Reunion Pass: An Eternity Springs novel (13 page)

They sat propped against her pillows, snuggled close, with Lori’s lavender sheet pooled across their laps. His expression reverent, he lifted one of the rolls toward his face and inhaled deeply. “Wow, I do love this smell.”

“It’s the cardamom,” she observed.

“Cardamom, yeast bread.” He turned his head and gazed into her eyes. “Apricot shampoo, and the scent of sex on your skin. It’s heaven. My heaven.” Without looking away, he took a bite of roll. “Mmmm…”

Lori smiled with pleasure. “You like it.”

“No. I love it. I really love it.”

“I’m so glad.”

“Are you? Then I guess this seems like a good time to go all in. I love you, Lori. I’m in love with you.”

In her mother’s bakery kitchen in Eternity Springs, the aroma of hot kringlor heavy on the air, Lori remembered the moment and broke.

Her knees turned to water. Grief erupted from her heart and sobs tore through her throat. Keening, she sank onto the floor and wept.

Chapter Eight

Sarah Murphy remodeled her childhood home for the first time when she opened her bakery, Fresh. As a single mother to Lori and with Alzheimer’s disease slowly claiming her own mother’s mind, Sarah had needed a means of support that allowed her be “on site” as much as possible. Converting half of her home into a bakery had accomplished the goal. Fresh became a rousing success.

The second remodel and expansion occurred after she married Cam when they learned that Michael was on the way. She loved the convenience of basically working from home—especially on days like today when illness upset their schedule.

Having checked on her sleeping son moments ago, she was halfway down the staircase headed back toward the bakery when she heard the door from the garage open and the familiar squeak of Cam’s favorite summer footwear—flip-flops—against the tile floor of the family kitchen. She wasn’t surprised he’d cut his meeting at his sporting goods store short. Since hearing the news about Chase, both she and Cam tended to hold Michael a little tighter, and hug Lori and Devin a little longer and more often. Cam was a nervous father anyway. News of Michael’s having a stomachache never sat well.

She met her husband at the bottom of the staircase. Lines of worry creased his brow as he asked, “How is he doing? What do you think is wrong with him? He was fine this morning when I left. Should we take him to the doctor?”

“He’s asleep. I think it’s just a bug, but I went ahead and made an appointment at the clinic at four.”

“Good. I—” Cam broke off abruptly as the sound of a wailing child broke the quiet of the house.

Except, the keening wasn’t coming from upstairs. It was coming from Fresh. Even as Sarah realized what she was hearing, a second wail sounded, this time from up in Michael’s room. “We have two crying children,” Sarah murmured. “This is a first.”

“Lori? That’s Lori in the bakery?” Cam’s eyes went wide with panic.

“Yes. You go see to Michael. I’ll check on Lori.”

Relief flashed in Cam’s eyes as he nodded. As uncomfortable as dealing with a physically ill child made him, supporting an emotionally devastated daughter went way beyond his comfort level.

Sarah knew that’s what she’d find when she entered Fresh. She’d been watching her daughter for days now, seeing the fear grow more brittle with every passing day. Lori still had feelings for Chase. Exactly what feelings and how deep, she wasn’t sure, but if the past week had taught Sarah anything, it was that Chase still owned a piece of Lori’s heart. And that piece, small though it might be, was breaking.

Sarah hurried into Fresh, spied her sobbing daughter in a crumpled heap on the floor, and her heart sank. She went down on her knees and gathered Lori in her arms. “Oh, baby. Sweetheart. Shush, now. I’m here. Mama’s here.”

“I’m so scared, Mom.”

“I know, baby. Me, too.”

An ocean of tears and fears swam in Lori’s big green eyes—eyes so much like her father’s. “Where is he? Why haven’t they found him yet?”

Sarah had no answers to the questions, so she voiced the litany she’d repeated to herself for days now. “We have to keep the faith, Lori. Chase is better equipped to survive in that part of the world than most.”

“I know. I just…” Fresh sobs tore at her throat. “I’m so angry at him!”

“Angry? Why?”

“Because he went there to begin with. With her. With that beautiful, blond, Botoxed … because he’s going to marry her. Not me. He loved me. I was his heaven. Cardamom and apricot shampoo and the scent of sex on my skin.”

The scent of … oh, dear.

“I would have married him, Mom. I loved him, but I wasn’t enough for him. Why wasn’t I enough for him?”

They’d been sleeping together. I should have known. Why didn’t I know?
“You were sleeping together.”

“In college.” Emotion flashed across Lori’s face. Wistfulness and pain and regret. “He visited me in Texas. I wanted to keep it a secret. He was my first. I made him kringlor when he came to see me. It’s the only thing I can really bake, you know? That and premixed cookies. But he loved my kringlor and I loved him. I should have known better. He’s a lot like Dad. Handsome and outdoorsy and athletic. Only they ran Dad out of Eternity Springs. Chase left of his own accord. I wasn’t enough for him. Eternity Springs wasn’t enough for him. He chose her and she took him to Terroristbuktu and now his helicopter is burned and he’s disappeared! Why couldn’t I have been enough, Mom? Why couldn’t he love me enough? Why didn’t he wait for me? We could have had a life together. I really wanted that. I just wanted him to wait. Why wasn’t I important enough to wait for?”

Erupting in fresh tears, Lori buried her head against her mother’s breast. Sarah held her, rocked her, her heart breaking; she was at a loss to comfort her daughter. She wasn’t really surprised to learn that Chase had been Lori’s first. She’d recognized the stars in her daughter’s eyes.

Sarah clicked her tongue, then stretched to grab a tissue from a box just within reach. “Oh, sweetheart. Shush now. It’s okay.”

She wiped tears from her daughter’s cheeks. “I’m sure Chase did love you, but you were both so young. And, at different stages of life. That’s a huge mountain to climb—bigger than you realize when you’re in the middle of it. You put your education first and that’s okay. I know it had to hurt when the romance ended. When did you break up, honey?”

“We didn’t really ‘break up.’ It was like we … stopped. He just kept wandering and I kept studying and here we are. Except, he isn’t here. He’s missing and I’m falling apart and I don’t even have the right to it, do I? He’s hers now.”

“You have every right to be upset and worried. Even if he’s not still your lover, you still care about him. You probably always will.”

“I do care. You can’t just stop loving someone because they move on.”

“Oh, I know, honey. Believe me, I’ve traveled that same road myself. I wish you had said something to me. I’ve been down that road. I would have walked along with you.”

“I couldn’t tell you when I was sleeping with him. That would have been awkward for you and me and for you and Ali, too. I sure couldn’t tell you when we stopped sleeping together. My pride wouldn’t let me. I was devastated, Mom. I just wasn’t enough. I was rooted and he wanted to fly. He flew right to her. I tried to be an adult about it, but when I heard he was engaged … oh, I was so jealous. Now … I swear, I don’t care about that. As long as he comes home safe and sound, that’s all that matters. Shoot, I
want
him to marry her. Here in Eternity Springs like they’d planned. I’ll bake kringlor for their reception. I’ll volunteer to be a bridesmaid if she needs one. As long as he comes home!”

Sarah gave her daughter another hug as movement at the doorway to the hallway that led from the bakery to the house caught her notice. She looked up to see Cam standing with a sleeping Michael snuggled in his arms and a stormy expression on his face. His voice a low-pitched growl, Lori’s father said, “I hope that kid comes home so I can tear his ass apart.”

Her head still buried against Sarah, Lori emitted a thready laugh. Lifting her gaze, she looked at her father. “You might have gotten a late start on active fatherhood, but you’ve picked up the clichés nicely.”

“Damned straight.” Cam crossed over to his women and placed a supportive hand on Lori’s shoulder. “I’ll beat him up for you the first chance I get, sweetheart.”

“Thank you, Daddy.”

With that, Lori pulled away and stood, gathering both her dignity and her emotions. “Enough of this. I came by wearing my delivery girl cap. Do you have the kringlor all boxed up and ready?”

“I do.” Sarah used the pad of her thumb to wipe a tear off Lori’s cheek. “Are you sure you want to make the trip up to Heartache Falls?”

“Yes. I’ll be fine now. I think I just needed a good cry.”

“You know what Celeste says: ‘Tears are raindrops from Heaven that dilute one’s sorrow and nourish the healing process.’”

“She’s a wise woman, our Celeste.”

“That she is.”

Lori dusted stray cookie crumbs off her jeans, then asked, “How’s my man Mikey doing?”

“I’ve diagnosed a stomach virus.” Because Sarah recognized that her daughter’s need for emotional support was higher than her son’s need for his mother at this particular moment, she said, “Your father is taking him to the doctor in a little while, which frees me to run up to Heartache Falls with you.”

Lori and Cam spoke simultaneously. Cam’s voice held a note of panic as he asked, “Are you sure, Sarah?”

Sarah didn’t miss the gratitude in Lori’s. “Are you sure, Mom?”

“Positive.” She kissed her sleeping baby’s head, then kissed Cam’s cheek. “You’ve got this, Daddy. Lori, the boxes are on the counter if you want to start loading the car. I’m going to run upstairs and change my shirt. Michael rubbed banana all over it when he tugged at my shirttail.”

With marching orders issued, Sarah hurried up to her bedroom and into the master bath where she ran a comb through her short hair, and took two minutes to indulge in a good cry of her own. She cried for Lori and for Chase and for what-might-have-beens. Then she splashed her face with cool water, changed her shirt, and hurried back downstairs where she gave Cam a couple more dealing-with-a-sick-child instructions and headed to Fresh to finish helping load the SUV. To her surprise, the task was completed. “Sorry, Lori. I guess I took longer upstairs than I thought.”

“I had help.” Lori gestured toward the passenger seat of the SUV. Celeste finger-waved toward Sarah. “Celeste said she wanted to spend the afternoon at Ali and Mac’s.”

Sarah climbed into the SUV’s backseat and addressed Celeste. “I thought you had a meeting you couldn’t miss at Angel’s Rest today.”

“I rescheduled. I want to be with Mac and Ali this afternoon.”

Something in her friend’s tone caught Sarah’s notice. She darted her a sharp look, but Celeste’s expression remained its usual serene self. Nevertheless, unease fluttered through her stomach. All of a sudden the drive had a sense of anticipation to it that she had not noticed in previous trips up the mountain, and it was why upon reaching Heartache Falls, she asked for help distributing the rolls from a couple of teens in the crowd. Slipping her arm through Lori’s, she suggested, “Let’s hang with Celeste for a bit, shall we?”

Lori gave her a questioning look that said she’d sensed the strange undercurrent, too. Sarah shrugged, and she and Lori followed Celeste inside.

Mac, Ali, and Caitlin stood at their dining room table where a large paper map lay spread across two-thirds of the table’s surface. Jack Davenport spoke softly to the family as he marked on the map with a pencil. Sarah tuned in to hear Jack say, “… and expand the search grid tomorrow.”

Mac asked, “How many men did they estimate again?”

Solemnly, Jack replied, “At least a dozen.”

Ali grimaced and closed her eyes. Caitlin brought her hand up to cover her mouth. Mac’s voice sounded harsh and hopeless as he said, “It would take a miracle…”

Celeste joined the family at the table and spoke in a voice filled with comfort and confidence. “If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a dozen times. Thank God we do miracles here in Eternity Springs. Now is not the time to lose your faith, my dear friends.” She turned her head and her gaze met Lori’s as she added, “Chase will come home to you.”

With that, Sarah took her first easy breath in a week.

She wasn’t even all that surprised when Gabe Callahan’s cell phone rang ten minutes later. He checked the number and sucked in an audible breath. “Hello, Mark.”

Instantly, the room grew as quiet as a snowfall. Ali and Mac reached for each other’s hands. Lori took a half step closer to Sarah.

Gabe exhaled a heavy breath. “Okay. Just a moment.”

He extended his phone toward Ali. “They found him. He’s safe. Ali? Mac? Chase wants to talk to you.”

Through watery eyes, Sarah watched her daughter react to the news. Lori swayed a little bit and shut her eyes. She sighed in relief, and like many others in the room, she offered up a soft prayer of thanks and gratitude.

Sarah added her own prayer of thanks, and then said another one on behalf of her daughter. Because when the Timberlakes finished their phone call, Mac summarized what he’d learned and finished by saying, “Chase said he and Lana are on their way home to Eternity Springs.”

Had her gaze not been on her daughter, she wouldn’t have seen the brief look of pain that flashed across Lori’s face. Something in her own expression must have revealed that she hadn’t missed it, because Lori winced.

Sarah reached over and patted Lori’s hand. “It’s okay, honey. I won’t tell anyone about the bridesmaid thing.”

Lori laughed. “I love you, Mom.”

“Love you, too, babycakes. Love you, too.”

N
INE DAYS LATER

Chase sat staring out the passenger seat window of the SUV Lana had rented at the Colorado Springs airport. He was marginally aware that as she drove, Lana kept up a constant barrage of chatter. It was noise. He wanted to ask her to be quiet, but to do so meant he’d have to speak. Speech required more effort than he had within himself to manage at the moment.