Chapter Thirteen
They found her in the school playground, sitting on a swing, the hem of the dress dragging in the dirt. She wasn’t crying anymore, but she looked so sad, so lost, that Rumer wanted to bundle her in the truck and take her back home, let her hide out from the world like she seemed to want to.
“Sunday was supposed to be here,” she said before either of them could speak. “She promised me she would be. Matt did, too, but he wasn’t the one who taught me the song. He wasn’t the one who was going to buy me a dress.” She shrugged as if it didn’t matter.
“She would have been here if she could have,” Sullivan said, taking the swing beside hers, his long legs stretched out, his heels pressed into the soft earth.
“I know.” She pushed off, swinging back and then forward, the dress kicking up clouds of dust, her hair and face silvery in the moonlight.
She sang like an angel, or, like an old soul. Like someone who had seen everything there was to see and still found reason to dream. But, she was still just a child, one who was trying to figure out the world and her place in it.
“We can tell her about it tomorrow,” Rumer suggested, settling into the swing on Heavenly’s right. “I have it on good authority that one of your siblings made a secret recording of the performance. We’ll go to the rehab center and play it for your mom.”
“You have the day off tomorrow. Besides, it’ll be too late by then.” She leaned back in the swing, arms outstretched, fists tight on the ropes as she stared up at the sky.
“Too late for what?” Sullivan asked, his hair inky black in the darkness. It had grown longer in the past two weeks, the dark ends brushing his nape. He still hadn’t shaved, and she wondered if he planned to.
And, if he’d still be around when he did.
His life was in Portland, after all.
Eventually, he’d go back to his job and his home there.
A strange thought, because she couldn’t envision the farm without him on it. She couldn’t picture the kids without imagining him beside them. She couldn’t think of the future without wondering where he’d be.
“The photo.” Heavenly pushed off again, her head nearly brushing the ground as she leaned even farther back.
“What photo?” Sullivan asked.
“Everyone who participated in the festival gets to have their picture taken with the judges. You stand in the middle of the stage and hold your certificate or your award. Then, the judge gets off the stage, and the parents come on, and the photographer takes a photo of that. Mrs. Myers said everyone who sings gets one picture free with their entry fee. We were going to hang it in my room.” She’d stopped swinging and was just hanging there again. “But, I don’t have a father, and Sunday can’t be here, so . . . no picture with family. I’ll just hang the one of me and the judge up, I guess.”
“Your dad may not be around anymore,” Sullivan said, standing up and offering Heavenly his hand, “but, you’ve got three uncles who will stand on that stage with you.”
“I think they only let parents,” she said, but she’d accepted his hand, was allowing him to pull her to her feet.
“I don’t plan to ask who they allow. I plan to walk up there and take my spot,” he responded, putting his hand on her shoulder and looking in her eyes. “If anyone complains, I’ll tell them to take a hike.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Yeah. I will. We’re going to get the picture together, and then we’ll make copies so you can have one on your wall, and I can have one on mine.”
“Thanks, Uncle Sullivan.”
“You may not be thanking me when you have my ugly mug hanging on your wall.”
She smiled, and he chucked her under the chin.
“That’s it, Heavenly. That’s the way you’re going to face the world, okay?”
“What way?”
“With a smile and a mean right hook. I’m going to make sure I teach you that skill. Just in case you ever need it.”
They’d started walking back toward the school, and Rumer was still in the swing, watching them go, seeing the way Sullivan’s hand rested protectively on his niece’s shoulder, the way she seemed to lean just a little into him.
She knew what she was seeing.
She’d seen it before, felt it before.
It was the beginning of family—two disparate paths coming together to create one single journey. Strange how that worked. How one minute you were alone, trying to find your place, and how the next, you were walking beside someone who was doing the same exact thing. How suddenly, in that moment, you became part of something bigger than yourself.
They stopped at the edge of the playground and turned toward her.
“Aren’t you coming, Rumer?” Heavenly called.
“It’s a beautiful night. I thought I’d sit out here and enjoy it.”
“Then we will, too,” the teen said, heading back in her direction, Sullivan right beside her. His hand was still on her shoulder, but his gaze was on Rumer. She felt the weight of his stare, the warmth of it.
He smiled, and her heart tripped, her breath caught, and her soul stirred, whispering something that she’d never heard before. Not anytime. Not with any man.
Home, it seemed to say.
And, suddenly, she knew the truth of the way things were. She understood what she hadn’t before. She wasn’t falling for Sullivan. She was falling in love with him.
And, God help her, that intrigued her as much as it terrified her.
“You okay?” he asked, pulling her to her feet. They were just inches away, and if she’d wanted to, she could have taken half a step forward and been in his arms.
“I . . . think so.”
He frowned, pressing his palm against her forehead. “No fever. Do you have a headache?”
“It’s a heart problem, Sullivan. Not a head problem,” she admitted.
“Yeah?” He tugged her that half step into his arms. “Maybe I can help with that.”
“Geez,” Heavenly said with an exaggerated sigh. “Are you going to kiss her again?”
“Is there some reason why I shouldn’t?” he asked, staring into Rumer’s eyes, waiting for her to tell him to stop.
Or not.
They were just a breath away from each other, and then they weren’t. He tasted like coffee and mints and sunrise and hope. He tasted like all the dreams she’d given up on because she’d been certain they could never come true.
“Heavenly!” a woman shouted, an edge of panic in her voice. “Heavenly Bradshaw! Where are you?!”
“Over here, Mrs. Myers,” Heavenly called. “At the playground.”
“Thank God!” The choir director raced around the corner of the building, her hand on her chest, her lungs heaving. “You have to get back inside. Now!”
“Why?” Heavenly responded, but she ran toward her, her dress wafting out behind her.
Sullivan took Rumer’s hand and dragged her in the same direction.
Dragged because her legs barely seemed to be working.
Her brain didn’t seem to be working, either.
Or, maybe it was working overtime, because she could swear she saw the Bradshaw bunch coming at her from all different directions. Flynn, Maddox, and Milo sprinting across the parking lot. Porter, Moisey, and Twila jogging out of the building. Clementine hurrying along the edge of the playground, Oya in her arms.
“You found her!” Moisey shrieked, breaking away from Porter and running to her sister’s side. “This is the best thing ever. Isn’t it the best thing, Heavenly?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, dwe . . . Sis,” Heavenly responded as they ran to the front of the building.
“You won!” Mrs. Myers responded, grabbing her hand and sprinting back toward the building. “Not just for your age group, either. They’re giving you the Exceptional Promise Award. That’s a ten-thousand-dollar college scholarship and free tuition to attend vocal training summer camp at the Peabody Institute this summer.” She was panting and wheezing, but she wasn’t slowing down. The group hit the front doors at a full-out run. “I’ve been doing this for seven years, and I’ve never seen them give out the Promise Award.”
“Is that why we’re running?” Heavenly asked as they bolted into the school lobby.
“We’re running because of some archaic rule about being there when they present the prize. You don’t show up, you don’t get it. Fortunately, the adjudicators saw how upset you were, and they’re taking their time awarding fourth, third, and second place,” Porter explained, yanking open the auditorium door and nearly lifting Heavenly off her feet to get her inside.
They made it with three minutes to spare, and when Heavenly walked up to accept her award, Rumer thought her heart would burst with pride. It didn’t matter that Heavenly’s hem was dusty or that she had tear tracks on her cheeks. It didn’t matter that she didn’t offer a hint of a smile as she shook the adjudicator’s hand. It didn’t matter that she was bound to cause more trouble before her growing up was finished. All that mattered was the way she scanned the audience, the way her gaze landed on her family.
That’s when she smiled, a soft, sweet curve of the lips that seemed to encompass them all.
“She’s quite a kid,” Sullivan said, still holding her hand. Such a simple thing, something that she’d done with every guy she’d ever been with. It felt different with Sullivan, though. It felt like today and tomorrow and yesterday, all of it rolled into one perfect moment of connection.
“You’re quite an uncle.”
“I haven’t done anything but be here for the kids,” he responded.
“Like I said,” she responded. “You’re quite an uncle.”
“We’ll see how that works out in a year or two or ten,” he muttered.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, studying his face the way he always studied her, wishing she had the talent to pick up a sketch pad and pencil and re-create the lines and angles and emotions she saw there.
“Forever is a long time to not turn into my father,” he replied, rubbing the back of his neck and watching as the adjudicator stepped to the podium.
“Forever isn’t any time at all. Not when you love someone, and you love these kids,” she replied. “So, it’ll go in the blink of an eye. One minute, we’ll be here watching Heavenly accept her award, the next we’ll be walking her down the aisle.”
She realized what she’d said a moment too late, realized that she’d plunked herself right down in the middle of a story that wasn’t hers.
She might be falling in love with Sullivan. Heck, she might even already love him. That didn’t mean he had any obligation to love her. It sure didn’t mean that they’d be together for any longer than it took for tomorrow to come.
“We?” he asked, but the adjudicator was giving a speech about the Promise Award and the moment was lost.
She was happy to let it go.
She didn’t want to have deep conversations with Sullivan about their future. She didn’t want to hash out rules of engagement or try to figure out what the next few minutes or years would mean for them.
She just wanted to be there right now and not think about anything but the moment, because if she thought too hard, if she let her brain go too far into the future, she’d start seeing the end instead of the beginning.
* * *
They drove to Spokane and found an ice cream place that was still open, because that’s what Heavenly wanted to do. Sullivan had braced for the worst. Six kids in a tiny ice cream joint an hour past their bedtime was bound to be a disaster, right?
To his surprise, the kids had all been on their best behavior. Even the twins had seemed determined to act angelic.
That was Sullivan’s only excuse for what happened next.
First, Heavenly had suggested going to the rehab facility so that she could tell Sunday her good news. Second, he’d agreed.
After that?
Things had gone downhill rapidly.
Sunday had been sound asleep when they’d arrived. She’d woken when the nurse had opened the door and announced them. Her confusion had seemed worse than usual, her focus vague, her smiles forced. The kids’ joy had gone from epic Christmas-morning proportions to trying-to-be-happy-for-the-sake-of-the-adults.
Rumer had been the one to cut the visit short, because Sullivan hadn’t been able to do it. The kids had just been so desperate to make it work, talking and laughing too loudly and too much. Sunday, on the other hand, had seemed content to lie in bed and watch them, her smiles forced, her words few. He hadn’t wanted that to be the last memory of the night. He hadn’t wanted the kids to fall asleep with that image of their mother in their heads. So, yeah, he’d stayed longer than he should have. Apparently, he could present lectures to auditoriums filled with students, write research papers that were going to be peer-reviewed by men and women a hell of a lot smarter than he was, but he couldn’t take control of a situational failure and figure out how to make it a success. Not when it came to the kids.
That didn’t bode well for his future with them.
He frowned, staring up at the living room ceiling and listening to the house settle. Flynn and Porter had left at midnight, both of them heading to the airport to red-eye it home. They’d be back in a month, or when Sunday was released from rehab. Whichever came first.
And, Sullivan? He should have been sleeping, because mornings came quickly when there was a baby in the house. Instead, he was lying on the living room couch, watching through the window as the moon drifted lazily toward the horizon and thinking about all the ways he might fail his brother’s kids.
A floorboard creaked in the upstairs hall, and he tensed, expecting to hear Moisey screaming or Twila sneaking to her parents’ room to grab a book from one of the shelves. She’d been doing that weekly, picking one of the ancient tomes that either Sunday or Matt had collected. He’d looked through the leather-bound first editions of books that were published in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Some of them had hand-colored illustrations. Some had old maps folded up in their pages. They weren’t cheap yard sale finds. These were masterpieces, works of art from a bygone era in the book publishing world. He didn’t think a kid Twila’s age should be rifling through them, but he hadn’t had the heart to tell her to stop.
Which seemed to be a theme with him.
He didn’t want them hurt any more than they already had been, but if he wasn’t careful he would hurt them more. There had to be boundaries. There had to be rules. There had to be structure without anger, discipline without rage. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to give those things consistently. Hell! He’d already lost his cool with Heavenly and with Rumer, and maybe that was why he was still awake. He was replaying those moments in the truck when he’d been frantic to get to Heavenly, when he’d been so terrified that words had spilled and he’d had absolutely no control over them.
The floorboards creaked again, the soft rustle of fabric drifting down the stairs. Seconds later, the loose board on the landing groaned. Someone was coming down, and that was unusual enough to bring Sullivan to his feet.
He waited, expecting a towheaded boy to appear and maybe sneak to the kitchen for an early morning snack.
Instead, Rumer was there, hurrying into the kitchen without even a glance in his direction. He heard her pad across the floor, knew she was slipping her feet into the old galoshes that were sitting near the sink in the mudroom. He imagined she was grabbing her coat, too, sliding her arms into it. Imagined her hair caught in its collar and the way it would feel to pull it out, let the silky strands slide through his fingers.
The back door opened, a cold breeze wafting from the hall that led into the kitchen. The door shut again, the quiet click fading into silence.
He should have let her be. She had a right to her time, and he had the obligation to give it to her. He’d been trying to give it to her all week—keeping his distance, letting their relationship be the professional one she seemed to want.
And, then today had happened and it had all flown out the window—every good intention, every vow that he’d respect the no-trespassing sign she wore on her heart. Gone. Just as quickly as sunlight at dusk. He didn’t want to try to recapture it. The truth was, there’d been a dozen times during the week when he’d wanted to walk outside with her, sit on the old swing, ask her about her day. There’d been more than a dozen times when he’d heard her voice or her laughter and thought about how easy it would be to love her.
Love?
That was a new one. It sure as heck wasn’t something he’d ever wanted or needed in his life, but he could feel it there. Just on the other side of where he stood, and if he let himself, he knew he could reach out and grab hold of it.
“Geez,” he whispered, walking to the window and staring out into the yard. His life had become a colossal mess of emotional crap that he had absolutely no experience dealing with, and he could only blame one person for that.
“Thanks a hell of a lot, Matt,” he whispered, and he could swear he heard his brother laugh.
The landing creaked again, and he whirled around not sure what he expected to see—maybe Matthias’s ghost drifting toward him.
Heavenly stood at the bottom of the stairs, bare toes peeking out from a too-long nightgown, the medallion around her neck.
“Rumer’s outside,” she said as if that explained her presence.
“I know.”
“So, why are you inside?”
“I’m giving her space?”
“To decide she’s going to leave us?” she asked, sitting on the bottom step and tapping her toes on the wood floor.
“She always leaves on Saturday,” he reminded her, taking a seat beside her.
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Want to explain what you do mean?”
“The kids have already lost a lot of things. They lost Matt. They lost Sunday.”
“Sunday isn’t lost.”
“Yeah. She is. Who knows if she’ll ever find her way back?” She picked at a thread on her sleeve and didn’t meet his eyes. “So, that’s the thing. She’s lost, and the kids don’t need to lose someone else. They like Rumer, and if she suddenly decides not to work here anymore, they’re going to be really upset.”
The kids? Or you? he almost asked.
“Okay,” he said instead, and she finally looked up, her face a pale oval in the moonlight that seeped through the window.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that I understand what you’re saying to me.”
“I’d rather you understand that Rumer can’t walk off and leave and not come back. The kids would be heartbroken.”
“I know, but I can’t control what other people do. I can only control what I do. I can’t make promises that someone else will stick around, but I can promise that I will.”
“Right,” she snorted, pulling her knees up to her chest, and resting her chin on them. “In all my life, I’ve never known one person who hasn’t left. I’ve never known one person who’s kept a promise, either.”
“You’ve only been alive for thirteen years, so maybe your experience is limited.”
“From where I’m sitting, thirteen years seems like a very long time.” She sighed. “I wish you’d go out and talk to her.”
“Rumer?”
“Who else?”
“I think she wants to be alone.”
“That’s the problem with the world. People think they know things when they don’t, and they act stupid because of it. Like today when I thought I knew how to get to the rehab center. I could have died out there all because I thought I knew something that I didn’t.”
“I’m glad you learned from the experience, but I doubt I’m going to die if I don’t walk outside and talk to Rumer,” he said wryly.
“Do you really want to take the chance?” she responded, and he laughed.
“No. I guess I don’t. So, how about you go up to bed, and I’ll go outside?” Because, why not? He’d been thinking about following Rumer anyway. Thinking about walking through the field with her as the moon set, thinking about the way the darkness would cast shadows on her curly hair, cut deep grooves beneath her cheekbones, contour the angle of her jaw and highlight the softness of her lips.
“Go outside? Or go outside and talk to Rumer?”
“Both.”
“Humph,” she responded.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I think you’re a chicken, and that you’ll probably go outside and stand there hoping something wonderful will happen.”
“I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a chicken.” He pulled her to her feet. “Go on to bed before the other kids wake up. It’ll be a heck of a lot harder to talk to Rumer if they’re all running around in the yard.”
She retreated up the stairs, and he walked into the kitchen, grabbing his jacket from the hook near the back door.
He slid into it as he stepped outside, then stood on the back stoop and scanned the yard, the field, the gravel driveway. He didn’t see Rumer, and he wasn’t going to call for her and risk waking the other kids.
He also wasn’t going to stand there waiting for something wonderful to happen. Life didn’t work like that. It didn’t plop success and happiness in a person’s lap. You went after things or you didn’t. You waited for opportunities or you created them. He lectured his students about that all the time, because they were artists with big dreams and, often, not a lot of follow-through.
He was an artist, too. A dreamer.
And, a realist.
Waiting around had never been in his nature.
He stepped into the yard and was walking toward the back field when he heard the quiet groan of old metal and the dry rustle of dead leaves. He knew the sound. He heard it every day when the boys played on the old tree swing.
He switched directions, rounding the side of the house, the old elm tree coming into view.
Rumer was there, sitting on the swing, her face hidden by the shadows of the tree. She looked lonely, dwarfed by the ancient elm, sitting in the darkness with filtered moonlight dappling the ground near her feet.
She must have seen him coming, because she stood, took a step toward him, and stopped. As if she were afraid to move any closer and just as afraid to move away.
“Sullivan,” she said. Just that. Just his name, but he heard fear and worry and hope in her voice. “What are you doing out here?”
“I guess the same thing as you. Thinking.”
“About?”
“Us.” He moved closer, and he could see the details of her face—the sharp angle of her jaw, the soft curve of her ear, the dark sweep of her lashes as she blinked.
“I didn’t realize there was an us.”
“Liar.” He touched her cheek, traced a line from there to the corner of her mouth, his blood heating, everything in him wanting to pull her into his arms.
“Maybe,” she admitted.
“What are you afraid will happen if there is?” he asked, sitting down on the old wood swing, letting cold air cool the fire that was racing through his blood.
“The same thing that has happened to every relationship I’ve ever been in. It will end.”
“It could end,” he responded honestly, because he’d never let himself get this deep. He’d never allowed himself to feel what he felt when he was with her. “But, maybe it won’t.”
“I’m not big into maybes,” she said.
“And, I’m not big into farms and kids and teenage angst, but here I am.”
“You didn’t have a choice.”
“Of course I did. There were people who would have taken the kids while Sunday recovered. This is that kind of town, and they’re those kinds of people. But, the kids would have been parceled out in groups of two, living apart for however long things stretched on. That’s not what my brother or Sunday would have wanted, so I made my choice. I guess you’ll have to make yours.”
“Make it? I’m here, aren’t I?”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
“What I know is that yesterday was a long day. Today will be too. I need to get some sleep.”
“You weren’t worrying about that while you were sitting on this swing looking like the woman from that song Heavenly sang.”
“A woman singing under a tree?” She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “If I’d been doing that, you’d have thought a cat was yowling at the moon. My singing voice is that good.”
“Not a woman singing,” he responded, ignoring the joke. “A woman waiting for her dreams to come true.”
“What dreams?” she scoffed. “That my knight in shining armor will come running to my rescue? That he’ll slay the beasts and kill the monsters and protect me from the wicked queen?”
“You don’t need a knight in shining armor. You know damn well how to rescue yourself from the monster and the beasts and wicked queens.”
“What else is there to dream about, Sullivan?” she asked wearily, crossing the space between them and settling on the swing’s bench seat. It was small, but she managed not to touch him.
Not a brush of the arm or shoulder or thigh, the distance as purposeful as the stiff, tense way she held herself.
“Quiet walks through yellow fields of wheatgrass?” he suggested. “Dances in the moonlight when no one is watching? A million moments of silence and a million more of laughter?”
“Just stop, okay?” she whispered, and he could hear the brokenness in her voice.
“I didn’t want this, either,” he replied. “I wasn’t looking for it, but it’s here, and I’m not going to walk away from it. Not unless you ask me to.”
She didn’t respond to that, didn’t tell him to go and didn’t ask him to stay. He thought that was it. The end before they’d even had a beginning.
And, then she sagged toward him, her shoulder bumping his as she swiped a hand across her face.
He saw the tears then, silvery lines on her pale skin.
“Don’t cry,” he murmured, sliding his arm around her waist, pulling her into his side, sitting there with her as a gentle breeze rustled the dead leaves and whistled under the eaves of the old farmhouse.