High Country Homecoming Read online

With original directions, including ingredients like “one package of ground beef, plus one of fresh ground pork,” with no weight or fat percentage listed, and a portion of butter “the size of a pullet’s egg,” there was plenty of room for guesswork, and she wanted to make sure every recipe was perfect.

  “So, where is your buddy, Daisy?” she asked. Devlin hadn’t been sure what time he’d get back from town, so he’d brought Daisy and her dog bed to Chloe’s on his way down to his SUV.

  Daisy had been curled up on it ever since, her dark eyes following Chloe’s every move.

  She glanced at the time, then pressed her lips together and started cleaning up the kitchen. It was already past ten o’clock, and Dev had said he was meeting Lance after his day shift ended at six. How long did it take to eat a pizza at Red’s? Unless the place had changed radically, it was known more for its bar than the food, and they’d always served frozen pizza heated in their oven. There was never much of a wait.

  But Chloe couldn’t imagine those two spending a whole evening choking down pizza that tasted of cardboard and freezer burn.

  In their bad-boy days in high school, they would have been downing beers behind the barn, with Lance ending up too drunk to walk. She shuddered, imagining the two of them driving their vehicles home with innocent, unsuspecting drivers on the highway. Families in minivans, heading up into the mountains for vacation. Truck drivers looking forward to getting home after a long haul. She looked at her cell phone lying on the table. Should she call and offer them rides home? Would they be embarrassed or grateful? Were they already driving home?

  She finally sent Devlin a quick text. Then she second-guessed her decision as she dusted and swept. Daisy suddenly sat up and stared at the windows, her ears pricked and tail wagging.

  “Is he back?” Chloe asked her.

  The dog whined and went to paw at the door.

  Chloe turned on the outside light and looked through the screen door, expecting to see Devlin coming up her path to pick up Daisy. Instead she could see Lance with his arm around Devlin’s waist as the two of them staggered past, heading up to Devlin’s cabin.

  She stared after them in disbelief. “Lance—is everything all right?” she called out.

  Lance, apparently bearing much of Devlin’s dead weight, faltered to an awkward stop and shot a look at her over his shoulder. “Had too much,” he wheezed. “He’ll just sleep it off.”

  Her heart plummeted. For all that she’d known of Devlin’s rowdy high school years, since arriving at the ranch she hadn’t seen a single bit of evidence that he drank anymore. Not even once.

  But apparently neither of them had changed, she realized, if Devlin couldn’t make it up to his cabin alone and even Lance looked unsteady on his feet. Horrified, she slammed the door and locked it, then leaned against it with her eyes closed. She’d experienced this scenario too many times to count with her father, and now bitter disappointment welled up in her chest.

  She’d been falling in love with Devlin, a little more with every day. But Lance had admitted it out loud—Devlin hadn’t changed at all.

  * * *

  Devlin hadn’t come for Daisy at eight the next morning, or at nine. At ten o’clock, Chloe gave up. “Sorry, sweetie. I’d love to have you all day, but I need to go to town.”

  She snapped a leash on the dog’s collar and headed up the hill to Dev’s cabin, half expecting to find Devlin and Lance sprawled against tree trunks along the way, still in a drunken stupor.

  But no one was out there—just the squirrels and chipmunks scurrying about, and the birds singing up in the trees. Devlin’s door was open.

  “Typical,” she huffed, her irritation and disappointment rising. “So, so responsible.”

  She knocked on the screen door, then banged on it louder. “Devlin! Are you in there? I’m bringing Daisy back. I need to go to town.”

  The cabin remained silent.

  She glanced around the area outside, thinking he might be working on some project, then stepped back and looked up at the roof. He wasn’t there, either.

  Then she knocked on the door once again. “Devlin, are you in there? I’m bringing Daisy in.”

  Daisy romped in and headed straight for the sofa. The curtains were all closed, and only then did Chloe notice Devlin was sitting there in the darkened room, hunched over his folded arms. He was still as stone and didn’t so much as twitch a muscle at her approach.

  Protecting a hangover headache, no doubt. A flashback hit her—of one time after another when she’d found her dad in this same state. Month after month, year after year. Job after job after job. Her dad’s love affair with the bottle had ruined the lives of him and everyone around him. Was this the truest side of Devlin—one she hadn’t yet seen?

  “Devlin—did you hear me? I’ve brought Daisy back, so you’ll need to look after her. When I get back from town, I’ll come up and check on her to make sure you did. Okay?”

  “Okay.” His voice was so raspy and low that she barely heard him.

  She didn’t try to muffle the closing of the screen door when she left.

  * * *

  Three hours later Chloe had brought her groceries into her cabin, put everything away and headed up the trail to check on Devlin and Daisy. He’d probably be at his kitchen table by now, nursing a cup of black coffee and regretting the day he’d been born, if her experience with Dad was any guide, though no amount of misery ever seemed to stop the cycle from repeating all over again.

  Daisy would definitely need to get outside by now, poor girl.

  Chloe knocked and then opened the door. Daisy came barreling through, eager to sniff the yard and do her business. So, I was right, Chloe muttered as she let the dog back in and stepped inside.

  But Devlin wasn’t at the kitchen table; he was still on the sofa, though now he had propped an elbow on his thigh and was resting his forehead in his upraised palm.

  “Not much progress, soldier,” she said, pushing back the curtains to let the sunshine stream in. He groaned the moment the bright light hit the side of his face. “It’s already one thirty. You and your buddy must have had one exceptionally good—or bad—night at Red’s. You were both staggering when he brought you home. Can I make you some coffee? Toast? Bring you some juice?”

  He didn’t answer, though she had the distinct impression that he wanted her to disappear. Well, so be it.

  “I’ll go now, and I think I’d better take Daisy with me until you’re back on your feet.” She snapped the leash on Daisy’s collar and headed for the door. “I hope you’ll feel better soon.”

  She did wish him well—truly she did.

  But she now knew one undeniable truth and was deeply grateful for the lesson. One night didn’t prove Devlin was out of control, but to her, one was all it took. Her greatest fear had always been that she might end up with someone like Dad, who had managed to hide his problem for so long. And she would never dare trust Devlin again.

  Chapter Eighteen

  By three o’clock Devlin was able to sit a bit more upright; the crushing pain on the left side of his head was still throbbing, but without the searing agony of a railroad spike jammed through his temple.

  By five o’clock the pain had dimmed a little more and now he felt utterly exhausted.

  He blearily scanned the room, trying to remember. Had Chloe been here? Lance? And where was Daisy?

  He rose slowly, carefully, trying not to jar his head back into a renewed jungle beat of pain, and shuffled through the cabin. Daisy was gone, so Chloe must have taken her...or maybe she’d never brought her up here in the first place? The last ten hours were a blur.

  Someone knocked on the door.

  And there they were. Daisy, wagging her tail joyously. Chloe, her mouth pinched in a firm line, with an overall expression somber.

  “I see you’re back on your feet again, so I thought
you might like to have Daisy back,” Chloe said. She unsnapped the leash, nodded to him and turned for the door without even a trace of her usual smile. “I’ll see you later.”

  He hadn’t heard her clearly, but he could see she was angry. “Wait.”

  She turned back partway, her eyes stony. “You remember my dad. The alcoholic. Alcohol terrifies me. I know its power. And you know full well that it got my dad fired from this ranch.”

  He nodded, not quite following her line of thought.

  “I’ll just go ahead and admit it—I’ve been falling in love with you, Devlin. I thought...I thought you had changed from when you and your high school friends thought it was so cool to get drunk.” Her voice took on a bitter edge. “But you haven’t. You couldn’t even make it up the trail by yourself last night.”

  He furrowed his brow, trying to sort through all of those words with a head that was still aching. “No. Just...a headache.” Though calling one of his severe cluster headaches “just a headache” was like saying a candle was as strong as the sun. Not even close.

  She gave him a look of frank disbelief, and then turned on her heel and left.

  It was just as well.

  His headache had hit with the force of a bulldozer just before he and Lance had ordered pizza. He could show her the proof—the paperwork from the ER last night, where Lance had taken him instead of eating at Red’s, and the record of the pain meds he’d received by IV, though they hadn’t even begun to touch his pain.

  But if she truly cared for him, she would believe in him, and she wouldn’t need that proof.

  The two of them were each probably better off alone.

  * * *

  On her way back to her cabin, Chloe felt the vibration of her phone in her pocket and lifted it to look at the screen. The number wasn’t familiar and she usually let unknown callers roll into voice mail, but it was a local area code, and on a whim she answered.

  “Hey, Chloe? This is Lance. Dev gave me your number last night while we were waiting in the ER, in case they kept him overnight.”

  “You two were at the ER?”

  “Yeah. They released him after the IV meds, but personally I thought he should have stayed overnight. I’ve never seen anyone in such excruciating pain from a headache. How is he doing today?”

  A headache?

  She took a deep, steadying breath, already horrified at her mistake. “Last night—I saw you two on the trail when you helped him get home. You said he’d had too much to drink and that he’d sleep it off.”

  “Drink? Hardly. He had a severe headache, plus too much IV pain medication, in my opinion. He was really out of it—but he refused to stay at the ER any longer. He insisted on going home.”

  She sagged against a tree beside the trail. Please, Lord, forgive me. And let Devlin forgive me, too. “Will it come back?”

  “Apparently he’s had problems for a long time. He’ll be fine, and then he’ll hit a streak where he gets his headaches at the same time every day. While I was waiting in the ER, I googled the topic, and a number of sites say these cluster headaches can cause the most severe pain known to man. After seeing Devlin, I can believe it. So take good care of him, okay?”

  She winced. “Thanks for being such a good friend, Lance. You were wonderful to stay with him and help him get home.”

  Lance chuckled. “I’m just glad we made it. He’s a lot taller than I am, and that trail to his cabin is steep. I almost lost him once or twice.”

  After Lance ended the call, she flopped on her sofa and leaned her head against the back, feeling utterly mortified.

  Why had she let her own issues cloud her judgment and compassion so completely that she’d failed to realize that Devlin was in pain? Why did she often assume the worst?

  That one didn’t take much thought.

  She assumed the worst because she expected it for herself. She couldn’t even guess at just how many ways her family life had affected her...and held her back even now.

  No one is the villain in their own story, she remembered hearing in one of her writing classes. She’d liked the concept so much that she’d googled the quote and found it attributed to a dozen sources.

  Had Dad, despite his drinking, figured he was still doing the best he could? Had he changed?

  Taking out her phone, she tapped the contacts button and scrolled down until she found Dad’s number. Her finger trembled over the call button. Would this still be the right number? Would he even answer? She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d talked to him, though he’d probably been drunk at the time and wouldn’t remember it, anyway.

  But maybe it was time to finally get some answers and make things right.

  She resolutely tapped the number. Got a disconnected-number recording—no surprise there—then texted Mom. She texted right back with a different area code and number.

  This is all I have—but it’s a year old, and probably disconnected, too. Sorry.

  Chloe said a little prayer under her breath as she made the call and listened to the ring.

  Whether or not she was able to make connections with Dad, she had some apologizing to do...if Devlin would even let her in the door.

  * * *

  The next day Chloe stepped out of her car in the ranching town of Keller, Idaho, and surveyed the three-block length of Main Street. Two dusty pickups were parked in front of a small grocery, and just one in front of Patsy’s Café—but it was a gleaming black Ford F350 with a ranch logo on the side. Definitely not Dad’s.

  She’d been on the road since five in the morning to get to this tiny Idaho town by one o’clock, but was he even going to show up? After her eight hours on the road, she sure hoped so.

  Dad had made no effort to stay in contact with his family, and the estrangement had only deepened over time. Apparently he still moved erratically from one ranch-hand job to the next, so he had no consistent, personal address, and he hadn’t kept a consistent cell phone number over the years, either—probably because he couldn’t remember to pay the bills.

  She shouldered her purse and stepped into the cafe, hoping he hadn’t forgotten to come. There were a lot of things he’d forgotten over the years—recitals, elementary school plays, eighth-grade graduation—always with the excuse that he’d been “busy.” But she’d known better. His “busy” had always been his next bottle, and she’d always come in at second place.

  A tall man in neatly pressed jeans and a faded denim shirt slowly stood up next to a table in the back and ducked his head in welcome. He held the brim of his Western hat in both hands. “Chloe?”

  “Dad?” She blinked, taking in the changes in his appearance. He usually had a grizzled three- or four-day beard, overlong hair and sallow skin. The dirt ground into the cracks and crevices of his hands never washed away, and there’d always been the stain of cigarettes on the fingers of his right hand. He’d always seemed decades older than his years.

  But today she saw none of that. This version of her father stood taller, straighter. He’d clearly had his hair freshly cut and instead of being covered in stubble, his face was smooth and tanned. It was oddly touching that he’d made this effort.

  “Dad,” she said, giving him an awkward handshake. “It’s been a while.”

  He nodded, and now she saw the deep regret—perhaps even sorrow—in his eyes. “That it has. How have you been?”

  She shrugged. “Good, I guess. And you?”

  They settled across from each other at the table, with coffees that neither of them touched. The awkward conversation between them felt like that of total strangers, and she felt the time with him ebbing away. Urgency spurred her on.

  “Actually, I’m not so good. I’m feeling hurt and angry, and I need some answers, Dad. But that’s crazy, because being hurt and angry over the past isn’t going to change anything at all.”

  She was babb
ling, but he nodded as if he knew what she was trying to say. “It hurt, when Mom suddenly came back and took me away from you. No explanation—she just showed up. I thought you loved me, and I felt like a sack of trash being tossed from one place to the next.”

  “I’m sorry, Chloe. I know I made a mess of your life.” He waited, nodding slightly, encouraging her to go on.

  She took a deep breath. “It’s hard to believe in other people or even yourself when no one has ever cared. I’ve never been able to forgive you for that. Though I know I ought to—which makes me feel worse.”

  “You’ll never know how much I’ve prayed for forgiveness for the life you had growing up.”

  She stilled, not believing the words she was hearing. This was the man who’d refused to set foot in church when she was young. Except maybe at Christmas.

  “And I’ve prayed over all of the mistakes I made,” he continued. His shoulders slumped, as if he was wearing a mantle of iron. “I know the good Lord has forgiven me, and I’ve been trying to be a better person ever since I asked Him into my life. But I won’t ask for your forgiveness, because I know your wounds run deep. And for that I’m more sorry than you will ever know.”

  There were some good memories, too, she suddenly recalled. Dad putting her up on a pony and teaching her to ride. Stopping in town for an ice cream cone at the drugstore. Him singing some silly cowboy song to her when she was afraid of the dark.

  “I never saw what real family was like, after growing up in an orphanage. Me and your momma were too young when you were born, sugar,” he continued. “Seventeen. We weren’t ready, and never really got the hang of being married or having a kid. I’d say we failed in every way. We surely didn’t deserve to have such a fine little girl.”

  She felt tears burning in her eyes, but she blinked them away.

  He smiled a little, the fan of wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepening at some long-ago memory. “You were just the sweetest little thing. Always were. But I was a drunk and I couldn’t do right by you.”