Wild Card (North Ridge #1)

“I love horses,” she says, eyes bright. They’re so blue, bluer than the summer sky. “I’ll ask my parents later.” Her eyes dart to them and she watches for a moment, almost fearfully.

I try to give her a smile of encouragement but just like that, her eyes stop shining and she grows quiet again. I decide to make it my mission to get her over riding one day. Maybe Jeanine or my dad or grandpa can call up Rachel’s parents and ask. After this, they’d have to let us be friends.

After dinner is over and dessert is served (homemade pumpkin pie, my favorite!), Jeanine comes back over to our little table and crouches down between us. She holds out a wishbone.

“This is the turkey’s wishbone,” she says. “I dried it in the oven while we were eating so it’s easier to break. Have you done this before, Rachel?”

Rachel shakes her head, staring at the wishbone curiously. I’ve done it a few times, but usually my brothers fight for it first and I’ve never had the bigger part, which means my wishes have never come true.

“The wishbone,” Jeanine explains kindly, “is magic. What happens is you think of a wish in your head, something your heart really, really wants, then you both grasp one end of the bone and pull toward yourself until it breaks. Whoever has the bigger piece, their wish will come true. If it breaks evenly, both your wishes will come true. But you must never tell anyone your wish until after it comes true. Okay?”

We both nod and Jeanine leaves, squeezing my shoulder as she goes.

Rachel and I both take one end of the bone.

I close my eyes briefly and I listen to my heart and what it’s saying and I hope and pray and wish with all my might.

I pull.

She pulls.

I open my eyes.

I have the bigger half.

For a second I feel like laughing with joy, then I see how sad and disappointed Rachel looks. She was really counting on that wish.

I want to tell her that it’s her wish that counts more than anything, that if I could give her mine and still have it come true, I would.

But the thing is…my wish would help us both.

I just have to wait for it to come true.





4





Rachel





“Did you scare Shane off already?” Hank asks me as I step inside the Nelson’s home. He and my mother are sitting at the kitchen table, both having a glass of wine. I can hear someone puttering around in the kitchen. It looks the same as it always did, warm wooden floors, faded floral yellow wallpaper, horseshoes and steer horns and a slew of pictures hanging in tiny brass frames, a tattered rocking horse in the corner.

“He said he’s going to fill the car up with gas,” I say as casually as I can muster. “And for you to save him dinner.”

My mother smiles at Hank. “He’s such a good boy.”

My eyes narrow briefly. It seems like my mother forgot what happened between us. I guess for some people, six years is long enough to erase all the ugly bits. I can only hope that hasn’t applied to the way she feels about my father.

“He is good,” Hank says gruffly, as if he doesn’t want to admit it. Hank has always meant well and has a good heart, but I’ve seen how he is with his sons. There’s some real tough love going on, but it seems to work since all his boys were raised well.

But if Shane is so good, why did he leave you like that?

Why did he tell you that he never loved you?

Why did he tell you he’d grown bored of you?

Why did he say the town would be a better place if I wasn’t in it?

I remember that night like it was yesterday, the night where my heart bled out. I took that wishbone necklace he got me for my sixteenth birthday and threw it in his face in front of everyone. I stared into the eyes of my love as they became the eyes of a stranger.

Shane didn’t just break up with me, he pushed me away and tried to destroy me.

I’ll never forget that, even if everyone else here already has.

God, I almost wish I could go back outside and do that scene with him over again to really try and hit him where it hurts.

“Raven!” Dick Nelson, Hank’s father, appears in the kitchen doorway, throwing his hands out. The man is so adorable and happy to see me that I let it slide that he called me by Shane’s old nickname for me.

“Hey, Dick,” I tell him, feeling shy all of a sudden.

“Well, come on over here and give me a hug, eh!” Most people in North Ridge don’t have a discernible accent, but Dick’s is full-on Canadian. Sometimes I think he puts it on.

Even though Dick has always been a grandpa to me—I never knew my own because they died, and spending so much time here as I did, it was hard not to think of him as anything but—it’s still surprising to see he hasn’t changed much. He’s a bit skinnier, but he’s not frail in the slightest. His skin is weathered and tanned like old cowboy boots, eyes a twinkling blue beneath white bushy brows.

He pulls me into a fierce hug, smelling like pipe tobacco. Like Hank, Dick is a straight shooter but seems to do it with a gallon of joy. I’ve missed this man.

“You’ve put on some weight,” he says to me as he pulls back.

“Thanks,” I say dryly, feeling myself cringe.

“It suits you,” he says. “When you were a teenager you were too thin. Body of a boy, I used to say.”

I frown, almost letting out a laugh. “Thanks again.” It wasn’t that bad, actually, though I was terribly self-conscious about my flat chest and knock knees. I honestly didn’t eat very much, for various reasons. The last six years, though, my body has decided that stress demands food and since advertising is one of the most stressful careers you can have, I’ve been stuffing my face. Hence, the weight gain. At least I have breasts now, though I don’t think my body has gotten the memo to stop expanding.

“Want a drink? Seems your mother and Hank have already dipped into the wine, but I’ve always got whisky and that’s never treated us wrong, has it?”

Whisky? Why the fuck not?

“Make it a double,” I tell him with a smile.

“Ooh, you’ve gotten sassier,” he says and leans forward. “I like that.” He winks and heads back into the kitchen with an extra spring in his step. “Vernalee, you better keep an eye on that girl. She might go around breaking some hearts in this town.”

I clear my throat before anyone can say anything. “The only heart I’m breaking is my boyfriend’s, back in Toronto. He misses me.” I think.

But the moment I say that, I regret it. My mother stiffens, going on the defensive like I knew she would. “You didn’t have to come here, Rachel,” she says. “I can manage perfectly fine without you.”

“You need her,” Hank says, pressing his fingers into the table as he gives her a levelling stare. “It’s been too long. It’s not right for you to have to suffer without your daughter here to help you.”

“You don’t get to decide that, Hank,” she says, and now my eyes are volleying between the both of them. Even though I’m involved in this, it feels primarily between the two of them. “I’m fine. I keep telling you that.”

“If Beth at the hospital wasn’t such a blabbermouth, you would have told no one.”