Woodrose Mountain

by RaeAnne Thayne

  But she had also known in her heart it was absolutely the right thing.

  She would never regret taking guardianship of Cassie, she thought now as she watched Jacques nose the roots of a columbine. She had loved the girl dearly—her laughter, her joy at life, the love she freely gave. Even if Evie had known how things would end, she would never have surrendered those two years she had with her.

  She stopped to take a rest and pressed her fingers to the pain in her chest that—despite the altitude and the exertion—had nothing to do with her workout.

  She could see Hope’s Crossing below, soft and lovely in the early-morning light. It looked to be another beautiful August day, perfect for taking Taryn to the bead store.

  “Come on, Jacques,” she called after a moment and started back down the trail. She would barely have time to shower and change before she was supposed to meet Brodie for the job interview. Time to pick up her speed. She sighed and carefully jogged downhill. A few wildflowers still bloomed, Indian paintbrush and purple beeweed and the ever-present columbines, though she knew the approaching cold would wither them soon enough.

  She would just have to enjoy them while she could. For some reason, their jewel-bright colors brought back a memory of the cheery houses on the island of Burano, near Venice, that had gleamed just that way in the early-morning light.

  After Cassie had died and Evie realized she could no longer function as a therapist, she had closed her practice and decided to travel around the world for a while to lose herself in other cultures.

  Venice had been her first stop on this grand world tour. On a random day-trip to Murano, another island in the lagoon, she had stopped to watch the glassblowers in the factories that had been forced to relocate there centuries ago after their glassworks were deemed a fire hazard for careful Venetians.

  She had ended up filling a small bag with art-glass beads, perhaps as an impulse, perhaps as some kind of homage to that hobby she and Meredith had shared. She had continued buying beads during all her travels: old costume jewelry from secondhand charity shops across the U.K., shells and small stones from Africa, silver filigree beads from Bali. By the time she’d returned to the States she knew beading was her new passion.

  Walking away from her career had been the right choice, though she still missed it sometimes. Despite her best efforts, though, here she was, full circle, trying hard not to let another girl into her heart.

  As she approached an area of the trail cutting across a rocky talus that dropped treacherously, Evie slowed her pace. She was always cautious here. One wrong step, a twisted ankle on one of the zillions of fist-size rocks that spilled down the mountainside, and the unwary hiker could tumble over the side. She was nearly to the end when Jacques gave one of his rare polite barks of greeting and stood looking below the trail.

  Hoping it wasn’t a skunk—wouldn’t that be a lovely start to the day?—she approached warily. She saw a mountain bike on its side next to the trail and she glimpsed a flash of yellow on a rocky outcropping about ten feet below the trail. A boy, she realized. He stood on the wide ledge gazing down at the town below, heedless of the three-hundred-foot drop just inches below him.

  This steep, rocky overlook would be an easy place to die. A missed step, a little stumble—accidentally or on purpose—and someone could check out in a heartbeat.

  She thought of her mother, overdosing on pills to finally silence her physical and emotional pain, and stepped quickly forward. “Good morning.”

  The boy must have heard Jacques bark but he still seemed shocked to find a human associated with the dog—and she was equally shocked when she recognized his identity.

  “Hey,” he muttered.

  Charlie Beaumont was dressed in bike shorts and a bright yellow jersey, its cheerful color a vivid contrast to the tight, sullen look he always seemed to wear.

  She didn’t like this boy. How could she, when his recklessness had killed the child of a dear friend and severely injured the grandchild of another? But something about his posture, the defeated slump of his shoulders, the hint of desperation in his eyes, prevented her from just continuing down the trail.

  “It looks like a perfect day for a bike ride.”

  He gave her a stony look. “Is it?”

  “Are you heading up to Crystal Lake?” The glacier-fed lake filled a small alpine valley another two miles up the trail and was a favorite with mountain bikers for the vast network of trails surrounding it.

  “Haven’t decided.” His words were clipped but she had the impression he was not necessarily being surly. There was a sadness about him, almost despair.

  “You’re Charlie Beaumont, right? I’m Evie Blanchard. I work at String Fever, the bead store in town. I know your mother and your sister.”

  “Lucky you,” he muttered.

  She should just keep going. Brodie would be waiting for her to arrive at the interview and she had a very strong suspicion he wouldn’t be thrilled if he knew the delay was because of this kid, who had ruined his daughter’s life.

  On the other hand, she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she ignored her instincts and left him alone up here if he were indeed suicidal.

  She shouldn’t have any sympathy for the kid after what he had done, recklessly drinking and driving with a pickup truckload of teens, after driving the getaway car for several burglaries in the area. He was a punk with an attitude born from parents who by turns ignored him and indulged him.

  But it was also obvious the kid was hurting.

  She stepped closer and Jacques decided this was tacit permission for him to do the same, and more. He picked his way around boulders and young saplings toward the boy, planting his haunches on the ledge right next to him.

  “That rude creature is my dog, Jacques. Don’t worry, he’s friendly. To a fault, actually. Jacques, this is Charlie.”

  The Labradoodle wagged his tail quite violently in his usual bid for attention. After a surprised moment, Charlie gave Jacques a tentative pat or two as if he hadn’t been around animals very often. Too bad, she thought. In her experience, kids were generally a little more responsible and a little less self-absorbed if they had another creature depending on them.

  “You’re out early.” She perched on a rock close enough that she hoped he wouldn’t feel threatened.

  “It’s a good time to ride. Not as many idiots on the trail to get in the way.”

  Either he very much liked his privacy or right now Charlie Beaumont was having a tough time dealing with other people. She was willing to bet it was the latter.

  He cut his gaze down the cliffside and her instincts flared again. “Sometimes it must feel easier to be on your own,” she said calmly.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She thought about dissembling but he struck her as a boy who needed a little honesty more than he needed someone else in his life being careful not to hurt his feelings. “Only that you can’t be the most popular guy around town right now.”

  His expression darkened with anger—but she was almost certain she saw a shadow of despair in his eyes. “You think I care about the opinions of a bunch of stupid-ass little people in a stupid-ass little town?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Hope’s Crossing can go to hell. I don’t give a shit about anybody.” His color was high and his hands shook a little where he gripped Jacques’s curly fur.

  She pushed away a deerfly from her arm. “See, funny thing. I think you do.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “It has to bother you, doesn’t it? What people are saying about you?”

  He didn’t look at her, just gazed down the mountainside again. “Why would it bother me? It’s the truth, isn’t it? I killed Layla and turned Taryn into a vegetable.”

  A huge weight for any seventeen-year-old to carry, even if he had earned it. She must be the bleeding heart Brodie seemed to think if she could feel this pang of sympathy for this defiant young man, even knowing his stupid d
ecisions were to blame for the pain and loss that affected an entire town.

  “She’s not. A vegetable, I mean.”

  He frowned. “She’s in a wheelchair. She can’t talk. Brittni Jones, one of her stupid friends from the cheerleading squad, says she can’t even feed herself.”

  “She’s working on all those things.”

  It wasn’t exactly a lie, she told herself, even though right now Taryn didn’t seem to want to work on much of anything. A tiny niggle of an idea sprouted in Evie’s head, completely, fantastically inappropriate. She tried to dismiss it but it didn’t seem to want to wither away.

  “Before I came to Hope’s Crossing, I was a physical therapist. Right now I’m helping to set up a program of rehab exercises that will help Taryn continue to improve at home.” If the girl actually could be bothered to do them, but Evie decided not to mention that to Charlie.

  At least he was looking at her now and not the steep drop-off. “How is she?” He hesitated. “Is she making progress?”

  “It’s slow, certainly, but yes. She’s improving.”

  That germ of an idea refused to die. It was completely crazy but some of her best ideas were. “Why don’t you come visit her and see for yourself?”

  He gaped at her. “I couldn’t!”

  “Why not? I think Taryn would enjoy the company. She spends all day surrounded by therapists and nurses and home-health aides. I imagine she’s desperate for a little conversation that doesn’t revolve around exercises or medications.”

  “Her dad would never let me in the door. He’d string me up by my b—, um, arms if I tried it.”

  He was probably right about that. Brodie would be furious if he knew she was even suggesting it to the kid. Somehow this seemed just the way to take care of two problems at once—give Taryn someone else her own age to interact with besides Hannah and give Charlie something else to focus on besides that steep drop-off and the people below who now treated him like a pariah.

  “We’re going to String Fever this morning. If you wanted to see Taryn, you could come there. That way her father wouldn’t have to be involved.”

  It was a huge risk but somehow this felt right.

  “She wouldn’t want to see me.”

  “Maybe not. But we won’t know if you don’t try. Stop in for a minute and say hi. That’s all. I think it would mean a lot to Taryn to know you cared.”

  She paused, giving him a careful look. “You owe her that, at least, don’t you?”

  Charlie closed his eyes for an instant and inhaled sharply as if she’d just chucked a rock at his gut. His fingers dug into Jacques’s fur and he let out his breath slowly.

  “I don’t know.”

  “We’ll be there for about an hour this morning, around nine-thirty.” She whistled to Jacques. “Come on, boy.”

  The dog seemed reluctant to leave the boy but he finally bounded up to her.

  For an instant, she experienced a pang of misgiving. If the boy was really suicidal, wasn’t she taking a huge chance to leave him here in the mountains by himself? She wouldn’t be able to bear it if she found out later he had harmed himself and she might have prevented it by staying a little longer or walking with him down the hill or something.

  No. He was still looking down at the town below but she sensed something else in his posture now. Some of that desperate edge seemed to have seeped out of him and now he looked almost pensive.

  She couldn’t really have explained it, no more than she understood what impulse had led her to invite him to the bead store that morning, but her instincts were telling her any threat of suicide, real or imagined, had passed.

  She whistled to Jacques and the two of them headed down the trail, leaving the boy alone.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “NO. NO, NO, NO.”

  Taryn hadn’t quite resorted to splaying her arms out to keep Evie from pushing the wheelchair through the doorway of the van and down the ramp but it was a near thing. She had been chanting no ever since the moment Evie had pulled the van into a parking space behind the bead store.

  Evie ground her back teeth. “I promised Hannah I would help her with her mom’s earrings, Taryn. I gave my word. You said it would be okay.”

  “I…changed…my mind. Don’t want to now.”

  That was as many words as Taryn had strung together at one time in her presence. While she knew the girl’s growing verbal skills ought to please her, she had to fight down frustration. This frustration was all her fault. That’s what made it all the more aggravating.

  She’d been running late all morning. Those moments she had spent talking to Charlie on Woodrose Mountain had thrown off her entire schedule and she had barely made it to the house for the last few minutes of Brodie’s interview with the latest uninspiring candidate.

  It was all a ripple effect. Now they were late to the bead store as well. She only hoped Hannah wasn’t already waiting for them inside.

  “Why don’t you want to come here anymore? You used to love going into String Fever and playing around with bead designs.”

  “Not the same…now.”

  Evie knelt beside the wheelchair, her heart aching for Taryn and everything the girl had been forced to give up. What did her own schedule matter? The girl’s discomfort was the important issue here.

  “No. It’s not the same. But some things haven’t changed. I think you will still like making things. What girl doesn’t like jewelry, am I right?”

  Taryn cast her a sidelong look under her lashes and shrugged.

  “I promise, it’s going to be okay. It’s early and the store hasn’t even opened yet. Your grandmother is there and Claire Bradford and Hannah. That’s all. People who love you and want to help you.”

  She decided not to mention Charlie and her spontaneous invitation for him to join them that morning. What would be the point? He probably wouldn’t come anyway.

  “It will be fun, I promise,” she said. “And isn’t it nice to be somewhere beside your house for a change? I don’t know about you, but I was getting sick of Mrs. Olafson’s terrible cooking all the time. If I had to eat another dozen of those sugar cookies of hers, I just might have to be sick or something.”

  Taryn giggled, fully aware that Mrs. O. was a fantastic cook. Evie was going to gain ten pounds before she was done with this temporary job.

  “Look at you, out on the town. We’ll go into the store, help Hannah make a couple sets of earrings and be back home in an hour. While we’re there, you decide what kind of project you want to make. Maybe a simple charm necklace or a bracelet or something. Whatever you want and we’ll make it together.”

  Taryn lifted her hands. Though the function in the right hand was coming along nicely, the left one was still difficult for her to use. “I…can’t…bead.”

  “Sure you can. We’ll start slowly. Trust me, if the old ladies with arthritis who come to the Bead Babes class at the senior center can do it, you certainly can. I bet you can bead rings around those old biddies.”

  “Not rings. Just…a bracelet,” Taryn said slowly and Evie laughed and hugged her. Another joke! She loved when Taryn allowed her sense of humor to shine through her challenges. Those little moments gave her hope.

  Right now, Taryn’s biggest issue besides her attitude was the muscle tone that had been weakened by six weeks in a coma, but the fact that she was alive and here cracking jokes was nothing short of a miracle.

  “A bracelet it is. Are you ready, then?”

  Taryn sighed, apprehension still twisting her features, but she nodded. Overwhelmed by the girl’s courage, Evie bent down to unfasten the tie-downs lashing the wheelchair in place in the van and then rolled her down the ramp toward the back door.

  Their path took them through the gate and the small fenced garden, lush and fragrant from the madly blooming lavender and lemon balm. When she’d left String Fever an hour before, she had put Jacques outside in the garden so he could play with his best friend, Claire’s old basset hound, Chester. Appa
rently Claire was already there, because both dogs seemed to be waiting for them. They immediately headed over, Chester’s sturdy little body waddling and Jacques loping in his elegant stride.

  “Oh!” Taryn drew back a little in her chair.

  “Nothing to worry about, sweetheart. You know Chester, Claire’s dog, right? He’s been around the store forever. This other gorgeous dude is my Labradoodle, Jacques.”

  To Evie’s delight, Jacques padded to Taryn and rested his chin on her leg, gazing up into her eyes with that soulful look he had perfected.

  If this had been a cartoon version of life, a spangled flurry of pink, glittery hearts and flowers would have erupted between girl and dog as the two of them quite obviously fell hard for each other. Evie saw instant adoration in her dog’s eyes and a similar glint in Taryn’s.

  Evie held her breath as Taryn lifted her left hand, the one she tended to avoid using, and patted the dog’s curly woollike fur.

  “So cute,” she exclaimed.

  “Careful there.” Evie smiled, delighted and feeling almost a little weepy, for some ridiculous reason she couldn’t explain. “He’s very much a manly male and doesn’t like to be called cute.”

  Her reluctance to be at the bead store apparently forgotten in the excitement of new friends, Taryn giggled and petted the dog a little more, moving her arm more than she had through all the exercises combined the occupational therapist had tried on her.

  Though she was still aware Hannah might be inside waiting for them, Evie didn’t want to ruin the sweetness of the moment—or Taryn’s impromptu occupational therapy—so they stayed for a few moments in the little garden while birds chirped in the branches of the butterfly bush and red-osier dogwood against the fence, and the summer air drifted around them, sweet and cool.

  Finally she decided they should probably head inside. “If you’d like, Jacques can come inside and help us bead. He’s not so great at working with the pliers but he can be pretty good company.”

  Taryn giggled again, a genuine sound that sounded lovely and pure in the morning air.