Page 6

CHAPTER SIX

Elsie knew her parents, and had timed their arrival nearly to the minute.

For her part, Sloan prepared herself for questions and comments about her health, probably her weight loss. She reminded herself those questions and comments came from love, and worry laced the love.

Her grandfather hugged her so hard she felt her injured ribs twinge, but warmth, and that love, saturated the embrace.

“Look at you.” Miles Riley scanned every inch of Sloan’s face before laying his lips, so gently, on her forehead. “There’s that girl.” He kissed her again. “We knew they couldn’t keep you down.”

“Let me in there.”

Her grandmother’s hug, equally fierce, added a whiff of Dior’s J’adore. “You look better, and brighter with it. Skinny, but better and brighter.”

“You have red hair.”

“What do you think?” Blue eyes smug, Ava patted her bold copper wedge. “I decided enough of old lady ash blond and went for it.”

“I love it, and the cut’s great.”

“Got some zip to it. They can take that bullshit about growing old gracefully and stuff it.”

“You’ll never be old, Gramma.”

“Not if I can help it. I have to keep my boyfriend here on his toes.”

“And she does,” Miles confirmed. “She sure does.”

“And always will. Elsie, everything looks wonderful.”

“I learned from the best.”

“You sure did.” With a laugh, Ava fisted her hands on her hips. “Dean, you’re not only a handsome devil, but a lucky son of a bitch.”

“Don’t I know it.” He gave his mother-in-law a kiss and a glass of wine.

Within the hour, the house on the lake filled with people, with voices, with the scents of the season. After the initial not-so-subtle studies, words of concern or encouragement, the subject of Sloan’s health—to her relief—dropped away.

And she considered the decimation of her carefully created charcuterie a solid compliment. Adults munched, drank, gathered in a crowd or cozied up for more personal chats. Kids, ranging from eleven to four, gave Mop all the love a dog could want.

By the time her father began to carve the turkey—fancily presented with a surround of parsley, cranberries, rosemary, sage—Sloan had fielded all the comments and questions.

Her paternal grandfather carved the ham served on a bed of rosemary and thyme.

Ezra Cooper winked at his daughter-in-law. “I swear, Elsie, I’m putting on the pounds just looking at this spread.” Behind his black-framed glasses, his gaze slid to Sloan. “And seeing as we’re all of us together, and all of us healthy, wealthy, and wise, I’m gonna be grateful for every one of them.”

“Together.” Rose Cooper’s hand reached for Sloan’s, squeezed lightly as the eyes she’d passed to her granddaughter scanned the faces all around. “That’s the gift.”

When they sat around the big table, when that table groaned with platters and bowls, Dean lifted his glass.

“To family. The best there is.”

They feasted.

Roughly a mile away, the Littlefield brothers sat in the chilly, outdated kitchen with a large pepperoni pizza on the makeshift table.

Theo lifted his beer. “Here’s to us, the fucking Fix-It Brothers. We’re going to kick some handyman ass around here.”

“Here’s to us,” Nash agreed. “To the fucking Fix-It Brothers, to kicking that handyman ass, and Jesus, getting those damn permits so we can start on this wreck of a house.”

“I’ll drink to all of that.” And Theo did before he took his first slice. “It’s going to be a great house when we’re done with it.”

“I’m counting on it.”

“Did you ever picture us in a place like this?” As he ate, Theo glanced around the frozen-in-the-seventies kitchen. “In a big, drafty, full-of-potential house near a lake in the mountains?”

“I guess I did, since I bought the place.”

“No, I mean back when. I used to think how we’d get out, just out of that mausoleum where you weren’t supposed to touch anything. Then after the divorce, out of the mausoleum she kept, and out of the midlife crisis mansion he bought where everything was sharp and shiny.”

“The chrome and glass palace.”

“Yeah. You needed sunglasses the minute you opened your eyes in the morning. I always figured we’d get out, I just never pictured where we’d get out to.”

“I thought about California for about five minutes.”

With a nod, Theo gestured with his beer. “Because it’s on the opposite side of the country from Connecticut. I thought about Alaska.”

Nash nearly choked on his pizza. “Get out.”

“I did, for maybe ten minutes. How I’d talk you into heading out there. We’d get a cabin, start a business, live free, right? Then I remembered how it’s dark there like half the time. Snow’s one thing.”

“Let’s open it up, then close it again and put it away. I got an earful yesterday. Well, two. One from each.”

Theo’s brown eyes held all his sympathy with a little guilt tossed in.

“Sorry. I figured that would come once I emailed each of them I wasn’t taking the position at the firm, and was starting a business with you here.”

“No sorry required or wanted.” Nash lifted a slice. “Do I look wounded?”

Theo smiled, shrugged. “You always handled it better than I did.”

“Not always.” He’d just cared less, Nash thought. And cared less sooner than Theo. “But the point is, it’s done now.”

Theo gestured with his slice. “And all your fault, naturally.”

“Mostly mine.”

And he’d let that roll over him. The angry accusations of carelessness, ingratitude, shortsightedness, and his stubborn determination to ruin his brother’s life along with his own.

“I’m ungrateful and recalcitrant.”

“Can you really be recalcitrant once you hit thirty?”

“Apparently.” Nash gestured with his slice in turn. “But you? You’re just feckless.”

Theo’s grin flashed. “According to them, that’s my middle name.”

“And they’re wrong, as usual. You’re your own man, Theo. Smart, capable, open-minded and -hearted. Their unique combination of neglect and unshakable demands layered together with constant disappointment hurt you more than it did me.”

“You were always there to stanch the wounds. It doesn’t hurt anymore, Nash, or not enough to count. Are you going to tell me what you said to them?”

There had been times along the way Nash had held back, held it all in. But, partners now as well as brothers.

“Basically? That we were going to look out for each other, like we always did. He said not to come running to him when we finished screwing up our lives, and I assured him he was the last person either of us would go to, for anything.”

“That’s a fucking fact,” Theo muttered.

“She said she’d washed her hands of us. I suggested she get a towel.”

After Theo’s mouth fell open, a laugh burst out. “You actually said that: ‘Get a towel.’”

“I did, because it’s time to say fuck it. It’s past time we both said fuck it, so that was my fuck it substitute. Then she hung up.”

“He’s giving me three weeks to come to my senses. She was a little more generous with a month.”

“Marking your calendar?” Nash asked him.

“Nope.” Theo took a second slice. “Happy Thanksgiving, Nash.”

Nash took a second slice for himself. “Happy Thanksgiving, Theo.”

In their little house, tucked in the West Virginia woods and hills, Clara and Sam enjoyed Clara’s roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, and corn bread. The creamed corn, green beans, and cranberry sauce came from cans, but the gravy and stuffing Clara made like her grandmother taught her had a nice addition of blood from the resurrected.

This had been an older gentleman from the Farmington area who’d been brought back from a cardiac arrest.

Before they’d drained him, he’d told them he’d heard his mother’s voice coming to him from a bright light. How he’d felt young again, his vision sharper, his steps toward that light quicker.

That had pleased Clara very much, and she felt Wayne Carson’s contribution to their mission, and now their holiday meal, was something to be thankful for.

“This gravy’s terrific, babe.”

“I’m so glad you like it.” She beamed at him through the two white tapers she’d put out to add some class and romance. “My granny taught me how to make it. I told you how my mother couldn’t cook worth spit, but my granny, she knew her way around the kitchen.”

“That pumpkin pie’s going to go down good, too.”

“It was fun making it together.” She reached over for his hand, squeezed tight. “You and me? We do everything good together, doll.”

He squeezed back, added a wink. “And one thing better than all the rest.”

“Oh, you!” Slapping at the air, she giggled. “Nobody ever loved me like you do, Sam. With your heart and your body. I know it was meant for us to meet when we did, but sometimes I can’t help but wish we’d met when I was young enough to give you a child.”

“Babe, you’re everything I could want. You gave me purpose when every day was just a get-through-it. You opened my mind to that purpose.”

Her heart just sang. “I’d never be able to do what we’re meant to do without you. Before you, I just didn’t have the courage. We’ve got some more possibilities, but I think it’s best we wait a couple weeks. Maybe even a month.”

“You’ll know when it’s time. You always do.”

“I will,” she agreed. “I was given that gift.” She ate the last of the potatoes and gravy on her plate. “They’re out looking for Janet Anderson. They just don’t understand, doll, that she’s finally at peace. All those people fretting over her when she’s gone to her reward.

“I’m thankful we were able to give her that gift. How about another helping?”

He shook his head. “Like my pap used to say, enough’s as much as plenty.”

“I’ll get the pie and the Reddi-wip.”

“I was thinking, why don’t we do the other thing we do so well before pie? I sure am thankful for that!”

“Oh, you!” She giggled and slapped the air again. Then she got up. “Gotta catch me!” And ran toward the bedroom.

When he caught her, and they tumbled onto the bed she’d made that morning, complete with neat hospital corners and flowered bedspread, she wrapped around him.

“I sure do love you, Sam.”

“I sure do love you, Clara.” He nuzzled into her neck. “When I think last Thanksgiving I was on my own. I didn’t have you, didn’t have love, or purpose, or the enlightenment you brought to me.”

“Happy Thanksgiving, doll.”

He filled his hands with her big soft breasts. “Happy Thanksgiving, babe.”

In the Cooper house, post-dinner/pre-dessert chaos reigned. Some gathered in the kitchen, dealing with dishes, the leftovers, and talked as if they hadn’t already talked more than an hour over dinner.

Others flopped down with football on the big screen in the family room downstairs, and shouted their triumph or disappointment.

Drea, their cousin, and his, yes, adorable boyfriend took some of the kids out for sledding and snowman building.

Happy but tired, Sloan gave in to the fatigue and slipped upstairs for a twenty-minute nap.

Though she admitted as she rose, as she freshened up, she could’ve taken an hour, she told herself the twenty did the trick.

She’d eaten what she could, little bites of everything she liked. She wasn’t sure how she’d manage pie, but she’d try.

A lot to be thankful for, she reminded herself. And more if she could manage another walk outside.

Pleased she felt reasonably steady and rested, she went back downstairs in time to hear the shouts of Touchdown! and the moans of those rooting for the opposition.

She turned in time to see Jonah’s little boy, Austin, let out a war cry as he chased Mop—a ball clamped in his mouth, dark eyes lit with fun—into the home office.

She detoured—not the place to play tug—and got to the door in time to see the little guy slip and fall flat on the floor.

“Oops,” she said, then moved in. “You okay, pal?”

He sat up, eyes big and teary, and raised up his arms.

She didn’t think, simply reached down and lifted him.

She felt the pop, the sudden stab of pain as the breath went out of her. Her legs gave way.

She didn’t drop the boy, but it was close, and crumpled on the floor. She struggled to get her breath back as the four-year-old’s tears began to fall.

“What was that?” Drea turned into the doorway, then sprinted. “Sloan.”

“Take him. Take him.” Her hands shook like her voice. “I didn’t think. I didn’t think.”

“Stay right where you are.”

Hauling Austin up, Drea rushed out, and Sloan tried to take stock. Gingerly, she slid a hand under her sweater, found her chest dressing wet.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Drea rushed back, knelt down. “How bad?”

“Goddamn it, my own fault.” Her breath wheezed in, wheezed out, but the pain stayed. “Popped some stitches. And I think maybe strained a muscle. Maybe, shit, shit, tore one.”

“How bad are you bleeding?” Without hesitation, Drea yanked up her sister’s sweater. “Okay, okay, not a gusher. Stay down. I’ll get our things, take you to the ER.”

Sloan felt her own tears building. “I’m screwing it up.”

“You’re not. We’re going to do what we need to do.”

Of course, everyone would have crowded into the room if Dean hadn’t shooed them off.

“I’ll drive,” he said.

“No. Dad, I’ve got this. And I’ll take care of her.” Drea put on her coat as Elsie helped Sloan into hers.

“It’s not bad,” Sloan assured them, though she didn’t know for certain, since it hurt to breathe, much less talk. “Stupid of me, that’s all. I didn’t think about it, just hauled him up. He’s about five times five pounds. They’ll stitch me up and I’ll be back. Save me some pie.”

Still, her father insisted on carrying her to the car, and cars had to be moved and shifted so Drea could back out.

“I’m sorry.”

“Save it,” Drea told her. “You picked up a kid because he was crying. I get it.”

“I knew better. I should’ve sat down on the floor and held him.”

“You didn’t.” Eyes straight ahead, Drea handled the winding roads like a Formula 1 ace. “You’re wired to help someone who needs help. Beating yourself up isn’t going to accomplish anything. Just like you said all the right things back there about being right back, having pie.”

“It could be true.”

“We’re going to hope it is.”

Sloan closed her eyes and focused on breathing. “They listened to you.”

“So did you. I didn’t give any of you time not to.”

“Good trick,” Sloan mumbled.

“You need plenty of tricks if you’re going to work in a family business and stay a happy family. And I’ve got plenty.”

Drea stayed in charge when they reached the hospital. Quick and brisk, she put Sloan in a chair and marched to the check-in counter herself.

In under ten minutes, Sloan lay in an exam room with a doctor who appeared to have graduated from the same school of quick and brisk as her sister.

During the poking, prodding, needles, X-rays, she made herself go somewhere else in her head. Thinking about the moment, what was happening to her could only lead to thinking about what could happen.

After the tests, the stitching, Sloan braced herself for the results.

“You look better,” Drea observed.

Sloan wasn’t sure if they’d let her sister into the room or she’d just bullied her way into it. Either way, she was grateful not to wait alone.

“Oh, and the nurse I spoke to said not to be concerned that Dr. Marlowe looks sixteen. She’s actually thirty-four and an excellent doctor. I googled her while I was waiting.”

“Of course you did.”

“She was in the top ten percent of her graduating class at WVU and opted to specialize in emergency medicine.”

As Drea spoke, Dr. Marlowe, a tall brunette in a white coat and black running shoes, breezed in.

“Good news. No tears or ruptures.”

Sloan’s stress level dropped, just bottomed out as quickly as it had spiked. She hadn’t realized just how high it had spiked until it plunged again.

“Not as good, you have an intercostal muscle strain—basically you pulled a pectoral muscle. You need to contact your surgeon—tomorrow’s soon enough—and we’ll send him your test results. I’ll consult with him. Meanwhile it’s rest, ice—”

“Compression and elevation,” Sloan finished. “RICE.”

“Yes, exactly. Your surgeon may want to see you, and his instructions override mine. Mine are you can resume light—key word light —activity in forty-eight hours. RICE and take your meds for pain and swelling. Ice twenty minutes, three times a day, and keep your chest elevated. I’m going to wrap the affected area in an elastic bandage. When you change it, don’t wrap it any tighter than I have. And don’t pick up any toddlers.”

“That’s definitely off my list.”

“Sloan Cooper,” Marlowe said. “Heron’s Rest. You ran cross-country.”

“In high school, yeah.”

“You ran against my sister in regionals—Willa Marlowe, Cumberland. I remember because you nipped her by about two seconds, and went on to All-State.”

“I remember Willa.” Another tall brunette, Sloan recalled. “She ran like a cheetah—with an extra battery pack.”

“And she said your kick at the end was your superpower.”

Sloan managed a wan smile. “Those were the days.”

Drea rubbed a hand up and down Sloan’s arm. “I’m going to step out and call the houseful of worried family. Before I do, is there anything else Sloan’s watchdogs need to know?”

“You’ll get a list at checkout. Keep an eye on her for the next forty-eight. And contact Dr. Vincenti tomorrow.”

“Done. I’ll be back.”

“Let’s get you wrapped and back home,” Marlowe said when Drea walked out. “Your wounds are healing well. I understand this is a setback in your recovery, and it must be frustrating to someone with a superpower kick. But it’s temporary.”

“Since I imagined I’d torn a muscle and might spend some time in the OR again, I’m not going to complain. Much.”

“What’s your pain level now?” The tall brunette had clear, direct blue eyes. And they locked on Sloan’s. “I’ll add it’s stupid to lie to a doctor. Don’t be stupid.”

“Between seven and eight. I have the prescribed pain meds at home. I haven’t needed them, but I’ll take one.”

“Good. Not stupid. You had an excellent surgeon.”

“I know. I’m grateful. And I’ll contact him tomorrow and confess.”

“The problem with being a human is we make mistakes.”

The problem with being Sloan, she admitted as she—very carefully—got back in Drea’s car—was she just hated making them.

Before she strapped in, Drea handed her an ice pack.

“Where did you get this?”

“I have my ways. Twenty minutes on. It’ll take thirty or so to get home. Might as well start now.”

Sooner started, sooner finished, Sloan thought, and slid the pack under her sweater.

“I’m going to contact Dr. Vincenti’s office in the morning and arrange a video consult. If he wants you to go in, Mom can take you. My schedule’s tight tomorrow and so’s Dad’s, but hers is a little more flexible.”

Drea made the turn, started home. “Dad doesn’t have a recliner, which didn’t strike me as odd until now. My nurse informant said that’s a good way to sleep elevated. But we have plenty of pillows, and you’d rather sleep in bed anyway.”

“You’re organizing me. This is another of your tricks.”

“You’ll be back to organizing yourself soon enough, so I’m taking it while I can. I like the power.” Drea lifted her shoulders, jiggled them. “It may be better than sex.”

“You’re not having any sex that I’ve noticed.”

“I could say too busy, which is true enough, but mostly? Nobody recently hits the mark. If I’m going to have sex, I want to date first, and unless somebody at least hits somewhere on the target, it’s too much trouble.”

She glanced over. “How was sex with Matias?”

“Good enough.”

“Ooh, ouch.”

“I know, right?” Sloan started to laugh, but it hurt. “And I’m not saying that because he dumped me while I was in the hospital. Sex was okay. Just okay. Actually, everything was just okay, and looking back, just too easy and convenient. I guess on both sides.”

“Then you’re in the hospital, and it wasn’t easy and convenient for him.” Drea glanced at her sister. “You wouldn’t have done that to him.”

“No. You know what’s weird? I wish, I honestly wish, he’d broken my heart.”

“That’s not weird.” Drea shook her head. “No, not even approaching weird. You wanted more from him, from yourself, and you didn’t get it. He only hit the outer rim of your target, and who doesn’t want a bull’s-eye?”

“I’m retiring my target for a while.”

“I like leaving mine out there, just in case. You never know who may hit, or when.”

By the time they got back, her father’s truck sat in the drive so Drea could take his slot in the garage. Before the garage door closed, their parents stepped in.

“Everyone stayed until Drea called. So much relief,” Elsie added. “I’ve got your bed all ready for you.”

“Here, baby.”

“No, Dad, no carrying. Walking’s fine. It’s encouraged. I’m just a little slow. I’m just really sorry this put such a damper on everything.”

“No damper after Drea called. Everything’s fine now. How about you lean on me a little?”

“Leaning’s good. Maybe an extreme way to get out of dish duty, but mission accomplished.”

The stairs that had happily become just stairs turned into a mountain again.

So she leaned, took it slow while her mother hurried ahead.

“Plenty of pillows,” Elsie said, “to keep you elevated. We’ve got your book, your laptop, and your crocheting within easy reach. I’ll help you change into your pajamas. Dean, why don’t you go down and make Sloan some tea?”

“Just the water’s fine, Mom.”

“I’ll be right downstairs.”

When Sloan sat on the side of the bed, Dean bent down to kiss the top of her head.

And Drea held out a pill and a glass of water.

“Thanks for organizing me. Sincerely. But don’t get used to it.”

“I may not be able to give it up. Such a surge of power. I’ll be downstairs with Dad.”

“Here now, let’s get you comfortable.”

Before Elsie could help Sloan off with her sweater, Sloan took her hand. “I know I worried you. Worried everyone. I’m not going to do that again.”

“Oh, baby, when you’re sixty and I’m… we won’t say that number out loud—I’ll still worry about you. Love demands it. You know what your dad’s doing right now? He’s sending a group text to the family to let them know you’re home. Because love demands it.”

Gently, she exchanged Sloan’s sweater for a soft thermal shirt.

“You’ve been working so hard to stay inside the lines. I know how hard it is for you not to lift boulders and race the wind, but you’ve done the work. This is a bump, that’s all,” Elsie assured Sloan as she helped her undress. “A nasty bump, and you’ll get over it and through it.”

A tear spilled out; she simply couldn’t stop it, or the one that followed.

“I feel weak again, Mom, and… breakable.”

Elsie drew Sloan’s head to her breast, stroked her hair, murmuring as Sloan gave up and let the tears come.

Then she drew Sloan back, met those teary eyes.

“You’re only weak physically for now. Your will isn’t weak, and trust me because I’ve run up against it since you were born, it’s not easily broken.”

“Okay.” Sloan took the tissue Elsie offered, dried her face. “Okay.”

She helped Sloan into bed, tucking covers as she had when Sloan was a child.

“Are you sure you don’t want that tea? Some pie?”

Sloan shook her head. “The pain meds make me sleepy. Drea’s a rock, Mom.”

“Both my girls are. They take after me. I put your phone right there on the charger. If you need or want anything, text.”

“I will. Promise.”

“Lights on or off?”

“Off, thanks.”

In the dark and the quiet, she settled back, propped up by a mound of pillows.

Just a bump, she told herself. She just had to make sure she didn’t trip over it.

Something growled as she walked into the glaring lights of the mini-mart. Light turned to dark, the shelves and spin racks to trees with limbs like brittle bones. The counter became a thicket with thorns that gleamed like sharpened teeth.

She saw tracks in the snow, and drawing her weapon, began to follow them.

Just a slice of moon, barely a slice, to bounce its light off the snow. But she saw well enough, saw the tracks, human tracks.

She needed to stop the one who made them. Needed to do her job. To protect human and wildlife, to protect the forest, the rivers, the lakes.

She couldn’t remember why she’d come here, alone, in the dark, but knew the only way to go. Forward.

She heard the quick squeal—a death cry—moments before she watched the great horned owl sweep by, silent as a ghost in the night, with its prey.

Her head throbbed, a dull, draining ache, and when she lifted a hand to her forehead, it came back bloody. Her blood dripped down her face, onto the pristine white of the snow.

But she kept moving forward. To stop was failure, to turn back cowardice.

Even when the tracks circled, turned from human to beast, she moved ahead.

The growl came from behind her, close. Too close.

She spun around. The beast, huge, black, its eyes fiery red, its teeth long and keen, leaped out of the dark.

Its fangs sank into her chest.

She woke gasping, a scream caught in her throat. She had to press her hands against her mouth to hold it in. Shuddering, she rocked herself until the need to scream passed.

Carefully, because her hands shook, she picked up the water on the nightstand, drank to ease the burning in her throat, in her lungs, in her belly.

Because she needed it, she switched on the light and immediately felt calmer. A check of the time showed her three-twenty-five.

As quietly as she could, Sloan got out of bed and into the bathroom across the hall. After she splashed the clammy sweat from her face, she studied herself in the mirror.

The strain showed, and the circles under her eyes spread like bruises against the pallor.

She looked haunted, but she wouldn’t be.

Everything hurt, but she settled on an Advil.

Wishing she’d thought to ask for her earbuds, she went back to her room, eased herself back into bed.

She turned her laptop on, considered music, but decided she needed a bigger distraction. She chose a movie to stream instead, then picked up her crocheting.

By five a.m., she’d finished the red scarf.