Dandelion Wishes (4 page)

Emma’s feet did a quick once around the pedals before the bike tilted toward the ground. She hopped out of the way as it crashed.

Leaving the road clear for Will to reach the next switchback first.

The thrill of victory propelled him to the elbow in the road. There was no sense going any farther. They were both spent. Will walked in small circles, attempting to fill his lungs with much-needed oxygen, trying to keep his muscles from convulsing him into a permanent fetal position. He’d been clutching his bottle of water and now drained it. After a few moments, he rasped, “You suck.”

She’d righted the bike and was walking it up the hill, feet digging in to build enough energy to reach him. “I had you all the way.”

“Doesn’t matter. I won.”

“Nobody won. We didn’t make it to the top.” Emma popped out the kickstand and removed her helmet. Her hair was plastered to her head and sweat trickled down the sides of her splotchy red face.

And yet, there was something about her that wasn’t unattractive to look at. Her inviting curves. Her challenging grin. Her warrior attitude that dared any man to take her on.

A memory surfaced. Emma wearing a red backless prom dress that clung to every dangerous contour, her dark tresses woven in a bride-like style threaded with delicate white flowers. Also not unattractive.

Emma wiped at her temples with her forearms, and directed her frustration at an inanimate target. “Stupid chain.”

Will took a second, more assessing look at her. His system was in cool-off mode. Rivulets of sweat dripped off the ends of his hair. Most of the rest of his body was just as soggy and droopy. Emma looked about as sexy as he felt.

Which was great. That moment of attraction must have been due to oxygen deprivation. The prom memory was a fluke. It wasn’t like he’d taken her to the event. He’d only made a preprom appearance to intimidate Tracy’s date. “Did you lose track of what gear you were in? You had me until that last gear change.”

“I did, didn’t I?” She grinned as if she’d won the Tour de France.

That smile somehow managed to trap the air in Will’s lungs. Something about Emma burrowed under his skin in a way he vehemently rejected, and had been rejecting since he was in high school. She never played it safe. She never obeyed the rules. She was like a predinner chocolate—temptation you couldn’t resist, even when you knew it was wrong.

He exhaled forcefully. “As soon as I catch my breath, I’ll fix your chain.”

Where had that offer come from?

Emma’s mouth puckered as if she was going to refuse him, but then she laughed and nodded.

They looked out over what they could see of the valley and the hills that bordered it, an uncomfortable silence settling between them as if they were both remembering they were at odds. Not that this was unfamiliar territory. Will’s most vivid memories were of Emma opposing him. Convincing Tracy to go tubing down the Harmony River when it was still raging from spring rains. Dragging Tracy to a New Year’s Eve celebration in Union Square when the girls were naive freshmen in college. Driving with Tracy to that bachelorette party in Tijuana despite the fact that a young woman had been abducted in that city a few weeks earlier.

Oh, Emma was good at flashing a “forgive me, I know I’ve been bad” smile and a good excuse:
We knew what we were doing. It was all innocent. Everything turned out fine.
Only that time, everything hadn’t turned out fine. Tracy had almost been killed.

Emma plucked a dandelion from her feet, studied it for a moment and then blew its white parachute seeds into the wind. She knelt to pick another one, closed the distance between them and held it up to Will. “How about a dandelion truce?”

Generations of farming blood had him warding her off with one arm. “It’s a weed.”

“It’s a dandelion.” Emma twirled the stem back and forth. “Kids make wishes on them all the time.”

“And blow the seeds of a weed out into the world.” If wishes could make Tracy whole, he’d blow an entire crop of dandelions into the wind. But chances were those dandelions wouldn’t result in wishes. They’d sprout up in his vineyard. “Farmers kill dandelions.”

“Suit yourself.” Emma studied the white puff, drew a deep breath and blew another handful of delicate white parachutes on to the breeze.

Will knew he shouldn’t ask, but he couldn’t help himself. “What did you wish for?”

“If I told you,” she said in a solemn voice, as if she truly believed in dandelion wishes, “it wouldn’t come true.”

Will felt a chasm open between them, shored up by differences like belief in fairy tales, Santa Claus and happy ever afters. He stood with the realists. She danced with the dreamers. It had nearly cost his sister her life. He was right to bar her from seeing Tracy. Wishes couldn’t make his sister well.

Emma knelt by her bike and fiddled with the chain. Apparently she’d decided she didn’t need his help. “What’s a good time to come by and see Tracy?”

“Don’t. I talked to Tracy last night and she doesn’t want to see you.”

“You’re lying.” Her hands, splotched with grease, shook.

“I’m not,” Will lied. He’d do anything to protect Tracy. “Flynn and Slade were there. Ask them.” He was betting she’d never do it.

“You can bring a thousand friends to testify she doesn’t want to see me and I still won’t believe you.” Emma’s face was as closed off as the latest firewall software to a cyber attack.

“Don’t come by, Emma. You’ll be the one to get hurt this time.”

“I don’t care.” She pushed her chin in the air, but her lip trembled.

And he was twelve all over again, bending to her will. “At least wait until tomorrow. The trip home tired her out.”

She nodded stiffly. “All right. But I don’t need your permission. And I wouldn’t try to keep her locked up in that house forever. She’ll resent you for it.” The chain dropped onto the sprocket. Emma jammed her helmet on, hopped on the bike and left, her rear brake squealing at him as she returned the way they’d come.

“I don’t have to keep Tracy in the house forever,” Will muttered to himself, catching sight of a drifting dandelion seed floating on the breeze. “Just until you leave.”

CHAPTER FIVE

T
HERE
WAS
NOTHING
Emma disliked more than being made to feel she was a shrew. And that was what arguing with Will did to her.

She’d apologized to him twice, but he still treated her as if she’d pointed a gun at Tracy and pulled the trigger. It left a bleak, bottomless sensation in her belly. Oh, she’d like to blame Will for that feeling, but her guilt was the cause, not Mr. Perfect’s lack of forgiveness. She shouldn’t care that he’d refused her attempt to apologize twice. The only absolution that should matter was Tracy’s.

Emma outran the emptiness as best she could. She’d biked back to Granny Rose’s, driven the riding mower over the half-acre lawn and pulled some stubborn weeds out of the small vegetable garden. She’d called her mom and left a voice mail about Granny Rose, requesting a callback that probably wouldn’t come for days. In the middle of a murder trial, her defense-attorney mother only dealt with life-threatening emergencies. Granny Rose being Granny Rose didn’t qualify.

Emma didn’t want the easel but she couldn’t stand the thought of Granny Rose climbing up the rickety attic stairs and wrestling it down, either, so she carried it to her room. And just to punish herself, she put a fresh canvas on it, got out her sketching pencil and stood like a statue, left hand hovering unsteadily over the canvas.

Since she was a little girl, she’d loved to color, draw and paint. She lost herself in the process of creation, her senses taking in the scene she was trying to capture to an internal soundtrack that was sometimes soothing, sometimes lively and always passionate. But now all she heard was the repercussion of a diesel engine bearing down on her, the trumpet of brakes locking. She was aware of sliding, losing control and the uneven rasp of Tracy’s struggle to live.

She couldn’t imagine Will losing himself in a moment. He noticed everything, as he held himself with a rigid grace the Renaissance masters would have loved to paint. If Will was naked.

Not that Emma wanted to imagine him without clothes. She didn’t sketch or paint people and she certainly shouldn’t be imagining her best friend’s brother in his birthday suit. But the seed had taken flight, just like her dandelion wish. And instead of mentally planning out the foggy-morning image of Harmony Valley’s bridge before moving her pencil, she found herself dwelling on the golden glimmer of his hair in the sunlight, the elegant taper of tan shoulders to his waist, the bunch and release of his quads as he ran uphill. But even those vivid images didn’t liberate her talent, or free her hand, or quiet the internal wail of frustration when the canvas remained blank.

Granny Rose believed Emma could overcome this block. Emma wasn’t so sure. Even as she stood there, her breath came in labored, near-panicked gasps, and not just because her art had deserted her.

What if Tracy never forgave her?

* * *

“W
E
USED
TO
eat ice cream with girls on that bench under the oak tree.” Slade stood at the northern corner of the town square, fiddling with a solemn black tie. He hadn’t looked at Will all morning as they’d called on various residents and discussed the benefits the winery would bring the town. “I haven’t seen anyone under there since we’ve been back.”

The midmorning sun warmed what had been a brisk spring breeze, bringing with it the smell of chicken grilling at El Rosal, the one restaurant left in town.

Tracy wandered over to the wrought-iron bench beneath the town square’s lone oak tree.

In his memory, Will saw Tracy as she’d been a year ago—a glow to her cheeks and clothes that didn’t hang off her petite frame.

He thought of Emma’s determination to see his sister, regardless of who got hurt; all the ways Slade couldn’t hide his despair at being alone; Tracy’s resentment; the town’s resistance. His worries stacked on each other until the possibility of failure weighed down his shoulders and dragged at his heels.

Will hadn’t found an opportunity all morning to mend his rift with either his sister or Slade. They had a bit of time to kill before their next appointment. He opened his mouth to apologize.

And Flynn interrupted. “The ice cream parlor closed when I was in high school.” Flynn gazed wistfully into the window of the empty corner shop as he adjusted his Giants cap over his tangle of reddish-brown hair. “Maybe we should open an ice cream parlor instead of a winery. It’d make Rose happier.”

Will rolled his shoulders back and crossed his arms over his chest. When the stakes involved his sister, he stood firm. The winery would succeed. “Harmony Valley is at the end of the road. Who’s going to drive this far for ice cream?”

“How about gelato?” Flynn grinned. “I’d bring a date out here for gelato.”

“You aren’t very discerning in your women or the places you take them.” A hint of a smile slipped past Slade’s bad mood.

“We need to focus on the winery and related businesses. That’s the only way to attract significant outside revenue when Harmony Valley is about as convenient to the rest of the county as the sun is to Uranus.”

“Ouch. Okay, I give.” Flynn held up his hands, exchanging a look with Slade that seemed to say Will needed to be humored.

“A lot of people are going to come to the council meeting tonight.” Will forced himself to uncross his arms and draw a breath. “If enough of them speak on our behalf, we might sway Mayor Larry or Rose.”

“
If
people speak positively.” Slade fingered his tie, the movement taunting Will like a red flag in front of a bull. “You’ve lost your perspective. Admit it. This isn’t about saving the town. It’s about you overcoming another challenge, proving something to us or your dad or someone.”

“Prove?” Will sputtered. “I love the smell of success the same as the next guy, but this has nothing to do with my ego. We made a commitment to—”

“You committed!” Slade’s words burst out as if he’d been holding them in too long. “I’ve been crunching numbers and waiting to see how this plays out. But I’ve said all along that wineries are a money suck. I’m all for a tax shelter, but not this one. If I had my way, Harmony Valley would be a ghost town.” Slade stopped and turned away, as if he’d said too much. But then he added in a muted voice, “You should feel the same way after losing your mom here.”

Will followed Slade’s gaze to the skeleton of a grain silo visible over the treetops. The Harmony Valley Grain Company had been the primary employer in the small town until the grain elevator had exploded, killing Will’s mother and three others. The company had closed before the embers were cold, forcing the workforce to move, other businesses to fold, schools to shut down and leaving nothing behind but cash settlements to grieving families.

The Jackson family’s settlement had paid for Will’s and Tracy’s college tuitions. But nothing could replace the fact that they were motherless. Or erase the fear that life could be lost at a moment’s notice.

“You’d abandon this place?” Flynn looked perplexed. “But it’s home.”

“Not to me.” Slade cast a sidelong glance up the north end of Main Street toward the house he’d grown up in.

And then both he and Flynn turned their attention to Will.

Did
Will want the town to die?

He shook his head. “There are painful memories here, but more good ones than bad. And as corny as it sounds, residents don’t look at us and tally our net worth. I don’t feel the pressure to add to our resume of work while I’m here.” Although the lack of a new program to code against made him restless.

“That doesn’t bode well for the future of our company.” Slade started to smooth his tie, then seemed to think better of it and set his hand on his waist.

“We are not one-hit wonders.” Certainty rang through Will’s words, despite the whisper of doubt, the one that slipped into his thoughts on nights when he couldn’t sleep. But he’d heard that chorus before and proved it wrong. “Maybe this break and this winery are what we need to reboot that creative spark.”

Will’s gaze drifted to Tracy, whose head tilted up to watch clouds pass by. “This isn’t about my pride. I want to open this winery so Harmony Valley will thrive and my dad won’t be so isolated. I want there to be emergency services here in town rather than thirty minutes away. But mostly, I want this winery to provide a job for Tracy.” Now was the time to say it. He drew a deep breath. “I want her to manage the businesses once we’re up and running.”

“Is that all?” Flynn looked from Will to Slade. “That’s okay with me.”

For one brief moment, Will experienced the lightness of relief.

Then Slade’s voice came down with trust-me-on-this negativity. “We talked about hiring someone with experience. Tracy has none. This makes the risk even greater.”

Will was used to overcoming obstacles and opposition. But for five years, Slade had been on his side. He’d known Slade wouldn’t approve of his choice. He’d known, and yet he’d hoped. “My sister needs a job in a place where people know and understand her. She gets tongue-tied under stress.” He stared down the road toward Slade’s house, realizing how helpless Slade must have felt when his father died
.
At least with Tracy, Will could keep trying. Slade had no second chances.

The dread Will had been holding back for six months broke free, spilling into his words until he could no longer hide how the weight of responsibility threatened to crush him.

“I worry about Tracy all the time. Can I hope for something close to normal in her speech? What if she has an emergency and can’t get the words out quickly enough? Are people going to judge her intelligence by the way she talks? Tracy’s doctors tell me what to do and I feel hope. And then I try to help her and nothing works.” He clenched and unclenched his fists, trying to expunge the helplessness. “If we can perform CPR on this town and Tracy has a role in our organization, I’d be happy. She doesn’t have to run everything. Maybe just the gift shop. Or the tasting room.”

Slade cleared his throat.

But the flood of Will’s frustration wasn’t finished. “It’s the doubts that drive me insane. Will Tracy be like this forever? Speaking in broken English and with pain so deep in her eyes that I can’t find the bottom? I know Tracy doesn’t want any handouts from me. But if you don’t approve of hiring her, I’ll pay her salary out of my own pocket.

“Last night Slade said Tracy was a distraction. But he’s wrong. Carving out a place in the world for her is my life’s work right now. And these businesses we’re proposing can give her that place.” If only he could make Tracy see. “If I can’t fix Tracy so she can return to her old life, I need to help her create a new one. Everything else, including our next multimillion dollar sale, is a distraction.”

Will hadn’t realized an empty street could be so silent.

Slade stared at Will with fathomless black eyes that neither condemned nor supported.

“Slade,” Will began, “what I said last night... I was a jerk.”

“You get a pass,” Slade said gruffly.

“I need you standing by me. You and Flynn.” Together, the three friends could do anything—if they all concurred.

“We’re doing this, then?” Flynn asked Slade.

Their financial partner nodded curtly. “Since I’m in charge of our investments, I’ll agree to pursue rezoning if you both agree that at each step in development we review our options. If this winery ever becomes a losing proposition, we cut our losses.”

Flynn and Will agreed.

Will was determined he’d never let the winery come to that. His tension slipped away, loosening his limbs. He scanned the town square, tensing when he noticed it was empty. “Where’s Tracy?”

Flynn pointed. “She headed back along the river toward your house.”

The river path would take Tracy past Rose’s home. Where Emma, Tracy’s Pied Piper, was staying.

Will stepped off the curb, but Flynn held him back. “You have to let Tracy deal with Emma in her own way.”

Will pulled his arm free. “She’s not strong enough yet.”

* * *

“E
MMA
!” G
RANNY
R
OSE
returned from her visit to the elementary school in the next town around eleven-thirty, her booted feet echoing throughout the old house. “Come here.”

Emma saved the print ad she’d been revising for one of her clients on her laptop before going downstairs.

She found Granny Rose on the porch, reaching through an open window to start the record player. “Schoolchildren make me want to dance for joy.”

After her bike ride, Emma’s legs felt as if they were in plaster casts, stiff and cumbersome. Dancing would be impossible.

The Andrews Sisters began singing about a bugle boy. What little booty Granny Rose had started shaking. Her arms stretched out midair, fingers snapping. And then she held out her hand to Emma. “Let’s dance, sister. I’ll lead.”

With a slump to her shoulders, Emma shuffled forward. “Do I have to?”

“It’s either that or color!” Pointing to a coloring book on the table, Granny Rose laughed, the sound rippling above the music, cresting over Emma’s sour mood and washing away most of her reluctance.

At first, Emma stumbled through the steps of the swing like a zombie with two left feet. But then, miraculously, her muscles warmed and loosened and her spirits lifted. She and Granny cut a rug back and forth across the porch as if competing in their own dance competition.

* * *

T
RACY
HAD
SLIPPED
the noose of Will’s leash and was heading back to the house like a schoolgirl playing hooky.

Her body and spirit needed a lift. Life here didn’t feel much different than in the rehabilitation hospital. Banned from driving, she still couldn’t go where she wanted when she wanted. Harmony Valley was another cage and Will her jailer. It was hard to believe, but being a shock-therapy lab rat might allow her more freedom.

And then she heard music.

Although it was a tune from a different generation, it was the music of Tracy’s youth. The music she’d learned to dance to—big-band swing. Just listening to the song as she walked down the narrow path by Harmony River buoyed Tracy’s steps.