Dandelion Wishes (13 page)

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Will said to Emma, gesturing toward Tracy, who was shopping the ball aisle.

“It doesn’t bother me.” Emma waved at Tracy, who quickly looked away. Emma’s smile wavered. “It doesn’t bother me,” she repeated, but softly and almost to herself. “Would you rather I ask her to go shopping?”

“No.”

“We start in five minutes and Emma still doesn’t have shoes,” Sam pointed out, pausing after having entered
E
on the fourth line of the electronic scoreboard posted above them.

“I’m on it.” Emma picked up her purse and left.

Slade took a practice ball. Although he’d rolled up his sleeves, his gray shirt looked freshly pressed, even though it was the end of the day.

From the row of seats on the other side of the score table, Flynn checked something on his cell phone. They were all phone addicts any time they reentered civilization.

“What’s. She doing. Here?” Tracy held a green ball against her stomach.

Will’s gaze strayed to Emma at the shoe counter. “Larry invited her to bowl.”

“No one. Told me,” Tracy said petulantly, depositing her ball in the ball rack.

“Likewise.” Will shrugged. “You’ve been friends a long time. You should talk to her.”

At his words, Flynn’s head came up from his phone. He scrutinized Will, who shrugged again. Much as he didn’t want to admit it, Tracy and Emma missed each other.

“I will. Soon.” Tracy glanced toward the shoe counter.

Emma returned before he could question Tracy further. His sister claimed a seat on the other side of the lane from both Will and Emma.

While he put on his bowling shoes, Emma multitasked, slipping off her sandals as she held up her end of the bargain they’d made at bingo. “Larry, are you going to vote for Will’s winery next Monday, because I’ve been thinking—”

“This is league, Emma.” Larry waggled his finger at her. “We don’t talk shop here. Bowling is existential.”

“If I’d known you were coming, I would have warned you about Larry’s rules.” Will tried not to stare at Emma’s orange toenails, the graceful arch of her foot. “But thanks for trying. At least no one can say you’re a quitter.”

“Not about that, at least,” Emma said cryptically, producing a pair of black socks from her purse. “I’m operating on faith. I need more than your word that you won’t sell the town out.”

Felix stared at Will, waiting for reassurance he couldn’t give until Slade backed off from the dollar signs.

“I told you I don’t want to sell.” Will rubbed his palms on his thighs and changed the subject. “A bit of advice. Don’t suck. Larry likes to win.”

Emma slid her feet into the faded red-and-white leather shoes. “Regardless of which team wins, I bet I bowl better than you tonight.”

He’d forgotten how competitive Emma was. “Bring it. Loser pays for lunch at El Rosal.” It was a friendly bet, something that might shake her composure and make her lose that grin. His own composure was rock solid. His heart wasn’t thudding in his chest because of her. That was just precompetition adrenaline.

She double knotted her laces.

Will rubbed his forehead. There was no way Emma’s feet could look good in scuffed bowling shoes.

Emma watched a bowler in the next lane. She rolled her shoulders back and forth. Pinwheeled her arms in big circles. Stretched them behind her back.

Doubt tweaked the edge of Will’s confidence, as if he’d accepted a golf game with a big money bet and discovered he was playing against Tiger Woods.

Emma turned to the mayor. “Hey, Larry, can I take a practice ball?”

“No time for that.” The mayor stepped up to the ball rack.

“Give me a minute.” Moving past him, Emma tested the approach to the line, walking through her motion and follow-through. She grabbed the brush hanging from the scoring table and sat next to Will, brushing the bottoms of her shoes.

“Were you, perhaps, a bowling pro at some point and no one told me?” Will fought the unlikely suspicion that someone had painted a big
S
on his chest.
S
standing for
Sucker,
not
Superman.

“Emma had. Bowling. For P.E. In school.” Tracy’s death-ray vision was trained on Will. It was the you’re-making-a-fool-of-yourself-stop-it younger-sister stare that was the bane of older brothers everywhere. He’d have thought he’d be used to it by now, especially since she’d used it more these past few months than the past few years combined.

“What happened to basketball and soccer?” Slade was frowning at his orange-and-black bowling shoes, as if an investor might suddenly walk into the bowling alley to meet him, take one look at his tacky footwear and walk out.

“Budget cuts. Our P.E. teacher lost his job, so the school improvised.” Flynn wiped his bowling ball. “Larry volunteered to teach bowling and yoga. Felix volunteered to teach golf. Volunteers kept Harmony Valley schools open for years.”

“I took. Yoga,” Tracy said.

“And I took golf,” Flynn said. “How about we golf tomorrow?”

“Can’t. Got a pacemaker check in the morning.” Mayor Larry led off for his team. He bowled like Fred Flintstone, too high on his toes. Two swings of the ball and he had a spare.

Slade led off for Will’s team and got a spare.

Sam bowled next. The spritely old man staggered through his approach as if his chartreuse ball was too heavy for him. But he picked up a spare, as did Flynn and Felix. Tracy knocked down six pins. Her arms were so weak that her ball lacked momentum.

Then it was Will’s turn. He just missed picking up a spare. He might have been a tad distracted by a woman with dark hair and delectable toes.

Will returned to the seat next to Emma. Might as well get into her head. “Pretty tough going last, isn’t it?”

“Spoken like the person who just went last for his team.” Emma stepped confidently to the ball rack, her left hand hovering briefly over the fan.

“Gutter ball,” Will murmured, for luck.

“We’re all good sports here.” Felix frowned at him.

Will shrugged. What could he say? His competitive side was yin to his control freak’s yang.

Emma stood at the ready, head bowed over the ball as if she was gazing into it to see her fortune. She lined herself up, swung the ball back and let it fly with the fine-tuned precision of a professional athlete. Strike.

Mayor Larry hooted and high-fived Felix.

Emma could barely keep a bike upright and she bowled like that? Will was in trouble.

“I’m going for a water.” Emma breezed by him. “Does anyone want anything?”

After she’d taken orders and left, Tracy came over to sit next to Will. “Quit. Flirting. With Emma.”

Mayor Larry stepped up to bowl.

“I’m not flirting,” Will protested. “She annoys me. Always has.”

Tracy rolled her eyes. “You suck. At dating.”

Flynn and Slade tried to camouflage their chuckles.

“What are you talking about? I have no trouble getting dates.” Or at least he hadn’t until they’d come to Harmony Valley. Not that there was a dating pool in the small town.

She shook her head. “You suck. At keep...keeping. Girl. Friends.”

“You’re worried about me breaking Emma’s heart?” Will would never understand his sister. “You won’t talk to her and yet you’re trying to protect her?”

She nodded. “Have you. Forgiven her?”

“No.”

“Then. She’s. Off-limits.”

She had a point. Will held up his hands in surrender. Tracy returned to her seat. Flynn said something that made her laugh.

On her next turn, Emma bowled another strike. She plopped into the seat next to him, dropping a challenge. “You better bowl the game of your life, because I’m going to wipe the floor with you.”

Without thinking, Will countered with a challenge of his own. “Easier here than on Parish Hill.”

“Really?” Emma raised an eyebrow. “You want to go there? Your running shoes against my bike?”

“I’ll make it easy on you. It’s not a race to the top, just to see who can go the farthest before quitting.”

Tracy’s scowl promised Will the kind of retribution only a sister could deliver, making him hesitate only a moment before specifying a time for their race.

After all, competition wasn’t dating.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“G
RANNY
R
OSE
,
I’
M
home.” Emma came through the back door into the mudroom.

Although Mayor Larry refused to discuss the winery project with her, he’d told her several times she was welcome to bowl on his team anytime. That was what came of beating Will two out of three times. She’d have to think about how to use that to her advantage in turning Larry into a supporter of change. One who’d lock out any corporate deal Will might make behind the town’s back.

“I’m in here, reading,” Granny Rose called from her bedroom.

Emma poked her head in the door, relieved that Granny Rose was sitting in a chair next to the bed, looking sweet and grandmotherly.

She bid Granny good-night and went upstairs, thinking about Will and his challenge. She’d been foolish to accept a race up Parish Hill, even if he did make her feel alive again. For half a year she’d felt guilty for living.

And that guilt had kept her from painting.

Emma stood in front of the easel she’d hauled back up to her room and frowned at the blank canvas. She’d never found the one with the ugly green caterpillar. Fairies? Thieves? Pranksters? Nothing was going as it should. Not with Tracy, not with her art or the town. And her truce with Will? It had gotten her nowhere. Emma could no longer afford to be patient, sitting around and waiting. She had to be the agent of change.

She rifled through her paint-supply box until she found a pencil with a sharpened tip. This week, she’d colored and sketched her grandmother’s face in crayon. Surely, she could sketch a landscape with pencil.

Emma tried a pine tree first, but as soon as she started, the truck’s diesel engine roared to life, making her hands tremble. She might as well have drawn a triangle with a trunk. The so-called tree had no life. No energy.

Emma sighed. She picked up a crayon in her supply box. Burnt umber.

Her grandmother’s face came to mind. Indignant. Sly. Gleeful.

Emma started to sketch with crayon. She filled the canvas with different versions of her grandmother’s expressive face, capturing her myriad emotions.

“Granny Rose!” Emma cried out when she realized what she’d done. Here was something new, something fresh. Delight sprinted through her veins. “Granny Rose, come see!”

Her grandmother didn’t answer.

A wave of uncertainty had Emma running downstairs.

Maybe she was asleep. Maybe she was in the bathroom. Maybe—

Her calls to her grandmother grew softer as she hurried down the first-floor hallway. She peeked into Granny Rose’s bedroom. The book she’d been reading rested on the chair. The antique four-poster bed was neatly made. Granny Rose’s work boots weren’t lined up by the closet.

Emma spun around and headed for the kitchen.

“Granny Rose?” Her words echoed in the empty kitchen, fell into silence in the living room, were carried off by the wind when Emma stepped out on the porch.

Emma called Agnes and told her Granny Rose was missing. “Was she calm when you left her after the ball game?” She’d been peaceful when Emma came home.

“For Rose, lately, she was calm.... Almost too calm.”

I can’t stand by and let this happen.

Emma recalled the way her grandmother had looked at the oak tree after the Lions Club meeting. “She promised not to make trouble while I was bowling.” And she hadn’t. She’d waited until Emma was home and lost in the creative process.

Guilt stabbed at her, so sharp she wanted to double over. “This is my fault—”

“Now, Emma, don’t—”

“I’ve got to find her.” Worst-case scenarios flipped through her head—heart attack, broken hip, drowning. She would not imagine Granny as a vigilante, going for a direct assault at Will and his friends.

“I’ll call around and see if anyone else has seen her,” Agnes offered. “Don’t worry. Rose is passionate, but she’s not foolish.”

Emma hoped her grandmother’s friend was right.

* * *

H
AVING
STOPPED
FOR
pizza after bowling, Will and Tracy were just walking through the door as their dad was heading out.

“Rose is missing,” Ben said.

Will didn’t hesitate. “I’ll help.” If Rose was upset, it was most likely his fault. He turned around and followed Ben out into the darkness. They could complete a preliminary search through town quicker than the time it would take for the sheriff to arrive. “Where was she last seen?”

“Emma talked to her when she came home. When she checked on Rose later, she was gone. Something’s been off with Rose lately.” There was no mistaking the disappointment in Ben’s gaze when it connected with Will’s. “Don’t have to tell you that. Heard you want to sell out the town.”

Ouch. His own father doubted him. “Not now, Dad. We’ll talk after we find Rose.”

“I’m coming. Too.” Tracy shut the door behind her and ran to Will’s truck.

* * *

“G
RANNY
R
OSE
!” E
MMA
called, crossing the bridge into town. She wrapped the ends of her thin sweater tighter around her and tried to ignore the vise of worry clamped around her chest that made it hard to breathe.

The sun had long since gone down. Although they were miles from the ocean, a cool breeze rode through the valley, chilling the air. And it would only get colder as the night progressed.

This was all her fault. She shouldn’t have tried sketching. This was why she could no longer be an artist. Car accidents. Missing grandmothers. No one was safe in Emma’s care.

Her throat closed.

Wanting a child, a family. Those were dreams she had no right to.

Emma hurried across the bridge, hesitating at the crossroads on the other side. She could continue along Washington Street toward Edwin’s house or head for the town square.

I can’t stand by and let this happen.

The oak tree. Granny Rose had to be at the oak tree. Emma ran toward the square and was rewarded by the sound of a thin, warbly voice improvising a song.

“Granny Rose!” Emma ran around the corner of El Rosal and into the square.

Her grandmother sat on the wrought-iron bench beneath the oak tree, wearing a light blue windbreaker. She stopped singing when she saw Emma approach.

“What are you doing?” Emma called to her again just as a truck pulled into the opposite side of the square and parked.

Her grandmother looked confused. “I’m protesting.”

“But it’s the middle of the night.”

“But someone’s here.” Her voice sounded thin, yet hopeful. “Maybe it’s a camera crew.”

“Please, it’s time to go home.” Emma knelt at her grandmother’s feet and took her hand.

“I can’t.” Granny stared expectantly at the figures approaching. “Oh, it’s
him.
” She slumped back on the bench.

Will and Tracy emerged from the shadows on the far side of the square.

All Emma’s hopes of saving her grandmother’s reputation evaporated.

“It’s okay,” Emma called to them, trying to sound calm. “We’re heading home.”

“We’ll drive you.” Will’s deep, kind voice shouldn’t have made Emma want to sob with relief.

“Thank you. No need. We can walk home from here.” Emma stood.

“Get rid of them,” Granny Rose whispered. “I can’t go home yet.”

“What do you mean?” Emma whispered back, gently tugging on Granny’s hand. “Protest over. Come on.”

Her grandmother sighed. “I handcuffed myself to this bench and threw the key over there.” She shook her right wrist. Something metal rattled. “Or did I throw it behind me?”

The air rushed out of Emma’s lungs and she sank to her knees again.

Will and Tracy had been close enough to hear Granny Rose’s predicament. “Tracy, run down the block to Slade’s house,” Will said. “Tell him we need a couple flashlights and a hacksaw or some bolt cutters.” He could have been instructing his sister to run next door to borrow a cup of sugar. Tracy ran off, her footsteps a soft, steady pad on the grass.

“Young man, I will stay here until the populace of Harmony Valley realizes your winery is all part of a bigger plot to increase your bank account.” Granny Rose’s tone belied her predicament.

“You’re more likely to find villains in one of your musicals than you are among me and my friends,” Will said. “You can suspect me of schemes and treachery, Rose, but I assure you, this winery is important to me in the long-term. I won’t sell.”

Granny Rose huffed in scorn.

“If he says he won’t sell, he’ll do everything in his power not to sell,” Emma said. Will had always been true to his word, whether he was promising Tracy’s dad he’d watch over them or committing to work with them at a soup kitchen.

“I see how this is.” Granny Rose sniffed. “You’ve convinced Emma to support your plan instead of me.”

Will gave a long-suffering sigh.

“Granny Rose, I love you. But even you have to admit the town needs emergency services. What would happen to Mr. B. if he had another heart attack? What if Mildred fell? I don’t care if it’s a winery that brings those things back or a new grain mill. I want everyone here to be safe.”

Granny Rose snorted.

The cold from the ground was seeping through Emma’s jeans. She perched on the metal bench next to her grandmother. The longer they sat in silence, the more Emma thought about the danger her grandmother had put herself in. “I could have gone to bed,” she said, anger percolating in her veins. “You would have been out here all night. Freezing.”

“It’s not that cold,” Granny Rose said stubbornly.

“It’s cold enough,” Emma said. “Where did you get those handcuffs?”

Granny lifted her nose in the air. “Every woman should own a pair of handcuffs.”

Will laughed, his gaze seeking Emma’s, sending heat creeping into her cheeks. “I’m glad I’ve had this chance to get to know you better, Rose.”

“You mean before I die and you bulldoze Harmony Valley?”

“No, because you’ve given new meaning to the phrase hot spot. If we do build one here, I’m going to have them weld your handcuffs above the door, just like they do with horseshoes. For luck.”

Granny turned away from them. “Now you’re trying to embarrass me.”

Emma was the one who was embarrassed. “With good cause. You can’t handcuff yourself around town, even if you are trying to save an old tree.”

“My Rupert proposed to me right here. He dropped to one knee.” Granny Rose’s voice drifted dreamily. “He was so handsome and we were so in love. How could anybody chop down our tree?”

Emma reached out for Will’s hand and spoke softly. “Don’t get rid of her tree. Please.”

He didn’t answer, but when Emma would have released Will’s hand, he held on to hers.

She tried to remind herself that Will was an indulgence she couldn’t afford. Still, she drew his hand closer and rested her forehead on the back of it. She just needed to borrow his strength.

After a moment, Will said, “Rose, did you ever race anyone up Parish Hill? Rupert, perhaps?”

Her grandmother didn’t turn. “Why ever would I do that?”

“Pity.” Will squeezed Emma’s hand lightly. “You probably would have won by force of will alone.”

Emma laughed, grateful that Will had been the one who’d found them. She reclaimed her hand when Tracy’s light footsteps announced her return.

“He’s. Coming.” Tracy hunched over, hands on her knees as she tried to catch her breath.

“Thanks,” Emma said.

“Any. Time.”

“Let’s hope I’m never in this situation again.” Emma glanced up at Will and then looked at Tracy. “It’s probably not the best time to ask, but I’m going to anyway. Would you like to go shopping tomorrow?”

“May-be,” Tracy struggled with the word.

Maybe
was better than
no.

* * *

T
HE
ONLY
GOOD
thing about Tracy’s doctor not allowing her to drive was that she could get out of cars quicker and be in her bedroom before Will or her dad came through the front door.

She hopped out of Will’s truck as soon as he stopped in the driveway. Once inside her room, she locked the door behind her.

Black walls greeted her. Tracy had found several gallons of paint in the barn. Black primer. White. Beige. She’d used up all the black on the walls and ceiling of her small room. Her bed was an island in the midst of her own version of art therapy.

Painting helped her sort things out. She may only be finding zen through painting walls, but still, she could finally see why Emma loved working with paints so much. And right now, things needed sorting.

What had happened to Will hating Emma? He was such a hypocrite. He’d kept Tracy away from her friend all this time and now he was being nice to her? He couldn’t have forgiven Emma for the accident. He would have told Tracy.

And Emma? Rose had clearly tipped her rocker too far backward. The dear woman’s out-of-character behavior had to be tough on Emma. Tracy wished she could talk to her about it but, of course, she couldn’t hold a decent conversation with anyone.

She bunched up her pink chenille bathrobe and shoved it along the crack at the bottom of the door to prevent paint fumes from drifting into the hallway. Heaven forbid Will found out what she was doing. He’d think she’d lost her mind.

“Good night, Tracy.” Will’s footsteps sounded farther down the hall.

Tracy opened her window, letting in a brisk breeze that did nothing to cool the heated frustration that built inside her. The more time she spent with people who talked easily, the higher her frustration level. She needed an outlet.

And then she began to paint, white over black. White clouds. A white sun. A white picket fence. Nothing as detailed and true to life as Emma would have done. But it didn’t matter. Tracy worked at a pace that had her breathing heavily and sweating. She painted until long after midnight, long after she heard anyone moving about the house. She painted until her arm ached and there wasn’t any more white paint left in the can.

She stood in the midst of chaos and anger. But it was chaos and anger of her making. A feeling of joy spread through her chest.