Thunder Canyon Homecoming

by Brenda Harlen

  He was on his second beer when Dillon slid onto the vacant stool beside him. Corey looked around but didn’t see any sign of his brother’s wife or child.

  “Erika took Emilia home,” Dillon answered the unspoken question. “It’s long past her bedtime.”

  “So why are you still here?”

  “Because you don’t look like you should be drinking alone.” He signaled to Carl, who was tending the bar tonight, for a draft beer.

  “I’m fine,” Corey said.

  The statement was so blatantly untrue that his brother didn’t even bother to dispute it. “How are the evaluations at Rycon coming along?”

  “Fine.”

  With a nod of thanks to the bartender, Dillon picked up the mug that had been set in front of him. “How about your discussion with Grant about the Resort?”

  “Fine,” Corey said again.

  “How’s Erin?”

  “Look, Dillon, as much as I appreciate the brotherly concern, I really wish you’d just go home to your new family and leave me the hell alone.”

  Dillon nodded. “So she is the reason you look like you want to knock some heads together.”

  “And if you insist on hanging around here, yours might be the first.”

  “I’m not worried,” his brother said. “Because as often as we’ve gone head-to-head, I’ve always had your back, and I know you’ve always had mine.”

  Corey sighed, silently damning his brother because he spoke the truth. And because it was true, because Dillon had always been there for him, he wouldn’t get any satisfaction from turning on him now.

  “So are you going to tell me what happened to make you so miserable?”

  “Let’s just say that I learned something I didn’t want to know.”

  “Everyone has secrets,” Dillon said.

  “Weren’t you the one who warned me about Erin’s?”

  His brother shrugged. “Only because I know you have a tendency to leap before you look.”

  He didn’t say ‘Like with Heather,’ but they were both thinking it.

  He’d met Heather while he was in college. She was the first woman he’d ever fallen in love with and he’d actually thought they would get married someday. One of the things he liked about her was that she didn’t expect him to pay her way just because he was rich. Unlike several other women he’d dated, she prided herself on supporting herself through her job as a waitress. At least, that’s what she’d told him she did. He later found out that she wasn’t waiting tables but dancing on them, and it wasn’t an exclusive upscale restaurant but a private men’s club.

  He didn’t care that she’d taken off her clothes for money. Not that he was thrilled to think of all the men who had stared at and undoubtedly lusted for her naked body, but he didn’t blame her for taking a job that paid her bills. He couldn’t forgive her for lying, though.

  After his experience with Heather, he had no tolerance for half-truths. Maybe Erin hadn’t actually lied to him, but her failure to tell him the whole truth was just as much a breach of trust. He’d been played for a fool…again. And he was as furious as he was hurt by her deception.

  “But in retrospect, I may have been too quick to pass judgment,” Dillon was saying now.

  “You weren’t,” Corey told him.

  “And maybe you are, too.”

  He frowned.

  “The thing is, Erika and Erin are really close, and Erika isn’t easily taken in.”

  “As you learned when she kept saying ‘no’ to you,” Corey couldn’t resist teasing, although the effort was halfhearted.

  His brother shrugged. “As a single mother with a young child, she had reason to be wary. But she never had any misgivings about Erin.”

  Maybe she should have, he thought, but he didn’t say the words aloud because he didn’t want to cause his brother undue concern. After all, Erin’s reasons for being in Thunder Canyon really wouldn’t affect the life Dillon was building here with Erika and Emilia.

  “Do you ever think about Emilia’s biological father?” he asked.

  “Of course,” Dillon answered without hesitation.

  “Okay—fast forward twenty years and think about how you would react if the daughter you’d raised since she was two years old suddenly told you she wanted to know her father.”

  Dillon sipped his beer, considering. “I’d hope I could be supportive,” he finally said.

  “Wouldn’t you think she was…ungrateful?”

  His brother shook his head. “Six months ago, I might have given you a different answer.” He smiled. “Of course, six months ago, I didn’t know Erika or Emilia. But Peter’s recent heart attack has made me see a lot of things differently. Now I can appreciate everything he did over the years. Not just as a husband to Mom, but as a father to six kids he had no biological tie to. I can also see how tough it has been for some of the others—Rose, in particular—to have no memory of the man who contributed half of her DNA, and I can understand that the not knowing can leave a void no one else can see.”

  Corey finished his beer and shook his head when Carl looked over to see if he wanted another refill.

  …the not knowing can leave a void…

  Maybe that was what Erin had meant when she said that she needed to know her past before she could plan her future.

  But her lies had undermined the foundation of what was between them, and Corey couldn’t forgive her for that.

  Erin couldn’t go to a birthday party empty-handed, but never having met the guest of honor made it difficult to know what kind of gift might be appropriate. She wandered through the resort shops on her lunch hour, hoping something would catch her eye. What finally did was a collage-style picture frame with the word “Family” etched in the bottom corner of the glass.

  She wondered at the irony that would have her give such a gift to a woman whose family she might tear apart with the information she had. But that wasn’t her intention. Yes, things would change—for both Erin and Elise—but she refused to look at it as a negative. She had no intention of walking away from Betty and Jack and her brothers if it turned out that Betty Castro hadn’t given birth to her, and she certainly wouldn’t expect Elise to turn her back on Helen or Grant.

  As the salesclerk wrapped the gift, Erin continued to wander through the store. She paused at a display of decorative perfume bottles and caught a glimpse of someone through the store window. For one brief, heart-stopping moment, she thought it was Corey. But then the man turned to speak to the woman at his side, and she saw that it was actually his brother, Dillon, with his new wife. Erika smiled at something her husband said, then he bent his head and kissed her gently.

  Erin felt a pang in her heart, and she had to look away from the obvious love between them. She’d started to think that she’d found something similar with Corey. She’d let herself believe that if Erika could find love, maybe she could, too.

  Obviously she’d been wrong.

  Corey hadn’t expected that Erin would show up at the birthday party Grant was hosting for his sister. He wouldn’t have thought she’d have the nerve. But not only did she come, she came with Erika and Dillon.

  And when she walked through the door, his heart knocked hard against his ribs, forcing him to admit how much he’d missed her. It had only been a few days since he’d last seen her, since he’d learned of her deception, but those few days had seemed like a lifetime.

  He noticed that she’d brought a gift—a good way to get an introduction to the birthday girl, he figured, then remembered that Erin should be celebrating her birthday today, too.

  She set the wrapped package on a table that had been set aside for that purpose and unbuttoned her coat. As she shrugged it off of her shoulders and turned to hang it on a hook, he nearly choked on the beer he’d been about to swallow.

  She was wearing a dress. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her in a dress before—other than the day of Dillon and Erika’s wedding, of course. She often wore skirts to work, but he’d
never seen her in something so flirty and feminine. There were no sleeves, so her long, slender arms were bare, and the short, fluttery skirt showed off miles of shapely leg.

  She looked…stunning.

  As if sensing his perusal, she turned. They were separated by the width of the room, but even over that distance their eyes met, held. And then she looked away.

  Corey lifted his glass to his lips again, then realized it was empty. He went back to the bar, but this time he ordered a Coke. He obviously didn’t need alcohol fogging his brain when just being in the same room with Erin had the same effect.

  If he’d expected that she would be so devastated by their breakup that she’d be hiding out in her condo, he was obviously mistaken. Of course, why would she be devastated? She was the one who’d decided their relationship was over.

  He watched her hips sway as she walked, appreciating the way her soft, flowing skirt swirled around her thighs as she moved. Unfortunately, just admiring those legs from a distance reminded him of how they’d felt wrapped around him—

  He turned away, mortified to realize that he was getting aroused just thinking about her.

  Of course, the physical parts of their relationship had been phenomenal. Everything between them had clicked.

  He’d thought they were clicking in other areas, too. They’d had so much fun, talking and laughing and just being together.

  And then he’d found out about her lies, and he’d realized they had nothing if they didn’t have trust.

  But the heart didn’t always defer to the logic of the mind, and, although he told himself that she was just like Heather, his heart wouldn’t accept that it was true.

  Because he loved her.

  Regardless of what she’d said and done—or not said and failed to do—his heart urged him to give her another chance, to give them another chance.

  The first time he’d set eyes on her, he’d felt something stir inside of him. He hadn’t even known her name, but he’d somehow known that she was the woman he was meant to be with. And so he’d pursued her, relentlessly and single-mindedly.

  And then he’d found out that she wasn’t quite the woman he’d wanted her to be, that she had secrets he couldn’t have guessed and didn’t want to believe. And still, he couldn’t shake the feelings he had for her. He couldn’t stop wanting her, needing her, loving her.

  But he’d abandoned her when she needed him. All she’d asked for was some compassion and understanding, and he’d turned on her because he didn’t want to rock the boat. It wasn’t even his boat, but the peacemaking instinct of the middle child was so deeply ingrained in him it had a tendency to carry over to all areas of his life. How ironic that his desire to maintain the status quo for his friend’s family had led to his conflict with Erin.

  Maybe it wasn’t about giving her a second chance but asking if she would give him one.

  …I can’t make plans for my future when I have so many unanswered questions about my past.

  He didn’t think she’d actually come here tonight to answer those questions, but maybe he should stick close to her—just to be sure.

  Erin didn’t feel as awkward as she thought she would at Elise Clifton’s party. Although she’d never met Grant’s sister, she was surprised by how many of the guests she did know. Obviously she’d met more people and made more friends than she’d realized during the few months that she’d been in Thunder Canyon.

  In fact, she didn’t feel uncomfortable at all except for that brief moment when she’d glanced around the room and found Corey watching her. She’d known he would be there, but she hadn’t expected that she would feel so rattled by his presence.

  But she should have. After all, they’d been more than casual acquaintances—they’d been lovers. And although their time together had been brief, it had also been more intimate and intense than any other relationship Erin had ever had.

  Of course, that was over now, she reminded herself. And although she might regret the way their relationship had ended, there was no point in wishing things had turned out differently. She couldn’t deny herself the answers she’d sought for so long just because he wanted her to. And the fact that he could even ask it of her, knowing how important it was to her to find the truth, proved that he didn’t care about her half as much as he’d claimed.

  Anyway, it was inevitable that, in a town the size of Thunder Canyon, she would cross paths with Corey every now and again. And she was relieved that the first meeting had happened. They hadn’t actually exchanged words, but she was okay with that. She was still too raw to be able to hide the hurt she was feeling.

  She wandered around the buffet table, more out of curiosity than hunger, examining the assortment of finger foods. Her stomach was too knotted to contemplate putting anything into it right now, but she might eat later, when Corey was gone—or at least when he stopped watching her.

  Was she being paranoid—or was he shadowing her every move? Probably he was sticking close so he could intervene if she got too close to one of his friends.

  But he didn’t make a move when Grant and Stephanie sought her out, or even when Grant pulled his mother and his sister over to meet her.

  Truthfully, Erin wouldn’t have minded if he’d interrupted just then because coming face-to-face with Elise Clifton for the first time, she was absolutely speechless. It wasn’t just that the resemblance to her own brothers was more evident in person—it was the tiny brown birthmark on the side of Elise’s nose, exactly where Jake and Josh each had identical birthmarks.

  Erin hadn’t noticed the birthmark in the photo, or maybe the angle from which the picture was taken had hidden it from view. But she knew that the presence of that birthmark couldn’t possibly be a coincidence—it had to mean that Elise was Betty and Jack Castro’s child.

  After Grant had made the introductions, while Erin was still reeling from the shock of this revelation, Helen Clifton looked at her thoughtfully.

  “Would your mother be Betty Castro by any chance?” she asked.

  Erin’s heart was pounding hard and fast as she faced the woman who had not raised her but who, she was now certain, had given birth to her. But she could hardly say, ‘Actually, you’re my mother,’ and because Betty had been her mother in every other way, she answered, “Yes, she is.”

  “Erin’s mother and I gave birth on the same day, practically at the same time, right here in Thunder Canyon,” Helen informed them.

  “No birthing horror stories, please,” Stephanie said quickly.

  “I don’t have any to tell,” the older woman assured her expectant daughter-in-law.

  “Good.” Stephanie breathed a sigh of relief as she rubbed her baby bump. “But just in case, I’ll excuse myself to get this rapidly growing baby some food.”

  “I’ll make sure she skips the seafood and sits while she eats,” Grant said, following his wife.

  “If your mom gave birth the same day as mine, then it’s your birthday today, too,” Elise said to Erin after her brother and sister-in-law had gone.

  She nodded, feeling more than a little self-conscious that the attention had shifted in her direction.

  “Are your parents here to celebrate with you?” Helen asked. “It would be a hoot to see your mother again.”

  “No,” Erin said. Despite this most recent and shocking revelation—or maybe because of it—she realized she missed her family more than ever. “They live in San Diego, but they are coming for Thanksgiving.”

  “Well, maybe we’ll have a chance to get together while they’re here.”

  “In the meantime,” Elise said, “I should see if someone in the kitchen can add your name to the cake.”

  “No.” The protest was as immediate as it was instinctive.

  “Why not?” Elise asked.

  “Because this is your party.”

  “But it’s our birthday.”

  She was so gracious and generous and her easy acceptance made Erin feel all the more guilty about the secrets she carried d
eep inside.

  “That’s really kind,” Erin said, “but—”

  “But we need to be going,” Corey interjected, touching a hand to her back. “We have another birthday celebration to attend.”

  While she was grateful to have been rescued, she wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about Corey being her rescuer. But she was desperate enough to escape that she played along.

  “Oh. Of course,” Elise said, though she sounded more than a little disappointed.

  “Enjoy the rest of your night,” Erin said and impulsively hugged her.

  Grant’s sister hugged her back; then Helen did, too.

  “It was a pleasure to meet you—again,” she said and laughed.

  Erin forced a smile, but her throat was tight and her eyes were stinging.

  Corey said his goodbyes, then ushered her toward the ex it.

  “I’ll grab your coat,” he said.

  She only nodded.

  He slipped the garment over her shoulders and guided her out of the restaurant.

  “Why did you do that?” she finally asked him.

  He shrugged. “You looked like you needed to get out of there.”

  “I did,” she admitted. “Thanks.”

  “What are you thinking now? Do you still believe Delores made a mistake at the hospital?”

  “I know she did,” Erin told him.

  He frowned. “Why are you suddenly so certain?”

  “Because Elise has a little birthmark on her face in exactly the same spot that both of my brothers do.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  Erin pulled her wallet out of her purse. Her fingers trembled as she pulled out photos of each of her brothers. “Look.”

  Corey did, his frown deepening.

  “Are you thinking that this is yet another coincidence?” she asked.

  “No, I’m wondering why you didn’t say anything in there,” he admitted.

  She stared at him. “Did you really think I would just blurt something like that out? Is that why you’re here? To make sure I didn’t cause a scene?”