right, then. I’ll do it.”
The women cheered.
For my own reasons, Cathy added silently, smiling weakly as Laurel hugged her around the shoulders.
2
ZACK BRODY hung off the side of the Eighth Street Bridge, staring down at the scalloped river. The water looked as black and hard as polished obsidian, each facet glistening coldly in the light from a crescent moon.
The drop was harrowing.
He hesitated, considering, where once he’d have leapt without fear.
This early in the summer, the water would be cold. Shockingly cold.
Deep. Dark. An oblivion.
His fingertips scraped over rough stone. Bare feet shifted on a narrow ledge of rock, sending a pebble toward the water. Too small for him to hear its splash.
Adam, he thought, his gaze rising to the glowing slice of moon. Laurel.
Suddenly Zack propelled himself off the old stone bridge, his body arching as it sailed through the dark night. For one frozen-snapshot instant, he saw only the blue evening sky, dotted with stars. Then dense treetops, the blur of house lights. A slab of black water seemed to rush up to meet him.
He sliced into it like a blade, his form lacking from his swim team days, but adequate nonetheless. Darkness swirled all around, silvered with tiny bubbles. The harsh cold bit into him, reaching the marrow of his bones, the shock of it driving every thought from his head.
He hung suspended in the depths for one instant, then shot upward, lungs bursting, blood pumping. Home, he thought, breaking the surface, gulping air through an open mouth. Home at last.
And this time he was glad of it.
He began to swim, leaving the keys in his unlocked Jag without a second thought. He’d been gone not quite a year; Quimby wouldn’t have changed. It never had before. This was something he liked about his hometown. Excitement and challenge he’d found elsewhere, with his job as an architect at a cutting-edge Chicago firm. Quimby was for friends, family, bedrock values and lazy Sunday afternoons. Now that he was back, he and Laurel would establish a mutually workable truce. The town, though small, was still big enough for both of them. Even if he decided to stay for good.
He swam briskly, his muscles loosening even though the river was colder than he’d expected. Vastly unlike the heated pool at Adam’s gym in Twin Falls where they’d swum five days out of seven for many months. That had been like being dunked in a bucket of warm soup. This was better.
It had jolted him back to life.
Zack put his head down and plowed through the water, leaving only a narrow furrow of wake.
The memories churning inside him were more disruptive. On the eve of his wedding to Laurel Barnard, a serious car accident had put his estranged brother in the hospital and then in a wheelchair, fighting to regain the ability to walk. Despite the complications of the situation, perhaps because of them, Zack’s first obligation had been to Adam. Each day, each month of therapy had strengthened his younger brother’s body and eased Zack’s guilt, until, finally, both of them were healed. Both of them forgiven.
Now to mend other broken fences. Zack lifted his head from the water, checking his progress. He’d swum past the bend. The Brody house was another seventy yards away, though only the peak of the roof and an expanse of dark shingles were visible amongst the lacy, draped foliage of the weeping willows lining the riverbank.
Already the homey, comforting tranquility of Quimby was sinking into Zack’s pores. The still of the night was broken only by a smattering of porch lights, the blare of a television set near an open window, the shush-swish of the water as he cut through it. A lone bird called from one of the trees. Loop-loop-de-loop.
One foot touched bottom. The other. Cold mud sucked at his ankles. He crashed through the reeds, rising from the water with the heavy denim of his jeans plastered to his thighs.
He splashed noisily as he charged out of the river, expelling the cold from his lungs with a bullish snort followed by an exuberant shout. After climbing the slippery bank, he stopped near the white iron lawn furniture to press water out of his jeans in a gush, and realized his mistake. His wallet and all of his keys were in the car, parked at the bridge. He’d have to walk back there, shirtless, barefoot, dripping wet.
He laughed out loud, his skin already shuddering into goose bumps. A fine welcome home.
But first the house.
Thank God it hadn’t sold during the months when he’d thought he’d never care to return to Quimby. The old place was comfortably the same. A two-story white frame structure, simple and pleasing in proportion, encircled by an open porch whose roof was supported by gracefully turned columns.
He left a wet trail through the freshly mown grass as he strode up the lawn to the low brick patio that extended the outdoor living space. Though there were none of his mother’s usual pots of flowers and herbs, the lilacs were still in bloom, drooping with purple cones of flowers that had begun to turn brown. The massive rhododendron bush that had consumed the narrow span of land between the Brody house and the Colton’s modest two-story cottage next door was bursting with pink buds.
He surveyed the lawn. No evidence of debris, weeds, scattered leaves or twigs. Julia had been as efficient as ever with the maintenance; no doubt she’d hired Reggie Lee Marvin, the town’s resident jack-of-all-trades, to do the yard work.
Zack crossed the patio, leaving more wet footprints on the redbrick. While his heart was warmed by his return home, the rest of him was slowly turning to ice. Shivering, he mounted the porch steps to check the back door. Locked, of course. Even in Quimby, Julia would not leave a house in her care unlocked.
As he walked around the porch, his gaze rose to the roof. The second-story bedroom windows might be open. Adam had been an expert at shinnying up the columns after a curfew-breaking night of escapades. Zack, the good son, had rarely found the need.
An echo of Adam’s boyish taunt seemed to float on the night air. Anything you can do, I can do better….
Zack’s features tightened. He deliberately tamped down the memory. The brothers’ good-natured rivalry had grown serious upon Laurel Barnard’s involvement. Tragically, as it had turned out.
If only he’d known. If only their confrontation had been straight and cool instead of a clash of mistaken pride and misleading accusations.
As for Laurel…
Her intentions remained indecipherable.
A breeze fingered through the foliage, carrying a faint whiff of the lilac’s sweet perfume. The smell brought up a sickening memory—the night he’d proposed to Laurel. Zack leaned against the smooth white column, his stomach lurching.
What the hell? he asked himself, swallowing the dry coppery taste in his mouth. His return to Quimby wasn’t supposed to go like this. Granted, he hadn’t expected the usual favorite-son-arriving-in-a-blaze-of-glory welcome. But a year had passed. By now, the misunderstandings—and outright lies—that had led to the ditched wedding were all water under the bridge, for lack of a better phrase. The brothers had forgiven each
