Only a Chance (Kasper Ridge #5)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Nothing Like the Beav

EMILY

W hen I was a little girl, my mom watched reruns of this show called Leave it to Beaver. (When I was eight, I understood nothing about the potential innuendo such a title might carry. But now I was willing to put good money on there being several adult films made off the back of that singular name.)

Anyway, Mom said she liked watching it because it let her live vicariously through someone else’s perfect childhood, seeing how her own hadn’t been ideal.

“That’s why your dad and I will do everything in our power to make sure you and your brother grow up in the happiest way possible.” She’d said it all the time. I didn’t have any context for this statement, nothing to compare it against. But looking back now, I think Mom meant that she always did her best for us. She and my dad worked hard to make sure our lives were great.

And they had been great. We were happy. For a lot of years.

My brother was a star student, got an engineering degree at UCLA, and went on to become a pilot.

I followed him to college and started my writing career soon after graduation. Less illustrious, sure—Dad didn’t have a sweatshirt that proclaimed he was a proud writer dad the way he had one for the navy. But whatever. They were proud all the same. Of both of us. And that had felt good.

Even once we were adults, there had been family dinners, group texts, and weekend trips when we could, when Jake was around...we were still happy. Hell, we were perfect. Just like Beaver and his family.

Until we weren’t.

The last memory I have of us being that picture-perfect family was right before Jake died. We had dinner at a restaurant in San Diego just before his squadron deployed on the boat. I had crab legs.

Now just the mention of crab turns my stomach.

“You’re coming for dinner, right?” My mother’s voice over the phone now sounded urgent, pressurized.

“I always come for dinner on Sundays, Mom.”

She sighed on the other end of the line. With relief? Frustration? It was hard to tell.

Sometimes I felt like she lived for these dinners together because it was the only time all week that she got to share some of the stress of being in my father’s presence. I understood how bearing it alone would be exhausting.

Dad had become something of a shadow in my life. Less stressful a figure than he was in Mom’s, but no less upsetting. Where there had once been the hearty laugh and legitimate interest in my latest assignment or book idea, now there was the stern silent man with haunted eyes that looked past me. He wore a vacant grimace most of the time, as if he preferred to live the news of my brother’s death over and over in his head to interacting with those of us still living and breathing around him.

The accident wasn’t easy for any of us to accept, and we were each still working through our demons, in our own ways. I tried to comfort myself by reminding my grieving heart that Jake had known the risks when he’d taken orders and accepted his assignment to fly jets. He’d always said that nothing in life was without risk, anyway. It could as easily have been a freak accident that killed me. Or Mom.

But it wasn’t.

And now the golden boy was gone, and Dad—more than any of us—was struggling.

The worst nights were the ones when he came back to life like someone had suddenly plugged him into the outlet, and the vitriol and hate spewed from him, fresh as the days after the accident had occurred. A “mishap,” the navy called it, a word that felt purposeful in its minimalization of reality. A crash was what it had really been. A horrible accident. Two multi-million-dollar jets destroyed, and a young life lost in the process.

The San Diego sunshine was exuberant as I drove from my apartment in Mission Bay to Mom and Dad’s place in Encinitas. They lived near the coast, the home I’d loved growing up, perched on a hill that afforded a partial view of the sweeping Pacific Ocean beyond. As I pulled into the driveway, I stopped for a moment out front to face that wide expanse of bottomless dark blue and take a deep breath.

It was gorgeous. And I was lucky to get to be here, to breathe the salt-tinged air and see this vista whenever I wanted to.

“There she is,” Mom called from just inside the front screen. “Gabe, Emily’s here.”

I turned and headed inside, leaving the glow of late afternoon for the perpetual gloom of my parents’ living room. It faced the wrong side of the house, which kept it dark in the afternoons anyway, but it was also the spot where Dad kept vigil, and it seemed he couldn’t achieve just the right level of self-pity and anger if we kept too many lights on.

As I stepped in, letting my eyes adjust, Dad rose from the leather armchair where he could usually be found, a newspaper in his lap and a pencil tucked behind his ear.

“Hey Dad, Mom.”

My mother gave me a quick hug and then headed off into the kitchen. Dad rose, waiting for me to cross the room so he could give me a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Honey.”

I waited a moment, just in case this would be one of those occasions where Dad asked about me, about my life, where he showed a little interest in the kid who was still breathing. But this didn’t seem to be one of those nights.

I sighed, giving a quick wink to my brother, who was staring down from a photo on the wall, that little smirk on his face that he used to give me to remind me that he was older and wiser, and naturally much smarter than me. I missed him too. But unlike my father, I was trying to move on.

“What are you making?” I asked my mother, relieved to step into the kitchen with its picture window facing out over the back patio and the ocean beyond. Light spilled in around us, immediately lifting the shroud that fell across my shoulders whenever I crossed through the living room.

“Salmon and green beans. Nothing special.”

“Everything you cook is special,” I reminded her. Mom was a classically trained chef, and when she and Dad got married, she’d been running one of the most revered fine dining restaurants in La Jolla. She’d given it up for us. I guess raising kids and running a top-notch restaurant weren’t compatible. “Wow, that smells amazing. How do you make green beans smell so good? When I do them it smells like I’m boiling a wet sock.”

Mom laughed and guilt shot through me at the sound. Mom didn’t laugh much. And I bet when I wasn’t here, she didn’t laugh at all.

She needed me. And I was hardly ever here.

At least I was nearby. But there was a big part of me that knew I couldn’t hover forever. I wanted freedom. I wanted to explore. It was a big part of why I was working so hard to become a travel writer.

But how could I leave Mom?

Alone here with Dad, she was forced to relive and rehash the worst events of our lives over and over, mired down in his fixation over things none of us could change. My bright, vivacious mother was trapped here. And even though I watched her lighten and shine when I was here, my presence alone enough to lift the curtain for a couple hours, I didn’t come often. Not often enough.

It was too hard.

“Tell me what you’re working on while you set the table, Em.” Mom handed me a bundle of silverware, and I headed down the back steps to the table on the patio. I was just below the enormous kitchen window, which was always open, so Mom and I could continue chatting easily while I worked.

“A couple things,” I told her, happy for her interest. “The editor I’ve worked for a few times at the travel magazine wants a roundup of San Diego hotels. Kind of an off-the-beaten path thing where we focus on activities not everyone would expect, like this little place that offers pie-baking lessons out in Julian while you’re there.”

“Oh, that sounds interesting. It’s so nice that you can write travel pieces without actually traveling.”

It wasn’t though. I was the opposite of a real travel writer. I was a San Diego writer.

I blew out a laugh. “I don’t know about that. I wouldn’t mind traveling now and then. But you’re right. I’m lucky to be in a place most people want to visit.” The assignments came regularly, thanks to my location and my insider knowledge of my hometown. But I was pushing for more. The chance to actually travel, to see the world.

“What about the book?” Mom had been encouraging me to follow my passion and explore longer-form work. I wanted to write a novel. I just wasn’t quite sure where to begin with the effort. I had multiple abandoned drafts on my laptop, and still hadn’t come upon the thing I really wanted to write. I didn’t think I was meant to be a novelist, but it seemed to make my mother happy to think about me that way, so I hadn’t really abandoned the effort either. Just sort of pushed it to the back of a high shelf.

“It’s still churning in the back of my head,” I told her, pausing to look up at her through the window. The warmth in her eyes encouraged me to go on. I did have some news, and it was kind of novel-related, though that wasn’t really the draw for me. “There’s actually this conference I kind of want to go to. It’s a week of craft talks and workshops, and some really amazing writers will be presenting there.”

“Em, that sounds amazing. Is it here in town?”

I shook my head. This was the thing I hadn’t really wanted to get into. But now, with Mom looking so eager for me, I figured it couldn’t hurt. I could tell her the barest details. “It’s in Colorado.”

“Oh, how exciting,” she said. “Tell us all about it over dinner. Come get a plate and I’ll get your dad to pour some wine.” Trepidation shot through me. Dad would not be fond of the idea. Dad would revile the idea, actually. Once he found out where exactly the conference was.

I’d thought about this moment a lot. If I told my parents where the conference actually was, they would probably know I had an ulterior motive for wanting to go. It was much less about learning to write a novel, and much more about the place itself—and about my best chance to make a name for myself as a real travel writer. I’d already pitched my idea to the editor I worked with the most, and he’d given me the green light.

I didn’t expect my parents to be as enthusiastic as he was though. Especially Dad. There was a chance he might explode when I told him, that he might spiral somehow, end up even worse off than he was now—if that was even possible. But it also didn’t feel right to keep it from them.

I contemplated what I should tell them while I finished up setting the table.

When we were all settled, the Pacific creating an idyllic backdrop beyond the quasi-tropical foliage on the patio, Mom brought it up again. “Gabe, Emily’s thinking of going to a big writers’ conference out of state. Isn’t that exciting?”

Dad chewed for a moment, and then lifted his eyes to me. The barest hint of interest flickered there. I tried not to wish for more from him, tried not to imagine how interested he would have been if he wasn’t trapped in his grief. It hurt. But I knew it wasn’t about me. “That’s great, honey.”

He dropped his gaze again to his food, and I could feel Mom’s frustration like a buzz of energy around us, begging him to engage. It made me almost angry, but this was one time it was actually okay with me if he wanted to let the subject drop. Mom didn’t want to, though.

“She’s still toying with the idea of writing a novel,” Mom tried again.

“Mm-hmm.” Dad didn’t look up.

Mom shot me a wide-eyed look, and I felt like I had to add something. “I’ve been taking writing classes online forever, but I think this kind of in-person instruction could be really helpful. Plus, there should be a ton of other writers there who I could learn from. Remember my friend Christine? The one with all the romance novels? She’s going too. It would be a whole week, so hopefully I could absorb some writerly wisdom or something,” I laughed, trying to get my father to join the conversation, if not for me, then because I felt my mother’s need for it.

“It’s in Colorado,” Mom added, a tinge of desperation in her voice. I winced.

That got Dad’s attention, and dread pooled in my stomach as he looked up at her, and then turned his attention to me.

“What part of Colorado, Em?” His tone was light, but I already knew what he was thinking about. I didn’t want to tell him. I worked for an answer that was vague, but still truthful.

“A few hours from Denver. Mom, this salmon is incredible. Really moist and buttery, and?—”

“Which direction from Denver?”

Crap. He was interested now. “Southwest,” I said, the unease in me multiplying with every word. I realized I was going no matter what my father said or did. I’d decided independently, and I certainly didn’t need his permission. I just didn’t want his reaction to this news to make my mother’s already difficult situation even worse.

Dad squinted at me, then turned to Mom. “That’s where he is.”

There was emphasis on the word “he.” Because “ he ” was the villain in our family’s story. He was the enemy. And all bets were off. There was no not telling them now. I braced for impact.

“Yeah, actually, the conference is at the resort,” I said, trying to keep my tone nonchalant. Might as well rip the Band-Aid off all at once.

Dad dropped his fork and Mom stared at me.

“Dad—” I began, but he was already talking, his face reddening and his words coming fast.

Shit.

“You’re going to Kasper Ridge? You know he’s there. He runs the place. He’s up there, building his empire like nothing even happened, and you’re going to go there? Pay for a room? Help him go on like he’s not culpable for your brother’s death? How could you even imagine being in the same town as him?”

And there it was.

I swallowed hard but pushed down the misplaced guilt trying to swamp me. There were no right answers here, but I searched for something anyway.

“They decided it was an accident, Dad.” My voice wasn’t as strong as I’d have liked. My stomach tumbled and the food in front of me suddenly lost all appeal. I clutched my hands together in my lap as Dad pulled us back to the thing that defined us all now.

There’d been an investigation. The crash that killed my brother had been determined to be attributable to human error, but the other pilot hadn’t been held accountable because the error was partly Jake’s. It was bad luck, bad weather, bad decision making—a horrible combination of factors that had led to one man dying and another spending the rest of his life playing the devil in every one of my father’s waking moments.

“If it weren’t for him, your brother would be sitting here with us now.” Dad spit these words out. I couldn’t keep my eyes from drifting to the empty seat across the table from me. I wished Jake were here. But nothing we did would bring him back. We couldn’t stop living, and that knowledge was part of what had made me want to go to the conference even more when I discovered where it was.

There were no answers that would mollify Dad, so I didn’t offer any. Instead I picked up my fork again, and swallowed down the emotion that threatened to ruin my dinner. I took a deep breath, and ate my mother’s delicious salmon while both my parents pretended to eat, each of them drowning in their own sorrow and sadness.

As a family, we were stuck, mired in the moment none of us had actually lived, but which had changed everything. I was tired of it. I was tired of living every second in memory of my brother. It wasn’t what Jake would have wanted for us.

I put down my fork again, my stomach still not cooperating. I tried again. “Maybe if I meet him, talk to him, it will help,” I said, my voice gaining strength.

“Help with what, honey?” Mom asked, her eyes shining with years of grief.

“Help me move on,” I said, dropping my own fork. “Maybe it can help us all move on.” I looked between them. I’d never said these words to them, but I’d definitely thought about saying them, and maybe it was time. “Jake is gone, and we can’t bring him back. Living every day in his memory is one thing, but living every day in grief and sadness is not good for any of us.” I shook my head, looking back and forth between my parents. Each of them stared down, into their laps. Their faces looked older, tired, sapped of vitality. Neither of them looked at me, or at each other. It was like they were locked in plexiglass isolation booths, each of them suffering alone. Needlessly.

“Maybe if I meet this man, maybe if he becomes a real person in my head instead of some evil villain...maybe I’ll be able to forgive him and get past this. And if I can, maybe you’ll be able to someday.”

Dad’s head snapped up. “Forgive him? For killing your brother?”

“Gabe,” Mom said, her voice a plea.

“There is no forgiveness. He took a life, Emily!” This was what I dreaded. Dad was getting agitated, his hands shaking, his face reddening. He was jury and judge, and it didn’t matter what any actual court had decided, he couldn’t see past it. My heart literally ached inside me as I looked at him. How many times could we have this conversation and have it never go anywhere new?

“It was an accident, Dad. It could just as easily have been Jake who survived, and this guy, Archie Kasper, who died.”

“If only it had been,” Dad said. His pain had gotten in the way of his humanity since the moment he’d learned the details of the accident. My father had once been the kindest, most generous man I knew. But now...things had changed.

“Don’t say that, Gabe. We wouldn’t wish this on any other family...”

“He has no family.” Dad had read every detail he could find about Archie Kasper’s life. He had shared with us that he’d inherited an old resort in the mountains of Colorado with his sister, and that against all odds, they’d managed to rejuvenate it and turn it into a sought-after destination.

That’s what I’d pitched my editor to help pay for my travel to the conference: A Down-to-Earth Alternative to Aspen. He’d suggested something a little different, but had still been enthusiastic. In fact, he’d told me if I could dig up the story he wanted, he’d put it on the cover, and that would be a career-maker. My ticket to bigger trips, more exotic destinations.

“Your brother’s at the bottom of the sea somewhere, and that guy’s living in the lap of luxury, swimming in his inherited fortune, going on like nothing ever happened,” Dad said, his plate forgotten in front of him now.

I did wonder about Archie Kasper. Had he really been able to move on so easily? “Maybe I can go up there and find out if that’s true,” I suggested. “I’m sure it’s not.”

“I made a lovely almond torte,” Mom said, clearly desperate to move on from this conversation. I smiled at my mother, wishing she wasn’t always trapped by Dad’s emotions.

“None for me,” Dad said, standing. He shuffled back into the house, no doubt to pick up where he left off in his ongoing mourning of my brother’s short life.

“I’m sorry, Mom.” I sank back against the chair back, exhausted, emotional. My mother sat perfectly still, staring at the spot my father had left. But where I expected to see her crumple, maybe even begin to cry, she straightened.

“No,” she said, and then her gaze snapped to mine. “You go there. I think it’s a good idea. Meet this boy. Find out the truth.”

Surprise had me leaning toward her, something like pride at her strength buoying me suddenly. “The truth? Mom, there was an investigation. What am I going to find out that the navy didn’t already?”

“Not about the crash. Find out the truth about him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Emily, your father’s life ended the day Jake’s did. Our lives together ended that day. All because there is a man running free who your father’s been able to point all his anger at. He has someone to blame, but he can do nothing about it. Find out if that blame is deserved.”

“And if it is? If he’s a horrible person and he’s just blithely going on with his life and never thinks of Jake at all?” I asked.

“I don’t know. But at least we’ll be certain that these years we’ve spent on hating him haven’t been wasted.”

I dropped her gaze as tears threatened, exasperated. “Of course they’ve been wasted, Mom.”

Now she slumped. “I know.”

“What could I possibly find out? Would it make you guys happy if I discover that he’s a shell of a person like Dad? How would that help us?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.” Her voice was a spindly thread.

“Or what if I find that he’s somehow managed to move forward and make a real life for himself? Would that be any better?”

“I just don’t know.”

I stood and picked up my father’s plate and my own. “I’m going to Colorado. But not because of him. I’m going because I pitched an article about the resort that could make my career. And maybe I’ll finally get the inspiration I need to write a novel. It’s a coincidence that this all popped up together and happens to be at Kasper Ridge.”

“Or maybe it’s some kind of fate,” Mom said, standing and collecting her own plate.

“I don’t believe in fate.”

I went inside, the lie sitting heavy on my tongue.

Of course it had felt like fate intervening when I’d learned where the conference was being held. I just wasn’t sure what fate intended by sending me there.

But it didn’t matter. I had a good reason for going. And if fate was kind, maybe my going to Kasper Ridge would be the thing to win me the cover story the editor had proposed, and maybe it would be the thing my family needed to break free from the chains we’d worn all these years.