style="font-size:15px;"> Fletcher didn’t relish reading through the long sheaf of documents, but he couldn’t very well make a ruling without doing that.
“Is it an emergency?”
“Um, no. Not really. But it’s urgent.”
“Have Mildred schedule it for Monday.”
“Your Honor.” Gordy shuffled from foot to foot as though he had to take a whiz. “If you could just give it a look …”
Gordy wasn’t usually this insistent. Fletcher set his jaw. He glanced down at the motion, then blinked, not sure he could trust his own eyes.
The action was being taken on behalf of Annie Rush, FKA Annie Rush Harlow.
Annie Rush.
Despite the passage of time, the memories and feelings had never completely faded. Now, seeing the name on the pages of a court document, Fletcher felt weirdly self-conscious in the presence of the people lingering in the courtroom. Just the thought of her brought a flood of remembrance—dark-lashed, laughing eyes. A face that could light the world. A heart full of dreams. Joy and anger and hopelessness. And finally, surrender.
Although his heart was beating fast, Fletcher maintained his usual demeanor of professional detachment. “What happened, Counselor?”
“Her family—specifically her mother—needs the power of attorney revoked. It was assigned to her husband, a guy named …” He consulted one of the forms.
“Martin Harlow,” Fletcher muttered.
“Yes. Her situation has changed radically.” Gordy glanced over his shoulder at the nearly empty courtroom. The afternoon light outside the window was fading. Gordy looked back at Fletcher. Then he leaned in, lowering his voice. “Fletcher. Annie needs you.”
“Thank you for expediting this,” Caroline Rush said to Fletcher. “Annie doesn’t need a power of attorney anymore. Especially not—” She stopped herself from saying Martin’s name. “And for stopping by the house. You didn’t have to do that.”
“I wanted to. I’m sorry about what happened to Annie.”
Caroline’s hand shook as she carefully placed the legal document in its folder. She felt an overwhelming sense of relief along with sadness and apprehension. Once upon a time, she had joyfully given her daughter to Martin Harlow, believing Annie’s future was secure with a husband who would love her forever. Now Caroline was taking her daughter back, and she had no idea what to believe anymore.
“Sit down,” she said, gesturing at the kitchen table. “I just made a pot of coffee.”
“Thanks.”
She set down the French press along with a plate of salted maple shortbread cookies. “I don’t have the baking skills of my mother or my daughter,” she said, “but I find that if you use enough butter and maple syrup in a recipe, you don’t need much skill.”
He tasted one, and the expression on his face was gratifying. “Good to know.”
Fletcher Wyndham hadn’t been Caroline’s favorite, back when he’d been Annie’s boyfriend. Caroline hadn’t seen the potential there. All she’d seen was an obstacle to her daughter’s future. In the eyes of a mother wanting a glorious future for her child, he was merely the son of a drifter, a kid who would probably stagnate in his blue-collar job at the garage, drink beer, and play the lottery, eventually turning soft and directionless in middle age.
Looking at him now, she felt shame and regret. She wished she had looked deeper and seen an extraordinary young man. The fact was, she hadn’t looked at all. Her problem with Fletcher Wyndham had nothing to do with Fletcher Wyndham. Or with Annie, for that matter. It was Caroline who was the problem.
Enough with this Fletcher kid, Caroline had said to Annie, when her daughter was teetering on the verge of changing her mind about college. Now Caroline had to admit to herself that what she was really saying was Enough with this Ethan Lickenfelt.
Oh, she had loved that boy in his boxy white grocery truck. She’d been naive enough to believe that loving him would be enough to create a life of blissful perfection, no matter what. At eighteen, she hadn’t understood that frustration and hardship had the power to corrode even the deepest love and thwart the most yearned-for dreams.
The divide between the life Ethan wanted and the one he’d found on Rush Mountain had ruined their marriage. They were both committed to their kids and their family, but ultimately, the strain took its toll. There were only so many lies a person could tell herself before she had to let in the truth.
“Mrs. Rush?” Fletcher’s voice broke into her thoughts.
She wasn’t Mrs. Rush. She wasn’t Mrs. anything. “Please call me Caroline.”
“Caroline. I was just wondering what you thought.”
“Sorry, I wasn’t listening,” she confessed.
“This must be really stressful for you,” he said.
“Yes … but it’s not just that. I wanted to tell you I’m sorry.”
He frowned. “For what?”
She sighed and pushed the plate of cookies toward him. “It’s a long-overdue apology. Really long, Fletcher, and it’s awful that I haven’t said anything until now. But I want you to know, I was wrong about you, back when you first moved to Switchback. A lot of people were wrong about you.”
He gave a quick, slightly crooked smile. One thing Caroline had not been wrong about—the boy was stunningly good-looking. But that had been part of her problem with Fletcher. How could a guy that gorgeous possibly be trusted?
“Don’t feel bad,” he said to her. “Now that I have a kid of my own, I get how protective a parent feels.”
“Thank you, but that’s no excuse. I never bothered to know you, and that wasn’t fair.”
“I imagine you were more concerned with Annie. Besides, I was probably a little shit, anyway. The longer I work at court, the more I’m convinced that most guys are at that age.”
“When I think of the role I played in keeping you apart, I feel ashamed. None of this would have happened if I’d left the two of you alone.”
“Believe me, you weren’t the cause of our breakup—not the first time, or the second. Annie and I managed to screw things up on our own.”
“Good of you to say. But that Martin Harlow. He ought to be strung up by the balls.”
“I can’t help you with that,” he said.
“He brought her here from L.A. via medical transport, as if she were a piece of defective merchandise, can you imagine?”
“I … no. I can’t.”
“I’m grateful she’s here, though. She needs her family. Now more than ever. Her care team says it could be weeks or months before she can come home, but you know Annie. When she sets her mind to something, nothing can stop
