15 Summers Later

Chapter 12

As we heal physically, the emotional wounds run deeper, a reminder that liberation is a process that extends far beyond the physical escape.

—Ghost Lake by Ava Howell Brooks

Tilly Gentry Walker’s home sat on a hill surrounded by forest land, with a spectacular view of the snow-topped mountains.

Ava had only been here once, several years ago.

When she had lived in Emerald Creek, Tilly had been a widow living in a house much nearer her late husband’s veterinary clinic.

Tilly had remarried about five years ago and moved here with her new husband, to this rambling ranch house overlooking town and the mountains beyond.

As much as she admired Tilly, and all of the Gentry family, really, Ava did not want to be here. Her stomach curled with anxiety. If her grandmother were not walking beside her up the front walk to the wide porch, Ava would have turned around, made her way back down that sweep of a driveway and headed back to Leona’s house.

The journey was only two miles and downhill most of the way. She could be home in twenty minutes, if she walked fast.

Her muscles quivered as she fought the urge to flee.

She couldn’t leave. She had given her word to her grandmother. Ava had hurt enough people lately. She wouldn’t add Leona to the list.

Beyond that, she was carrying her grandmother’s much-loved frog-eye salad. She certainly couldn’t deprive the guests of that.

Over the years, Tilly had become one of Leona’s dearest friends. They had always been friendly, her grandmother once had told her. They had belonged to some of the same groups, had served together on the library board and in leadership of a church women’s group.

Their friendship had been warm but casual, until the events of that summer had linked their families together forever.

“I believe everyone will be in the back,” Leona said now, her arms laden with the marbled brownies she also had made that afternoon. “That’s where they usually gather during the summertime. They have a beautiful patio area, with a waterfall and a pond. Have you been back there?”

“Yes, but it’s been years. When Tilly remarried, the reception was here, remember?”

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot you came home for that. Well, lucky for Tilly, she married a man who loves to garden and he has created a mountain paradise back there.”

Ava forced a smile. “Great. I can’t wait to see it.”

“We’ll stop inside first to drop off my salad and brownies and see if Tilly needs help with anything.”

“Good idea,” Ava lied, when she really wanted to go back to her grandmother’s house, climb into her bed and stay there for the next few months.

When had she become such an introvert? She and Cullen had always loved to throw dinner parties for their friends. They would invite her coworkers at the middle school or other academics from the university where he was an assistant professor.

Ava loved to cook, something she had inherited from her mother and grandmother. She would spend hours coming up with menus and going to the market, then would spend the day prepping the meal and laying out the table, with Cullen popping in and out to help where he could.

Her heart ached as she remembered the long kisses they would always share whenever he came into the kitchen, until she would tell him he had to stop distracting her or nothing would be ready on time.

After the final guest would leave, Cullen always cleaned up. Ava would fall into an exhausted sleep waiting for him, only to awaken with him curled around her.

She fought down the raw yearning. Were those moments gone forever? The day before, Cullen had seemed like a distant, polite stranger instead of a man who had always told her how much he adored her.

She managed not to sob as Leona rang the doorbell. Ten seconds later, a small girl with dark hair and brown eyes answered the doorbell and beamed at them.

“Hi.”

“Hello there, Lottie. Remember me? I’m Leona. I’m friends with your grandmother. And this is my granddaughter, Ava.”

“Hi. I’m Lottie. I’m three years old.”

“Hello. It’s lovely to meet you.”

“I like to slide.”

With that non sequitur, the girl turned around and raced back through the house, a blur of energy.

“Okay. Good to know,” Leona said with a smile as she led the way through the house toward the kitchen, clearly well acquainted with the layout.

Inside the huge bright kitchen with its high-end appliances and gleaming marble countertops, they found Tilly Gentry Walker in the middle of everything, directing an army of helpers as her guests chopped, diced, stirred.

Tilly herself worked at the huge kitchen island, with its contrasting wood to the cabinets, cutting watermelon into triangles while around her the kitchen bustled with activity.

Ava released a breath when she realized her sister, the one person she wanted most to avoid, wasn’t here.

Tilly looked up to smile at them, her pretty features lit by the afternoon sun coming in from a skylight in the room. “Ava, my dear. It’s been far too long.”

She rinsed her hands quickly in the sink, dried them on her pin-striped apron, then rushed toward them to throw her arms around Ava’s neck.

“Here’s our celebrity author. New York Times bestseller, darling. Oh, your mother would have been so proud of you.”

Ava swallowed against that ache of emotion that seemed constantly in her throat these days.

Wouldher mother have been proud? It was a moot question. Circular reasoning. If her mother hadn’t died, her father would have stayed grounded in reality, none of the events she had written about would have happened and she wouldn’t have needed to write a memoir about any of it.

If said memoir had never been written, she wouldn’t have been able to hit any bestseller lists, right?

“Thank you, Tilly.” She quickly changed the subject. “I love your kitchen renovation. I especially love the contrasting wood on your island and the waterfall edge.”

“Thank you. That’s one of my favorite things as well.”

“I brought my frog-eye salad and brownies, as ordered,” Leona said, holding up her covered tray and gesturing to the salad Ava carried.

“Perfect. I’m leaving the desserts in here for now so they stay cooler. Just find a place.”

Leona set them next to two pies and a large platter of cookies.

“How else can I help?” her grandmother asked.

“You don’t need to do a thing. Everything is nearly done. Boyd, Luke and Owen are handling the grill and we’ve got things covered in here. Ava, you remember my sister, Penny. And this is Owen’s wife, Valentina. Val, this is Madi’s sister, Ava.”

“Hello.” The woman was small in stature and extraordinarily beautiful. She held a baby bundled against her in a no-hands sling.

“Penny, hello. It’s lovely to see you again. Hello, Valentina. I believe we met your daughter. She looks exactly like you.”

The woman smiled. “Yes. That would probably be my Carlotta. She loves to answer the doorbell.”

“Apparently she was heading out to slide,” Leona informed her.

“Good. Her father can watch over her.”

“Are you sure we can’t help?” Ava asked her hostess. She knew too well what it was like, trying to supervise willing volunteers who sometimes only ended up getting in the way.

“You can go outside and enjoy yourselves! Boyd has cold drinks out there.”

“I’ll take the salad out.”

“Do you need a serving spoon?”

“I can grab it,” her grandmother said.

As another example of their close friendship, Leona helped herself, going straight to a drawer in the island and rooting through until she found a large ladle for the salad.

“Come on. Let me show you around the garden.”

Leona hadn’t exaggerated about the space out here. From Tilly’s wedding to Boyd Walker, Ava remembered the garden as a comfortable space with winding paths and random benches for looking out at the town below.

She didn’t remember the waterfall cascading over rocks or the small pond with colorful water lilies. She saw Owen Gentry sitting in a chair next to the pond, most likely to keep his busy daughter from wandering in.

The water’s song was soothing, comfortable. Ava wanted to sink down onto one of those benches with her journal and write and write until she purged her mind of these twisted ribbons of anxiety.

A low sound of appreciation escaped her. Leona, hearing it, gave a gentle smile. “It’s lovely, isn’t it?”

“It makes me a little breathless.”

“Be sure you tell Boyd. It is his pride and joy.”

The man in question was large and barrel-chested, with a full head of white hair and a broad smile.

There was indeed a play area, covered in tire swings and slides and what appeared to be an old-fashioned-playground merry-go-round. She felt something squeeze her chest as she remembered playing on one for hours with her sister at the school near their house in Oregon.

She had been the oldest. The protector.

Watch over your sister.

How many times had she heard her mother say those words as they left the house?

She’d had one job and she had failed abysmally.

“Why don’t you take this over to the table?” Leona said, handing the salad bowl to Ava. “I’m suddenly dying of thirst and need to see what Boyd has on offer.”

Still looking around warily for any sign of her sister, she carried the bowl to a serving table already heavy with food.

She was thinking she could use a drink as well when she heard a male voice calling her name.

“Ava! Great to see you again.”

The voice was dearly familiar and so was the man who said the words, Lucas Gentry. Some of her anxiety seeped away. There was simply no room for it amid the comfort of a longstanding friendship.

“Hi, Luke. Great to see you, too.”

He reached out to hug her and she returned the embrace, heartened at the genuine warmth in his greeting.

“Is Cullen joining you?” he asked when he set her away from him.

She was getting slightly better at ignoring that sharp ache in her chest at the mention of her husband’s name. Slightly. “Not right now, I’m afraid. He’s working at a job site up near Ghost Lake and it’s hard for him to get away.”

He sent her a swift look and she knew exactly what was going through his head, the same dark memories she had. Gunfire, screaming, the barking of dogs and the whoop-whoop of helicopter blades.

“Is he?” he only said, his tone mild.

“A few campers stumbled onto a fossil bed and further exploration uncovered what might be a new species of dinosaur. He’s leading the excavation team.”

“Good for him! That’s so exciting. What kind of dinosaur?”

“They’re not sure. It’s different from the Oryctodromeus, which is the most commonly found dinosaur fossil around here. This one is larger and doesn’t appear to live in burrows, like the Oryctodromeus. Other than that, they’re not sure.”

“Fascinating. I’d love the chance to talk with him about it sometime.”

“I’ll let him know. Maybe you could meet up while he’s living in the area.”

“Do they let visitors up to the site? Sierra used to love dinosaurs. I mean, she’s thirteen, and right now she’s more interested in TikTok videos of cute boys dancing, but I have to think maybe there’s still some part of her that is fascinated by triceratops and utahraptors.”

“I’m not sure what the policy is for visitors. I can ask next time I talk to him.”

She looked around the yard. “Where is the birthday girl? I haven’t seen her in forever. I imagine she’s probably taller than I am by now.”

He smiled, eyes bright with love for his daughter. “Not quite. She’s still growing into her long legs. She should be here shortly. She spent the afternoon at the animal rescue helping Madi with a few things today.”

Ava raised an eyebrow. “I’m shocked my fiercely independent sister lets anyone help her, even a thirteen-year-old girl.”

“Madi is definitely independent, but believe it or not, she does let people help her sometimes, when it comes to her animals. She’s got a whole team of volunteers on board, now that the animal rescue is fully operational.”

Ava hadn’t really thought of the work that must go into starting up a no-kill animal shelter in an area that had never had one. “I understand she’ll be leaving your vet practice soon.”

He made a face. “Unfortunately. She has wanted to do this for a long time.”

“Yes. Since she was a girl bringing home every stray cat and dog in the neighborhood.”

“She hasn’t changed a bit,” Luke said with an affectionate smile. “It’s so great that everything has come together. First, a local farmer donated his property to the animal rescue foundation in his will, then the foundation received a particularly large gift from an anonymous donor.”

Feeling her face heat, Ava carefully kept her gaze away from him, focusing instead on the beautiful, flowing water feature in the garden. Did he know? She didn’t want to risk looking at him to search his features, since she was lousy at subterfuge.

“That is fortuitous, isn’t it?” she said, her voice deliberately sanguine.

She quickly steered the conversation away from these dangerous waters, asking instead about his veterinary practice. In return, he asked her a few questions about Ghost Lake and some of the book’s significant milestones.

She knew he had read it. Luke had called her shortly after she sent him the advanced reading copy, prior to publication. He had told her he had been deeply moved by every word. A triumph, he had told her.

Ava hadn’t been as touched by any other commentary on the book as she was by his praise, especially as he had actually lived through some of the events she had written about.

They were talking about an interview request with one of the national morning news shows when his daughter burst into the yard, tall, slender, lovely.

She came right over and hugged her father, testament to their strong bond. “Hey, Dad.”

Luke returned the hug. “Hey, Si. How were the puppies?”

“So cute! I could have played with them all day.”

“Sorry you had to break away for a birthday party in your honor.”

“Except my birthday’s not until Saturday. Almost a week away.”

Before Luke could answer, Madi came out of the house with Tilly, both of them carrying platters of vegetables and fruit.

Her sister looked bright and cheerful and...happy.

Ava caught her breath, yearning for the days when the two of them had been inseparable, before her guilt and shame at her own cowardice, at her own failure to protect her sister, had created a wedge between them that the years had only widened.

And then she had written a memoir that exposed all of the raw pain and dark memories for the entire world.

Yes, she had a multitude of reasons for agreeing to the publishing deal, but she doubted Madi could ever understand any of them.

Her stomach heaved suddenly, her throat burning. She was going to lose the little she had eaten that day right here in this lovely garden, all over Dr. Luke Gentry and his daughter.

“Excuse me, won’t you?”

She rushed into the house, hurrying to the half bath off the mudroom she remembered from Tilly’s wedding. After quickly turning on both faucets to hide any sound, she threw up, feeling wretched and sick and wondering how her life could have completely imploded in a few short weeks.