The Cottage on Juniper Ridge (24 page)

A bad decision because in an effort to dodge his sister he slipped on a wet rock and went down. Part of him went down. But one foot had somehow gotten caught between two rocks.

Toni was on her way down the bank even as her son cried out in pain. “I’m coming!” she yelled.

She arrived to find him in torrential tears as Jordan tried to dislodge his foot. “It’s okay,” she told him, her voice reassuring. “Here, sweetie, help me move the rock.”

Between the two of them, they got his foot freed. Toni inspected it, feeling for broken bones. She was pretty sure they’d dodged that bullet, but it was going to be a nasty sprain.

She bent in front of him. “Here, climb on. I’ll piggyback you up to the trail.”

She hadn’t given her son a piggyback ride since he was five. He was twice that age now and weighed as much as a small horse. She found herself panting as she struggled up the bank and her heart was pounding so hard she thought it might break through her chest. Once they reached the trail, she set him down on a nearby boulder and took another look at his ankle. It was already starting to swell. This was not good. How was she going to get this child down the mountain?

Chapter Twenty-Four

Even when your life doesn’t go according to
plan, take time to appreciate it.

—Muriel Sterling, author of
Simplicity

Today I’m going to hike up Lost Bride Trail, a popular local
landmark near Icicle Falls. I can hardly wait to see the waterfall. Maybe I’ll
even catch a glimpse of the ghost of the lost bride, a woman who disappeared
back in pioneer times. They say if you see her it means there’s a wedding in
your future. I’ll post pictures later so you can try and spot her.

“T
his is beautiful,” Jen said, gazing at
the cataract before her. “Right, Tiny?” she said to the Saint Bernard who was
Jen and Cecily’s hiking companion. She gave the dog’s head a pat and Tiny wagged
his tail.

Jen had taken to borrowing Cass’s dog whenever she went for a
walk or a short hike. Cass was happy for Tiny to get the exercise and Jen was
glad to get her dog fix. She’d always wanted a dog, but, for once, she’d
reminded herself that she was trying to simplify her life and refrained from
impulsively running out and getting one. Better to wait. Meanwhile, she could
always borrow Tiny.

She took out her cell phone and snapped a picture of Lost Bride
Falls. She wished she’d invited her sister along. Toni had talked about bringing
the kids up here.

“I’m glad you’re finally getting a chance to see it,” Cecily
said. “Want me to take a picture of you with the falls in the background?”

Jen nodded. “Here, Tiny, let’s get your handsome doggy self in
the picture, too.” She pulled the dog close and he cuddled up to her, drooling
on her shoe.

Cecily snapped the photo and they checked it out. “Good picture
of Tiny’s drool,” Cecily observed.

Jen laughed. “And a great one of the falls. It was nice of you
to play hooky from work today and show me.” She gave Tiny a moment off his leash
so he could go down to the creek for a drink, then turned to admire the falls
again.

“I’m not feeling too guilty about that,” Cecily said. “I put in
enough time working on the fall catalog last week to burn out half my brain
cells. This week I’m taking it easy.” She plucked a wildflower and put it in her
hair.

“Do you ever have trouble finding the balance in your life?”
Jen asked.

“Not since I moved back home. And I always make time for
friends.” Cecily picked another flower and handed it to Jen.

“How about romance?” Jen asked shyly. She’d heard that Cecily
had two men dangling after her. It was probably rude to be so nosy, but she
couldn’t resist asking.

“A woman should always make time for romance, too,” Cecily
replied in a thoughtful voice. “But making time and meeting the right person are
two different things.” She pointed in the direction of the falls. “See
anything?”

Jen had hoped to catch a glimpse of the town’s famous ghost,
but all she saw was tons of water plummeting over rocky crags. She shook her
head. “No wedding in my future, I guess.”

“You don’t
have
to see the ghost to
have a wedding in your future,” Cecily said. “Somehow, I’ve got a feeling you’re
going to find someone special here in Icicle Falls.”

Jen had also heard about Cecily’s famous intuition. She had a
gift for steering people toward their perfect match. “Anyone in particular come
to mind?”

Cecily just smiled. “I think you’ll figure it out,” she said,
and started off down the trail.

Well, that was a disappointing early morning hike. No sign of
the lost bride and Cecily Sterling and her impeccable intuition had been no help
at all.

* * *

“Jordan, do you have your phone?” Toni asked. She’d
never thought she’d hear herself say that.

Jordan stared at her as if she’d gone nuts. “You haven’t let me
bring it anywhere.”

“My foot hurts,” Jeffrey whimpered.

“I know, sweetie,” Toni said, wiping the tears from his cheeks.
“We’re going to get you to a doctor as soon as we can.” And it looked as if the
only way that was going to happen was if she carried him. How she wished Wayne
had come with them. How she wished she had a cell phone so she could call him!
Was there reception up here? Who knew? She would’ve welcomed the chance to find
out.

She got her son onto her back again and they set off down the
trail. How long would she be able to do this before she collapsed?

Don’t think like that,
she scolded
herself. A mother could do anything.

Except carry an eighty-pound boy down a mountain trail. After
twenty minutes, she stopped. “Okay,” she huffed. “We need to take a break for a
minute.”

Jeffrey was still crying and his ankle looked like a
cantaloupe. What circle of hell was this?

“Here, Mom,” Jordan said, handing Toni her water bottle.

The only good thing about this awful experience was that it was
bringing out the sweet girl Jordan had always been—until recently. “Thanks,” she
said, and gulped down half its contents. She was sweating like a pig and even
half a bottle of water barely quenched her thirst.

“How much longer?” Jeffrey asked.

“I’m not sure,” Toni said. “I hope not too much.”

He began to cry again and she wanted to join him.

“I can help carry him,” Jordan offered.

“No, you’ll hurt yourself.” Toni already knew this from
personal experience. The muscles in her back were shrieking.

“Mom! I hear something,” Jordan said.

Toni strained to hear. Yes! Voices! Other hikers were coming
down the trail. Maybe they had a cell phone. “They should catch up to us in a
couple of minutes.”

“My foot hurts,” Jeffrey reminded her.

“You’re being very brave. Just a little longer now,” Toni
promised.

He nodded and rubbed his eyes.

A few more minutes brought the hikers into sight, two women and
a large dog. One of the women was Cecily Sterling, whom Toni had met when she’d
attended the Icicle Falls book club meeting with Jen. The other was... Toni
blinked, sure she was hallucinating. Her sister never hiked. “Jen?”

Jen broke into a smile. “Hey, sis! You should’ve said you were
going to hike this trail today. We could all have come up together.” The words
were hardly out of her mouth when she took in the scene. “What happened?”

“Jeffrey fell and sprained his ankle,” Toni said.

“Mom’s been carrying him down the mountain,” Jordan added.

“Seriously?” Jen gaped at her sister. “You should have called
for help!”

“We didn’t have our cell phones with us,” Toni said. “Anyway, I
figured there probably wasn’t any reception.”

“Actually, there is here,” Cecily told her. “You lose it higher
up the mountain, though.”

Great. If they’d had their darned cell phones, they could have
called someone.

“My foot hurts.” Jeffrey’s voice was plaintive.

Cecily immediately took out her cell. “I can call 9-1-1.”

“We’d just lose time waiting for someone to come,” Jen said.
“I’ve got a better idea. Jordan, help me find two long sticks.” And with that
she plunged off the trail into the brush, Jordan following her.

“What are you doing?” Toni called after her.

“We’re going to put Tiny to work and haul Jeffrey down the
mountain,” her sister called back.

“Good idea,” Cecily approved. “I’ll have someone meet us at the
trailhead.”

Within ten minutes they’d cobbled together a makeshift dogsled
with branches and sweatshirts and Tiny’s extendable leash. “Okay, Tiny, mush,”
Jen said.

Tiny fell into step beside her and the little parade started
down the trail. “You’re going to have some adventure to tell your friends about
when you go back to school this fall,” Cecily said to Jeffrey, who was trying
hard not to cry.

They were almost at the trailhead when they saw two medics
coming their way.
Saved,
Toni thought, and breathed
a sigh of relief.

One of them, a burly twentysomething guy, knelt in front of
Jeffrey. “How you doing there?”

“I’m okay,” Jeffrey said, wiping the tears from his cheeks.

“Hurts a lot, doesn’t it?” the medic said as he examined the
foot. To Toni he murmured, “It looks like a sprain, but you’ll want to get it
X-rayed to make sure it’s not broken.”

Toni had been brave all the way down the trail, but now she was
done. She burst into tears.

“It’s okay, Mom,” Jordan said, putting an arm around her.

She hugged her daughter fiercely and vowed never to complain
about her family’s obsession with technology again.

The rest of the day was spent first at the emergency room in
the little Icicle Falls hospital and then back at the cabin, getting Jeffrey set
up with ice packs, ibuprofen and ice cream. Fortunately, the medic had been
correct; he only had a sprain. That evening Jen arrived with root beer, popcorn
and a board game. And once the kids were settled, she brought out the other
goodies she had in her trunk—wine and chocolate.

“After the day I had, this is exactly what I need,” Toni said
as she took a sip of wine.

“I figured as much,” Jen said.

Toni looked over her wineglass at her husband. “Remind me never
to complain about our technology again.”

He smiled and raised his own glass to her. “But there’s such a
thing as balance. It’s been good for all of us to have a little less technology
and a little more time together.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Toni said. She took another sip and then
sighed. “I just hope I haven’t scarred our kids for life.”

Or ruined the Fourth of July, which was right around the
corner.

Meanwhile, though, Jeffrey was happy to spend the following day
playing Battleship with his dad, while Toni kept Jordan busy baking cookies.
Once the cookies had been delivered to the invalid on the couch, Jordan took
some for herself and flopped in a chair on the porch to paint her toenails.

She hadn’t been out there more than five minutes when Toni
heard a bloodcurdling scream. Her daughter ran inside the house and slammed the
door shut behind her. “There’s a
bear
out
there!”

“A bear?” Toni rushed to the window and looked out just in time
to see something big and black disappearing into the woods.

“A bear? Cool,” Jeffrey said, scrambling up from the couch, his
ice pack falling forgotten on the floor.

“Whoa there, don’t be walking on that foot,” Wayne
cautioned.

“It’s gone now, anyway,” Toni said.
Thank
God.
But would it come back?

“I’m not going outside here anymore,” Jordan said, glaring at
Toni as if it were all her fault they’d been invaded by the local wildlife.

“There was nothing mentioned in the website about bears,” Toni
said in her own defense. If there had been, she would never have brought them
here.

Later that afternoon, her daughter tossed aside the ratty book
she’d been reading and said, “This is boring.”

Okay, maybe they should’ve gone to Disneyland. At least the
wild animals there were fake.

* * *

“How’s Jeffrey’s ankle?” Jen asked when she and Toni met
for coffee at Bavarian Brews a couple of days later.

“I think he’ll be good to go by the Fourth, thank God,” Toni
said. “No bounce house or climbing wall for him, but as long as there’s food
he’ll be happy.”

“And what about Jordan?”

“She’s totally over rustic living. She saw a bear and hasn’t so
much as gone out on the porch since then. I could barely get her to go out to
the car to come here.”

“So that’s why you’re in town today.”

“The natives were getting restless. It was either bring her in
or risk getting stabbed in my sleep with a fork.”

“So nobody’s having fun?”

“Oh, they’re okay today, now that they’re at the pool. And
Wayne’s back at the river fly-fishing. I haven’t seen him this relaxed in ages.
In fact, I haven’t
seen
him this
much
in ages.”

“That’s good, right?” Jen said, sipping at her latte.

“Absolutely,” Toni replied. “So what if our children hate us?
That whole parent-child thing is overrated.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll be a hero after the Fourth. I’ve heard
they do a great job up here.”

The door to the coffee shop opened and in walked Garrett
Armstrong. He gave the sisters an uneasy nod as he passed by on his way to the
counter.

“Jerk,” Jen muttered.

“Hey, he’s still not engaged, is he? Otherwise, you’d have
heard.”

“He’s as good as engaged,” Jen said with a scowl.

“I don’t care what he told you. He wants you. He just needs to
realize it.”

“Well, I don’t want him. The cop can have him. I told you
that.”

“Yeah, you did. But you were lying and we both know it. Come
on, it ain’t over till it’s over.”

“Trust me.” Jen sighed. “It’s over. Not that it ever really
started.”

“Well, if he doesn’t see how fabulous you are, he deserves to
be with a second-rate woman.”

“I’m not sure a cop falls in that category,” Jen said, and
frowned at her latte.

“Yeah, it’s hard to compete with someone who’ll give you a ride
in the squad car. She probably lets him turn on the siren.”

That made Jen smirk.

“Anyway, there are plenty of other men up here.”

“Absolutely,” Jen said, but her gaze drifted across the coffee
shop to where the handsome fireman was picking up his drink.

Poor Jen. She really had it bad. She’d managed to simplify her
life beautifully, but what good was that if her love life stank? Toni wished she
could help, but when it came to connecting with the right man, a woman was on
her own.

* * *

As Jen had predicted, Icicle Falls did go all out for
the Fourth of July. The night of the third, Toni and her family came down for
the street dance, which featured a local band. The kids pigged out on nachos and
hot dogs and corn on the cob, and Jordan found two boys to flirt with. They both
wore braces, but they were cute and cocky, and surely the stuff a
thirteen-year-old girl’s dreams were made of. Ah, how Toni remembered those
days.