Chapter Two
What had made her propose such a crazy idea?
Desperation. That was the only possible answer. There was no other way she would have voluntarily signed up to work with Matthew West. Ten years ago, she’d thought the sun rose in his eyes every day. She’d dreamed of them being together forever.
Then he’d told her he had no intention of ever leaving Marietta. And she’d realized that all the plans she had would disappear if she stayed in that town, became the perfect little housewife until she rotted away in some rocking chair on her front porch. She’d wanted a bigger life than that, more than a little house in a quiet neighborhood. So she’d packed her bags and headed for New York the next day, vowing never to return to the small town that had always suffocated her.
Until now.
“Aunt Carolyn, that doctor was very nice.” Emma said as she climbed into the booster seat in the back of Carolyn’s SUV. Roscoe scrambled up beside Emma and settled on the seat, shaking fur and slush all over the black leather and ignoring the blanket Carolyn had laid on the floor. Yet another battle with the dog Carolyn had lost before she even crossed the Wyoming state line.
“Yes, he was.” Very nice, and very handsome still. Matt had barely aged, and had the same lean, muscular frame she remembered. A little taller, a little broader, but with the same dark hair, brown eyes, and unforgettable smile. He was the quintessential small-town vet—friendly and well known, casual and involved.
He’d become exactly what he’d set out to be. She should have been happy for him. Should have said congratulations or something. Instead, she’d stood there, watching his hands as he calmed the dog, listened to its heartbeat, drew the vial of blood. She’d always liked his hands—they’d been the first thing she noticed when she’d sat beside him in art class in high school. Once, she’d drawn them, hung the sketch over her bed and kept it there until the edges of the paper curled and yellowed.
When they were dating, those same hands had awakened parts of Carolyn she never knew existed. She’d spend her days craving his touch, thinking about him. Even now, a part of her remembered those moments and felt the same simmer of desire.
Not a productive thought at all, especially since she had just agreed to work side by side with the man this week. No thinking about his hands—
Check.
No thinking about the past—
Double check.
No lying to herself that she was definitely thinking about both those things—
Carolyn pled the Fifth on that one. She buckled Emma’s booster seat, checked the latch, checked it again, then checked the tension on the seat belt. “You all set in there?”
Emma nodded. “Can I have a snack?”
All Carolyn could picture was Emma choking on a raisin in the back seat. “When we get home, okay?” She climbed into the driver’s seat and buckled her seat belt. She drove the couple of miles across town to her parents’ house. They still lived in the low-slung ranch house where Carolyn and Sandy had grown up. The white siding was now a soft butter yellow, and the big oak tree that had shaded the front lawn for decades had been lost in a storm two years ago, but everything else appeared to be the same.
Until you got close to the house and saw the paint was fading, the flowers choked by weeds, the garden overgrown. Her parents had gotten old in the time she had been away, as if someone had flipped a switch and fast-forwarded. She’d seen them two Christmases ago when she’d flown them to New York as a Christmas gift, but it seemed like her father had aged twenty years in that time. And her mother—
She was distracted and anxious, hovering over Dad every chance she got.
Bringing a four-year-old and a dog here had seemed like a great idea when she was hundreds of miles away. Now, Carolyn wasn’t so sure. Her plan to have her parents raise Emma was losing steam every day. They were clearly not healthy enough or strong enough to do that.
Which left Carolyn in the same place she’d been five days ago—with a job that was not at all raising-a-kid-friendly and a dog she couldn’t control. And a whole lot of expectations left behind by Sandy.
Roscoe bounded out of the car the second Carolyn opened the door, almost toppling her in his rush to freedom. He raced across the yard, trailing his leash behind him. Carolyn cursed, told Emma to stay put, then chased after the dog. Three hundred yards later, Roscoe darted left towards a tree, and Carolyn went right, grabbing the leash loop and wrapping it tight in her hand. “Stay,” she said, but Roscoe just jumped up on her, knocking her to the ground and covering her with kisses.
Damned dog.
So maybe working with Matt was a crazy idea, but if it got this dog under control, she’d do crazy. They hadn’t dated in ten years—surely enough time had passed that being around him wouldn’t affect her. Keep it all business.
Don’t think about his hands. Yeah, how well was that plan going so far?
She got Emma out of the car, then went inside, with the not-so-contrite dog padding along beside her. “Don’t run off, Emma. Wait for me and Roscoe.”
But Emma, much like her beloved puppy, didn’t listen. She hurried into the house, dropping a colorful river of coat and hat and toys in her wake. She kept Sandy’s sweater clutched to her chest. “Gramma! Can we make cookies?”
At the excitement in Emma’s voice, Roscoe broke into a run down the hall. The leash jerked against Carolyn’s arm, then slid out of her hand. Roscoe kept on going, undeterred, skidding to a stop beside Emma, thinking he deserved a cookie, too.
Sandy had once told Carolyn that baking cookies together was a favorite activity for Emma and Mom. Unlike Carolyn, Sandy and Bob had visited Marietta often, coming home for all the major holidays and birthdays, and spending two weeks here every summer. Which was part of why Carolyn had been so surprised to be named as Emma’s guardian. She barely knew Emma—she could literally count on one hand the number of times she’d seen her—and no matter how hard she tried, Emma stayed reserved and distant from Carolyn, preferring to run to her grandmother for hugs and questions and comfort.
There’d been a few times over the last few days when Emma had teared up, her little body trembling. She’d asked about her mother and father, wondering when they were going to come get her. Mom had taken that question every time, telling Emma that they weren’t coming back. Emma didn’t seem to grasp that concept yet—or maybe didn’t want to—and she always ended up changing the subject and asking for a toy or a book or a TV show. Carolyn knew there would come a moment when Emma finally realized what had happened. She prayed her mother and father were there to help deal with Emma’s grief.
Because she sure didn’t know how to deal with a little girl. She’d hardly been around kids, and worked in a rushed, stressful environment with a lot of men and a lot of cursing. She had no idea what four-year-olds liked or how to make them happy when their world had just fallen apart.
So she left Emma with Mom a lot, although Carolyn could see the weariness in Mom’s face and the toll the days had taken on her, and that only intensified the guilt in Carolyn’s gut. Emma brought joy into the house, but she also brought a daily reminder that Sandy would never be here to see her daughter grow up.
“No cookies today.” Mom gave Emma a sad smile. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I’m a little tired. Maybe tomorrow?”
“Okay,” Emma said, her eyes downcast. She toed at the floor.
“I can make cookies with you, Emma,” Carolyn said, putting on a bright smile. That was totally something in Carolyn’s wheelhouse. “Whatever kind you want.”
“I don’t wanna anymore.” She clutched the sweater tighter to her chest. “Can I go watch TV?”
“Yes, but only for an hour,” Carolyn replied. As she watched Emma head into the living room, her steps slow and sad, Carolyn wondered what else she could have done or said. Sandy would have known. She would have had the perfect words to erase the shadows in Emma’s eyes.
Mom turned away, reaching into the cabinet for a mug. Carolyn came up beside her, leaned over and kissed her mother’s cheek. “Mom, let me get that. You want some tea?”
Her mother gave her a weak smile. “If it’s not too much trouble.”
“Trouble is sending out twenty-two chateaubriands at the same time. Making tea is nothing.”
“Thank you, honey.” Her mother lowered herself into one of the kitchen chairs. She moved a little slower than she used to, took more time to process and think. At sixty-two, Marilyn Hanson still wore the same perfume she’d worn all her life, kept her hair in a blond pageboy that skimmed her chin, and regardless of the plan for the day, dressed in cardigan twinsets with black dress pants.
Her mother used to work as a receptionist at a law office in a nearby town, while her father spent his days building custom furniture in the garage. But ever since Sandy’s death, neither of them had worked at all. Carolyn could understand that—there were moments when the grief became this heavy stone wall, and she had to remind herself that she had to keep moving forward. Because Sandy was counting on her.
Carolyn had arrived five days ago, and was staying in the bedroom she’d had as a child, sleeping in her old twin bed, with Emma on the daybed against the opposite wall. Five days and already she was itching to get back to New York, to her own life, to the restaurant.
Five days and she had yet to talk to her parents about Emma. Already almost a week of her two-week leave period was gone. Five days and no plan for how she was going to be a surrogate mom and dog owner. The two things she completely sucked at doing.
Carolyn set a cup of raspberry green tea in front of her mother, then slid into the opposite chair.
“She looks so much like Sandy,” her mother whispered even though Emma was out of earshot. “All I keep seeing is your sister, and as much as I love Emma, it breaks my heart all over again.”
Carolyn heard the pain in her mother’s voice, the shards of grief that hitched on the end of each word. “It still doesn’t seem real.”
“I don’t know if it ever will.” Mom’s eyes welled, and she turned away, pressing a hand to her nose, and struggling to hold back her tears. Carolyn slid out of her chair and wrapped her arms around her mother. Marilyn held stiff for a moment, then eased into her youngest daughter. She reached around, clutching at Carolyn, while tears dampened their shoulders and grief poured into the space.
After a while, Mom drew back and swiped at her eyes. “I’m sorry, honey. It’s still so hard.”
“It is for me, too, Mom.” With Sandy gone, it felt as if part of Carolyn had been carved away. When they were young, they’d been so close, doing almost everything together. They were only separated by two years, and had stayed just as close after Sandy moved to Wyoming, only a couple hours from Marietta, and Carolyn went to New York. They talked weekly, texted daily. A thousand times since Sandy had died, Carolyn had reached for the phone to call her sister, only to remember she was gone, and the pain hit her all over again.
But no matter how bad it was for Carolyn, it had to be a hundred times harder on her parents. She could see that agony in the lines in her mother’s face, the shadows under her father’s eyes. A dark cloud hung over the house, invaded every conversation, every glance.
“Your father just stays out in the garage,” Mom went on. “I don’t know if he is even working on anything. He’s out there before I wake up and doesn’t come in until I’m asleep.” She shook her head. “He’s hurting but he’s hurting alone.”
Carolyn clasped her mother’s hand. “He’ll come around, Mom. He just needs some time.” Marilyn’s gaze strayed to the silent garage, where no table saw whined, no wood was being shaped into furniture. “I hope so.”
Carolyn hoped so too. She’d barely seen her father since she arrived. Even Emma’s presence hadn’t been enough to drive Dan back into the house. The light in the garage burned at all hours of the day, and the few times she’d gone out there to talk to her dad, he’d been working and didn’t say much.
She remembered the days when her mother would sing while she did the dishes and her dad would come in from work or the garage, and spin her in his arms. There was laughter and joy in the house, a lightness. That had disappeared since Sandy’s death and Carolyn feared it might never return.
“I’m glad I have you and Emma here,” Mom said, and a little brightness returned to her words. “And you know you can stay as long as you want. I’m sure it’s going to take a while to find a house to rent and a new job and…” Her mother’s voice trailed off. “What?”
“About that…” Carolyn drew in a breath. She was going to have to have this conversation someday and delaying it only made things worse. “I know Sandy named me as Emma’s guardian but I have a job and a life back in New York. A job that consumes eighty hours a week sometimes, and an apartment smaller than a postage stamp. I can’t have a kid and a dog there, Mom.”
“Which is why you moved back here.”
Carolyn laid her hands flat on the maple kitchen table and waited a beat before she spoke. “I didn’t move back. I’m not staying here long term. I’m visiting. In another week, I have to go back to New York.”
“But I thought you just said Emma…” Marilyn shook her head. “Carolyn, you’re her guardian.”
“I can’t raise her, Mom. My life, my job—”
“Your father and I are in our sixties, Carolyn. Your father hasn’t been the same since his heart attack a few years back, and I’m…I’m exhausted. Taking care of him, grieving the loss of my daughter…” At that, her voice broke, and she let out a long shuddering breath before speaking again. “I love Emma, love her as much as I love you girls, but we’re not spring chickens anymore. Keeping up with a four-year-old is tough. And when Emma gets to be a teenager…”
The unspoken words—her parents would be in their seventies, nearly eighty by the time Emma graduated high school. How could Carolyn possibly lay this at their feet? What was she thinking? That wasn’t a solution. It wasn’t even a partial solution. “I understand. You’re right. I guess I’m just not sure how I’m going to do this.”
Her mother’s hand covered Carolyn’s. “One day at a time, honey.”
The problem was, Carolyn only had a week to figure out a way to keep her career, her home, and her promise.