“Look at Mayor Milt. It’s like he’s completely forgotten the only reason Maple Valley is even hosting this thing is because of another town’s disaster.”
Raegan burst into laughter at Beckett’s observation—an astute one, at that. Mayor Milt stood in the middle of the bustling town square, practically preening.
But he had good reason. The Annual Heritage Arts Festival couldn’t have possibly come together more perfectly on such short notice. Tables and booths lined the square, with a lavish summer sun and pristine cerulean sky as a backdrop.
A mellow breeze wisped over Raegan’s bare skin—the promise of a warm July day having coaxed her into yellow cotton shorts and a tank top. She’d packed a light sweater into the tote she carried over one shoulder just in case.
Beside her, Beckett tipped his sunglasses to the bridge of his nose. “Nervous?”
For the mural’s unveiling? Maybe a little, but not nearly as much as she’d thought she might be. It helped that the town had watched the progress of her work these past weeks, their encouragement and approval spurring her on.
And that she’d finally figured out what was missing from her design.
But somewhere in this crowd of people, Mr. Hill strode around with the esteemed Forrester Carlisle Young. For a while, in all the craziness of the shooting and the aftermath of Bear leaving—was it really nearly a month ago already?—she’d almost forgotten about the renowned artist/professor/critic’s plans to attend the festival.
Mr. Hill, though, had been eager to remind her. Again and again. Especially in more recent days. And it’d be a lie to say the thought of meeting Young didn’t, at the very least, bring a few butterflies to life in her stomach.
“Part nervous,” she answered Beckett. “Part starving.” She reached into her tote, fingers feeling for the familiar plastic bag. Ah, she had remembered to pack the Twizzlers.
Beckett chuckled. “I should’ve known.” He stopped in front of an abstract painting, splotches of color seeming to spill over the edges of the canvas. “Listen, Rae. It’s taken me too long to say this, but—”
She already knew where he was going. “You really don’t have to.”
“I do. That night when I gave you that article about Bear . . . I don’t think I really listened to what you were saying. Anything I’ve ever done to make you think I only see you as ‘the little sister,’ I’m really sorry for it.”
“Beck—”
“I’m serious. I don’t think you realize how many times in my life I’ve looked up to you.” He glanced down at her. “Figuratively, that is.”
“Well, you weren’t all wrong that night.” They started walking again. “Sara says we all tell ourselves stories—about who we are, about the people around us. And they aren’t always true. I think I too often told myself the story that I didn’t measure up to the rest of you. That I was the odd one out.”
“Pretty sure we’ve all told ourselves that particular story at one time or another. I know I have. Especially all those years when I refused to come home.”
Raegan finished off a piece of licorice. Home. Lately she’d begun to expand her definition of the word. Try it on for size in a different way, even if just in her imagination. And, oh, the pictures her mind had painted.
Beckett had asked if she was nervous. That—those pictures and ideas swimming around in her brain—those made her nervous. But perhaps nervous was a good thing. It meant you weren’t stagnant or stuck. It meant there just might be a leap of faith in front of you if only you were brave enough to take it.
“Hey, speaking of Sara, check it out.”
Raegan followed Beckett’s pointed finger. Well, now, would you look at that? Dad, ambling along the green, chatting as amicably as could be with one Sara Jaminski.
“Do we know how we feel about this?” Beckett asked.
“I know how I feel—entirely too overjoyed that now we can finally all get back at Dad for spending so much time prying into our love lives.”
“Love lives? You actually think . . . ?”
“I think I invited Sara over for dinner a few nights ago and he didn’t kick her out when she showed up. Soooo . . .” She tucked the bag of Twizzlers back in her tote as they rounded the corner and the Blaine River came into view. Almost time for the unveiling. “And now, as long as we’re talking love lives, I have to ask: When are you going to hurry up and propose—”
“Tomorrow night. At the orchard. With lots of twinkle lights. But if you say a word to Kit or anyone else, I will break into your bedroom and steal every bag of licorice in the place.”
“Beck!” She squealed his name, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Shut up,” he hissed, his cheeks reddening. “She’s right over there.”
Over with the rest of Raegan’s family, all gathered on the blocked-off road in front of her tarp-covered mural. Charlie was running circles around Logan while Amelia laughed. Kate and Colt stood with Seth and Ava. Kit, of course. And Dad and Sara were just now approaching.
Before Raegan could start forward again, a pair of skinny arms wrapped around her waist from behind. For a split second, she imagined they were Erin’s arms or even Jamie’s. Let herself imagine that Bear had come back and—
No. She shook away the fleeting thought and turned instead to see Elise’s smiling face. Sunglasses covered her eyes—still sensitive to too much light after her surgery. Her successful surgery. No more finding her way in the dark.
Raegan held the girl to her. “Elise Linder, I thought you couldn’t come today!”
“I begged Mom and Dad to come home from vacation early. They wanted me to see Mount Rushmore, but I just wanted to see your mural.”
Tears pinched Raegan’s eyes as they moved toward the crowd once more, Elise chattering about attending Sara’s test run of the horse camp in a couple weeks. They joined the others as the crowd grew around them and Mayor Milt took his place on the platform up near the Hay & Feed Store. He’d wanted Raegan to do the honors—pull the rope to lower the tarp and display the mural. But she’d asked if someone else could do it.
Maybe it was silly, but she’d wanted to stand with her family when the tarp came down. Wanted to gape at the immense blessing this project had become and catalog the whole experience in her heart—ups and downs, frustrations and joys, fear turned to hope, all of it.
And she wanted to treasure these fleeting moments with the people she loved here on the riverfront.
Because it might be a while before she returned.
A sunset in velvet shades of violet and blue gazed upon Bear’s walk home. How long had it been since he’d felt this feeling? The simple delight of a simple accomplishment.
CPR refresher course—done.
Which meant he’d be ready for classes when they started in September. Late acceptance into Atlanta Tech had been just the most recent answer to prayer. Nothing near as miraculous as Rio’s recovery, of course, but he was grateful all the same.
And since he’d withdrawn his application from the community center position in Brazil, it meant he had time to complete the full paramedic program at Atlanta Tech, rather than just EMT-basic. A second chance at the career that’d never gotten off the ground the first time around. He’d spoken to multiple people at both the college and the Georgia Office of EMS and Trauma about the felonies that would show up on his required background check. In another answer to prayer, it sounded like his record wouldn’t ultimately be an issue.
It’d been such an odd mix of difficult and yet liberating to let go of the idea of Brazil. To come to terms with the truth John had laid out so clearly for him during the week he and Elizabeth had spent in Atlanta—that no one was holding Bear to that promise he’d made in prison. That God had never asked him to live out Annie’s dream.
That had been his own idea, born out of a desperate, impossible desire to somehow right an unchangeable wrong.
Grace upon grace. It’d become the theme he clung to—when the past tried to pull him back, when his future felt uncertain. When he missed Raegan so much that even breathing felt like a strain on his tattered heart.
Bear stopped in front of the red-brick, two-story home he shared with Rio and Rosa and the kids as of a few weeks ago. Amazingly, it was the church down in Brazil that had made this living situation possible. John and Elizabeth had rallied the troops, taken a collection during a church service. They’d sent it along with an apology that it wasn’t more.
But it had been exactly enough for the deposit and first month’s rent on this house. White shutters, bright blue front door, towering oak in the front yard. It wasn’t fancy or new, but it was nice. Quaint, that was the word for it. A word he’d never really thought fit anywhere other than in Maple Valley—certainly not a suburb of Atlanta.
Raegan would approve of this house. She’d like that it was old. She’d say it had character.
It wouldn’t have been Bear’s first choice to stay in Atlanta, even a suburb far from their childhood neighborhood. But with Rio’s physical therapy and a slew of upcoming depositions, they had to stay in the area. At least for the foreseeable future.
Besides, something in Bear needed to stay. Not forever, but for now. Long enough to remember there had been happy times here, to find the beauty in the mess instead of chasing a shiny new life elsewhere. Long enough to make sure that if he ever did leave again, he wasn’t running away.
And long enough to restore relationships he’d once thought lost for good. He wasn’t sure if or when he’d feel ready to contact Dad or his mom and step-dad. He’d wait for God’s direction on that. But this extended time with his brother—and with Jamie and Erin—meant more to him than he’d probably ever be able to express.
He’d come to understand and respect Rosa more and more, too. He’d caught glimpses of sorrow on her face now and then when she didn’t think anyone was looking. She had her husband and kids back, but her father would eventually go on trial for decades’ worth of criminal activity.
Bear nodded to the officer keeping watch on the house from an unmarked car at the curb. At some point, hopefully, the threat of retaliation from one of Inez’s few men still on the streets might dissolve. But for now the extra measure of security provided peace of mind about his family’s safety.
His family. Never had the words tasted so sweet. Messy and imperfect, but his.
Raegan understood, right? When he’d called weeks ago and told her all the reasons he needed to stay, she’d grasped the depth of his conviction, hadn’t she?
“I’m not here to fix things or play hero or take over Rio and Rosa’s roles as parents. I’m not trying to make up for anything. I’m just trying . . .” To listen, for once. Instead of making a hasty promise or rushing headlong into his own plan, to slow down and pray and do as John had said—look for the crack in the door filled with light.
The light kept leading him to the same place—right here with his family.
And though every day away from Raegan had been its own kind of difficult, he was discovering there was freedom to be found in following the Spirit’s leading. No longer was he obeying the hiss of his guilt or the bellows of his past. Only the whisper in his soul.
Stay. Be a brother to Rio. Be an uncle to Jamie and Erin. Be a friend to Rosa.
Raegan hadn’t argued with him. In fact, she’d said very little at all. They hadn’t talked since. He kept telling himself it was for the best. Believing it was another matter entirely.
Bear climbed the few cement stairs that led to the front door and let himself into the house. A blast of air conditioning budged into the heat of the July day—and Erin’s shriek. “Uncle Bear’s home!”
Like every time he returned to the house—usually from the job he’d landed with the same construction company he’d worked for post–high school—Erin launched herself into his arms.
“Oh no,” he said the second he sniffed the acrid air. “Who burned what?”
As if he even had to ask. He finally understood all those takeout containers he’d seen in that apartment kitchen his first day back in the States. Cooking—not so much in Rosa’s wheelhouse.
Jamie looked up from the couch, gangly legs sprawled on an oversized ottoman and a letter in his lap. From Elise, no doubt. Cute little pen pals, they’d become. Not that he’d dare use the word cute to Jamie’s face. “I asked Mom if we could order pizza.”
Smart kid. “What’d she say?”
“Only if we promise not to tell you she burned the fish.”
Ew, fish. Maybe he should be grateful for Rosa’s lack of cooking skills. He set Erin down. “I’ll do my best not to give it away when I walk in the kitchen. Might have to hold my nose, though.”
He was halfway through the dining room when Erin called after him. “Aren’t you going to shower, Uncle Bear?”
Had he become that habitual? “Didn’t work at the building site today. Not as dirty as usual.”
He found Rosa in the kitchen, scraping a charred pan. “Don’t say a word, Bear.”
“Even if that word is pizza? Did you order yet? I’m starving.”
“Not yet. Figured you’d need time to clean up first.”
“Everybody’s concerned about me cleaning up.” He held his shirt up to his nose. “Do I smell or something?” Couldn’t smell worse than this kitchen.
His petite sister-in-law grinned. Man, it was good to see her like this—none of the frantic alarm she’d worn that night she entrusted Jamie and Erin to him. No more circles under her eyes.
He grabbed a towel from the counter and reached for the pan now dripping on a drying rack. They’d developed an easy rhythm, everyone pitching in with chores, taking turns with meals. Bear and Rosa had coordinated their work schedules to cover caring for Rio and the kids.
And every day, Rio got a little better.
“You don’t have to do that, Bear. I may not be able to cook without making a mess, but I’m perfectly capable of cleaning up said mess. Go on upstairs.”
Fine, he would. But not to shower. He and Rio had cut off in the middle of a game of Scrabble this morning. Maybe they could finish before the pizza arrived.
He gave both kids high fives as he retraced his steps through the living room and angled onto the carpeted stairway. On the second floor, he trailed past Jamie’s bedroom and then Erin’s and on toward the bedroom at the end.
He knocked, then entered at Rio’s beckoning.
His brother stood in the middle of the room, a five-pound weight in each hand and guilt on his face. “Now, look, before you lose it—”
“You just couldn’t wait.”
Rio curled his arms. “Two-point-five-pound weights, Bear? I didn’t even know those were a thing. They’ve had me using baby weights for two weeks now. Ridiculous. I think I’m ready to move up.”
If Rio had his way, he’d be ready to conquer a 5K. But darn it, was it so hard to listen to his physical therapist? “How’d you even get those in here?”
“It’s very convenient having kids, big brother. They love sneaking things for you.” He set down the weights. “Besides, I did a whoppin’ ten reps. That’s it. I don’t think my heart’s going to give out any time soon. That is, unless Rosa tries forcing fish down my throat one more time.”
“Not her fault she saw that headline about heart-healthy food. She’s just looking out for you.”
“I was shot, Bear. I don’t have high cholesterol or blocked arteries.” Rio flopped onto the rocking chair in the corner. “And no, I don’t want to play Scrabble. I want to go outside and shoot hoops. Throw a baseball around. Could even settle for a walk around the block.”
Okay, someone had cabin fever. “The walk we can do.”
Rio let out a dramatic sigh. “No. You just got home. You should relax. Go take a nap or something before supper.”
“Since when do I take early-evening naps? Rosa wants me to clean up, you want me to nap. I’m not your third child, you know.” Bickering with his brother. He’d forgotten how good that felt.
“Says the guy who’s been monitoring how much I sleep and move and eat for weeks.”
Bear started for the door. “Fine, no Scrabble.”
“Bear?”
He turned to his brother once more.
“Thank you. For everything. I know I’ve said it a hundred times—”
“Try a thousand.”
Rio’s eyes—clearer than he’d ever seen them before—shimmered with gratefulness. “I’ve meant it every time. You keep putting your life on hold. For me, for us.”
One hand gripping the edge of the bedroom door, Bear shook his head. “My life isn’t on hold, Rio. This is my life. And if you ask me, it’s an awfully good one.”
Lips pressed together, Rio nodded. And with a tap on the doorframe overhead, Bear left the room.
His own bedroom, the largest of the four, was at the other end of the hallway—the only one with an attached bathroom. He’d tried convincing Rosa and Rio to claim it, but they’d insisted he take it. He’d finally agreed, figuring if it made them feel better about the fact that he currently paid the larger half of the rent, then so be it.
But he stopped just outside his closed door. A sliver of light beckoned from underneath the door.
He pushed into the room. Stopped again.
His mystified gaze darted—purple bag at the foot of the bed, steam coming from under the bathroom door, humming coming from inside. What in the world?
And when the door opened, the biggest shock of all.
Raegan Walker.
Walking from his bathroom into his bedroom.
Wearing his T-shirt.