Meet Me At The Chapel

Casey went into the tiny attached bathroom to fix her hair, if possible, and wash her mouth out with mouthwash. When she got a load of herself in the mirror, she started to laugh. She looked like a redheaded Medusa. She had tried to tame her hair before bed, but it hadn’t worked. Now, it was even worse after a night of sleep.

“Whatever.” Casey made a face.

She took off the white undershirt Brock had let her borrow. After getting dressed, she made the bed, and then left the folded undershirt on the comforter, along with the pajama bottoms she hadn’t used. Brock’s pajama bottoms had just slipped right down her hips.

Finally, she retrieved her beloved Jimmy Choo boots from beneath a nearby chair and stared at them sadly. They were ruined. Her beautiful, expensive, Jimmy Choo boots that she had vision-boarded for months, that she had saved a little every month to buy, were caked with red clay and still wet from the day before.

“You poor, poor boots. You didn’t deserve this. I didn’t deserve this.” Today, she wasn’t even going to try to be careful with them. There was no use shutting the gate after the cow got out. Resigned to their untimely demise, Casey shoved her feet into the boots and headed downstairs.

“Good morning.” Casey was met with a cornucopia of breakfast food smells when she entered the kitchen.

“Mornin’,” her host greeted her. “Coffee’s hot, mugs in the drying rack are a safe bet.”

“Bless you.” Casey poured herself a cup of coffee.

“If you need milk or sugar, they’re somewhere in the fridge. Just fish around.”

“I take it black.” She took her coffee to the table.

Brock was manning the stove in a “Kiss the Chef” apron, while Hannah, who had already had her breakfast, was on the floor formally introducing Lady and Hercules in the light of day. They had met informally in the cellar, but this was the first time that they were nose to nose, so to speak. Lady was lying down on the floor, her head between her two outstretched front legs, obviously trying to do her best to make friends, while Hercules was yapping as loudly and as ferociously as he could manage in order to assert his dominance in the relationship.

“Hercules—that’s not nice.”

“How do you take your eggs?” Brock asked her.

“Are they eggs from free-range chickens?”

“The chickens live out back. Is that free enough for you?”

“Lucy and Ethel!” Hannah supplied the names of the chickens.

“I Love Lucy and ladybugs. That’s what she loves.” Brock looked over at his daughter.

“And animals,” Casey added.

Brock turned his body away from the stove and toward Casey. This wasn’t the first time he’d wanted to get a better look at her in his favorite shirt. It engulfed her, but it looked good on her. Her hair, seemingly more red than auburn in the daylight, was mussed and wild, and he could swear that she had the brightest green eyes he’d ever seen on a woman.

“And animals,” he echoed her sentiment. Then, so he wouldn’t be standing in his kitchen ogling her like a teenage boy, he asked again, “How do you take your eggs?”

“Scrambled works.”

“How about some bacon made from free-range pigs?” Brock teased her.

“No. Thank you. I’m a pescatarian.”

Brock wasn’t exactly sure he’d heard her right, so after he got the eggs cooking, he turned back around.

“Did you say you were a Presbyterian?”

“No!” Casey laughed so easily. It had been a long time since he’d heard a woman laughing in his house. “Pescatarian. I don’t eat meat, except for fish. But I’m trying to give up fish, too.”

“What for?”

She smiled at him; she had deep dimples in each of her pale cheeks. Sweet.

“Health mainly—bacon is full of fat and salt. High in cholesterol.” Casey wrinkled her nose at the thought of eating bacon.

“Dad has high cholesterol and high blood pressure,” Hannah shouted from the living room.

“Hannah—remember what we said about private information?”

“But Dr. Patel says that he has the heart of a much younger man.”

It was too late to cork that bottle—instead, Brock decided to ignore the fact that his daughter had just provided a near stranger with all of the recent results of his physical and finish scrambling the eggs. The only thing that she hadn’t shared, because she hadn’t been in the room to hear it, was the fact that he had a mildly enlarged prostate and needed to drop twenty pounds.

Brock put a healthy portion of scrambled eggs on the plate, along with cheese grits and a couple of biscuits.

“Eat it while it’s hot.” He put the plate down in front of her and then sat down on the opposite side of the kitchen table.

“Mmm. Thank you. I’m so hungry.” Casey stabbed a couple of eggs with her fork. “What about you?”

“I ate hours ago. We’ve been waiting on you.”

Casey chewed her eggs quickly so she could ask, “Why didn’t you wake me up when you got up?”

“I got up while it was still dark.”

“Oh.” That was different. “Well, why didn’t you get me up sooner, then?”

“No harm done. It’s my day off and I’m not looking forward to getting up on the roof to see how many shingles need to be replaced. You need salt or pepper for the eggs?”

“No. I’m good. These eggs are delicious, FYI.”

“That’s good.”

She finished her breakfast, offered to clean the dishes, which he refused, and then all five of them, two dogs and three humans, piled into Brock’s truck. First stop was the moving truck and the second stop was Taylor’s house.

“I feel really bad about Clint breaking his collarbone.”

She watched Brock’s face for a reaction. There wasn’t one.

“He was supposed to be gone all summer,” she added.

Brock glanced over at his passenger. She had been biting her lip nervously since they had gotten into the truck. Now he understood some of her nerves at least—she was worried about living in a house with a newly married couple and a newborn. Even if they told her that she wasn’t going to be a bother, Brock had a feeling that Casey wouldn’t even take the chance of being an inconvenience to anybody. During the short time they had spent together, she was always worried about his comfort and his feelings, as well as the comfort and feelings of his daughter. He found her politeness refreshing.

“Might be mighty tight over at their place,” Brock said, broaching the topic.

Casey turned her head his way, met him eye to eye. She said, “I was thinking the exact same thing.”

“You thinking about cutting your trip short?”

The woman beside him breathed in very deeply and then let it out on a long, extended sigh. “I’d hate to do that. But I just might have to...”

“It’d be a shame. Coming all this way just to go home.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Casey making little circles on the top of Hercules’s head. “I know. But I can’t impose on Taylor for the summer—not now. Newlyweds need their private time. Besides, Clint is hurt. He’s not going to be in any mood to have a houseguest.”

“That’s right,” he agreed, then added, “I have a loft apartment above the barn. It’s a little rough, but it’s livable.”

Casey looked at Brock, interested.

“The way you are with Hannah—like I said last night—it’s impressive. And it got me thinking that we could help each other out. Hannah does fine with academics—she’s even strong in math and science. But it’s her...”

“Pragmatics,” she filled in for him.

He glanced at her again. “Exactly. As you can tell from our breakfast conversation, there’s still a bit of a ways to go with that.”

Casey nodded her agreement—a deficit with social use of language was a universal symptom of individuals with autism across the spectrum.

“How ’bout I let you use the loft for the summer in exchange for some private social language support. How does that set with you?”

Casey stared at Brock’s profile. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. Why? Do you think it’s a bad idea?”

“Heck, no, I don’t think it’s a bad idea. I think it’s a pretty genius idea,” she said with a smile. “Can I let you know?”

“Sure. Offer stands.”

Casey’s smile was short-lived.

“Oh! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!” She put her hands on top of her head in disbelief.

The rental truck was knocked on its side.

“What’s wrong?” Hannah looked up from her iPad.

Brock pulled onto the berm on the opposite side of the road from the rental truck.

“Damn.”

“Swear jar!” Hannah yelled.

“Hannah,” Casey said in a stunned, monotone voice. “Would you hold Hercules for me?”

“Stay in the truck and wait for us, okay, baby girl?” Brock pulled his hat off the dash and pushed it onto his head.

Together, they crossed the road. In silence, they both walked around the perimeter of the truck. The back was still locked, but the truck was facing the wrong direction.

“The only thing I can figure is that a twister caught it and spun it ninety degrees. Then for kicks, knocked it on its side.”

Casey stood, shaking her head back and forth, and back and forth. She couldn’t find words. Everything her sister owned, everything her sister cherished, was in that truck. There was a collection of Royal Doulton statues worth thousands, as well as a collection of Lladró figurines, also worth thousands. Taylor had been collecting them since she was a teenager.

“I want to cry,” Casey said quietly. “I really do.”

Brock looked down at her, she saw him in her periphery, and then he took his cell phone out of his pocket and made a phone call. She heard him make arrangements with a friend who had a tow truck made to haul big rigs to come and set the Beast upright and tow it to Helena.

“Thank goodness I took the insurance.” Casey couldn’t stop staring at the rental truck. She’d never seen one from this angle before. It was a bit like looking at a surrealist painting, trying to figure out why people were walking on the ceiling.

“Right?” Brock crossed his arms in front of his body. “My friend Billy will be able to get this right-side up sometime around noon.”

“Thank you.”

They stood together, both looking at the truck without anything else to say about it.

“Are you done looking at it?” the ranch foreman asked her.

Casey sighed. “Yeah. I guess. The damage is done.”

“That’s right.”

The rest of the way into Helena, Casey felt sick to her stomach. Taylor was going to be heartbroken and it was her fault. She was the one who’d had the idea of saving her sister some cash by renting a truck and driving it herself. Taylor had said, repeatedly, that she thought it was best if professional movers brought her things to Montana. But, as she always did, she persisted until she wore Taylor down. And now, all of her belongings were trapped in a toppled rental truck on the side of a desolate Montana highway. Brilliant.

“This is it.” Brock stopped at the end of the driveway of a little Craftsman bungalow.

With a heavy sigh, Casey nodded her head. “Yep.”

“Can I go in and see Penny?” Hannah asked excitedly.

Casey met Brock’s eye before she said, “Not this time, Hannah. Penny has an ear infection.”

“Next time,” Brock added. “I’ll call you as soon as I hear something from Billy.”

“Text me if I don’t answer.”

“Consider it done.”

She stood with the truck door open and mustered a small smile for him. “Thank you for everything, Brock. Seriously. Above and beyond the call of duty.”

He tipped his hat to her, and she interpreted that gesture as a you’re welcome and a thank you, too. She got out of the truck and said goodbye to Hannah and her father.

Her sister was opening the door at the same time Brock was pulling away.

“Casey!” Taylor was holding her baby daughter in her arms.

They embraced tightly, as they always did. They were more than sisters—they were, and always had been, best friends.

“Oh, Tay—she’s even prettier in person.” Casey touched Penelope’s creamy, chubby cheek. “Hi, Penny, you sweet, sweet thing. Your aunt Casey is going to spoil you absolutely rotten! Yes, I am!”

“She’s so fussy right now because she doesn’t feel well.” Taylor kissed her daughter’s warm forehead.

“Poor Penny.” Casey looked at her little niece compassionately.

“I’m so happy to see you, Casey.” Taylor hugged her again. “I’ve missed you like crazy.”

Together they walked up the driveway to the front door of the bungalow. “I’ve missed you. I hate that we don’t live in the same town anymore.”

“Me, too.” Taylor shut the front door behind them. “Let me see if she’ll lie down for her nap. It’ll give us a chance to catch up. She hasn’t slept well for a couple of days, so cross your fingers.”

Casey held up her crossed fingers for her sister to see.

Taylor didn’t reappear for a while. When her sister returned to the living room, she was talking in a quieter voice.

“Okay—she’s down. For how long is debatable! Is it too early for wine?”

“No. Bring it on, sis.” She could use a large glass or two.

Taylor had been diagnosed with the inability to lactate after the birth of her daughter, and the only upside her sister could find was the fact that she had been cleared to drink wine.

Casey sat down at the breakfast bar while her sister got the wineglasses.

“Red or white?” Taylor asked her from the open refrigerator.

“Either—as long as it’s not too dry.”

Taylor held up a bottle for her to see. “How about this?”

Casey gave her the “okay” sign; generous portions of wine were poured and the two of them moved to the cozy family room next to the kitchen. Taylor immediately coaxed Hercules onto her lap, and the micro-poodle didn’t hesitate to abandon her owner for a novel lap.

“Traitor,” Casey said to her canine companion.

“Here’s to a great summer.” Taylor touched her glass to hers.

“To a great summer.” She took several large gulps of the wine. Taylor hadn’t even asked her about the rental truck.

Her sister curled her legs to the side, leaned into the couch cushion and smiled happily at her. “I am so happy to see you.”

“You may not feel that way in a minute.”

Taylor’s eyebrows dropped and her pretty blue eyes registered confusion. “What are you talking about?”

Casey downed the rest of her wine. One of her most intense childhood memories was the time that she decapitated Taylor’s favorite Barbie doll and then flushed the head just to see if it would indeed flush. It had. And Taylor had gone absolutely crazy-town ballistic on her and then stopped speaking to her for a month. Granted, they were kids when that happened. But then again, this was much worse than decapitating Barbie. Much worse.

Chapter Four

Her sister’s reaction to the news that her belongings were trapped in a tipped-over truck on the side of the road was not at all what she had anticipated. Taylor wasn’t angry. Taylor wasn’t looking to blame her. Instead, her sister was simply grateful that Casey and Hercules were okay. Taylor had always had a flair for the dramatic, and this change in her was unexpected, but it was a change for the better. Perhaps it was the fact that she was a mother now; or perhaps it was because she had already lost one of the most valuable gifts she had ever been given—Penelope’s twin brother, Michael, had died soon after he was born. Casey hadn’t experienced it, but she didn’t have to experience something to understand that losing a child, an infant, could change a person forever.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay with us? Clint and I both want you to stay,” Taylor asked her as they walked together along the brick walkway that led to the driveway.

She’d been in Montana for a week already, and so much had happened: the Beast had been towed into town, her travel trunk and Taylor’s boxes had been recovered and Clint had arrived home with his arm in a sling and loaded up on pain medication. According to the doctors in Texas, Clint’s healing time would be roughly a month or two, but he wouldn’t be fit to get back on a bull. He was grounded for the entire summer, at least.

Casey, who was holding her niece in her arms, was too busy nuzzling Penny’s sweet-smelling neck to pay full attention to her sister. “Mmm, you have that new baby smell, Penny.” She hugged her niece, not wanting to let her go. Casey smiled at her sister. “Babies! They always smell so good. I wish I could bottle this smell and take it with me.”

“Casey! Please, stop ignoring me. You came all the way to Montana to be with Penny and me, and I feel like deep down inside you think that we don’t want you here because Clint is home. And that’s not the case at all.”

Casey smooched her niece all over her face one last time before she said, “Trade.”

Taylor frowned at her as they traded babies—her sister handed over Hercules and she handed over Penny.

“I don’t think you’re kicking me out, Tay. I know you want me to stay. I know Clint is sincere when he says that he’ll be happy to have me staying on his couch for three months, but I’m telling you, it’s gonna wear real thin by the end of four weeks. Trust me. He’s an active guy and now he’s stuck with his arm in a sling when he should be out earning points. Your husband is going to want to sit on his couch and watch TV, in his tighty-whities, whenever the mood strikes.”

Her sister didn’t respond for a second or two, because Taylor knew she was right.

“I’ll come and visit all the time. I’ll be here on a moment’s notice if you need me. Nothing’s changed.”

For the last week, her sister had been debating her choice to stay in Brock’s loft apartment with her. Taylor had her own agenda: she either wanted her to stay with her or stay with their aunt Barb and uncle Hank at Bent Tree Ranch. Basically, anywhere besides Brock’s ranch.

Taylor’s eyes had a watery sheen and Casey knew that her sister was upset to see her go. “Look—I know you don’t like the idea that I took Brock up on his offer, but it really is for the best. His place is closer to Helena than Bent Tree. And I love the idea of being able to ride anytime I want. Brock says he has a palomino mare who’s getting barn sour. I’m actually going to be doing him a favor by riding her this summer.”

Her sister wiped under her left eye with her pinky. “I know how much you want to ride again.”

This was Taylor’s way of giving in to the inevitable.

“Come here and give me another hug.” Casey hugged her sister again, and then kissed baby Penelope’s chubby hand.

“I want one,” she told her sister of her niece.

“It’s the best hard work I’ve ever done,” said Taylor.

Casey opened the door to the light blue vintage VW Bug sitting in the driveway. She paused before getting in the driver’s seat.

“And Taylor...I’m perfectly ready to like your husband very much.”

Taylor beamed at her with pleasure. “He’s a good one, right?”

Casey nodded as she got into the blue Bug and then put Hercules in his new, less fancy dog carrier for safe traveling. She put the key in the ignition, cranked the engine, then rolled down the window.

“Thanks for loaning me your car, Tay.”

After her divorce, Taylor had sold her BMW, left her executive job at the bank, put her stuff in storage and then drove this very Bug from Chicago to Montana. It was on that trip, a trip where she had ridden a portion of the Continental Divide Trail on horseback, that she met her husband, Clint.

“Now you won’t be stuck,” Taylor said to her. “That car brought me a lot of luck. Maybe it will be lucky for you, too.”

Casey backed out of the driveway with a sense of anticipation and excitement that was making her stomach feel a bit queasy. It felt as if she were heading off to her own adventure, much like her sister had last year. She waved her hand, tooted the horn and shouted one last “I love you” to her sister and niece before Casey set her course for Brock McAllister’s ranch. She had the distinct feeling that this summer was going to be one of the best summers of her life. And she couldn’t wait for it to start!

* * *

Casey slowed her speed in order to take the bumps in the dirt and gravel drive to Brock’s ranch. The heavy rain from the storm had deepened the potholes, which made it difficult to navigate in the VW bug. Brock, she noticed, had already gone a long way toward clearing the debris; stacks of large branches dotted the side of the road every hundred feet or so. As the house came into view, Casey had the strangest feeling in her gut. She felt like she belonged there. Whatever lingering doubt she had in her mind about her choice to stay in Brock’s barn loft studio apartment vanished. She was in the right place, at the right time, and doing exactly what she was meant to do.

Brock was on the roof repairing shingles when he heard the distinctive sound of an old school VW coming up the drive.

Casey.

He stood upright, wiped the sweat off his neck with the bandana from his back pocket and then stared at the end of the driveway, waiting to catch the first glimpse of Casey as she arrived. He had seen her once over the last week, briefly, when he had picked up her trunk from her sister’s house and brought it back to the ranch. He didn’t understand it, really, but he had actually missed her. He had missed her. And, perhaps even more important, Hannah had missed her, too.

He waved his hand in the air so she would see him. At the same time Casey was waving her hand out the driver’s window, Brock heard the slam of the screen door and the pounding of his daughter’s feet on the wood planks of the porch. Hannah had been hyped up all day in anticipation of Casey’s arrival. Right behind Hannah was Lady, barking and wagging her tail.

Normally, he didn’t like to have a job interrupted once he started, but now seemed like a good time to take a break. He climbed down the ladder and followed his daughter and dog to where Casey had parked her car.

“Don’t strangle her, Hannah.” Brock laughed at how tightly Hannah was hugging Casey around the neck.

Brock watched as Casey made a fuss over his daughter, and then squatted down to hug Lady. A flush of excitement and happiness had turned her pale skin a pretty shade of light pink. In the sunlight, the reddish freckles on her face and the red of her thick hair pulled back into a ponytail were so striking. And then there were her eyes. So wide and so green—he always had to remind himself not to stare.

“You’ve really put a dent in it!” Casey said about the progress he had made with the cleanup.

“I’ve been hammering away at it. Little by little.” Brock was glad that it was his turn to greet Casey.

She smiled at him with that open, friendly smile of hers. It had been an awfully long time since a woman had smiled at him like that—no reservation, no pretense or judgment, just open and friendly. That smile was a magnet for him and he realized that now—by the simple fact that he was standing down here instead of still working up on the roof.

“Do you want to start getting settled in?”

“Absolutely.” Casey walked around to the passenger side and got Hercules.

Hannah was running like a wild child around in circles, her long, tangled curls flying behind her.

“She’s been like this all morning,” Brock explained. “Usually the medications keep the hyperactivity in check enough for her to function, but not on days like today, when she’s excited about something.”

“I understand,” Casey reassured him.

That’s when it really sunk in—he didn’t have to explain or justify or apologize for his daughter’s behavior. Casey worked with children with disabilities for a living—she, more than anyone else in his life, would truly understand Hannah. It was a relief to spend time with someone who could understand, and accept, his daughter for who she was, regardless of her behavior—good, bad or indifferent.

“I did warn you that it’s humble,” Brock said as they reached the top of the stairs that lead to the loft apartment above the barn.