Holiday in Stone Creek

by Linda Lael Miller

  “Good,” Ashley said to Mrs. Wiggins, who was perched on her right shoulder like a parrot. “I could use a little distraction.”

  Melissa was just coming through the back door when Ashley reached the kitchen. Her hair was flecked with snow and her grin was wide. Looking askance at Mrs. Wiggins, now nestling into her basket in front of the fireplace, Ashley’s twin gave a single nose twitch and carefully kept her distance.

  “It happened!” she crowed, hauling off her red tailored coat. “Alex got the prosecutor’s job, and I’m going to be one of his assistants! I start the first of March and I’ve already got a line on a condo in Scottsdale—”

  “Wonderful,” Ashley said.

  Melissa narrowed her beautiful eyes in mock suspicion. “Well, that was an enthusiastic response,” she replied, draping the coat over the back of one of the chairs at the table.

  Ashley’s smile felt wobbly on her mouth, and a touch too determined. “If this is what you want, then I’m happy for you. I’m going to miss you a lot, that’s all. Except for when you were in law school, we’ve never really been apart.”

  Melissa approached, laid a winter-chilled hand on each of Ashley’s shoulders. “I’ll only be two hours away,” she said. “You’ll visit me a lot, and of course I’ll come back to Stone Creek as often as I can.”

  “No, you won’t,” Ashley said, turning away to start some tea brewing, so she wouldn’t have to struggle to keep that stupid, slippery smile in place any longer. “You’ll be too busy with your caseload, and you know it.”

  “I need to get away,” Melissa said, so sadly that Ashley immediately turned to face her again, no longer concerned about hiding her own misgivings.

  “Because?” Ashley prompted.

  Melissa rarely looked vulnerable—a good lawyer appeared confident at all times, she often said—but she did then. That sheen in her eyes—was she crying?

  “Because,” Melissa said, after pushing back her spirally mane of hair with one hand, “things are heating up between Dan and the waitress. Her name is Holly and according to one of the receptionists at the office, they’ve been in Kruller’s Jewelry Store three times in the last week, looking at rings.”

  Ashley sighed, wiped her hands on her patchwork apron, her own creation, made up of quilt scraps. “Sit down, Melissa,” she said.

  To her amazement, Melissa sat.

  Of the two of them, Melissa had always been the leader, the one who decided things and gave impromptu motivational speeches.

  Forgetting the tea preparations, Ashley took the chair closest to her sister’s. “That’s why you’re leaving Stone Creek?” she asked quietly. “Because Dan and this Holly person might get married?”

  “‘Might,’ nothing,” Melissa huffed, but her usually straight shoulders sagged a little beneath her very professional white blouse. “As hot and heavy as things were between Dan and me, he never said a word about looking at engagement rings. If he’s shopping for diamonds, he’s serious about this woman.”

  “And?”

  Melissa flushed a vibrant pink, with touches of crimson. “And I might still be just a little in love with him,” she admitted.

  “You can’t have it all, Melissa,” Ashley reminded her sister gently. “No one does. You made a choice and now you either have to change it or accept things as they are and move on.”

  Melissa blinked. “That’s easy for you to say!”

  “Is it?” Ashley asked.

  “What am I saying?” Melissa immediately blurted out. “Ash, I’m sorry—I know the whole Jack thing has been—”

  “We’re not talking about Jack,” Ashley said, a mite stiffly. “We’re talking about Dan—and you. He’s probably marrying this woman on the rebound—if the rumors about the rings are even true in the first place—because he really cared about you. And he might be making the mistake of a lifetime.”

  “That’s his problem,” Melissa snapped.

  “Don’t be a bitch,” Ashley replied. “You didn’t want him, or the life he offered, remember? What did you expect, Melissa? That Dan would wait around until you retire from your seat on the Supreme Court someday, and write your memoirs?”

  “Whose side are you on, anyway?” Melissa asked peevishly.

  “Yours,” Ashley said, and she meant it. “Just talk to Dan before you take the job in Phoenix, Melissa. Please?”

  “He’s the one who broke it off!”

  “Don’t you want to be sure things can’t be patched up?”

  “Have you been paying attention? It’s too late, Ashley.”

  “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t,” Ashley said, getting up to resume the tea making. “You’ll never know if you don’t talk things over with Dan while there’s still time.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” Melissa demanded, losing a little steam now. “Drive out there to the back of beyond, knock on his door, and ask him if he’d like to live in a city and be Mr. Melissa O’Ballivan? I can tell you right now what the answer would be—and besides, what if I interrupted—well—something—?”

  “Like what? Chandelier-swinging sex? Dan has kids, Melissa—he and Holly Hot-Biscuits probably don’t go at it in the living room on a regular basis.”

  Melissa sputtered out a laugh, wholly against her will. “Holly Hot-Biscuits?” she crowed. “Ashley O’Ballivan, could it be that you actually have a racy side?”

  “You’d be surprised,” Ashley said, recalling, with a well-hidden pang, some of the sex she and Jack had had. A chandelier would have been superfluous.

  “Maybe I wouldn’t,” Melissa teased. At least she’d cheered up a little. Perhaps that could be counted as progress. “You miss Jack a lot, don’t you?”

  “When I let myself,” Ashley admitted, though guardedly, concentrating on scooping tea leaves into a china pot. “The other night, I dreamed he was—he was standing at the foot of my bed. I could see through him, because he was—dead.”

  Melissa softened, in that quicksilver way she had. Tough one minute, tender the next—that was Melissa O’Ballivan. “Jack can’t be dead,” she reasoned, looking as though she wanted to get up from her chair, cross the room, and wrap Ashley in a sisterly embrace, but wisely refraining.

  Ashley wasn’t accepting hugs these days—from anybody.

  She felt too bruised, inside and out.

  “Why not?” she asked reasonably, over the sound of the water she ran to fill the kettle.

  “Because someone would have told Tanner,” Melissa said, very gently. “Come to Scottsdale with me, Ash. Right now, this weekend. Help me decide on the right condo. It would be good for you to get away, change your perspective, soak up some of that delicious sunshine—”

  The idea had a certain appeal—she was sick of snow, for one thing—but there was the B&B to think about. She had guests coming for Valentine’s Day, after all, and lots of preparations to make. She’d even rented out her private quarters, planning to sleep on the couch in her study.

  “Maybe after the holiday,” she said. Except that she’d have skiers then, with any luck at all—she’d been pitching that on her new blog, on the website. And after that, it would be time to think about Easter.

  “Can you handle Valentine’s Day, Ash?” Melissa asked, with genuine concern. “You’re still pretty raw.”

  “And you’re not?” Ashley challenged, but gently. “Yes, I can ‘handle’ it, because I have to.” She brought two cups to the table, along with milk and sugar cubes. “What is it with us, Melissa? Brad got it right with Meg, and Olivia with Tanner. Why can’t we?”

  “I think we’re romantically challenged,” Melissa decided.

  “Or stubborn and proud,” Ashley pointed out archly. Her meaning was clear: Melissa was stubborn and proud. She would have crawled over broken glass for Jack McCall, if it meant they could be together.

  Not that she particularly wanted anyone else to know that.

  All of which probably made her a candidate for an episode of Dr. Phil, during Unhealthy Emotional De
pendency week. She would serve as the bad example. This could happen to you.

  “Don’t knock pride,” Melissa said cheerfully. “And some people call stubbornness ‘persistence.’”

  “Some people can put a spin on anything,” Ashley countered. “Are you going to clear things up with Dan before you leave, or not?”

  “Not,” Melissa said brightly.

  “Chicken.”

  “You got it. If that man looks me in the eye and says he’s in love with Holly Hot-Biscuits, I’ll die of mortification on the spot.”

  “No, you won’t. You’re too strong. And at least you’d know where you stand.” I’d give anything for another chance with Jack.

  “I know where I stand,” Melissa answered, pouring tea for Ashley and then for herself, and then warming her hands around the cup instead of drinking the brew. “Up the creek without a paddle.”

  “That’s a mixed metaphor,” Ashley couldn’t help pointing out.

  “Whatever,” Melissa said.

  And that, for the time being, was the end of the discussion.

  A WEEK AFTER THE transplant, the jury was still out on whether the procedure had been successful or not, but by pulling certain strings Jack had been reluctantly released from the hospital, partly on the strength of his well-respected father’s promise to make sure he was looked after and did not overexert himself. He went home to Oak Park, Illinois, his old hometown, and let Abigail and the old man install him in his boyhood bedroom in the big brick Federal on Shady Lane.

  Not that there were any leaves on the trees to provide shade.

  Abigail, though shy around him, had taken pains to get his room ready for occupancy—she’d put fresh sheets on the bed, dusted, aired the place out.

  The obnoxious rock-star posters, a reminder of his checkered youth, were still on the walls. The antiquated computer, one of the earliest models, which he’d built himself from scavenged components, remained on his desk, in front of the windows. Hockey sticks and baseball bats occupied every corner.

  The sight of it all swamped Jack, made him miss his mother more acutely than ever.

  And that was nothing compared to the way he missed Ashley.

  Bryce, soon to be an optometrist, appeared in the doorway. He was in his mid-twenties, but he looked younger to Jack.

  “You’re going to make it, Jack,” Bryce said, and he spoke in a man’s voice, not a boy’s.

  So many things had changed.

  So many hadn’t.

  “Thanks to you, maybe I will.”

  “No maybe about it,” Bryce argued.

  There was a brief, awkward pause. “What do you think of Abigail?” Jack asked, pulling back the chair at his desk and sitting down. He still tired too easily.

  Bryce closed the door, took a seat on the edge of Jack’s bed. Loosely interlaced his fingers and let his hands dangle between his blue-jeaned knees. “She’s been good for Dad. He was a real wreck after Mom died.”

  “I guess that must have been a hard time,” Jack ventured, turning his head to look out over the street lined with skeleton trees, waiting for spring.

  “It was pretty bad,” Bryce admitted. “Did Dad tell you the government is having your headstone removed from the cemetery at Arlington, and the empty box dug up?”

  “Guess they need the space,” Jack said, as an infinite sadness washed over him. Once, he’d been a hotshot. Now he was sick of guns and violence and war.

  “Yeah,” Bryce agreed quietly. “Who’s the woman?”

  Jack tensed. “What woman?”

  “The one you mentioned in the email you sent to Dad’s office.”

  Jack closed his eyes briefly, longing for Ashley. Wondering if she’d finally mastered the fine art of computing well enough to check out the Sent Messages folder.

  “I’m getting engaged on Valentine’s Day,” Bryce said, to fill the gap left by Jack’s studied silence. “Her name is Kathy. We went to college together.”

  “Congratulations,” Jack managed.

  “I wanted to be like you, you know,” Bryce went on. “Raise hell. Get sent away to military school. Maybe even bite the sand in Iraq.”

  Jack managed a tilt at one corner of his mouth, enough to pass for a grin—he hoped. “Thank God you changed your mind,” he said. “Mom and Dad—after I disappeared—how were they?”

  “Devastated,” Bryce answered.

  Jack shoved a hand through his hair. Sighed. What had he expected? That they’d go merrily on, as if nothing had happened? Oh, well, Jack’s gone, but we still have three sons left, don’t we, and they’re all going to graduate school.

  “I need to see Mom’s grave,” he said.

  “I’ll take you there,” Bryce responded immediately. “After my last class, of course.”

  Jack smiled. “Of course.”

  Bryce rose, made that leaving sound by huffing out his breath. “Be nice to Abigail, okay?” he said. “Dad loves her a lot, and she’s really trying to fit in without usurping Mom’s place.”

  “I haven’t been nice?”

  “You’ve been…reserved.”

  “Staying alive has been taking up all my time,” Jack answered. “Again, thanks to you, I’ve got a fighting chance. I’ll never forget what you did, Bryce. No two ways about it, donating marrow hurts.”

  Bryce cleared his throat, reached for the doorknob, but didn’t quite turn it. “It could take time,” he said, letting Jack’s comment pass. “All of us being a family again, I mean. But don’t give up on us, okay? Don’t just take off or something, because I can’t even tell you how hard that would be for Dad. He’s already lost so much.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Jack promised. “I might need that grave at Arlington after all, you know. Maybe they shouldn’t be too quick to lay the new resident to rest.”

  Bryce flushed. “Who’s the woman?” he asked again.

  Jack met his brother’s gaze. “Her name is Ashley O’Ballivan. She runs a bed-and-breakfast in Stone Creek, Arizona. Do me a favor, little brother. Don’t get any ideas about calling her up and telling her where I am.”

  “Why don’t you call her?”

  “Because I still don’t know if I’m going to live or die.”

  Bryce finally turned the knob, opened the door to go. “Maybe she’d like to hear from you, either way. Spend whatever time you have left—”

  “And maybe she’d like to get on with her life,” Jack broke in brusquely.

  After Bryce was gone, Jack booted up the ancient computer—or tried to, anyhow. The cheapest pay-as-you-go cell phone on the market probably had more power.

  Giving up on surfing the web, catching up on all he’d missed since Tombstone, he tried to interest himself in the pile of high-school yearbooks stacked on a shelf in his closet.

  What a hotheaded little jerk he’d been, he thought. A throwback, especially in comparison to his brothers.

  He revisited his junior year, flipping pages until he found Molly Henshaw, the love of his adolescent life. Although he hadn’t been a praying man, Jack had begged God to let him marry Molly someday.

  Looking at her class picture, he remembered that she’d had acne, which she tried to cover with stuff closer to orange than flesh tone. Big hair, too. And a come-hither look in her raccoonlike eyes. Even in the photograph, he could see the clumps of mascara coating her lashes.

  Must have been the come hither, he decided.

  And thank God for unanswered prayers.

  Having come to that conclusion, Jack decided to go downstairs, where Abigail was undoubtedly flitting around the kitchen. Time to make a start at getting to know his father’s new wife, though their acquaintance might be a short one if his body rejected Bryce’s marrow.

  For his dad’s sake, because there were so many things he couldn’t make up for, he had to give it a shot. Ironically, he knew it was what his mother would have wanted.

  Later, he’d log on to his dad’s computer, in the den.

  See if Ashley’s website
was up and running.

  With luck, there would be a picture of her, smiling like the welcoming hostess she was, dressed in something flowered, with her hair pulled back into that prim French braid he always wanted to undo.

  For now, that would have to be enough.

  Abigail was in the kitchen, the room where Jack had had so many conversations with his mother. Feminine and modestly pretty, Abigail wore a flowered apron, her hair was pinned up in a loose chignon at her nape, and her hands were white with flour.

  She smiled shyly at Jack. “Your father likes peach pie above all things,” she confided.

  “I’m pretty fond of it myself,” Jack answered, grinning. “You’re a baker, Abigail?”

  His stepmother shrugged. She couldn’t have been more different, physically anyway, from his mom. She’d been tall and full-figured, always lamenting humorously that she should have lived in the 1890s, when women with bosoms and hips were appreciated. Abigail was petite and trim; she probably gardened, maybe knitted and crocheted.

  His mother had loved to play golf and sail, and to Jack’s recollection, she’d never baked a pie or worn an apron in her life.

  “A baker and a few other things, too,” Abigail said, with a quirky little smile playing briefly on her mouth. “I retired from real estate a year before Bill and I met. Sold my company for a chunk of cash and decided to spend the rest of my life doing what I love…baking, planting flowers, sewing. Oh, and fussing over my husband.”

  Jack swiped a slice of peach from the bowl waiting to be poured into the pie pan, and she didn’t slap his hand. “Married before?” he asked casually. “Any kids?”

  Abigail shook her head, and a few tendrils of her graying auburn hair escaped the chignon. “I was too busy with my career,” she said, without a hint of regret. “Besides, I always promised myself I’d wait for the right man, no matter how long it took. Turned out to be Bill McKenzie.”

  He’d underestimated Abigail, that much was clear. She was an independent woman, living the life she chose to live, not someone looking for an easy life married to a prosperous dentist. In fact, Abigail probably had a lot more money than his dad did, and that was saying something.