From the Start (32 page)

Plunge into a memory he has no desire to reclaim.
Stark understanding ushered in such a welling of compassion it was all she could do not to pull him to herself. Attempt to embrace away the brokenness that displayed itself so clearly now in his face.
Oh, Colton . . .

Distance.

Her conscience was barely a whisper now. And an irritating one, at that. Colton Greene had had too much distance in his life.

So she gave in, closed the last of the space between them, and wrapped her arms around his waist. She buried her face in the cotton of his shirt, felt his entire body slowly respond—his arms winding around her and tightening into a cocoon of shared emotion.

Forget distance.

This thing with Colton, whatever it was, maybe it’d end up breaking her heart. Here, right now, though, it wasn’t about her heart—but about the heart beating against her cheek.

14

S
o tell me again what the point of this is. I’ve already been here once. Did the whole peeing in a cup thing.” Megan tapped her foot in a frenetic pace against the base of the patient bed in the Maple Valley Clinic.

Kate placed one palm on Megan’s bony knee to still her fidgety leg. “Yes, but if I remember right, you told me you just up and walked out as soon as the doctor said you were pregnant. This time you might want to stick around long enough to get some info from Doc Malone. Maybe some vitamins. And a due date.”

Megan slipped a chunk of black hair out of her face, revealing a line of silver hoops tracing up her ear. “I can figure that on my own. Chase and I . . .” She looked down. “Well, he was in town a whole two days. So X the date on the calendar and count nine months ahead and there you go.”

“Hey, don’t get all annoyed at me. You’re the one who called and asked me to come with you.”

It’d been a welcome interruption, really. Kate had been wrestling with the sixth chapter of Colton’s book—too distracted by her own thoughts to make much traction with her writing.

It had been almost a full week since the night out on the
football field, some of it spent working at the depot to get it ready for tonight’s kickoff to tomorrow’s Depot Day, some of it spent working on the book. Nearly all of it spent in Colton’s company. When she wasn’t with him, she was writing about him. Or trying to.

Hard to write a book, though, when you were falling for its main character.

“ . . . don’t know why I did. It’s not like you owe me anything. You didn’t have to come.”

Kate blinked, forcing her attention back to Megan. She slipped to the girl’s side now and draped one arm over her shoulder. She felt Megan stiffen, but she didn’t push Kate away. “Meg, have you called your parents?”

Her shoulders tightened underneath Kate’s arm. “Are you kidding? If I was a nuisance to them growing up, can you imagine what their reaction would be to finding out I’m pregnant?” She shook her head and started with the foot tapping again. “No thank you. That is one lecture I don’t need to hear.”

“You don’t think they should know they’re going to be grandparents?”

“Oh, I’ll tell them eventually. Maybe when he’s five years old and rockin’ the kindergarten thing.”

The patient room door swung open then, and Dr. Malone came in, white coat swinging and stethoscope around her neck. The doctor wasn’t more than five-foot-two, her tiny frame topped with Irish green eyes and red curls tinted with the faintest hint of gray. She’d been the Walker family doctor as long as Kate could remember, but it’d been years since she’d seen her. Probably not since Mom’s funeral.

“Well, Miss Megan, nice of you to return.” The doctor’s smile held a tease and she glanced at the file in her hands. “We’re looking at a May 6 due date.”

Megan let out a slow breath, expression shielded as ever. There wasn’t much to the rest of the appointment. Dr. Malone gave Megan a couple brochures, suggested a prenatal vitamin, and then had them stop at the front desk to schedule a ten-week appointment.

Kate waited until they were crossing the parking lot to ask her question. “Hey, earlier when you were talking about telling your parents, waiting until kindergarten, you said ‘he.’”

Megan halted. “So?”

Kate rounded to the driver’s side of the car and looked over its ceiling. “So was that a slip, or are you hoping for a son?”

Megan jerked open her car door. “I wasn’t hoping for a baby at all.” She thudded into the seat.

Okay.
Kate lowered into her own seat slowly, tucked the key into the ignition, but paused before turning it. “You’re not going to be alone in this, Meg. This is a great town with a lot of great people. And you, my friend, supply the coffee. If that doesn’t earn you the support of everyone in Maple Valley, I don’t know what would.” She started the car.

“Yeah, well, you’re not going to be here.”

The comment landed with a thump, and Kate’s fingers clenched the wheel. “It’s true. I don’t live here. But I’ll come home to visit.” Why, though, did the thought of not being here sting almost as much as the glare in Megan’s expression?

It wasn’t just Colton she’d been getting attached to this past month.

It was being in the same state as at least some of her family.

It was family breakfasts and daily trips to the coffee shop and weekend gatherings at The Red Door.

It was home.

When Megan didn’t respond, only turned her focus out the window, Kate shifted into Reverse and turned the car toward
the center of town. It was a stilted ride to Megan’s house, the girl’s
thanks
and
good-bye
when Kate dropped her off so wooden Kate wondered why Megan had asked for her company in the first place.

Instead of heading toward home, Kate drove to the depot next. She’d planned to spend the rest of the afternoon helping out with whatever final touches needed to happen before tonight’s fireworks and tomorrow’s big day. The sight of the depot and the scenery that wrapped around it brushed away at least some of the lingering unease from her time with Megan.

It was as if, with the turning of the calendar to October, autumn had thrown off any thought of a slow appearance. Instead of tentative pops of color, the tree-strewn hills behind the depot were awash in fiery hues. The depot building glistened in the sunlight, newly laid and newly stained boardwalk lining three sides and repaired track reaching into the rolling landscape.

If the outside looked this good, she could only imagine how great the inside looked.

Dad was walking toward his car when she pulled into the gravel lot to the east of the depot. “Hey, Dad.”

He grinned and angled toward her car, pulling her into a side hug when she slid out of the car. “Hardly seen you this week, Katie.”

“That’s because you’ve been working longer hours than even the farmers.”

A sling still encased his arm, but the scrapes and bruises he’d had when she first arrived home had faded. And a new energy warmed his eyes. “Worth it to see the old place sparkling again. You looking for Colton?”

“Not specifically, though I did text him earlier and tell him I’d come out and help with whatever’s left to do after Megan’s appointment.”

Dad threaded her arm through his, then started toward his car again. “You remind me so much of your mother, Katie girl, the way you’ve taken Megan under your wing. You got her kindheartedness in heaping doses.”

“Dad, I might feel bad for Megan, but I’m hardly making a real difference in her life. And I’m not doing what Mom did. Mom worked to save entire African villages. I gave a girl a ride to the doctor.”

Gravel crunched under their feet. “You saw a need in front of you and you met it. That’s what Flora did. Whether it was writing that grant proposal and starting a nonprofit or cooking meals and doing laundry and raising her kids. I don’t think your mother ever saw one task as bigger or more important than the others.”

They stopped at his car. “I like it when you talk about Mom.”

The lines in his face deepened with his pleasure. “And I like that you like it. Not all your siblings do.”

“Beckett?”

“Sometimes wonder if that’s why he ended up so far from Iowa. If it’s just too hard . . .” Dad shook his head. “I’ve hung up lots of hats over the years. My soldier hat, my diplomat hat. Won’t ever hang up my parent hat.”

She leaned onto her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “We wouldn’t want you to. Although, it’d probably be nice of us to stop giving you things to be worried about.” Logan and Charlie in LA, still trying to heal from Emma’s death. Beckett in Boston, so quiet sometimes—more distant than geography excused. Raegan, with perhaps more going on behind her claims of contentment than she let on.

And me.
A years-old relationship still dogging her up until last week. A career that couldn’t decide where to land. And a heart that’d made it clear she wasn’t getting away with the easy route.

“Oh, hey, as long as you’re here . . .” Dad opened his car door and reached for a pile of envelopes and papers on the dash. “Marty stopped by with a stack of mail for the depot, and since at it, he delivered my home mail. There’s a big manila envelope for you.”

She took the envelope from Dad, scanning the return address. The James Foundation. It was all the paperwork Frederick Langston had told her about. Copies of previous annual reports. Travel insurance forms, liability waivers.

She let out a long exhale.

“I take it this trip is getting real.”

“Incredibly.”

Dad leaned one arm over his car door. “And . . . you really want to go?”

“More than anything.” The answer came out by rote. She’d been talking about it for a month, dreaming about it for years. Well, maybe not dreaming of this exact thing, but about playing some kind of significant role in carrying on the work Mom started. “Mom would be so happy I’m going.” She looked up to meet Dad’s eyes, an unexpected desire for affirmation.

“Your mother would be proud of you for going after what you want. You can be sure of that.”

Wind rustled the papers in her hands, carrying with it a faint and lilting voice.

Dad grinned. “And that’d be Colton. He likes to sing if he thinks no one’s within hearing distance.”

She glanced toward the depot. Colton singing. It should make her giggle, send her skipping to the building with a dozen ready teases. So why couldn’t she muster more than an unsteady sigh?

“Kate.”

She turned once more to Dad.

“Don’t assume saying yes to one dream automatically means saying no to another.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

He dropped into his car. “Oh, I think you do. Know how I know?”

They smiled at each other as Colton’s voice raised and his song drifted in on the breeze.

“How?”

“Because I’m quoting a line from one of your movies.” He grinned, closed his door, and waved as he drove away.

“Well, if this doesn’t smack of déjà vu.”

Colton’s glance slid to the right. That reporter, the one who’d shown up here his first morning of work at the depot. Amelia, right? He grunted as he hefted the oak door sitting behind the depot, waiting for installation. “Except you’re not flashing a camera at me this time.”

The woman patted the bag slung over her shoulder. “Not yet anyway.”

Amelia close on his heels, he started walking toward the depot’s entrance, the muscles in his arms tightening as he lugged the door into the building, familiar pang in his shoulder throwing a fit. Seven hours until tonight’s fireworks kicked off the weekend’s Depot Day events—and until this building where he’d spent as many hours lately as he used to on a football field was reintroduced to its community.

He angled around a freshly sanded wood pillar, the smell of sawdust still lingering in the air, and stopped halfway across the room, waiting as Seth and Bear carried in the repaired grandfather clock that would gulp up one corner of the room. Amazingly, they’d found the clock damaged but not beyond repair
about two miles from the depot after the tornado. Somewhere around the place Kate and Raegan, probably Ava, too, were washing windows and glass display cases.

Amelia’s footsteps picked up once more as Colton’s did. “So I know this is a busy day for you,” she said. “I’m doing a story about Depot Days, all the work that’s gone into getting the depot and museum ready.” She double-stepped to keep up with him. “I called Case, but he left to go home a while ago. He told me you could give me just as much info as he could—that you’ve done most of the work.”