Page 21 of His Wounded Heart

I look at it and use the corner of my flannel shirt to wipe away the smudges on the glass. Mom and Liz look so damn happy in this picture. It was before Mom had gotten the cancer diagnosis, and I know it was before Liz got engaged to Ned. Mom had begged me to take leave for my birthday and come home, so I did. The two days leading up to my birthday were great. I remember them cooking for me. God, those two women could cook. Liz was supposed to stay for a week, but Ned had finagled it so she had to go home early.

The day before Liz left, I’d insisted on taking a picture of them. Mom was beaming, and Liz, well she looked happy. Happier than normal, now that I thought about it. I looked closely. She was wearing a turtleneck and Mom was wearing a short sleeve blouse. Was the turtleneck to hide bruises? My birthday falls in mid-September, too early for a turtleneck. When I’d mentioned it to Mom, she’d insisted that Ned was a great guy and that I had turned cynical since I’d joined the Navy.

Just how many signs did I miss? My finger traced over Liz’s smile. I pushed up from the ottoman and put the photo on the coffee table. The same table where I usually put the bottle of Jack Daniels after one of my nightmares.

It was time for a new habit.

Chapter Six

When I get home after dropping Bella off at school I’m pumped. A new customer, a chance at making an interesting friend, and I was going to see Evie one more time before she left town. Life couldn’t be any better! I’d only seen her once in the week she’d been here looking over the repairs on her home here in Jasper Creek. I grab the mail from the box, and then juggle that with the three bags of groceries that I’d purchased.

Not for the first time I thank my lucky stars that I have these bulletproof burlap grocery totes that can handle everything I need to carry without giving way under the strain. I plop the mail and the bags onto the kitchen counter, then start putting the groceries away. As I’m folding up the bags to put them back in the car, I find the mail. Most of it’s going straight into the recycle bin, but I’m really hoping for a letter from Piper for Bella. She loves getting letters from her aunt in California.

“Ah-ha!” My little sister came through again. “This is going to make Bella’s week!”

It’s a thick envelope too, so Piper probably spent too much on a pretty 3-D card. Heck, this might even make Bella’s month.

I leave that on the kitchen counter, then rifle through the rest. Yep, medical bill summaries from when Bella had strep throat, bill, bill, letter from my congressman, time for my annual check-up. Ah, sugar foot, another letter from one of those lawyers. Dang it, when will they realize that I’m not going to be part of that class action suit? The company’s data wall was breached, they hadn’t sold my personal data. What’s more, the whole thing was just putting money into the lawyer’s pockets and each claimant will probably get a nickel in the end. I put that envelope along with the others on my little desk. This time I’m going to write back to the lawyer and tell them to stop sending me letters.

I am done!

I go back to the kitchen and start whipping up the batter for cinnamon streusel coffee cake. I’d picked up a new thing of sour cream because I hadn’t been sure that the tin I had was still fresh, but it was. I use the sour cream instead of milk to give the cake a little bit of a tangy taste. It’s a recipe I perfected while I lived at the family homestead. Mom had never been big on either parenting or cooking, so I’d stepped up. This is Evie’s favorite.

I’m pulling the cake out of the oven just as Evie is letting herself into the house.

“Hey! You are the best big sister in the world,” Evie calls out as she saunters into the kitchen with a huge grin on her face. She gives me a hug from behind as I start the coffee. “Do I see my favorite creamer?” The hug gets tighter. I glance over at the almond-flavored coffee creamer that I just took out of the fridge to go with her coffee.

“It sure is,” I say as I turn on the coffee maker, then I turn around and give her a proper hug. “It’s so good to see you, Evalyn Lavender, I’ve missed you.” My breath feathers the top of Evie’s hair.

“Normally I would give you hell for at least five minutes for calling me that atrocious name even though there is homemade coffee cake, but I’ve got bigger fish to fry with you. Why in the hell are you thinking of moving?” Evie demands to know as she pushes her way out of my arms. God, she’s a strong little thing. Wait a dog-gone minute—

“What gives you the idea that I’m thinking about moving?”

“When Aiden and I came back here two months ago and were supervising the re-build of the house after the explosion, you were asking a lot of questions about the cost of not just the materials and labor, but of the land too. Aiden figured it out. He knows that you’re sitting on a couple of acres out back, and must be thinking about selling. He’s right, isn’t he?”

Oh shit. What do I say?

“Yeah, you’re taking too long to answer. You never could lie worth a shit. Why, Trenda? Why? This is where you grew up. This is where your family is.”

“Really? Drake doesn’t live here, he’s in Southern California, and so are you. Piper’s with you both. Zoe is away at school and so is Maddie. All you do is seagull.”

“What in the hell are you talking about? What does seagull mean?”

“All you guys do is basically swoop in and demand to know what I’m doing, shit on it while telling me how I should live my life, and then swoop back out again. That’s what I mean by seagull.”

“Whoa, Sis, that’s pretty harsh, don’t you think?” Evie stares at me and I can tell I’ve hurt her feelings.

“Didn’t you just do that, by telling me I’m doing the wrong thing by moving?”

“Well, yeah,” she reluctantly admits.

“Then there’s Mom and Dad whiling away in the state penitentiaries. You tell me, Evie, what in the hell is keeping me here in Jasper Creek?”

“Bella loves her teachers, she has a lot of friends here, this is where your customers are.”

I snorted. “Evie, my customers are all over the US, and I’ve been doing websites for people in Canada and the UK for the last two years. I can work from anywhere. As for Bella, she is the most outgoing child I know, she can make friends anywhere we land.”

“Yeah, but who is she going to con out of money? She only has enough for two years of college,” Evie teases. But under the teasing I hear hurt.