The Year of Chasing Dreams (2 page)

Alice Faye shook her head, perked up, and said, “Stay for supper.”

His gaze found Ciana’s. “I couldn’t—”

“Tie your horse up in the barn before the rain starts.” She glanced at Ciana, and the older woman’s expression was challenging. “You’re invited. I’ll go set another place.” The door slammed behind her.

“Mother’s flexing her muscle,” Ciana said, with a note of bitterness. Jon’s look was questioning, but she wouldn’t elaborate. Why had he intruded into her life now, when she’d almost put him behind her? She had missed him, but she had no idea what lay ahead for her … the fate of Bellmeade, perhaps the fight of her life to keep it from financial ruin, a possible
permanent riff between herself and her mother about selling the land. And what of the things he’d said he wanted, a spread of his own to breed and train horses? How would they fit into the picture?

“What do we do now?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I was hoping we could figure it out together.”

On the lawn, Caramel grew restless, sensing the approaching bad weather. “You’d better tend to your horse,” Ciana said.

Jon searched her face, nodded brusquely. “This isn’t over between us, Ciana.”

She wasn’t sure if he meant the discussion or the relationship. She folded her arms, the past returning in a flood of painful memories. “Today was Arie’s … would have been … Arie’s birthday.”

Jon’s eyes saddened. “I didn’t forget. Is there a statute of limitations on your forgiveness?”

Ciana winced. His question hit her psyche hard and she was ashamed. Her simple words were packed with emotional dynamite, and it was unkind of her to have reminded him of what had almost torn them apart. “Eat with us,” she said, offering an olive branch.

He nodded again, turned, and walked to Caramel, then picked up her reins, and led her toward the barn.

“Sorry,” Ciana whispered, knowing he couldn’t hear her but knowing she needed to say it. She fidgeted, waiting for him to return to the house, watched the rolling clouds, heard the low rumble of distant thunder. The smell of dampness lay heavy in the air, and dead leaves danced in eddies of swirling wind. The day, once bright and calm, had turned darker, cooler. The winds of change were blowing. An omen? Ciana shivered.

A storm was coming.…

“Ciana? This is Pat Winslow. How have you been?”

Ciana’s throat tightened with Arie’s mother’s voice on her cell phone. Swallowing down emotion, she said, “All right, Pat. How about you?”

“Oh … you know, some days are better than others.”

Since Arie’s funeral, Ciana had talked to Patricia twice and run into her once in town. Patricia had looked wan and too thin. “How’s Mr. Winslow?” she asked. Swede, Arie’s father, was in the cabinetry business in town. “How’s he doing?”

“Busy. He’s buried in work, but it’s seeing him through his worst days.”

“That’s good,” Ciana said, knowing that hard work had helped her through her first few grief-filled months after Arie’s death. “What can I do for you?”

“Could you and Eden come by the house this week?”

Ciana’s heart squeezed. She hadn’t been to Arie’s home since the night Arie had said her final goodbye to her and
Eden. The memory was almost too much to bear. “I—we’ll come,” she said. “Any special time?”

“How about Saturday around one?”

“We’ll be there,” Ciana promised, confident Eden would drop everything to accompany her. Death could not bury the lifelong friendship among the former threesome. What mattered now was homage to the living.

Pat opened the front door before Ciana took her finger off the doorbell. She smiled, pulling Ciana and Eden into the foyer. “Oh my, you two look beautiful! Eden, country life really agrees with you!” Ciana almost unraveled seeing Pat’s eyes tear up. “You were way too skinny. I’m glad to see some meat on your bones.”

“All this fresh air and country cooking.” Eden thrust out the large basket she held. “From our garden. Plus Alice Faye’s fresh-baked bread.”

Pat raised the dish towel covering the top and peeked at the contents. “Looks luscious.”

“Well, this time of year only the squash is fresh picked, and I canned the beans and tomatoes in the summer,” she said proudly. Her eyes darted to Ciana. “With Alice Faye’s help, of course. She a pro. I’m a wannabe cook.”

It wasn’t a secret that Eden had become the helping hands Ciana had never been to her mother. The outdoors suited her, the hard work and farm chores. Ciana didn’t begrudge Eden one minute of time she spent with Alice Faye after the neglect Eden had faced from Gwen, her bipolar mother. The added benefit was that it kept Ciana and her mom from fighting about Bellmeade’s future.

Pat linked her arms with Ciana’s and Eden’s. “Come into the living room. Sit. Let me take good long looks at you.”

The formal room where Arie had spent her last days had been cleared of the hospital bed and sickroom equipment and returned to its visitors-only status, but Ciana felt Arie’s ghostly presence everywhere. She eased onto the sofa beside Eden, and Patricia took the chair across from the coffee table where Arie had sat the night she’d told her friends she was quitting chemo treatments.

Pat asked, “Want some sweet tea?” Both girls declined. “Relax,” Pat said with a smile. “I asked you here to tell you good news.” Her eyes glowed. “Eric and Abbie are having a baby.”

“Awesome!” Eden blurted out.

Ciana whooped. “That’s wonderful! When?”

“Next spring. In early May, her doctor says, but babies come when they feel like it. Eric came two weeks early, and Arie was so late, I thought I’d be pregnant until Christmas.” Her expression softened as she talked about Arie, then clouded. “Oh, I’m babbling. Forgive me.”

“No, no. It’s fine. Really,” Eden said.

Pat stood abruptly. “Follow me. I’ll show you what I’m doing with her old bedroom.” She led them down the hall of the ranch-style house, paused at the closed door that had once been Arie’s room. When she’d turned twelve, when she’d been told her cancer had returned and that she’d have to go back onto chemo, she’d wanted her whole room painted bright pink to help her feel happy during the expected difficult weeks ahead of her.

“We’re changing it into a nursery for the baby.” Pat opened the freshly painted white door and led Ciana and Eden into the room. “I could hardly come in here for a long time after 
… well, afterward. But when Eric and Abbie told us about the baby, I knew it was time to make changes. I think Arie would have loved it.”

The now empty room under renovation smelled of paint and new lumber. Three walls were the color of rich vanilla ice cream, the fourth wall a sizzling lime green, and Arie’s pink carpet was replaced by smooth, dark, wood plank flooring. “We donated all her furniture to charity,” Pat said, as if apologizing. “I realized after a time that the room was turning into a shrine and it wasn’t right. It wasn’t what Arie would have wanted. I’ve already picked out a crib and a Nana rocking chair.” Pat embraced her new status with a smile. “And Swede’s built cabinetry to grow with the baby.” A bank of white cabinets, bookshelves, and a desk surface lined one wall. “He’s building a toy box at his shop.”

“The room looks great,” Ciana said, relieved that it was true.

“We worked on a lot of class projects in here,” Eden said, glancing around fondly. “Any idea if it’ll be a boy or girl?”

“Not yet. But the kids will find out on a sonogram visit. Do you want me to tell you when we know?”

“Yes,” Ciana and Eden said in unison.

They followed Pat out of the room. “Which brings me to another reason for asking the two of you over.” She paused at a small hall table. “Cleaning out Arie’s dresser and desk and all her drawers was hard. But I did it.”

“We would have helped,” Eden offered.

Pat shook her head. “It was a project only I could do. I created a memory box. I figure someday her little niece or nephew might want to know more about Aunt Arie.” Pat’s gaze drifted to an imagined future, then snapped back to the present. “Anyway, in her bedside table she left letters
addressed to each of you. Still sealed,” she said, handing each a long white envelope.

Immediately, tears stung Ciana’s eyes.

“I’m sorry I didn’t do the clean-out project sooner. If I had, you’d have gotten these sooner. Not sure when she wrote the letters, but it’s on me that they’re arriving so late.”

Eden pressed the letter to her breast. “I’m just happy to have mine, and believe me, I’ll treasure it.”

Ciana nodded, not trusting her voice. She’d read it when she was alone and able to wallow in a good cry.

Eden sat on the bed in Olivia’s former bedroom, a room she’d begun to think of as her own, even though it wasn’t, even though it never would be. In truth she had no home. She held Arie’s letter in her lap, already twice read, and considered what her deceased friend had written.

Of course, Arie had called it correctly. She wanted to see Garret, wanted to know what they might have together. She herself had searched for him, but admittedly, less and less, half-heartedly, and for just one reason: Fear of finding him and having her hopes crushed. She’d been so wrong about loving Tony. She didn’t want to be wrong again. Garret had been amazing, but now so much time had passed since she’d
left Italy and Garret without a word of goodbye. Where was he now? Did he even remember her, ever think of her?