Willowleaf Lane

“Say what you want about him, but he was always a good boy,” her father said now, quite predictably, with that same admonishing look. “You know he had no sort of home life at all, what with his father dying young and his mother tippling away anything she could earn here. My heart fair ached for the lad.”

For some reason, at her father’s words, she pictured Peyton, pale and thin and troubled.

“He has a girl. A daughter. Skinny as a pike. She could use a little of your good apple pie, if you ask me.”

“Or your fudge.”

“I gave her some.”

She smiled a little, remembering the girl’s stunned expression at the simple act of kindness, as if nobody had ever done anything spontaneously nice for her before, then her features had shifted back to truculence when her father found her in Sugar Rush.

“I don’t think she likes it here much.”

“Oh, the poor lamb.”

Predictably, her father was easily distracted by a sad case, and she decided to push yet another even more tender button to avoid further discussion of Spence Gregory.

“Sorry. I didn’t come in to talk about Spence or his daughter. I wanted to let you know I’m heading out to drive up Snowflake Canyon tonight to check on Dylan. Do you have anything you want me to take to him?”

Dermot’s features softened with worry even as he stood up from his chair a little gingerly, as if his bones ached.

“Excellent idea.” He draped an arm over her shoulder and they headed out of the office toward the kitchen. “You’re a grand sister, you are. The meat loaf is good today. He always favors that. And I’m sure I could find a bit of soup and perhaps some leftover fried chicken. Another of his favorites.”

“Perfect. Those should keep him going for a while.”

“That boy. What are we to do with him?”

She leaned her head against Pop’s shoulder. “I wish I knew. He can’t go on like this. I think he’s lost an extra twenty pounds just since he’s been home.”

She didn’t need to add that Dylan hadn’t any spare poundage to lose, not after the severe injuries and then resulting infection that had nearly killed him.

“You’re a sweet girl to worry so for your brother. Someday he’ll thank you for it. You’ll see.”

She wasn’t so sure of that. Though he had come home several weeks ago, he felt even more distant than when he had been back east receiving treatment.

She just kept hoping that if she tried hard enough, she could find the key to helping her brother.

As she helped Pop package up several meals for Dylan, along with some cookies and a nice slice of cake, she reminded herself her brother was a worthwhile thing to fret about, not the sudden reappearance in her life of a man she had long ago vowed that she despised.

CHAPTER THREE

ON A JULY evening, Hope’s Crossing was a lovely, serene place, far removed from the bustle and craziness of the winter season, when the streets would be clogged with traffic and long lines of bundled-up customers would stretch out of all the better restaurants.

Though the town had plenty of summer visitors, for some reason they didn’t seem as pervasive, maybe because so many of them were out enjoying the backcountry.

She drove past the ball diamonds and saw what looked like a Little League game in full swing. It dredged up memories of late spring evenings when she would perch on the bleachers while Hope’s Crossing High played—ostensibly to watch her brother but she spent plenty of time checking out the boy who usually occupied the pitcher’s mound.

She had been pathetic. Really. Just a few yards shy of creepy Stalkerville.

With a sigh, she turned her attention back to the road and turned up Silver Strike Canyon, where the trees bowed over the road, heavy with summer growth, and the river gleamed bright in the sweet golden light.

After only a mile or so, she took the turn up the box canyon known as Snowflake Canyon. The road rose steeply here, winding in hairpins up the backside of the mountains that enfolded the town, and it took all her concentration to drive here.

This was a sparsely populated area, just pockets of houses here and there. No developer had stepped in to make it a subdivision, probably because the cost of delivering water and other utilities to these houses was prohibitive.

For the life of her, she couldn’t imagine why Dylan wanted to live in the tall timbers, isolated and alone. After fifteen minutes, she turned onto his driveway and finally parked in front of his small log home. Though the inside had nice amenities, with a well-outfitted kitchen and comfortable bathroom and bedroom, the outside looked more like a backwoods shack, complete with chickens pecking the gravel. For all she knew, Dylan had a moonshine still in the barn.

True to form, when she pulled up, Dylan was sitting on the porch, his feet resting on the railing. Beside him lounged his big black and tan coonhound, Tucker, who had lived with her and Pop during Dylan’s deployments and the long months of his recovery.

Tucker lifted his head when she drove to a stop, then rested it on his paws again, apparently disinterested.

Dylan didn’t look any more enthusiastic at her visit. He watched her step down from her SUV out of hooded eyes, and she didn’t miss the way he set a bottle of whiskey on a little table beside him.

Though it was hard—so hard—she pasted on a smile as she approached the porch. “Hey, there.”

She could tell instantly this wasn’t one of his good days. His mouth tightened from what she guessed was pain, and he glowered at her. Hurt pinched just under her breastbone at his deliberate lack of welcome.

Why couldn’t he let her in a little? Before his injury, she would have said she and Dylan had been close. Though he was four years older, the same as Spence, he had been her closest sibling in age. As children, he had always been patient and sweet to her, far more than most older brothers would have been to pesky little sisters. As adults, their relationship had shifted to good friends. She sent him care packages every week he was deployed and he emailed her funny little stories about interesting things he saw or whatever military experiences he was free to share, which weren’t that many.

Since he had been wounded, he had closed in around himself, shutting her out just like everybody else.

She walked up the porch with one hand clutching the handles of the brown paper bag with Center of Hope Café printed on the side. Though he was still handsome, like all her brothers, with chiseled features, full lips and the blue eyes they shared, he looked as if he hadn’t shaved in a few days and his eye patch gave him a dark, menacing air, despite the weight he had lost.

He wasn’t wearing his prosthetic, she saw, and the stump of his arm just below his elbow looked red and scarred.

“What brings you up this way?” he asked, his voice more of a growl.

No Hello, no friendly How’s my baby sister? Terse and trenchant. That’s about the best she could get out of him these days.

She leaned in and kissed his cheek just under the eye patch, catching a strong whiff of booze that broke her heart.

“Brought you some of Pop’s food. I figured it might hit the spot. Have you had anything today but Johnnie Walker?”

He eased away from her and rested his remaining hand—the one she was quite sure wanted to reach for the bottle—on his thigh. “I made a grilled cheese sandwich at lunch.”

Did you eat any of it, though? She bit her tongue to keep from asking the question. “Do you care if I put these in the refrigerator?” she asked instead.

He gestured to the door, and she pulled open the screen and walked inside.

One might have expected the inside to reflect the same general air of neglect the house showed on the outside. Instead, it was almost freakishly neat, with no dirty dishes in the sink, no scatter of magazines or junk mail on the countertop.

To her, it always seemed like an empty vacation rental, as if nobody really lived here to give it heart. The house seemed bleak and unhappy to her and she couldn’t understand how he could tolerate it for more than a minute.

She opened the steel late-model refrigerator and found only two twelve-packs of Budweiser, a small brick of cheese that had something growing on one corner and a half-gallon milk container with barely a splash left.

She put the food containers away, her own hunger completely forgotten.

“Do you need me to go grocery shopping for you again?” she asked when she returned to the porch.