by Taylor Hart
Cindy had tears on her face. As she opened her arms, a gulp of grief came out of her.
He took the steps two at a time, pulling her into him. They both stood there crying. Montana didn’t know when Frank hugged them, but then they were all crying together.
A cleansing cry.
After Cindy released him, Frank dragged him back into a hug. “You’ve finally come home.”
Home.
The word sounded like an echo in the Grand Canyon, loud and funny to his ears. Montana stared at Frank. His glasses were tilted on his face, and the smell of pipe tobacco and mothball flannel clung to him.
Tears filled Montana’s eyes. “I should have come back before now. I’m so sorry.”
Cindy only hugged him again. “You’re home. My boy is finally home.”
When she said that, all the years of anger and pain dissipated in an instant. Everything was peeled back, and he felt naked.
Frank snorted and wiped his face. “I’m glad you’re here, son. So glad.”
They pulled him into the house, and he smelled Mexican food.
“Please, join us.” Cindy nodded to the pinewood table. It was simple, but it represented so many wonderful times in his life.
He sat, and Frank got another plate from the cabinet. Cindy put her hands out, and all of them held hands while Frank prayed. All Montana could think about was her gnarled hand inside of his own.
Afterward, Cindy had tears on her face, but she picked up his plate and put a large enchilada in the middle of it. “Well, as you can see, the house needs a lot of repairs. We’ve been working on them, but so many things have gotten in the way.”
“The house looks great,” Montana offered, knowing Cindy had always been working on the house.
Frank shook his head. “No, it doesn’t. Jason was our handyman, and the past couple of years …” He trailed off.
Montana hesitated before asking, “Please, tell me.”
So they did. All about Jason. He’d worked at the coal mine. He’d been happy enough. The furniture business he was starting had taken off, but then the bone cancer got him.
He’d battled, trying traditional medicine, energy therapy, naturopaths. Nothing could stop it.
Montana listened and cried with them. He couldn’t help wondering that if he’d known, could he have done something to stop it? Thrown all his money at it.
Cindy took his hand. “It’s okay, Montana. It was his time. We know.”
Montana didn’t know it was his time. He’d never liked the idea that it was anyone’s time. Why did a young man have to die? Why did Lily’s mom suffer in the care center with the loss of her mind? When he was younger, the question was always, why had his parents left him? Nothing like this had ever made sense to him.
After sitting there for a few seconds, not quite sure what to say, Montana pulled out the key. “Lily brought me this last week. From Jason. It had a note with it. He told me to ask you guys what it went to.”
Frank grinned, taking the key and examining it. “The box of dreams.” He let out a laugh.
Suddenly Montana remembered. The box. Of dreams. His heart sped up. Realization dawned on him. “The box never had a key on it.”
Frank sobered. “He put one on it. Made me leave his side at the end to get the box back to the fort.” He wiped a tear. “Guess now I know why.”
Sadness fell through him. He blinked.
Cindy sniffed. “Go see what our Jason left you.”
A bit later, as Montana pulled away from the house, he knew he had to get Lily. They were her dreams too. He sighed. It felt like his life had turned into one sad country song after another.
10
When Lily went back to the motel and realized Montana wasn’t there, to say she was ticked would be like saying that it was an inconvenience to have a tsunami destroy a village. He’d brought her with him on his little goose chase and then left?
She wasn’t usually this impatient, but something about Montana struck every nerve inside her body and left her raw and restless.
So she waited. She pulled out her laptop to finish one last thing on the Carter case. She supposed she should be grateful for having some time to work.
Six hours later, she was pulled out of work by Montana’s return. When he opened the door to his room, he asked, “How’d you get in here?”
She snorted. “Why don’t you tell me why you used extortion to get me to come with you only to leave me sitting in this motel the whole day?”
He moved to the little table in the room and put a brown paper bag on it. “How did you get in?”
One of her favorite tactics as an attorney was always the element of surprise. Not like it had been a great feat, but still. “Jim Whicks has never been able to resist me.”
For a second, Montana held her gaze. Then his lip twitched up. “That’s true. Whicks always taunted me about dating you, saying he would take you away when I wasn’t looking.”
Unwillingly, she laughed at the jealous way he said it. Then she shook her head. “Guess it didn’t matter.”
He flinched.
“Thanks for letting me know where you were going.” She shut her laptop.
He sighed and then whipped out his phone. “What’s your number?”
“You mean your private investigator didn’t have it?”
Montana didn’t look up. “It seems that you keep pretty tight reins on it. I could have asked your boss, but I decided to get it from you directly.”
Ignoring his false politeness, she rattled off the numbers. Moments later, a blip of her favorite song blared out. She looked at her phone and silenced the rest of the song.
Narrowing his eyes at her, he flung a hand up in question. “Seriously, you listen to his music?”
She grinned at another wave of jealousy and swung her legs off his bed, deciding to taunt him. “Maybe he’s my king of country.”
He sputtered. “He doesn’t have as many gold platinum albums as me.”
She put her laptop in the case and tried not to laugh. “Maybe it’s not about the gold platinum albums. Maybe I just like his music.”
He leveled her with a glare. “But you don’t like mine?”
Without missing a beat, she shrugged. “I don’t listen to yours.”
Their eyes met, and she saw the humor in them.
“Nice.” He looked away.
Lily tried not to notice how appealing he looked with his messy hair from the bike helmet and tight jeans. She shook her head, trying to clear it. “You know it’s creepy that you hired a P.I. to investigate me, right? Stalkerish.”
“You know it’s not.”
“Even creepier, you watched me do yoga the other night.”
Tilting his head down, he sucked in a breath. “You left me in your car.”
She pointed at him. “You eventually got out and walked away, but first you watched me for a good twenty minutes.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Did too.”
“Not!” he called out.
She smiled, remembering fighting with him all those years ago.
He smiled back, and time stood still.
“You could have just called me, Montana.”
The air went slow and sticky between them.
“You could have just picked up the phone and called a long time ago.”
He cleared his throat, opened a plastic bag, and produced a Tupperware and a plastic spoon. “Cindy sent leftovers for you.”
Surprised, she reached for them, tearing off the lid and inhaling like she could eat it that way. No one refused Cindy’s cooking.
She didn’t want to ask, but she couldn’t stop herself. “How are they?”
“Fine.”
“You talked?” Dang it, she didn’t care, she reminded herself.
“We talked. I apologized for a lot of stuff.”
Their eyes met, and she felt that shiver again. She blocked it out and focused on eating the food. “Man, Cindy is good.”
&
nbsp; “Yes, she is,” he quickly agreed. Moving slowly into the room, he sat at the small chair next to the table. “How was the funeral?”
Lily didn’t want to tell him. He didn’t deserve to know. Reluctantly, she answered. He’d been to see Cindy and Frank. That was something. “The whole town was there. It was touching. You know, Father Lou talked about all that crap about life and death and how everything has a deeper meaning.”
“You don’t believe it does?” Montana asked.
She sighed. “I don’t want to get into this with you.”
He cleared his throat. “I actually went to get you before I went to Cindy and Frank’s, and I saw you reading the Bible to your mother.”
Lily didn’t know why this made her nervous. He’d been watching her again. Montana could still put her on edge, and she didn’t like it. Not one bit. “Stay out of things that aren’t your business.”
Surrendering, he put both hands into the air. “You’re right. It is none of my business.” He stood. “They said the box for the key is at the old fort.” He paused.
All she could think about was that night. The last night they’d been at the fort. The night before he’d left her.
He cleared his throat, and she met his eyes. The air between them was tangible. Filled with tension. She knew both of them were thinking the same thing.
He swallowed and then looked away from her. “Sun’s going down. We better get going.”
Lily looked at the dark sky outside, and nervousness wove into the bottom of her stomach. “You do remember there are ghosts in those woods.”
Letting out a light laugh, Montana met her eyes again. “The ones in the woods aren’t the ones I’m worried about.”
As they rode up the road to the fort, every part of her was on edge. All the visions from that night that she’d tried to block from her mind were right here.
Montana turned off the engine, and she inhaled a deep breath. The smell of pine assaulted her. The same smell she’d had a distaste for since then. She could do this. Get this done. Get it over with, and then she could go back to her life.
Montana opened one of the saddlebags. “Just in case.”
He pulled out two big flashlights and handed one to her.
When she took it, their hands brushed, and a tingle of chills washed over her. She ignored the way he affected her.
She hurried and got off before moving ahead of him up the side of the mountain.
Montana matched her speed, and they were hiking together.
It was spring, and the trail went from gravel to muddy halfway up.
“I don’t think I’m going to be able to use these shoes again,” Lily said absentmindedly. “Just have to throw them away.” She grinned. “Guess they’ll go on the expense list.”
“You can clean them,” he grunted.
Pausing, she scanned the tree line up ahead for the fort. “Some things aren’t worth the effort. You just put them in the trash and never look back.”
Montana pressed his lips together, then let out a sigh. “Maybe not.”
The sun had gone down over the mountain, and it was starting to get dark and cold.
Montana pointed to the east. “There it is.”
The fort looked smaller than she remembered, which shouldn’t have surprised her. But it still looked the same in some ways. It had the wood they’d painted blue to match their high school colors. Faded stenciled names of movies and old lines of poetry. Both Montana and Jason loved poetry. They had spent most of their time reading different poets from old, dusty books found at the secondhand store.
She stood outside of it, tears budding in her eyes as she thought of Jason.
Montana stood next to her, and she saw him fiercely blinking. “Okay, let’s do this.”
She ducked in first. The rug they had put down was pretty much black. She stared at the rolled-up sleeping bags. The piles of books. The tackle box and fishing poles.
It appeared unchanged.
Montana pushed inside and looked around.
It didn’t take long to find the old, rusted ammo box. With the new lock on it, it sat perched on a cardboard box on the floor.
Montana went for it.
Lily’s heart pounded into her throat. She suddenly worried about what exactly Jason had put in the box. Would Jason have gone back on his word?
Fear pierced her heart. She put her hand over his. “Wait.”
Montana looked back at her. “Lil?”
“Don’t call me that.”
His look turned to frustration. “Lily?”
“Can I look first?”
He scoffed and tugged away from her. “No.”
She yanked the box out of his hands. He’d already put the key in, so she tried to wrangle it open.
Then his hands were on it, pulling it back.
She fell holding it, and Montana tumbled down too. They were scrapping for it, and it turned into a messy wrestling match. She hadn’t been in one of these since the last time they’d all been fighting for something in the fort.
Montana was bigger and stronger and much quicker than she was. He yanked it open, and she saw another envelope. He extricated it and then immediately stood, ripping it open.
She got to her feet and tried to get it. “Hand it over. Please.” She was almost crying now, and she couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought about what the key might reveal.
But he was already reading it.
“Lily and Montana. If you’re reading this, I’m gone. First, Lily, it’s not about your secret.”
Simultaneously comforted and ticked off, she relaxed back and crossed her arms. Stinking Jason, mentioning her secret again.
Montana rolled his eyes, grunted, and kept reading. “I wanted you to remember what we’d all planned on doing together. I hope you do it. For me. If you don’t, I hope you both can forgive me. Remember, no regrets!”
Lily swiftly grabbed the paper beneath the letter out of Montana’s hand. “This is my writing.” It was from the summer before their senior year.
Montana looked over her shoulder, his voice abruptly soft. “That’s right, I remember that night. You, Jason, and I camped out here and stayed up all night, remember?”
Forgetting she was supposed to be mad at him, she let out a light laugh and then turned back. “You and Jason took the rest of my daddy’s fireworks and set them off at midnight.” She’d been sound asleep. “Nearly scared me to death.”
He laughed.
She smiled, turned back to the paper, and read silently.
#1 Surf on the Hawaiian ocean.
#2 Hot air balloon ride
#3 Scale Devil’s Tower
“Man, I guess we didn’t want much, did we?” He trigger laughed.
She didn’t laugh. For a moment, grief assaulted her again.
“Lil.”
She put up a hand. “Name.”
“Woman, I’ll call you whatever I want to call you.”
It was almost nice to have her anger surpass the grief, and she turned on him in her righteous indignation. “You act like they were trite. But we didn’t have billions, remember? And he didn’t …” She broke off, turning away from him and stalking out of the fort. “All he wanted was to get shells from Hawaii for his mother, remember? Before he died, he asked me, if I ever went to Hawaii, if I would do that for him.”
Montana followed her, grabbing her arm. “Hold up. I know what Jason was. I wasn’t acting like they were trite. I was just …”
“What?” She ripped her arm away.
He was biting down on his lip, and tears were suddenly in his eyes. “Don’t you remember, Lil? Sometimes I laugh when I don’t want to cry.”
She did remember.
Sitting by him on the bank by the river. When he’d explained how he’d grown up, and why he’d ended up in foster care. His druggie mother had passed him around and taken him back when she’d gotten clean, promising him rainbows and popsicles. But it had all ended with her death when he was twelve. He
’d never known his father. Never cared to find him, he’d told her. He’d left him. Wasn’t that enough?
11
Montana stared at Lil and knew they had to do the list. They had to. But he didn’t want to force her. He gathered the ammo box and the flashlights. “Let’s get back to the motel.”
Swinging back to him, she frowned. “Okay.”
He led the way with the flashlight. At one point, she stumbled and had to reach out and hold onto his shoulder. He wouldn’t lie; it felt good to have her rely on him.
They got to the motorcycle and rode back to the motel in silence.
Lily held the paper in one hand and her muddy shoes in the other. As they walked up to their adjoining rooms, he put his hand out for the list.
“What?” Lily asked.
“Please give me the list.”
“Why?”
“Because he gave me the key.”
She held the paper against her chest for a moment, and he could see how fragile she was and the tears that bubbled into her eyes. She gave it to him. “We can’t do these without Jason.”
Hesitating only for a second, he let out a breath. “Just tell me your secret, Lil.”
Closing her eyes for a second, she flashed them back open and let out a light laugh, shaking her head. “I cannot believe this.”
“Secret,” he pushed.
Narrowing her eyes, she shook her head then broke into a bigger laugh. “He was kidding.” She wiped beneath her eyes. “You know Jason was such a kidder.” She let out a whooping laugh and turned to her room door.
Grabbing her forearm, he spun her back. Their eyes met.
All the pent-up energy between them exploded with that touch. How much things had changed, but hadn’t changed at all. Confusion and anger and all that had been lost warred within his chest. Her perfect lips were right there, inches away. Could he just kiss her? But he wasn’t sixteen, and he wasn’t totally controlled by his hormones. “Lil, don’t mess with me. He mentioned it once in this letter and once in the letter with the key. It must be important.”
Lily ripped her hand back like she’d been burned, scorched by a ball of fire and needed emergency care. Her eyes were wide, skittish. She threw the list on the floor and rushed to her motel room door, fumbling with the lock. Then she turned back. “I don’t care if you buy the whole dang firm. You can’t extort me anymore. I quit.”
