by Lexi Eddings
“Whoever said getting there was half the fun never had to travel thirty-seven hours on a bus.”
“On a bus, on a bus,” came from the cage in the corner.And then before Judith could beat Emmy to it, the bird screamed, “Shut up!”
Chapter 7
DARLING DAUGHTER, YOU WERE OUR DREAM. W E WOKE TOO SOON.
—from Jessica Walker’s headstone
People say winter is the most depressing time of year to visit a graveyard.
“Like there’s really any good time,” Heather muttered to herself.
But in winter, the ground is like iron. The wind slices through your parka, no matter how highly rated it was in that outdoorsy big-box store. And your nose hairs freeze with each breath.You can’t even leave any flowers to brighten up the starkness. They only wilt before you can hightail it back to the car.
Heather parked near the entrance to the Coldwater Territory Cemetery and sat there for a few minutes while the engine sputtered and knocked. She knew she should go and get it over with, but a nameless something held her in the safety of her not-so-charmingly-mature Taurus.
Winter was bad, but autumn was even worse.
The graveyard where her twin rested was unnecessarily beautiful in the fall. It taunted the coming winter with a last hurrah of vibrant days. All the trees blazed up in a final burst of color. Dry leaves skittered down the worn paths, whispering secrets to each other as they swirled into mini tornadoes and then settled again. It was the time of harvest, the pinnacle of growth. But even though the seasons were winding down, fall was still full of life.
And life was glorious.
Jessica had barely made it out of the spring of hers.
“So not fair,” Heather said under her breath as she switched off the car and hauled herself out. She retrieved a box of gourds and corn sheaves from her trunk. Since she tried to visit her sister’s grave at least once a month, she’d started leaving appropriate decorations for the time of year.
Jess would’ve liked that.
She was always the “fixy” one, the budding designer. Even in high school, she’d decorated and redecorated her room according to the whim of the moment. Jessica was constantly changing things around.
Since her death, their parents had preserved the space untouched. It was exactly as Jessica had left it on her last night in this world. Like a time capsule, it proclaimed the unrealized goals of its former occupant. Her prom dress still hung over the closet door, the corsage Skyler Sweazy had given her still pressed between The Collected Works of Mark Twain and Moby Dick, the two heaviest books Jessica could find. A Harvard pennant was pinned to the wall, even though Jess had never been officially accepted there and was planning to attend Brown later that year.
To the Walkers, Jessica’s room was a shrine. It was there they communed with their lost one, not in the Coldwater cemetery. Grief was a private thing, her mother had said, not to be laid out like a buffet for lookee-loos and small minds to feast upon.
Heather thought it would be healthier for them to turn Jessica’s room into a study or a craft room or even set up a Ping-Pong table in there. Anything would be better than that morbid space that looked like it was waiting for Jess to return any moment. And it wouldn’t hurt them to visit the grave once in a while.
But she didn’t blame her parents for trying to hold on. Of course, they couldn’t let go of their golden child.
Jess did everything right. Unlike her gawky twin, she was blessed with petite loveliness. So feminine, so charmingly delicate, Heather always suspected Jessica was hiding a pair of wings under her too-cute clothes.
Academically gifted, Jessica sailed through school barely breaking a sweat. Heather had made the honor roll too, but only with much suppressed weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. “Suppressed” because it wouldn’t do to be caught struggling. Walkers didn’t struggle. They vaulted over life’s challenges. They sought out new adventures. They excelled in everything they put their hand to. Struggling, in school or in life, was for lesser beings.
Heather slogged up the hill to the corner section of the graveyard, where the dear departed Walkers had ceased their struggles.
Heather didn’t have that luxury.
She wrestled with the awful feeling that if her parents could have chosen, they would have kept Jessica instead of her.
It wasn’t rational, and she was almost sure it wasn’t true. But right or wrong, the feeling persisted.
Almost wouldn’t let her rest.
As she neared her sister’s grave, she saw that someone had beaten her there. Michael Evans was standing before the headstone, hands folded before him, head bowed.
Was he praying?
Time to alert the media. Long before he skipped town, Michael had been skipping church.
A twig crunched under her tennis shoe and he raised his head. That smile she dreaded, the one that turned her insides into a quivering puddle, spread across his face.
“Careful, Nurse Walker,” he said in a lazy drawl. “Folks will think you’re following me.”
“What? No.” How dare he! The quivering stopped in a heartbeat. “This is my sister’s grave.What are you doing here?”
“Just paying my respects. That’s allowed, isn’t it?”
He was right, dang it. Heather felt peevish for scolding him. To avoid looking at him, which any normal woman would want to do more than she wanted to take her next breath, she dropped to her knees and took a wicker basket out of the box. After she put a couple of bricks in the bottom to anchor it against the wind, she assembled the gourds and Indian corn into a semi-artsy fall arrangement.
“Your sister is the only classmate we’ve lost. Why wouldn’t I be here?” Michael almost sounded defensive. “Besides, I knew Jess.”
Everyone knew Jess. She was a cheerleader, smart as a whip, and holder of a permanent seat at the cool kids’ table. Of course he knew Jess. She glanced up to see him staring at the engraving on the stone. His brows nearly met over his fine straight nose. Under his T-shirt, his chest lifted in a sigh.
He knew her better than I thought. “You and Skyler were pretty tight back then.”
Jessica and Skyler had been the power couple of Coldwater High—prom king and queen, voted most likely to have an Ivy League happily ever after.... After she died in that freak accident, Skyler had probably unloaded his grief to Mike.
That’s how he knew her. That’s why he looks so sad.
Then Mike’s gaze switched to her, and the pained expression disappeared. Instead, he smiled at her. Open. Honest. And so yummy looking, she could barely keep from licking her lips.
How does he do that?
Michael had gone from almost ready to shed a tear to poster boy for Hotties-R-Us in the blink of an eye. Did men have a toggle in their hearts that let them turn emotions on and off as easily as a light switch?
Where do I sign up for one of those?
“Yeah,” he said. “Sweazy and I hung out a lot back then. Did a bunch of stupid things together.”
“Like the time someone let those goats loose in the high school library?” Heather smiled at the memory. It was right to smile, even though she was arranging gourds on her sister’s grave. Jess had thought the goats were hilarious at the time. “That was you and Skyler, right?”
Michael raised his hands in mock surrender. “Suspected, grilled until we were crispy, but never officially charged,Your Honor.”
The goats in question had a number 1, 2 or 4 painted on their respective sides. It took Mr. Whittle and the other school officials several hours of frantic searching to figure out that despite the numbers, only three goats had been released to wander the stacks and munch away at the periodical section.
“So have you and Skyler kept in touch all these years?” she asked.
“No. I didn’t really keep up with anybody. Getting away from everybody was sort of the reason I left town,” he admitted. “Besides, people change. Or maybe you never really knew them in the first place. Anyway,
they’ll surprise you every time . . . and, like as not, not in a good way.”
Michael Evans had surprised her since he’d returned to town—falling in with her sudden need to dance with him, being sweet to his mother, and agreeing to be in Lacy’s wedding. Even showing up at the cemetery to pay his respects at her sister’s grave was a shocker. Except for the whole “Stilts” business, Mike had been astonishingly well behaved. Guess she hadn’t really known him.
“Someone made you cynical,” Heather said, casting a sidelong glance toward him. “Who surprised you in a bad way?”
He opened his mouth as if about to say something, but then shook his head. “Never mind. I just lost touch with everybody after I left. Even Sweazy and I took our own paths after high school.”
“Skyler went to Harvard. What was your path?”
“The path of least resistance. Nothing like the Ivy League, that’s for sure. I never earned a degree or anything, but I did learn a few things along the way.”
“Like what?”
“Like when a girl agrees to go riding with you, you don’t let her off the hook. I’ve got a helmet for you, so you’re without excuse.”
He extended a hand to help her up after she finished placing the last acorn squash. A little zing arced from her wrist to her elbow.
The casual contact created such a charge in her system, Heather bet if someone plugged her in, she could light up a Christmas tree. She tugged her hand away, but gently. Not so much because she wanted to, but because she knew she should.
Michael Evans might not be as bad as she’d thought, but he was still hazardous to a girl’s heart. After all, he’d only promised to stick around for a few months.
“You free now?” he asked.
She shook her head and checked her watch. “I work three to eleven today.” It was nearly two thirty and she liked to arrive at least fifteen minutes early so she could change into her scrubs and look over the charts before her shift started. She was cutting things close, but she couldn’t bring herself to hurry off.
“When’s your next day off so we can take that ride?”
“Thursday.”
* * *
Crap on a cracker. He was supposed to be at that breakfast meeting at the Blue Fin in New York on Thursday. If he told her he had a high-powered meeting with some movers and shakers in the Big Apple on the day he’d promised to take her riding, she’d never believe him. Besides, he wasn’t ready to explain his success to her.
Women got weird when they realized a guy had money. He wanted to keep things simple with Heather. Either she liked him or she didn’t.
But that hard lump in his chest hoped she did.
She bent to pick up the box of leftover oddments. A few spare gourds and ears of corn didn’t make the cut to adorn her sister’s grave.
Why do women do that? If Jessica could see them, wouldn’t she be more touched by the visitation itself than the stuff left behind?
Michael chalked up the decorations as something Heather needed to do for herself. But that didn’t stop him from taking the box from her and carrying it down the hill to her car.
They walked together in easy silence.
Michael breathed in the peace of the place. Living in the city, he’d forgotten what it was like to hear leaves rustle on trees. Or how good it felt to be quiet with someone without feeling the need to fill the space between them. It already seemed to be filled with a comfortable understanding. They were easy with each other.
A guy could get used to this.
“Don’t forget. Choir meets on Wednesday at seven,” she reminded him.
Double crap. He’d told the flight crew to be on standby for a turn and burn, but this was going to be cutting it close. He’d have to sleep in the Cessna Citation on the way out and back if he was going to make this work.
“We’re starting the Christmas music this week,” she said. “You are coming, right? That was the deal.”
Could he sing “Silent Night” and prepare for the investors’ group at the same time? He could try. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
“Good. No choir. No ride.”
“You’re pretty black and white about things, aren’t you?”
“And you’re all about the gray.”
“Only when black and white isn’t working.”
That made a small frown furrow her brow. She was the sort who always knew what was right. Michael was still working on that.
“So if you show for choir, when should I expect to put my life and limb at risk on the back of your bike?”
“Hey!” He moved in close, pinning her between his body and her car door. “I’d never risk a single one of your lovely limbs.”
She blushed to the roots of her hair. She was even prettier when she did that. He liked the way she smelled, too, all fresh and clean without the need for any flowery fragrance to cover up the pure scent of Heather.
She wiggled away from him and opened the door. “OK. I still need a time for our ride. When?”
Michael did some quick calculations—two hours for the meeting (maybe he could squeeze thirty minutes off that), a quick helo ride to JFK, another three and a half hours to Tulsa in the Cessna Citation, a couple of hours on the hog getting back to Coldwater Cove, factor in gaining an hour since he’d be traveling west from New York, better add a little more time for a cushion in case there was a glitch . . .
“Let’s make it a sunset ride,” he suggested. “I’ll pick you up at five.”
“Sounds good.” She climbed into the car.
He leaned on the open window. “Heather, I don’t think I told you at the time, but . . . I was sorry about what happened to your sister.”
“I miss her every day.” Her eyes glistened and her lips twitched. She covered his hand with hers for a moment. “It helps to know others are sorry about it, too.”
Then she started her car and drove away. Michael watched until the Taurus topped the hill and disappeared from sight.
He was sorry about what had happened to her sister, all right. She had no idea how sorry.
Chapter 8
Labor Day is past. It’s nnot too soonn to prepare for
the Christmas canntata. Our director, Don Marianno,
invites everyonne who enjoys sinninn to joinn the choir.
—Seen in the Methodist church bulletin
Note: Pastor Mark is looking for the
donation of a new keyboard, hopefully one with
a g key that works and an n that doesn’t stick.
The church smelled of mothballs and lemon-oil polish. Just like he remembered.
As he walked down the center aisle of the sanctuary, Michael noticed a small stain near the left side of the altar rail. He snorted.
Still there after all those years.
It was grape juice. He’d managed to lose his grip on his teeny first communion cup. His parents had threatened him with trials just short of the Tribulation if he ruined his new suit. He’d quickly jerked out of the way of the tumbling cup so as not to let a drop fall on the navy polyester.
The carpet had not been so lucky.
He made a mental note to send the church an anonymous donation to cover recarpeting the entire sanctuary. Even if there’d been no stains, it was past time to replace the worn red wool. With any luck, the trustees would get it done before his sister’s wedding in November.
Maybe he’d have to stipulate a certain color of carpeting so it wouldn’t interfere with Lacy’s much-debated wedding palette. She and his mother were still trying to hash out who was wearing what shade of navy, pink, or ivory.
“Michael Evans, as I live and breathe, is that you?” Marjorie Chubb waved to him from where the alto section was gathering in the choir loft. She was the captain of the prayer chain and had probably missed him sorely. Michael used to provide the “prayer warriors” with plenty of spiritual battles to fight.
“Surely no normal child could get into so much trouble unless there was a dark power at work,” Marjorie had
often told his mother.
Emphasis on “normal child.” Michael was more inclined to blame ADD for his ability to create havoc. It was another thing, along with dyslexia, with which he’d never been officially diagnosed, but which he suspected was part of how he was wired. It would explain why numbers had made sense to him when the written word remained a frustrating mystery and why he never could seem to sit still.
Marjorie climbed over several other choir members to get to the side aisle. She blocked the way so she could give him a hug, stopping him from heading up to the back row, where the basses sat. “I hear you’re going to be the best man for Lacy and Jake’s wedding.”
“Where did you hear that?”
Marjorie cocked her head and shrugged. “You know what they always say: ‘Telephone, telegraph, or tell Shirley Evans.’” She clapped a couple fingers over her mouth before hurrying on. “Not that your mom’s a gossip. Not at all.”
“Of course not,” he said with a grin. He really did love to tease members of the prayer chain, Marjorie in particular. “Because then you’d have to admit to gossiping, too, since you listen to her.”
“Well, that’s not it at all. Never think that’s what we do when she and I get together. We share things. It’s just that she’s thrilled to have you back in town and can’t help letting anyone who’ll listen know about it.”
Michael would bet Marjorie was thrilled too. Fresh fodder for the prayer chain.
“I call your mother every day, the poor dear. Just to cheer her up and keep her up to speed on what’s going on,” Marjorie went on, blithely unaware she’d just admitted to gossiping again. “Shirley puts on such a brave face, but you can tell me. How’s she doing, really?”
Michael had been on hand when his dad brought his mom home, in case they needed help. He and his father barely grunted at each other, but at least there was no shouting as the two of them settled into an uneasy truce for his mother’s sake.
