Woodrose Mountain (31 page)

“Good. I’m glad you couldn’t tell. I guess I was only freaking out on the inside, then.”

“Why? You certainly acted like you’ve had plenty experience with seizures, as terrifying as they can be.”

She gazed at the stars overhead, then back at him. “I… It hit a little close to home, that’s all. Cassie stopped breathing in her sleep during a seizure. I was so afraid for Taryn.”

He stared at her, overwhelmed and awed and completely in love with her. Despite what must have been petrifying fear that history would repeat itself, she had stepped up to do everything necessary to care for Taryn during the seizure, to ensure his daughter was as safe as possible.

He couldn’t help it. He dropped his lunch on the bench and reached for her. She settled into his arms with a sigh and an easing of her tension, as if she’d been waiting just as he had for this fragile connection between them.

“I thought I was doing so well,” she murmured, her cheek against his chest. “Most of the time I am, but once in a while, it still feels as if somebody came along and swept my legs out from under me. I miss her.”

“I know. I know, sweetheart.” He smoothed a hand down her hair and tucked an errant strand behind her ear. She didn’t weep, only shuddered out a breath or two, her arms clasped tightly around his waist.

“You didn’t show your fear, Evie. That’s the sign of true courage, you know. You feel the fear but you do it anyway. You don’t owe me an apology at all. If there’s anything in arrears here, it’s all on our side. I owe you so much. Everything. Not just for today, for being that calm voice of strength and peace in the middle of the chaos. But for the last month. You gave me hope again, Evie. Do you have any idea what a precious gift that has been?”

She swallowed and gave him a tremulous smile and he gave in to the inevitable. He cupped her face in his hands and lowered his mouth to hers in a slow, easy kiss that shook him to the core.

He loved this woman. Holding her here in this quiet garden while the night air drifted around them and the stars sparkled overhead only reinforced that he loved her and he refused to let her go.

* * *

T
HE
SHEER
SWEETNESS
of Brodie’s mouth easing across hers, the tenderness of his hands against her face, took her breath away and she could do nothing but stand there soaking up the sweetness of the moment.

“I needed this.” Brodie’s voice was low, rough. “From the moment you walked into Taryn’s room, all I’ve been able to think about is that if I could only hold you again, everything would seem better.”

The tears she had been fighting since walking out into this quiet garden spilled free and one slid down her cheek. It was the perfect thing to say, especially coming from this very serious, sometimes gruff man. She tightened her arms around him, her heart aching with love for him.

She loved this man. Nothing else seemed important, not the differences between them or her fear of pushing him away or the huge, terrifying risk she would have to take to open her heart completely to him and to Taryn.

This was real and right and she loved him with everything inside her. She couldn’t go back to her safe and prudent existence before he and his daughter had thrust themselves into her life. She thought she had found tranquility in Hope’s Crossing, a place to quiet the roar of pain after Cassie’s death, but she suddenly realized with stark clarity she had been fooling herself. She had merely woven a cocoon around herself to keep out anything that might threaten her false peace.

Until that evening a month ago when Brodie had burst into her life, she had been hanging there, suspended and safe but in limbo, unable to truly move on to the next stage of her life until she burst out of her protective layers and reentered the cold, sometimes scary world.

“And I have to tell you,” Brodie said with another of those soul-shattering kisses while she was still trying to deal with that stunning discovery, “you say you fell apart back in the courtroom during the seizure. From my point of view, Evie, you were a sea of calm and serenity. It’s one of the things I love most about you.”

Evie blinked, thinking she must have misheard him. Did he really just say the L-word? She opened her eyes and found him watching her with a tenderness that made her catch her breath at the same time it sent heat seeping into every cold place inside of her.

“I know you said you’re not interested in a relationship with me.” His voice sounded rough. “Consider this fair warning. I’m not a man who backs down when I find something I want, especially when that something is the one woman in the world who brings me happiness and peace, who quiets the chaos. I love you and I need your laughter and the…the
joy
that surrounds you in my life. I’m telling you right now, I’ll do anything I have to in order to change your mind about giving us a chance.”

His arms tightened around her as if he were bracing for her to yank away from him and start spouting arguments and objections. Instead she gave him a tremulous smile, certain tears must be trickling down her cheeks. “Okay.”

He stared and eased away a hairsbreadth. “Okay, what?”

“Okay. You’ve convinced me.”

Wary confusion clouded the blue of his eyes in the moonlight. “Just like that?”

She laughed, wondering if it sounded as shaky to him as it did to her. She loved this man. He was good and honorable, hardworking and devoted to his daughter’s care. Strong and decent. How could she
not
love him?

“The truth is, I was already convinced. My heart has been for a while now, though it took the rest of me some time to catch up. I love you, Brodie. You are…everything to me. You and Taryn. I can’t imagine going back to the way things were a month ago without both of you in my life. I don’t
want
to go back.”

He stared at her, his eyes stunned, then a fierce joy ignited in his expression.

“Evie,” he said, her name a soft caress, and kissed her again. She settled into it, her heart lighter than it had been in…forever. They kissed for a long time there in the garden, where the busy sounds of a big-city hospital seemed muted and distant.

She couldn’t believe the joy bubbling through her after the tumultuous day. It was surreal, almost. Things had seemed so bleak and dark after the ambulance had driven away with Taryn and now here she was, wrapped in the arms of the man she loved and looking at a future that suddenly seemed brighter and more precious than the loveliest beads at String Fever.

“I’d better go check on Taryn,” he finally said, his voice threaded with regret.

“You never ate your sandwich,” she said with a little laugh.

“Funny. Food doesn’t seem very important right now.” He smiled and kissed her forehead and everything inside her melted. She thought he had smiled more in the last half hour than she’d seen him smile all month. Because of
her.
She made him happy, and was there any more powerful gift a man could give a woman?

“I’ll eat upstairs in Taryn’s room.”

“I can stay for a while if you’d like.”

He smiled yet again. “I would love nothing more.”

“Do you think Taryn will be okay with…this?” Evie asked. “Us?”

He laughed. “I think she’ll be ecstatic. Stephanie is great and everything and she’s doing a good job but Taryn has missed you. I also think there’s a certain goofy-looking dog who will be over the moon at the chance to have you back in our lives.”

“I’ve missed him, too.”

“Speaking of which, I have to tell you, I couldn’t believe it when I came home from my business trip and found Jacques happily ensconced in my house.”

She could feel pink heat her cheeks. “Yeah, I probably should have talked to you first before thrusting a big decision like adding an animal companion to your family on you like that. It just seemed right at the moment.”

“That’s not what I meant, Evie. You love that dog. How could you give him to Taryn like that?”

She thought of the first few nights without Jacques in her apartment and how she had wanted to curl up into the fetal position and cry herself to sleep. “Her need was greater than mine,” she said simply.

He gazed down at her, his eyes a warm and tender blue. “Is it any wonder I’m crazy about you?” he murmured.

She kissed him, her arms tight around his neck. “It may sound corny and clichéd or like some kind of New Age mumbo jumbo but I’ve learned the gifts you give away always come back to you somehow. Call it karma or kismet or whatever you want, but they do.”

“So you’re saying your dog brought us together?” he said with a laugh.

A dog and a courageous girl and a terrible tragedy that had changed dozens of lives in unexpected ways. Including hers.

“Stranger things have happened,” she said.

“Well, I don’t call it karma or kismet or fate,” he said, his mouth warm and sweet on hers. “I just call it perfect.”

She couldn’t have agreed more.

EPILOGUE

T
HE
SECOND
ANNUAL
Giving Hope Day dawned bright and sunny.

Evie finished loading her toolbox and the dozens of paintbrushes and paint trays she had purchased over the past few weeks into the back of the SUV and paused for a moment to gaze up at the pure blue of an early Colorado June morning. Though a few high clouds drifted across the sky, she would keep her fingers crossed that the twenty-percent chance of showers the weather forecasters were predicting would be completely overpowered by the eighty percent chance of sunshine.

After all the work she and the rest of the bead store regulars had put into making the massive town-wide volunteer service effort even more of a success than the first one, Evie didn’t want to see storm clouds ruin everything. In another hour, hundreds of Hope’s Crossing residents would be gathering at the town community center in town to receive their assignments for the day—everything from litter cleanup in the canyon to painting the picnic tables at the park to helping some of the town’s senior citizens with early summer yard cleanup. She was going to keep her fingers crossed those clouds stayed high and dry.

They already had twice as many people sign up to participate in this year’s Giving Hope Day as the previous event, and donations were still pouring in for the benefit auction and dance later that evening.

Anticipation danced through her and she smiled a little as she watched a mountain bluebird alight in the branches of the big blue spruce near the front door of the sprawling glass-and-cedar place she had called home for the past three months.

A year could make all the difference.

Her world wasn’t remotely the same as the one she had inhabited the year before. She had loved her small, solitary apartment above String Fever and would always be grateful for the peace and serenity she had found there, but as she headed up the curving sidewalk toward the front door of Brodie’s house, she was still a little astonished at how this house so quickly had become her favorite spot on earth. Sometimes she thought the walls could barely hold all the love and joy inside them.

Before she could reach the door, it opened and Jacques padded through, looking quite pleased with himself.

“Don’t tell me you’ve mastered opening doors now,” she said, stopping to give him a little of that love by scratching between his ears.

“Not yet.” Taryn answered the doorway, dressed in jean shorts, the yellow T-shirt all the volunteers were wearing and tennis shoes. The sunny, flowery bracelet she and Charlie Beaumont had made so long ago flashed brightly at her wrist. “Give him time. I’m sure he’ll figure it out eventually.”

Her stepdaughter walked out of the house with the slight hip-swiveling hitch in her step that still lingered but she was steady as she moved toward the SUV. Sometimes Evie thought her heart would burst with pride at Taryn’s progress the past six months, especially knowing she had played a part in it.

A stranger who didn’t know the difficult road Taryn had traveled the past year might only see a pretty dark-haired girl with big blue eyes and a slightly lopsided, winsome smile that hinted at some secret amusement.

Just as Evie had told Brodie all those months ago, Taryn would probably never be exactly as she had been before the accident. Besides the slight awkwardness to her gait, she had trouble with memory sometimes, and once in a while she still struggled to find just the right word in the middle of a conversation and she could stumble over certain phrases.

But she had finished her junior year of high school just that week—and the highlight had been a month ago when she had been named junior prom queen at Hope’s Crossing High School in an assembly where the announcement had been met with tears and hugs and a rousing standing ovation from her classmates.

Jacques, her devoted companion, planted his haunches in the middle of the sidewalk and looked over his shoulder as if to urge her to put some hustle into it. The two of them had a close and loving bond that only seemed to deepen with time.

“Really?” Evie said, finally noticing the leash in her hand. “You’re seriously taking Jacques along to help today? Don’t you think he might get in the way?”

“Why would he? He’ll be good moral support. Anyway, I’m taking his service animal vest, just in case anybody says anything. I need him there to help me.”

Katherine had made the little green vest for the dog as something of a joke but in reality Evie thought there was more than a grain of truth in categorizing the dog as a service animal. Throughout the long months of therapy, Jacques had done far more to help Taryn progress than Evie as a trained physical therapist had been able to accomplish. She had even started using the dog with the few other rehab patients she had selectively taken on in Hope’s Crossing.

There was another change over the past year. Thanks to her work with Taryn, Evie had accepted that some part of her heart would always be a therapist, even when her head tried to make excuses for her to avoid her chosen vocation. She still worked part-time at String Fever, but she was relishing her work with a few carefully chosen patients and the progress they were making.

“Is your dad ready?”

“I think he’s right behind me.”

“Coming,” a distracted voice said. As if on cue, Brodie pushed through the door, his hair still damp and curling at his neck from his shower. He had a coffee travel mug in one hand and was reading something on his smartphone in the other as he walked. Though she had just been cuddled up beside him in bed forty-five minutes earlier, her insides still did that silly little jump of anticipation. It was like that whenever she saw him, even after three months of marriage.

She could only hope she would have the same reaction after they had been married fifty years.

He shoved his phone into the pocket of his jeans. “Sorry. I finally heard back from the city planner in Gunnison. Looks like they’ve finally decided to approve the new sporting goods store there.”

“Oh, Brodie. That’s wonderful news!” For weeks, he had been wrangling with the town over possible sites to expand his business.

She hugged him and he wrapped his arms around her and turned her quick, happy kiss into a long, leisurely, delicious one that made her momentarily wish this was one of those sleepy mornings when they could pull the comforter over their heads and slide together.

“Okay. Can we get on with things now?” Taryn grumbled. Evie wrenched her mouth away and looked over in time to catch her stepdaughter rolling her eyes at them.

Evie knew it was all for show. Taryn had welcomed her into their family with delight and acceptance—as had Katherine, who couldn’t have been more thrilled when Brodie and Evie made their relationship public after Charlie’s sentencing hearing in September. At their March wedding, a quiet affair in the small church in town, Katherine had laughed and cried, joyfully welcoming Evie into their small family.

Brodie pulled away with that secret smile that made her toes tingle. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. We should probably move it. Can’t have the whole town waiting on us.”

He held the door open for Evie, then moved to the backseat to help Taryn—and Jacques—inside.

“This will be so great,” Taryn declared when her father climbed inside and started heading out of the driveway. “All my friends are still talking about how much fun it was last year. Hannah is meeting us at the community center. We wanted to go up the canyon to clean up garbage.”

“Having you there this year will be wonderful,” Evie said.

She knew the rest of the townspeople of Hope’s Crossing would be just as thrilled to see the girl participate in the day. Many saw Taryn’s recovery as nothing short of miraculous. The teenager had become a talisman of sorts to the town, a symbol of hope and healing after the tragedy of the car accident and the scars it had left in countless lives. Though Taryn had shouldered much of the blame for the accident at Charlie’s sentencing hearing, no one seemed inclined to hold her responsible.

Brodie reached across to squeeze Evie’s fingers and she saw the emotion in his eyes. How could she ever have thought him cold and heartless? she wondered. Yes, he was very good at containing his deepest feelings, but that made the moments when he let go all the more priceless to her.

They had just left the gates of Aspen Ridge when Evie spotted a bicyclist heading up the hill toward the neighborhood. Odd, since everyone else in town was heading toward the community center that was serving as the hub of the day’s events.

“Wait!” Taryn exclaimed. “Dad, stop!”

Brodie frowned in the rearview mirror. “T, we’re already running late.”

“I know. Just stop.”

He had barely braked the vehicle before Taryn thrust open her door and raced toward the bicyclist with only a slight stumble in her gait, Jacques on her heels.

A second later, the person pulled off his helmet and tossed it aside then caught Taryn when she would have plowed him over with enthusiasm. Evie inhaled sharply as she recognized him.

“Beaumont,” Brodie growled, and Evie cast a quick glance at him in time to see his hands tighten on the steering wheel. It was undoubtedly Charlie Beaumont, though his hair was a little longer and a little shaggier than it had been nine months ago when he had first entered the youth correctional facility in Denver.

“I guess the rumor mill had it right for once,” he muttered. “I’d heard he might be released soon.”

“And you didn’t tell us?”

“You know how unreliable the grapevine can be. I wanted to be sure before I mentioned it to Taryn. Didn’t want to get her hopes up.”

Though Taryn and Charlie had exchanged emails and letters and the occasional phone call—and even a few in-person visits when Brodie had reluctantly agreed to take his daughter to the correctional facility—Brodie still maintained a cool reserve toward the young man.

When he shut the engine off and opened his door to greet the boy, Evie decided she would be wise to follow, even if Brodie was much more calm about Charlie these days.

To her relief, he held out a hand as he approached the pair. Charlie, his left arm still around Taryn’s shoulders, shook it, and Evie couldn’t help noticing a new maturity about him. That air of troubled restlessness seemed to be gone.

“You should have called or something,” Taryn exclaimed, glowing with a bright happiness that was almost painful to see. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming home?”

Charlie scratched Jacques between the ears and the dog looked at him with just as much joy as Taryn. “I wasn’t sure myself. Everything’s been crazy the last few days. I wanted to be certain they would really give me an early release before I said anything.”

“You just sent me an email three days ago. You didn’t even mention the possibility!”

He shrugged. “It might have fallen through. I thought it would be better to wait.” He deftly changed the subject. “You look terrific, Taryn. Really terrific. And you’re getting around so well. Not even the cane anymore.”

Taryn cast a sidelong look toward her. “Evie’s a slave driver. She told me if I wanted to be her maid of honor I had to ditch the cane.”

“That’s right,” Evie said drily, playing along. “You know me. Bridezilla. Everything had to be perfect for my special day.”

“I’m sure it was. Congratulations on your wedding.”

Evie reached for Brodie’s hand. Even after three months, sometimes the happiness bubbled up inside her and she didn’t know how to contain it. “Thank you. We loved the serving platter you sent us. We used it just the other day. You obviously put a great deal of time into sanding and polishing the wood.”

He looked a little embarrassed. “Woodshop was one of the better ways to pass the time.”

“You’ll have to come to dinner some night soon and see how well it goes in the dining room.”

“Maybe.” He glanced at their vehicle and then back at the three of them. “I guess you’re probably on your way into town for the Giving Hope Day. I won’t keep you. I only wanted to say hey and let Taryn know I was back before she heard about it in town.”

“Why don’t you come with us?” Taryn said suddenly.

Charlie’s laugh wasn’t as harsh as it might have been nine months earlier. “I don’t think that would go over real well in town. Think about it, Taryn. The whole reason for the day is to remember and honor Layla. It’s her birthday, after all. I don’t belong there.”

“Of course you do,” she said fiercely. “You belong there as much as I do. Why shouldn’t you come and help us? Layla was your friend, too.”

“Come on, Taryn. You know why.”

A militant light sparked in her stepdaughter’s eyes. Evie knew that stubborn look. She’d seen it often enough over her months of working with Taryn to know the girl could be relentless when she set her mind to something.

“I want you to come with us. You need to do this, Charlie. Lock your bike up at our house and you can ride with us.”

“Taryn, let the kid make up his own mind.” Brodie spoke for the first time since they’d exited the SUV.

Charlie pointed. “See? Your dad knows it’s a mistake.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Brodie said mildly. “Actually, I think it’s a great idea. I suspect word’s already going to be out that you’re home, and this way you’re facing down the whispers and stares all at once.”