Willowleaf Lane

This, though. The gnawing craving for some of her father’s comfort food sometimes kept her up at night.

Gooey rich macaroni and cheese. Shepherd’s pie, with thick roast beef and creamy mashed potatoes coating the top like a hard snowfall on the surrounding mountains. Cinnamon-laced apple pie with Pop’s famous homemade vanilla ice cream.

Her dad’s café specialized in the kind of food that numbed and sedated, that soothed hunger pangs and heartache in equal measure.

Despite eighteen months of struggling to change a lifelong addiction to it, whenever she stumbled over one of life’s inevitable bumpy patches, she still craved a hit of Pop’s cooking like a junkie needed crack cocaine.

She knew why. She knew the food at the café represented more than just butter-laden calories. It was her mother waiting for her with a warm towel fresh from the dryer at the end of a rainy walk home from the school bus. It was Pop snuggling her on his lap for a bedtime story, his whiskers tickling her neck. It was summer nights spent sleeping in the tree house with her brothers behind their home while crickets and frogs filled the night with song.

Pop’s food was like home, or at least the home she remembered before the winter she turned ten, when everything changed forever.

On days like this, with her emotions in chaos, she wanted nothing more than to be snugged up against the counter at the diner, burying every concern and feeling of inadequacy under calories.

Drat Spencer Gregory anyway. He had no business coming back to town and leaving her so shaken, filled with dismay and memories and the echo of old pain.

Lasagna. Wouldn’t a big plate of lasagna, dripping with cheese, hit the spot right about now? She bet Pop had some hot and ready. She only had to say the word.

She sighed, increasing her pace. She wouldn’t ask for lasagna. She was stronger than the craving. She only had to remember how hard she had worked the past eighteen months to reshape her life. No matter how provoking her day might be, she couldn’t go back to old habits, the well-traveled pathways in her brain that would inevitably lead her to a destination she no longer wanted.

Instead, she had a chicken breast at home in the refrigerator, soaking in her favorite low-fat marinade of lemon juice, tarragon and a splash of olive oil. As soon as she finished a few errands, she would throw it on the grill along with some vegetables and be far better off.

She pushed open the door and the familiar rich scents surged through her bloodstream like a solid jolt of high-octane caffeine.

“Hey, girl.” Della Pine, who had been waitressing at the Center of Hope as long as Charlotte could remember, greeted her with a wide smile on her wrinkled cheeks. She tottered toward Charlotte in the painfully high heels she always wore, even when she had to spend all day on her feet.

Despite the extra inches, the woman still barely reached Charlotte’s chin, except for her hair, which towered over both of them in all its teased glory.

Charlotte leaned in and kissed the waitress’s cheek, smiling at the familiar olfactory concoction of hair spray, cold cream and lavender powder.

The café was busy, as usual, hopping with the dinner rush. The clientele was generally a healthy mix of tourists and locals. She recognized a few of the latter and raised a hand in greeting.

“Is Pop around?” she asked when Della grabbed a couple menus off the counter by the door for a pair who had come in after Charlotte.

Della jerked her head toward the back. “Check the office. We had some trouble with one of the beef suppliers. Last I checked, he was still trying to iron it out.”

“Thanks.”

She headed toward the office, fighting through the temptation to stop and order a few things off the menu on her way.

Chicken-fried steak, maybe, with a big side of garlic mashed potatoes.

Pop was wonderful at running the Center of Hope Café. Over the years, she had learned more from watching him than any of her business classes in college. She had learned by example how to be a responsible, caring employer, how to be kind to customers and workers alike, how to treat everyone with dignity and respect.

And he cooked one heck of a pork chop.

She sighed as she walked into the office, tucked in behind the kitchen.

This place was as familiar to her as her own childhood on Winterberry Road.

Heaven knows, she had spent enough time here when she was a kid. Even before her mother died, she had loved coming to Center of Hope, hanging out at a table and doing homework while she listened to the sounds of life around her.

During the hard, ugly two years Margaret Caine fought cancer, coming to the diner had been an escape from the fear, from the pain and sickness that seemed to seep through the walls of their home like black mold.

She had avoided that toxic sludge as much as possible. Her mother mostly wanted to sleep anyway, and Charlotte had hated being there. Maybe she should have tried harder to help but that was a heavy burden for a young girl. She had felt like she was coping alone, for the most part.

By then, her only sibling still home had been her next oldest brother, Dylan. At sixteen, he had been too busy with friends and sports and school to offer much help.

She couldn’t deny she had found undeniable comfort in coming to the café after school to do her schoolwork, where Pop would invariably give her a nice chocolate milk shake and a slice of pizza.

Was it any wonder she weighed nearly a hundred eighty pounds by seventh grade?

She paused outside the office door, reminding herself sharply that she was doing her best to become something else. Though she still craved the pizza, the milk shake, she could have her father’s love without it.

She pushed open the door and smiled at the familiar voice uttering a few tasteful swear words at the telephone he had just returned to the cradle.

Her father was still good-looking in a distinguished way, with a shock of thick white hair and the blue, blue eyes she had inherited. His features were tanned and weathered from all the time he spent out in the garden he tended zealously.

“Problem?”

He looked up as she came in and she wanted to smile at the way his eyes always lit up at the sight of her.

“If it isn’t my darling girl, come to see her old da.” Though he had left the green hills of Galway behind when he was a boy of six, sometimes the brogue slipped through anyway.

“Hi, Pop.”

She hugged him from behind, smelling Old Spice and a hint of garlic.

“And how was your day, my dear?”

She thought of that strange encounter in her store a few hours earlier and the wild chaos of her thoughts ever since.

“Interesting. Did you know Spencer Gregory was back in Hope’s Crossing?”

Dermot swiveled around in his office chair and folded weathered hands over his still-lean belly. “Well, now, you know, I did hear something to that effect. About a dozen customers had to tell me they saw him around town.”

She could only imagine how the café must have buzzed with the news. People would be talking about this for some time to come.

“Well, nobody had the courtesy to warn me. I just about fell over when he walked in. I still can’t believe it. How can he return to town like nothing’s happened? Does he expect us to just throw out the red carpet like this town has always done for him?”

“Now, Charley...”

She perched on the edge of the desk. “I’m serious. He gives Hope’s Crossing a bad name. I can’t believe people can’t see that. Now he’s back and he’s going to dredge everything up all over again.”

“I think you’re exaggerating a wee bit.” Dermot gave her a chiding sort of look, the same one he used to wear when she didn’t finish her orange juice in the morning or when she chose to stay home and study instead of go to social activities at school. “A man shouldn’t have to pay the rest of his life because of a few poor decisions.”

“Poor decisions? I’d call it more than that. He was a drug dealer! He ran a steroid and prescription drug ring out of the team locker room.”

“The charges against him were dropped, remember?”

“Because of a technicality in the evidence. He’s never once denied it.”

She didn’t want to admit to her father that she had followed coverage of the case religiously, though she had a feeling Dermot might already know. He seemed to have uncanny insight when it came to her, as much as she might try to be obscure and mysterious.

Spencer’s situation was one of those fall-from-grace scandals the media seemed to relish voraciously. He had been a much-admired sports celebrity with a huge paycheck and a slew of endorsements—a kid from nowhere with fierce talent and extraordinary good looks who had made it big early in the game and continued to produce stunning wins for the Pioneers for the next decade.

She couldn’t lie to herself. She had also followed Spence’s career with the same interest as she did the scandal later. Despite past betrayals, she had celebrated his success, happy for him that he had attained every goal he set out for himself as a driven, angry teen. His nickname, Smokin’ Hot Gregory—Smoke—referred not just to his stunning good looks but also his wicked fastball that had once been clocked at over a hundred miles an hour.

Then three years ago, everything changed. In one horrible game against the Oakland Athletics, he suffered what turned out to be a career-ending injury. Months later, after he had tried to come back, she had caught the press conference when he admitted to a problem with prescription drugs following his injury and that he had gone into rehab for it.

With other Pioneers fans, she had celebrated when he returned to the program as a pitching coach—and then, like the rest of Hope’s Crossing, she had felt personally betrayed when accusations were leveled against him. Someone had been supplying prescription drugs and steroids to his teammates and the evidence against Spence was overwhelming, including a large shipment found in his vehicle parked in the team lot.

Then, in another stunning development, the judge threw out the charges just days before he was supposed to go to trial. Not that the court of public opinion shifted its vote so readily.

While Spence never went to prison, he lost his career, his endorsements, his reputation—and when his stunning former supermodel of a wife was found floating facedown in their pool the very afternoon the charges were dropped, most people blamed him for that, too.

Through it all, Dermot had only seen the good. It was a particularly exasperating failing of her father’s, particularly in Spence’s case.

“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.

“Shopping is one of the few things I can manage. I can still push a cart with one hand.”

She frowned. “Then why don’t you have anything in the refrigerator except beer and what I brought you from Pop?”

“I just haven’t had time. I’ll get to it.”

“I don’t mind,” she offered again. At least if she went shopping, she could be certain he had a few more fruits and vegetables in the refrigerator and a little less alcohol. “I know you don’t like going into town.”

He made a face. “I don’t like going to the doctor as well, but sometimes you can’t avoid it.”

Except he didn’t do that as often as he should, either. She again clamped down on the words, knowing he wouldn’t welcome them.

Since he had been back in Hope’s Crossing, she had tried nagging, cajoling and bribery to convince him he had to take better care of himself. What was the point of going through the months of medical treatment that had saved his life after his injury and the resulting infections if he was only going to waste it sitting around here?

Nothing appeared to work. If anything, he was only digging in his heels harder.

She had never told him that his near brush with death had been her own impetus for change.

She could remember sitting by his bedside right after he had been flown stateside from Germany. At the time, she had weighed more than two hundred pounds and had felt nauseous and exhausted from the long day of travel and the poor food choices she had made on the airplane.

He had been in and out of consciousness and not really aware of her and Pop sitting there beside him, both of them scared to their bones that he wouldn’t make it through the evening.

It had been a long night of prayer and reflection. As she watched her brother cling to life, she had thought about the years of diets she had tried, the weight she would lose and then regain, the frustrating, demoralizing cycle she couldn’t seem to shake.

She had just about accepted she would spend the rest of her life in that state. But now her brother had nearly died in service for his country. He was fighting to survive, barely hanging on, each moment a hard, painful slog.

Meanwhile, she was slowly killing herself, fighting high blood pressure and prediabetes at not even thirty years old. She had been alone and fat and miserable.

It had been an epiphany, a realization that she couldn’t keep going on that cycle. She had made a vow that this time would be different. She owed it to herself and she owed it to her brother to show a tiny measure of the same courage and strength he had.

The irony was, right now, she felt better about herself than since she was a young girl. She looked better, she was stronger, she was certainly healthier and no longer needed any medication. Through a healthy diet and an intense exercise regimen, she had lost almost half her body weight.

Dylan, meanwhile, had won the fight to stay alive, at least physically, but the emotional toll his injuries and new limitations had taken on a once-tough, vibrant soldier had been brutal.

He was broody and angry and she knew she couldn’t fix this for him, no matter how many grocery bags or plates of food she brought over.

“Want me to heat something up for you?” she asked him now.

“No. I’ll grab something later.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah, Mom.”

If their mom were still alive, Margie Caine would drag Dylan down this mountainside by his ear and throw him back into life, whether he liked it or not.

“No hot date tonight?” he asked.

She gave a short laugh, fighting down the fierce wish she could channel a little of their mother right now. “You know me. I’ve got them lined up around the block.”

Despite all the changes, dating was one area she still hadn’t really ventured out into. She had never learned to flirt when she was a teenager.

“You ought to,” he said gruffly. “Have them lined up around the block, I mean. You just need to put a little effort into it.”

If she had been able to find it at all amusing, she would have laughed at the irony of her brother giving her advice on dating when he had become a virtual hermit.

“Thanks for the vote of encouragement. Since I’m up here, I was thinking about grabbing fifteen minutes of cardio before I go home. Do you and Tucker want to come for a walk with me?”

The dog lifted his head, perking up as much as his droopy ears and morose eyes allowed. He gave his musical wooo-wooo bark and clambered to his feet, obviously understanding the magic w-word.

Dylan, not so much. He curled that hand on his thigh again, clear reluctance shifting across his features.

“What about my dinner?”

“You can eat it later.” She ignored the growl of her stomach. A few endorphins would take care of that until she could get home to her chicken breast. “Come on. We won’t go far.”