The Color of the Season (17 page)

I wiped a finger under my nose and peered up at him. “What?”

“I’m glad I got shot.”

I pulled away and managed a smile as I wiped the tears from eyes. “That
is
strange.”

“It hurt like hell, of course,” he continued, “but now that I’m sitting here, I think it was worth it.”

He pulled me into his arms again and I leaned into the strength of his upper body. His shirt smelled clean, like it had just been laundered. I breathed in the intoxicating scent as if my life depended on it.

As he stroked his hand lightly over my back, I closed my eyes and relaxed while a tremendous sense of well-being washed over me.

How odd… I’d just buried my sister, yet I felt like I was floating.

o0o

“How is it possible you’re not in a relationship?” I asked Josh a short while later when he returned to the sofa with a roll of tissue from the bathroom—because my eyes were as puffy as cotton balls.

“I guess I’ve had a run of bad luck,” he replied as he handed me the roll and sat down again.

I tore off a long section and blew my nose, then wiped both my eyes. “How so?”

“Dear, sweet Mother of God, where to begin…” He smiled at me. “If you really want to know the embarrassing truth, there’s an engagement ring sitting in a box in a drawer in my bedroom because I was fool enough to want to propose to a woman who was in love with another guy.”

I set the roll of tissue on the coffee table. “That sucks. When did it happen?”

“She dumped me the same day I got shot,” Josh said.

My head drew back in astonishment. “You’re kidding.”

“No, and maybe that’s why I was so reckless that night. I wasn’t suicidal or anything, but I was definitely wound up.”

“How long were you with her?”

“About a year, but it’s a bizarre story.”

By this time, we were sitting close, facing each other on the sofa. I lay my hand on Josh’s thigh. “Tell me?”

He took a deep breath and let it out. “You sure?” I nodded. “All right. Her name was Carla and she was married before and had a daughter, but her supposed-to-be husband had died in a plane crash somewhere up north in Canada. After we’d been together for a while, she got a call saying that they’d found him alive, floating on an iceberg somewhere in the North Atlantic, so she had to fly up there and be with him in the hospital. But as it turned out, it wasn’t her husband after all, but some other passenger on the plane who had her husband’s belongings.”

“That’s horrible,” I said.

“Yeah. It was pretty rough on her. Then she fell in love with the guy after only a couple of days and decided she needed to be with him instead of me.”

I clasped Josh’s hand. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all right,” he replied with a shrug. “I took it pretty hard at first, but then I woke up from the coma and something like that puts everything in perspective, you know? You just feel grateful to be alive and you start to understand what’s meant to be—or not meant to be.”

His expression stilled and grew serious. I wondered if perhaps he wasn’t truly over this woman, or at least he hadn’t gotten over the betrayal.

“I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”

He nodded. “What about Paul? I can’t imagine he’d be too happy if he could see you right now, sitting with me, especially if he knew you were probably going to spend the night here.”

“That’s bold,” I said, secretly impressed by Josh’s confidence.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” he replied with a slow, boyish grin. “I fully intend to sleep on the sofa again.”

I smiled. “I’m not worried about that, but you’re right. I should be calling him. He texted me earlier and like a coward, I stuffed the phone back into my purse.”

“Why?”

“Because I just didn’t feel like replying. Which makes me feel guilty because he’s such a good guy. I don’t know why I’m avoiding talking to him, but it was a rough day. All I wanted to do was come here. I’m just not ready to face the world.”

Josh inclined his head. “I don’t want to hold you back from your responsibilities. I mean, I want to help you. I want to see you and everything, but I don’t want to cause problems.”

I snuggled closer to rest my head on his shoulder. “You’re not causing problems.”

I yawned and let my eyes fall closed for a minute. Then I woke some time later with the vague sensation that I was being carried off to bed in the arms of a big man who smelled clean, like the outdoors.

Groggily, I opened my eyes just as Josh set me down on the mattress in his room and covered me with a blanket. “You’re very strong,” I said.

“And you’re light as a feather,” he replied in a whisper. “What time do you need to get up?”

“I have an 8:30 class. And I want to send an email to Riley tomorrow.”

“I’ll knock at 7:00,” he replied. “Go to sleep. Don’t worry about anything.”

That was all I remembered before the sun came up and as promised, there was a light knock at the door.

Chapter Forty-one

I was just sitting down on Josh’s sofa the following evening, preparing to send an email to Riley, when my phone beeped. It was a text from my mother:
Are you okay? I miss you.

As soon as I read her message, a heaviness centered in my heart because I knew this was not easy on her. She’d already lost two children. Now I was gone, too—by choice—and she didn’t know where I was.

I quickly texted her back:
I’m fine, Mom. I’m staying with a friend, going to classes. I just needed a little space. I love you and I’ll be home soon, I promise
.

My throat closed up, and I set the phone down on the sofa beside me.

Almost instantly, it beeped again.

Mom wrote:
I’m glad to hear it. Take the time you need. Looking forward to seeing you soon
.

“What’s up?” Josh asked as he sat down beside me.

“It’s just Mom,” I explained. “She misses me and she’s worried.”

“Of course she is. She’s your mom,” he said.

I unfolded the piece of paper which contained Riley’s contact information and set it down next to my laptop. “I wonder what they’d do if they knew I was staying at your place,” I casually mentioned.

“I expect your dad would march over here and insist that you go straight home, young lady.”

Just then, there was a loud banging at the door, and our eyes locked on each other’s.

o0o

“What kind of car does your father drive?” Josh asked as he pulled the curtain aside with a finger and peered down at the street below.

“A black Mercedes coupe.”

“That’s definitely him and he’s double parked.”

“He does that all the time.” I laid my hand on Josh’s shoulder as I rose up on my tiptoes to peer out as well.

He turned to me. “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t want you to answer it,” I quickly replied, feeling rather horrified by the prospect. “Let him bang on the door until he’s red in the face. This is none of his business.”

“You’re his daughter, which makes it very much his business. He must have seen your car on the street.”

“I don’t care.”

He shot me a look. “Are you sure about that?”

I considered it a moment and relented, but only slightly. “If I thought he was here to make amends and apologize for the things he said the other day, I’d go down there and talk to him, but I can tell by the way he’s banging on the door that he just wants to drag me home by the ear.”

“I don’t know, Holly…” Josh replied.

“This is your apartment. There’s no law that says you have to answer the door, is there?”

“No, but he’s your father.”

“I assure you, if we answer the door, we’ll get into some kind of scuffle and he’ll end up face down on the pavement with his hands behind his back.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

Josh shook his head and made a move to answer the door regardless, but I grabbed hold of his arm. “Please, I don’t want to see him tonight. I’m not ready. I promise I’ll talk to him eventually, when I get everything sorted out.”

Josh stared at me intently for a moment, then thankfully, he conceded.

We both looked out the window again. My father was descending the steps and returning to his car.

“There, see?” I said. “He’s leaving. We’re off the hook.”

“At least for today.” Josh turned to face me. “Now what?”

As I gazed into his deep blue eyes, I felt rather buoyant. “I want to email Riley. I just hope he’ll be willing to talk to me.”

Chapter Forty-two

The last time I saw my brother Riley, I was standing at my bedroom window with a hammering heart and salty tears running down my cheeks.

A nasty argument had just taken place in the kitchen downstairs. Both my father and Riley shouted viciously at each other, something smashed against a wall, and Riley ran out the front door. I watched him cross the yard to the street where he jumped into the open back of a half-ton truck with a noisy muffler and white racing stripes painted down the hood.

I remember all too clearly how I cried myself to sleep that night, hugging my stuffed bunny as if my life depended upon it.

It wasn’t until much later that Riley and his buddies broke into our home and my mother and I were forced to hide in the bathroom while we waited for the police to arrive.

I never saw Riley that night. I was only told what had occurred—that Dad frightened them away with a baseball bat and they were arrested somewhere in the vicinity where they’d been hiding in a shed.

I wasn’t permitted to attend any court proceedings, nor could I visit Riley in prison. All I had to remember him by were newspaper clippings and a few photo albums from his early childhood. Today, I doubt I would even recognize my brother if I passed him on the street.

So it was with a strange mixture of trepidation and exhilaration that I clicked on the return email that arrived in my inbox later that night.

The subject line said the following:
Hello from your brother in Montana.

Discord

Chapter Forty-three

Nineteen hours later

Riley’s email the night before had been brief and to the point:

You asked how I’ve been doing, but I can’t possibly answer that question in an email. We could talk on the phone if you like, or if you’re up for it, you could fly out here for a visit. I’d really like to see you.

I decided in that moment that a phone call would definitely not suffice. Josh helped me check flight times and I quickly emailed Riley back to suggest I’d come the next day. I also asked if I could bring Josh with me. Riley said yes and promised to pick us up at the airport.

After the flight the next morning we walked together toward the baggage claim where Riley had agreed to meet us.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” I said to Josh as I wheeled my carry-on bag onto the escalator. “And thank you for coming with me, and for using your air miles. I owe you big time.”

Josh stepped onto the escalator behind me, massaged the back of my neck and spoke close in my ear. “Don’t be silly. Riley was my best friend for the first ten years of my life so this is important to me, too. Besides, how could I pass up an opportunity to spend three whole days with you?”

The note of flirtation in his voice caused a flock of mad butterflies to swarm in my belly as we descended toward the baggage carousels. I began to wonder what the hell I was doing.

Though I had spoken to Paul on the phone that morning and told him I was flying out to meet my brother in Montana, I’d said nothing about bringing along a friend—namely a handsome police officer who on the day I was born was one of the first people in the world to hold me in his arms. Nor did I mention the fact that I’d spent the past few nights at his apartment. He’d slept on the sofa, mind you, but still…

So far, nothing inappropriate had occurred between us, but only a fool could deny the spark of attraction, the temptation, the intimate connection that had arisen out of nowhere in the first five minutes of our acquaintance.

I was attracted to Josh—overwhelmingly so—which was a clear and irrefutable betrayal of Paul’s trust. I didn’t feel good about it and I certainly wasn’t ready to throw away everything I’d built with Paul over the past year. Besides that, Josh was a man who had been ready to propose to another woman a few short weeks ago, a man who had been shot recently in the line of duty, a man who believed he’d gone to heaven and spoken personally with my deceased sister. Was I out of my mind to think any of this was normal?

“I’m not sure I’ll even recognize Riley,” I said to Josh as I stepped off the escalator and scanned the crowd for my brother.

Josh laid a reassuring hand on the small of my back. “Don’t worry, I’ll know him. Look. There he is.”

My eyes darted toward the direction Josh indicated and something deep inside me broke apart. A man was approaching us. He wore loose faded blue jeans, black leather shoes and a bulky, cream-colored fisherman’s sweater.