Sarah Murphy remodeled her childhood home for the first time when she opened her bakery, Fresh. As a single mother to Lori and with Alzheimer’s disease slowly claiming her own mother’s mind, Sarah had needed a means of support that allowed her be “on site” as much as possible. Converting half of her home into a bakery had accomplished the goal. Fresh became a rousing success.
The second remodel and expansion occurred after she married Cam when they learned that Michael was on the way. She loved the convenience of basically working from home—especially on days like today when illness upset their schedule.
Having checked on her sleeping son moments ago, she was halfway down the staircase headed back toward the bakery when she heard the door from the garage open and the familiar squeak of Cam’s favorite summer footwear—flip-flops—against the tile floor of the family kitchen. She wasn’t surprised he’d cut his meeting at his sporting goods store short. Since hearing the news about Chase, both she and Cam tended to hold Michael a little tighter, and hug Lori and Devin a little longer and more often. Cam was a nervous father anyway. News of Michael’s having a stomachache never sat well.
She met her husband at the bottom of the staircase. Lines of worry creased his brow as he asked, “How is he doing? What do you think is wrong with him? He was fine this morning when I left. Should we take him to the doctor?”
“He’s asleep. I think it’s just a bug, but I went ahead and made an appointment at the clinic at four.”
“Good. I—” Cam broke off abruptly as the sound of a wailing child broke the quiet of the house.
Except, the keening wasn’t coming from upstairs. It was coming from Fresh. Even as Sarah realized what she was hearing, a second wail sounded, this time from up in Michael’s room. “We have two crying children,” Sarah murmured. “This is a first.”
“Lori? That’s Lori in the bakery?” Cam’s eyes went wide with panic.
“Yes. You go see to Michael. I’ll check on Lori.”
Relief flashed in Cam’s eyes as he nodded. As uncomfortable as dealing with a physically ill child made him, supporting an emotionally devastated daughter went way beyond his comfort level.
Sarah knew that’s what she’d find when she entered Fresh. She’d been watching her daughter for days now, seeing the fear grow more brittle with every passing day. Lori still had feelings for Chase. Exactly what feelings and how deep, she wasn’t sure, but if the past week had taught Sarah anything, it was that Chase still owned a piece of Lori’s heart. And that piece, small though it might be, was breaking.
Sarah hurried into Fresh, spied her sobbing daughter in a crumpled heap on the floor, and her heart sank. She went down on her knees and gathered Lori in her arms. “Oh, baby. Sweetheart. Shush, now. I’m here. Mama’s here.”
“I’m so scared, Mom.”
“I know, baby. Me, too.”
An ocean of tears and fears swam in Lori’s big green eyes—eyes so much like her father’s. “Where is he? Why haven’t they found him yet?”
Sarah had no answers to the questions, so she voiced the litany she’d repeated to herself for days now. “We have to keep the faith, Lori. Chase is better equipped to survive in that part of the world than most.”
“I know. I just…” Fresh sobs tore at her throat. “I’m so angry at him!”
“Angry? Why?”
“Because he went there to begin with. With her. With that beautiful, blond, Botoxed … because he’s going to marry her. Not me. He loved me. I was his heaven. Cardamom and apricot shampoo and the scent of sex on my skin.”
The scent of … oh, dear.
“I would have married him, Mom. I loved him, but I wasn’t enough for him. Why wasn’t I enough for him?”
They’d been sleeping together. I should have known. Why didn’t I know? “You were sleeping together.”
“In college.” Emotion flashed across Lori’s face. Wistfulness and pain and regret. “He visited me in Texas. I wanted to keep it a secret. He was my first. I made him kringlor when he came to see me. It’s the only thing I can really bake, you know? That and premixed cookies. But he loved my kringlor and I loved him. I should have known better. He’s a lot like Dad. Handsome and outdoorsy and athletic. Only they ran Dad out of Eternity Springs. Chase left of his own accord. I wasn’t enough for him. Eternity Springs wasn’t enough for him. He chose her and she took him to Terroristbuktu and now his helicopter is burned and he’s disappeared! Why couldn’t I have been enough, Mom? Why couldn’t he love me enough? Why didn’t he wait for me? We could have had a life together. I really wanted that. I just wanted him to wait. Why wasn’t I important enough to wait for?”
Erupting in fresh tears, Lori buried her head against her mother’s breast. Sarah held her, rocked her, her heart breaking; she was at a loss to comfort her daughter. She wasn’t really surprised to learn that Chase had been Lori’s first. She’d recognized the stars in her daughter’s eyes.
Sarah clicked her tongue, then stretched to grab a tissue from a box just within reach. “Oh, sweetheart. Shush now. It’s okay.”
She wiped tears from her daughter’s cheeks. “I’m sure Chase did love you, but you were both so young. And, at different stages of life. That’s a huge mountain to climb—bigger than you realize when you’re in the middle of it. You put your education first and that’s okay. I know it had to hurt when the romance ended. When did you break up, honey?”
“We didn’t really ‘break up.’ It was like we … stopped. He just kept wandering and I kept studying and here we are. Except, he isn’t here. He’s missing and I’m falling apart and I don’t even have the right to it, do I? He’s hers now.”
“You have every right to be upset and worried. Even if he’s not still your lover, you still care about him. You probably always will.”
“I do care. You can’t just stop loving someone because they move on.”
“Oh, I know, honey. Believe me, I’ve traveled that same road myself. I wish you had said something to me. I’ve been down that road. I would have walked along with you.”
“I couldn’t tell you when I was sleeping with him. That would have been awkward for you and me and for you and Ali, too. I sure couldn’t tell you when we stopped sleeping together. My pride wouldn’t let me. I was devastated, Mom. I just wasn’t enough. I was rooted and he wanted to fly. He flew right to her. I tried to be an adult about it, but when I heard he was engaged … oh, I was so jealous. Now … I swear, I don’t care about that. As long as he comes home safe and sound, that’s all that matters. Shoot, I want him to marry her. Here in Eternity Springs like they’d planned. I’ll bake kringlor for their reception. I’ll volunteer to be a bridesmaid if she needs one. As long as he comes home!”
Sarah gave her daughter another hug as movement at the doorway to the hallway that led from the bakery to the house caught her notice. She looked up to see Cam standing with a sleeping Michael snuggled in his arms and a stormy expression on his face. His voice a low-pitched growl, Lori’s father said, “I hope that kid comes home so I can tear his ass apart.”
Her head still buried against Sarah, Lori emitted a thready laugh. Lifting her gaze, she looked at her father. “You might have gotten a late start on active fatherhood, but you’ve picked up the clichés nicely.”
“Damned straight.” Cam crossed over to his women and placed a supportive hand on Lori’s shoulder. “I’ll beat him up for you the first chance I get, sweetheart.”
“Thank you, Daddy.”
With that, Lori pulled away and stood, gathering both her dignity and her emotions. “Enough of this. I came by wearing my delivery girl cap. Do you have the kringlor all boxed up and ready?”
“I do.” Sarah used the pad of her thumb to wipe a tear off Lori’s cheek. “Are you sure you want to make the trip up to Heartache Falls?”
“Yes. I’ll be fine now. I think I just needed a good cry.”
“You know what Celeste says: ‘Tears are raindrops from Heaven that dilute one’s sorrow and nourish the healing process.’”
“She’s a wise woman, our Celeste.”
“That she is.”
Lori dusted stray cookie crumbs off her jeans, then asked, “How’s my man Mikey doing?”
“I’ve diagnosed a stomach virus.” Because Sarah recognized that her daughter’s need for emotional support was higher than her son’s need for his mother at this particular moment, she said, “Your father is taking him to the doctor in a little while, which frees me to run up to Heartache Falls with you.”
Lori and Cam spoke simultaneously. Cam’s voice held a note of panic as he asked, “Are you sure, Sarah?”
Sarah didn’t miss the gratitude in Lori’s. “Are you sure, Mom?”
“Positive.” She kissed her sleeping baby’s head, then kissed Cam’s cheek. “You’ve got this, Daddy. Lori, the boxes are on the counter if you want to start loading the car. I’m going to run upstairs and change my shirt. Michael rubbed banana all over it when he tugged at my shirttail.”
With marching orders issued, Sarah hurried up to her bedroom and into the master bath where she ran a comb through her short hair, and took two minutes to indulge in a good cry of her own. She cried for Lori and for Chase and for what-might-have-beens. Then she splashed her face with cool water, changed her shirt, and hurried back downstairs where she gave Cam a couple more dealing-with-a-sick-child instructions and headed to Fresh to finish helping load the SUV. To her surprise, the task was completed. “Sorry, Lori. I guess I took longer upstairs than I thought.”
“I had help.” Lori gestured toward the passenger seat of the SUV. Celeste finger-waved toward Sarah. “Celeste said she wanted to spend the afternoon at Ali and Mac’s.”
Sarah climbed into the SUV’s backseat and addressed Celeste. “I thought you had a meeting you couldn’t miss at Angel’s Rest today.”
“I rescheduled. I want to be with Mac and Ali this afternoon.”
Something in her friend’s tone caught Sarah’s notice. She darted her a sharp look, but Celeste’s expression remained its usual serene self. Nevertheless, unease fluttered through her stomach. All of a sudden the drive had a sense of anticipation to it that she had not noticed in previous trips up the mountain, and it was why upon reaching Heartache Falls, she asked for help distributing the rolls from a couple of teens in the crowd. Slipping her arm through Lori’s, she suggested, “Let’s hang with Celeste for a bit, shall we?”
Lori gave her a questioning look that said she’d sensed the strange undercurrent, too. Sarah shrugged, and she and Lori followed Celeste inside.
Mac, Ali, and Caitlin stood at their dining room table where a large paper map lay spread across two-thirds of the table’s surface. Jack Davenport spoke softly to the family as he marked on the map with a pencil. Sarah tuned in to hear Jack say, “… and expand the search grid tomorrow.”
Mac asked, “How many men did they estimate again?”
Solemnly, Jack replied, “At least a dozen.”
Ali grimaced and closed her eyes. Caitlin brought her hand up to cover her mouth. Mac’s voice sounded harsh and hopeless as he said, “It would take a miracle…”
Celeste joined the family at the table and spoke in a voice filled with comfort and confidence. “If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a dozen times. Thank God we do miracles here in Eternity Springs. Now is not the time to lose your faith, my dear friends.” She turned her head and her gaze met Lori’s as she added, “Chase will come home to you.”
With that, Sarah took her first easy breath in a week.
She wasn’t even all that surprised when Gabe Callahan’s cell phone rang ten minutes later. He checked the number and sucked in an audible breath. “Hello, Mark.”
Instantly, the room grew as quiet as a snowfall. Ali and Mac reached for each other’s hands. Lori took a half step closer to Sarah.
Gabe exhaled a heavy breath. “Okay. Just a moment.”
He extended his phone toward Ali. “They found him. He’s safe. Ali? Mac? Chase wants to talk to you.”
Through watery eyes, Sarah watched her daughter react to the news. Lori swayed a little bit and shut her eyes. She sighed in relief, and like many others in the room, she offered up a soft prayer of thanks and gratitude.
Sarah added her own prayer of thanks, and then said another one on behalf of her daughter. Because when the Timberlakes finished their phone call, Mac summarized what he’d learned and finished by saying, “Chase said he and Lana are on their way home to Eternity Springs.”
Had her gaze not been on her daughter, she wouldn’t have seen the brief look of pain that flashed across Lori’s face. Something in her own expression must have revealed that she hadn’t missed it, because Lori winced.
Sarah reached over and patted Lori’s hand. “It’s okay, honey. I won’t tell anyone about the bridesmaid thing.”
Lori laughed. “I love you, Mom.”
“Love you, too, babycakes. Love you, too.”
NINE DAYS LATER
Chase sat staring out the passenger seat window of the SUV Lana had rented at the Colorado Springs airport. He was marginally aware that as she drove, Lana kept up a constant barrage of chatter. It was noise. He wanted to ask her to be quiet, but to do so meant he’d have to speak. Speech required more effort than he had within himself to manage at the moment.
The Callahan Security team had flown him out of hell to a military base in Afghanistan where he’d been debriefed by a couple of suits who had dropped Jack Davenport’s name. He’d told them the truth of what had happened, though not all of the details. Some things didn’t bear repeating.
Some things he couldn’t bear to remember.
Lana had joined him at the base. She’d run toward him, wrapped her arms around him, and hadn’t seemed to notice that he couldn’t hug her back. Then she’d started spitting out questions like bullets and he’d had to physically walk away from her. She, like everyone else who asked, got the bottom-line version—Bradley Austin and David Whitelaw hadn’t made it out alive. Their bodies were nonrecoverable.
From Afghanistan, they’d flown to the States where they’d paid private, soul-wrenching visits to South Carolina and Alabama, the respective homes of the Austin and Whitelaw families. He’d told them expurgated versions of the truth. It was the last time he intended to repeat his tale to anyone.
Hearing Lana take responsibility for the decision to send them on the ill-fated trip had helped ease some of the fury he felt toward her. Of course, nothing would ease the fury he felt toward himself.
They’d flown into Colorado this morning and passed through Eternity Springs ten minutes ago, taking the road past Cemetery Hill, which seemed appropriate. Now his parents’ house was only minutes away. Chase had mixed feelings about coming home. On one hand, he needed to see his mom and dad, his sister and brother. And yet … he didn’t know if he could manage to look them in the eye.
He was on a kind of autopilot like he’d never known before. It had switched on the moment he’d watched the bastards set the helicopter on fire and it hadn’t switched off yet. He was numb and grateful for it. If he started feeling … if he started thinking … he might start talking and say the unspeakable.
Beside him, Lana rattled on. “… people want to welcome you home, but I told them you’d probably prefer to keep everything low-key. Was that okay?”
He offered no response. He knew she didn’t expect one. Not at this point. At some point in the past nine days, she’d finally figured out that her efforts to engage him in conversation were futile.
“Your father said that the townspeople were wonderful. Super supportive. I told him you might be ready to have a thank-you party in a few weeks, but that you need some time to … well … chill.”
Chill. Yeah. He had chillin’ down pat. He was cold, cold through to his bones. He didn’t know if he’d ever be warm again.
The car approached the turn to the house. Chase felt detached from the moment, wrapped in a cocoon of numbness. Lana pulled up in front of his parents’ home and parked in the same place that Chase had parked in January when he’d come to deliver news of the impending trip. He gazed into the front window and remembered the Christmas tree. He thought of the comfort of his mother’s kitchen, his dad’s booming laugh. The heat of the hearth. The warmth of family life.
He didn’t deserve warmth. He deserved to be stone-dead cold. Like David and Bradley.
Lana switched off the engine and opened the driver’s side door. Chase remained seated, unmoving, as reluctant to exit the car today as he’d been that bitter winter day. Even colder today despite an outdoor temperature that was sixty degrees higher.
“Chase?” Lana stood beside the passenger door. “Darling?”
He stared at the house, gazed into the big picture window and remembered the Christmas tree. He’d thought about that tree and that window a lot during those god-awful days. He’d remembered his mother’s voice. Her warning. Her fear. “That will give us so much comfort when you’re captured by terrorists.”
Mom was right. Mom was always right.
And here comes Mom.
Ali rushed out of the house, Mac close on her heels, Stephen and Caitlin right behind him. Chase knew an instant of relief at the sight of his mother, then the cold returned. He could never tell her what he’d seen, what he’d done, who he’d become. NEVER. Despair rose up within Chase. He swallowed the lump in his throat and blinked away the watery film that suddenly obscured his vision at the sight of his family.
His mother began to run, her arms open wide. A tidal wave of yearning swept over him, and Chase finally moved. Out of the car, he took three big steps and then she was there.
“Chase. My Chase. Oh, Chase,” Ali said, flinging her arms around him.
He closed his eyes and lowered his head against hers, inhaling her familiar scent, indulging in the comfort of her embrace. Then his father joined them, Mac’s big arms engulfing them. “Son. You’re home. Thank God, you’re home.”
Caitlin and Stephen joined the group hug, and for a few short moments, Chase allowed himself to bask in the warmth of his family’s love. All too soon, reality intruded. Caitlin asked, “Oh, wow, Chase. What happened to your neck?”
He stiffened and, in his mind’s eye, saw the flash of sunlight on the knife blade. The thaw begun by his mother’s embrace ended in a flash of frost. Stone-dead cold again, just like I deserve. He pulled away from them, saying, “I need to help Lana with the bags.”
Ordinarily, Lana never touched the bags. She was the boss, the star of the show. Today she had one in each hand, a guilt-ridden woman doing penance.
Chase vaguely noticed the worried look his parents shared, but he simply didn’t have it in him to try to ease their minds. He pulled one of Lana’s three suitcases from the back of the SUV and grabbed his backpack.
Chase’s mother said, “Are you hungry? I made lasagna and Maggie Romano sent us an Italian cream cake for dessert. I thought we could have a big lunch and a lighter dinner. Is that all right, Chase?”
Lasagna. Oh, God.
In his mind’s eye, he saw Bradley’s grin. “I want your mom’s lasagna fresh. I want to go to Colorado and have it there. With salad and hot bread and tiramisu for dessert.”
“That’s fine, Mom.”
He didn’t care about dinner. He hadn’t been hungry since he saw David and Bradley forced onto their knees.
The family filed into the house, chattering away in a manner unfortunately similar to Lana’s. Chase wanted to scream at them all to be quiet. But he couldn’t begrudge them their happiness, so he pasted on a smile that he knew didn’t reach his eyes and soldiered on through the afternoon.
He ate his mother’s lasagna despite his lack of appetite. He offered to help with the dishes because he knew that was a normalcy she would grab onto like a lifeline. When the doorbell rang and he heard the Raffertys and Callahans and the Davenports and the Murphys—Lori included—sweep into the house, their voices filled with concern and caring and gladness and joy, he did the only thing he could bear.
Chase grabbed his pack and ducked out the back door. He hiked away from his parents’ home, away from friends and loved ones. Away from comfort and community. Away from warmth. He didn’t belong there. He couldn’t bear to be around it.
He hiked a familiar path through the forest away from the falls, but toward a spot that offered a scenic view of the valley that cradled Eternity Springs. Upon reaching it, Chase sat cross-legged on a wide, flat boulder and gazed down at the sleepy little town. He tried hard not to think.
Chase wasn’t surprised when his father joined him a few minutes later. Mac sat beside Chase and pulled a couple of beers from his pack. Silently, he offered one to his son. Chase eyed the can and debated. If I start drinking, I might never stop. “I think I’ll stick with water.”
Mac nodded, popped the tab on his beer and took a long sip. “Want to tell me what happened over there?”
Chase let silence be his response.
“Okay, then. If not me, then someone else? A professional?”
“I don’t need a shrink, Dad. I need…”
When he didn’t finish, Mac prodded. “You need what?”
“I wish I knew.” Chase scooped up a handful of loose pebbles and began tossing them one by one off the side of the mountain. “I thought maybe I could come here and Eternity Springs would work its mojo on me. I’d hoped that I’d get here and life would be normal again. I’d feel normal again. But that didn’t happen. Dad … I can’t stay.”
Mac frowned. “You’ve only been here a few hours. Give it some time. I’ll be honest, your mother needs you to stay, Chase. I need you to stay. For a few days, at least. These last few weeks have been very hard. We need to spend some time with you.”
The old me, perhaps. They didn’t understand that the Chase they knew and loved had died in the mountains of Chizickstan as surely as had Bradley and David.
He gestured down toward the town. “Look at it, Dad. A pretty little town in a pretty little valley. Your house may sit up on a mountain, but it’s still part of that world. Eternity Springs is an oasis of light in a really dark world. I like looking at it. But, I’m outside. I’m apart. I don’t belong there. I can’t sit in your kitchen with Lana and eat Mom’s lasagna like everything is the same as it was before. Nothing is the same. I’m definitely not the same. I don’t want to hurt you and Mom any more than I’ve already hurt you, but I can’t stay at Heartache Falls.”
Mac mimicked his son’s actions by gathering up a handful of pebbles and tossing them out into space. “First, you need not worry about hurting your mother and me. We love you and we want what’s best for you. If what’s best for you is being by yourself in order to get your head on straight, then we will deal with it. We do understand the concept, after all. That’s why your mother came to Eternity Springs the first time.
“However, I might have a solution that would suit us both. We didn’t rent out the yurt this summer. Why don’t you go stay up there? I’ll run interference with family and friends and see that you get the space you need. At the same time, your mother and I will feel better knowing you’re only a short hike away.”
Chase grew still. When his father bought the acreage for their Heartache Falls home from a local character named Bear a few years ago, the purchase had included the yurt—a circular tent that already had all the comforts of home. Mac and Ali lived there while they planned and built their dream house and, in the process, added amenities that made the yurt downright luxurious. The Timberlakes often loaned the yurt out to friends for romantic getaways, and in recent years, they’d rented it out to summer tourists. The yurt was isolated, but within hiking distance of his parents’ house.
“People have to make an extra effort to drop by the yurt,” Mac continued. “It might be just the ticket for you.”
“Yes. It’s a great idea, Dad. Thanks.”
Mac visibly relaxed and, for the first time since joining Chase, smiled. “If Lana has any objections, your mother will be happy to assure her about the comfort of—”
“No,” Chase interrupted. Everything within him rebelled at the idea of sharing the yurt with Lana. It was too small a space. She was too … noisy.
He needed to be alone. He should send her away, tell her to go back to New York, but he simply didn’t have the energy to do it. He sucked in a deep breath, then asked, “Could she stay at your place?”
Mac hesitated only a second. “Sure.”
“Okay. Thanks. Okay.”
Mac threw the last of his pebbles over the cliff. “I can’t begin to tell you how much support our friends and neighbors gave us while you were missing. Lots of prayers sent up on your behalf. I know they’re anxious to see you. You up to going back to the house and saying a quick hello?”
Chase knew it was the right thing to do, but the thought of being in a crowd of well-wishers overwhelmed him. “Will you give them my regrets?”
Mac hesitated. “Our friends are one thing, but you need to have a conversation with your lady. It’s not my place to tell her she’s not welcome at the yurt.”
No, he didn’t suppose it was. Chase dropped his head back and lifted his face toward the sky. “You’re right. Lana is my responsibility.” He might as well go back to the house and face the whole damned symphony. “I’ll come back to the house with you now.”
The process was excruciating. Chase returned to his parents’ home, accepted hugs and handshakes from friends, and expressed his thanks for their prayers and support of his family. Lana remained at his side throughout.
Lori kept her distance.
She approached him only once as the gathering broke up and visitors began to make their way back to their cars. He recognized the bracing breath she took before she walked up, nodded to Lana, and met his gaze. “Welcome home, Chase.”
A lump of emotion clogged his throat, and he cleared it. “Thanks.”
She turned a smile toward Lana. “I love your sundress.”
“Why, thank you. Yellow is my favorite color. It’s so happy, don’t you think?”
The words triggered a memory that had Chase’s gaze dropping to Lori’s breasts.
It was during the first summer that they dated.
They lay upon an old tattered quilt spread out on a hidden alpine meadow dotted with wildflowers. A picnic basket anchored one corner of the quilt, Chase’s hiking boots another. Lori’s dark hair lay fanned around her head. Moisture glistened on her kiss-swollen lips. When his nimble fingers slipped the last of her shirt buttons free, he caught his first daytime sight of her full, luscious breasts bound by a silky bra of transparent yellow silk. “Yellow is my favorite color.”
Today, Chase jerked his gaze up from her chest, past her blushing cheeks, and momentarily lost himself in the mountain forests of her green eyes. She remembers, too.
Thinking about those eyes had kept him sane once or twice in the past month.
Lana took a half step closer to him and possessively slipped her arm around his waist. “Thanks for coming, Lori. I know Chase appreciates it. Right, darling?”
Instead of answering Lana, he asked Lori, “Did you graduate?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Congratulations.”
“Thanks. Now, I’d better hurry or I’ll miss my ride back to town.”
When Lori followed her mother out the front door, Chase shook off Lana’s hold and his own steps headed for the back. The need to be outside, alone, away from all the smiles and looks of concern and … touches … overwhelmed him.
Lana hurried after him. “Chase? Sweetheart?”
Oh, damn. He still had to deal with her. Halting abruptly, Chase lifted his gaze toward the mountain trail that led to the yurt. “Lana, I need something from you.”
“Anything, darling.”
“I need you to let me be alone.”
“You mean tonight?”
“Tonight. Tomorrow. However long it takes. I’m going up into the mountains. By myself. You can stay here with my parents. You can go home to New York. Whatever you’d rather do. I just need … I’ve got to go. Let my mom or dad know whatever you need. They’ll help. You can always count on them.”
Too bad he couldn’t say the same about himself.
* * *
Lori cleaned her hemostat and sent Sage Rafferty a reassuring smile. “That was the last one. We will keep Snowdrop until the anesthesia wears off and make sure she’s doing well, but I don’t expect any ill effects. You can pick her up after lunch.”
Sage pulled her worried gaze off her bichon frise. “Porcupine quills are not a good look on her.”
“I do like her in her little Easter bonnets better,” Lori agreed.
“With Racer being such a live wire and now that Ella is crawling, we’re going to have to rethink our approach to picnics in the woods. Snowdrop has always been such an easy dog. I think my children’s bad habits are rubbing off on her. She’s never before wandered away like she did today. I’ve wondered if she’s testing us just like the kiddos do.”
“Maybe. Sometimes bad behavior in a pet is a demand for attention—just like it is with children. However, I doubt you’ll have to worry about her tangling with a porcupine again. Snowdrop has always been a quick learner.”
“Good. I never want to go through that sort of trauma again. The only good thing I can say about it is that she made an impression on Racer. He won’t try tangling with any porcupines he might run across.”
Lori gently lifted the anesthetized dog and carried her to a crate where she would sleep off the effects of the drug. Lori made notes in Snowdrop’s chart, then put check marks beside services rendered on the clinic’s billing paperwork and handed it to Sage. “I heard Myra come in a few minutes ago. She will check you out.”
“How is she working out?”
“She’s wonderful.” Myra Thomas was a recent Eternity Springs newcomer with fifteen years’ experience in a medical clinic’s billing office. Her desire for part-time work made her a perfect match for Lori’s office needs. “It was my lucky day that she knocked on my door before she tried the medical clinic. They’d have snapped her up, and I’d still be struggling with paperwork.”
After Sage left, Lori vaccinated and chipped Eloise Martin’s new puppy, then filled a prescription for Dale Parker’s cat. She took Brick Callahan’s call, pulled up the pictures he’d e-mailed to her on her tablet, and gave him her honest opinion of the fabrics his designer had recommended for the tree house he was building up at his camp. “It’s too busy, Brick. You want elegance and peacefulness. These fabrics say South Beach on Friday night.”
“Seriously? South Beach?” He sounded horrified at the idea.
“Seriously.”
“Huh.”
While Brick griped about interior designers in one ear, the other picked up the sound of voices in the waiting room. She glanced at her clock. Ten after twelve. She had no appointments until two. Leaning from behind her desk in order to get the angle, she was surprised to see Caitlin Timberlake. Surprised and a little bit wary.
In the eleven days since Chase had come home, he’d not come into town once. Lori didn’t know if that fact concerned anyone who’d seen him up at his parents’ house on the night of his homecoming. All the talk at the chamber of commerce meeting the day before yesterday had centered on how good he’d looked and how he’d appeared to be no worse for wear—except for the big scratch on his neck. Lori wasn’t so sure. There’d been something in his eyes that disturbed her, a distance. A detachment. It was as if his body resided in Colorado, but his heart hadn’t made the trip home.
Only once had life flickered in his eyes. It had been that instant when Lana spoke of yellow, and her and Chase’s gazes had briefly connected. She’d had the sense that in that moment, they both recalled a certain high country picnic.
“Hello? Earth to Lori?” Brick’s voice said in her ear. “You still there?”
“Yeah. Sorry. What did you ask me?”
“Are we still on for Memorial Day weekend?”
Brick had cajoled her into joining him on a trip to the Durango area where he had an appointment with a rancher to look at some trail horses he was considering buying for his camp. “Sure. I can’t leave until after noon. I have appointments in the morning.”
“Not a problem. I have rooms reserved for us at a B and B my mother loves. She said to tell you the truffle eggs are spectacular.”
“Yum. Okay. Pick me up at twelve-thirty.” Lori waved a silent hello to Caitlin, now standing in her office doorway. “I gotta run now. See you Saturday.”
Lori disconnected the call, then asked, “What’s the matter?”
Misery wreathed Caitlin’s face. “Oh, Lori. I’m so worried about Chase.”
Everything within Lori tensed. She realized she’d been anticipating this visit for days. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing!” Caitlin waved a dramatic hand. “He won’t leave the yurt. He won’t talk to us when we visit. It’s like he’s become this reclusive mountain man who spends all his time sitting beside the creek throwing leaves into the water. Mom and Dad are worried sick, but trying to pretend everything is okay. We all tiptoe around the fact that something is terribly wrong. I’m worried I’m going to go up there one day and find him missing or worse. I never see him without a gun within reach. Not a shotgun or a hunting rifle in case a rabid bear wanders up, either. A handgun. He’s so quiet and sad and … damaged. I even feel sorry for Lana!”
Now that was a first. Caitlin really must be concerned. “He treats her poorly?”
“He doesn’t treat her at all! She’s living at my parents’ house. He won’t let her stay with him at the yurt. When he first came back, I thought he was angry at her, but now … he doesn’t seem to care. About her. About us. About himself. About anything. I don’t know what happened to him over there, but it’s obvious it was bad. I think he has PTSD.”
Lori closed her eyes, hurt for Chase twisting her heart. Sounds like it’s even worse than I imagined. “Sounds like he needs to talk to someone.”
“I know. I overheard my parents talking about that this morning. Apparently, Dad has tried to bring the subject up more than once, most recently yesterday. Chase is having none of it. Mom is going to reach out to Sage because, apparently, she has fought her way through PTSD. I don’t know the whole story of that.”
Lori did. Sage had been volunteering with Doctors Without Borders in Africa when terrorists attacked the camp clinic where she worked. It had taken her a long time and a good dose of Eternity Springs to heal from the experience. “That’s a good idea.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” Caitlin said. “I don’t think it’s the only one that might help. That’s why I’m here. I think you should try to talk to him.”
“Oh, no.” Lori pushed her desk chair back. “No, no, no. We’ve been down that road before. You’ve been pushing me in that direction for months.”
“Wait a minute. Hear me out.”
“I don’t need to hear you out.”
“He’s in trouble, Lori. The two of you have always had something special between you. I have a feeling that you could cut through his defenses like nobody else.”
“You’re wrong. It’s not my job. It’s not my place. He’s engaged to marry another woman.”
“It’s never gonna happen,” Caitlin said flatly. “She missed her chance with him when she put off the Valentine’s Day wedding.”
“Now, Caitlin.”
“Don’t. You sound like my mom. She told me to stay out of it, too. But I can’t. I won’t. I’m too worried about him. Look, Lana isn’t part of this discussion. I’m not asking you to talk to him as a girlfriend. You guys were friends. That doesn’t have to stop and he needs a friend right now. Be a friend to him. He needs that. He needs you.”
Further protest from Lori was interrupted when Celeste swept into the clinic with a whimpering ball of golden fur in her arms. “Lori, this poor little guy needs your help.”