True Love at Silver Creek Ranch

Chapter Twenty-two

To Adam’s surprise, a lot of people showed up to work on the house being renovated for Scott Huang and his family. Brooke brought his grandma, who’d made pans of ziti to serve everyone dinner. In her wig she wore barrettes made of Italian flags for the Italian dinner. Adam liked his grandma’s eccentricities—she was never boring.

He watched her as she leaned on her cane and looked over everything for the meal to be served later. He kissed her brow when she finally stood still long enough.

Grandma Palmer arched a surprised look at him. “What was that for?”

He shrugged, and she smiled.

Tyler and Steph arrived next, and Steph ended up being the most proficient with tools, after spending much of her life helping her dad at both the ranch and the Sweetheart Inn. She and Tyler went into the basement to help build storage shelves.

Tyler stuck his head past the basement door and said to Adam, “When my brother gets here, could you send him down?”

When a half hour went by, Adam came out of the master bedroom closet to find Tyler standing in the window, looking out at the storm.

“He didn’t come yet?” Tyler asked, eyes narrowed, mouth pursed.

Adam shook his head. “Maybe he got held up by the weather.”

Tyler arched a brow, and said with sarcasm, “You may have been gone for ten years, but the rest of us are pretty good drivers in the snow.”

“And you with all your experience,” Adam said with a straight face.

But Tyler didn’t crack a smile.

“Give him some time.” Adam put a hand on Tyler’s bony shoulder.

The kid nodded.

An hour and a half later, everyone gathered in the kitchen to get in line for some of Grandma Palmer’s legendary ziti. Adam smiled at the jostling people, feeling far more comfortable than he had just weeks ago. And then he spotted Brooke in the living room staring out the window just as Tyler had.

Adam frowned. “Have you seen Tyler?”

Brooke shook her head. “He and Steph are gone.”

He tensed, looking back outside, where he couldn’t even see the other side of the street. “Are you certain?”

“Coach saw him leave, and didn’t think anything about it. Steph was driving. Do you think . . . ?”

“He went to find his brother,” Adam said with certainty. His stomach gave a twist. “It was my idea for him to bring Cody here, and Cody let him down.”

“Cody lets him down all the time, Adam,” Brooke said. “This isn’t anything new.”

He shook his head. “Something was different this time. Tyler seemed determined to help, or to stop Cody from ruining his life for good. And now he’s done something reckless—going out in this mess,” he said, pointing toward the window.

“Steph’s a good driver, with a solid pickup. But I’ll try her cell, just in case.”

Adam was standing close enough to Brooke that he could hear as it went to voice mail. He swore softly.

“They might have bad reception,” she said. “It happens all the time.”

They both knew the reception would be fine if the teenagers had stayed in Valentine. They were either deliberately not answering—or they’d left town in search of Cody.

“Adam?” Grandma Palmer called, limping into the living room. “You two should get in line before it’s all gone.”

“I’m going to find Tyler, Grandma,” he said, rooting through the coats tossed on an empty box until he found his. “I’ll be back soon.”

“I’m coming, too,” Brooke said.

“I already found your coat.”

Driving had gotten far worse in the last two hours, so he went as slow as he could, heading toward the Sweetheart Inn first, to look for Steph’s truck.

“You have a death grip on the wheel,” Brooke said. “Cut yourself some slack. You aren’t responsible for all the things that have happened to Tyler.”

“I wanted to give him the help I got,” Adam said between gritted teeth. “But maybe I made a mistake.” He told her about seeing Tyler joyriding one of the Thalbergs’ ATVs.

She barely reacted. “So? You offered him a second chance, and we were able to be of some help. He told you things he never told anyone else, right?”

He nodded, but it didn’t make him feel better. Tyler was out there somewhere, trying to stop his brother from doing—something. Cody’s posse had to be far worse than Tyler’s high-school friends.

When they didn’t find Steph’s truck at the inn, Brooke called the ranch, using a barrel-racing lesson as an excuse. They didn’t want to worry anyone just yet. But Steph’s mom said she was at the renovation project.

“Do you know where Tyler lives?” Adam asked Brooke.

She nodded.

“Guide me there.”

Steph’s pickup wasn’t in the parking lot of the apartment complex either.

He could have banged his head against the steering wheel in frustration. “Any idea where the bad kids hang out now?”

“Oh, hell, the town isn’t very big,” she said. “Let’s drive up and down the streets and look for her pickup.”

But it was as if Tyler and Steph had simply disappeared. There were few cars on the road with the snow so bad.

“They aren’t here,” Adam admitted at last, pulling over to the side of the road near the only McDonald’s in town.

“They wouldn’t have been so foolish as to go out on the highway in this storm,” Brooke said, pointing to Highway 82 just ahead.

“There was an intensity about him tonight,” he insisted. “He’s not letting this go. So if he was following his brother out of town, where would he go?”

“I can’t believe he’d go to Aspen. What would be there for Cody? It’s not like he’s a thief looking for rich fools to fleece.”

“Then we go the other way, to Basalt. I just can’t sit and wait.”

Leaving the shelter of the town buildings and entering the full force of the storm only made him even more aware of the danger Tyler and Steph could be in. They crept along the road well below the speed limit, flashers on, the window defrost blasting them in the face with heat. But that was the only way to keep the windshield from icing over. Snow blew directly into the headlights, distorting their perception like some kind of video game.

Neither of them spoke, as he needed all his concentration to stay on the slippery road. Occasionally they passed a car creeping along even slower than they were, but it was never Steph’s pickup.

“What’s that?” Brooke demanded, pointing ahead.

Through the snow, he could see the red flash of a flare on the far side of the highway.

“I think it’s an accident,” she said quietly.

Adam gripped the wheel even tighter. As they got closer, they could see a car’s hazard lights tilted at an awkward angle, and eventually he realized the vehicle had slid off into a ditch. A pickup. They couldn’t see inside the fogged cab, and soon had to keep driving past.

“Was that Steph’s?” he demanded.

Brooke twisted in her seat to look behind them. “It might be!”

He had to wait for the next light to make a safe U-turn without heading into a ditch themselves. It seemed to take forever to get back to the pickup, and all he could imagine was finding the kids hurt or bleeding, or—

And then the bright light of the flare finally appeared out of the swirling snow. He pulled in behind the pickup, flashing his high beams. For a moment, nothing happened, then the passenger door opened and a figure half fell, half jumped out of the tilted vehicle.

After trudging up the knee-high snow in the ditch, the person waved his arms. By their headlights, Adam could see the grinning face of Tyler.

“He looks pleased to see us,” she said dryly.

“Way too pleased.”

Adam and Brooke jumped out of their own pickup. Snow stung his face and tugged at his wool cap. He was tempted to yell out every worry, every fear, but he knew he’d only make things worse.

“Wow, are we glad you found us!” Tyler called, rubbing his arms.

Of course, his jacket couldn’t even be called a winter coat.

“Steph’s okay?” Brooke asked, speaking louder as the wind roared across the highway.

“She’s in the pickup. It’s tilted at such an angle it’s hard to get out, and it’s wet at the bottom of the ditch.” He pointed to the water that drenched him to his knees. “No point in both of us getting soaked.”

“You’ll catch pneumonia like that!” Brooke said.

“It’s warm in the cab,” Tyler insisted. “Do you have chains to pull us out?”

“What the hell happened?” Adam demanded. “Why did you drive out into this?” He flung both hands wide.

Tyler didn’t even bother to look remorseful. “I had to find my brother, to stop him doing something crazy. I mean, he disappeared every night, and wouldn’t tell me where he was going or what he was doing.”

“And did you find him?” Brooke said with exasperation, stamping her boots in the cold.

Wearing the most lighthearted grin, Tyler nodded as if he no longer had a care in the world. “He has a job! He’s been going every night, but after all his talk about making something of himself, he didn’t want me to know he was working at a fast-food place in Basalt. He was embarrassed! What an idiot!”

Adam glanced at Brooke, whose lips quivered as she strove to control a smile. “And you thought it was necessary to risk your lives to discover this tonight of all nights?” he demanded.

Tyler finally had the grace to wince and look around. “Yeah, I can see it looks pretty stupid now. And Cody meant to come to the house renovation, but he got called in to work at the last minute. I told Steph if there was any damage to the truck, I’d pay for it, though it might take me a while. I have to wait until my community service is over to get a job.”

“I’m not sure that’ll satisfy her father.”

The last of Tyler’s smile faded. “He already doesn’t like me, and he doesn’t even know Steph and I’ve been hanging together.”

“We can’t deal with that now,” Adam said. “Let’s get the chains out and see what we can do.”

It took some effort, but at last he was able to pull Steph’s pickup back onto the road. The snow had died down somewhat, but not the wind. Brooke drove the teenagers in the pickup, and Adam followed behind, alone and thinking too many crazy thoughts about everything that could have gone wrong and thanking God for seeing the kids safe.

By the time they dropped Tyler off at his mom’s, the snow had almost stopped, and Steph drove herself home, cheerfully waving good-bye to them as she passed. Adam returned the salute, shaking his head.

When he dropped Brooke off at her apartment, she gave him a quick kiss.

“Go take care of your grandma,” she murmured. “I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”

Adam drove the couple blocks back to the Huang house in a thoughtful mood. Many of the cars and pickups were gone, but Coach was still there, keeping Grandma Palmer company in the kitchen over coffee.

Coach stood up when Adam walked in, and Grandma gave him an expectant look.

“Everything okay?” Coach asked.

Adam nodded and explained what had happened.

Coach shook his head. “Fool kids. You think they’d know better, being born and raised here.”

“Teenagers don’t think things through,” Adam countered. “I know I didn’t.” He turned to his grandma. “Ready to go?”

He helped her load her ziti pans and equipment on the back bench of the truck, and once at the boardinghouse, she made him come inside to eat his missed meal. They sat together in the cheerful kitchen, listening to the wind howl.

Grandma seemed to be patiently waiting for him to speak, and though he resisted, it was like words were drawn out of him.

“My parents were only a year older than Tyler when they had me,” he said at last, using his fork to push ziti around on his plate. “There’s no maturity, no common sense at that age—and I should know.”

She sighed, cradling her mug of coffee. “Adam, you got a taste tonight of what it’s like bein’ a helpless parent. You lecture or you lead by example, you pray, you even beg, but in some ways, there’s little you can do to make certain a teenager makes the right choices. And that I understand too well. Your mother always saw me as the enemy, and that hurt more than I can say.”

She gave another sigh that ripped at his stomach.

“I know you don’t remember your grandpa, but he was good with your mom, who was twelve when he died. Nothin’ seemed right after that.”

“I’m sure the drugs didn’t help,” Adam said dryly. “Or even my birth.”

“I think there was more goin’ on,” she answered after a long pause, “maybe some kind of mental illness.”

He frowned. “I’ve never heard that before.”

“She was always unstable, but she got worse the last few years of her life, and I began to realize that maybe drugs had masked her condition. But that’s no excuse for my ignorance. She was my baby. I should have seen. Instead, I couldn’t help her, and she died too young.”

He reached across the kitchen table and squeezed her hand. “You shouldn’t carry so much guilt. She was an adult and made her own choices.”

“I could say the same to you,” she said quietly, her expression full of compassion. “And I’m not talkin’ about Tyler. I know what happened in Afghanistan.”

She brought her other hand up to encompass his. Her warmth flowed into him.

“I knew somethin’ was wrong from your first letter after the accident happened,” she continued. “When you were injured and so very silent, I wrote letters, I called, and Rosemary even found clues on the computer from newspaper articles. Yes, you were a hero to many men in the end, Adam, but the cost must have been so very difficult to bear. You don’t have to speak of it—I know you blame yourself for the terrible accident, but you gotta know that others don’t.”

“I’m trying to believe that. And I’m better, I promise.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Does Brooke know?”

“Brooke?” he asked nonchalantly.

“I may be old, but I’m not blind.”

“Apparently you’re not the only one,” he said, shaking his head with amusement. “Our secret relationship is getting not so secret.”

“That’s your business, of course. But does she know about your past?”

“I told her, yeah. But we’re not like that, Grandma. It’s . . . casual.”

She pressed her lips together, obviously hiding a smile, saying, “Uh-huh,” as if she thought him silly. “So you won’t be spendin’ your first Christmas together?”

“I—first Christmas?” he echoed.

“It’s in a few days, you know,” she said, speaking as slowly as if he were a kindergartener.

“She’ll be with her family, and I’ll be with you.”

“Well, I appreciate that, of course, but you can invite her over.”

“We haven’t talked about it yet.” He wanted to see her Christmas Day, to share the holiday. Patience, he told himself again, although right now he felt anything but.

“So what are you buyin’ her?”

“A sweater or something.”

“I see.” She raised both hands. “Far be it from me to tell you what to do, Adam Desantis. Now just sit there and let me fetch you some pie for dessert.”

“I can get it myself.” He stood up, then bent to kiss her soft cheek. “Thanks for worrying about me. I’ve caused you a lot of that over the years.”

She smiled up at him gently. “Without family to worry about, life would be empty, Adam. You remember that. I won’t be here forever, and I want to know you have a family of your own. Just be open to the possibilities.”

Brooke appeared in his mind, a flash of different images—balancing on hay bales at his side, her grin full of knowledge and certainty; riding her horse at full speed around the barrels; the way her face lit with excitement when she worked with the kids; and lastly, when she lay beneath him in bed, soft and womanly and vulnerable.

He’d wondered if he was falling in love with her, but there was no lying to himself anymore. He did love her. Now to find the best way to tell her.