18
It was the smell of Grandma’s tomato basil sauce that pried Kit from her bedroom. The curiosity about who was making so much noise in the kitchen.
The passing thought that it might be Beckett.
But no, more likely Willa. She’d spent several evening meals at the house in the week since the fire. Whereas Beckett had spent most of those days in Iowa City with his dad.
She missed him. Longed to have a real conversation with him instead of the few brief texts they’d traded. But would it only make things harder? Had the brief foray they’d taken past friendship ruined any chance of going back to where they were before?
The zesty aroma heightened when she stepped into the kitchen. But it wasn’t Willa pulling plates from the cupboard. “Luke?”
“Good, you came down. I figured you had to get hungry eventually.”
She glanced at the clock above the kitchen window. After seven? That meant she’d been in her room for three hours, sitting cross-legged on her bed, laptop open in front of her.
Screen blank. Seven days and she still hadn’t figured out how to tell Dad about the fire. Unsent drafts congregated in a folder inside her email account. Perhaps it wasn’t lack of explanation that held her back, but simple obstinacy. Dad hadn’t bothered to show up or to call or to follow-up. Besides, he didn’t know about the barn in the first place. What difference was there now?
But it was Friday. Which meant he’d expect a weekly report. And she’d come to a decision: They should accept the offer from Lucas’s buyer. Why put it off? They could hobble through the rest of the season or they could be done with it. Dad and Lucas had lost interest long ago. She’d held on for too long.
“You made dinner?” Spice bottles sat in disarray on one counter, and flecks of red sauce stained the stovetop.
“Tried. Can’t guarantee it’s perfect.”
“Did you follow the recipe taped to the inside of the cupboard?”
He nodded as he loaded plates with angel hair pasta and accompanying sauce.
“Then you can’t have gone too far wrong.”
He handed her a plate and fork. “Let’s eat on the porch.”
She followed him outside, where he folded onto a porch step, perching his plate on his knees. Chilled, late-October air curled around her as she settled beside him, along with the hazy light of a pastel sunset. The fragrant flowers of the autumn clematis climbing the side of the porch had long since morphed into a silvery mass of fluffy seed heads.
She took a bite, the burst of flavor just right, just like Grandma’s. “This is good, Luke.”
He circled his own bite of pasta around his fork, the breeze sifting through his thick hair. He’d finally cut it, but only barely, and he’d let a near-full beard cover his cheeks and chin in the past weeks. It gave him a burly look, as if he was ready to hunker down for winter’s eventual descent.
But he wouldn’t be here for winter. She’d sensed the rise of his restlessness for days. Seen the distance steal into his eyes. But it was better than the haunted shadows of weeks earlier. The fire had somehow pulled him from his former listlessness. He’d spent days hauling debris from the barn, taking over many of Kit’s chores. He still woke her with his nightmares every couple nights, but something was shifting—slowly.
They ate in silence while the last sliver of the sun tarried in the west. The gentle colors of dusk reached through nearly bare branches to dapple the lawn, and a scattering of leaves skimmed off the pile Lucas had raked earlier in the day.
“I’m okay with selling.”
The scraping of Luke’s fork across his plate halted. “What?”
“I said I’m okay with selling. I won’t argue anymore. It’s probably easiest this way.”
“Kit—”
“You need the money to start over. If Dad’s willing to give me a cut, too, great. If not, I’ll figure something out.”
Lucas’s pause lingered. “Listen, I’m going to tell you something. And I’m not telling you because I think it’ll be all liberating or because Eric told me I need to—”
“You’ve been talking to Eric—?”
“—or even because I particularly want to or anything. But, well . . .” He pushed his plate out of the way and shifted, angling so that his back leaned against the stairway railing behind him. “Afghanistan.”
She stilled.
“My troop was mainly doing humanitarian work, digging wells, clearing roads, that kind of thing. There was this group of kids that would wander out from one of the villages to watch. Saw them all the time, didn’t think much of it.”
His gaze fastened on the horizon, flecks of light dusting his eyes. Memories trailed over his face until, in an instant, he stiffened.
“It was an IED—improvised explosive device. Obviously meant for us. The kids were coming out to watch again. Stepped in the wrong spot.”
“Oh, Luke . . .”
“I saw the whole thing. I was working on a fence. My closest buddy was a mile away. Three of the kids were dead, one was alive. I didn’t even think, I just picked him up and started running in the direction of the village.”
She closed her eyes, the scene so painful to picture, she couldn’t begin to imagine what it must have been like to live it.
“Strangers somehow got me to the right house, but by the time I reached it, he’d died. His mother screamed and wept, and I just stood there.”
His shudder was enough to shake the porch step.
“I didn’t even realize until hours later my arms were burned. The boy’s body had been so hot . . .” Lucas swallowed, his jaw twitching. He pressed his dry eyes closed, tone void of emotion. “His mother took care of my burns. I still can’t fathom that. On the night her son dies, she takes care of the man who delivered her dead child to her . . .” He shook his head.
She couldn’t help her question. “Lucas, when you got home, when you were on trial, why didn’t you stand up for yourself? You’d witnessed something traumatic. Dad got you that lawyer—”
“That’s why.” His posture turned rigid. “Because he ignored me until his reputation with his Army pals was on the line.”
Stark understanding settled in. Why had she never considered how Dad’s absence had affected Lucas? But while she’d kept trying to find ways to wrench her father into her life, Lucas had done the opposite.
“It was stupid. My thought process was a mess, but I wanted to hurt him.” The napkin in his hand was crinkled, sweat-dampened despite the cool of the night.
She inched closer to him on the step. “I was so worried those two years.”
He looked at her through eyes clearer than she could ever remember seeing. “I know. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Kit.”
She leaned her head on his shoulder, something she hadn’t done in years. “Where did you go after that? Why didn’t you go back to camp?”
His silence stretched. He wasn’t prepared to tell the rest of his story. She wouldn’t push. Not anymore.
“Why did you tell me now?”
“When I brought that boy to his mother, she wrapped him in a tablecloth, of all things. When I saw you trying to take on that fire with just a tablecloth . . . I don’t know.” She felt his intake of breath as he waited a beat, then two, before lifting his arm around her shoulders. “It’s not the same thing—a boy’s life, the loss of a barn or some land and trees. But hurt is hurt and sadness is sadness. I don’t want my little sister hurt. I don’t want any more sadness.”
With the sun now fully abed, the sky was a quilt of blue, silver stars its twinkling stitches. A mellow wind breathed through swaying branches.
“Sorry I forgot to make dessert.”
His comment was so out of the blue, she couldn’t help a snort of laughter. “We could steal an apple pie from the orchard store.”
In a tentative move, Lucas gripped her shoulder before moving his arm. “My buyer’s official offer came in yesterday. But I’m not going to send it on to Dad. Obviously the buyer can just go straight to him if he wants, but I’m taking myself out of the equation.”
“But—”
“If you want to tell Dad you’re cool with selling, feel free. But only do it if it’s the right thing. Not just the easiest thing.” He stood, gathered their plates. “Oh, also . . .” He reached down to set something beside her. A recipe card? “This fell off the cupboard door. Something told me to give it to you.”
She picked it up, its words coming into focus as the screen door closed behind her brother. Of course.
“Dad, I don’t understand why you won’t let us make up a bed downstairs.” Beckett stood behind his father, facing the stairway that led up to the second floor and trying not to stare at the shaved patch around the bandage on the back of Dad’s head.
They’d been home for all of twenty minutes—most of that spent moving like a herd to the front door, carrying in bags and plants and balloons. The entire family had camped out in Iowa City for most of Dad’s stay, even Seth and Ava.
“I won’t let you make up a bed downstairs because I just spent seven nights in a lumpy hospital bed. Now that I’m finally home, I’d like to sleep in my own bed, thank you very much.”
Beckett had to resist the urge not to reach out for Dad’s arm as he stepped up. “But the stairs—”
“If I can handle having my skull broken into, I can handle four or five steps.”
“Nine steps.”
Dad gripped the railing. “You counted?”
“You know how many times I sat on this stairway in timeout as a kid? Trust me, I know how many stairs there are.”
Kate stood at the second-floor landing, hands on her waist. “Would you two stop bickering? You’re like an old married couple.” She looked past Dad and Beckett to where Colton still stood in the living room. “Promise me we’ll never bicker, Colt.”
“Promise, Rosie.”
Beckett glanced over his shoulder. “You call her Rosie?”
“You’ve been home almost three months and you just now picked up on that?”
Dad had made it up three steps. “Look, I appreciate the fanfare and all, but I really can make it up the stairs without a crowd of assistants. I love you kids, but give a recovering man a break, will you? Raegan asking me every two seconds if I need a Tylenol, Logan texting and calling so much he might as well have just stayed in Iowa, Beckett driving like a senior citizen.”
“Hey—”
“Anybody notice he didn’t mention me?” Kate asked smugly.
Colton snorted. “My fiancée, the golden child.”
Dad paused halfway up. “Oh, you’re the worst of all. Going on and on and on about wedding plans.”
“Because you’ve said eight hundred times you’re sick of being treated like an invalid. I was trying to give you a distraction.”
“By talking my ear off about how many details there are, complaining about how expensive it all is? Take a cue from your family, daughter. Seth and Ava planned a wedding in two weeks. Your older brother eloped. It doesn’t have to be that hard.”
Another snort from Colton. “I’d be okay with eloping.”
Kate glared over the stairway railing. “Hey, you’re the one with the publicist and the famous friends and foundation sponsors who all expect this to be an overblown celebrity event.”
“Careful, love, I think this might count as bickering.”
Raegan stood in the front door, a bright yellow “Get Well” balloon bouncing against the frame. “Welp, I think it’s clear we’ve all been in the same space a little too long.”
Yet Beckett couldn’t help the thankful warmth pulsing through him all over again. Same warmth that had taken hold of him on Monday when they’d all gathered with the doctor and heard the best news ever: No cancer.
It’d played over and over and over in his mind since then. No cancer. No cancer. No cancer.
Just standing here in Dad’s house, the scent of cinnamon that somehow always filled the house, the pile of shoes in the entryway, the playful squabbling of his siblings, all of it together cleared a path toward that hollow space inside him—the one marked home that’d echoed with emptiness for so many years. The one Boston, his career, his goals had never been able to fill.
Dad reached the top of the stairs; surprisingly, he allowed Kate to tuck her arm through his. Raegan followed, balloon bobbing against the wall.
“Hey, Beckett?”
He turned to Colton. Had to admit, the guy was going to make an okay addition to the family. He’d barely left Kate’s side the entire time they were in Iowa City, only ever leaving long enough to fetch coffee or bring food. Beckett hadn’t missed the way he watched out for Raegan, too, as if he already took seriously his upcoming role as an additional big brother. A good thing considering Logan now lived in Chicago and Beckett would eventually . . . what?
He had no clue where he’d be months or even weeks from now. He had no job, had more than likely wrecked his chances with Army. He still had a week until the application deadline, but was there even any point anymore?
“I wanted to say thanks for what you did for Webster. I haven’t been around for him as much lately as I’d like to be.”
“I don’t know if I’d be thanking me, Colt. If I hadn’t taken him to that apartment, he wouldn’t have spent an evening being questioned by police.” At least the investigators had eventually come to believe Webster and Beckett’s story. It helped that Amanda had corroborated once she was clear-headed. Last he’d heard from Webster, Amanda had gone back to her relatives in Illinois, and Jake, thankfully, was still in police custody.
“If you hadn’t taken him, he would’ve found some other way there and who knows how much worse it could’ve been.” Colton’s phone buzzed and he gave it an exasperated glance. “If someone had told me launching a nonprofit would mean so many schmoozing conversations with potential donors, I’d have shied away from the whole thing.”
“Beck, Dad wants you,” Raegan called from upstairs.
Colton ignored his phone. “Listen, before you go, things at the foundation are moving faster than I ever thought they would. We’re opening another house soon, probably four or five more next year, all in different states. There’s always lots of paperwork, zoning issues, contracts—all stuff I hate. You ever want to do some legal advising, just say the word and you’ve got a job.”
“You serious?”
“It’s a nonprofit. Couldn’t pay you near what I’m sure you were getting at the law firm. Not sure I could even offer full-time, at this point. But if you ever want to talk, offer’s on the table.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’ll think about it, and in return, you can promise me when it comes time for Logan and you to give me the whole, ‘We’re Kate’s brothers and if you hurt her, we’ll kill you’ speech, that you’ll go easy on me. I figure it’s coming one of these days.”
Beckett grinned and reached out to shake Colton’s hand. “Deal.”
A job offer. Just like that. One that would likely allow him to live wherever he wanted, might even include some travel.
And yet, would it actually be all that different than his previous job? And say he jumped at it, just hastily signed on some dotted line, another impulsive decision. Wouldn’t that prove right everything he’d been trying to prove wrong for so long? That he was rash and impetuous. That he jumped first and thought later.
“I’m not like you, Beckett. You got a phone call from an Army officer in August and within twenty-four hours hopped a plane to Iowa. I spent a month deliberating . . .”
Would he ever be able to get Kit’s words out of his head?
Or the needling conviction that he’d hurt her all over again, handled everything wrong. He knew Kit. She took decisions slowly. She needed time to mull, always had. How had he expected her to react when he barreled in and took her off guard?
Plus, she was right. He hadn’t even known what he was asking her that night in the barn. To date him? To drop everything and follow him to Lord knows where? To marry him?
No, because you didn’t ask a girl to marry you when your life was a mess.
But you also didn’t ask a girl to commit to something when you didn’t know what that something was. He’d been swept away in a moment, fraught with desire and desperate to hold on to what they had . . . or could have.
But his recklessness had only succeeded in pushing her away. Again.
“Oh good, you’re here.” Dad. He sat in his bed with his legs bent and his head resting against a mound of pillows. “Kate, Raegan, give us a minute?”
His sisters complied while he crossed the room. “You need something, Dad?”
Dad reached for his water glass. “Yes, I need to confess I lied back there on the steps.”
“Say again?”
“It’s not Kate who’s been the worst lately. Hate to tell you, but it’s you, son.”
“Huh. Seems like if you hate to tell me, you could just, you know, not.”
Dad swished his water around. “You’ve been hovering for days. You’re so tightly wound, it’d be funny if it wasn’t also concerning.”
“You shouldn’t be concerned about me. You’re the one who just had brain surgery.”
“Yes, and I’m going to be stuck taking things slowly for the next six weeks, at least. I don’t think I can handle that with you under the same roof pacing your way through the ceiling.”
“You trying to kick me out, Dad?”
Dad took a drink, set his glass on the bedside table. “Listen, Beck. That night in the depot a few weeks ago, when we talked about your mom and both . . .”
“Fell apart?” He felt a twinge of a smile.
“Yes. And when you asked me why I didn’t tell you to come home. I’ve wondered since then if perhaps it wasn’t only the night Flora died that you were talking about. These past six years, if I hurt you by not urging you to come home—”
“Dad.”
“You have to know, there wasn’t a week that passed that I didn’t consider hopping on a plane and dragging you back. It’s hard to know how to parent adults sometimes, when to give space and when to step in and heaven knows I don’t always get it right. I am so sorry if you ever felt forgotten or disregarded. Please know that I’ll never stop loving you.”
“I know that, Dad. I do. I’m the one who chose to stay away.”
“But maybe you needed to hear the words come home. I was too worried about getting it wrong, pressuring you. I should’ve just said what was on my heart. I missed you, son. I’m never happier than when all my offspring are right here. Which is going to make what I’m about to say sound ridiculous, but you asked if I’m trying to kick you out and, well . . . Beckett, you’ve gone from college to law school to community service to I don’t even know what all here recently. You need some time alone. Go fill up your gas tank and get away. Take a trip just for fun.”
He plopped onto the end of Dad’s bed. “I don’t have time for that. So I need to figure out what comes next.”
“So go do some thinking somewhere where you’re not distracted by a hundred things.”
“You really want me to leave. You’re serious.”
“I’d say ‘as a heart attack,’ but considering how much time I’ve just spent in a hospital, I’d rather not jinx myself.” Dad shifted on his bed, humor seeping from his expression. It was replaced with a firm-but-gentle prodding. “As for the JAG Corps, Beck, I think sometimes we parents forget the staying power our words have in our kids’ brains. Your mother never would’ve wanted you to feel limited to this one career path. She would’ve wanted you to listen to your own heart. Even more, to God’s voice.”
Beckett’s gaze drifted from the photo of Mom on Dad’s bedside stand to the Bible on its shelf underneath. “I’m not sure I know how to hear God’s voice these days.”
“Tell me this: When’s the last time you thought you might’ve heard him? The last time you sensed his presence.”
He didn’t even have to think. “This spring. On the coast. Salt Island.” When he’d muttered a halfhearted prayer about his future. It’d been the impetus for his eventual homecoming.
Dad grinned. “On the coast, you say?”
Kit stood outside Beckett’s window for ten minutes, trying to decide whether to make the climb. Turned out she didn’t have to.
The window slid open, one leg ducked out, then the other. With his arms propped against the frame, Beckett pulled himself the rest of the way onto the porch roof. He caught sight of her the second his head came up.
He grinned.
Moments later, he was on the ground, standing in front of her and clearly just as conflicted as she was about what to do next, hang back or hug or—
He went for the hug. Light and brief. “I was just going to come over to your place.”
She stepped back. “Great minds.” She tried to remember why she’d come over here. To see how his dad was settling in. To see how he was settling in. To see . . . him. She just wanted to see him. “Beck, I wanted to say—”
“I’m sorry, Kit.”
Their words collided and turned into stilted laughter that turned into taut silence. It lasted so long the motion sensor light over the garage flicked off. Crisp night air nipped at her cheeks and nose.
“I shouldn’t have asked you to give up the orchard.”
“Beck—”
He lifted his finger to her lips, the movement enough to wash them in light once more. “You found what makes you come alive. As your best friend, I should be one of the people most supporting that, not asking you to leave it behind.”
“You have supported it. Like crazy.”
Just hours ago, she’d been ready to give up on that dream, though. On the thing, as Beckett said, that made her come alive. Amazing how one heartfelt conversation with her brother and a couple hours of quiet on the porch could make such a difference.
And that Bible verse. The one on the card Lucas had handed her, without having any idea how much it’d stuck in her head ever since finding it that first week home.
The thing was, these past months, every time that verse had rambled through her brain, she’d paid attention only to the first part. But when she’d reread the whole thing tonight, it’d taken on new weight.
“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.”
She’d been hoping for a dream. Hoping for the orchard’s success. Hoping for Dad’s return.
Hoping for Beckett.
But real trust, real belief—it wasn’t about what she hoped for . . . but who she placed her hope in. A faithful God. A God who never promised perfect circumstances, but who did promise his love.
She may doubt from time to time, but that was where Willa’s assurance came in: When she felt like letting go, God held on.
“You’re drifting, Kit.”
Then she remembered—the papers in her jacket pocket, the other reason she’d come to see Beckett, even knowing it might be difficult. She pulled out the stapled pages and handed them to him.
He scanned the top page, forehead wrinkled. “My JAG app? How did you . . . ? What’d you do, break into the house while we were in Iowa City?”
“I know where the house key is hidden. I also know you’ve been using the same computer password since you got your first laptop. Lucky for me, you left the browser open with the online application.”
“But . . . why?”
“Because you’re a horrible speller, and even this many years later, I haven’t kicked the habit of proofreading all your stuff. I marked all the typos, reworded a few things, too.”
He opened his mouth, closed it, looked from her to the papers and then to her once more. “I wasn’t even sure I was going to send it in. Kit . . . I . . .”
He must have given up on words, because he pulled her into another hug. But this time, he didn’t let go so quickly. She’d molded into him without a second thought, cataloging the feel of his arms and the smell of his skin and the beating of his heart.
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” he said into her hair. “Dad kicked me out.”
Somehow she was able to laugh. To tuck away the sadness before he could see it. To release him a minute later.
“Where are you going?”
“West Coast. I’m going to take the trip Mom and I used to talk about. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. I don’t know what comes next. Even with your proofreading, I don’t know about my chances with the Army. I just know I need to go. Maybe it’s impulsive, but—”
She interrupted him with a kiss on his cheek. “Just make sure to send me postcards.”
“Promise. Come on, I’ll walk you home.”
“Actually, Beck, I think I’d like to walk alone.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
It’d give her a chance to think about how to save the orchard and rebuild the barn and tell her father she wasn’t giving up. To pray. To figure out how to hold on to hope while letting go of her best friend.