Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
W eston hadn’t expected a dog-eared file folder bulging with multi-colored scraps of paper, but he should have. It probably all made sense to Paisley, but his brain did not operate like hers.
“You’re amazing, Weston. Truly a lifesaver.”
He looked at Cadence as they stood in the doorway to the duplex she shared with Paisley. “I don’t feel like it. Did she say anything at all?”
Cadence shook her head. “I heard her pacing around downstairs late into the night, but she didn’t say anything until this morning, when she mentioned her mom was in the hospital, and she didn’t know what to do.”
Seemed once she’d come to a decision, she hadn’t let grass grow beneath her feet or bothered to share the details with anyone. If she hadn’t confided in Cindy or Cadence or Weston, she likely hadn’t in anyone. Anyone except Weston’s mother. That was a head-scratcher, but Mom was an intuitive, observant sort. Plus, she couldn’t let anyone suffer on her watch, so it made sense she’d offered a shoulder to cry on that Paisley couldn’t refuse. But even Mom hadn’t had the details.
Weston held up the folder and a business card escaped, fluttering to the ground. “What if I can’t figure this out?” Because that seemed a distinct possibility.
“I’ll try to help, but I can’t make any promises.” Cadence’s face brightened. “Wait! She’s got an idea board in her room. I don’t know what she was brainstorming there recently, though. It could have to do with any aspect of her life, but come and see.”
Into Paisley’s bedroom? But she wasn’t there, and if there were clues, it would be helpful, since all the texts he’d sent her in the past hour remained unanswered.
Weston followed Cadence across the tiny living room to the main floor bedroom. The place was the same layout as his.
Paisley had obviously left in a hurry. There were a few articles of clothing scattered on the unmade bed and on the floor. A mostly empty roller-case lay open on the bed. A jumble of makeup and jewelry boxes and a bag of first, second, and third place ribbons covered her dresser top.
He blinked. Looked like she was planning to return, as she hadn’t cleared out completely. Unless she might abandon all this? That didn’t seem likely, but what did he know?
“Over here.” Cadence pointed at a huge bulletin board that hung behind the door. Photos, brochures, business cards, and hand-scrawled notes were plastered to the entire surface, revealing only slivers of the cork behind them .
Weston studied the array and scratched his neck. “Wow.”
“I know, right?” Cadence laughed. “She has a very unique brain and a very unique organization system. I don’t know what to tell you, except that it works for her.”
It was going to have to work for Weston, too, or he had no hope of helping her pull off the festivities. “Mind if I take a photo of this?”
“Go for it. And if you want to move the bulletin board to your place, that’s fine, too.”
And what if Paisley returned and found he’d done that? Weston shook his head. “I might need to later, but for now, I’m hoping the real info is in the file folder.” He lifted his phone and snapped several closeups as well as shots of the entire board.
“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Cadence followed him back to the front door.
Weston turned to face his cousin’s fiancée. “No, but I don’t think I have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice. Trust me, I know that better than most.”
“Point taken, but still.” He hesitated, studying Cadence’s face. “I know she had to go see her mother, but if I can help keep some of the balls she’s juggling up in the air, I’ll do that. I want her to be able to come back and feel good about it.”
Smirking, Cadence shook her head. “I wouldn’t have believed it if you weren’t standing right here, telling me this yourself. You have totally fallen for my roommate.”
Admitting it was coming easier. First to Ranger, then to Paisley herself, then to Grandfather, Mom, and then Tate. What was one more person? “You’re right.”
“I knew it!” She pumped her fist into the air. “And I’m on your side, cowboy. Truly. I’ll help you sort out this mess if you need it. Pulling off a cohesive holiday weekend will make my social media job so much easier. Oh, if you need numbers sorted out, Graham can help, too.”
“Thanks. I really appreciate that.” Ugh. Weston wasn’t accustomed to emotions. He wasn’t about to turn them loose now, no matter how deeply Cadence’s words delved to his core. He jostled the folder, careful to keep the ends pinned shut. “I guess I have my work cut out for me.”
“You do! Is Darrell handling the stables?”
“Yes.” Did Cadence think Weston was shirking his duties? There was more than one kind of flying. Jude might think the type in the wild blue yonder called his name, but Weston was settling in for a different sort of soaring: the one that meant he’d leap into the unknown with only Paisley’s folder as a beacon.
He might crash and burn.
But he was going to give it his best go. Thanks to Grandfather, Weston had a shiny laptop that he’d barely used since acquiring it last spring. The stable had its own system, so this had been some sort of ‘welcome to the family’ gift. Good thing Weston had a rudimentary knowledge of how to create documents and spreadsheets… if he could remember the details.
He strode down Hummingbird Lane to his own unit closer to the lake. With no roommate, he could spread all this out in his unused loft and try to figure out where Paisley’s brain had taken her .
Weston scoffed lightly as he pushed his door open. As if anyone could figure out what Paisley was thinking if she didn’t want them to. She changed her mind a dozen times an hour when something more enticing wandered in.
Except him. She’d narrowed her focus on him over a year ago and, if she’d had second thoughts, it hadn’t showed. No, she hadn’t left the ranch because of him. She’d just neglected to let him know.
Yeah, he was grasping at straws, but what else was he supposed to do? Chase her to Phoenix? A serious temptation, but it was a big city, and he had no idea how to find her there. He’d had Tate check her home address in the employee files, and she’d given Vail, Colorado. Kait’s phone number was listed under next-of-kin — with no address —but Weston would only call her as a last resort.
No. He’d give Paisley a day or two to figure out what was happening with her mother. Meanwhile, he’d try to figure out where things were at for the festivities and see if he could make some progress.
And he’d pray.
Surely God would hear his prayers, since they were for someone else. Weston didn’t need anything he didn’t already have.
Unless Paisley never came back.
I miss you. Call me when you have a minute.
Paisley scanned the list of Weston’s texts. They were all along the same lines. Of all the people and places she’d ever left behind, Weston stung the most. If only she could have stuck around to see how things had turned out between them. He had some hang-ups — and now he knew for sure she did, too — but he’d come a long way in the past few weeks.
At the same time, Paisley’s past had caught up with her. Also, wow, Phoenix in June was a whole lot warmer than western Montana. The heat smothered her like a weighted blanket as she stood on the curb watching for Kait’s Kia.
When it pulled up, she slung her backpack into the backseat and slid into the front. “Hey, thanks for picking me up.”
“No problem.” Kait grinned from the driver’s seat. “I’d hug you but?—”
A vehicle honked.
“But they take that whole no-parking thing very seriously around here.” She pulled back onto the pavement as an SUV edged into the spot she’d barely vacated. “Thanks for coming.”
Paisley snapped her seatbelt and let out a long breath. “Yeah, no problem.”
“It was good of your boss to give you some time off. How long do you have?”
“About that. How long do I need?”
“It’s hard to know.” Kait pursed her lips and merged into traffic. “Mom’s… not good mentally.”
“Is Amelia coming?”
“Who knows? She never responded. She’s probably too good for the likes of us.”
Right, Amelia’s dream was within reach. Paisley’s had been. Sort of. “Tell me what to expect. Are we going to the hospital now? ”
“We can. I have to work at four, but there’s enough time for a visit.”
“You didn’t take time off?”
“For this?” Kait rolled her eyes. “I need the paycheck more than ever with Mom’s shenanigans. She sure won’t be paying her share of the rent for a while.”
“Oh.” Paisley yearned to ask why Kait had made it seem so urgent if that’s how it was. “Please, I’d like to see her.”
“Then you can crash in her room at my place, at least as long as she’s in the hospital.”
“I thought she was dying?”
“I said maybe, but she seems to be doing better. Physically, at least. Like I said, mentally is a different case.”
“I wish you’d told me that before I came.”
“Then you wouldn’t have come, right?”
“Well, I do have a job, too. And now I look flaky for suddenly ripping out of there.”
“Mom asked for you like a thousand times. I needed you to come.”
Was Paisley some sort of pawn between her mother and her sister? Had she thrown away everything in Montana on a whim? Inhale. Exhale. Again, before she dumped her frustration on her sister. “Okay. Well, I can stay a few days. I’ll talk to her today and see what’s up.”
And then she’d see if she was even welcome to return. Maybe Mr. Sullivan would have replaced her by Monday and assigned her lodging to the new person. Maybe Weston would be so angered by her actions that he wouldn’t want her back, either.
Then she’d pack up her stuff — if Cadence hadn’t already thrown everything out — and hit the road for who knew where. Somewhere she wouldn’t need a reference to get a job.
She really should have thought this through better. And then that whole thing regarding praying about it, except that God tended to take rather long to answer prayer. Did He keep forgetting the people He’d created lived very finite lives?
They turned in at the hospital, and Kait rattled off directions to Mom’s room. “I’ll park the car and be up in a bit. See you there.”
Paisley shouldered her backpack and watched her sister drive away. What if Kait abandoned her? She wouldn’t. But she also hadn’t been completely honest about the details.
Or… maybe she had. Maybe things had changed. The only way to know for sure was to find Mom’s room and hope for the best.
And maybe it wasn’t too late to pray. The woman on the plane had reminded her that she couldn’t escape from God, not that Paisley had been trying to do exactly that. But she could pray now, from here, just as well as she could have prayed from the ranch. And she had. She just hadn’t waited for a reply before acting.
Except, what was that verse? The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness … Paisley didn’t remember the rest or where it might be found. One more thing to look up later, after she’d charged her cell.
Always later, because her ‘right now’ was always a flurry of things flying at her that she needed to duck or to catch. Was she catching or ducking right now? She couldn’t remember which.
Paisley found her mother’s room, where the door stood ajar. She tapped lightly and stuck her head around to find Mom leaning against a stack of pillows with a game show playing on TV.
Apparently not dying, at least not this minute.
“Mom?”
Her mother turned toward the door, and the effects of drug use were etched on her face. Paisley had seen them all too often growing up. “Paisley?”
“Hi. I hear you’ve been asking for me.” She took a few cautious steps closer. But this was her mother. She reached in and offered a gentle hug.
Mom rocked back and forth, sniffling into Paisley’s neck. “It’s been so long, baby.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Sort of sorry. This flashback to her childhood and teen years stood testament to why she’d escaped and stayed there.
“I’ve wronged you, baby. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Just get better, okay?” And lay off the substances.
“Yeah, I’ll try. There’s somebody I want you to meet.”
“Oh?” Paisley disengaged her mother’s thin arms from around her neck and studied her, but Mom was looking past her.
“That’s Earl over there. He, uh, he’s your daddy.”
Paisley pivoted to see a drug-ravaged man with unkempt hair sitting in the visitor chair. He waggled his fingers at her. She might have always wondered who her father was, but now she wished she still didn’t know.
She took a step toward him. “ You are my father?”
“That’s what Rita says.” He shrugged a thin shoulder as he studied her. “I wouldn’t know but, hey, you’re pretty.”
Paisley’s stomach turned at the man’s assessment. This was not the reunion she’d hoped for. How had Nadine Kline lucked into finding out Walter Sullivan, Senior, was her father, while Paisley had been sired by this creep?
“We could do DNA,” Earl offered. “If you can pay for it.”
“No, thanks.” As long as she didn’t hold the evidence in her hands, she could pretend Mom had jumbled things up. That was probably the case, because this loser? Please, Lord, no.
“Hey!” Kait breezed into the room. “Oh, looks like you’ve met everyone.”
Paisley skewered her sister with a look. “Looks like.”
“Aw, baby.” Mom reached for Paisley. “He’s a good guy. Right, Earl? You tell her.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m one of the good ones.” He winked at Paisley.
Ugh. Paisley turned to Kait. “I’m ready whenever you are. You have to be at work soon, right?”
Kait glanced at the clock and frowned at Paisley. “Lots of time. Don’t worry about it.”
Paisley should never have come.