Woodrose Mountain

by RaeAnne Thayne

  “Look at that,” Katherine suddenly exclaimed.

  He followed the direction she was pointing and saw a six-foot-long poster driven with stakes into a grassy parking strip near Miners’ Park. “Welcome Home, Taryn,” he read. A little farther, splashed in washable paint in the window of a fast-food restaurant, was the same message.

  On the marquee at the grocery store that usually broadcast the latest sale on chicken legs or a good buy on broccoli was another one. “We love you, Taryn.”

  And as they headed through town, he saw another message in big letters on the street, “Taryn Rocks!”

  The kids at the high school had probably done it, since it was similar to the kind of messages displayed during the Paint the Town event of Homecoming Week.

  He was grateful for the sentiment, even as a petty little part of him thought with some bitterness that the message might have been a little more effective if a few of them could have been bothered to visit her on a regular basis in the hospital.

  That wasn’t completely fair, he knew. The first few weeks after she’d come out of a coma, Taryn had been inundated with visitors. Too many, really. The cheerleading squad, of which she was still technically a part, the captains of the football team, the student body officers.

  Eventually those visits had dwindled to basically nothing, until the last time anybody from Hope’s Crossing High School stopped in to see her had been about a month ago.

  He supposed he couldn’t really blame the kids. It was obvious Taryn wasn’t the same social bug she had been. She couldn’t carry on a conversation yet, not really, and while many teenagers he knew didn’t particularly need anybody else to participate when they jabbered on about basically nothing, it would have been a little awkward.

  This gesture, small though it might have been, was something. He could focus on that, he thought as his mother pointed out all the signs to Taryn, who smiled slightly at each one.

  Though he could have easily circumvented driving through the main business district of downtown to reach their home in the foothills, he could tell the outpouring of support had touched Katherine. This was a small thing he could give his mother to thank her for all her help these last weeks. A few more moments of driving wouldn’t hurt.

  More Welcome Home signs hung on several of the storefronts downtown, including the bead store, the café and even Maura Parker’s bookstore.

  “We should have put something up at the sporting- goods store and the restaurants,” he said. “I didn’t think about it. I’m glad someone else in town did.”

  “We’ve had a few other things on our minds.”

  “True enough.” He smiled, grateful all over again for her steady strength these last few months. He would have foundered on the rocks and sunk without her.

  He had always loved his mother but that natural emotion had sometimes been tempered over the years by a low, vague simmer of anger he hadn’t really acknowledged. Why would someone as kind and giving as his mother ever stay with a man like his father, a hard, uncompromising man with no sense of humor about life and little patience for a son with learning deficits and a gnat-short attention span?

  That frustration seemed far away and unimportant now when he considered all Katherine had done for Taryn since the accident. He supposed an adult child never really understood or appreciated the best qualities of a parent until they had walked a difficult road together.

  She was growing older. It was a sobering reality made more clear in the harsh afternoon sunlight when he saw new lines around her mouth, a few gray streaks she usually ruthlessly subdued with artful hair color.

  “You ought to think about taking a trip somewhere in the next few months,” he said suddenly. “A cruise or a trip back to Provence or something. Lord knows you deserve it and we can certainly hobble along without you for a month or so.”

  “Maybe next spring, when things settle down a little.”

  Spring seemed a long way off to him right now. The aspens were already turning a pale gold around the edges and in only a few months Hope’s Crossing would be covered in snow and the skiers would return like the swallows at Capistrano.

  “Ice.” Taryn suddenly spoke up.

  Considering what he’d just been thinking about, he wondered if she had somehow read his mind.

  “It’s August, sweetheart,” he answered. “No ice around, at least for a few more months.” The idea of coping with the wheelchair ramp around town in the snow was daunting but maybe by then they wouldn’t need this van.

  “Ice!” she said more urgently, looking out the van window with more animation than he’d seen since they had left the care center. He sent a quick, helpless look to his mother, who shrugged, obviously as baffled as he was.

  An instant later, they passed a little stand shaped like a Swiss chalet, planted in a small graveled parking lot on the outskirts of downtown. A few people sat under umbrella-topped tables holding foam cups and, as he caught them out of the corner of his gaze, a light switched on.

  “Oh! Ice! Shave ice!” he exclaimed.

  Taryn gave her tiny, lopsided smile and nodded and he felt as if he’d just skied a black-diamond run on pure, fresh powder.

  Though he was impatient to get her home and begin the next phase of this crazy journey they’d traveled since April, Taryn had asked him for something. She had actually communicated a need and, more importantly, he’d understood it. It seemed like a red-letter moment that ought to be celebrated—despite the fact that she wouldn’t be able to hold the cup by herself or feed herself the treat.

  “You want a shave ice, you’ve got it, sweetheart.”

  He turned the van around and by some miracle, he found a fortuitous parking space a moment later, sandwiched between a flashy red convertible with rental plates and a minivan with a luggage bag bungeed to the roof. The summer tourists were still out in force, apparently. He’d missed most of the onslaught while relocated in Denver.

  “What flavor?”

  Her brow furrowed as she considered her options and then she gave that smile that was a lopsided shadow of her former mischievous grin. “Blue.”

  He had to guess that meant raspberry. That had been a favorite flavor of hers before the accident and he was heartened at this evidence that, while so many things had changed about his daughter, he could still find traces inside of all the things that made her Taryn.

  He opened his car door. “Mom? Do you want one?”

  Katherine looked elegantly amused. “I think I’ll pass today. But thank you.”

  The afternoon was warm but mountain-pleasant compared to the heat wave they’d left down in Denver. Hope’s Crossing consistently enjoyed temperatures about ten degrees cooler than the metro area, one reason tourists even from the city enjoyed coming to town, to visit the unique shops and eat in the town’s many restaurants.

  He recognized the teenager working at the shave-ice stand as one of Taryn’s friends from elementary school, Hannah Kirk. Before he had moved up to the Aspen Ridge area, the girl and her family had been neighbors.

  “Hi, Hannah.”

  She set down the washcloth she had been using to wipe down the counter, probably sticky from an afternoon of serving up syrupy treats. “Hi, Mr. Thorne,” she said. “How’s Taryn? I heard she might be coming home today.”

  “She is. Right now, in fact. She’s in the van over there. We were just driving past on our way home and she asked for a shave ice.”

  Hannah beamed. “She asked for a shave ice? That’s great. I heard she couldn’t talk,” she faltered, the excitement on her slightly round features fading to embarrassment, as if she was afraid she’d just said something rude. “Sorry. I mean…”

  “She can talk. It’s still a little tough to understand her sometimes so she just doesn’t say much. Only the important things. I guess she really wanted a shave ice.”

  “I can sure help you with that. What size?”

  “Let’s go with a medium. She wanted blue raspberry. I’ll take a peach co
conut, medium.”

  He knew it was straight sugar but he figured every once in a while a guy was entitled to enjoy something lousy for him. Why that made him suddenly think of Evie Blanchard, he didn’t want to guess.

  While he waited for Hannah to run the ice in the grinder—a process that seemed to take roughly the equivalent time to carve a masterpiece out of marble—he stood beside the faux chalet, looking at Main Street. The town looked warm and comfortable in the afternoon sunlight, full of parents pushing strollers, an elderly couple walking arm in arm, a couple of joggers with their white iPod earbud tethers dangling.

  He loved Hope’s Crossing. When he was a kid, he couldn’t leave fast enough and thought it was a town full of provincial people with small minds and smaller dreams. But this was the place he’d come to after his marriage had fallen apart, when he had been a lost and immature twenty-four-year-old kid suddenly saddled with a three-year-old girl he didn’t know what the hell to do with.

  If his father hadn’t just died, he wasn’t sure he would have come home, even as desperate as he’d been for his mother’s help with Taryn. Raymond Thorne’s massive heart attack at that particular juncture of Brodie’s life was probably the bastard’s single act of kindness toward him.

  He was mulling that cheerful thought when a teenage boy with streaked blond hair rode up on a high-dollar mountain bike wearing board shorts and a black T-shirt with a vulgar picture on the front.

  “Hey, Hannah-banana. Give me a medium watermelon.”

  Raw fury curled through Brodie. He could taste it in the back of his throat, sharp and acrid. He hated this kid with every microcell of his heart and it took all the discipline he’d learned in his ski-jumping days to keep from grabbing the kid and shoving his face into that freezer full of ice beside the stand.

  He stepped around the side of the fake little chalet and had the tiny satisfaction of seeing the kid’s features go a little pale under his summer tan.

  “Nice bike,” he said to Charlie Beaumont, the son of a bitch who had ruined Taryn’s life.

  The kid looked as if he would rather be anywhere else on earth, as if he were tempted to climb back onto his bike and race away. Hot color washed up to replace his paleness and he didn’t meet Brodie’s gaze.

  “Mr. Thorne,” he muttered.

  Brodie could think of a hundred things he would like to say to this kid, whose position of wealth and privilege apparently led him to think he could destroy lives around him with impunity from his choices.

  Charlie’s father was the mayor of Hope’s Crossing and one of the town’s most powerful members. He was also an attorney who—along with his partners—was doing everything he could to keep his son from having to atone for his stupid choices.

  Because of this little punk, his baby girl’s life had been decimated. While he rode around town flaunting his five-thousand-dollar mountain bike and buying iced treats, Taryn was forced to endure countless procedures and shots, to be unable to communicate even the most basic of needs, to spend her days in a wheelchair when she should be dancing and running and enjoying life as a teenage girl.

  Shoving him into the freezer was too good for him.

  “Um, how’s Taryn?” Charlie finally asked.

  Brodie had to admit, the kid showed balls to pretend concern. “Do you really care? I didn’t notice you coming to the hospital anytime during the last three months.”

  At least he had the grace to look embarrassed. “I wanted to. I just…my parents, uh, didn’t think I should.”

  “Right. Wouldn’t want you to face something as inconvenient as your conscience, would we?”

  If possible, Charlie’s features turned an even deeper shade of red. Brodie would have liked to say something cutting and harsh but a family of tourists in shorts and ball caps came up behind Charlie and the moment passed. What was the point anyway? Yelling at the kid wouldn’t help Taryn and probably wouldn’t make Brodie feel any better.

  Hannah Kirk called his name just a moment later. “Here you go, Mr. Thorne. You tell Taryn we’re all praying for her, okay?”

  He forced a polite smile, biting down the urge to point out that prayers hadn’t done a hell of a lot of good so far.

  “I’ll tell her. And thank you for the shave ice. I’m sure she’ll enjoy it.”

  Hannah hesitated. “Would it be okay if I stopped by to bring her another one sometime, now that she’s home?”

  It was nice of her to offer, especially as their friendship seemed to have withered away after grade school. “I think she’d like that,” he answered.

  Charlie was apparently following their conversation. “Wait. She’s home?” he asked.

  “Didn’t you see the signs all over town?” Hannah asked, with a touch of pugnacity that seemed out of character for her. “Mr. Thorne is taking her home now. That’s why he bought her a shave ice here instead of in Denver.”

  An interesting mix of emotions crossed Charlie’s features. He looked happy and miserable and wary at the same time. “So she’s okay?”

  Chief McKnight probably wouldn’t arrest him if he “accidentally” dumped a shave ice on the punk’s head, would he? “Right,” he growled. “If you call needing twenty-four-hour care, not being able to get out more than a few words, not having the motor control to feed herself this shave ice, okay, then yes. I guess she’s okay. Unlike Layla Parker.”

  It was a cruel thing to say, he knew, and he felt small for it when Charlie hissed in a breath as if Brodie had coldcocked him like he wanted to. The kid stared at him for a long moment then climbed back onto his mountain bike and pedaled away without taking the icy treat Hannah was reluctantly fixing for him.

  Brodie stood like an idiot for a moment watching after him, then shook his head. He tried to put the encounter out of his mind as he headed back to the van. This was a good day, right? Taryn was going home. That was the important thing, not some little shit with an entitlement complex.

  At the van, he slid open the left rear door—the one without the ramp—set his own shave ice in the drink holder and then scooped a spoonful of the sugary treat for Taryn.

  “Here you go, honey. Blue. Just like you wanted.”

  She gave that lopsided smile again, the one doctors warned him might be permanent, and opened her mouth for a taste.

  “Mmmm,” she said, so he gave her another one, wiping her face a little where some of the flavored ice dribbled out.

  “Is that good for now?” he asked after a few more tastes. “I can give you more when we get home.”

  “Yeah,” she answered, smiling again, and his heart ached with love for her. He hated that it had taken a tragic accident stunning the entire town to remind him how much.

  “Everything okay?” his mother asked when they were once more heading up the causeway toward his neighborhood above the main section of town.

  “Why wouldn’t it be?” He focused on the drive instead of the jumble of emotions he didn’t know what to do with. Anger at Charlie, love for his daughter, fury at this whole damn situation.

  “You seem tense.”

  In the rearview mirror, he could see Taryn gazing out the window, not paying attention to their conversation, so he decided to tell his mother the truth.

  “Charlie Beaumont was behind me in line at the shave-ice stand.” He pitched his voice low.

  Katherine didn’t seem to think this was all that earthshaking an event. “What did you do?”

  “He’s still in one piece, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  His mother’s smile had a bittersweet edge. “Glad to hear it. I think enough people have suffered from one boy’s foolish mistakes, don’t you?”

  Except Charlie. The kid hadn’t suffered one damn bit. By one of those weird quirks of physics and sheer stupid luck, he’d emerged from the accident completely unscathed—and Brodie was quite sure one part of him would never be content until the kid paid somehow for all the lives he’d ruined.

  * * *

  SHE COULD BE SWIT
ZERLAND.

  Think the Matterhorn, lederhosen, those ten-foot-long trumpety thingies.

  Above all, neutrality.

  Evie stood inside the sprawling Thorne home, wondering at the delay. Katherine had texted her thirty minutes earlier to say they were arriving in Hope’s Crossing. They should have been here fifteen minutes ago but maybe they stopped somewhere along the route to enjoy the outpouring of support from the town.

  She wasn’t sure how word had trickled out but by now everybody seemed to know. Maybe the Chamber of Commerce had started a phone tree or something, because nearly every store in town had some kind of sign in the window or on their marquee and it seemed everyone who came into the store wanted to talk about Taryn’s homecoming.

  Evie only hoped Brodie would take that support in the light it was intended, as a manifestation of the good wishes of people in town and not as some expression of pity. Somehow she doubted the latter would sit well with him.

  “Can I get you something to drink while we wait? A soda or some tea?” Mrs. Olafson, Brodie’s scarily efficient housekeeper, hovered in the doorway. She was squat and apple-cheeked and had seemed stern at first glance. A bit on the terrifying side, actually, but Evie could see by her frequent glances down the driveway that the housekeeper was eagerly anticipating Taryn’s return.

  “I’m great,” she said, her tone gentle. “Why don’t you sit down and wait for her with me?”

  “I couldn’t. I should be working on the salad for dinner.”

  “Dinner is still a few hours away. Please. Sit.”

  Mrs. Olafson looked reluctant but she finally perched on the edge of the teak bench beside the front door.

  “How long have you worked for the Thornes?” Evie asked. She had seen the older woman around town but their circles hadn’t really connected before and she had yet to take the chance to get to know her. They would be working in close proximity the next few weeks. No harm in trying to be friendly and learn more about Mrs. Olafson, other than that she rarely smiled and always pulled her hair into a rather severe steel-gray bun at the base of her neck that made Evie think of her elementary school lunch ladies or perhaps the stereotypical warden at a women’s prison.