Brave the Storm, Season 2, Episode 3 (Rising Storm) (7 page)

Travis couldn’t protect Lacey from everything. He didn’t have the power to bring his boy back from the dead. And he couldn’t stop people from talking about Ginny Moreno and her claim that she was carrying Jacob’s baby. Or Dakota Alvarez’s announcement in front of the entire town that the child Ginny carried was not Jacob’s. It was Sebastian Rush’s. He could only take away this momentary worry that fell on Lacey’s shoulders.

“I love you too. Don’t you worry. I’ll take care of everything. I’ll see you at home.”

Travis pressed the button on the dash to disconnect the call and paused. She was his wife. If what Lacey said was true, he couldn’t leave her at the cemetery in the state she was in, broken and unable to move forward in the wake of her despair.

After glancing in the rearview mirror to check if the road was clear, he pressed his foot on the gas and swung the car around so he could head toward the cemetery to collect his wife.

A few minutes later, he turned into the cemetery driveway and slowly made his way down the lane toward the plot where his son was buried. Sure enough, Celeste’s car was parked askew with the nose of the car on the grass and the tail end of it on the pavement. He pulled his car up behind hers and shifted into park before killing the engine and pocketing the key in his jacket pocket.

With a heavy sigh, he pushed the car door open and stepped out into the hot Texas air. It had only been about fifteen minutes since he’d left the pharmacy but already the setting sun had made the evening air cooler. He didn’t come to the cemetery often, but he knew exactly how to find Jacob’s plot. He walked a few yards and stepped around one of the cottonwood trees with a park bench beneath it that had been strategically planted in the cemetery to give people a place to shade themselves while visiting a loved one’s grave.

What Lacey had described to him was bad. But Travis wasn’t prepared for what he saw when he finally reached Jacob’s grave.

Celeste was stretched out on the grass in front of the headstone. When he reached her, her eyes were closed and her mouth was parted. Grass clippings were stuck to her cheek, most likely pasted there by her tears.

“Celeste,” he said quietly as he bent down. Grabbing her arm, he gave her a gentle push to rouse her.

She didn’t move but he heard her snoring quietly so he knew she was breathing.

“It’s time to go home, Celeste,” he said a little louder as he snaked his arm under her body to get her to sit up.

She moaned a little and whimpered and then her head fell back.

“Come on, Celeste. The groundkeeper will be here soon to lock the gate. We need to go.”

“I don’t…I…my baby…how.” None of what Celeste was fighting to say made sense, but Travis got the gist of it. It had been the same thing for months.
My baby. How did this happen? I don’t know how to live with this.

She was dead weight in his arms even though she wasn’t a big woman. Travis fought to help her to her feet and then he fought again to drag her to his car. When he reached the car, he wrestled with holding Celeste steady while he opened the passenger door and then got her settled enough so he could buckle her in. Before he closed the door, he rummaged through the glove compartment for a pen and a piece of paper. He found a pen, but had to settle for an envelope that had the pharmacy logo on it. It was full of old receipts that he emptied into the glove compartment before carefully shutting the car door and walking to Celeste’s car. He wrote a quick note to the groundskeeper with the lie that the car had broken down and they’d be back in the morning to remove it. Travis listed his telephone number in case the groundskeeper had any questions and then slipped the envelope under the windshield wiper blade.

It had been a long day, he thought as he walked back to the car with a heavier step than he had when he’d arrived. He needed a smile and a way to forget the nightmare his life had become. He needed Kristin. But right now he needed to get Celeste home and to bed and then make sure that Lacey was okay. He’d deal with his own needs later.

* * * *

Ginny waddled into Cuppa Joe and looked around. Mid-afternoon, her sister’s bakery was quiet. She quickly spotted Max sitting at a table.

“I’m glad you came,” Ginny said, easing herself into the chair opposite Max.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Ginny shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s been really…weird here ever since the Founders’ Day fiasco. When I heard you were coming to Storm, I nearly wept with joy. I’ve missed you.”

“Me, too.”

“How is it staying with your grandmother?”

“Great-grandmother. It’s good to see her. She’s getting old though. I hadn’t seen her in a long time so I didn’t realize just how old she was getting.”

Hedda Garten, Max’s great-grandmother, was the owner of the florist shop in town. She knew just about everyone and everything that happened in Storm.

“She’s the one who told you about what happened.” Ginny said. A swell of embarrassment rose up inside her. Max had come to Storm after Ginny’s world had fallen apart. But Ginny hadn’t been the one to tell him about it.

“Word gets around. But only because my mother asked what was happening in Storm. My mother knew that we were friends.”

“And you came running.”

“What are friends for?”

“Speaking of friends,” Ginny said, determined to change the subject, “where’s your friend, Scott? Didn’t he come to Storm with you?”

“He decided to stop by and see Brittany. We ran into Marylee and Brittany Rush at the flower shop when we arrived.”

A dull ache worked its way from her stomach to her chest. Brittany Rush had been Ginny’s best friend and she’d failed that friendship miserably. She didn’t have the slightest idea how or if that relationship could ever be repaired. There was a time when Brittany would have been the first person, aside from Jacob, that Ginny would have run to with a problem. She couldn’t exactly run to Brittany now without causing her more pain.

Max seemed to sense Ginny’s mood. “You know, we could have gone someplace for more than a cup of coffee. Someplace nicer.”

Ginny chuckled. “Are you saying my sister’s place isn’t nice?”

“You know what I mean. Someplace where we could have had a burger or something.”

Ginny shrugged. “This is practically the only place in town where I’m welcome these days.”

“Slight exaggeration, don’t you think? Your sister’s place isn’t the only one in town. Not everyone knows about what happened between you and the senator, and I’m sure not everyone cares.”

“You don’t know Storm. People will look you straight in the face and smile and then as soon as you turn your back, they’re talking about you. I should know. It seems I can’t get away from it.”

“People are going to forget.”

“You sound like my sister.”

“She’s right.”

“Maybe they do in Austin. But not in Storm.”

Max frowned. “Come on, it can’t be that bad.”

“Maybe. Maybe I’m just sensitive. Or maybe my hormones are just running wild. These days I never know.”

Marisol came in from the kitchen. “Hey, when did you get here?” she asked with a smile when she saw Ginny.

Marisol loved having her home again, although she wasn’t so happy about the reason. She looked at Ginny and then Max. “When you said you were waiting for someone, I didn’t realize you were waiting for my sister. Let me get you both something hot from the oven.”

“Thanks, Marisol,” Ginny said.

Marisol grabbed a mug from the shelf and turned around to ask, “So who’s your friend, Ginny?”

“I’ve talked about Max before,” Ginny said. “You might have met him at Jacob’s funeral. Jacob, Brittany, and I were friends with Max at college.”

“Right.” Marisol made a face that showed her embarrassment. “You were Jacob’s roommate. Honestly, there were so many people at his funeral, I don’t remember seeing you.”

“That’s okay,” Max said.

“What can I get for you, Max?”

“A soda is fine.”

“A muffin too? These are Ginny’s favorite.”

“Sure thing.”

Ginny licked her lips. “I swear I’ve eaten about a hundred of these since I found out I was pregnant. I can never resist them.”

Marisol’s expression turned sympathetic. “You and Jacob were close?”

Max looked at Ginny and then at Marisol. “I met Jacob the first day on campus. And then he introduced me to Ginny and Brittany.” He glanced over at Ginny. “We all thought it was a crazy coincidence that they came from the same town where my great-grandmother lived. I never came to Storm much when I was a kid but I do remember how much I liked it here. We were all pretty much inseparable. Became best friends. I planned on coming down here to visit over the summer. Then the accident happened.”

“Then I’m sorry for your loss. So I guess you know that Ginny and Jacob were best friends for years.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He looked at Ginny and gave her a bittersweet smile. “That’s why I’m glad I can be here for Ginny.”

Ginny glanced over at Marisol, who was considering what Max had said. Max was a good friend. And Ginny couldn’t afford to take any friendships for granted. She’d lost so much due to her own immaturity and naiveté.

Her mind immediately went to Logan. She’d lost a man she’d come to love and thought she might have a future with. Just thinking about Logan made her heart twist with pain. She’d loved Jacob. But as a friend. Logan was different. They’d grown so close and shared so many emotions that Ginny still couldn’t believe she’d managed to trash everything with her lies.

“Earth to Ginny,” Max said, leaning across the table. She’d been so lost in her thoughts about Logan that she hadn’t realized Marisol had put a cup of hot chocolate in front of her along with a blueberry and raspberry muffin, one of her favorites.

“Sorry. Thinking about Logan.” Ginny sighed, wondering if she’d made a mistake telling Max everything. But she so needed a friend. She reached for the muffin and immediately pulled off the top, loving the part with all the sugar and cinnamon on it. She popped a piece of it in her mouth. Usually one of her sister’s famous muffins was enough to ease at least some of the pain she was feeling. But this time, it just tasted like sugar. She swallowed hard and then put the rest of the muffin top on a napkin.

“I take it you haven’t talked to him since everything happened?” Max asked.

Ginny shifted in her seat uncomfortably. These days she no longer needed to use an excuse when she showed discomfort because people just assumed it was because she’d become so fat and pregnant.

She leaned back and placed her hand over her stomach. “I’ve tried. He won’t talk to me. And I don’t really blame him. What I did was inexcusable. I don’t think he’s ever going to forgive me for not telling him the truth.”

Max shook his head. “People aren’t perfect, Ginny.”

She chuckled wryly. “Yeah? I don’t even come close. I messed up big time. And Dakota Alvarez was only too happy to tell the whole town about it. Although…I can’t blame her. She was…used by Sebastian Rush just as much as I was. It’s easy to look back and see how it happened. It humiliates me to even think about it.”

With the mention of the senator’s name, Max winced. “How
did
that even happen?”

She sighed. “I really don’t want to revisit it. Do you mind?”

“We don’t have to talk about it ever again.”

“Thanks. Do you remember that time we were all supposed to go to that mixer at the frat house off campus?” Ginny chuckled as the memory came back to her. It was their first semester on campus. “Jacob had just started dating that crazy girl. Oh, what was her name?”

Max laughed. “How could you forget? Fifi. Jacob said her curly hair made him feel like he was dating a poodle.”

Ginny chuckled. “He never told me that.”

“Okay, maybe it was me who said it. But he never disagreed.”

“That one didn’t last long but I sure remember that night of the ‘almost’ mixer.”

“And the flat tire in the car with no spare tire and no jack stand.”

Ginny laughed louder. “In the middle of nowhere and Fifi not being able to get service on her cell phone and yelling at Jacob to push the car until she was able to get some bars on her phone so she could call AAA.”

Tears filled Max’s eyes as he laughed. “It’s a real shocker they didn’t last that long.”

“Yeah, I was happy when she was no longer around.” Ginny played with her muffin top.  “Do you remember you and Jacob and me and Brittany watching
The Twilight Zone
every night sitting on that old, ugly sofa you brought to the dorms with you?”

“The one with the springs popping out under the cushions?”

“How could you forget? I kept having to shift positions to keep from getting poked by springs.”

Max’s lips tilted to one side. “I never minded. You sat closer to me.”

Ginny took in his words and quickly dismissed them. Jacob had told her once that Max had confided in him that he thought of Ginny as more than a friend. But nothing had ever happened between them, and Ginny had never had those kinds of feelings for Max.

“That sofa was ridiculously ugly though, huh?”

“What did you do with it when you moved out of the dorms?”

“We had it in the apartment we rented, but then it got so bad we had to burn it. Me and a few of the guys cut it up in about a hundred pieces and had a big bonfire.” Max reached across the table and picked up a piece of her muffin, then quickly ate it. He made a face that showed his approval. “These are good.”

Ginny pulled her plate with the muffin toward her. “Eat your own. This one is mine. You had a bonfire? You could have gotten arrested for that.”

“Almost did. Someone called the fire department and when they showed up, we told the fire chief that we’d been studying late for finals and one of the desk lamps fell into the sofa cushion. It caught on fire so we had to take the sofa out to the backyard to save it from burning down the house.”

Ginny laughed. “And he believed you?”

“I don’t know. He seemed impressed. I just think our story was so brilliant that he gave us a pass.” Max smiled and took a sip of his drink. “Those were the good old days.”