LITMIR.BIZ

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sometime when you’re not working? Talk about the program a little bit? Go over steps or something? Take each other’s pulse?”

      Hers was a little amped up at the moment. She focused on Moody. “I was kind of looking for an older woman.”

      “I get that. You never know. I might be good in the short term.”

      “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks.”

      Sierra was off work at two and was scheduled to work at least two mornings a week, no weekends unless one of the other waitresses asked her to cover for them. The weekends, she was told, were busier in the mornings and the tips better so the waitresses who had been there before she was hired wanted those shifts, particularly the students. Her schedule wasn’t the least bit taxing; she enjoyed meeting the locals. And of course most people knew her brother and absolutely everyone knew Sully.

      Sierra had plenty of time after work to do things, like stop by Cal’s to check on the progress at his place, then get back to the Crossing to see what, if anything, she could do to help Sully. Most of the time all he wanted was a little company for dinner, which he sometimes convinced Sierra to make for them. “Just bear in mind, if it ain’t bland and tasteless I can’t eat it. I have to stay heart healthy. I won’t live any longer, it’ll just seem longer.”

      “You’re in good hands,” she said. “I’m very healthy.” Now, she thought. And before two weeks had passed, she had Sully nearly addicted to her stir-fry—just chicken, vegetables, broth and some seasoning. She was allowed soy sauce but he was off salt; his indulgence was one drink before bed and she could not join him, of course. It seemed a reasonable trade to her.

      Two weeks, though not very long, had revealed some marvelous changes in the land and in Sierra. First of all, she did contact Moody and they did meet for coffee a couple of times. As she learned more about him, she was glad she’d let him talk her into it. Moody’s name was Arthur Moody but no one ever addressed him as anything but Moody, including his wife. He was fifty-eight years old, a biology professor at a private university in Aurora and he was admittedly a late bloomer. “I was busy in my twenties when everyone else was trying to get an education and a start in life. My start came later, in my thirties.” She could do the math—he had been sober for thirty years. That meant that until the age of twenty-eight he was busy spiraling down.

      She went to that Thursday evening meeting in Timberlake. She found a nice group waiting there—small, but significant. One of them was Frank, Enid’s husband. Frank was an old-timer, a vet, a man who earned his stripes the hard way. He might’ve been surprised to see her because he beamed, putting those snazzy false teeth on display for her.

      She did not tell her story yet, even though she was starting to feel at home. But she couldn’t help thinking about her story. Every day.

      * * *

      “What was it, Sierra?” The therapist encouraged her to be honest. “What finally sent you running to rehab?”

      “Well, there was an accident. I wasn’t driving but it was my car. He was driving. He took me out of a bar, took my keys and was driving me home. He said I was drunk and he was just taking me home. I think he put something in my wine because, seriously, it wasn’t that easy for me to get wasted like that. It was still early. I knew we hit something but I didn’t see it happen. He stopped the car and looked and got back in and drove away. He said it was a cyclist and he left him there. Left him. Left him to die.

      “He told me he called the police and said he was a witness, that he saw a woman driver hit a man and leave him. I didn’t hear him call the police. I don’t know if he did. I don’t know if he hit a man or a tree branch or a dog. I was in and out. He told me what he said. I said, ‘But I wasn’t driving!’ And he said, ‘No one will believe you—you have a history.’ And then... And then he convinced me. In a brutal way. In a terrifying way. He said I would never tell anyone anything. Or I’d be sorry.

      “So I left my car in the airport parking garage and took a bus to the bus depot. I ran. I went to the farm, the only place I could think of. Eventually I went into rehab, a place he couldn’t find me. Or even if he found me, he couldn’t get to me.”

      * * *

      Spring was upon the land and the afternoons were often warm and sunny. Just being at the Crossing was the best part. Sierra enjoyed watching her sister-in-law grow that little baby inside her and it filled her with warm family feelings. Being a part of Cal’s new family was precious to her. Cal was intent on working on his renovation but not so much that he couldn’t take a few breaks to see his sister. They often sat atop a picnic table by the lake and talked, or they went for a short hike into the thawing hills that surrounded the Crossing.

      Tom Canaday stopped by the Crossing sometimes—maybe for a cup of coffee, maybe a beer after work. His son Jackson came by now and then, sometimes with his dad and sometimes to lend a hand. There were firefighters and search and rescue volunteers and rangers who dropped in on Sully because the drinks were cold and the atmosphere friendly and laid-back.

      “This place just keeps getting better looking,” one of the firefighters Sierra had not yet met said, eyeing her keenly.

      “Did I remember to mention Sierra is Cal’s little sister?” Sully asked.

      There were a few groans in the group. But when Sierra turned her back someone said, “Hell, I can take Cal.”

      “Be careful of those smoke eaters,” Sully said. “They come in two flavors—real gentlemen where women are concerned, or they’re dogs. Players. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.”

      “We’re safe,” she said. “I’m not interested in either type.”

      Cal and Maggie didn’t question Sierra’s assertion that she had no room for dating in her life right now. They had other things on their minds. Not only was picking out slabs of stone for countertops giving them fits, they were tending their bump.

      “Do we know what we’re having yet?” Sierra asked when she noticed a book of baby names sitting out on the picnic table in their great room.

      “Not yet. But soon,” Maggie said.

      “No, I didn’t mean boy or girl,” she said with a laugh. “I meant state, city or mountain range!”

      The Jones kids were named California, Sedona, Dakota and Sierra—in that order. “Hell no,” Maggie said. “We’ll be changing that trend.”

      As the month of April drew near and the weather warmed, the wildflowers came out to play and were resplendent. Columbines, daisies, prairie phlox and coppery mallow grew along the paths and carpeted the hillsides. Hikers had begun to show up at the Crossing. Sierra found that—as Sully had promised—her own hikes worked wonders on her frame of mind. The exercise stimulated her and the sunshine renewed her. Freckles had begun to show up across her nose and on her cheeks. The time alone and all the thinking gave her a sense of inner peace. She felt closer to God and she’d had very little training in religion, except for that relatively short period of time her father had believed he was Christ.

      As she came around a curve in the path she looked up to see three men climbing the flat face of the hill on one side of the mountain. She moved closer until she could actually hear them—a little talking, a few grunts, the soft whisper of their climbing shoes sliding along the rock face and wedging in. As she got closer still she realized she knew them—Connie, Rafe and Charlie. She’d seen them in town and they’d been around the Crossing a few times. They were from Timberlake Fire and Rescue. She wondered if they were training or playing; they weren’t wearing uniforms and there didn’t seem to be any fire trucks nearby. But those boys could certainly do lovely things to shorts and muscle shirts.

      She watched the clever shifting of their hips to give them lift; the muscles in their calves and arms were like art. Little buckets hung off their belts in the back and they dipped into them for chalk, the sweat running down their necks and backs. My goodness they were a lovely sight, slithering up that rock face, their shorts molding around their beautiful male butts.

      She

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