Page 21 of Beyond Her Reach (Bree Taggert #10)

Bree turned into her driveway and parked next to her brother’s vehicle. Lights glowed from inside the barn. She needed to hug her horse.

“I’d better hurry or I’ll miss my book club meeting with Kayla.” Matt reached for the door handle. “We just finished Matilda . I believe she has talking points.”

Kayla had heard about book clubs and decided they were the best thing ever. Now she and Matt read books and discussed them.

“What’s the next book?” Bree asked.

“It’s my turn to pick. I already bought two copies.” He sounded excited.

They climbed out of the SUV. The sky had cleared, but the air was still cold and damp. Bree turned up her collar against the chill.

“You’re welcome to join our club.” Matt rounded the SUV and kissed her lightly on the lips.

“That’s Ok . She and I have 4-H. This is your thing.”

Bree kissed him back, grateful for the billionth time that he’d come into her life.

Before him, she’d never had a significant other.

She’d never met a man she didn’t want to live without.

Their relationship went beyond physical attraction and common interests.

They had a true partnership. “Have I thanked you for everything you do yet today?”

The corner of his mouth turned up. “Not today.”

“Well, thank you.”

“Back atcha.”

“I can’t help but think you give more than you get.” Bree relied on him every single day to help with the kids and farmwork.

“Not from my perspective. You gave me purpose. You gave me a family. I was floundering before I met you.” He put a hand on each of her shoulders. “Because of you, my dad has stopped asking me when I’m going to give him grandkids. You can’t minimize that level of peace.”

She laughed. “Thank you anyway.”

With another quick kiss, they headed for the house. The kitchen smelled like pot roast.

Dana was in the family room, curled on the couch with a book and her evening cup of tea. “Leftovers are in the fridge. Luke is upstairs studying. Kayla is putting on her pajamas.”

“Then I’ll make the cocoa.” Matt backtracked to the kitchen.

Bree jogged upstairs to change into yoga pants and a big hooded sweatshirt.

She washed her face and took down her hair.

Then she said hi to Luke and left him to finish his calculus homework.

She returned to the kitchen, where Matt was rummaging in the fridge.

Steam wisped from the teakettle’s spout.

“Hungry?” He pulled a container of pot roast from the fridge.

“I’ll get some later. I want to talk to Adam before he leaves.

” She grabbed a few carrots from the vegetable drawer, put on her coat and boots, and went outside.

The damp air smelled farm fresh. She inhaled it deep into her lungs.

How had she lived in Philadelphia all those years, breathing exhaust fumes instead of country air?

The wet ground sucked at her boots as she crossed the backyard to the barn.

Her brother, Adam, was grooming his horse, Bullseye, in the aisle. Beneath the hem of his winter jacket, paint spotted his jeans and boots.

She walked into the aisle and closed the door behind her to block out the wind. “Hey.”

Adam looked up. The corners of his hazel eyes crinkled. “Hey yourself.”

Bree scratched under the horse’s forelock. Bullseye stood placidly, his head low, one rear leg cocked. As a former Amish buggy horse, he was enjoying the spoiled life. “Not seeing Zucco tonight?”

“She’s tied up.” Adam had been dating Bree’s deputy for a few months.

“Did you ride?” Bree asked.

“Yeah.” Adam swept his brush across his horse’s side. “I took a short ride out to the tree. Sometimes I just want to say hello to her.”

He didn’t need to specify. Bree knew he was referring to their sister, Erin. They’d scattered her ashes under a tree on the hill overlooking the farm so that she would always be near them.

“I do that too sometimes.” Bree stroked the placid horse’s soft neck. His eyelids drooped. “I’ve been thinking about Mom lately.”

“Really?” Adam tossed the brush into his grooming tote and faced her. He’d been a baby when their parents had died. He didn’t remember anything about their family or the trauma that had left them orphans.

“Do you want to hear about it?”

“I do.”

Always the attention hog, Matt’s Percheron, Beast, nickered like a gigantic baby. Luke’s horse, Riot, kicked his stall door.

“ Ok , already. I’m coming.” She took a minute to distribute carrots to the other horses.

It wasn’t cold enough for blankets yet, but she gave each horse the evening once-over.

She checked water buckets. No ice. She saved her own horse, Cowboy, for last. Opening the door, she slipped into the stall with the paint gelding.

He’d been Erin’s, and just being with him gave Bree the same sense of peace Adam had sought at the tree.

She leaned on Cowboy’s neck. It was like holding on to a little bit of her sister.

With the dusty smell of horse as her anchor, she told Adam about the memory she’d had at the library.

When she lifted her head, Adam was resting his forearms on the half door.

“Thanks for telling me,” he said. “I know you don’t like to talk about her.”

“In the past, I only had bad memories. Now it seems I have good ones too. I don’t mind sharing those at all.” She recognized the words as truth as she spoke them. “I like knowing she loved us.”

“You doubted that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe?” Bree searched herself. “No. The truth is that I blamed her. Not in the same way I blamed him. I guess I always thought of her as an enabler. That somehow she allowed it to happen.”

Adam said nothing. He was seven years younger than her, but he had old-soul eyes—artist eyes—that saw beneath the surface. He was able to scrape off her tough exterior like a spackle knife.

“I know that’s not right.” The self-analysis sent guilt coursing through her.

“Victim blaming is horrible, and I know better. She was trapped by money and fear. He never allowed her to work. She couldn’t support herself, let alone three children.

He terrified and threatened her. He used us as leverage, and she had nowhere to go.

Family and friends were too afraid of him to help her.

Most importantly, she knew he’d never let her go.

” Bree patted her own chest. “But I also knew that she loved him. As self-destructive as that love was, it was very real.”

“You were a child,” he said in a soft voice.

“That’s why these memories are so disorienting. It’s like I’m two people. I can still feel my child emotions and reactions, but simultaneously, I also see the situation from my current adult perspective.”

“You are messing with the space-time continuum.”

Bree snorted. “That sums it up nicely.”

“Are you Ok ?”

“I am. Thank you for asking.”

“Do you think that memory was real?”

Bree sighed. “I think it happened, but I can only guess as to when. And I don’t know how accurate my recollection is.” Memories were always clouded by the time that had passed and the experiences one had lived. Disorienting. All of it.

“Makes sense,” Adam agreed. “How old was the woman Mom was talking to?”

Bree straightened. “Older than her. Maybe around forty? It’s hard to say. Kids think everyone over thirty is ancient.”

“She could still be alive and living here,” Adam pointed out. “Plenty of people don’t leave Grey’s Hollow. Look at us, born here. I never left.” He nodded to her. “You came back.”

Bree’s head spun. “Why didn’t I think of that?” Perhaps she hadn’t been ready to face the memory in a concrete sense. “But what if I’m not picturing her right? My imagination could be filling in gaps in my memory.”

“What if you are seeing her?”

“I suppose there’s a chance I’m getting some of it right.”

“I could try to draw her for you.” Adam had helped several witnesses draw memories in past cases. He had an uncanny ability to listen and understand what people said underneath their words. “Who do you think she was?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about that.” But Bree concentrated on the memory now. The woman’s face was clear. She’d looked tired, frustrated, and resigned. Her hand had rested on a closed manila file. “Maybe a social worker? Maybe someone had finally reported Dad.”

“If so, it’s possible the county was trying to take us away,” Adam finished.

“They usually go to the house to check out the situation.”

“Maybe they already did, and you didn’t know.”

Another disconcerting wave passed through Bree as she realized, again, that there were gaps in her knowledge of her parents’ lives—and deaths. Did she want to know more? The flashbacks suggested she did.

Bree gave Cowboy a final pat and ducked under his neck. “How do you feel about doing that sketch?”

“Right now?” Adam pushed off the stall door and stepped back.

Bree opened the door and walked into the aisle. She was suddenly starving. “Yep. I don’t want the memory to fade. I’m going to heat up some leftover pot roast.”

“Do you think there might be some extra?” Hope lifted Adam’s voice.

“Dana always makes extra.”

“She’s the best.” Adam reached for the cross-tie clips on Bullseye’s halter. “Then I’m in a drawing mood.”

He put his horse away, and they headed for the house.

Matt and Kayla sat at the table, their copies of Matilda open in front of them. Matt was working on a huge bowl of leftovers.

Kayla dunked a cookie into her hot chocolate. “It’s your turn to pick next.”

“I know.” He reached over to the sideboard and opened the drawer. “Here we go.” He handed Kayla a book.

“ Big Red .” She flipped it over to read the back. “Ooh. It’s about a dog. Yay.”

“It was one of my favorite books when I was your age,” Matt said.

“I’m going to start it right now.” Kayla bounced out of her chair.

“Bedtime in thirty minutes,” Bree reminded her.

“I know.” Kayla spun and raced out of the kitchen.

“Does she ever walk anywhere?” Adam asked.

“Nope.” Matt set down his fork. “She’ll probably finish that book tomorrow.”

“No doubt I’ll find her reading under the covers with a flashlight.” But there were far worse things than a kid who read too late.

Matt squinted at Bree, then Adam. “You look like something’s up.”

“Adam is going to try to sketch the woman I saw in that flashback of my mom,” Bree explained.

“Good idea.” He stood. “I’ll be in the office. I’m going to write and review reports.”

Bree warmed up two bowls of food while Adam fished a notepad and pencil from a drawer.

Then Bree and her brother ate while she described the woman in the library.

Adam sketched at a leisurely pace, asking questions and making adjustments to his drawing between forkfuls of tender meat and vegetables.

Adam pushed the notepad across the table. “How’s this?”

Stunned, Bree stared.

It’s her.

“Really good.” Bree touched the edge of the paper, as if needing to ground herself to the image. “Thank you. You’re incredible.”

Adam flushed. “It’s just a sketch.”

“Nothing you do is just anything,” Bree said. “Your talent blows me away.”

Adam was hot in the art world. His paintings commanded hefty price tags, and he’d recently had a showing at a trendy gallery.

His success and modest lifestyle were the reasons Erin had been able to pay for the farm, and Bree never had to worry about the kids losing their childhood home.

He’d already set aside enough money for both Luke and Kayla to go to college.

Yet, with all the fame and fortune, Adam had no ego.

He didn’t understand why anyone paid money for his work.

Bree didn’t know anything about the art world, but there was something special about his paintings—and the raw emotion they evoked.

“Is there anything else I can do?” he asked.

Bree shook her head. “No. You made the drawing. Now it’s my job to find her.”

“Keep me posted, Ok ?”

“I will.” But what was the chance that a woman who had met with her mom decades ago was still alive, still in Grey’s Hollow, and remembered? And that was assuming she was a social worker. Bree could be completely wrong. The woman could have been anyone.