Currant Creek Valley (21 page)

“I want to...die in this house.”

“Not for a long time,” Alex answered promptly.

“Humph” was Caroline’s answer.

She asked Sam where he was living and the two of them engaged in a conversation about his house and the previous owners, all of whom Caroline had known from the time the house had been built when she was a girl.

Alex was tempted to go back out to the garden but she made herself stay. This was a test, of sorts. If she couldn’t endure a few minutes of conversation with the man, how did she expect to spend the next several decades in the same town?

“You’re going...to the gala tonight?” Caroline asked him.

He nodded.

“Make sure you dance with...my Alex. She’s a good dancer, when she’s not in the kitchen.”

Alex could feel her face heat. “He has a date, Caro.”

“Oh? Who?”

Sam was under no obligation to tell and he seemed reluctant to share but he finally did. “Charlotte Caine,” he answered, gazing out at the garden.

So he had taken her advice from several weeks earlier and asked Charlotte out. It had been
her
idea. She had thought from the beginning that Charlotte would be perfect for him. She was sweet and kind, unlike Alex, and certainly deserved a great guy like Sam.

It was one thing to have the image of some nameless, faceless woman in Sam’s arms playing through her head. But, oh, it was something else entirely when that woman was her good friend.

“She’s a...nice girl,” Caroline said. “Pretty as can be, even before...she lost all that weight.”

She winced for Charlotte’s sake but Sam didn’t even seem to register the comment. “She is. Very nice.”

“Charlotte is wonderful,” Alex said. “I told you so. You should have a great time.”

He gave her a long look over his glass. “I’m planning on it,” he said, rather grimly, she thought.

“I hope you...dance all night,” Caroline said.

Her voice seemed to catch on the last word and Alex gave her a closer look. Just in the past few moments, more color had leached away, leaving her features tight and pale as the sweet william growing along her porch.

“Perhaps it’s time for you to go inside and lie down. You’re in pain.”

“Just a...twinge.”

“Let’s get you inside and I’ll give Helen a call.”

“That’s not necessary. But...maybe I should lie down. Just for a bit.”

“Can I help?” Sam asked.

Caroline summoned a smile for him. “No, no. I’m fine. Enjoy...your lemonade. Alex...can help me.”

Sam stood and looked as if he wanted to sweep the frail old woman into his arms and carry her inside but Alex shook her head. Caroline would be embarrassed and flustered with his help, for all her talk about sexy men.

She tucked Caroline’s arm through hers and helped her into the house and toward her bedroom, just off the living room.

It seemed to take all of her friend’s energy to walk those few steps. Alex helped her out of her slippers and settle into bed.

“Now
he
is...hot,” she declared after the blanket was tucked up and she had the pillows just so. “I...love a man with a few muscles.”

Yes. She did, too. Unfortunately. That particular man.

“
That’s
the sort of fellow...you should be spending some time with. Not those...snowballers and ski bums.”

“Snowboarders, you mean?”

Caroline waved her blue-veined fingers. “Yes. You need a man.”

A man like Sam. She sighed, feeling battered and achy.

“And that...boy of his. Charming, the both of them.”

“Yes. They are. Utterly charming.”

Something in her clipped tone must have tipped Caroline off—or maybe she had just been talking to Claire.

“He’s the one...isn’t he? The one you’re...sweet on.”

She shook her head at the old-fashioned terminology, even though it was an understatement. She had passed “sweet” a long time ago. “We’re friends and neighbors, that’s all, Caro. He finished the kitchen at my restaurant and now he’s fixing up the old Larson place down the street. That’s all there is to it.”

“Too bad. I love...a man...who’s good with his hands.”

This saucy side of Caroline always made her smile. “Don’t we all,” Alex murmured, even though she was trying hard not to remember just
how
good Sam Delgado could be with those big, strong hands of his.

“Remember...what I said the other day. If you like the man, and his hands, you need...to let him know. A smart girl...would snap up a handsome widower like that in...two shakes.”

She was
not
a smart girl. Hadn’t she proved that again and again? “I will definitely keep that advice in mind.”

“I mean it. Don’t waste chances. Life is...gone in a moment.”

She blinked back tears, refusing to show them to her friend. Caroline was dying and she couldn’t fix this with chicken broth and fresh-baked cookies.

“I do...need to rest. Please tell everyone...thank you again for me.”

She kissed Caroline’s sunken cheek. “I will. Sweet dreams, darling.”

She left the room and pressed a hand to her stomach for only a moment before she drew in a deep breath, squared her shoulders and walked outside into the sunshine.

* * *

“Y
OU
CAN
DO
IT
. I’ll hold the board in place and you just nail where I showed you.”

“What if I mess up?” Ethan asked, a glimmer of uncertainty in those clear, blue eyes.

“That’s the great thing about nails. We can always pull them out and start over,” Sam answered.

“Are you sure? I don’t want to ruin it.”

“You won’t. Look. Just hold the nail in one hand and the hammer in the other. That’s the way.”

“I did it!” his son exclaimed a few moments later when the support on the sagging arbor was firmly in place.

“Yes, you did. Now every time we come past this house, you can look at the arbor and the porch steps and remember how we fixed them.”

Ethan glowed with satisfaction. He was very proud of himself when he accomplished something he had once deemed hard. Sam envied that in his son, his ability to celebrate his successes instead of looking for the next mountain to climb.

He loved spending time with Ethan while they worked together on various projects around this small, trim house. Being in this close proximity to Alexandra, on the other hand, was another story. All morning, he had been aware of her working in the garden, her hair in braids and a big straw hat shielding her lovely features.

Though he tried not to stare, his attention had been drawn back to her again and again. He liked looking at her, but this was bigger than simply finding a woman beautiful. He loved the way she smiled at her friend and went up frequently to check on her, the way she teased Ethan at every opportunity, the way she brushed her hair back with her forearm to keep from smudging dirt on her face.

He had almost run the nail gun through his finger when they had been working on the porch, simply because she had stood and stretched, her hands at the base of her spine.

She had been inside with her friend for the past twenty minutes. He hoped everything was okay. Caroline didn’t look good. Before she sent him over here, Claire had told him the woman was dying from cancer.

After seeing Caroline, he recognized the signs from Kelli’s last days. She had the same pale cheeks, the same hollow eyes, and Sam knew she wouldn’t be enjoying this arbor he was fixing or the garden Alexandra so diligently cleared for much longer.

Alexandra would hurt when the other woman died. He wished he could protect her from the pain, absorb it onto his own shoulders somehow.

That’s what a man did when he loved a woman. Comfort her. Ease her sorrows.

He frowned. What good did it do him to be in love with her when she pushed him away at every turn?

“Can we have one of these arbors in our garden?” Ethan asked.

Right now they didn’t have much of a garden, just a weed patch that had been neglected for years, along with the rest of the house. “Sure. Maybe not this summer but someday. We’re going to be pretty busy with that awesome tree house.”

Once that would have filled him with satisfaction, the idea that he could make plans to build something in the future. He would have loved nothing more than knowing he could plant a tree in his yard tomorrow and be around to enjoy it for years to come.

Now he didn’t know what was happening to him. He was beginning to second-guess everything. He was very much afraid he wouldn’t be able to enjoy the house he had planned for, saved for, worked for. Not when he knew she was so close but emotionally on the other side of the galaxy.

Alexandra walked out of the house while he and Ethan were cleaning up the construction mess around the arbor. Her hat still rested on the porch chair and he could see her features clearly. The pain in her eyes, the grim knowledge that her friend was dying, reached out and punched him in the gut.

She grabbed her hat and just stood there on the porch, staring out at the garden without moving. Finally he left his son and walked up the steps they had just repaired.

“How is she?” he asked quietly.

Alexandra turned to look at him, her expression haunted. “I’m sure she’ll be just fine. She just needs a little rest. Being out in the sun was too much for her.”

“That’s probably it.” He was lying and both of them knew it.

“I’m still calling the hospice nurse.”

She sank down on the rocking chair where Caroline had been sitting and pulled out her cell phone. Sam knew he probably ought to finish up here and head over to the next job Claire had given him but he couldn’t seem to make himself move. Alexandra needed him, whether she wanted to admit it or not.

“I don’t know,” she said into the phone. “Gut instinct, I guess. I can tell she’s hurting but she wouldn’t let me give her one of her pain pills.”

She was quiet, listening to the other side of the conversation he couldn’t hear. “Well, you know how stubborn she can be. Maybe you should come over a little earlier than you planned and see if you have better luck.”

She paused. “Yes. I need to go check on the caterers and I’m supposed to be helping decorate but I can certainly wait until you get here. Oh, you’re that close? Good. Thank you, Helen. You’ve been wonderful.”

She hung up and gazed down at her hat, with its flowered ribbon around the base of the brim.

“What can I do?” he asked softly, reaching for her hand.

Her fingers trembled a little and he thought she would pull away from him but she turned her hand over and clasped his fingers while Ethan played in the dirt and the clouds continued to gather.

“Nothing,” she finally whispered. “You’ve done plenty. It will make her happy to know her house and her garden are in fine shape again.”

She held his hand for a moment longer and he wanted to think he was offering some small measure of comfort. They stayed that way until a small car pulled up and a plump woman in nursing scrubs climbed out.

“That’s Helen,” Alexandra said, unnecessarily.

As the nurse approached, she slid her hand away from his, much to his regret. Before the other woman could reach them, she touched his arm, her fingers cool.

“Thank you,” she said simply with a small, strained smile, then walked down to greet the nurse.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“E
VERYTHING
LOOKS
spectacular,” she said to Evie Thorne, head of the decorating committee for the gala a few hours later. “You’ve really outdone yourself this year.”

“Thanks, Alex. I don’t know what I would have done without your help. All of you.” Evie’s smile encompassed her committee: Maura, Mary Ella, Angie, Charlotte. Even Ruth Tatum, Claire’s mother, was there, though she had grumped through the last hour of hanging tea-light lanterns throughout the ballroom.

Though she was crazy-worried about Caroline, Alex had done her best to put her concerns away for now and concentrate on the job at hand. Helen had assured her Caroline was sleeping peacefully after reluctantly agreeing to take pain medication.

At this point, Alex couldn’t do anything to help and Helen had urged her to continue on with the rest of her Giving Hope Day responsibilities.

She had a sudden, fervent wish that Brodie hadn’t decided to close the restaurant to give his employees the chance to participate in the day of service. She desperately needed the distraction and comfort she found in a kitchen.

“She wouldn’t want you to miss the whole day, moping over her. Now go,” Helen had insisted.

She hadn’t known what else to do but obey. At least she was surrounded by dear friends, all of whom continued to cast worried looks her way.

“Is there anything else we need to do?” she asked Evie.

“Not a thing, except I’m ordering everybody to get out of here and go change for the benefit.”

“I understand one of us here has a hot date.” Maura grinned. “Charlotte’s going out with your sexy carpenter.”

“He’s not my carpenter,” Alex said sharply. Too sharply, she realized, when her mother and Maura both gave her careful looks.

“He finished the kitchen at the restaurant,” Evie said with a teasing smile. “That makes him yours, doesn’t it?”

“Technically, that makes him
Brodie’s
carpenter,” she muttered.

“I guess that’s true,” Evie said. “Brodie has so many projects going right now, he’d probably like to keep Sam on permanent salary. He’s got several other jobs lined up once he finishes the work at the recreation center. That’s what happens when you do good work. Everybody wants a piece of you.”

Couldn’t she go anywhere without the conversation coming back to Sam?

“I hope you have a fantastic time, Charlotte,” she said firmly.

Her pretty features colored but her eyes sparkled and she somehow managed to look embarrassed and excited at the same time. Evie knew she was trying to reach out of her comfort zone socially. About time, she thought.

“It should be fun. Most of the guys in town still look at me as, well, the way I used to be. It’s refreshing to meet someone who has no preconceptions.”

Charlotte was one of the nicest people Alex knew and she had worked so hard to remake herself over the past few years. Around their circle of friends, she was warm and bright and funny but she tended to draw into herself when others were around.

“I’m a little nervous, if you want the truth,” Charlotte said.

“You’ll have a great time,” Alex said.

“Sam’s really nice,” Evie added. “He comes off as gruff sometimes but it’s all bluster.”

Sam? Gruff? She hadn’t seen that side of him, she supposed. From the moment they had met, that painfully embarrassing encounter at the restaurant when she had thought he was breaking in, he had been wry and quick-witted and extremely sexy but not at all taciturn.

Did he show a different side to her than he did to everybody else?

She really didn’t want to sit here and listen to her friends psych Charlotte up for her date with the man Alex was in lo—er, seriously lusted after.

“I should probably run. I’m going to swing by and check on Caroline.”

“I’ll walk out with you,” Charlotte said. “I need to pick up the dress I’m wearing at the boutique. I had to go shopping. Nothing I had in my closet fit.”

She received a round of high-fives for that, further evidence of how far she had come. Losing eighty pounds tended to completely change a person’s outlook. Alex could remember when Charlotte used to hate shopping for clothes, but now it was one of her favorite things.

She was a terrible person, Alex thought, as they walked out of the Silver Strike Lodge to the parking lot some distance away.

Charlotte was a close friend and Alex ought to be jumping handsprings for her that she had a date with a great guy she liked.

She was the one who had suggested Charlotte was perfect for Sam, right? And she was. He and Ethan both needed somebody just like her—somebody giving and loving who could nurture them.

Instead, just the thought of them together made her want to cry.

She was only emotional because of Caroline, she told herself, but the explanation rang hollow.

“Are you sure you don’t mind, Alex?” Charlotte asked when they walked outside the lodge. “That I’m going to the gala with Sam, I mean?”

Uh. She scrambled for some way to respond and tried to put on a suitably bewildered expression. “Mind? Why on earth would I mind?”

“I don’t know. I just...” Charlotte’s voice trailed off and she chewed her lip, one old habit she hadn’t managed to break. “I heard Claire say something to Maura earlier today, that’s all. About you and Sam. Going out a few times.”

She could feel her face go hot. “We hung out a few times, that’s all. You know how I am. Never happy for long with one guy.”

As much as she hated that mostly unearned reputation and the jokes her friends sometimes made at her expense, in this case it came in handy.

Charlotte scrutinized her carefully and she wondered if she had been too quick, too hearty, with her answer. “Are you sure? I like Sam, of course, I mean, who wouldn’t? He’s a great father, a hard worker, a decorated war hero.”

“Yes. He is.”
And a fantastic kisser. Don’t forget that part.

“That’s how we met, actually,” Charlotte went on. “I knew he used to be in the army and I thought maybe he could have some suggestions for how to deal with Dylan.”

“Oh. Of course. Good idea. How is Dylan lately? I haven’t seen him around.”

“Still struggling.” Charlotte’s eyes filled with sorrow. “He’s moved into that awful cabin in Snowflake Canyon. All he does is sit around collecting his veteran benefits and drinking and slamming the door on us when we try to go talk to him.”

“I’m sorry.” Today, with her emotions so close to the surface, she wanted to cry for all that wasted potential. Dylan had been smart and fun, a natural leader.

Why did there have to be so damn much pain in the world?

Life was so much easier when she could shut it all out, keep herself from caring.

“He just doesn’t seem to be getting better, you know? He needs some kind of purpose. I don’t know, I thought maybe Sam might have some advice for how to shake him out of it. Soldier to soldier, you know? He agreed to introduce himself.”

“Did he?”

She wanted to tell Charlotte right now to stop talking. She didn’t want to hear more about the wonderful Sam Delgado, but at the same time she wanted to know everything.

Charlotte nodded, her smile soft. “He managed to track him down at the liquor store and struck up a conversation. And, get this, he offered Dylan a job on his construction crew! Can you believe that? A one-armed, half-blind carpenter?”

“Of course he did.”

Alex began to laugh and once she started, she couldn’t seem to stop. Charlotte was giving her a very concerned look, probably ready to call for the paramedics and a straitjacket, but the laughter still bubbled out.

She couldn’t tell her friend she was only laughing to keep from bursting into sobs.

What could she do with a man like Sam Delgado except love him, whether she wanted to or not?

“Dylan turned him down, of course,” Charlotte said after a moment when Alex’s laughter subsided. “Quite rudely, from what I understand. I have a feeling that won’t stop Sam.”

“He’s all about persistence, isn’t he?”

“Yes.” Charlotte nibbled her lip again. “Just so you know, I’m the one who invited him to go to the gala tonight. Sort of my way of thanking him for going out of his way to reach out to Dylan and, I don’t know, maybe help Sam settle in to Hope’s Crossing. And, to be honest, because I like him.”

“What’s not to like? He’s a wonderful guy.”

Charlotte pushed a stray lock of hair from her face and Alex wondered at the self-control it must take for her friend to run the best handmade candy store in Colorado and still lose all that weight.

“I do like Sam but...the thing is, I care about our friendship more. I’m new to the whole dating world, yeah, but I’m pretty sure poaching a good friend’s man is a no-no.”

With a few words, she could break up this budding relationship. Charlotte would probably still keep her date for tonight—at this late hour, it would be too rude to break it—but she certainly wouldn’t go out with Sam again.

She thought about it. For a few moments, she was unbelievably tempted. If she told Charlotte she had feelings for Sam, she knew her friend would back off and slip out of the picture without a second thought.

But because she
did
have feelings for Sam and loved Charlotte dearly, too, she couldn’t do it. She cared about both of them. If they had a chance to find happiness together, she couldn’t be the one to interfere. Even if it seared her insides.

“You’re not poaching anything,” she managed to say without a single quiver in her voice. “Sam is his own man, free to go out with anybody he wants. I’m just thrilled he has the good taste to recognize how fantastic you are.”

“Are you sure?” Charlotte asked, her brow still furrowed with concern.

What more did she need, for crying out loud? A freaking lie detector test?

“Positive,” she answered, with as much sincerity as she could muster. She was trying to come up with something else she could say that might convince Charlotte she had no claim on Sam when her cell phone rang.

Normally she wouldn’t have considered answering it in the middle of an important conversation like this one, but sudden fear clutched at her.

Caroline.

“Hello?” she asked, her stomach suddenly roiling.

“Alex, it’s Helen.”

She had known. Somehow, she had known.

“Caroline is slipping in and out of consciousness,” the hospice nurse said. “You need to come now if you want to say goodbye.”

* * *

“A
RE
YOU
SURE
you’re going to be okay to drive home? It’s late.”

Caroline’s big grandfather clock had chimed 1:00 a.m. about ten minutes earlier. The time of death was actually ten-thirty but it had taken all this time to handle the formalities, first the doctor and then the funeral home director.

“I’m fine,” Alex answered, squeezing the hand of the hospice nurse. “Thank you, for everything. You’re a hero.”

Helen managed a watery smile. She had known Caroline all her life, too, and cared for her deeply, especially these last few months of providing end-of-life treatment.

“Get some sleep,” Alex said.

“You, too, dear.”

She nodded, though she knew sleep would be a long time away. She felt scoured raw, like one of the pans in her kitchen.

She locked Caroline’s door with the key, wishing her son had been able to make it back from Japan for the end, but it had happened so suddenly.

One moment Caroline was drinking lemonade on her porch, the next it seemed she was clasping Alex’s hand to say a final goodbye.

At least Ross had spent several days with his mother a few months earlier. It was probably better that way, so he could remember his mother as she had been most of his life instead of the frail shadow she had become at the end.

She walked toward her vehicle down from the porch steps Sam had only just fixed. The storm of the afternoon had blown away and the night was starry and bright, sweet with the promise of summer.

She wanted to walk. To just head off through the darkened streets of Hope’s Crossing and walk and walk and walk until this pain eased, but her car was here and if she left it, she would have to arrange a way to pick it up.

And her dog had been alone far too long today, though she had called one of her neighbors to let him out a few hours ago.

Her eyes felt gritty and every muscle in her body throbbed with fatigue.

As hard as the long vigil had seemed, she was deeply grateful she had been there at the end.

Caroline’s last words seemed to echo through her. “Go. Live.” She had thought that was the last thing Caroline could say but she had added, barely audible, one word.

“Love.”

Now, remembering, the tears she had fought back all evening burst through and trickled down her cheeks as she drove through the empty streets of Hope’s Crossing.

Not completely empty. On Willow Creek Road, on her way to her house, she saw a pickup truck parked in front of Charlotte’s house.

Sam.

A quick glance up on Charlotte’s doorstep showed her two people, shadows, really, wrapped in an embrace.

She had to jerk her gaze back to the road before she drove into a telephone pole.

She didn’t think it was possible but she still had room for fresh pain to slice through the grief.

Once when she had been eight, she had broken her arm riding her bike down the hilly street behind their house. Two weeks after the cast came off, she had been jumping on the trampoline in the backyard and had fallen on it, breaking it again. The pain the second time had been far worse because the bone and sinews had still been damaged from the first break.

Her heart had been broken once, so long ago she could now barely remember it.

This time, she knew, the pain would be worse. Much worse.

Charlotte and Sam were perfect for each other but seeing them together would hurt worse than breaking her arm again and again.

* * *

S
AM
KEPT
ONE
EYE
on the time while he navigated through summer traffic toward the community center where he was supposed to have picked up Ethan from his summer art camp ten minutes ago.