Hot Under the Collar

by Roxanne St Claire

  “You’ve done excellent work, Pru.” Cassie leaned over the desk, careful not to move her casted foot from the small stool where it stayed propped up under the careful eye of Jelly Bean. For three weeks, he’d followed her around no matter how slowly she hobbled, constantly watching the cast like it was his reason for living.

  “What’s next?” Pru asked.

  “Well, Aunt Colleen and my mother are setting up station nine, but…” She glanced at the sofa. “No genius ideas, Dogmothers? We need something amazing for the last station.”

  “I used all my genius for station four, Sneak a Peek at a Greek.” Yiayia grinned. “Poor Alex will have to have his picture taken a hundred times tomorrow when all our contestants visit Santorini’s.”

  “It’s a brilliant scavenger hunt station, Yiayia,” Cassie told her.

  “It’s the least I can do, koukla.” Yiayia gave her the same look she’d worn for almost three weeks. A mix of sorrow, regret, guilt, and shame—and some Botox beginning to wear off. “Since I ruined your life.”

  All three of them looked at Cassie, who just let out a sigh. “You didn’t ruin it, Yiayia. I just wish I’d told Braden how I feel before he left.”

  “Well, he’ll be back very soon,” Gramma assured her.

  But what would have changed? He’d still think she hadn’t gone to Chicago because of the accident, not because…

  “You just have to tell him again,” Yiayia insisted.

  “We’ll back you up,” Gramma added.

  “We need a plan,” Pru said, leaning forward and propping her elbows on the table. “You and I are very good at that.”

  She smiled at the teenager who, along with Gramma Finnie and Yiayia, had made it their mission to keep Cassie’s spirits high during these long weeks of recovery and loneliness. The recovery was steady, if uncomfortable. Loneliness, however, was deep, profound, and left her a little breathless in the middle of the night.

  Braden had been gone for twenty days—not that she was counting—and she hadn’t heard a word from him.

  “I can plan all I want, but convincing him is another matter. I should have told him.” She swallowed a familiar lump that formed every time she remembered bits and pieces of their last conversation. All she could clearly recall was him shushing her and feeling frustrated because she couldn’t prove when she’d made the decision to stay, only that she had.

  And she’d told him she loved him, but he hadn’t said it back. Or had he? Maybe she’d dreamed he’d called her agapi mou.

  “Now, lass. You know you can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep rereadin’ the last one.” Gramma Finnie pushed up from the sofa with remarkable ease considering her age, coming over to put a knotted but tender hand on Cassie’s shoulder.

  Cassie reached up and covered that hand, closing her eyes for a moment as the words of comfort settled on her heart. “I am rereading…” Suddenly, she sat up a little straighter, her eyes widening. “Reading. Reading. Writing!” She tried to launch up, but of course, the cast kept her in place, and Jelly Bean barked from under the desk at the sudden movement.

  “What is it, Cassie?” Pru asked.

  “I remember!” She smacked her hands on the notebooks in front of her as a memory flashed in her brain, bright white like it was lit by lightning. That’s how all of the memories from that day came back, when they finally appeared at all.

  For three weeks, minutes had come back in little trickles…the conversation with Yiayia in the car, finding the key above the door, the moment she’d come in from the patio and realized Braden had left without saying goodbye.

  But right now, something big and beautiful exploded from the depths of a concussion. “I wrote it all down!”

  “Of course you did,” Yiayia said. “Your father taught you as a child that if it’s not on paper, it won’t happen.” She lifted her brows, a move she could barely make a few weeks ago. “His father, my dearly departed husband, was the same way.”

  But Cassie wasn’t listening to Yiayia’s musings. Instead, she closed her eyes and saw her pen moving across a page that said Braden at the top.

  “But after that, I wrote something. I wrote…” She pressed her fingers to her temples as if she could squeeze her brain back into perfect working order. “I wrote him a letter.” She breathed the words in a sigh of disbelief. “How could I forget that?”

  “Because you fell down seven steps, clocked your head, and broke your foot, lass.”

  “All to save me.”

  Instantly, Pru slid into the seat next to Yiayia. “You need to stop being so hard on yourself, Yiayia. Cassie’s forgiven you a thousand times.”

  “I have,” Cassie agreed, looking with love at the young girl who’d never known Agnes Santorini as anything but a sweet, if dry-witted and slightly impatient, old lady. “But now I have to figure out how to get Braden to believe me.”

  “Show him the letter,” Gramma Finnie said.

  She turned to stare at her. “I have no idea where I put it,” she whispered.

  “Think!” Yiayia ordered.

  “Be strategic,” Pru added. “Where might you put it right now if you had to?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to imagine. “Somewhere he’d go…a long time from now.” She looked up, holding Pru’s intense gaze. “I kind of remember that I didn’t want to show it to him right then. But in the future. It was more of a time capsule than a love letter, if you know what I mean.”

  Pru shook her head. “No clue.”

  “Where would he go in the future?” Gramma Finnie asked.

  Cassie plumbed the depths of her concussed brain and came up with… “A tale.”

  “A dog’s tail?” Pru asked.

  “No.” Threads wove together, and a picture emerged. “A book tale. Something he’d read on Easter when he was nine and stayed home with his dad.”

  Gramma Finnie bit her lip. “I do remember an Easter without Joe and young Braden. How sweet that he remembers, too.”

  “Oh, he does,” Cassie said, the whole morning’s writing coming back to her. Not exactly what she’d said, but the general idea. Lots of love and promises…all made before she fell. “You know what I wish? I wish he’d find that letter on his own. That would be perfect. That would make everything right.”

  “Well, where is it?” Gramma asked. “What book?”

  Cassie shrugged and let them think she didn’t remember because the secret she shared with Braden was too precious, too personal.

  “You know what I wish?” Yiayia asked, tapping the poster board in front of her. “That we could be given the instructions for station ten so we can finish up and squeeze in a game of canasta this afternoon.” She gave Gramma Finnie a very serious—even harsh—look, making Gramma’s eyes widen just a bit.

  “I would very much like to beat you again, Agnes.”

  “Not without me, you don’t.” Pru stood up and looked from one to the other, a conspiratorial smile on her face. “I know exactly how to do that.”

  But Cassie barely heard the exchange, still digging through her memory banks to try to unearth exactly what she’d said on that piece of paper she’d folded and put into A Tale of Two Cities.

  “Are you in, Cassie?” Gramma Finnie asked. “We can finish this up and play all afternoon.”

  “I think I’ll rest,” she said. “If you don’t mind.”

  “Oh, we don’t mind at all, lass.” Gramma Finnie pressed her hand into Cassie’s shoulder, emphasizing the last words, and Cassie knew they were just trying to make her feel better for not playing.

  But nothing could make her feel better until Braden was home and holding her…forever. Was that even possible?

  She reached down and gave Jelly Bean a scratch, her gaze falling on her fundraising notes.

  “Yes,” she whispered to the dog. “Anything’s Pawsible, right, Mr. Bean?”

  “Right,” Yiayia said. “Now let’s get to work, Dogmothers.”

  She heard Pru giggle
and whisper something to Yiayia, but Cassie just forced herself to focus on the job at hand, not the hole in her heart.

  * * *

  As soon as he reached Ambrose Avenue after the three-hour drive home from training, Braden knew something was up. When he stopped at the light and saw a neon poster board that proclaimed Lost and Hound Scavenger Hunt Sign-Up with an arrow toward Bushrod Square, he hit his brakes and stared at it.

  Hadn’t that been canceled?

  Would Cassie be there? In the square? Running things on crutches, Jelly Bean at her side? Or had she given the whole thing up to someone else to do?

  As it had for three solid weeks during training, his chest tightened at the thought of her. What would happen when he saw her? Where would her heart be now that they’d been apart for three weeks?

  All he knew was that he didn’t want to win Cassie by accident—literally. In his mind, he’d lost her the last morning they were together, and her decision was made.

  So when the light changed, he forced himself to turn north, away from the square and toward his house. Whatever she was doing out there—if she was even there—didn’t concern him anymore. Jelly Bean didn’t need ten grand worth of training.

  Jazz had aced the certification, of course, and together, they were ready to start arson investigations. In fact, they already had a call out in Simon’s Run tomorrow morning, since there had been another fire while he was gone. Not as serious, but deliberately set. He and Jazz were needed there.

  A few minutes later, he pulled into his driveway, which looked painfully empty without that little red Ford Escape parked there.

  “New normal, Jazzer,” he said to the dog in the back.

  They climbed out together, and he hadn’t even gotten his bag out when Jazz gave a sharp bark and started toward the front door.

  “Anxious to get home, are you?”

  But her bark was one he’d come to recognize well in the last few weeks. It marked a target found. Not necessarily an accelerant. For that, she would bark twice and stand perfectly still, staring straight ahead so she didn’t disturb anything, waiting for her reward.

  But for food that had been used as a reward, she’d bark like that, wag her tail, and head right toward it. At the moment, she was nosing the welcome mat at his front door.

  As he got closer, he could see a tiny yellow square, like a Post-it Note, stuck to his door. A package attempted to be delivered, he thought as he grabbed his duffel bag and started walking. Or…or…

  A note from Cassie.

  Stopped by to see you…

  He shook that nonsense right out of his head. The only reason Cassie wasn’t waking up in her high-rise in Chicago right now was because she damn near killed herself when JB’s leash tripped her.

  He reached the door and squinted at the words.

  Lost and Hound Starts Here.

  “It does?” He glanced left and right, hoping like hell some other scavenger hunters weren’t lurking. Of course, no one was around.

  He pulled the sticky note off and stared at the five words in an unfamiliar combination of print and cursive. He’d seen Cassie’s handwriting many times. This wasn’t hers.

  He flipped the paper over to find an arrow pointing down, where Jazz was doing her level best to get her nose under the faded doormat.

  Still uncertain of what the heck was going on, Braden bent over to lift the mat and found a flattened, slightly torn Miller Lite label. Which was not like him at all, since he didn’t generally live like this was a frat house, but he’d probably had a beer out here sometime in the last year. Maybe the label…

  Or was that a clue?

  He lifted it for a closer examination, and as he did, he smelled something sweet. Not like beer, but…peanut butter? Sure enough, on the back was a little smear, the rest of which was on the ground and being licked up by Jazz.

  So, not trash, but something someone knew a dog would be able to find.

  His heart lifted for the first time in days. But how could she have done this? And why?

  And where would this “clue” lead him?

  He opened the door, half hoping, half dreaming Cassie would be on the other side, but the house was as cool and quiet and empty as when he’d left three weeks ago. Studying the beer bottle label again, he went on instinct to the fridge, opening it to spy a six-pack in a cardboard case that had been there for weeks, since Cassie had brought it over. Four of the slots were empty, but he leaned over and peered in, and sure enough, there was another sticky note.

  This one said 6L, 4R, 3L, 1R.

  A combination lock? A riddle? No…those were dog handling instructions for pacing. Six paces left, four right, three left, and one more to the right. He followed them, unable to wipe the smile that threatened. How would she know that?

  He stopped in the middle of the spare bedroom that he used as an office and reading room. Turning, he looked around for another clue, weirdly excited about it, but…there was nothing. Everything looked the same and as untouched as the last time he’d been in here.

  He took a step, and his foot tapped something that went rolling across the floor. Looking down, he saw a small plastic…was that an Easter egg? Like the ones they used at Waterford for the kids’ egg hunt last year?

  He picked it up, shook it to hear something rattle inside, and realized that by now, he was not just smiling, but grinning ear to ear. No one else could have done this. No one else could be so clever and…

  But she could hardly walk, he reminded himself as he snapped open the egg. Inside was a tiny, travel-sized case of baby aspirin.

  Baby aspirin? What the…

  “A sick kid at Easter!” He spun around, his gaze on the bookshelf that covered one wall. She was the only one still on earth who knew that story, with the possible exception of his mother, and she sure as heck hadn’t done this. He went right to the shelf, and his gaze landed on the worn spine of a book that was about twenty-five years old.

  A Tale of Two Cities, Children’s Classic Version

  No one but Cassie could have even known he owned this book, let alone that he’d read it on Easter as a kid. No one. But how had she done this? And why?

  Very slowly, he pulled it out, opening to the first page, ready to read the famous first line of a classic. But that page was covered by a piece of lined paper folded in half. Another clue?

  As soon as he opened it, he recognized a page of notebook paper he’d seen before. His name was scribbled at the top in what was now very familiar handwriting. Under that, he saw the numeral one and the words figure out what to do and knew this page was torn from the very notebook he’d found under the bed. The one she had been writing in the morning he left.

  The morning everything changed.

  Taking a breath, he walked to the couch, perched on the edge, and immediately Jazz came over, taking up her position at his feet.

  “She wrote this before she left my house,” he said to the dog, knowing that she didn’t understand. Hey, they couldn’t all be Jelly Bean. “So that means…”

  Whatever it said had been in her heart before the accident.

  Finally, he let himself read what she’d written as point number two.

  2. Tell him tonight.

  3. Hide this letter in the book.

  4. Wait 10 years for him to find it. Maybe 11. Or 12. Whatever it takes.

  What was she talking about? And if she hadn’t wanted him to find it for ten years, why set up this scavenger hunt?

  He let his gaze shift down a few lines to read the rest.

  Dear Braden,

  Someday, when you read this book to your son or daughter, you’ll find this page from one of my zillions of notebooks. I hope it makes you smile. At me.

  Because when you open this book to read it to a little nine-year-old, I want to be on the other side of the bed, with a couple of dogs, and maybe another baby in my arms. That’s the future I want, Braden.

  In my tale of my two cities, this is the one I choose. Bitter Bark, not
Chicago. Where you are, surrounded by our complicated, wonderful, beautiful families. I want a small town and a sweet life, with a view from the mountains, and one absolutely perfect firefighter.

  And when you read this letter, you’ll look over the little head of the child between us and know I made the right choice. That temporary can become forever. That dreams can change. And that no job, no city, no view from above is worth losing what I believe we have right here on earth.

  I love you, Einstein. I loved you when I wrote this, and I’ll still love you when you finally read it.

  It was the best of times…and who knows? It might keep getting better.

  xo

  Cass

  He sat perfectly still for what had to be five minutes, staring at the words, blinking back the tears, and imagining that bed and this book and those kids and his…wife.

  Finally, he folded the letter carefully and headed out to make it all come true.

  * * *

  Cassie made it to the top row of the bleachers, but it took a good five minutes to hobble up there on crutches with Pru behind her and Jelly Bean leading the way.

  “There,” she said as she settled into a seat. “Now we can see everything. It was genius of you to make sure almost all of the stations are visible from here.”

  “And look at all the people down there.” Pru gestured to the dozens and dozens of “hunters” and their dogs, an air of excitement buzzing all around. “Makes you wonder about them all, doesn’t it?”

  She smiled at her, seeing so much of herself in young Pru. But then, sometimes Cassie thought that was this girl’s secret power. People of all types connected with her—from grandmas to children.

  “I used to wonder about things like that,” Cassie said. “But then I realized that the people I know best are the ones that matter, not all those strangers out there.”

  “Mmm.” Pru tapped her phone and stood, peering out toward Ambrose Avenue, squinting into the bright sun, then texting something on her phone that she angled away from Cassie. When the phone buzzed, she read it and giggled. “Yiayia’s worried you’re going to fall.”