Meet Me at the Chapel (6 page)

Standing upright, hands on her hips, her cheeks feeling flushed from the exertion and fresh air, Casey stopped to admire the century-old chapel. It had a fresh coat of bright white paint and the curved, wooden door, hand-carved by her ancestor, had been restored.

“Beautiful,” Casey said aloud.

After she had caught her breath, she kept on walking. Just over the crest of the hill, Casey spotted the tree that had been planted in memory of Penelope's twin brother, Michael, who had died at birth. She stopped by the oak tree to read the bronze plaque placed in front of the sapling.

Bowing her head, Casey said a silent prayer to her nephew. Tears of sorrow for her sister's loss, and for the loss of the entire family, started to flow without warning. She had thought that she had already cried all of her tears for Michael.

Casey wiped her tears away. Taylor, who had really been more of a mother than an older sister to her, had always taught her to keep moving forward. So, that's what she did. She said a final prayer for her nephew's soul and then walked the short distance to the chapel.

Of course, she wanted to see the inside. But she was saving it for last. She walked all around the perimeter of the chapel, touching the stained-glass windows original to the structure. The chapel, no bigger than a modern one-car garage, was so romantic, set high up on a hill overlooking Bent Tree Ranch, with regal mountains off in the distance. It was the perfect spot for a small, intimate wedding.

“I didn't know anybody else was up here.”

For the second time in a relatively short window of time, she had been startled. She had a terrible startle reflex, so even the slightest surprise set her heart racing, made her jump and, when she realized that there wasn't any danger, it made her ticked off.

“Don't sneak up on me like that, Brock! Geez!”

The front of Brock's shirt was sweaty from working, and there was a ring of dirt in the creases of his neck. He was carrying a small cooler in his hand that she had seen him pack with snacks and food for lunch.

“I wasn't really sneaking...” he said. “But I am sorry I caught you off guard.”

Her heart was
still
racing. It was a terrible feeling to have her body overreact over the slightest thing. Having anxiety stunk.

“It's not you—it's me.” Casey sighed with irritation. “Lunchtime?”

“I come up here sometimes. I like the quiet.”

They both starting walking toward the front of the chapel—Brock had to deliberately shorten his stride to keep pace with her. It seemed to her that if he were walking normally, she would have to take nearly two steps to match his one.

“Have you seen the inside yet?” Brock asked her.

“I was just about to.”

At the base of the steps leading to the front door, they paused together. Brock pointed to Michael's tree.

“I like to sit right over there.” He pointed to Michael's sapling. “I wouldn't mind the company.”

She went up the two small steps to the thick, curved door and Brock headed over to his favorite lunchtime getaway spot. Casey was glad that he didn't join her in the chapel—for a reason she couldn't exactly pinpoint, she had wanted to be alone when she saw it as an adult for the first time.

Walking into the chapel again was like taking a step back in time. She was eight or nine, and this was an enchanted cottage in the woods. Her imagination had taken her so many places when she had played in the chapel as a child—she had been a princess in a hobbit house or a forest fairy with magical gnomes and wild animals as friends. She'd never played “wedding”—it was never that for her.

The renovation had transformed the space from a dilapidated building decades past its glory days to a beautifully preserved representation of turn-of-the-century construction. She had watched the renovation unfold via social media, and she knew that her aunt and uncle had taken every measure to save as much of the original structure as possible. This wasn't the chapel of her memories. This was the chapel returned to its former glory.

“Holy cannoli...” Casey walked along the middle aisle, her eyes flitting from one spot to the next. She wanted to take it in all at once—she wanted to take it in one small piece at a time.

The prayer altar had been preserved and it was there that she found her name carved, by her own hand, into the age-darkened wood. She ran her finger along the groove of each letter and wished she could remember the details of the day when this was carved. She knew that she had been the one to carve it, and it had been carved with her cousin Tyler's pocketknife, but she couldn't recall much more than that. This beautiful, special place was part of her and she was part of it. No matter where she was living in the world, there would always be a piece of Casey Brand carved into the history of Bent Tree Ranch.

Chapter Six

O
nce she had taken in her fill of the interior of the little building, Casey walked back out into the sunlight. This wouldn't be the last time she visited this place. There was something very special about it—it was intangible, yet palpable.

Brock was propped up on one arm, lying in the grass with his long legs stretched out and his ankles crossed. He had earbuds in his ears and his hat off. When he spotted her, he stood up and waved her over.

“It's unreal in there,” Casey said to the ranch foreman. “I could imagine what it must have been like to attend service there a hundred years ago.”

“I saved you a spot.” Brock gestured to a shady spot next to him.

She hadn't really thought of sticking around. In fact, she wanted to get back to the barn and start working with Gigi.

“I've got water and plenty of food to share.” Brock opened the top of his cooler. “Are you hungry?”

Actually, she was a bit hungry. Her aunt didn't know she was a vegetarian, so she had only had salad and corn bread. The hike up the hill in the fresh air and sun had made her stomach start growling.

He must have anticipated that she was being persuaded to stay, because Brock seemed to her like he was trying to close a deal.

“I have egg salad made from eggs produced by free-range chickens.”

Casey laughed. “Okay—you know you had me at free-range...”

She sat down in the shady spot, cross-legged. Brock tilted his hat back on his head and sat down next to her. He handed her a bottle of water after he had wiped the condensation off.

“Thank you.”

He dug around in the cooler and pulled out a piece of fruit. “Peach?”

She loved peaches. “Thank you again.”

Brock also offered her one of his two sandwiches, but she was happy with her peach. She bit into it and juices from the peach dripped down her chin.

“Mmm. This peach is incredible!”

He glanced at her while he was taking a large bite of his sandwich. “Here...” He reached into his cooler and pulled out a couple of paper towels.

She smiled at him and wiped off her chin. Casey didn't try to make conversation until she had eaten the peach all the way down to the center seed.

“That was a delicious peach.”

“Good.”

That was all that was said between them for a while—they enjoyed the breeze and the sunshine and the quiet together.

“What were you listening to?”

Brock cleaned off his hands, tossed his trash into the cooler, then held out one of his earbuds for her to put up to her ear. She listened, her brain sorting through her memories to put a name with the sound.

After a second or two, she looked up at him, surprised. “Beethoven?”

“Bach.”

In the short time she had spent with him, this man had already surprised her a couple of times. He was burly and masculine and the antithesis of a metrosexual, and yet, he seemed to have...
depth
.

“I'll show you the best way to enjoy it,” he told her. “Lie on your back.”

If it had been anyone
but
Brock, she would have thought this was a ploy to get her in a compromising position—but Brock was straightforward. If he wanted her in a compromising position, most likely he'd come right out and say it.

She lay flat on her back in the grass, both earbuds in her ears.

“Now, close your eyes and let the music take you on a ride,” Brock said with an enthusiastic smile. She could tell that he felt as if he was sharing a very exciting secret with her.

“I'm not a big fan of classical music,” she warned him.

“Don't focus on that,” he instructed. “Just close your eyes, try to turn off your thoughts and listen.”

Casey's eyebrows rose as she gave a little shrug and then closed her eyes. Eyes closed, cool breeze brushing over her arms and face, and the music in her ears—it was...

She opened her eyes and saw Brock watching her expectantly.

“Well?”

She pulled the earbuds out of her ears and handed them back to him. “I liked it.”

Brock pulled the cord out of his phone. “There's no reason why we can't both enjoy it.”

It wasn't her nature to take afternoon naps and she usually ate lunch on the go at work. But she needed to force herself to slow down. She was on her first true vacation in years, after all. So, side by side in the grass, not close enough to touch, but close enough to enjoy the lilting strains of music, Brock and Casey spent the rest of the foreman's lunch break quietly together.

* * *

By the end of her first month in Montana, Casey had settled into life on Brock's ranch as if she had been born to it. She had put her own homey touches on the loft and now it felt like her own cozy cocoon. Of course, during the heat of the day, some of the less pleasant smells from the barn did waft upward and it could be rather pungent. But it wasn't anything that an open window couldn't fix. Casey had struck a deal with Brock to rotate the cooking and pay a fourth of the food cost, in light of the fact that Brock ate enough to be counted as two people. The loft didn't have Wi-Fi, so whenever she needed to use the internet, she took her computer to the main house. Brock always left the front door open for her, which allowed her to come and go as she pleased. The idea of an unlocked door, coming from Chicago, took some getting used to.

Hannah had slowly adjusted to her new routine—during the week she attended summer school and on the weekends she worked with Casey. Casey was able to spend a lot of time with her sister and her niece. She had been working with Gigi regularly, she visited Bent Tree at least once a week and she was still plugged into what she loved to do: work with students with disabilities. At night, after dinner, and after Hannah had gone to bed, Brock and Casey would sit outside on the front porch together. Some nights they talked; some nights they didn't say hardly anything beyond “good night.” And on the days she went to Bent Tree, she found herself walking up to the chapel to sit with Brock and listen to the genius of Bach and Beethoven and Tchaikovsky beneath Michael's oak tree. Casey couldn't remember a time in her life when she had been more content or relaxed. As it turned out, Montana was her idea of paradise.

“You coming out to Bent Tree tomorrow?” Brock asked her.

The dishes were done and they were relaxing, as was their way, on the porch.

Casey made a small circle with her finger on the top of Hercules's head. “Uh-huh.”

“Do you want to meet me at the chapel?” he asked her after a pause.

She looked over at Brock's profile. It was a strong, masculine profile—hawkish, prominent nose, squared-off jaw. He wasn't a classically handsome man, but he was a man's man with some pretty appealing twists—like his dedication to being a father and his love of animals, his protective nature and his work ethic. The fact that he preferred to listen to classical music instead of country made him interesting to Casey. There was a lot to like about Brock; there was a lot there to respect.

“Sure.” She nodded with a smile. “I'll pack lunch for us.”

“Even better.” He gave her a small smile with a quick wink.

She was just about to ask what kind of sandwich he would fancy—he liked ham and Swiss cheese on wheat bread with extra mustard—but the ringing of his cell phone stopped her from asking him the question.

Brock tugged his cell phone out of his front pocket, looked at the name on the screen and his expression changed.

He stood up. “Excuse me.”

She gave him a nod to let him know that she had heard him. The screen door slammed behind him as he went inside the house. The nights were cool enough to leave the windows and the front door open for a cross breeze, so even though Casey didn't really want to eavesdrop on Brock's end of the conversation, it was impossible not to do it.

“No. Absolutely not. We already covered this in mediation.”

Brock's voice started out fairly calm, but got increasingly agitated and forceful as he verbally volleyed with his soon-to-be ex-wife.

“We already
covered this in mediation
!” he repeated loudly.

At night, on the porch, and when they were in a talkative mood, they covered a wide variety of subjects. But there were two subjects they never broached: Shannon and Clint. They were two very emotionally charged subjects that both felt very comfortable avoiding.

“Shannon,” Brock said and waited.
“Shannon,”
he repeated. “Damnit, I'm sick to death of talkin' about this with you,” he snapped at his estranged wife. “Listen...listen...
no
...you listen! We'll either work this out in mediation...we'll either work this out in mediation
or
we go to court. Your choice. But I'm not selling the house. This is Hannah's home and I won't let you take it away from her. You've already got her so twisted up in knots with all of this
BS
you pulled, the doctor's had to adjust her meds
twice
.”

Brock stopped talking, so Casey assumed that he had ended the conversation without saying goodbye. A minute or two later, the screen door swung open wide and Brock strode out onto the porch. He walked straight ahead to the railing post and rested his hand against it, his head lowered. He shook his head a couple of times before he banged the post with his closed fist.

“You ever been married?” he asked her without turning his head.

“No,” Casey answered him quietly. She hadn't meant to know this much of his business; they were becoming friends of a sort, but they weren't confidants.

“I'm surprised.” Brock took the rocking chair next to her. “You seem like the settling kind.”

She didn't respond. She had always wanted to get married—hoped that she would while she could still have several children. Women were still having children into their forties, with some assistance from modern medicine, so she still had time. But she had considered freezing her eggs, just in case Mr. Perfect didn't show up in the next couple of years.

“I'm the settling kind, too.” Brock seemed like he needed to talk.

Casey didn't mind listening.

“I always wanted to be married—have a wife, kids, the white picket fence. My mom took off when I was young. Hell, I wouldn't recognize her if I saw her in a picture. Matilda. Pop used to say her name like he was talking about a saint—she broke his heart. Left him to take care of me. Then Clint's mom broke his heart a second time—he adopted her kid and then she takes off, too. But, this time, good ol' doormat Dave—he didn't recover. He smoked himself right into an early grave. And I got stuck raising Clint who never failed to do the wrong thing.”

At least now she knew why Brock hated her sister's husband so much—he blamed Clint and his mother for his father's death.

“I wanted that family I never had growing up. I wanted it
so bad
that I think I pushed it on Shannon.” He nodded his head at himself. “I did. I pushed it on her. She never really wanted this life. Truth be told, between you, me and that fence post...” His voice lowered so that his next words would only reach her ears. “She never wanted to have kids.”

Casey had been staring straight ahead at the darkening horizon. When Brock confessed to her that Hannah's mom might not have wanted her, she couldn't stop herself from sucking in her breath and turning her head to look at the man beside her. She understood why many women didn't want to have children. That was what they wanted out of life and that was okay. But to know this about Shannon and Hannah, it made her feel sad for all of them.

“I'm sorry.” It was trite and stupid—yet it was all she could muster.

Brock stopped rocking and leaned forward so his elbows were resting on his thighs and his head was in his hands.

“All of this—all of this fighting about custody and about selling the house—that's not really what all of this is about.” He sat back up. “Months of mediation, and the plain truth is that she's not going to stop until she gets what she wants.”

“What does she want?”

“Taj.” Brock gave a small shake of his head. “She wants Taj.”

* * *

“Hey! Can I interest you in a ham and Swiss on rye?”

Casey appeared at the top of the hill, her face flushed from the wind and the climb up the hill to the chapel. She was smiling that smile that he had grown very fond of over the last several weeks. That smile transformed her girlish, impish, unremarkable face into something quite lovely. It had not escaped his notice that he had been staring at the top of that hill for fifteen minutes waiting for his tenant. It also had not escaped his notice that he felt a sense of excitement and anticipation on the days he knew Casey was going to meet him at the chapel for lunch. He would think about her arrival all morning—and much to the amazement of his men, he would let everyone finish a couple of minutes early for lunch.

He was genuinely happy to see her. That's what he was feeling—happiness. Perhaps it felt odd because it had been a long time since he had actually
felt happy
.

“Do you want to spread this out for us?” Casey held out the blanket she had brought with her.

Brock shook out the blanket and then laid it down in the spot that had become their favorite place to eat lunch together.

“What's on the menu for you?” Brock held out his hand to help her sit down.

Casey was a petite woman; her hand felt dainty and fragile in his oversize hand. But he knew Casey wasn't fragile—she was a tough cookie. And she was a lot tougher than she looked by a long shot.

“Avocado and Swiss on rye.” She sat cross-legged on the blanket.

Casey reached into her basket, a basket she'd borrowed from her aunt, and pulled out two fat sandwiches for Brock and a bottle of water.

“Didn't Hercules make the trip?” He unwrapped a sandwich and took a giant bite. “Mmm. So good. Thank you.”