Chapter Three – Fern

Fern stood in the airport terminal, waiting for Walt’s son, checking the Arrivals board for the hundredth time. She was nervous. She sighed, when wasn’t she nervous? Usually she covered it well, but her nerves were frayed.

Let it go, she told herself. Closing her eyes, she inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, focusing on calming thoughts. But all she kept picturing was Walt, hooked up to machines that helped him breathe. She’d lost count of the endless hours she had spent with him, listening to the steady beep as a machine registered his heartbeat.

As long as it kept on beeping, everything was OK.

“Fern?” a voice called, pulling her back to the busy airport and the reason she was here. Looking around, she saw a tall, broad-shouldered man, with dark brown hair and dark brown eyes, coming toward her. He looked so much like his father, he was easy to recognize. But how did he know her?

“Yes,” Fern answered. “Theo?”

“In the flesh.” He stopped around five feet away from her and just stared. Instinctively she pulled her coat tighter around her, wishing she could simply fade away. “Are you OK?” he asked, concerned.

She fixed a smile on her face. “Yes. Tired, sorry.”

“You should have let me get a cab,” he said apologetically. “But I am glad you came.”

“Me too.” Was she? It would have been easier to stay by Walt’s bedside than to drive a hundred miles or more to pick up Theo. But when he’d called to say he was about to board a flight home, something in his voice compelled her to come here and meet him.

“Shall we go?” he asked, holding his hand out to usher her toward the exit.

“Of course, you want to see Walt.” She frowned. “I mean, your dad … you must be worried.”

“I am. But that is not the reason I want to go. Crowds are not really my thing,” he confided.

“They aren’t?” she asked as they left the airport terminal and turned right toward the parking lot where she had left her car, conspicuous in its rustiness next to shiny trucks and family sedans.

“No, lots of people make me feel claustrophobic.” He shrugged, and took a deep breath. “Ever since I got lost in a shopping mall when I was six. All I remember is being surrounded by legs. It was Christmas, so the place could not be any more crowded. People in skirts, pants, a sea of fabric, blocking my view.”

“Sounds scary,” she said.

“Scarred me for life,” he replied lightly.

Fern’s hand went to her wrist. “I can imagine.” They stopped to let a car go past, and then she pointed across the parking lot. “We’re over here.”

She turned to see him staring at her. As though hypnotized, she stared back, looking deep into his big brown eyes. She was so close, Fern could make out the flecks with gold that softened and warmed his brown irises as his eyes caressed her face. “Sorry,” he said, his voice rough. “Long flight.”

She shivered, not from the cold wind that whipped at her hair, but from the intensity of his look. No one had ever looked at her like that. Not with such open… What? Lust? She nearly burst out laughing. What the hell would a man like Theo see in her? She was mousy in comparison. Fern worked at being inconspicuous as if it were an Olympic sport.

“Do you want to stop and grab something to eat on the way?” Fern asked.

“I would die for a burger.” He grinned. “I’ve been living on rations for the last few weeks.” He looked down at himself. “I need to put some weight on.”

“I could give you some of mine,” she said, brightly, trying to imitate a normal person.

“No way, and spoil that curvy body,” Theo said with a grin. Fern wrapped her arms around herself, trying to cover her curves. He was laughing at her, and the old familiar need to be invisible swept over her.

Theo stepped closer to her, gently took hold of her hands, and pulled them away. “I wasn’t making fun of you.”

Fern fell into his eyes, drowning in deep pools of emotion. There was such warmth in Theo, such passion, and if she looked hard enough she could almost begin to think that passion was for her. But she’d been there before, she’d made the mistake of dreaming up a fantasy world where she and movie star Carter Eden were going to get married and live happily ever after.

Nothing could have been further from the truth.

Her hands twitched, needing to touch the scars on her wrists, to remind herself why she kept her emotions totally under control. Something that seemed impossible now that she was faced with Theo, his hands warm as he held hers, her nerve endings singing as he stroked the sensitive skin on the inside of her wrists with his thumb.

Instinctively, she yanked her hands out of his and plunged them deep into her coat pockets.

“Cold?” he asked, cocking his head and narrowing his eyes. He was trying to read her, something she hated. It was as if people thought that if they looked at her just the right way all her thoughts would spill out.

“No, just getting my keys,” Fern answered, holding them up with a smile that did not belong to her. “We should get going, it’s a long drive and I’m sure you want to see your dad.”

“I do.” He nodded, still studying her. With an effort, he yanked his gaze away from her and walked around to the passenger side of the car as she unlocked it. She thought about apologizing for the old car, but then changed her mind. She did not care what he thought about her. Liar.

What if she was lying to herself? If her curvy body and wreck of a car put him off, so much the better. It made life simpler. And wasn’t living in Bear Creek her chance to live a simple, uncomplicated, uncluttered life?

Theo folded himself into the small car, put his seatbelt on, and stretched his long legs out in front of him as best he could. He looked cramped. In fact, the whole car felt smaller and more cramped with him in it. Fern had not bargained on the close proximity of their bodies on the long drive back to Bear Creek.

“Do you have any more news on my dad? Do they know what’s wrong with him?”

“He has been in the hospital for a week, they have run various tests to find the cause of his illness.”

“And have they come to any conclusions?” Theo asked.

“His heart is enlarged. At least that is what Walt told me. The doctors won’t share too much with me since I’m not family.” Fern started the engine and maneuvered out of the busy parking lot.

“Thank you for calling me so persistently,” Theo said earnestly.

“Walt asked me to,” Fern replied.

“He wouldn’t want to worry Cathy, she has her hands full raising two bear cubs in the city.” Theo lounged back in his seat. He looked exhausted.

“Bear cubs?” Fern asked.

He turned to look at her sharply, and if she wasn’t mistaken, he inhaled deeply before letting it go. “Kids, you know?”

She held his gaze, her instincts telling her there was more to it than that. But what else could he mean? Perhaps it was what they called kids in whichever city she had moved to.

“She doesn’t come to see your dad much either?” Fern asked.

“No. At least not as far as I know.” He tore his eyes from her and looked out of the window. “We don’t talk much. As a family, we suck.”

“Happens.” Fern kept her eyes straight, watching the road.

“Spoken by someone who knows,” Theo said.

“Maybe.”

“Which means—keep your nose out of my business, Theo.”

“Maybe.”

“Keep your secrets,” he said lightly. “Maybe when you trust me more, you might tell me all about it.”

“Who says I don’t trust you?” Fern asked sharply.

“Your eyes. Your mouth. The way you press your lips together as if trying to stop yourself from saying too much.”

“I do not,” she declared defensively.

“You do.” He sighed. “I’ve known a lot of people, and I’ve lived among a lot of people who I could not understand. One thing I learned very early on was that body language is a universal language.”

“You’ve traveled extensively.” Fern wanted to keep the conversation on Theo. She hoped he liked talking about himself; that way he would not ask her any awkward questions.

“I have.” He took a chocolate bar out of his pocket, broke it in half and tried to pass it over to Fern.

“I’m good, thanks.”

“Liar.” He broke off a piece of chocolate and held it up to her mouth. “You can either take it, or I’ll sit here like this for the whole trip.”

She glanced across to him, the smell of sweet chocolate hitting her taste buds. “You would, wouldn’t you?”

“I would. One thing you have to learn about me, Fern, is I have a strong constitution.” He grinned. “It means I’m stubborn.”

She opened her mouth, trying to ignore the sensations rushing through her body when he popped the piece of chocolate onto her tongue, his fingertips lightly brushing her lower lip.

“Not so bad?” he asked and settled back into his seat.

She swallowed her chocolate. “Not so bad,” she agreed. “So where were you?” Fern wanted to make simple, neutral conversation. “I thought you were never going to answer my messages.”

“Everest.” He grinned. Was he playing with her again? “I mean it,” he replied to her sideways glance.

“So that’s why it took you so long to reply to my messages.”

“Did you think I was ignoring you?” Theo asked.

“I wasn’t sure.”

“You mean you didn’t know if there is a family rift?” He passed her another piece of chocolate. This time she took it from him and ate it herself. She wasn’t sure she would be able to keep the car on the road if the tension in her body shot up any higher.

“Not helped by me telling you I don’t talk to my sister much,” Theo said.

“No.” She frowned. “I know not all families get along. But Walt … your dad, he seems like a nice guy.”

“He is.” Theo paused. “But my sister and I, we never got along. Siblings either love or hate each other. And we hated each other. Unless someone else tried to hurt either one of us, then we were comrades in arms. In truth, we were a handful for the old man.”

She thought over what he’d said. Fern’s understanding of sibling relationships was negligible. “And you both left Bear Creek?”

“We did. My dad always encouraged us to leave and see the world.” His voice was laced with nostalgia.

“But you were happy in Bear Creek, it was your home?” Fern could not even contemplate leaving the town now; for the first time in her life, she was beginning to understand what it felt like to have a home.

“Yes. But when you are living in a situation, you don’t always see it for what it is. You don’t appreciate it, and you think there is more out there.” Theo waved his hand at the road in front of them. “And there was, I have had some amazing experiences.”

“Walt is proud of you.” Fern tore her thoughts back to the inside of the car and the man next to her. She did not want to dwell on her own past.

“That makes me feel even worse for not going home more often.” He smiled at her sideways, a sadness in his eyes.

“How long has your mom been gone?” Fern asked, then cursed herself for pressing him with questions about his past. She knew what it was like to not want to talk about the bad times, or the sad times.

“Years, we were kids.” He looked up at the ceiling. “The strange thing is, when I go home, it almost feels as if she was still there. Like her ghost haunts the place. It’s stupid, I know.”

“We all live with ghosts from our past,” Fern said, trying to set him at ease.

“We do. But eventually they have to be faced. They have to be exorcised. And I guess this is my time.”

Fern sat in silence and mulled over what he’d said. Theo was a braver man than her. She never wanted to face her ghosts, but she hung onto the idea that they might be exorcised.

Unconsciously, her right fingertips brushed against the thin scar on her left wrist. Maybe it would be easier to get rid of her ghosts if she didn’t carry around a constant reminder. But some scars would never fade.