From the Start (39 page)

“He remembered the accident that killed his parents.”

It’d happened so fast. One minute they were talking—about his book. It’d seemed so important then. The next, a train was rushing past and Colton was going white and thank goodness he’d somehow managed to slow and brake in the midst of whatever turmoil had taken over his mind.

“You should’ve seen him, Dad. It was like his body was in the car but the rest of him wasn’t. It was terrifying to watch. I can’t imagine . . .” A pain much sharper than any of her physical injuries winded her. “It was almost scarier than the accident.”

“At least you were with him.”

“I don’t think I helped at all, though. He didn’t seem to hear me afterward. And then the accident happened right away and—” She cut off, jerked in the bed to face Dad. “He thinks it’s his fault, doesn’t he? That’s why he hasn’t come in. Oh my goodness, he’s sitting somewhere in this hospital blaming himself.”

“Kate—”

“We have to tell him it’s not his fault.” Her first real tears of the night finally started falling, streaming down her cheeks in hot trails. “That stupid deer could’ve jumped out in front of anybody.”

“He knows that.”

“I don’t think he does. Otherwise he’d be here.” She shook her head, sniffles clogging her voice, emotions now beyond her control. “Does he know I can’t go to Africa?”

Resignation creased Dad’s face. “I’m afraid so.”

“H-he’ll blame himself for that, too. We have to find him, Dad. D-drag him in here, if you have to. I have to tell him.”

Dad handed her a tissue, but it wasn’t enough for the rush of tears that’d turned into full sobs. “Tell him what?”

“That I . . .”
That I love him.

Oh, Lord, I do, I love him. And he’s hurting . . . and
I’m . . .

Losing it.

Or maybe the pain-killers were wearing off.

Or maybe this was a second round of shock.

Whatever it was, it shook through her. “I just need to talk to him.”

Dad leaned closer, pulling her head to his shoulder. “We’ll find him, honey. It’s going to be okay.”

She squeezed her eyes closed, letting her father’s comfort wash over her.

“It’s going to be okay,” he repeated.

She sniffled once more, willed the sobs to stop welling in her throat. Deep breaths. Dad’s fingers brushed the hair from her forehead, and he leaned her back against her pillows. “Why don’t you try to rest for a few minutes.”

She forced her eyes open. “As soon as they find Colton, you’ll make him come in here?”

“I promise.”

She let her eyes drift closed again, heard the creak of Dad’s chair as he stood. Maybe the pain-killers hadn’t worn off, after all, because she could feel her body finally relaxing, her thoughts releasing . . .

Until footsteps padded into the room. Soft voices. She strained to hear above the pull of her fatigue, tried to open her eyes.

“We think he left.”

“Left the hospital?”

She gave in to sleep at Raegan’s reply. “Left town.”

18

Y
ou’ve got two casts. You’re sitting in a wheelchair. And you’re attempting to rake leaves?”

At the sound of Megan’s flat voice and her footsteps swishing through a blanket of gnarled leaves, Kate turned her wheelchair, dragging her rake with her. “Not attempting. Look at my pile.”

Megan glanced over the leaves Kate had managed to sweep into a cluster—then over to where Dad worked. November hadn’t wasted time making its mark this year, arriving in a bluster of cold temps and stripped-bare trees, turning Dad’s backyard into a wash of burgundy and brown.

“Yeah,” Megan said slowly. “Kinda like the Flint Hills up against the Rockies.”

“Hey, if I had use of both arms and both legs, I’d have the Everest of piles going.”

Megan thrust the covered coffee cup she held forward. “Here.”

Kate could smell the coffee before she reached for it. “Pumpkin spice?”

“Obviously.” Fingerless gloves covered Megan’s hands, and she wore a tight black tank top over a hot pink long-sleeved shirt, black-and-white striped skirt, black leggings.

“Thanks for the coffee. You’re looking very punk rocker today, Meg.”

She eyed the chair. “And you’re looking very Deborah Kerr at the end of
An Affair to Remember.
When do you get out of that thing?”

“Arm cast comes off tomorrow, which means I graduate to crutches.” Kate followed her sip of coffee with a grin. “By the way, your classic movie education might be one of the greater accomplishments of my life.” And a much needed distraction in the past four—almost five—weeks.

Megan shifted her weight from foot to foot, as if reluctant to spit out her next words. Finally she picked up Kate’s rake and swept it over the ground, leaves crunching.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“If you want to get anywhere with your section of the yard, I do. Anyway, I came to tell you, I might not have as much time to watch movies starting tomorrow.”

“What’s tomorrow?”

Megan paused, leaned her elbow on the end of her rake, and raised her eyebrows. “Look at your cup.”

Kate held it up, focus finally hooking on the Coffee Coffee logo on its side. “Oh my goodness, the shop. You’re ready to reopen?”

“New flooring got installed yesterday. Furniture’s going in today.” She resumed raking. “Would’ve been done even sooner if the insurance claim hadn’t taken so long to come through. But I guess considering everything, a month wasn’t so bad.”

Wow, had it really been a full month since the flood? Weird how quickly it’d all passed. First the surgery, a few days in the hospital, finally back home and halfway mobile thanks to the wheelchair on loan from the hospital. Somewhere along the way, the bruises all over her right side had healed and the scratches along her forehead had faded.

Sure, she had a couple months, at least, of PT ahead of her. But for the most part, her physical injuries were healing.

Just wished she could say the same for the emotional ones.

“You still haven’t heard from Colton.”

For all her attempts at droll and uninterested, Megan read her awfully well.

“Only a couple emails.” Letting her know he was back in LA, confirming that the publisher had let him out of his contract. But never any explanation about what’d happened in the car that night. Why he’d just up and left town.

Left her. Would a good-bye have been so much to ask? A two-minute stop by her hospital room to tell her in person whatever she thought they’d started had come to a swift and abrupt end?

“I can’t believe I thought he was such a great guy.” Megan’s rake slapped at the leaves on the ground. “The way he helped that day at Coffee Coffee and all? I was convinced he was a regular Captain America type.”

Kate couldn’t keep following this line of conversation. “So the coffee shop reopening.”

“That’s some impressive segue skill you’ve got.”

“Right up there with my raking skills.” Kate wheeled herself out of the path of Megan’s rake. “But seriously, you handled the whole thing like a pro, Meg. Not a lot of twenty-one-year-olds would’ve come through that on their feet.”

Like every other business along the riverfront, Coffee Coffee’s damage had been extensive. Flooring, plumbing, wiring—all of it had suffered. Its foundation had been compromised, its walls water-stained and stripped.

But Megan had found the determination to tackle the aftermath. The entire community had, really—just like after the tornado. It’d taken almost a full week for the river to recede, but once it did, they’d thrown themselves into piecing the town back together.

“So when do you head back to Chicago?” Megan asked.

“In a few days. Raegan’s playing chauffeur. She’s going to stay with me for a couple weeks. At least until my leg cast is off.” Because Bear had finally talked to her about his plans. And though Raegan was still insistent on her desire to stay in Maple Valley long-term, she needed a temporary escape.

As for Kate, she didn’t have a clue what Chicago held for her. She’d had to call Frederick Langston weeks ago and back out of the Africa trip—a conversation that’d left her mopey for days. She’d had such a perfect plan there for a while: Write Colton’s book, go to Africa, come home brimming with project ideas . . . and then maybe, finally, write what she’d been born to write. Whatever that was.

Now she was jobless and idealess.

Heart muddled.

But the one thing she knew was, despite Dad’s repeated offers, she couldn’t stay in Maple Valley. She had to figure out what came next. Decide what she wanted and go after it . . . instead of waiting for it to come after her.

“I’ll see you again before you leave, right?” Megan’s hopeful voice cut in.

Kate found a smile. “Of course. Because I don’t think I’ve, as of yet, fully convinced you to consider naming your baby after me. I’m not giving up.”

“What if it’s a boy?”

“Walker would make a great name for a baby boy.”

Megan only smirked and kept raking.

Later, after she’d departed, Kate rolled her chair over knotty ground to where Dad was now gathering leaves into black garbage bags. The cool, the smell of fall, the brilliant blue of the sky against a backdrop of craggy brown trees . . .

Kate was going to miss this.

“You should be wearing a coat, Katie.”

“Eh, heaving myself around in this thing keeps me plenty warm.”

Dad tied a bag closed and dropped it to the ground. “I’m ready for a break. Care to take a walk with me?” He moved behind her chair and began pushing.

“I don’t think crutches are going to be the most fun thing in the world, but they’re going to be a major step up.” Dad pushed her toward the line of trees where his yard ended and the ravine began. “Ooh, you’re not going to push me down the ravine, are you? That seems dangerous.”

“I may be pushing sixty, my girl, but I’m capable of controlling a wheelchair on a hill.” Leaves and sticks crunched under her wheels and his feet.

“But why—”

“I never went down to see if our little bridge made it through the tornado. Didn’t want to know if it didn’t.”

He angled her around trees, descending toward the twisting creek she could already hear. “I don’t know how it could’ve survived.” It’d been more crude walkway than actual bridge, just a few boards nailed together and reaching across the narrow creek.

Slivers of blue sky slanted through stretching trees. Kate gripped the arms of her chair as the ravine steepened and Dad’s steps shuffled. Finally the ground leveled and they entered the clearing where the creek became visible.

And there, that little makeshift bridge. The one she’d told Colton about that night at the silo. Fully intact.

“Will you look at that? How in the world . . .” An awed reverence hovered in Dad’s voice as he rolled Kate over muddy ground, cushioned by the creek that must’ve overflowed during the flood. He rolled her onto the walkway, set the brake, then sat down on the bridge, legs dangling over the side.

Kate cleared her throat. “I love this place, Dad. I love all the stories of yours and Mom’s moments here through the years.”

Dad chuckled. “Oh, I know that. You used to ask your mother over and over to tell you the story of the boy and the girl who met right here. How the boy decorated the bridge one night and how they danced until curfew.”

“And they fell in love and she never stopped missing him when he went away to war,” Kate picked up the story.

“And how even when her letters stopped, he didn’t stop missing her.”

Kate laid her casted arm in her lap. “And how they saw each other again when he came home. Then a couple years later. And a couple more years later.”

Dad turned to her. “Until they finally both ran into each other once more, during the very first Depot Day event.”

“And you asked her to marry you before she could get away again. And after a few years away, you moved back home and built her a house not far from the little bridge.” Kate’s hair tickled her cheeks in the breeze.

“Flora and I used to laugh about the fact that no matter how many times she recited our story to you, you never got tired of hearing it again. You were a romantic from the start, daughter.”

“Or I just knew a good story when I heard it.”

He shook his head and looked up at her. “I don’t mind telling you, I’ve been a little worried about you.”

“Dad, I’m going to be fine. My arm goes free tomorrow and my leg—”

“Not that.” He tapped his heart. “This. I’ve been concerned you sort of turned off your heart. Maybe because of Gil. Maybe because seeing me lose your mom scared you. Whatever the reason, you lost sight of the little girl who so loved a romantic story that she begged her mom to tell it over and over.”

Patterned sunlight filtered through the trees. “I write romance for a living.”

“You write it. You sure don’t live it.”

“Dad!”

He spread his hands. “Sorry to be harsh, but you’re going back to Chicago and I might not get this chance again. You’re not getting up that hill on your own in a wheelchair, so I’m not losing out on the opportunity.”

“You just told me I’m incapable of romance, and now you’re bragging about trapping me down here?”