terrible thing happen to you.”

  She did. She deserved all of it. Her fault. Layla was dead and it was her fault.

  “And I’m sorry I’m babbling on. I mean, why would you ever be interested in my boring life?”

  “I am.” She was. She was. Struggling, straining, she lifted her hand to touch Hannah’s hand. “Sorry.” For everything. Especially for dropping a friend because she wasn’t as popular and probably would never be. It hadn’t been nice. Or right.

  Hannah laughed. It was a good, big laugh. She’d forgotten. “You’re sorry my life is so boring? I don’t blame you for that. No one is more sorry about it than I am, believe me.”

  The door opened and Evie came back, pretty and smiling.

  “It took me longer than I’d expected. I got talking with Mrs. Olafson and lost track of time. Are you having a nice visit?”

  Hannah stood. “You know, we really are. But I’d better go. My mom is working late and I have to go fix pizza for my brothers.” She paused. “Would it be okay if I came back, Ms. Blanchard?”

  Evie looked at Taryn, the question in Evie’s eyes.

  Taryn formed the word carefully, so there could be no mistake. “Yeess.”

  Hannah had been her best friend. Maybe they could be friends again.

  “I just had a great idea,” Evie exclaimed. “Are you working tomorrow?”

  “My shift doesn’t start until two.”

  “Are you free in the morning?”

  “I think so. Friday is my mom’s day off.”

  “Great! I still want to help you make the earrings for your mom’s birthday. I’ve got a few other things I need to do at the store and I’ve been trying to juggle everything. Why don’t I take Taryn down to String Fever tomorrow and we can all work on them together?”

  “That would be terrific!” Hannah was happy.

  Taryn wasn’t. She was scared. She was too different and too many people she knew came to the bead store.

  Evie saw her frown. “Are you okay with that? We can go early enough in the day that the only people there will probably be your grandmother and Claire. Won’t it be good to spend some time somewhere besides a hospital room and your house?”

  Not really. Not when people might stare. But Hannah looked happy and Taryn didn’t want to ruin it. She shrugged.

  “We’ll see you at nine-thirty then. Does that work for your schedule?”

  “I think so. I’ll call you if it doesn’t. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ms. Blanchard. I’ll see you both then.”

  Taryn watched her go, mad at herself that she hadn’t said no. She didn’t really deserve friends. She didn’t deserve to be happy, to get better. She should tell Hannah to stay away. She would only hurt her again, like she hurt everybody.

  * * *

  Slow progress was still forward momentum. Evie refused to believe it was anything else. She had listened outside the door as Hannah had spoken so kindly and warmly to Taryn. Through the crack in the doorway, she had seen the excitement in Taryn’s features at having her friend there to talk to her. Though she hadn’t spoken much, Taryn had seemed brighter and far more interactive than usual. Evie was certain she had genuinely enjoyed having her friend over for a visit, just like any other teenage girl.

  The whole one-step-forward, two-steps-
back thing had her ready to tear out her hair, though. If Evie had expected Taryn to be cooperative after Hannah left, she would have been doomed to disappointment. For the rest of the afternoon, Taryn fought her at every turn. She was sullen and distracted and didn’t seem to want to do anything, no matter what Evie tried.

  For the first time, she even refused to cooperate with the speech therapist Brodie had hired, a very nice middle-aged woman who, like the O.T., drove from Denver three times a week to work with Taryn.

  All in all, what had started as so promising with Hannah’s visit deteriorated into a long, frustrating afternoon. By the time the home-care nurse arrived for the evening to help Taryn shower and administer her evening medications, Evie wasn’t sure whether she or Taryn was more exhausted. Every joint and muscle ached. She’d forgotten the sheer physical toll this kind of work could take on the therapist, twisting and stretching and lifting.

  “I’m coming back tomorrow,” she told Taryn. “You can keep trying, but you’re not getting rid of me this easily. What will it take for us to have a better day?”

  “Maybe...I should...put makeup on you.”

  She stared at Taryn. “You made a joke! Wow! And it was a great one.”

  Taryn’s smile was tired but mischievous. “No joke. I want to.”

  The laugh bubbling up inside Evie was probably just a by-product of her emotional and physical fatigue but she didn’t care. It still felt great, especially when Taryn laughed along with her.

  Warmth seeped through her like water trickling under the gate of an irrigation canal. Yes, Taryn might be sullen and uncooperative. Who wouldn’t be, given the lousy hand of cards she’d been dealt? She was a teenage girl whose world had been completely rocked. Despite it, she had these flashes of humor and grace that made her very, very tough to resist—even for someone determined not to care about her.

  “All right. It’s a deal. Tomorrow before we go to the bead store, you can put makeup on me when I get here.”

  “Even...lipstick?”

  The way Taryn still struggled with fine-motor command, Evie shuddered to imagine what she might end up looking like but she vowed not to complain. A surreptitious tissue would take care of the worst of it, if matters came to that. “If you swear to work harder tomorrow, I’ll even let you put lipstick on me.”

  “That should be interesting.”

  The unexpected male voice in the room jerked her attention away from Taryn. She whirled and found Brodie leaning against the doorway, a warm, amused light in his eyes.

  “Dad! Hi.”

  For some ridiculous reason, Evie’s face heated. How did he keep doing that? The man had a very frustrating habit of turning up when she was most ill-prepared. To be fair, it was his house, but she’d still like to ask him to knock so she could have a little warning. Even a few seconds might give her time to brace herself against the ridiculous reaction she couldn’t seem to control.

  “Hey.”

  “Must have been a rough day if we’re bribing with extreme makeovers.”

  “Nothing we can’t improve on tomorrow, right, Taryn?”

  “I guess,” Taryn said.

  “Hannah Kirk came by and we had a really nice visit earlier this afternoon,” Evie informed him. “And we’ve spent the rest of the day working on stretches and a few exercises to work tone and strength.”

  “How has it been going?”

  Like wrestling a very uncooperative alligator in a vat full of vegetable oil. “Great,” she lied through her teeth. “Taryn is working very hard.”

  Taryn ducked her head, refusing to look at either of them.

  Brodie didn’t answer for a moment and when Evie met his gaze, she saw just a hint of sympathetic apology there. “As long as you’re trying your best, kiddo. That’s the important thing. Are you guys done for the day?”

  “Yes. I’m actually on my way out,” Evie said.

  She suddenly was in desperate need of a little time and distance, space to remind herself of the hundreds of reasons she couldn’t afford to fall for Taryn—or Brodie, for that matter.

  “I’ll walk you out.”

  She eyed his fingers on the door—strong and blunt-tipped and drumming slightly on the wood, as was his habit, she’d noticed.

  If she were clever and smart, she would come up with some way to tell him she didn’t need pretty manners from him. She could find her own way out the door. Excuse me, but you make me nervous. I’d rather you stayed far, far away didn’t seem like a very mature, intelligent response. Instead, she forced a smile. “Right. I just need to grab my bag.”

  She found it and said goodbye to the home-care nurse and then again to Taryn, promising to bring her makeup kit with her in the morning.

  Nerves skittered through her as they walked outside and she was aware of him with almost painful intensity. Like a toothache, she told herself.

  As they walked outside, she inhaled deeply of the evening air, cool and sweet with the scent of pine and sage. Though still an hour or so from full dark, an owl hooted from the forest that surrounded Aspen Ridge. Summer evenings in Hope’s Crossing were nothing short of spectacular—late-summer evenings perhaps even more so since there was an edge of desperation.

  Mother Nature seemed to be urging everyone to enjoy what they had now because in a few short weeks she would start hurling wind and snow and cold at them all.

  When they approached Evie’s little SUV, Brodie reached to open the door for her. “I’ve got another interview tomorrow,” he said. “Want to sit in? I’m sorry this morning’s was another dud. If you hadn’t been there and at the others, I could have made some hiring disasters.”

  She thought of the arrangements she had made with Hannah earlier. “Um, what time?”

  “Early. Eight-thirty. How does that affect your makeover plans?”

  They might just barely make it. “We can adjust. Afterward, if it’s all right with you, I’d like to take Taryn on a little field trip into town.”

  The blue of his eyes looked murky in the gathering twilight. “You really think that’s a good idea?”

  “Why, don’t you think it is?”

  “I don’t know. She still seems vulnerable right now, emotionally and physically. Everyone in town is so invested in her recovery. I’m not sure she’s ready to be shoved on display like that when she still has a long road ahead of her.”

  The fire of her temper began to simmer and she worked hard to tamp it down. “She wouldn’t be on display. I only wanted to get her out of the house.”

  “And I think that’s a great idea. Don’t get me wrong. I just know how people can be in Hope’s Crossing. The minute she walks into town, everybody is going to be staring and whispering. There goes the girl who was in the coma for six weeks. Look at her now. She used to be so pretty.”

  “She’s still pretty,” Evie said stiffly.

  He seemed a little taken aback by her tone. “I couldn’t agree more. My daughter is beautiful. More beautiful than ever to me, because I see just how courageous she’s been in the face of some pretty terrible stuff. But not everyone is going to see her situation the same way you or I do. People can be idiots. I just don’t want someone to say something hurtful to her.”

  She ratcheted back her anger. Brodie was only a father trying to do the best he could for his child under the circumstances. She needed to give him more credit—at the same time, she felt obliged to point out the hard truth.

  “You can’t protect her from the inevitable, Brodie,” she murmured. “Eventually somebody’s going to say something stupid or thoughtless or both.”

  “I know. Can you blame me for trying to protect her as best I can?”

  “How could I blame you for that? Listen, my plan is to take her to String Fever for no longer than an hour. Most of that will be before the store even opens. The o
nly people we’ll probably see will be Claire Bradford and perhaps your mother. She’ll be fine, Brodie. I promise. I’ll watch out for her.”

  * * *

  He couldn’t doubt her sincerity.

  Evie’s blue eyes glowed with passion and resolve. She even reached out to touch his hand in that intriguing way she had of using touch to emphasize a point. Heat from her fingers radiated on the back of his hand and for an instant, he completely lost his slippery grip on the thread of their conversation.

  “If we see anyone else, it will only be perhaps a few bead store customers. I don’t know how much you interacted with your mother’s customers when she owned String Fever, but I can promise you most of the women who come into the store are bubbling over with kindness and compassion. No one will hurt Taryn.”

  “You really think she’s ready?”

  “It’s only a quick trip to a bead store, Brodie. I think she’ll be just fine. At this stage in her rehab, I promise I would never ask her to ride on a float in the Independence Day parade. But I think a small outing among caring friends will be very helpful.”

  The breeze coming down from the mountains played with a few wispy blond strands of hair that had slipped free of the twisty thing holding the rest of those luscious curls at bay. He was vaguely appalled by his sudden urge to reach out and slide it between his fingertips just to feel if her hair was as soft as it looked.

  “You probably think I’m crazy to worry so much about her.”

  “I think you’re a concerned father watching out for his child. Nothing wrong with that.”

  “I suppose she might benefit from returning to some of her familiar places. It might give her the motivation to work on her goals. Crap television apparently can only take you so far. Who knew?”

  She laughed again and it slid down his spine, low and sultry. He really had to get control of himself. Every time he was around her, he felt this wild attraction seethe between them. At first, he thought it must be completely one-sided and he felt like an idiot for being so drawn to her, but lately he was beginning to wonder.