Guiding the Fall

by Christy Hayes

  “Lyle. Let me down.”

  He jerked his head up, still breathing hard. When he saw the look in her eyes, he eased her down the wall but didn’t step back. “What’s wrong?”

  “I need some air.” She pushed on his chest and he stepped back. She ran past him out the door.

  “Erica, wait!” he shouted from the threshold, but she was gone. She ran out into the darkness. He heard her gasp as she slipped down the steep embankment. He caught up with her as she took her first steps into the river. He grabbed her hand. “You shouldn’t cross alone.”

  She let him guide her to the other side, holding tight to his hand until she stood safely on the opposite shore. “Thank you. I can make it back from here.”

  “Erica, please…”

  She yanked her hand from his. “I have to go.”

  She ran down the path toward her house. After a moment’s hesitation, Lyle followed. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if something happened to her between the river and her house. He stood at the edge of the path where the trees opened up to her property and shielded his eyes as the headlights from Olivia’s car flashed as she pulled out. He looked up in time to see Erica run through the door.

  Great, he thought. Just great. What had happened and how in the hell was he supposed to stay away from her now?

  Chapter 28

  Tyler pulled into the raft and fly shop and smiled when he saw his dad’s car still in the lot. He was later than he thought he’d be coming from his last class. One of his students had wanted to talk about the economic crisis of 2008 and Ty was all too willing to oblige. He hopped out of his truck still wearing his khakis and button-down.

  “A little over dressed for the fly shop,” Jesse commented without even looking up from the counter where he tied a series of intricate flies.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Ty said. “One of my students is a little eager.”

  “The female kind?”

  Ty chuckled. “No, the economic major kind. The female kind wears too much perfume and doesn’t button her tops. That,” he said, pointing, “doesn’t leave this room. Jill would kill me if she thought I was being hit on every day.”

  “Are you?”

  “Not every day. So,” he picked up the fly, “this is good work.”

  “Figured I’d give it a try since you were late.” He strung the last feather. “So what? Every other day?”

  “Drop it, Dad.”

  “Fine, fine. If you don’t want to tell me about your exploits with women before the big day, whatever.”

  “You really think I’d have a last fling?” Ty asked. “Did you?”

  “Hell, no, I didn’t have one. Have you met my wife?”

  “Indeed I have. Have you met mine?”

  “You mean your fiancée?” Jesse asked. “She’s not your wife yet.”

  Ty hated lying to his family. The fact that they still hadn’t figured it out meant he was a better liar than he thought. “Will be soon enough.” In God’s eyes, at least. Getting married in a church meant something to both he and Jill. That’s what he kept telling himself when the guilt got too much.

  “How’s the wedding planning? Lord, I don’t envy you that mess.”

  “Jill’s handling it. I just nod most of the time. Her mom’s getting on her nerves, but otherwise, I think it’s been pretty painless.”

  “And she likes it here?”

  Ty lifted his head from the fly he’d begun to tie. “Yeah. Why? You heard otherwise?”

  “Calm down. Jeez, you’re so whipped, it’s embarrassing.” Jesse lifted his ball cap, scratched his temple, and replaced the cap backward. “Your mom said she’s happy with her work at the restaurant. I think they’re getting along great.”

  “Jill likes mom a lot. She likes Lita, too, so don’t worry.”

  “I’m not worried. Every time we see her, Angelita squeezes my arm and says, ‘Awe, Jesse, I just love her.’” Jesse stood up and stretched his back. “You two okay living up there with Cal?”

  “So far. I think granddad likes having us around.”

  “We like you being up there with him, but I don’t want you and Jill to feel like you can’t leave and get your own place. Whenever you’re ready, you just say the word.”

  Ty hadn’t thought about moving. He liked that his granddad was around most of the time so Jill was never completely alone. “I don’t think we’ll need more space for a while.”

  “Until the kids come along,” Jesse said and wiggled his eyebrows.

  “Don’t start already. I promised Jill you and mom wouldn’t pester us about grandkids because yours were so young. Don’t prove me wrong.”

  “I’m just kidding. You take all the time you need to be together before you bring a baby into the world. They’re blessings and miracles, all of them, but take some time for just the two of you. Everything with you and Jill has happened so fast.”

  “Are you worried about us, Dad? Is that what this is about?”

  Jesse looked up from his fly and placed a hand over Ty’s arm. “I’m not the least bit worried. I’ve seen the way you and Jill look at one another. I just don’t want you to rush to the next step too soon.”

  “We’re not. I promise.”

  On the way home that night, Jesse’s words echoed in Ty’s head. He and Jill hadn’t really set a timeline for having kids. He didn’t think she was in any kind of hurry, but he wouldn’t know for sure unless he asked her.

  She met him at the door. It always gave him a thrill to see her at the end of the day, but she usually looked a little happier to see him. “Hey,” he said. “I didn’t expect you home so soon.”

  She wrung her hands and stepped back to let him in. “Don’t be mad.”

  “About what?” he asked.

  “I didn’t mean to, Ty. They ambushed me, and I didn’t have a choice. They thought I was having doubts about the wedding.”

  He laid his hands on her shoulders. “Slow down. Who ambushed you?”

  “Olivia and Lyle.”

  “Olivia and Lyle thought you were having doubts about getting married?”

  “Yes, so I had to tell them.”

  “Tell them wha—oh, no. You told them about the wedding. Our wedding.”

  “I had to. They could tell I was lying, and the more I talked, the bigger hole I dug.”

  He wrapped her in his arms when she looked as though she was about to cry. “Jill, it’s okay. They won’t tell anyone, right?”

  “Yes. I made them both promise.”

  “Okay.” He knew the answer to his next question, but he had to ask anyway. “How reliable are they?”

  “Lyle? He’s solid. I know he won’t tell anyone. Olivia?” Jill shrugged. “She’s the weak link. Ty, if my parents find out, they’ll be crushed, not to mention pissed after spending all this money on the wedding.”

  “Mine, too. The flights to Colorado aren’t cheap, especially over Thanksgiving.”

  “I’m sorry, baby,” she said. “God, this wedding can’t happen soon enough.”

  “Just a few more weeks.” He prayed they made it that long.

  ***

  Erica stood in the kitchen mixing olive oil and seasonings for her homemade salad dressing. It was one of Jack’s favorites and she liked to keep plenty on hand. She’d been in the kitchen non-stop, chopping vegetables, browning meat, and baking corn bread. She was making chili because she’d never been able to perfect her recipe and she needed something to focus on besides that kiss she’d shared with Lyle. That, and the fact that Olivia was coming over after dinner for their first reading lesson.

  She was still furious with Jack for telling Olivia about her problem. It wasn’t that she couldn’t read; she just didn’t read very well. Road signs and two and three word sentences were okay, but anything beyond that caused her head to ache and her palms to sweat.

  She’d wanted to read in school—when she was younger and still thought she had a chance in life—but the letters got all mixed up in her head. The
last thing she needed was for Jack’s small town bimbo to think she was stupid.

  When Jack came in from his walk, his smile made her want to smack him. “Chili?”

  “Not because you like it,” she said. “I’m working on my recipe.”

  “Whatever, as long as I get to eat it. Is there corn bread?”

  “Who would make chili without corn bread?”

  He mussed her hair as if she was five. “Not you.”

  Erica set a steaming bowl in front of him before going back to the refrigerator for hot sauce. She sat down and scowled when he added half a dozen drops to his bowl. “At least try it before you start adding the heat. I put some local stuff in the mix.”

  “You never get it hot enough.” He took a bite, then reached for his water and gulped it down. “Holy cow,” he said after he’d finally stopped coughing. “What did you put in this? Gunpowder?”

  “I asked the lady at the grocery store for some chili spices. She said the Hispanics all add these pepper flakes.”

  “Did you add the whole bottle?”

  “No.” She got up and spooned him up another bowl. “I told you to go easy on the hot sauce.”

  “I should have listened.”

  “That’s temperature hot, so be careful.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve already killed all my taste buds.” He broke off a piece of cornbread while the chili cooled. “Are you ready for your first lesson?”

  “I guess. She’s wasting her time. I can read just fine.”

  “Sure you can. Why don’t you bring me my laptop and I’ll pull up a document for you to read?”

  “Go to hell, Jack.”

  “I’m half way there, honey.” He ate one piece and reached for another. “You be nice to Olivia.”

  “Why? I don’t want to sleep with her.”

  “She’s a nice person, Erica. She didn’t have to offer to help.”

  “I’m pretty sure she didn’t offer. You asked her.”

  He put his hands in the air. “Guilty. I hate watching you struggle.”

  “You can’t see me struggle, remember?”

  “I see more than you think.” He took a sip of water and leaned forward. “What happened to you last night?”

  Erica’s ears burned. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you were upset when you got home from the movies.”

  “I was not.”

  “Erica.” Jack laid his fingers on her arm. “I heard you crying after you’d gone to bed.”

  She shot up from the table. “I wasn’t crying. That was the television.”

  “Erica…”

  She stood at the sink with her back to the table. “Leave it alone, Jack.”

  “Okay, okay. But I’m here if you want to talk about it.”

  “I don’t. And I don’t want you standing around looking over my shoulder when your girlfriend comes over. If you’re going to make me do this, I want some privacy.”

  “I know, that’s why I made arrangements for Lyle to take me to his place. We’ll be working while you two are here.”

  “Fine, but she won’t be here long.”

  “Erica, she’ll be here as long as I’m gone. Lyle is bringing her over.”

  Erica spun around. “That’s…not fair. I thought you weren’t going to tell anyone. What does Lyle think Olivia and I will do all night?”

  “I told him you were teaching Olivia how to cook.”

  “That’s a ridiculous excuse. He’ll never believe it.”

  “Apparently he does because he didn’t say otherwise when I told him.”

  “I’ll bet the bimbo told him the truth. Damn it, Jack, I can’t believe you did this to me.” She threw her body back into the chair.

  “She didn’t tell him.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I asked her not to.”

  “Oh, well, I feel sooo much better now.” She tapped her spoon on the table because she knew it annoyed him. “I don’t want you to be gone all night long. I’m not going to spend hours with the bimbo.”

  “Don’t call her a bimbo. And you need to spend hours. Learning to read takes time and effort. I want you to try as hard at reading as you do at cooking. Just imagine how much easier it’ll be to cook when you can actually read recipes instead of guessing at ingredients.”

  “Have you missed a meal?” she asked, because damn it, he was right.

  “No, although I might need to after trying to digest this chili. I’d go easy on the Hispanic spices from now on.”

  “Either you be nice to me or I’ll use them in every meal.”

  Chapter 29

  Lyle pulled up to Jack’s house and looked around for Erica. He figured she’d be hiding if she knew he was driving Olivia over. He still couldn’t believe Erica had agreed to teach Olivia how to cook.

  “Are you coming in?” Olivia asked.

  “No. Just send Jack out.”

  Olivia whipped her head around. “You don’t want to see Erica after last night’s tryst?”

  He could happily strangle Olivia for seeing them last night. Her overeager imagination had them engaged in an illicit affair. If she was right, he would have been eager to see Erica again. As it stood, he wasn’t sure how to proceed. He hoped Jack could fill in some blanks about Erica.

  “There was no tryst. She came over to the cabin when she heard you and Jack on your date. All the panting from the open windows probably chased her away.”

  When Olivia’s cheeks turned red, Lyle’s antennae went up. Maybe his roommate was ribbing him in order to deflect from her own tryst. She grabbed a tote bag and opened the car door. “What’s in the bag?” he asked. “I thought she was teaching you to cook, not the other way around.”

  “Just some recipes I want to learn how to make.”

  “That’s an awful lot of recipes,” Lyle muttered.

  “Yeah, well, I’ve been saving up.” She looked over her shoulder when the door opened and Jack walked out. “What time are you coming back to get me?” she asked without taking her eyes off Jack.

  Lyle shrugged. “Depends on when we decide to break. Couple of hours, I’d imagine.”

  “Okay,” Olivia said and stood back as Jack approached. “Hello, Jack.”

  “Olivia.” Jack leaned in and sniffed her neck. Lyle pretended to check his emails on his phone. Jack mumbled something in Olivia’s ear that made her blush before she walked toward the house. Jack hopped in the car and slammed the door. “Ready when you are.”

  Lyle pulled his SUV around in the drive and started back toward the Lower Fork. Jack whistled in the passenger seat for the first mile. “You hungry?” Lyle asked as they approached the Dairy Barn.

  “No. Erica tried to kill me earlier with her chili.”

  “I figured she wouldn’t cook since Olivia was coming over.”

  “Erica cooks all the time. So,” Jack rapped his knuckles on his leg, “what do you do around here for fun?”

  “Well, there’s the Tap in Lower Fork. Del Noches has a couple of good Mexican restaurants. Hailey has one decent bar, a handful of restaurants, the movie theater, and a bowling alley. If you really want a taste of civilization, you have to go to Westmoreland. There’s a nice brewpub with some good craft beer. It’s a college town, so they’ve got more bars.”

  “College bars?” Jack said. “No, thanks. So if I want to take Olivia out to a nice restaurant, we’ll have to go to Westmoreland?”

  “Yep, and make sure you keep your expectations realistic. Nice in Westmoreland doesn’t even come close to nice in Denver.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “So you and Olivia are hitting it off?” Lyle asked.

  “You could say that.” Jack cleared his throat. “I don’t mean to pry, but she said something about having a reputation, yet she doesn’t strike me as the type.”

  Lyle rolled his eyes. “She’s a flirt and she likes attention. There’s not much more to it than that. To be honest, before we started living together, I didn’t real
ly like her that much.”

  “How come?”

  “I thought she was…I don’t know, an air head, I guess. She used to flirt with anything that moved and she liked to party. I think she mostly did it to irritate her brother.”

  “Tommy, right?”

  “Yep. He’s a good guy. Works all the time. When Olivia’s dad died, Tommy started looking out for her. It pissed her off and made her wild. Or it could have been the grief of losing her dad, but like I said, we weren’t that close until recently.”

  Jack nodded and turned the radio louder when a Bon Jovi song played. They rode the rest of the way in companionable silence. Lyle parked and came around the front of the SUV. “It’s just up these stairs. Do you need a hand or anything?”

  “No. Lead the way.”

  Lyle unlocked the door and stepped inside, holding the door open for Jack. “Come on in. Have a seat on the couch in front of you. I’ll grab my things from the kitchen.”

  “Do you mind if I use the bathroom before we begin?”

  “Sure.” Lyle thought about the condition of his bathroom. “Ahhh, you might want to use Olivia’s. It’s probably cleaner. First door on the left. Bathroom’s in the back right hand corner, I think.”

  “Be right back.”

  Jack disappeared down the hall and Lyle grabbed two beers, his computer, a recorder with fresh batteries, and his notepad. He’d wanted to ask Jack about Erica in the car, but he couldn’t think of a subtle way to bring her up. They planned to talk about what happened when he got to Atlanta. Lyle knew Erica joined him there and had been by his side ever since. Come hell or high water, he would find out where Erica was before Jack lost his vision.

  “The apartment smells like her,” Jack said when he took a seat on the couch.

  “Who? Oh, Olivia. Yeah, I guess it does.”

  “You’ve never been interested in her?” Jack asked.

  “Olivia?” Lyle chuckled. “No. She’s not my type. I mean, she’s beautiful. She’s a lot smarter than I ever gave her credit for, and she’s got a good head on her shoulders.” He handed Jack a beer. “But we’re just friends. Like I said before, pretty new friends at that. Okay, we left off when your assistant Elizabeth flew back to Greenwich to shut the business down.”