Chapter 22
Ryan and Abby’s house was a lovely, almost sprawling place on a rise, with the vaulted roofs and ceilings familiar to Alaska.
But the house almost seemed insignificant compared to the view from all sides.
Out the back, the mountains towered. From the front, there was a sweeping view all the way down to the sound.
Hetty thought she could easily sit in either place for hours and, as it turned out, she sometimes did.
In fact she was delighted when, after she’d gotten the okay from the doctor, Abby suggested she do the exercises the therapist had ordered out on the back deck, where she could see the country she would be able to visit again once she was back to a hundred percent.
She’d expected, because she knew what kind of people the Coltons were, that they would see to it she had everything she needed.
And she did. The room they’d provided had a queen-sized bed—which she ended up in embarrassingly early, running out of steam shortly after the lovely dinner they’d had—and its own bathroom, and was a very short walk to the huge kitchen.
A walk she’d been able to manage alone—with those crutches she both hated and loved—this morning, the day after her arrival.
In part inspired by the luscious smell of something baking in the oven.
What she hadn’t expected was to find just about everything she liked to eat and drink on hand, neatly arranged on the counter and on one shelf in the fridge. They didn’t know her that well, did they?
“If you want anything else, just let us know,” Abby said from where she was setting up a coffee maker. “Spence did the shopping the day before you were released, but he might have missed something.”
Spence had done that? How had he known? Sure, they’d eaten together sometimes, when the length of a job required it, or when it was an RTA gathering, but…
had he really been paying that close attention to what she ate?
What she ordered at The Cove when the gathering was at the quiet waterfront restaurant?
Or what she brought on flights that were going to be long enough she wanted something to snack on?
It seemed impossible, but how else would that specific brand and flavor of crackers be there on the counter?
Or, to go with them, that container of her favorite hummus—sold only by that small specialty market—sitting there in the fridge?
Even her family didn’t know about that particular craving of hers.
So did that mean that, all this time, even amid all the jabbing and poking at each other, he’d still been noticing small things like this?
A memory floated up out of her mind and she knew the answer.
She thought back to those days in high school, when she’d been assigned to tutor him.
The very idea of tutoring a Colton had had her almost wishing she’d never volunteered for the program, for all that she’d been flattered when they’d approached her about it.
But the idea that a Colton had needed tutoring had been enough of a surprise that she’d gone ahead.
And one of the first things she’d noticed about the then sixteen-year-old Spence Colton was that he noticed everything. He’d been so visually oriented that he seemed to observe and remember everything. And that had eventually been the key, the answer, to his problem with traditional reading.
So why was she surprised now that he had noticed something as simple as what she liked to eat?
“You are all being so kind,” she said, feeling awkward enough that it sounded in her voice.
“You,” Abby said firmly, “are a crucial part of not just RTA, but the RTA family. And thus our family.” She looked over at Hetty as she closed the refrigerator door.
“And this was the only way your mother would stay and finish her vacation. Which she needed. You seven have kept her busy for a very long time.”
“We have,” Hetty said. “But she’s been a rock for all seven of us, especially after Dad died. She still is. And if this is what it took for her to get that break she deserves, I thank you all over again.”
“I know.”
The oven timer dinged and Abby grabbed a potholder and went over to pull out a tin full of wonderful-smelling muffins.
She set them to cool then glanced at Hetty, who had taken in a deep breath of the scent, which in turn had made her stomach growl audibly.
Abby grinned and tugged one of the muffins out by the paper liner, plopped it on a small plate and slid it over to her, along with the butter dish.
“Butter it now, but I’d give it a minute or two to cool before you stuff it in your mouth.”
Abby Colton, Hetty decided then and there, was a delight.
She didn’t know her as well as she knew her husband, having worked with him for quite a while now, but she should have guessed that a nice guy like Ryan would be married to a nice woman.
And luckily for her, she was also someone who baked a wicked-good banana nut muffin.
Hetty savored the taste, marveling again at how good food tasted away from the hospital.
Alaska might have to import ninety-five percent of its food because of the permafrost, so that even in summer when the surface was green, a few feet down was still frozen, but the Coltons sure brought in the good stuff.
Hetty was used to being on the move most of the day, so it was a bit mentally difficult for her to stay still when her leg started seriously aching.
But a perusal of the well-stocked bookshelves she found in Abby’s home office made her quickly decide maybe this wouldn’t be so bad, after all.
She also wasn’t used to tiring out in the middle of the day—especially after doing nothing more difficult than getting up now and then from the chair she’d staked out for reading—but they’d warned her it would happen.
And so, reluctantly, she’d accepted that an afternoon nap was going to be on the agenda for a few days.
When she woke up after that first nap to a vase full of her favorite flowers, the Alpine Aster, the delicate lavender blossom with the bright yellow center, she felt as if she’d landed in some expensive, full-service hotel.
Having learned the hard way with a near tumble, she moved very slowly to get up, using the crutches she’d this time left next to the bed.
The house seemed quiet at the moment, but the door to Abby’s office was open, so she peeked in.
Spence’s mother had been reading something on the screen of a laptop, but immediately looked up.
“Well hello,” she said. “How are you feeling?”
“Rested. And better, I think.”
“The two go hand in hand, I suppose.”
Hetty smiled. “The flowers are lovely. Thank you.”
Abby smiled back at her as she got to her feet. “Don’t thank me, I only provided the vase. Thank Spence. He stopped by to see how you were doing, and brought those with him. He stopped to gather them on his way here, said they were your favorites.”
It was a moment before she could react to that.
Spence had been here? In her room, while she’d been asleep?
Although, it made no sense that that made her pulse kick up, not after the night they’d spent in the cave.
Or maybe it was that those circumstances had been so unique, it didn’t count; it was all part of the craziness of that day and night.
“They are my favorites,” she said, her throat a little tight.
Was there nothing the man hadn’t noticed? She’d bet there were friends she’d had for years who couldn’t have come up with everything he had. And to handpick that bouquet…
“This scared us all, Hetty,” Abby said quietly. “But especially Spence. I think he had this image of you as indestructible.”
Hetty’s mouth quirked. “Feeling pretty fragile right now, and I don’t like it.”
“I’m just glad you’re going to be all right, no matter how long the path to get there is.”
And that, Hetty decided, was the outlook she needed to adopt. She was going to be all right, eventually. And it very easily could have been worse.
“I might have bled to death, if Spence hadn’t been there. If he wasn’t always so prepared for anything.”
“His father taught him well,” Abby said.
“I will never again tease him about lugging that backpack everywhere.”
Abby laughed then said, “He’s got a run to make today, to one of the fishing camps, but he’ll be here for dinner. And he’d better show up because he’s supposed to bring dessert from the bakery.”
Hetty wondered if he’d hit a home run on that, too, somehow remembering her favorite pecan pie. She decided she wouldn’t expect it, but at the same time wouldn’t be in the least surprised if he did.
“Now, how about a snack to tide you over until then?”
Abby walked beside her down the hall, matching her slow pace but not making a big deal of it, which Hetty appreciated.
She took a seat on one of the high stools at the kitchen counter, grateful, if for no other reason, that they were easier for her to get on and off of since it required less exertion of the very muscles trying to heal.
The doctor had told her it would take several weeks for her to be back to her old strength and control, and that, for the first few of those weeks, she’d be seeing a physical therapist here in Shelby.
Belatedly she realized something her joy at getting out of the hospital had pushed to the back of her mind.
She wasn’t going to be able to drive for a while—at least not her rugged little Jeep, which was a manual transmission that required a functional left leg—but she needed to get to the south end of town three days a week.
“That didn’t look like a happy thought,” Abby said as she set one of the muffins she’d baked and what looked like a mug of luscious hot chocolate in front of her on the counter.
“I…just realized I can’t drive my car for a while,” Hetty said. “It’s a stick, and I’d never manage the clutch. But I have appointments with the therapist the hospital referred me to in town and—”
“Don’t worry, we’ve got it worked out,” Abby said cheerfully. “I’ll take you tomorrow, Ryan on Wednesday, and Spence will drive you on Friday and all the next week.”
Spence, all week? “Can he afford the time? I know we were booked pretty solid.”
“Parker’s doing more of the fieldwork for a bit. And he’s liking getting out of the office more. And Ryan and Will haven’t forgotten much, you know, despite their…semiretirement.”
Abby rolled her eyes as she said that last bit, and Hetty couldn’t help laughing. “If that’s retirement, I’ll just keep working, thanks.”
“My sentiment exactly,” Spence’s mother agreed then went back to the subject at hand. “And then, as soon as you’re cleared to drive, you can use my car until you’re healed enough to get back to the Troll.”
Hetty burst out laughing; she’d had no idea anybody outside her family knew her nickname for her army-green, slightly battered Jeep.
But then, she was now realizing just how much a part of the Colton family she already was. Which in turn made her think of Spence and wonder what, if anything, would come of those revelations divulged in the shadows of a cave here in the land of the Midnight Sun.