15 Summers Later

Chapter 11

Normalcy is a foreign concept, and every decision feels like a crossroads that could either lead us to healing or trigger the memories we’ve fought so hard to suppress.

—Ghost Lake by Ava Howell Brooks

From inside the house, Madi looked through the gauzy curtains Nicole had hastily sewn after they moved into the farmhouse that hadn’t seen a woman’s touch in years. She still felt annoyingly breathless as she watched Luke walk away.

What had just happened?

For a minute, she could swear Luke Gentry had looked at her with an expression of...admiration. More than that. Attraction.

For the tiniest of moments, he had actually looked as if he wanted to kiss her.

That was impossible. Why would the most gorgeous man in town look at her that way? The man had single-handedly increased the pet adoption rate in the county among the female sector, at least, so they could have an excuse to bring their fur babies into his office.

She had to be imagining things. Luke certainly could not be attracted to her. She was Madison Howell, of the fumbling words and the leg brace and the mouth that couldn’t smile completely.

It must have been a trick of the light or maybe her eyes were filled with dust kicked up by Paul Lancaster’s lambs.

Eventually, she let the curtain fall and made her way to the kitchen, where she found Nicole sitting at the table, nibbling on a piece of dry toast, a half-empty coffee mug in front of her.

“Morning,” she said, her voice a croak. Her eyes had deep shadows and her hair looked like she had lost a fight with a rabid raccoon during the night. Which was probably an accurate description.

“Morning.”

“Was that Luke I saw drop you off?”

She nodded, bustling about to make some tea, since she wasn’t in the mood for more coffee. “Yes. He needed help giving some lamb vaccines at the Lancaster farm, so I volunteered.”

“Did you tell me about it? I don’t remember.”

“Probably not. It came up last night and we made final arrangements after we left the Burning Tree.”

“Oh right. After you ditched me.”

“I didn’t ditch you! I told you I was leaving. As I recall, you seemed fine with it. But maybe my memories of last night are clearer than yours, for obvious reasons.”

Nicole made a face. “You know you should never trust what I say when I’m having fun with a gorgeous guy. What if he had turned out to be an axe murderer instead of a sweet guy from Canada?”

“He still could be. I’m sure they have axe murderers in Canada, too.”

“Seriously. You shouldn’t have ditched me. What about our buddy system?”

Guilt pinched at her. “You’re right. I’m a terrible friend. I should have stayed with you. I was just...tired of people bringing up Ava’s damned book.”

“I get it,” Nicki said, her features soft with sympathy.

Madi was quick to change the subject. “I noticed you didn’t bring your car home. I wasn’t spying, I was up with the dogs when you rolled in with Austin. He seems nice.”

“He is. And smart, too. He’s in grad school right now in hydrology.”

And advanced make-out sessions in the driveway, apparently.

“Are you seeing him again?”

“Yes. He wanted to go out again tonight but I have to work. We’re talking about next week. Also, my mom texted me this morning before I was up. She wants to be sure you’re planning on coming to dinner tomorrow.”

Oy. Tilly Gentry Walker did not give up. Surely Luke hadn’t even had time to let her know Madi was conflicted about attending. Apparently the woman wanted to cover all the bases by having Luke and Nicole remind her about the meal.

“I’m not sure whether I can make it yet.” She sipped her coffee, avoiding her friend’s gaze.

“Why not? Do you have plans I don’t know about?”

She thought about making something up but that seemed cowardly. Besides, Nic had been her best friend for fifteen years. She always seemed to know when Madi was lying.

“No plans, other than doing my best to avoid my sister, whatever it takes. You know if Leona comes to dinner, she will drag Ava with her and I really don’t feel like sitting down at the table with a woman whom I suspect would be remarkably adept at jabbing a steak knife between my ribs.”

She frowned. “Ava loves you dearly. You know that.”

If her sister loved her, she would have respected her privacy. She never would have capitalized on their shared trauma.

She didn’t say any of this to her roommate. In truth, she was heartily sick of talking about Ava.

“Should I tell my mom you can’t make it, then? She will be so disappointed not to see you but I have no doubt at all she could find another hungry mouth to feed.”

While she knew Nicole didn’t mean the words literally, Madi knew they were true. Like many small towns in the West, Emerald Creek was an unfortunate dichotomy, with millionaires snatching up land all over town, especially along the river bottoms and the banks of the Emerald Creek reservoir. Their elaborate Western lodges, gleaming glass and hand-hewn logs, were sometimes planted next door to shell-shocked, long-time locals like Paul Lancaster, who were still trying to figure out what had happened to their cozy rural community.

The workers in these tourism-heavy areas who served in the fancy restaurants and worked at the hotel front desks often couldn’t afford to live in the same towns where they were employed because housing prices were completely out of reach.

Madi suspected that some of the animals they had already helped at the Emerald Creek Animal Rescue had been abandoned by owners who could no longer afford their care.

“I’ll come, since we’ll be celebrating Sierra’s birthday next week. If the cost of showing up for that is putting up with my sister for a few hours, I can handle it. Contrary to popular belief, I am capable of acting like an adult occasionally.”

“I never said you weren’t,” Nicki protested.

No one had said it, but Madi felt like a whiny child, anyway.

“I should head over to the barn. I think I need to go hang out with the animals for a few hours. They, at least, probably won’t want to talk about Ava’s book.”

Nicki laughed, then winced at the sound before returning to her toast.

The kitten mewed from her crate in the corner. Madi picked her up, grabbed the kitten milk substitute and headed out for the barn. She would feed her there, she decided.

When she pushed open the door, she was greeted by a cacophony of animals, as well as a wave by Ed Hyer, one of the dozen or so volunteers who helped out.

“Morning, boss.”

“Sorry it’s taken me so long to get here. I had to work unexpectedly. Thanks for filling in for me. Anything interesting been going on?”

“Everybody has been fed and watered. We had playtime with the senior dogs and I was about to let the young ones into the yard.”

“Okay. I can do that as soon as I feed this little girl.”

He looked with interest at the kitten. “She’s new, isn’t she?”

“Yes.” She told him the story of Charla Pope finding the kitten in her flower bed and of Luke giving her a preliminary exam.

“He’s such a great guy, isn’t he?” Ed said.

Madi tried not to remember Luke’s arms around her the night before at the tavern or that light in his eyes this morning. “Yes. He really is.”

“Oh, we got a phone call from some campers who claimed they saw a couple of stray dogs up in the Sawtooths on the road to Ghost Lake. They looked pretty rough, apparently. One had a collar but the other one didn’t. I was thinking about heading up there off-roading this afternoon to see if I can track them down.”

This wasn’t the first report of stray dogs living in the mountains that she had heard. Sometimes they wandered away from campers, sometimes they escaped their owners in town or sometimes people abandoned them in the mountains, thinking they could fend for themselves.

It usually didn’t end well for the dogs in any of those scenarios.

“Sounds good. Can you fit a crate in the back of your side-by-side in case you can find them?”

“Yeah. I have a nice cargo area. I figured I’d take a package of hot dogs and see if that might draw them in.”

“Need me to come with you?”

“No. I’ll see if my grandson wants to take a ride up in the mountains. Maybe we’ll take the fishing rods. Kill two birds.”

“Or kill a few fish, anyway.”

He smiled. “Never hurts to try. Need me to feed that little thing?”

“That would be helpful. Thanks.”

She poured the milk substitute into a bowl and handed him a dropper. Ed was one of her most reliable volunteers, always willing to do whatever was needed.

A retired engineer in his midseventies, he had moved here from the Seattle area with his wife to be closer to his daughter and her family. Sadly, his wife had died of a stroke a few years ago.

She strongly suspected he might have a bit of a thing for another volunteer, Ada Duncan, though he treated her with the same teasing charm he did everyone else.

Sometimes she wondered if Ed was her mysterious benefactor, the donor who had given the seed money for her to take the shelter to the next level. It was possible. He lived in a beautiful log home on some acreage, and she gathered he had a healthy retirement income. She had once heard him talking about investments with another of the volunteers.

Ed had never given her any clue that he was the one responsible for the gift, but she still couldn’t help but wonder. Who else would have been so generous?

She spent the next few hours working on paperwork, scheduling social media posts and organizing the volunteer schedule for the coming weeks.

Finally, tired of office work, she decided to take the puppies out to explore the fenced play area. She carried them out in batches of two and was taking the final pair out when she spotted Sierra Gentry pulling up beside the play area on her bike. Her eyes were suspiciously red and she looked upset.

Madi greeted Luke’s daughter with a sympathetic smile. “I didn’t think I would see you today. I heard about Zoe going to stay with her dad.”

“What am I supposed to do all summer without her?”

“She’s not your only friend. You have Mariko and Yuki and others.”

“I know. And I love my other friends. I do. But Zoe is my best friend. My ride or die, like you and Aunt Nicki. I’m going to miss her so much.”

Madi felt a wave of gratitude for Nicole, who had befriended her in the early days after her injury, when she was still in rehab and Nic herself had been grieving.

She had come weekly to visit her while she was in the rehabilitation center, then when Madi moved here to Emerald Creek to live permanently with Leona, Nicki would come every day after school to keep her company.

She suspected visiting her had been therapy for Nicki, as well, who was mourning her father and struggling through the trauma of that day.

“And we’re going to have to go through all of this again next summer! It sucks,” Sierra complained.

“I know it’s hard and you’ll miss her. But you can video chat all day long if you want. And you have plenty to keep you busy here in town, right? You’re helping at the vet clinic and you can volunteer here as often as you want.”

“Yeah. That’s true.” She let herself into the enclosure and sat on the grass. One of the chubby black Labrador-mix puppies plopped in the grass next to her and Sierra smiled, though her eyes remained watery.

The creatures were pretty hard to resist, Madi thought.

One of the puppies came over and tugged at Madi’s shoelace and she smiled as she redirected it by throwing a ball.

“I felt so bad after Zoe left for the airport, all I could think about was coming out here and snuggling one of these little guys.”

“You’re welcome anytime you need doggy hugs.”

“Thanks, Mad.” Sierra picked up the chubby, cuddly puppy and held him up to her face. “They’re all so cute. I don’t know how you can ever give them up to a new home.”

“They would much rather be in a loving home than here. We have to make sure we find the best placements for them.”

“Are you doing an adoption day?”

“I’ve been talking about it with some of the volunteers. We have to figure out when and where.”

“You could really play it up on social media so everybody knows you’re doing it.”

“Actually,” Madi said, “that reminds me. I was going to see if you want to help me out with a special project.”

“What kind of special project?” Sierra looked intrigued but wary.

“How would you feel about helping me out with our social media? I know how much fun you have looking at clips online. You could take some pictures to document some of the things we’re doing and maybe create a couple of short videos every so often with the animals.”

Sierra’s face lit up, her eyes looking less devastated by the minute. “That could be fun.”

“You can be my official deputy social media manager.”

“Can I have my own office?”

Madi grinned and gestured around the grassy area. “Sure. How about right here in the play yard?”

“That would be awesome! You can bring me out a desk and everything!”

“A lawn chair, maybe. We could probably swing that.”

“Good enough for me,” Sierra said, then returned to playing with the puppies.

She loved Luke’s daughter. She had a generous spirit and a kind soul. When Sierra was younger, she had always been drawn to Madi. Sierra had never seemed to mind when her words didn’t come out right or she couldn’t smile fully.

Over the past four years since Johanna’s death, their relationship had deepened. Madi could relate to losing her mother at around the same age, in a deep, visceral way that others couldn’t quite understand.

Sierra would talk to Madi about her mom and how much she missed her. Madi suspected she confided in her things she couldn’t tell her father, her aunt or her grandmother.

In many ways, she considered Sierra the younger sister she never had.

“Are you feeling better?” she asked, after they had played with the puppies for another half hour.

“It’s hard to be sad when you’re laughing at these guys.”

“I’ve always found that keeping busy helping someone else is an excellent antidote to feeling sad.”

“You sound like my grandma.”

“I can only dream of being as wise as Tilly.”

Sierra helped her carry the puppies back into their large shared dog run.

She was filling the bowl with food while Sierra refilled the water bowl when the girl spoke out of the blue.

“Do you think my dad would ever date somebody again?”

Madi jerked, startled, and some of the kibble spilled on the floor. The grateful puppies didn’t seem to mind.

“Why would you ask that?” she asked, keeping her tone as neutral as she could manage.

Sierra shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe thinking about how weird it is for Zoe, now that her dad has married someone else and moved away. I mean, she likes her stepmom okay but it still seems weird. I don’t ever want a stepmom.”

Madi did not want to have this conversation with the girl right now, especially when she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about how something seemed to have shifted in her relationship with Luke since the other night.

How could she tell Sierra that of all the confidences she and the girl had shared over the years, her father’s love life was one subject Madi would prefer to avoid?

None of this was any of her business. But she couldn’t shrug off the question. She drew in a deep breath and forced a smile.

“Your mom has been gone for several years. She loved you both very much, but don’t you think she would want him to go on with his life eventually? Would you really want him to be alone forever?”

Sierra pursed her lips. “I don’t know. That seems pretty selfish, doesn’t it?”

“Not selfish. I understand your concerns.”

“I mean, he could always wait until I go to college. Then I wouldn’t care what he did. That’s only five more years.”

How could she gently suggest it would be better for Sierra to have this conversation with her father instead of Madi?

“Your dad is still relatively young. It’s a lot to ask, for him to put his life on hold.”

Sierra grew silent, her brow furrowed in thought as she returned the water hose to the hose bib. Finally, she spoke in a conspiratorial tone.

“I think he might have been with someone last night. I came home to grab my phone charger at about nine and he wasn’t there. His room had a bunch of his nicer shirts on the bed, like he had been trying to figure out what to wear, and the bathroom smelled like he had showered and put on aftershave, which he hardly ever uses.”

She didn’t want to think about Luke getting ready for his night out. It felt far too intimate.

“He went to the Burning Tree with me and your aunt Nicole. We both left about the same time, around eleven. Unless he met up with someone after that, I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

“You’d tell me, though, if he was dating someone, wouldn’t you? I don’t want to be surprised out of the blue.”

“Sure. If I hear anything, I’ll definitely tell you about it.”

“And if I hear anything, I’ll tell you,” Sierra said, as if she was doing Madi a huge favor.

Madi didn’t have the heart to tell her that if Luke was dating another woman, she suddenly wasn’t at all sure she wanted to know.