Chapter 14
The crisp night air bites at my cheeks as my sister and I steal away from the compound, our hearts pounding in our chests. We’ve become shadows, slipping through the dense forest under the cover of darkness, our breaths syncing with the rhythmic beat of our frantic footsteps. Behind us, the eerie howls of the cult’s guard dogs echo through the mountains, a relentless reminder of the danger that pursues us.
—Ghost Lake by Ava Howell Brooks
“How are you doing, kiddo?”
His daughter, looking at her phone with her legs stretched out sideways on the covered swing, lowered her feet to the ground so he could sit beside her.
She shrugged. “I’m okay. The birthday cake was delicious and I loved Grandma and Grandpa Boyd’s present. I just miss Zoe so much, you know?”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“I tried not to think about it much until now. Madi had me working with the puppies, giving them some basic training, all day. I was too busy laughing at them to be depressed.”
“She’s pretty smart, our Madi, isn’t she?”
“You should have seen what happened today with that rascal goat. Madi was feeding him and he kept sticking his tongue out at her and blowing raspberries. We were both laughing so hard we almost fell over.”
He looked over at the woman in question, sans goat. She was currently chatting with her grandmother in the fading afternoon light as she rocked his nephew in her arms.
Something soft and fragile seemed to unfurl inside his chest, like the new blossoms on the climbing rosebushes near the patio, sending their sweetness into the air.
She was so lovely. He wondered if she had any idea how she suddenly had the power to take his breath away.
What the hell was he supposed to do about this tenderness that seemed to have bloomed out of nowhere?
“Are you okay? Your face looks all funny.”
He turned back to his daughter, this girl he loved with his entire heart. Oh, he hoped she couldn’t tell what was going on in his head.
“Sorry my face looks funny.” He tried for a dad joke. “I’m afraid it’s the only one I’ve got. And I wouldn’t be so quick to point out how funny I look, since people are always telling us how much we look alike.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s not what I meant. You had a weird expression for a minute when you were looking at Madi. Like you suddenly thought of something you didn’t like.”
The problem was, he was beginning to realize he liked Madi entirely too much.
“I was thinking that I don’t want to go home and do laundry tonight,” he lied.
“Ha. Too bad. It’s your turn. I did it last week.”
“That’s right. That means it’s your week for the dishes. Maybe I’ll decide to make some kind of complicated meal like my five-alarm chili that uses every dish in the house, to keep you from being bored.”
She stuck her tongue out and blew a raspberry at him, probably much the way Barnabas had to Madi earlier that day.
He smiled and nudged her with his shoulder. Being a single father was a thousand times harder than he’d thought it would be. It was also one hundred thousand times better.
His life might have been so very different without Sierra.
He and Johanna had only been dating six months when she found out she was pregnant. They hadn’t been planning to get married at the time. Neither of them had been ready, both too young with a year left in their undergraduate work.
In those first early days, as they considered all their options, they had talked about adoption. Johanna had been adopted into a loving family herself and had leaned toward that option rather than termination.
Thinking about it now, about not having Sierra in his life, made him vaguely queasy. Luke had been the one to suggest they could marry and try to make a go of it, for the sake of their child.
He had still been reeling from his father’s death eighteen months earlier and his own guilt and pain. He knew he hadn’t been in a solid place to be a husband, a father. Still, he couldn’t help thinking about what his father might have said and at the time felt like he could almost hear Dan’s words echoing in his head.
Time to man up and take care of your responsibilities, son.
So they had married and somewhere along the line, he had come to love Johanna and the life they created together.
She had been a wonderful mother to Sierra and had been devastated that she had been unable to have a second child. They had been talking about fostering to adopt and were beginning to work their way through the process when she had caught COVID from a patient and died two weeks later.
Afterward, he had floundered for a long time, not sure he could handle being a single father and running his vet practice at the same time. His mom had helped. So had Nicki and dozens of others in town. Sierra had been surrounded by a loving community.
He wasn’t ready for all the challenges her teenage years might bring. But like it or not, his daughter was growing up and his responsibilities as her father were changing right along with her.
Fortunately, he had a good support network to help them both through.
Sierra considered Madi an honorary aunt. That’s exactly how Luke needed to think about her. She was part of the family and he had to remember everything that was at stake if he tried to shift the dynamics between them.
His brother Owen’s daughter ran over to them, dimples flashing as she reached out for her cousin Sierra to lift her up to the porch swing with them.
“Fast,” Lottie said, pumping her little legs with her lips pursed in concentration.
“I’m afraid this swing doesn’t go very fast,” Luke said with a smile.
She sat with them only a moment or two before she wriggled to be free. “Down,” she said.
“Do you want me to push you in the tire swing?” Sierra asked.
Lottie’s face lit up. “Yes! I want to swing fast!”
His brother was in for a wild ride with this one, Luke thought with a smile. He couldn’t wait to watch the fun.
Sierra hopped off and grabbed the young girl’s hand. “Okay. Let’s go swing,” she said, leading Lottie over to the playset where some of his stepfather’s grandchildren already played.
He sat alone for a time, watching the crowd. He was about to get up and head for another beer when Ava walked past.
“Are you leaving?”
She inclined her head toward Madi and Leona. “I came with my grandmother and she is apparently not done yet.”
“Have a seat,” he offered.
She looked queasy at the easy movement of the swing but finally sank down onto the padded cushion.
“Thanks,” she said.
“You made it through dinner with no punches being thrown.”
“That’s something,” she said dryly.
He laughed. “I wouldn’t worry about Mad. She’ll come around. She never could hold a grudge for very long.”
He paused, debating whether he should get involved at all in the tension between the sisters. Then he remembered that ache of longing in Madi’s eyes when she talked about her sister and decided to take the chance.
“She misses you,” he said, his voice low.
She gave a sound of disbelief. “I don’t think so. Right now, I’m her least favorite person on the planet.”
“Right now, maybe. She’s annoyed with you about the book. She’ll get over that eventually. Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I get the feeling there was something of a chasm between you before you ever published Ghost Lake. Am I completely off base?”
She looked as if she wanted to argue but she finally sighed. “You’re not wrong,” she said, her voice low. “I wish things could be different.”
“Why can’t they be?”
“It’s a good question. I don’t really have a good answer. Our lives have moved in different directions over the years, I suppose.”
He knew that wasn’t the full story, but he also sensed Ava wasn’t going to open up to him.
“If I can help, let me know. You two need each other.”
She studied him in the fading light of the afternoon, her expression much harder to read than her sister’s.
“You’re a good friend, Luke. Your whole family is always so kind to Madi. I’m very grateful to you.”
“We love her,” he said gruffly.
Those words rang more true now than he anticipated. She gave him a careful look and he was quick to qualify the statement.
“We love her like she’s part of the family. The thing is, while she might feel like part of our family, she is your family. Leona is amazing, don’t get me wrong, but Madi needs her sister in her life.”
“I’m still in her life. We talk on the phone and text quite often and we occasionally have video calls,” she said, a note of defensiveness in her voice. “I live nearly six hundred miles away. I can’t help that. My husband is there. Our apartment. My life. It’s only natural for our worlds to drift apart. We’re never going to be as close as we once were when we were...when we were teenagers.”
“What about the baby? You’re going to need your sister more than ever then,” he said, taking another chance. Even as he said the words, he knew his suspicions could be completely off base.
She gaped at him, eyes huge. “B-baby? What baby?”
He gave her a careful look. “Leona mentioned you’ve been queasy since you came back to town. I wondered if you might be expecting.”
“I’m not,” she exclaimed, jumping up from the swing. He had to plant his legs to keep it from swinging wildly from the momentum.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I suppose I’ve been working with animals too long, where reproduction is a normal part of life.”
She continued to stare at him, her eyes huge. “I’m not a dog about to have puppies! And I’m not pregnant. It’s...it’s impossible.”
What was that sudden desperate look in her gaze?
“My mistake,” he said, voice low and even, in contrast to the sudden wild panic in her expression.
“I can’t be pregnant,” she whispered.
“You’re probably not,” he assured her, annoyed with himself for putting that panic in her gaze. “Forget I said anything.”
She stared at him for several seconds, then shook her head like she was a prizefighter whose clock had been thoroughly cleaned.
“I need to...” She pointed toward the house and rushed inside, leaving him feeling presumptuous and overfamiliar.
He was about to go after her to apologize again when Madi sat down on the swing beside him, her gaze pensive as she looked at her sister’s retreating back.
“What was that all about? Is she feeling sick again?”
“I’m not sure. I think she’s mostly annoyed with me,” he admitted.
Her face lit up with her half smile. “You sometimes do have that effect on women, Dr. Gentry.”
He had to laugh, despite his unease over the discussion with Ava. “What can I say? It’s a gift. Other men make women go weak at the knees. I seem to have the ability to make them want to punch something.”
She sent him a sidelong look. “I would guess you’re not all that bad in the weak-at-the-knees department.”
What did she mean by that? And why did that rosy blush suddenly climb her cheeks?
“Sierra wants to play cornhole before you leave. She sent me to see if you want to play.”
“Sure thing.”
He rose from the swing, making the chains bounce and rattle. He reached a hand out to help her up. She wrapped her fingers around his and when he pulled her to her feet, the motion of the swing carried her forward, almost into his arms.
She laughed, trying to regain her balance. The sound enchanted him and he wanted to freeze the moment here on this summer evening and soak it in.
She stepped away, that pink on her cheeks again, and Luke did his best to push away the inappropriate urge to pull her back, to tug her into the shrubs and kiss her.
He had to stop this or he was going to end up embarrassing both of them, possibly ruining their friendship irrevocably.