Woodrose Mountain

“Dinner is still a few hours away. Please. Sit.”

Mrs. Olafson looked reluctant but she finally perched on the edge of the teak bench beside the front door.

“How long have you worked for the Thornes?” Evie asked. She had seen the older woman around town but their circles hadn’t really connected before and she had yet to take the chance to get to know her. They would be working in close proximity the next few weeks. No harm in trying to be friendly and learn more about Mrs. Olafson, other than that she rarely smiled and always pulled her hair into a rather severe steel-gray bun at the base of her neck that made Evie think of her elementary school lunch ladies or perhaps the stereotypical warden at a women’s prison.

“Almost five years. My husband was a chef and Mr. Thorne hired him to work one of his restaurants up at the ski resorts.”

“Oh, is that where you learned to cook so well?”

“I taught him everything he knew,” the other woman said, the first hint of a smile Evie had seen just barely lifting the corners of her mouth. It faded quickly. “We moved from our home in Minneapolis just six weeks before he was diagnosed with liver cancer.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry.”

The other woman shrugged. “I thought for sure Mr. Thorne would fire him but he didn’t. He continued to give him a paycheck even when he couldn’t work anymore. After David died, Mr. Thorne asked if I would like to come to work for him, helping him with the house and with Taryn. I’ve been here ever since.” She fidgeted with her apron, her pale blue eyes darting to the driveway again. “He’s a very good man, Mr. Thorne. Though I’ve always been a good cook, I had no real job experience at all. I married young and all I’d ever done was be a mother to my boys, who are both in college now. Mr. Thorne didn’t care about that. He hired me anyway.”

She should never have asked. Evie fidgeted. She didn’t want to hear these glowing words of praise for Brodie. It made him seem kind and generous, not the stiff, unpleasant man she’d always thought him to be.

“It seems to me a lifetime of taking care of your family made you eminently qualified to handle things here. If those delicious smells coming from the kitchen are any indication, I’m sure you do your job exceptionally well.”

The woman seemed to warm a little, some of the reserve in her expression thawing. “I try. I don’t have any experience with therapy either but if you need my help with Taryn in any way, I can always offer an extra set of hands.”

“Thank you. I might take you up on that.”

She knew Brodie had hired personal nurses to be help with Taryn’s medical needs, but the plan for now was for Evie to work with the girl on an intensive physical therapy program six hours a day, between the hours of ten and four, until Brodie could find someone to replace her. In addition, an occupational therapist who had worked with Taryn at the rehab facility would come to the house three times a week for two hours at a time. Evie would reinforce the skills she was working on during her own time with Taryn on the other days.

Only a few weeks. She could handle this, she reminded herself.

She had dreamed of her adopted daughter the night before, of Cassie’s sweet smile and loving heart and endless eagerness to please.

They had been lying in the hammock under the trees behind her bungalow in Topanga Canyon, telling stories and humming silly little tunes and listening to the creek murmuring by and the wind in the trees. Cassie had been laughing and joyful, just as Evie remembered her—and then she had awakened to the grim awareness that her daughter was gone.

It had been nearly two years since she died and the grief still seemed so much a part of Evie, despite the peace she had found in Hope’s Crossing. The raw pain of it had eased over the last year during her time here and she had begun to think that perhaps she was finally growing a protective scab over her heart.

The trick was going to be preventing Taryn Thorne and her entirely too appealing father from ripping it away.

Switzerland. Stoic and aloof, with no trace of emotional involvement. She could do it, even when her friendship with Katherine complicated the situation.

She was still trying to convince herself of that when a silver minivan pulled into the circular driveway.

“Oh. She’s here,” Mrs. Olafson breathed. Evie smiled and squeezed the woman’s hand, then rose to greet them.

Brodie seemed to hesitate a moment in the driver’s seat before hitting the button for the power ramp and Evie was aware of another unwanted pang of sympathy. She remembered well that panicky what now the first night she’d taken Cassie home after Meredith’s funeral, when she had to shift instantly from friend and therapist to parent.

That compassion urged her forward with a broad smile of welcome, down the gleaming new graded concrete walkway that had been artfully designed to accommodate a wheelchair. “Hi. Welcome home! How was your drive?”

He blinked a little as if he hadn’t expected such an effusive greeting. “Good. She’s been a real trouper but I’m sure she’s tired.”

Mrs. Olafson had followed her toward the van. “Mr. Thorne, the home-nursing company called and said their nurse was running late. She should be here in another hour.”

“Thank you, Mrs. O.”

He stood helplessly for just a moment as if not quite sure what to do next. Evie wanted to hug him and whisper that everything would be okay. As the mental image formed in her mind she almost laughed. She could just imagine how he would react to that.

Instead, she took charge, leaning in and placing a hand on the armrest of the wheelchair. “Hi, Taryn. Remember me? Evie Blanchard from the bead store?”

The girl nodded and her mouth stretched into a half smile. “Hi.”

What are you doing here? Though Taryn didn’t say the words, Evie could see them clearly in her eyes. One lesson she’d learned well with her patients was how to read all kinds of nonverbal cues and right now Taryn was completely confused by her presence.

“You want to know why I’m here, right?”

Taryn dipped her chin down and then back up again, which Evie took as agreement.

“Great question. I’m not sure if you knew this but back before I came to Hope’s Crossing and started working for Claire at the bead store, I was a physical therapist in California. Your dad and grandmother have asked me to help set up your home therapy program with the aides and nurses that will be working with you. Is that okay?”

She lifted one shoulder, though she didn’t look thrilled at the idea of therapy.

“I would guess you’re ready to head inside, aren’t you? I know my butt is always tired after I’ve been sitting in the car for a while. Let’s go stretch out, shall we?”

“O—kay.”

“I’ll bring your shave ice,” Katherine said.

“Shave ice. Yum. And blue. My favorite.”

“We saw that little shack near the end of Main Street on our way here and Taryn made it clear she had to have one.”

That must have been the reason for the delay, Evie thought. At this evidence that Brodie wasn’t so impatient and inflexible he couldn’t fulfill one of his daughter’s wishes, she felt a little scrape against that scab over her heart, like a fingernail prying up the edge.

Evie stepped back while Brodie wheeled the chair down the ramp and pushed Taryn toward the front door. When he turned her through the doorway leading to her suite of rooms, Taryn jerked her head back toward the stairway. “My room. Up.”

“T, we talked about this. For now you’ve got new digs down here.”

“No. My room.”

Brodie shot Evie a frustrated plea for help and she stepped forward. “You want your old bedroom up there?”

Taryn nodded firmly.

“Then you’re the one who will have to work your tail off to get there. Are you ready for that?”

“Yeah,” Taryn said, a rather militant light in her eyes that heartened Evie.

“Excellent. I am, too.”

“Come on, sweetheart,” Katherine said. “Let me show you your new room.”

Her grandmother pushed the wheelchair down the hall and, though Evie wanted to start working with the girl right away, she was aware of that twinge of unwanted compassion for Brodie as he watched his mother and daughter together—a stark, hopeless expression on his features.