Wildflowers from Winter (9 page)

The memory of Robin’s face poked Bethany’s conscience. She exhaled a deep breath, as if she could expel the memories of the last few days. Grief had wrapped Robin in such a hazy cocoon that she probably hadn’t noticed Bethany’s absence.

But what about Evan? He accused her of going to Peaks for selfish reasons, and she had done nothing but prove him right. The printouts rattled in her trembling hand. She straightened the corners of the papers crinkled in her grip and slipped them inside a folder. So what if he thought the worst of her? What did she care? They were nothing more than strangers—forced together by coincidence and location and mutual acquaintances. What he thought about her didn’t matter.

She swiveled toward her computer and clicked on an unopened message from the architectural design department. When the e-mail popped up on her computer screen, she noticed Jeff McKinley’s address cc’d below her own. She squinted at the screen. Why would design include Jeff in an e-mail concerning the River Oaks account? Sure, they sometimes worked
together since they were the only two architects in the renovation department, but Martin had specifically given this account to her, not Jeff. She skimmed the body of the e-mail, feeling out of the loop. She didn’t like it.

She stood and rolled her shoulders. She would head down to design right now and crank out a 3-D rendering that would make Martin’s head spin. She exited her work station, strode down the hallway, and turned into the lobby, her heels clicking against the granite tile. Parker Crane’s receptionist sat behind a desk, bathed in a stream of sunlight pouring in from the high-paneled windows. She looked up at the echo of Bethany’s footsteps as she marched toward the double doors leading to design and marketing. The elevator opened and Martin stepped out, carrying his black leather briefcase in one hand and a Starbucks Grande in the other.

“Bethany,” he said, raising his eyebrows.

Her chest swelled with pride. Not many employees came back early from vacation. If that’s what she wanted to call her trip to Peaks.

“You’re back.”

She pulled herself straighter. “I was eager to get going on the River Oaks project.”

“This certainly is a surprise.” Martin turned to the receptionist. “Could you page Rhonda for me and tell her Bethany is here?” He gave the top of the desk two firm taps with the bottom of his coffee cup and looked at Bethany. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to speak with you in my office.”

The 3-D rendering dropped from her radar. She fell in behind him and followed, the clicking of her heels no longer keeping the upbeat tempo they’d found upon entering the lobby.

Martin held the door open for her and swept his hand toward a chair. “Please, have a seat.”

As Bethany sat down, Rhonda came in and closed the door behind her.

Bethany clasped her hands in her lap and focused on keeping her posture straight, her face relaxed, her thoughts positive. This could be something
good. Like a promotion. Or a bonus. There were plenty of reasons why Martin would call her into his office, and many of those reasons would involve their company HR rep. But the frown on Martin’s face prevented her from jumping full throttle into such optimistic thinking.

Her boss sat in his high-backed chair and leaned forward, folding his hands over the papers on his desk. “Bethany, over the past four years, you’ve been a wonderful employee for Parker Crane.”

Bethany tried to smile, but whenever Martin started with a compliment, he liked to follow with bad news.

“Did you get the memo about losing the First State account?”

She swallowed. “No. When?”

“On Monday afternoon. It was one of our biggest accounts. Losing that, along with Florenstine putting an indefinite freeze on their new spa line, really hit us hard.”

Her forehead knotted. She looked from Rhonda to Martin. “The president of First State expressed interest in my ideas.” She forced a calmness in her voice she didn’t feel. “And Florenstine has nothing to do with renovations.”

“Yes. I know.”

“So why are you telling me this?”

“I know none of this is your fault. But Parker Crane is taking a big hit right now. I’m afraid our only option is downsizing.”

Bethany clamped her hands around the armrests of her chair. “Your only option?”

“While you were gone, we had to let Anthony go.”

Her mind whirled. Martin fired Anthony? She knew things were hinting toward this direction, but she’d only been gone three days. How could all this have transpired in such a short amount of time?

“Right now, with the economy the way it is, we can’t afford to keep two renovation architects on staff. Our company policy states we keep our
employees based on experience, and Jeff’s been here longer. I’m sorry, Bethany, but we have to let you go.”

She tried to follow his words, but they jumbled together with dizzying speed. “Is this because I took time off?”

Martin gave his head an emphatic shake. “Of course not.”

Rhonda began talking then. Bethany could see her lips moving. She heard bits and pieces here and there, snatches of words and phrases. Something about severance pay and health insurance. Then Martin’s voice broke through.

“I have a lot of respect for you as a worker, Bethany. You have a talent that will get you right back on your feet again. I’m sure of it.” He stood and moved toward the door.

She stayed in her seat, a pile of questions stuck in her throat. What about the past four years? What about the clients she had wooed with her vision and attention to detail? What about the bonuses and the promotions and the success she’d promised herself when she’d been hired at Parker Crane? Bethany took a deep breath and forced herself to concentrate. She would not panic. She would remain in control.

“Please let me know if there’s anything I can do. I can write a letter of recommendation, if you’d like. Just have our receptionist make a note of it.”

Bethany stood, her legs wobbling beneath her. She tried to find her voice, but Martin gave her a strained smile and scooted her out the door. That was it. They were done. She was done.

The entire time she cleared out her desk, the unfairness of the situation pressed against her. She had poured her heart and soul into Parker Crane for the past four years. She had worked long hours deep into the night to ensure her work was of the highest quality. And now they were just going to throw some severance pay at her and toss her out the door?

As she filled her box with favorite pens, pictures of her and Dominic from various vacations, and other odds and ends she’d accumulated over
the years, her resolve solidified. She wasn’t a helpless girl anymore. It was time for her to take control of her life. And if she had to fight for her job, then that’s exactly what she would do.

Bethany stared at the wall clock, the small hand just shy of ten. Her foot tapped the floor, an attempt to keep her insides from crawling to the outside. This was late. Even for Dominic. She’d tried his cell phone a half dozen times throughout the day and never once had he answered. So she passed the time cleaning her loft, then cleaning Dominic’s apartment, then scouring the Internet, researching employee rights. When the door opened at quarter past, she sprang from her seat. “Where’ve you been?”

He set down his briefcase and gave her a peculiar look. “At work.”

“Until ten?”

“I have an important case tomorrow.”

“Didn’t you get my messages?”

“You know I don’t take personal calls at work.” The clipped tone of his voice tweezed her nerve endings. What if she’d been injured? Or killed? Would he ignore the coroner’s phone call too? He stepped closer and ran his hands up the length of her arms. “I’m glad you’re here, though.”

He leaned in for a kiss.

She pulled away.

“What’s wrong?”

She braced herself against the words. There was no easy way to say them. No matter how she strung them together, they would all come out the same. In the course of a day, she’d gone from success to failure, from focused to floundering, from architect to unemployed. “Martin let me go.”

Dominic’s hands fell to his sides. “What?”

Saying it once was enough. Did he really need her to say it again?

He brought his hand to the top of his head and fisted his hair. “Did he give you a reason?”

“Downsizing.” Bethany practically spat the word. “But I have my doubts.”

“You think he’s lying?”

She wanted to say yes. Actually, she wanted to shout yes. But that wasn’t the truth. The truth was there’d been whispers of downsizing ever since the summer. She just never imagined the downsizing might include her. Tears welled in her eyes, but she blinked them away. She would not be one of those distraught women who needed a hand to hold. Those women didn’t think straight, and straight thinking was exactly what Bethany needed if she was going to move forward. “I want to fight this.”

“Was anybody else laid off?”

“Anthony.”

“And you still want to fight it?”

No. What she really wanted to do was peel the doubt off his forehead. Just once, for something so important, she needed his support, his confidence, maybe even some indignation on her behalf. “Yes, and I want you to help me.”

Dominic held up his hands. “Whoa there, Bethany. I can definitely understand your frustration, babe, but you don’t have a case. Not if they let Anthony go. And not if Martin can prove downsizing was necessary.” He slipped the tie from around his neck. “Besides, I’m swamped. I can’t take on another case right now. Especially one I won’t win.”

His words and the matter-of-fact way he delivered them slashed a fatal wound through her determination. The old helpless Bethany reared, bucking against the woman she had become. A woman who took control of her life. A woman who poured her heart into her work to ensure this very thing would never happen. How was she going to fight Parker Crane without Dominic’s support? She opened her mouth to argue, but before she could
get anything out, her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. She pressed it against her ear and barked an angry greeting into the mouthpiece.

“Bethany?”

The man’s voice sounded familiar, like an impossible-to-place déjà vu.

“It’s Evan.”

Warmth drained from her face. Evan? Why was he calling? In the milliseconds before she spoke, her mind whirred with a thousand possibilities, each one worse than the last. “Is everything okay?”

“I hate to tell you this.” The sudden urge to hurl the phone across the room overwhelmed her, but before she could tear the device from her ear, Evan sighed into the receiver. “Dan had another heart attack.”

Stillness enfolded her. A moment of nothing. A calmness that came and went before she could finish blinking. No. She didn’t believe it. Getting let go from her job was enough for one day. Grandpa Dan having another heart attack could simply not happen.

“I think you should come back to Peaks.” There was a pause. Another sigh. “He didn’t make it.”

NINE

I
t’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment my world went wobbly. Perhaps it was when Dad fell from the silo and his hands and legs decided not to work anymore. Or when I found him dead eight months later. Or when Mom decided she hated the farm and announced she was moving David and me away from the only home we ever knew.

I just know there reached a point where my nine-year-old self started walking lower to the ground, as if one more blow might knock me off planet Earth altogether. While eleven-year-old David, all jutting angles and knobby knees, tried hard to comfort our mother, I spent that time trailing Grandpa Dan. Joining him out in the fields. Feeding the cattle. Brushing the horses. My grandpa had a sturdiness about him that made me feel less off balance.

Two weeks after I watched my dad’s casket lowered into the ground, two days before my mom moved us into a trailer park, I spent an entire day riding beside Grandpa in the combine, way up high above stalks of corn. We didn’t say one single word to each other that whole time, and something about the silence comforted me. By then we were both pretty sick of words. So there we rode, in the small cab of that giant machine, not saying a thing until he turned off the engine.

And even then we sat still in our seats, my feet dangling above the floor, watching the horizon turn to peach. Three days prior, Pastor Fenton showed
up on Dan’s front porch. Mom tried to invite the pastor inside, but my grandpa refused to let that man set one shiny shoe into our home.

I remember smiling about that. I remember feeling safe on the other side of my grandfather. Until Mom told me later that we were moving. That I needed to hurry up and pack my room so we could go away. I couldn’t help wondering if Grandpa Dan shouldn’t have let Pastor Fenton inside after all. If maybe that’s why Mom was so adamant about moving us into a small trailer home when we could stay right where we were. At the farm.

Grandpa Dan sniffed.

The sound, after such a long stretch of silence, made me look at him. Tears trickled down his face. It was the first time I’d ever seen him cry. He hadn’t when my father had his accident. He hadn’t when my father came home from the hospital and spent those months learning how to eat and drink and live all over again. And he hadn’t at the funeral. But now, there he sat, chopped corn on all sides and sadness rolling down his weathered cheeks.