On one screen is basketball.
On another screen, football.
On another, of course, Deadliest Catch.
Platinum-Blonde leads us to the window seat. The same view from atop the hill, except no longer a bird’s-eye view; we’re at eye level.
Two big cruise ships sit out in the water. People of all shapes and sizes, bundled with warm jackets, make their way to and from with uniformity.
“Can I get you something to drink?” She eyes Casey.
Casey looks to me. “Morgan, what are you having?”
“Water is fine, thank you.” I look up at her, but she’s too busy ogling Casey.
“I’ll have the same.”
“Great. I’ll be back to take your order.”
I try not to laugh when she leaves the table.
“What?” Casey asks.
“Nothing.” I look through the menu that is already on the table.
“What?” he asks again, opening the menu.
I shrug. “Nothing’s changed. Women still throw themselves at you.”
And the next thought makes my stomach drop. I think of all the women who have thrown themselves at him for the last eight years. My curiosity wants to ask how many women he’s been with since us. But the answer makes me want to throw up. I don’t want to know, and yet I do. It’s like passing a car accident. You don’t want to look, but your curiosity won’t let you not look.
“How many women have you slept with? Since us, I mean.” Dammit, Tess.
“You really want to know?” he asks, not looking up from his menu.
“Yes.”
“A handful.”
“Liar.”
Casey looks up from his menu. “Believe it or not, Tess, I really had a hard time getting over us, and contrary to popular belief, cowboys don’t fuck everything.” He shrugs. “Doesn’t mean I didn’t mess around with some.”
I allow his words to sink in as a wave of heat rushes through my body. I gain his stare from across the table.
“How about you?” he asks.
“One,” I whisper. “A mistake. A drunk one-night stand.”
“What’s his name?” Casey’s jaw grows rigid. Hard.
“I don’t remember.” I laugh. Tilt my head. Badly, I want to reach out across the table and cover his eyes, so he can’t see the half-smile, feeling the vulnerability prickle my spin.
But the pain of that night comes back. The silent cries on our drive home. The need to hold something, anything, instead of feeling the pain I felt, that Casey felt.
The waitress returns with a notepad and a pen. “What can I get you?” she asks Casey first—of course.
But Casey looks to me. “Morgan?”
I scan the menu, as if there might be one more option other than the fish and chips. “I’ll get the fish and chips, please.”
“Okay, hon.”
I snarl. Platinum-Blonde can’t call me hon. Clearly, she’s younger than me.
Casey also orders the fish and chips.
“Comin’ up,” she says and retreats back behind the counter.
A man who’s in his late fifties stares at us from the bar.
“Guy at the bar has been eyeing us since we walked in. You didn’t piss off any husbands, did you?” I kid.
Casey attempts to turn and look, but I stop him.
“Don’t look now. It will make it painfully obvious that I said something.” I take a sip of water just as the man, though hesitant, stands, leaving his beer at the bar, and approaches our table.
He’s a bit shy. “Mr. Atwood? Casey Atwood?” he clarifies.
Casey stands and sticks out his hand because that’s what Daryl always taught his boys to do. “Yes, sir.”
The man extends his hand. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help but notice you and thought, What the hell is Casey Atwood doing in Ketchikan, Alaska?” He’s a bit shaken by Casey’s presence. “Name’s Bob. It is truly an honor to meet you, and the boys and I are real excited to watch you ride these last four events before the finals.”
“Thank you so much, Bob.”
“Oh, excuse me, ma’am.” He tips his trucker hat at me. “Could I … could I take a picture with both of you?” Bob asks. “Hey, Rosie,” he says back toward the bar to our waitress. “Can you come take our picture?”
Rosie—a bit perturbed says, “Can’t you just let the man eat in peace, Bob?”
Bob looks back to our table. “He ain’t eatin’ yet. Is that all right?”
Rosie begrudgingly walks over to our table and snaps a picture.
“You’re a lot taller in person,” Bob says, looking up at Casey.
“That’s what I hear, sir.”
They exchange handshakes just as the PBR announcer from one of the televisions says, “And how about that Casey Atwood? Boy, has he had some fantastic rides this year. In fact, Jack, it’s my prediction that he will win this year’s World Finals.”
19
Casey
Emmitt and his crew have started with the roof.
“Let’s just go look at furniture,” I say to Tess.
She gives me a smug look. We’re out on the deck because inside is just too loud with all the pounding. “If we’re going to sell this place, there’s no need to look at furniture.”
“I know. But if we stage it right, it will sell quickly.”
A smile spreads across Tess’s face. “Since when did you learn about staging a house?”
“Since I’ve done some research on Google.”
She takes another sip of her coffee and eyes me curiously. I want to ask her about the picture downstairs that’s been eating away at my free thoughts, but now is probably not the time.
“You have your flight booked?” she asks, taking in the view.
“Fly out tomorrow at four. Gives us most of the day.”
“Are you nervous?”
I side-eye her.
She finishes my thought in her best impression of me, which isn’t great, for the record, “Nervous? No. Ready? Always.”
Tess shakes her head at the memory. It’s the line I’ve used since we were kids.
She sighs, and before she puts her mug to her lips again, she says, “Casey, you’ve always been a champion. It’s just that the world has the opportunity to see it.”
I reach out and place my hand between her shoulder blades in the softest way possible.
A young kid, maybe eighteen, comes around the corner, holding some sort of dish.
“Tess?” he asks.
He’s clean-cut. I can tell he’s military in the way that he walks, his movements precise and with purpose.
Tess turns. “Oh, hey, Jacob. How are you?”
“My grandmother wanted me to bring you this. She says to warm it up in the oven at two hundred degrees. I say, add vanilla ice cream.”
Tess takes the dish. “That is so thoughtful. I still have her last dish I need to return. Is she at the Visitor Center today?”
Jacob’s nod is quick, one that’s clipped and barely a nod but nevertheless an act of acknowledgment.
“Oh, Jacob, this is—”
But Jacob shoves his hand out. “Casey Atwood. Two-time bull-riding champion of the world. Contender for this year.”
Tess rolls her eyes. “Don’t do that, Jacob. This guy wants to go buy furniture, and I’m afraid his head won’t be able to fit through the door if people keep treating him like that.”
I smile. “Lucky, as Tess likes to put it. It’s nice to meet you, Jacob. Military?”
“Marines.”
“Thank you for your service.”
“You ride this weekend, correct?”
“Yeah, leaving tomorrow.”
“Good luck, sir.”
“I’ll need it.”
Jacob turns to leave.
“Thanks again!” Tess calls.
“Nice kid,” I say.
“Yeah, he is.” A few seconds pass before she says, “I can’t go to the furniture store. I need to bake a cak
e and make my mom’s pasta dish. I’m going to run to the store.”
“Maybe tomorrow?” I ask with an ulterior motive. I want this house to look like a home before we leave to go back to Dillon Creek eventually and not so we can sell it—so that Tess might not want to sell it.
She nods as she takes the dish inside. “Maybe.”
I don’t do well on idle. I have a hard time sitting during the day. I debate on asking Emmitt if he needs help on the roof, but I don’t do heights, so that’s out of the question. So, as Tess is doing her thing, I go downstairs and start going through stuff, like old boxes stored underneath the staircase.
Boxes full of newspapers, books, magazines, pictures.
“Ike didn’t throw anything away.” I stare back at all the boxes that somehow fit together like a Tetris game.
I take the first one and start to go through it.
It’s full of old Time magazines, dating back to the magazine’s inception in 1923. Carefully, I thumb through them. I call Michael, Ike’s son.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Michael. It’s Casey Atwood.”
“Hey, Casey. How do you like the house?”
“It’s beautiful.”
“That’s terrific! I’m sure you are both better off with it than I was. Just don’t have the time. You know how it is.”
“Yeah. Anyway, there are a number of boxes underneath the staircase downstairs. Looks like they’re old books, magazines, photos, based on the labels on the outside. Do you want us to set these aside?”
He lets out an exasperated breath of air. “I don’t give a shit what you do with them, Casey, quite honestly. My dad saved everything. I’d hate to waste your time, having you go through all of them. Just … hell, I don’t know. Maybe the photos would be nice.”
I nod even though he can’t see me. “All right.”
We hang up, and I slide my phone back into my front pocket.
The next box is full of Newsweek magazines, also dating back to the magazine’s start date in 1933. Ike was a keeper of information, but why would he have saved all of these old magazines?
Opening the next box, I notice leather-bound books and notebooks. The box is labeled Books. Inside are old classics, like The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, Wuthering Heights, The Catcher in the Rye, Tess of the d’Urbervilles. This book catches my eye. Tess. I set it aside. I continue digging. Pride and Prejudice. The Call of the Wild. Crime and Punishment. Jane Eyre. Brave New World. In Cold Blood.
At the bottom of the box, stuck under one of the box flaps, is the corner of a photo. I pull it out, and it’s Tess. But she’s with another man. Immediately, my response is jealousy. My heart starts to pound, and my hands grow sweaty, but as I look closer, the image is dated. Tess wouldn’t be this age at the time this photo was taken, but the resemblance is uncanny. I stand and walk over to the photograph hanging on the wall. I hold up the photos side by side.
It looks just like the woman holding the baby in the photo. I walk back over to the boxes and take out another box. This one though has several letters. Maybe twenty or so.
The letters are from all over the world. Many were from Ike—to himself; to his son, Michael; to his wife, Agnes; and some to woman named Elizabeth but those all came back returned. I slide one letter out that’s addressed to Elizabeth—to the same exact address as this house. A picture falls out.
Dear Elizabeth,
Your daughter is good. She’s happy.
Tenacious. Hardheaded. Stubborn. But boy, does she have a kind heart.
I’ll send more pictures when I can.
Best,
Ike
And this picture, no doubt, is the same little girl in the picture that the woman is holding in the photograph on the wall.
After several hours of digging, this is all I can find.
I shove the letter and the photo of the little girl in my wallet.
“Why the hell did you bring us here, Ike?” I whisper to myself.
Unable to stop thinking about Ike’s letter to a woman named Elizabeth, I move the magazine boxes upstairs and into the garage.
The hammering on the roof was more muffled downstairs. Tess isn’t inside when I peek in the kitchen, carrying the boxes, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
You don’t have facts, Casey. This could all be just a misunderstanding, so don’t go spouting anything that’s not grounded in facts.
I take each box to the garage and cover them with a waterproof blanket. I take the box of letters and journals, most stemming from Ike’s travels, and also put them under the waterproof blanket. I text Tess.
Me: I found a ton of Time and Newsweek magazines dating back to the 1920s. Maybe we can donate them somewhere?
Several minutes pass.
No bubbles appear, so I shove my phone back in my front pocket and walk back downstairs because I wonder if there’s something else that I’m missing.
I search every goddamn square inch of the downstairs.
Ike was a facts man. He was a newspaper publisher for as long as I’ve been alive. Longer likely.
Why the hell would he bring Tess and me all the way to Ketchikan for apparently no reason at all?
The nagging thought gnaws at me.
My phone rings. I slide it out of my pocket and see that it’s Tess.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey.”
I can tell by her tone that something isn’t quite right, but I can’t put my finger on it.
“You never call my phone. Are you all right?”
“Yeah, no. Fine. I’m … I’m just at the Visitor Center with Esther.” She pauses.
“Tess?” Worry starts. “Do I need to come down there?”
“No, no. I’m just going to be longer than expected.”
There’s silent between us.
But I’m already walking down the hill, not even sure which way the Visitor Center is.
“Call me if you need anything.” I attempt to make my voice sound normal, like I’m not hauling ass down the hill.
“I will.”
“Okay.”
And she hangs up.
When I plug the name of the Visitor Center into my phone, I realize I’m not far.
When I arrive, I peek in the windows and see a woman, who I assume is Esther, sitting with Tess at a table in the far-left corner.
They look to be in deep conversation.
Breathing a sigh of relief, I slide my phone back into my pocket. Guess phones are good for something. I ease myself down on the bench in front of the Visitor Center and watch as another cruise ship sails from Ketchikan. I blow out a sigh of relief. Tess’s tone just wasn’t right. I turn my head back inside to take another look.
They’re both smiling.
Keep your mind busy, Casey.
I text my brother Cash.
Me: You gonna be fighting bulls at the finals?
I wait for a response, but I don’t hold my breath as I see my last text never went answered.
It was like when Cash left Dillon Creek after Conroy died. He left everything behind. He didn’t really have anyone tying him to town aside from his family and a woman named Scarlet. We—his brothers—knew that he had a thing for her. We’d never seen him act the way he acted or do the things he’d done when he was around her.
But Cash is the type of guy who doesn’t need roots. He’s a gypsy at heart, and maybe it was just easier, just like it was for all of us boys, to run. Besides, grief is easier when you’re running, but I know, eventually, it will catch up to you, and it’s just a matter of time before it does.
The bubbles appear under our text chain, like Cash is responding, but they quickly disappear again, only to reappear and disappear again. Maybe he’s not fighting the bulls. Maybe he doesn’t want to know I’m in the finals.
The last two times, he wasn’t. Why would anything change?
But a text pops up.
Cash: No.
That’s it.
Some things never cha
nge. Cash isn’t really into conversations. Women and booze and anything that goes along with being great at what you do, help him cope. There are parts of him that make him a good brother, but I’d never admit that to him.
20
The Ladybugs
Winter is almost upon them, and the planning for the holiday fundraiser is moving right along.
Delveen and Pearl have been on their best behavior. Maybe Clyda scared the dickens out of them or they are really trying to do better. Either way, it’s made their group time far more enjoyable and more productive.
“Colt said he’d donate a jersey,” Delveen says. “I hope you don’t mind, Clyda, that I asked him.”
The group of women, aside from Delveen, are taken aback by her apology.
As far as they can remember, the last time Delveen apologized was in 1972 after an indiscretion that everyone talked about. But that’s for another time, another book.
“Whaaaat?” Delveen asks.
Four sets of eyes divert to plants, books, the restaurant windows as they shake their heads, murmur, “Nothing,” and shrug.
“Anyway,” Pearl says, “the Talcombs said they’d donate a two-night stay at The Shaw Inn.”
“Adam donated music lessons at The Steeple,” Mabe says.
Clyda almost blushes. But what’s more, Erla notices, is there’s a twinkle in her old friend’s eyes. Her husband has been gone for an awful long time, and Clyda has never taken up with another other man. “Carl donated a gift certificate from the Blacksmith Shop.”
Now, Erla thinks, that would be a couple—Carl and Clyda.
Pearl Harvey lets out an awful scream that carries right out of Dillon Creek Pizza, down Main Street, and to the world’s tallest living Christmas tree at the end of Main.
“What is it, Pearl?” Delveen’s face is full of concern.
“Something just brushed against my leg, and I’m … I’m too terrified to look!”
Mabe scoots back in her chair. “It’s just Mayor Charlie.”
He meows and wanders over to Mabe in search of treats.
Charlie is a tabby cat, and the unofficial mayor of Dillon Creek. He finds that it is his business to keep in everyone’s business and beg for treats, all while keeping the town running smoothly as well as a cat can—hence the name Mayor Charlie.
Saving Tess Page 15
