Woodrose Mountain. RaeAnne Thayne

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СКАЧАТЬ the van over there. We were just driving past on our way home and she asked for a shave ice.”

       Hannah beamed. “She asked for a shave ice? That’s great. I heard she couldn’t talk,” she faltered, the excitement on her slightly round features fading to embarrassment, as if she was afraid she’d just said something rude. “Sorry. I mean…”

       “She can talk. It’s still a little tough to understand her sometimes so she just doesn’t say much. Only the important things. I guess she really wanted a shave ice.”

       “I can sure help you with that. What size?”

       “Let’s go with a medium. She wanted blue raspberry. I’ll take a peach coconut, medium.”

       He knew it was straight sugar but he figured every once in a while a guy was entitled to enjoy something lousy for him. Why that made him suddenly think of Evie Blanchard, he didn’t want to guess.

       While he waited for Hannah to run the ice in the grinder—a process that seemed to take roughly the equivalent time to carve a masterpiece out of marble—he stood beside the faux chalet, looking at Main Street. The town looked warm and comfortable in the afternoon sunlight, full of parents pushing strollers, an elderly couple walking arm in arm, a couple of joggers with their white iPod earbud tethers dangling.

       He loved Hope’s Crossing. When he was a kid, he couldn’t leave fast enough and thought it was a town full of provincial people with small minds and smaller dreams. But this was the place he’d come to after his marriage had fallen apart, when he had been a lost and immature twenty-four-year-old kid suddenly saddled with a three-year-old girl he didn’t know what the hell to do with.

       If his father hadn’t just died, he wasn’t sure he would have come home, even as desperate as he’d been for his mother’s help with Taryn. Raymond Thorne’s massive heart attack at that particular juncture of Brodie’s life was probably the bastard’s single act of kindness toward him.

       He was mulling that cheerful thought when a teenage boy with streaked blond hair rode up on a high-dollar mountain bike wearing board shorts and a black T-shirt with a vulgar picture on the front.

       “Hey, Hannah-banana. Give me a medium watermelon.”

       Raw fury curled through Brodie. He could taste it in the back of his throat, sharp and acrid. He hated this kid with every microcell of his heart and it took all the discipline he’d learned in his ski-jumping days to keep from grabbing the kid and shoving his face into that freezer full of ice beside the stand.

       He stepped around the side of the fake little chalet and had the tiny satisfaction of seeing the kid’s features go a little pale under his summer tan.

       “Nice bike,” he said to Charlie Beaumont, the son of a bitch who had ruined Taryn’s life.

       The kid looked as if he would rather be anywhere else on earth, as if he were tempted to climb back onto his bike and race away. Hot color washed up to replace his paleness and he didn’t meet Brodie’s gaze.

       “Mr. Thorne,” he muttered.

       Brodie could think of a hundred things he would like to say to this kid, whose position of wealth and privilege apparently led him to think he could destroy lives around him with impunity from his choices.

       Charlie’s father was the mayor of Hope’s Crossing and one of the town’s most powerful members. He was also an attorney who—along with his partners—was doing everything he could to keep his son from having to atone for his stupid choices.

       Because of this little punk, his baby girl’s life had been decimated. While he rode around town flaunting his five-thousand-dollar mountain bike and buying iced treats, Taryn was forced to endure countless procedures and shots, to be unable to communicate even the most basic of needs, to spend her days in a wheelchair when she should be dancing and running and enjoying life as a teenage girl.

       Shoving him into the freezer was too good for him.

       “Um, how’s Taryn?” Charlie finally asked.

       Brodie had to admit, the kid showed balls to pretend concern. “Do you really care? I didn’t notice you coming to the hospital anytime during the last three months.”

       At least he had the grace to look embarrassed. “I wanted to. I just…my parents, uh, didn’t think I should.”

       “Right. Wouldn’t want you to face something as inconvenient as your conscience, would we?”

       If possible, Charlie’s features turned an even deeper shade of red. Brodie would have liked to say something cutting and harsh but a family of tourists in shorts and ball caps came up behind Charlie and the moment passed. What was the point anyway? Yelling at the kid wouldn’t help Taryn and probably wouldn’t make Brodie feel any better.

       Hannah Kirk called his name just a moment later. “Here you go, Mr. Thorne. You tell Taryn we’re all praying for her, okay?”

       He forced a polite smile, biting down the urge to point out that prayers hadn’t done a hell of a lot of good so far.

       “I’ll tell her. And thank you for the shave ice. I’m sure she’ll enjoy it.”

       Hannah hesitated. “Would it be okay if I stopped by to bring her another one sometime, now that she’s home?”

       It was nice of her to offer, especially as their friendship seemed to have withered away after grade school. “I think she’d like that,” he answered.

       Charlie was apparently following their conversation. “Wait. She’s home?” he asked.

       “Didn’t you see the signs all over town?” Hannah asked, with a touch of pugnacity that seemed out of character for her. “Mr. Thorne is taking her home now. That’s why he bought her a shave ice here instead of in Denver.”

       An interesting mix of emotions crossed Charlie’s features. He looked happy and miserable and wary at the same time. “So she’s okay?”

       Chief McKnight probably wouldn’t arrest him if he “accidentally” dumped a shave ice on the punk’s head, would he? “Right,” he growled. “If you call needing twenty-four-hour care, not being able to get out more than a few words, not having the motor control to feed herself this shave ice, okay, then yes. I guess she’s okay. Unlike Layla Parker.”

       It was a cruel thing to say, he knew, and he felt small for it when Charlie hissed in a breath as if Brodie had coldcocked him like he wanted to. The kid stared at him for a long moment then climbed back onto his mountain bike and pedaled away without taking the icy treat Hannah was reluctantly fixing for him.

       Brodie stood like an idiot for a moment watching after him, then shook his head. He tried to put the encounter out of his mind as he headed back to the van. This was a good day, right? Taryn was going home. That was the important thing, not some little shit with an entitlement complex.

       At the van, he slid open the left rear door—the one without the ramp—set his own shave ice in the drink holder and then scooped a spoonful of the sugary treat for Taryn.

       “Here you go, honey. Blue. Just like you wanted.”

       She gave that lopsided smile again, the one doctors warned him СКАЧАТЬ