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.
* * *
SAM 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.
He pulled around an RV going about five miles an hour as its driver looked for an elusive parking space. Ahead of it was a minivan with a luggage carrier on the top, probably with the same goal.
The summer tourist season was in full swing, making him grateful he had spent a few months in town during the shoulder months. Though the big tourist draw was the winter snow, summer in the area still offered a bounty of recreational activities, from fishing and camping to mountain biking and kayaking.
So far he mostly had found the increasing crowds manageable, a few annoying moose jams aside. He wasn’t particularly looking forward to the crush in winter and the inevitable invasion but he figured by then he might be able to approach it with the equanimity of the other locals—that the tourists poured money into the economy, which helped build roads and schools and community centers for the year-round residents.
He was now twelve minutes late. In three more minutes, the art camp organizers would probably start calling to look for him.
He had fully intended to leave work earlier but at the last minute, Harry Lange had dropped by the recreation-center site, nearly complete, and he hadn’t been able to extricate himself until now.
He really had to get this whole child-care thing figured out. Finding full-time help with Ethan had turned into a bigger challenge than he had expected, mainly because his house still wasn’t at all in optimal condition, though he wanted to think he had made progress.
Meantime, for the past two weeks since Ethan had come home, he had made do with this summer camp and a crowded day-care facility Ethan wasn’t very crazy about.
A few times, he had ended up taking Ethan along with him if a job site was safe enough for a seven-year-old. The situation was reaching the critical stage, though.
He pulled up in front of the aging community center, just down the road from the high school. The new recreation center in the canyon wasn’t really intended to replace this one but to augment the facilities. This one had a much more convenient location to town but his construction eye picked up various areas of the building that looked in need of attention, specifically the roof and new windows.
His vague worry that he would find Ethan sitting alone on the steps of the building, forlorn and afraid he had been forgotten, didn’t materialize. Instead, he found his son deep in animated conversation with Claire McKnight and her son, Owen, a few years older than Ethan.
Ethan was telling a story, apparently, with broad hand gestures and exaggerated expressions. Both Owen and Claire were laughing at whatever he said, which warmed Sam’s heart.
Even with the child-care chaos, his son had adapted remarkably well to their new situation here in Hope’s Crossing.
Ethan missed Nick and Cheri and their children, who had played such an important part in their lives since Kelli’s death, but he seemed to be embracing this new phase easily. Sam couldn’t help being deeply relieved to know his huge gamble seemed to be paying off.