A Summer to Remember (7 page)

“So we're having dinner with these friends of yours after their church gets out.” Cadence grinned. “I owe Daddy five bucks. He bet you hadn't set foot in a church since Uncle Joshua's funeral. I figured you to be on better terms with God.”

Mention of Josh brought Marti a bittersweet smile. “You don't owe him the entire five bucks. I've been to a wedding or two.” And a few funerals too many.

“How well do you know Abby?”

Abby Matheson's stepmother, Therese Matheson-Logan, was one of the original margarita girls, left with the additional burden of raising stepchildren from her husband's first marriage. There had been times when all the margarita girls had wondered which was the more tragic for her: Paul's death or getting stuck raising his children. Sad but true.

“About as well as you know your mom's childless friends.” Abby was the only fourteen-year-old girl Marti knew in town—the only teenage girl, period. Since her family lived a few blocks away and Abby went to the middle school Cadence would start tomorrow and Therese had offered introductions in the lower-stress environment of a backyard barbecue, Marti had jumped at the chance.

Cadence lifted a few fingerfuls of cereal to her mouth, crunched loudly, then washed them down with juice. “Does she make good grades? What kind of activities does she do? Does she like horses, music, cheerleading, computers?” Translation:
Will she like me?

Marti took another bite of bagel to avoid answering right away. Though she'd met Abby numerous times, the things she knew about the girl weren't the sort she would share. Grieving her father's death and her mother's abandonment of her and her brother, Abby had gone through one hell of a rebellious phase. Princess of Whine, Queen of I-Hate-You, Girl in Need of Smacking—she'd earned plenty of nicknames, none of them flattering.

But things had changed last year, when Keegan and his daughter, Mariah, came into the Mathesons' lives. His respect and little Mariah's unquestioning love had gone a long way toward making Therese, Abby, and Jacob a real family, not just three people sharing a house.

Aware that Cadence was patiently waiting, Marti shrugged. “She's bright, like you. She likes clothes and boys and school, and she's pretty good at computers. She's something of an artist, too. She's short, blond-haired, brown-eyed, and she has a deformity to her left hand, this rectangular growth that beeps, buzzes, and interrupts normal life a million times a day.”

At mention of the word
deformity
, Cadence's eyes had widened. Now she gave Marti a chastening look as she nudged her cell phone into the shadow of her cereal bowl. “You sometimes suffer from the same condition. What is it called? Cell-itis?”

They both laughed, then Marti fixed her gaze on her niece and turned solemn. “You're going to fit in perfectly here. You and Abby may not be best buds, but you and someone will. A lot of the kids you're going to meet in Tallgrass, they're Army kids, so they know what it's like to leave behind everything familiar and start over in a new place. They adapt to new situations and new people all the time, and you're just so darn adorable that they're all going to love you.”

Reaching across the table, Cadence patted Marti's hand. “It's been a long time since you were fourteen, hasn't it?”

“Ugh, that was kind of cheesy, wasn't it? Just…be yourself. And remember that it's only for a year.” She thought briefly of life with Josh, and life without him, and squeezed Cadence's fingers tightly. “You can endure anything for a year.”

Fia's head was pounding when she awoke, and the numbers on the digital clock were too blurry to read. Heaving a sigh, she rolled onto her back and stuffed the extra pillow beneath her head, keeping her eyes closed. She'd had a wonderful day Friday, a wonderful day Saturday, and now she was going to pay for it. Two steps forward, one step back, though her bad days sometimes outnumbered the good by a whole lot.

The only thing on her schedule for the day was a cookout at Therese's house. All of the margarita girls would be there, significant others in tow for the ones who had them, and three of them had offered to pick her up on the way. She'd told them all the same thing:
I'll have to let you know that day.
Lord, how she hated those words!

If she could go, she could invite Elliot, the woman inside her whispered, and heat filtered through her veins. She hadn't enjoyed an evening so much since…too long. The food, the conversation, the serious interest in his eyes, and that whole calm-peace-satisfaction thing he had going. The entire evening she'd felt alive and tingly and aware of possibilities she thought she'd said good-bye to.

This morning, reality and its limitations fizzled the heat and left her feeling weary and hopeless. Damn, she hated feeling hopeless!

Slowly sitting up, she threw back the covers and swung her feet to the floor. Warrior girl didn't lie in bed moping around, especially when her bladder was full, and blurred vision or not, it was way past time to start the day. Nausea tumbled in her stomach when she stood, but after a moment it passed, and she headed to the closet, grabbing a dress from its hanger, snatched up underwear from a drawer, then made her way to the bathroom.

After washing down her morning medications and brushing her teeth, she climbed into the shower. While she was luxuriating in the sensation of hot water pounding her body, her left hand began to curl, the fingers bending, pulling into a fist of their own accord. She watched, the image still fuzzy, regret sour in her stomach, and wondered how bad it would get this time. Would her right hand follow suit? Would the muscles in her arms and shoulders tighten until her wrists were drawn inward against her chest, her arms basically useless until the spasm or whatever the hell it was passed? Would her feet start to turn in, too, forcing her to walk on the outside of her ankles, her calf muscles knot, her speech turn slurry like she'd been on a three-day drunk?

Please, God, no.
She wanted to go to the cookout. To see her friends. To see Elliot. To be normal just one more day.

But even as she prayed, the cramps started in her right hand and her fingers began to bend as if pulled by invisible cords attached to the tips. Cautiously she slid one foot forward, then the other, until she was directly under the flow of water and let every bit of lather wash away before nudging the faucet to Off. She climbed out carefully, wrapped a bath sheet around her, then sank to the floor, pretending that she wanted to sit there, pretending that the moisture on her cheeks was dripping from her wet hair.

Fia didn't know how long she might have sat there—the whole day?—if the cell phone hadn't rung. Her gaze went automatically to the counter before she remembered it was on the nightstand. All the crap she'd gone through the past year, and she still couldn't remember to keep the damn phone with her. Getting up took time, pushing herself first to sit on the edge of the tub, then on the commode, finally making it to her feet. Nausea rushed through her again and, thankfully, passed just as quickly, and with her fisted hand, she scooped up a towel to blot her hair as she shuffled to the bedroom.

“Warrior girl, my ass,” she snorted as she squinted at the cell screen, trying to decipher the jumbled letters showing on caller ID. “Only twenty-four, and you need one of those phones for old people with a super-big display and numbers.”

Giving up on ID'ing the caller, she stabbed uncooperative fingers to call up the voice mail. It was worth every wince and mistake.

“Hey, Fia. It's Elliot.” A bark sounded in the background, and he chuckled, adding, “And Mouse. I wanted to thank you for a nice evening.” His voice turned teasing. “You're making me feel at home here, you know that? Are you sure you want that?”

Oh, hell, yes, I want it.
Of course, it was just infatuation at this point, but the idea of Elliot settling in Tallgrass, of running into him from time to time, maybe going out with him from time to time…Just knowing he was there would soothe something in her soul. Not a romantic something, just a lifelong need to know there were good people around. Like Scott and the margarita girls, Elliot was good people. She would be better for knowing him than not knowing him.

“Anyway, Mouse and I found a pretty spot at Tall Grass Lake. Water's still cold for skinny-dipping, but the sun's shining, the wildflowers are blooming, and there's lots of peace and quiet. I thought maybe we could share it with you if it's not too late to ask. Just give me a call.” A moment of fumbling came through the phone, then he spoke again, his voice huskier, more Texan. “By the way, if you were thinking of kissing me good night last night, you should have gone ahead and done it, because I was sure thinking about doing it to you. And I know you were. You get this look…You had it in the truck Friday and on your porch last night. Come have fun with us today, and I'll show you the look I get
after
I've been kissed.” He followed with another
Call me
, then the automated voice asked her to save or delete the message.

She saved it.

Fia's mouth curled in a crooked victorious smile. They'd stood on the porch just before Elliot had left last night, the air heavy and damp and close, the night sounds muffled, the heat simmering off both of them. Only two feet had separated them. Two feet was no obstruction, not even when her feet were pointing every which way but right. Hell, she could trip and fall that far.

But she hadn't. She'd wanted to almost as much as she'd wanted her next breath, but ugly words kept echoing in her head:
Bad days. Sick. Getting worse. Not a stroke, not MS, not MG. Needy. Exhausted. Burden. Burden. Burden.

All her life, until Scott, she'd been a burden—to her parents, grandparents, schools, the system. Scott was the first person who'd ever looked at her and seen a woman worth having. He'd made her want to be a better person, to want to deserve him. Thank God, he'd never had to know what happened to her after his death. It would have broken his heart.

I'd still be here. For better or worse, remember?

She smiled. She wasn't the only margarita girl who talked to her husband. They found comfort or reassurance, sought hope and the enduring love they'd shared, vented their frustration, or did it out of habit.

“But you took vows,” she said as she rubbed the second towel over her hair. “You knew what you were getting into the first time you asked me to dance. You knew I was crazy and wild.”

Crazy's just an opinion, and wild can be tamed—but no more than a little bit. I loved a healthy dose of wild.

Feeling a little steadier, she returned to the bathroom to dry off, then dress. “I'm not the girl you met, Scott. I was young and energetic and full of hope and defiance. And kinda cute, too. You would have those memories to hold on to. But Elliot's never known the real me. He'd be getting some pasty version of what I used to be, and all it would be for him is work. Disappointment. Medical bills.” She paused before bitterly adding, “A burden.”

After shimmying her dress over her hips, she sank down on the commode. “No guy in his right mind is looking for a burden. No guy would listen to my story, watch me on a bad day, then ever show his face again.”

Her voice came out on a self-pitying exhale.

“I really want to see his face again.”

Elliot had been totally honest when he told Fia's voice mail that he'd found a pretty spot at the lake, though he may have left the impression that it was a more recent discovery. When he'd left her house last night, he'd been too wired to sleep so he'd taken an aimless tour of the town, saw a sign for the lake, and followed it, and he'd been rewarded with exactly the kind of place he liked to spend the night.

The lake was a few miles out of town, and the spot he'd chosen was a ways off the road. The first spring mowing hadn't taken place yet, so the weeds were high, but the wildflowers blooming among them were a dozen shades of yellow and purple and white. He'd parked at the edge of a clearing, trees nearby for shade from the morning sun, and for a while he and Mouse had lain in the back, watching for shooting stars and far-off planes. The only noises he'd heard all night were the birds in the trees, fish breaking the water's surface, and distant coyotes. It would have been a perfect night except that Fia wasn't with them. She wouldn't even have had to kiss him, or let him kiss her. Just sharing the peace and the beauty of nature with her would have been enough.

For now.

So far this morning, he'd driven to the campgrounds down the road to shower and change, then returned to the clearing, where he fed Mouse and ate his own breakfast of peanut butter and crackers. He and Mouse had worked on her training for a while, and he'd waited for a call back from Fia. He never sweated calls back. Women liked him. They always called him back. It was as sure as the sun rising in the east.

Though he'd checked the phone approximately every thirty minutes to make sure it hadn't lost its signal.

Okay, he liked women. So he liked
this
woman a lot.

He was on the shore, contemplating bringing out his fishing rod to see how big those puddle jumpers were, when the cell rang. For an instant, his pulse accelerated, then calmed again immediately. That ring tone belonged to Emily.

“Hey, older sister.” He put emphasis on
older
, since she'd been determined as a kid never to let him forget it. He figured he owed her a reminder now.

“Hey, little brother.” She'd also been determined never to let him forget he was shorter. “Where are you?”

“Tallgrass, Oklahoma.”

“Are you stopped for gas, lunch, or sticking around?”

“I'm gonna stay a…”
A few days
was his standard answer, then he would reevaluate, stay on or move on. But so far there wasn't much standard about this stop. “Awhile.”