From the Start (9 page)

Static accompanied Logan’s laughter. “That’s New Year’s.”

“What?” He felt the telltale buzz of an oncoming headache.

“Dick Clark hosted the Times Square New Year’s ball drop, not the Macy’s parade. He died, though. It’s some reality TV guy now. Keep up, bro. Over.”

“Stop saying
over
.” Was it possible to physically melt in here?

“Ten-four. You survived how many tackles and you can’t survive this?”

The mixed smell of burnt oil and antifreeze wafted through
the cab. He wiped beads of sweat from his forehead. “Not funny, Walker.” He tried to stretch his legs, knuckles tightening over the steering wheel.

“Do the people at ESPN and
Sports Illustrated
know you whine so much? Some ex-Tiger you are.”

Despite the suffocating heat, something cold and sharp iced through him. He dropped the walkie-talkie, heard it plunk to the floor. Tried to breathe through the fumes roiling up from the truck’s engine. What had been a minor pulse in his temple now throbbed around to the back of his head.

“Colt?” Logan’s voice crackled through the walkie-talkie once more.

He nudged the thing under his seat with his foot. From what he could see out the pretty-much nonexistent windshield, they’d almost reached the end of Main, which meant this fiasco was nearly over. Then he could squeeze out the escape hatch of a door, and if he was lucky, slip through the parade crowd undetected. Maybe find Kate somewhere in the mess of people. Test out his idea on her.

The first hint of trouble outside the float rumbled in then—someone shouting, a jerk of the truck bed. His left foot found the brake as the walkie-talkie crackled once more from the floor. “Greene, get out.”

“What?” But of course Logan couldn’t hear him.

“Get out of the truck. There’s smoke . . .”

Didn’t need to hear more than that. He yanked the vehicle into Park and reached for the door handle, squinting against glaring sunlight as he unfolded from the cab. A clamor of shouts surrounded him, parade organizers hurrying to the float’s side, as a cloud of gray rolled from the truck’s hood.

And for one stretching and unwelcome moment, in a sudden and swift backward drifting, the past twenty years slipped
away. He was nine. And everything was black and silent, as if he’d been sucked into an eerie bubble, only the smell of smoke existing alongside him in the darkness.

But then, just as quickly, the whirring blast of a fire extinguisher jerked him away from what, in its blurry, mysterious state, couldn’t even count as a memory. Someone was spraying the front of the truck as float riders jumped to the ground.

Colton blinked. Breathed. Begged the shadow back into its hiding place.

In the background, the marching band continued its blaring rendition of “This Land is Your Land.”

“Colton!”

It wasn’t Logan running toward him, but Raegan. Her purple Converse shoes slapped against the pavement as she hurried to him.

“I’m all right.” Outwardly. Inside, the jolt of the murky flashback that couldn’t have lasted more than a couple seconds still burned him. How long had it been since one of those hit?

“When a flashback comes on, write
it down, Colton. Every detail. Everything you can remember.”
Dr. Traborne. Why could he so clearly recall that voice while the images the psychiatrist had tried to lure into focus in therapy session after session remained hazy and remote?

“I
can’t remember any of it. Don’t you understand, I can’t . . .”

“You’re completely white.” Raegan stopped in front of him now, concern in her eyes. Wasn’t she supposed to be on the rec center float a few vehicles back? “I don’t know what happened. You were rolling along and all of a sudden someone saw smoke or steam or something come from the front of the float. Must’ve overheated. At least you’re near the end of the parade.”

A posse of men, including Logan, now worked together to
roll the float to the side of the road. And the parade carried on, slithering toward the bridge he and Kate had crossed two nights ago on the way to the depot. This town was weird.

But at least he was free of the deathtrap.

He rubbed a hand over the chin he hadn’t bothered shaving today. “Well, guess I get out of driving the rest of the route.”

“Guess so.” Raegan tucked her hands in the back pockets of her shorts.

He tipped his sunglasses over his eyes as the marching band shifted into a drum-line routine. Kate jogged over then, hair flopping behind her in what he’d come to realize was her usual ponytail. Although she’d left her hair down for church yesterday, in unruly waves that reached past her shoulders.

“I know you were complaining about the parade, Greene,” she said as she reached them. She propped her hands on the waist of her faded jeans. “But you didn’t have to start an engine fire to get out of it.”

“Hey, if I was going to purposely start a fire . . . A, I wouldn’t have waited until the end of the parade, and B, I would’ve done a better job than that little display of smoke.”

Raegan laughed. “I’m not sure how comfortable I am with the fact that a man sleeping under our roof is bragging about his fire-starting skills.” She blew a bubble with her gum. “My float’s getting away without me. See ya.”

She ran back to the parade, leaving Colton and Kate alone. He now glanced around the stretch of street and grass that made up Maple Valley’s center. Its downtown wrapped around the green town square in a quaint arrangement of buildings—some brick and some paneled. Old-fashioned brass signs and colorful awnings reached toward the lampposts lining the sidewalks.

“Damage doesn’t look quite as bad when there are so many people crowding the square, does it?” Kate said.

He turned to her. “I’m surprised so many people came out after a week like last week.”

“Oh, Maple Valley loves its parades. Part of what gives us our eccentric charm. That and the fact that we probably have more antique stores per capita than any town this side of anywhere.”

“Guess I know where to come next time I want an uncomfortable chair.”

“And make sure not to miss the display of historical doorknobs at Moser’s. It’s the highlight.”

He laughed, then paused under the shade of an old oak tree stripped of half its leaves but a survivor of the storm nonetheless. “Listen, Kate, I’ve got a question for you. More like a favor to ask. It’s kind of . . . big.”

“If it’s to switch back bedrooms, I’ve only offered about a thousand times already.”

Barely an exaggeration. But no way was he stealing the woman’s space. “Bigger than that. You’ve written a book before, yeah?”

All the ease left her expression, replaced by a wariness she tried to hide behind a nonchalant shrug. “One.”

“How’d you like to write another?” Wait! Should he have run this by Ian first?

“I don’t understand.” She wrinkled her nose, a dusting of freckles he hadn’t noticed before now obvious in the sunlight.

Ian told me to find a writer. She’s a writer.
And something told him working with Katharine Rose Walker would be about a hundred times more enjoyable than any of the professional ghostwriters Ian had dug up.

He lifted his sunglasses to his forehead and met Kate’s eyes. “Not just any book, Rosie.
My
book.”

“Trust Maple Valley to turn a cleanup effort into a party.”

The statement of amusement came from the lithe girl with the blond hair Seth had introduced as Ava Kingsley—the woman who, according to Raegan, had swept their cousin clean off his feet.

Kate clapped the dirt from the work gloves covering her hands. “I thought you were a newbie, but clearly you’re already well acquainted with the quirkier facets of Maple Valley.” She reached for a gangly branch, hefted it up, and tossed it into the growing pile in the middle of the town square.

The city had cancelled all its Labor Day events except for the parade. But then someone had come up with the idea of doing a massive bonfire tonight—a fun way of cleaning up the storm-flung branches and debris.

A celebratory spirit hovered in the air as community members worked together to clean up the park. Someone had set up an apple-cider table over in the corner, and a big-band tune piped through the speakers around the band shell.

Ava threw a handful of sticks into the woodpile. “I may have only been in town a month, but I’ve been trading emails with Seth for a year. I’ve heard plenty of stories about this town.”

Oh yes, Raegan had recapped Seth and Ava’s long-distance friendship turned budding romance for Kate on her first day back in town. It was the kind of story that would’ve made for a good film script.

And that was all it took—one fleeting thought about writing—to tow Colton’s crazy idea back to the forefront of her mind. Truthfully, it’d been there all day—daring her to come up with one good reason why she should say no.

One good reason? I can come up with a dozen.

For starters, how about the words that chased her around anytime she remembered back to her first book:
Colossal flop.
The harshest of the few reviews her book managed to garner had pulled out all the stops. Then there was the fact that she’d never even read a sports memoir, let alone considered writing one.

But she owed Colton an answer—had promised him one by the end of the day. He’d apologized for needing such a quick response, but apparently he had an antsy manager and a looming deadline breathing down his neck.

Kate pulled the sweatshirt from around her waist and tugged it over her arms. Only the third day in September, and already autumn was hinting at an early appearance. The day’s warmth had trickled into cooler temps as night approached.

An engine rumbled into the buzz filling the square.

Ava dragged off her work gloves. “Oh good, the fire department’s here. I don’t know whether to be comforted or concerned by that.” She flashed a grin. “And there’s Seth.”

Kate’s cousin walked across the lawn. He high-fived a guy who’d been working and laughing with Raegan for the past hour, then spotted Ava, his smile the stuff of Disney cartoons.

“I gotta say, the two of you would be awfully convincing leads in a Heartline movie.”

Ava hugged her arms to herself. “Ha, except I’m no actress.”

True, considering Ava probably couldn’t have hidden her giddy expression if she tried. Seth reached them, pulled Ava to his side, and planted a kiss on her temple. “My girlfriend has finally met three of my four cousins. Now we just need to get Beckett home.”

Ava dressed simply—jeans and tee, baseball cap and work boots. But it was the blush in her cheeks and the way she leaned into Seth that caught Kate’s attention. “Well, it took a tornado to get Logan and Kate home. You just need another natural disaster.”

“If the river floods like everyone’s worried it will, we just might get it.”

Behind Seth one of the Parks and Rec guys arranged the last of the firewood and pulled out a lighter.

“Is it really that bad?” Kate asked. “The river, I mean?” It was high, sure, but flooding was usually a bigger concern earlier in the summer.

“If the dam in Dixon bursts, yeah, it’s really that bad.” Seth kissed Ava again, the lightness in his voice not at all a fit for his words.

“Hopefully that’s an unlikely
if
.” Ava grabbed Seth’s hand. “C’mon, let’s get some cider. Come along, Kate?”

“That’s okay. Already had two cups.” And she was feeling a bit like a third wheel. She watched the pair walk away hand in hand.

“Cute couple, right?”

Raegan.

“Everything finally came together for Seth. Gives me hope.” The bonfire flared to life—first small flickers of orange that lapped in the wind and scooted along the kindling, then full-on flames. She turned to her sister. “And speaking of cute couples, who’s the guy?”

Raegan followed Kate’s pointing to the man her sister had worked alongside ever since they arrived at the square. “You don’t know Bear McKinley?”

“Bear? As in lions and tigers and . . .”

“Yes, Bear. Guess it makes sense you don’t know him. He moved here five or six years ago. Good friends with Seth.”

“And you. Clearly.” She attempted a knowing wiggle of her eyebrows.

“Stop that or I’m going to start calling you Twitchy.”

“I’m just saying, you guys were laughing and talking and hobnobbing all coupley-like.”

Raegan fisted her waist. “You’re home for, what, seventy-two hours, and already you’ve joined the busybody express?”

Kate threaded her arm through Raegan’s and turned her toward the fire. “All right, I’m sorry.”

“Just because Bear is ridiculously handsome. And sings and plays guitar. And is beyond smart—you should hear him talk history and politics and . . .” Raegan took a breath. “None of that means I have a crush on him.”

Kate smiled. “Of course not.”

“Shut up.”

“Hey, I agreed with you.”

They watched the fire for quiet minutes, the activity around the town square seeming to slow as the growing fire spread its light and warmth. Both familiar and unfamiliar faces dotted the circle of people around the bonfire.

Home.