CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR VERA
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
VERA
The alarm clock on Mateo’s nightstand glowed blue. Five twenty-three in the morning. I’d been watching him sleep for over an hour.
It was an effort not to touch him. Not to run my fingertip down the straight line of his nose. Not to put my palm on his chiseled jaw to feel the coarse hair against my skin. Not to brush his soft lips with my own.
His hair was a mess, dark and disheveled against the white pillow. His chest rose and fell with each slumbering breath. His arm was outstretched and draped across my waist to keep me close.
Every morning this week I’d woken up before dawn and had spent my early morning hours memorizing his face. Sleep had been sporadic, at best, since the camping trip. My brain couldn’t seem to shut down. Confiding in Mateo had been a relief and a torment.
The box down deep was empty now. The lid had sprung open and everything I’d worked so hard to keep locked away was free to fly away. Except those memories hadn’t flittered into the ether. They hovered close, buzzing in my ear. No amount of swatting seemed to chase them away.
At least I wasn’t swatting alone.
Mateo was now the keeper of my truths. As hard as I’d tried to hold everything inside, it felt right that he knew. We hadn’t talked about it again. I wasn’t ready. The cuts were still too fresh. But if—when—that time came, he’d be there.
The Edens, Harrison especially, felt awful about the camping trip. No one had realized it would be a lake to trigger those memories.
Not Mateo.
Not Vance or Lyla.
Not even me.
In the years Dad and I had spent in hiding, we’d never gone to a lake. Not once. When I’d needed to bathe, it had been in streams or rivers. For four years, Dad had kept me away from lakes.
Either because he knew I couldn’t handle it.
Or because he couldn’t.
But seeing Allie in that water . . .
It had been the catalyst. Or maybe time had simply run out, and whether we’d been by a lake or a pool or in downtown Quincy without a drop of water in sight, that was always going to be the moment when I broke apart.
At least I’d been around people who loved me.
That first night camping, after we’d moved sites to the ranch, had been awkward.
Everyone had tried to move forward, to wear bright smiles for my benefit, but I’d been too raw and embarrassed to appreciate them.
So I’d just cuddled with Allie in a camp chair until she’d fallen asleep and we’d retreated to our tent.
But the next morning, after sleeping in Mateo’s arms in our sleeping bag, I’d snuck out early.
Anne had been up already, sipping coffee alone. She’d pulled me into her arms and kissed my hair. She’d told me she loved me. And she’d hugged me tight.
It was a mother’s hug.
Mine was gone. So I was keeping Mateo’s for myself.
With the dawn of a new day, camping had actually been fun. We’d played cornhole and horseshoes. We’d hiked with the kids and let Allie pick wildflowers. We’d laughed around the campfire, telling stories for hours.
Then we’d come home. We’d gone back to normal.
A new normal.
A weight had been lifted from my heart. It wasn’t gone, but it was lighter because Mateo was carrying part of it now.
I should be able to sleep. I should be able to rest. Except something kept plaguing me. Something that felt unfinished. And it wasn’t until this morning, watching Mateo sleep, that I finally realized what I had to do.
It took twenty more minutes before he stirred. His eyes opened slowly and when he met my gaze, a lazy grin spread across his face. The arm draped over me hauled me close so our bodies were pressed together.
“Morning, Peach.” He buried his nose in my hair and slid his hand down my side, lifting my thigh over his until we were tangled together beneath the sheets.
I snuggled into his chest, breathing in the spicy scent of his skin. “Mateo?”
He hummed.
“I need to do something today.”
He leaned back to stare down at me. “What?”
I sucked in a fortifying breath because he wasn’t going to like this. “Hike Sable Peak.”
He blinked, surprised for a moment, then that jaw set in a hard line. “No.”
“Wait.” I clutched his neck when he shifted to get out of bed. “Please, hear me out.”
“Vera,” he growled but stopped moving.
“Dad and I never talked about it. I couldn’t. But now . . . there are things to say. Things I want to tell him and I can’t find him. I don’t know if I’ll ever find him again. But I want to try. One last time.”
Mateo’s eyes softened as he sighed. “He doesn’t want to be found.”
“Maybe not. But if I quit now, I’ll always wonder.” This hike was more for my heart than anything.
“He blames himself,” I told Mateo. “When I was eavesdropping on Dad and Vance and Lyla, he blamed himself for not noticing she was spiraling and using and drinking. I think a part of me blamed him too, I don’t know.”
Should Dad have noticed? I had as much guilt for not telling him about her drinking as he did for loving her blindly.
“It’s not his fault,” I whispered. “It’s not mine either.”
“No, it’s not.” Mateo’s hand came to my face, pushing the hair off my temple.
“In my head, I know it wasn’t my fault. But I’ll always feel guilty. I’ll always wish it had ended differently. It helped, talking to you. He doesn’t have anyone.”
“Darlin’, we have looked and looked.”
“We didn’t go to that lake.”
Mateo propped up on an elbow. “You think that’s where he’s been?”
“Maybe? I don’t know. But in all our years in the mountains, he never took me to a lake. I didn’t even realize it. Looking back . . . he avoided them completely, like he knew it could set me off.”
“Huh.” He fell back onto his pillow, staring at the ceiling as he rubbed his jaw.
I didn’t need Mateo’s permission. But I loved him enough to let him be a part of my decision.
“And if he’s not there?” he asked.
“Then it’s done.” For my heart, for Mateo’s sanity, this had to be done.
He wore a frown as he whipped the sheets from his legs and got out of bed, swiping his phone from his nightstand. He swiped across the screen, then pressed it to his ear. “Hey, Mom. Any chance you could babysit Allie today?”
I hadn’t asked him to come along, but I’d known he would anyway.
When he glanced to the bed, I sat up and mouthed, “I love you.”
He winked. Then he got dressed so we could get an early start.
With Mateo on my heels, I set a fast pace up the ten-mile Sable Peak trail. We were sticking to the path today, and without having to wade through underbrush and weave around trees, we’d make good time to the lake.
My muscles were warm, and with every breath of clean air I pulled into my lungs, I felt more and more at peace with this decision.
Today was the last day I’d come to Sable Peak. Whether we found Dad or not, I wouldn’t come up here again.
Mateo and I would find new places to explore. We’d hike the mountains around the cabin or discover places on the ranch. But I was saying goodbye to Sable Peak. And I wouldn’t return to the spot where Dad and I had lived either.
It was time to move on. With Mateo and Allie.
“Vera?”
I turned, finding him close. “Yeah?”
“What were they like? Your sisters?”
“Hadley and Elsie.” It still felt strange to speak their names. It still caused a jolt of pain. But I didn’t want to hide them, not anymore. Especially from Mateo.
“They were beautiful. Their hair was a shade darker than mine, but we had the same eyes. They looked so much alike it was hard to tell them apart unless you knew them. They played tricks on people sometimes, just to mess with them. After Vance became Dad’s new partner, he came over for dinner a few times.
They messed with him for months until he finally realized who was Hadley and who was Elsie. ”
“How’d he figure it out?”
“Their nicknames.” I slowed, glancing back at Mateo. “Dad went along with the ruse except he always called them by their correct nicknames. He called Elsie Sprout. And he called Hadley—”
“Jellybean.”
I nodded.
“Vera.” He stopped moving. “You didn’t tell me about the nicknames. I would have picked another one.”
“I know.” I gave him a sad smile. “But I like that you call Allie Sprout. And I thought it was fitting that I could call her Jellybean.”
He closed the distance between us, staring down at me from beneath the brim of his baseball hat. He’d dressed in a plain gray T-shirt today, the cotton stretched across his wide chest.
I wrapped my arms around his waist and tucked my hands into the back pockets of his jeans.
“My sisters would have loved you. They were witty and loud and sweet and snarky. Elsie would have wanted to have a big belt buckle just like yours and a pair of boots so she could call herself a cowgirl. Hadley would have asked you to teach her how to ride. They both would have begged Dad to get them horses.”
Mateo tugged on the end of my ponytail. “What else?”
“Hadley wanted to become an actress. Elsie wanted to write a book about dragon riders. They had these huge imaginations. Everything was over-the-top drama. They were always together. And they never learned how to knock. It used to drive me crazy. I’d close the door to my room, and two seconds later, they’d burst into my room to tell me a story or gossip or raid my closet for their latest costume. ”
I could still see their faces in my mind, but I couldn’t hear their voices anymore.
“I miss their noise.”
“I’m sorry.”
My nose started to sting, but I sniffed it and any threat of tears away. “We went too long without talking about them.”
“I’m here,” Mateo said. “Anytime.”
Maybe if I talked about my sisters enough, I’d hear their voices, their laughter, again. Maybe if I stopped avoiding their memories, they’d get brighter, not fade away.
“Vance had them cremated. He scattered their ashes in a meadow. When we went back to Idaho after I left Dad, it was too snowy, so we didn’t visit. But I think . . . I think I’d like to.” I already knew his answer, but I asked anyway. “Would you go with me?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.”