Currant Creek Valley

chapter SEVENTEEN



“EVERYTHING LOOKS spectacular,” she said to Evie Thorne, head of the decorating committee for the gala a few hours later. “You’ve really outdone yourself this year.”

“Thanks, Alex. I don’t know what I would have done without your help. All of you.” Evie’s smile encompassed her committee: Maura, Mary Ella, Angie, Charlotte. Even Ruth Tatum, Claire’s mother, was there, though she had grumped through the last hour of hanging tea-light lanterns throughout the ballroom.

Though she was crazy-worried about Caroline, Alex had done her best to put her concerns away for now and concentrate on the job at hand. Helen had assured her Caroline was sleeping peacefully after reluctantly agreeing to take pain medication.

At this point, Alex couldn’t do anything to help and Helen had urged her to continue on with the rest of her Giving Hope Day responsibilities.

She had a sudden, fervent wish that Brodie hadn’t decided to close the restaurant to give his employees the chance to participate in the day of service. She desperately needed the distraction and comfort she found in a kitchen.

“She wouldn’t want you to miss the whole day, moping over her. Now go,” Helen had insisted.

She hadn’t known what else to do but obey. At least she was surrounded by dear friends, all of whom continued to cast worried looks her way.

“Is there anything else we need to do?” she asked Evie.

“Not a thing, except I’m ordering everybody to get out of here and go change for the benefit.”

“I understand one of us here has a hot date.” Maura grinned. “Charlotte’s going out with your sexy carpenter.”

“He’s not my carpenter,” Alex said sharply. Too sharply, she realized, when her mother and Maura both gave her careful looks.

“He finished the kitchen at the restaurant,” Evie said with a teasing smile. “That makes him yours, doesn’t it?”

“Technically, that makes him Brodie’s carpenter,” she muttered.

“I guess that’s true,” Evie said. “Brodie has so many projects going right now, he’d probably like to keep Sam on permanent salary. He’s got several other jobs lined up once he finishes the work at the recreation center. That’s what happens when you do good work. Everybody wants a piece of you.”

Couldn’t she go anywhere without the conversation coming back to Sam?

“I hope you have a fantastic time, Charlotte,” she said firmly.

Her pretty features colored but her eyes sparkled and she somehow managed to look embarrassed and excited at the same time. Evie knew she was trying to reach out of her comfort zone socially. About time, she thought.

“It should be fun. Most of the guys in town still look at me as, well, the way I used to be. It’s refreshing to meet someone who has no preconceptions.”

Charlotte was one of the nicest people Alex knew and she had worked so hard to remake herself over the past few years. Around their circle of friends, she was warm and bright and funny but she tended to draw into herself when others were around.

“I’m a little nervous, if you want the truth,” Charlotte said.

“You’ll have a great time,” Alex said.

“Sam’s really nice,” Evie added. “He comes off as gruff sometimes but it’s all bluster.”

Sam? Gruff? She hadn’t seen that side of him, she supposed. From the moment they had met, that painfully embarrassing encounter at the restaurant when she had thought he was breaking in, he had been wry and quick-witted and extremely sexy but not at all taciturn.

Did he show a different side to her than he did to everybody else?

She really didn’t want to sit here and listen to her friends psych Charlotte up for her date with the man Alex was in lo—er, seriously lusted after.

“I should probably run. I’m going to swing by and check on Caroline.”

“I’ll walk out with you,” Charlotte said. “I need to pick up the dress I’m wearing at the boutique. I had to go shopping. Nothing I had in my closet fit.”

She received a round of high-fives for that, further evidence of how far she had come. Losing eighty pounds tended to completely change a person’s outlook. Alex could remember when Charlotte used to hate shopping for clothes, but now it was one of her favorite things.

She was a terrible person, Alex thought, as they walked out of the Silver Strike Lodge to the parking lot some distance away.

Charlotte was a close friend and Alex ought to be jumping handsprings for her that she had a date with a great guy she liked.

She was the one who had suggested Charlotte was perfect for Sam, right? And she was. He and Ethan both needed somebody just like her—somebody giving and loving who could nurture them.

Instead, just the thought of them together made her want to cry.

She was only emotional because of Caroline, she told herself, but the explanation rang hollow.

“Are you sure you don’t mind, Alex?” Charlotte asked when they walked outside the lodge. “That I’m going to the gala with Sam, I mean?”

Uh. She scrambled for some way to respond and tried to put on a suitably bewildered expression. “Mind? Why on earth would I mind?”

“I don’t know. I just...” Charlotte’s voice trailed off and she chewed her lip, one old habit she hadn’t managed to break. “I heard Claire say something to Maura earlier today, that’s all. About you and Sam. Going out a few times.”

She could feel her face go hot. “We hung out a few times, that’s all. You know how I am. Never happy for long with one guy.”

As much as she hated that mostly unearned reputation and the jokes her friends sometimes made at her expense, in this case it came in handy.

Charlotte scrutinized her carefully and she wondered if she had been too quick, too hearty, with her answer. “Are you sure? I like Sam, of course, I mean, who wouldn’t? He’s a great father, a hard worker, a decorated war hero.”

“Yes. He is.” And a fantastic kisser. Don’t forget that part.

“That’s how we met, actually,” Charlotte went on. “I knew he used to be in the army and I thought maybe he could have some suggestions for how to deal with Dylan.”

“Oh. Of course. Good idea. How is Dylan lately? I haven’t seen him around.”

“Still struggling.” Charlotte’s eyes filled with sorrow. “He’s moved into that awful cabin in Snowflake Canyon. All he does is sit around collecting his veteran benefits and drinking and slamming the door on us when we try to go talk to him.”

“I’m sorry.” Today, with her emotions so close to the surface, she wanted to cry for all that wasted potential. Dylan had been smart and fun, a natural leader.

Why did there have to be so damn much pain in the world?

Life was so much easier when she could shut it all out, keep herself from caring.

“He just doesn’t seem to be getting better, you know? He needs some kind of purpose. I don’t know, I thought maybe Sam might have some advice for how to shake him out of it. Soldier to soldier, you know? He agreed to introduce himself.”

“Did he?”

She wanted to tell Charlotte right now to stop talking. She didn’t want to hear more about the wonderful Sam Delgado, but at the same time she wanted to know everything.

Charlotte nodded, her smile soft. “He managed to track him down at the liquor store and struck up a conversation. And, get this, he offered Dylan a job on his construction crew! Can you believe that? A one-armed, half-blind carpenter?”

“Of course he did.”

Alex began to laugh and once she started, she couldn’t seem to stop. Charlotte was giving her a very concerned look, probably ready to call for the paramedics and a straitjacket, but the laughter still bubbled out.

She couldn’t tell her friend she was only laughing to keep from bursting into sobs.

What could she do with a man like Sam Delgado except love him, whether she wanted to or not?

“Dylan turned him down, of course,” Charlotte said after a moment when Alex’s laughter subsided. “Quite rudely, from what I understand. I have a feeling that won’t stop Sam.”

“He’s all about persistence, isn’t he?”

“Yes.” Charlotte nibbled her lip again. “Just so you know, I’m the one who invited him to go to the gala tonight. Sort of my way of thanking him for going out of his way to reach out to Dylan and, I don’t know, maybe help Sam settle in to Hope’s Crossing. And, to be honest, because I like him.”

“What’s not to like? He’s a wonderful guy.”

Charlotte pushed a stray lock of hair from her face and Alex wondered at the self-control it must take for her friend to run the best handmade candy store in Colorado and still lose all that weight.

“I do like Sam but...the thing is, I care about our friendship more. I’m new to the whole dating world, yeah, but I’m pretty sure poaching a good friend’s man is a no-no.”

With a few words, she could break up this budding relationship. Charlotte would probably still keep her date for tonight—at this late hour, it would be too rude to break it—but she certainly wouldn’t go out with Sam again.

She thought about it. For a few moments, she was unbelievably tempted. If she told Charlotte she had feelings for Sam, she knew her friend would back off and slip out of the picture without a second thought.

But because she did have feelings for Sam and loved Charlotte dearly, too, she couldn’t do it. She cared about both of them. If they had a chance to find happiness together, she couldn’t be the one to interfere. Even if it seared her insides.

“You’re not poaching anything,” she managed to say without a single quiver in her voice. “Sam is his own man, free to go out with anybody he wants. I’m just thrilled he has the good taste to recognize how fantastic you are.”

“Are you sure?” Charlotte asked, her brow still furrowed with concern.

What more did she need, for crying out loud? A freaking lie detector test?

“Positive,” she answered, with as much sincerity as she could muster. She was trying to come up with something else she could say that might convince Charlotte she had no claim on Sam when her cell phone rang.

Normally she wouldn’t have considered answering it in the middle of an important conversation like this one, but sudden fear clutched at her.

Caroline.

“Hello?” she asked, her stomach suddenly roiling.

“Alex, it’s Helen.”

She had known. Somehow, she had known.

“Caroline is slipping in and out of consciousness,” the hospice nurse said. “You need to come now if you want to say goodbye.”

* * *

“ARE YOU SURE you’re going to be okay to drive home? It’s late.”

Caroline’s big grandfather clock had chimed 1:00 a.m. about ten minutes earlier. The time of death was actually ten-thirty but it had taken all this time to handle the formalities, first the doctor and then the funeral home director.

“I’m fine,” Alex answered, squeezing the hand of the hospice nurse. “Thank you, for everything. You’re a hero.”

Helen managed a watery smile. She had known Caroline all her life, too, and cared for her deeply, especially these last few months of providing end-of-life treatment.

“Get some sleep,” Alex said.

“You, too, dear.”

She nodded, though she knew sleep would be a long time away. She felt scoured raw, like one of the pans in her kitchen.

She locked Caroline’s door with the key, wishing her son had been able to make it back from Japan for the end, but it had happened so suddenly.

One moment Caroline was drinking lemonade on her porch, the next it seemed she was clasping Alex’s hand to say a final goodbye.

At least Ross had spent several days with his mother a few months earlier. It was probably better that way, so he could remember his mother as she had been most of his life instead of the frail shadow she had become at the end.

She walked toward her vehicle down from the porch steps Sam had only just fixed. The storm of the afternoon had blown away and the night was starry and bright, sweet with the promise of summer.

She wanted to walk. To just head off through the darkened streets of Hope’s Crossing and walk and walk and walk until this pain eased, but her car was here and if she left it, she would have to arrange a way to pick it up.

And her dog had been alone far too long today, though she had called one of her neighbors to let him out a few hours ago.

Her eyes felt gritty and every muscle in her body throbbed with fatigue.

As hard as the long vigil had seemed, she was deeply grateful she had been there at the end.

Caroline’s last words seemed to echo through her. “Go. Live.” She had thought that was the last thing Caroline could say but she had added, barely audible, one word.

“Love.”

Now, remembering, the tears she had fought back all evening burst through and trickled down her cheeks as she drove through the empty streets of Hope’s Crossing.

Not completely empty. On Willow Creek Road, on her way to her house, she saw a pickup truck parked in front of Charlotte’s house.

Sam.

A quick glance up on Charlotte’s doorstep showed her two people, shadows, really, wrapped in an embrace.

She had to jerk her gaze back to the road before she drove into a telephone pole.

She didn’t think it was possible but she still had room for fresh pain to slice through the grief.

Once when she had been eight, she had broken her arm riding her bike down the hilly street behind their house. Two weeks after the cast came off, she had been jumping on the trampoline in the backyard and had fallen on it, breaking it again. The pain the second time had been far worse because the bone and sinews had still been damaged from the first break.

Her heart had been broken once, so long ago she could now barely remember it.

This time, she knew, the pain would be worse. Much worse.

Charlotte and Sam were perfect for each other but seeing them together would hurt worse than breaking her arm again and again.

* * *

SAM KEPT ONE EYE on the time while he navigated through summer traffic toward the community center where he was supposed to have picked up Ethan from his summer art camp ten minutes ago.

He pulled around an RV going about five miles an hour as its driver looked for an elusive parking space. Ahead of it was a minivan with a luggage carrier on the top, probably with the same goal.

The summer tourist season was in full swing, making him grateful he had spent a few months in town during the shoulder months. Though the big tourist draw was the winter snow, summer in the area still offered a bounty of recreational activities, from fishing and camping to mountain biking and kayaking.

So far he mostly had found the increasing crowds manageable, a few annoying moose jams aside. He wasn’t particularly looking forward to the crush in winter and the inevitable invasion but he figured by then he might be able to approach it with the equanimity of the other locals—that the tourists poured money into the economy, which helped build roads and schools and community centers for the year-round residents.

He was now twelve minutes late. In three more minutes, the art camp organizers would probably start calling to look for him.

He had fully intended to leave work earlier but at the last minute, Harry Lange had dropped by the recreation-center site, nearly complete, and he hadn’t been able to extricate himself until now.

He really had to get this whole child-care thing figured out. Finding full-time help with Ethan had turned into a bigger challenge than he had expected, mainly because his house still wasn’t at all in optimal condition, though he wanted to think he had made progress.

Meantime, for the past two weeks since Ethan had come home, he had made do with this summer camp and a crowded day-care facility Ethan wasn’t very crazy about.

A few times, he had ended up taking Ethan along with him if a job site was safe enough for a seven-year-old. The situation was reaching the critical stage, though.

He pulled up in front of the aging community center, just down the road from the high school. The new recreation center in the canyon wasn’t really intended to replace this one but to augment the facilities. This one had a much more convenient location to town but his construction eye picked up various areas of the building that looked in need of attention, specifically the roof and new windows.

His vague worry that he would find Ethan sitting alone on the steps of the building, forlorn and afraid he had been forgotten, didn’t materialize. Instead, he found his son deep in animated conversation with Claire McKnight and her son, Owen, a few years older than Ethan.

Ethan was telling a story, apparently, with broad hand gestures and exaggerated expressions. Both Owen and Claire were laughing at whatever he said, which warmed Sam’s heart.

Even with the child-care chaos, his son had adapted remarkably well to their new situation here in Hope’s Crossing.

Ethan missed Nick and Cheri and their children, who had played such an important part in their lives since Kelli’s death, but he seemed to be embracing this new phase easily. Sam couldn’t help being deeply relieved to know his huge gamble seemed to be paying off.

“Hi, Dad!” Ethan exclaimed when he spotted him. His son grinned and ran to him, wrapping his arms around Sam’s waist, and the tension that came from dealing with contractors and job headaches and tourist traffic miraculously dissipated.

“Hey, there, kiddo. Did you have a good day?”

“Yes! I made a really cool bowl with a picture of a fish on it—I painted an Atlantic salmon—and it’s going to be fired in a real kiln tonight.”

“Wow. Very cool. Hi, Claire. Owen.”

“Hi, Mr. Delgado,” Owen said politely.

“Hi, Sam.”

To his delight, Claire gave him a hug in greeting around the bulk of her pregnant belly. The warm, generous welcome of so many in town still took him by surprise.

“Tell me you’re not running the art camp, along with everything else in town,” he said.

She looked slightly aghast at the idea. “Oh, my word, no. I was just picking up Owen. He’s been coming to the art camp every year since he was old enough and loves it.”

“This year we’ve been doing some computer animation. It’s very cool!”

“Great.”

Seeing Claire made him automatically think of Alexandra and he wanted to ask how she was doing. He hadn’t seen her since the memorial service for her friend Caroline the week before.

He had felt a little weird about going since he didn’t really know the woman, had only met her the very day of her death, but he had decided to attend for Alexandra’s sake, if nothing else.

She had looked pale and distant; her features that normally glowed with life had been tight and withdrawn. He had tried several times to talk to her, to convey his sympathies, but she had studiously avoided him.

Frustrated and, yes, rather hurt that she would turn away the comfort he wanted to offer, he had finally reminded himself everyone grieved differently. He certainly had learned that after Kelli’s death.

On some days after his wife’s funeral, he had wanted to sit on the couch and flip aimlessly through channels on the television so he didn’t have to think. Others, he had to throw himself into frenzied work to keep the gnawing pain away.

He had a feeling Alexandra was in the last camp. She hadn’t been around her house much, which meant she was probably working most of the time. Their disparate work schedules complicated the situation—he generally worked early in the morning until late afternoon and she went into work early afternoons until late at night at the restaurant, which made it difficult to connect, even if she had wanted to.

Which she plainly didn’t.

The two boys were talking about some of the things they enjoyed in art camp. Because of their age difference, they were apparently on different tracks and Owen was telling Ethan about some of the activities he could look forward to in future years. He found it curious that Ethan had always been comfortable talking with adults or older peers, though he sometimes grew impatient and frustrated with children his own age.

The boys’ conversation gave him the chance to speak more directly to Claire than he might have if Owen and Ethan had been paying attention to them.

“How is Alexandra doing?” he finally asked. “I’ve tried to talk to her since the memorial service for Mrs. Bybee but I can’t seem to run her to ground.”

Concern darkened her eyes. “She tries to hide it and go on like nothing is wrong but she’s pretty broken up inside. She and Caroline were very close. Alex even lived in Caro’s basement when she came back from Europe. I haven’t seen her like this in a long time, maybe even since her dad left.”

“Her dad left?” He frowned, feeling stupid for his ignorance. Why hadn’t she told him about such a crucial part of her life?

Claire also seemed surprised he didn’t know. “She never told you the gory details?”

“No.”

“Well, I suppose I should respect her decision not to share it.”

She paused, her mouth twisted into a frown. “On the other hand, it’s not exactly some kind of secret, since it affected the whole family, so why not?”

Yes. Why not? he wanted to say. Any tidbit of information he could find out about Alexandra might help him understand why she struggled so hard to keep him away.

“Alex and I were in high school when he left. Her dad was a high school science teacher and very well respected in town. One day, out of the blue, he just decided he didn’t want to be tied down by a family anymore. Call it a midlife crisis or whatever but James McKnight decided he wanted to pursue his professional dreams and he didn’t think he could do that while he was stuck in Hope’s Crossing raising six children and teaching surly teenagers about protons and neutrons. He dropped everything and left to take a job on an archaeology dig near Mesa Verde. He never came back and was killed a few years later in a site accident.”

He stared at Claire. He didn’t think she would make up a story but he could hardly believe such a thing could be true. “How could someone as great as Mary Ella be married to such an ass?”

She laughed. “That is a darn good question, Sam. Actually, he was a good husband and great father through most of Alex’s childhood. He was really funny and nice. I used to love going to their house because it was so...different from my own. They were always laughing about something.”

“What happened? Why would he just walk away from that?”

“What makes any man decide to make choices that end up hurting people he is supposed to care about? Ego? Narcissism? Who knows? I haven’t ruled out a brain tumor, as crazy as that sounds.”

Claire looked pensive and sad and her hand automatically went to her abdomen. Her husband, Alexandra’s brother, had been affected by the same thing, he realized.

“Alex took it hard. All of them did, but Alex and James had been really close. She was the youngest daughter and was really a daddy’s girl. For a long time, she shut everybody out. I’m not sure she’s ever really gotten over it, if you want the truth.”

That explained so very much about Alexandra. He had asked her once if she was blaming him for somebody else’s sins. Her father’s abandonment must have devastated her at such a crucial point in her adolescence when she had most needed the example of a good, strong man in her life.

“I love Alex dearly, don’t get me wrong, but she can be the most stubborn person on the planet,” Claire continued. “I mean, why can’t she see that by running away now, she’s only repeating her father’s stupid mistakes?”

It took a moment for her words to penetrate his thick skull. “Whoa. Wait a minute. What did you say? Who’s running away?”

Claire stared at him. “Alex. I’m sorry. I thought you would have heard by now. She’s all but accepted a job to run a restaurant in Park City.”

The ground seemed to shift under his feet and he almost swayed with it. He couldn’t have heard her right. She couldn’t be leaving! “What about Brazen? She loves that place.”

“She does,” Claire agreed. “None of us can figure out what’s going on. She’s been so excited about the restaurant opening. Her whole life, all her years of preparation and training, have been devoted to that goal. And the restaurant is doing great, exceeding even Brodie’s expectations, with almost universally glowing reviews. Now, just a month after it opened, all she will say is she’s ready for the next challenge.”

“You’re not joking. She’s really leaving.” He couldn’t comprehend it.

“She says she is. I don’t know what she thinks she’ll find in Utah that she can’t have here in Hope’s Crossing.”

Once when he was in Afghanistan in a house-to-house raid for insurgents, a flash-bang grenade had gone off about three feet from him, leaving him nauseous and unable to see or hear or think for a good two minutes.

Yeah. This was worse.

Through his shock, he looked at his relaxed, happy son talking to Owen, at the town that had welcomed them with its clean streets, well-kept houses and historic streetlamps, all sheltered by the magnificent mountains.

“You don’t know why?” he managed to ask.

“Not really. I don’t know if it’s because of Caroline’s death or if something else happened. For all I know, it could be a combination of things. She won’t say. I’m her best friend and she probably tells me more than anyone else but she still keeps part of herself separate. All I know is that she told Brodie she would work at Brazen for another month while she trains one of her sous-chefs to take over and then she’s leaving. She’s even started looking for a renter for her house.”

She loved that house. She loved her restaurant, this town, her family. Why would she walk away from all of it?

He didn’t want to be a narcissistic idiot like her father but he had to wonder if it had anything to do with him and the way he had pushed her so hard to open her heart to him.

He released a heavy breath.

He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he was responsible for driving her away. He had no idea how but he was going to have to find her and make her tell him the truth.

What, exactly, he would do then, he had no idea.