Chocolate Kisses and Love Filled Wishes: Kissing Bridge Mountain - Book 3 (10 page)

She wasn’t sure she could handle the truth about this relationship with Tanner.  After all the pain she had felt over the loss of Brody, she thought that she had finally found her soul mate in Tanner. As he continued to shoot video of her so thoughtlessly, Kacey was forced to acknowledge how very wrong she had been, once again.

As the sun blared through the clouds, Kacey noticed for the first time the hardness around Tanner’s eyes. The set of his lip curled in satisfaction as he got the video shots he wanted and manipulated them to mean whatever he chose. He was, in fact, everything that he hated about the ‘establishment.’

A fake.

Tanner continued to shoot footage of the hospital and now close-ups of Justine as well, holding onto her wheelchair.

“Do you think you could wheel her around a bit for an action shot, Sweetheart?”

Before poor Justine could say anything, Kacey leaned to her side and whispered to her, “Just follow my lead, Justine.” Justine nodded.

Now, Kacey Anderson had grown up the youngest of five children. She was the only girl and the baby of the family and so had had to endure life with four older brothers ruling the nest.  Kacey learned a lot of things from her brothers.

She’d learned how to snowboard like a guy, how to hide the last cookie, pogo off the back of a truck, and how to play poker like a pro.

Late nights at the Anderson house would often find the five siblings seated around the fireplace playing poker with household chores as their chips.

Kacey would bet her laundry chores, Jason the floors, Jeremy the polishing, Jordan the dishes and Brad would bet his snowplowing the driveway. (Nobody wanted that one.) All in all, she had learned a lot from those late night poker games with her wily brothers, and one of those things she learned was how to bluff when you wanted someone to lie down their hand.

So . . . Kacey decided to bluff.

“Tanner, my love,” she said sweetly, “… Aren’t you concerned about us traveling the world and you having to push me in this wheelchair? Won’t it hold you back?”

Tanner struggled to keep a smile on his face.

He at least had the decency to put the camera down and knelt down beside her to deliver the bad news.

“You mean this….” He motioned to the wheelchair and her inert legs “… might be for good?”

Kacey bit her lip.

“It’s possible…?”

Tanner looked blank.

Kacey pressed on.

“Does it make a difference in how you feel?’

Tanner tried to compose himself.

He looked around at Justine still holding the wheelchair. He cleared his throat loudly.

A few times.

“No, Baby, of course not. I love you for always. Just… I’ve been thinking about our engagement… and well, I’ve got places to go, things to do, and they involve legs and not really . . . marriage.”

Kacey got choked up, but it wasn’t on tears.

She wanted to barf at his shallowness.

“You understand?” Tanner continued.

“Of course,” Kacey smiled bravely, “Legs are good.”

Tanner smiled broadly, now relieved. He packed up his camera equipment and prepared for a quick exit.

“So we’ll keep in touch.  I’ll send you a text from the Maldives.”

With that, he scrambled into his bright red mustang car and drove away in the snow storm (which was actually illegal during a white-out, but had been allowed, as he had come to pick up Kacey.)

Kacey watched as his flashy red mustang disappeared in the sheets of white and became a small red dot moving further and further away.

The girls didn’t say anything for a long time until it was fully out of sight.

Kacey sighed. “I guess he forgot he was my ride home.”

She felt like crying, but decided he really wasn’t worth it.

              Justine looked concerned. “I . . . I’m so sorry, Kacey. I’m not sure what just happened.”

Kacey reassured her.

She had called Tanner’s bluff and she had seen his real hand.

“It’s okay, Justine. What happened was, he showed his true colors. His true
ugly
colors. I’m fine with it.”

Oddly, she realized she
was
.

Tanner had been a great distraction for not dealing with her real feelings for Brody or for her career, but she didn’t actually love Tanner.

She knew that now, without a doubt.

           Justine was confused. “You could have just told him that the wheelchair was just for a couple of days and that your legs are just fine…”

“Yeah,” Kacey smiled, “I could have...”

Then they looked at each other, and they broke out laughing.

Chapter 21

D
odie made her way down the slippery street in the Lander’s Bakery delivery van, barely able to see through the blizzard. An officer stopped her and explained that no cars were allowed on the road due to the dangerous conditions.

It was Old Man Jennings’ son, Kurt.

Kurt was a lively redhead with a sprinkle full of freckles across his face. He did not make a menacing presence as a policeman, but that fit Kissing Bridge just fine. There was rarely a need for a ticket, nor emergency call, in Kissing Bridge—save a cat in the tree or some other cat-strophe of that vile sort.
 

“Hey, Kurt! What’s going on?” Dodie smiled.

“Hi Miss Dodie, sorry but there’s a no-car ban going on right now. It’s not safe to drive.”

              “Oh, I know, Kurt. I’ve got special permission. I’m on my way to get Kacey out of the hospital. Then we’re going straight back to the bakery.”

Kurt tipped his hat. “That’s a valid reason! Send her my best then, and be careful! It’s icy, on top of the bad visibility.”

Dodie noticed a red Mustang that was parked by the side of the road. She saw Tanner in the front seat, looking angry. Dodie pointed over to him.

“What’s going on with him?”

Kurt looked over to the sulking figure of Tanner.

“Driving violation. I have to give him a ticket. Like I said, no cars on the road except special reasons such as yours, Miss Dodie. Justine, from the hospital, was kind enough to give us a call and alert us about a speeding mustang.”

Dodie raised an eyebrow.

Good for Justine.

She always had liked that girl since she had met her in cooking class. It had been Justine that called her from the hospital to ask her to pick up Kacey, and explained what had happened with Tanner leaving.

Dodie was happy to pick up Kacey, and kind of glad inside that he was gone. Tanner had seemed great at first, but ever since she’d met him in the flesh, she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was one big phony. Of course, she’d given him the Christian benefit of the doubt, and treated him with kindness, but still, she wouldn’t trust him as far as she could throw him.

As Dodie drove away, she saw Kurt writing out a ticket for Tanner and couldn’t help but giggle.

When Dodie arrived at the hospital, it looked like an abandoned village.

Barely a car was in the parking lot.

The snow continued to fall harder then Dodie had ever seen. She pulled the bakery van right up to the front door.

Justine and Kacey came out when Dodie pulled up. Dodie and Justine helped Kacey into the van. The doctor had given Kacey a new metal hip, as she had fractured her own in the fall, and had managed to bring down the swelling on the unhealed disc that had been pinching her nerve. The pressure from the disc on the spine had caused the initial loss of movement in her legs. Luckily, the pressure had come down, and now all she needed was to stay off her feet for a while until her hip healed.

Her disc was another story.  It looked like she had successfully screwed up her career for the rest of the year.

Justine folded up the wheelchair and put it in the back of the van. “Just a couple more days in that and we’ll switch you out for some crutches!”

“Thanks for everything, Justine! You’re a star.”

“I’ll bring by some crutches when the blizzard lets up. Best of luck with Brad!”

Kacey was confused, but waved at her as they drove away.

The snow was continuing to fall in crazy sheets of white, making it almost impossible to see. The entire town was snuggled in their homes keeping warm as the town was blanketed in snow. Little lights twinkled from inside windows and smoke billowed out with the smell of fireplaces burning fresh logs.

Theirs was the only car on the road, save for random emergency vehicle or large steel belted trucks trudging by on their way up the mountain.

“Lots of action going on up the hill for blizzard conditions,” Kacey said. “That’s odd. Hey, Dodie, we missed our turn off.”

Dodie bit her lip and focused on the road.

Dodie wondered how best to tell her about Brad.

Kacey had been through a lot, poor kid, but she was going to have to broach the subject sooner than later, especially since she wasn’t taking her back to the lodge.

Dodie drove past the turnout to go up the mountain and pulled into the small town village, eventually stopping in front of
Landers Home Baking.

Kacey smiled. “Need some sweets before we make the hike up the mountain?” She looked around at the busy store with lots of people and big trucks, and her face clouded with confusion. “Looks like the whole town is here…”

Dodie turned to Kacey and took her hands in hers.

“Kacey, I’m sorry but I can’t take you back up the mountain to the lodge right now. It’s dangerous and it’s closed. I’ve been spending the nights at the Landers in between shifts here…”

Kacey didn’t understand why Dodie looked so distraught. “You’re working long nights?”

Dodie shook her head. “It’s your brother, Brad. His plane went down and he’s lost in the mountains up there by Eagle’s Peak, we think. We’ve set up a command post here.  They’re trying to get the National Guard in tomorrow, but the weather is inhibiting everyone.”

Kacey swallowed, trying to digest the horrible news. “How long has he been missing?”

“Three days.”