The Barrel House Series: Boxed Set : Complete Series, Books 1-4 Page 3

  "You seem stressed out is all," he says, shrugging his shoulders.

  "I am very stressed, but not because of flying."

  The man holds his hand up as if to apologize. "Sorry, I didn’t mean to assume."

  "No worries.”

  He nods his head before refocusing his attention on Twitter.

  "I didn’t think anyone still used Twitter," I utter in the same manner he spoke to me.

  "We will never see each other again after this flight, so tell me why you’re stressed out. I’m not one of those people who can digest a statement as such, and pretend like it wasn’t said. I realize we don’t know each other, but sometimes a stranger is the best person to talk to, right?"

  I place the emergency landing card down on my lap and fold my hands before looking back in his direction. "First, tell me why your hands were shaking when you arrived at the gate?" I counter.

  "I had a bad night," he responds

  "Going home or visiting?" I ask.

  "Going home," he says. "You?"

  I sigh and glance out the window for a long drawn out second before turning back. "As of twenty minutes ago, I’m going home."

  The man seems perplexed by my statement, which is fine because I feel the same.

  "What’s your name?" he asks me.

  "Let’s not ..."

  "Fair enough," he says. "You know ... you look like someone I once knew." That’s odd. Maybe we met once. I rarely forget people, but I can’t seem to think straight now, either.

  My graduating class had seventy students, and they are all connected to me on Facebook, so I don’t know where we would have met or why we look familiar to each other. Maybe college, I guess.

  "It’s the red hair. You know one redhead, and you think you know us all," I jest.

  I lean my head back against the flat seat back, trying to find a comfortable position with my hair tied in a tight knot on the back of my head. It’s not happening with the small space I have to move around. I tug on my hair elastic and release my strands, making it so I can rest my head back and in the curve of the chair.

  The man beside me shifts in his seat as if the act of dropping my hair over my shoulders makes him uncomfortable. "Your hair smells nice," he says.

  Strangers don’t say this to each other, but judging by the surprised look on his face, I’m guessing he must have realized this too. I try to unfurl my eyebrows as I thank him in what comes out sounding more like a question than a response.

  "Sorry, I—"

  “It’s okay,” I tell him.

  My nerves are becoming more prominent, and my stomach is twisting into its regular knot of stress. I want to sleep this flight away. I close my eyes and do my best to focus on clearing my mind. I need to have a clear mind before the plane lands. I can’t be the weak link in my family. They need me to be strong again ... somehow.

  "Flight attendants, please prepare for landing." The loudspeaker startles me awake, and I check my face for hints of drool and/or smudged eye-makeup. Through the corner of my eye, I glance to the seat beside me, finding the guy reading a book. I can’t tell what he’s reading, but by the glossy black cover, I assume it’s a thriller of some sort.

  "You’re into romance novels?" I ask, trying to sound serious.

  "All of them," he says. "You should see my collection at home. It’s embarrassing."

  "I bet," I say, reaching for my purse.

  He closes the book and places it down on his lap, providing me a glimpse of the title:

  The Devil’s Cut: A Perfect Blend

  The Devil’s Cut? There’s nothing weird about the title … if he’s a murderer. This is why I shouldn’t talk to random men.

  "I hope whatever reason you had to travel today serves you well," the man says.

  "I think the flight attendants are the ones who say this,” I reply, smirking for good measure.

  The man shrugs. "Maybe."

  "It was nice to meet you.” While I wouldn’t have hoped for an awkward conversation with a good-looking man throughout this flight, I suppose I could have experienced much worse. Plus, he distracted me a smidge.

  "Likewise," he says, his smile curling to one side. The plane touches down on the runway, shoving us in every direction like little pinballs. It must be windier than usual. "Hey, totally random, but I want to do the old-fashioned thing and give you my number. You are welcome to toss it in the trash if you think I’m crazy, but for the small chance you don’t think I’m nuts—" he hands me a receipt with his number written on the back. No name.

  I stare at his number for a moment before glancing up into his golden eyes. "You never know what life has in store for us, right?"

  I’m in no place to be calling men, and this man has no clue I just broke up with my boyfriend of four years so I can move home to be with my dying father. The gesture, though, it was nice. "Right," I reply as if my response is automated.

  The very second the passengers spill into the aisle, and the man beside me steps away, I feel the rush of reality crashing back down on me. Or maybe it’s just my carry-on, which falls out of the overhead compartment. Either way, it’s obviously a sign.

  My walk down the thin aisle feels lonelier than it did when I stepped onto the plane. I can feel each step in the basin of my stomach and in the hollow of my heart, knowing Journey and Mom will be at baggage claim. The looks each will have on their face will remind me of the last time we all felt this way. At least last time, we had hope.

  The airport is overcrowded today. Burlington Airport in Vermont is never bustling with people like other city airports. I walk as fast as I can with my carry-on rolling behind me, and though I know it’s only in my head, I can’t help but feel like everyone is staring at me. It’s like they know something terrible is about to happen, and they feel sorry for me.

  Maybe I just feel sorry for myself.

  The escalator will drop me right in front of the baggage claim area where I expect to see my sister and mother slouched on a bench by the window.

  I see them as I step off the escalator. Mom and Journey are both smiling and waving at me as if I’m coming home for a good reason. How can they be smiling?

  Journey springs forward and throws her arms around my neck, squeezing the air out of my lungs. She isn’t saying anything while she does so, and Mom, she wraps her arms around both of us, uttering the words, "My girls."

  Those two words have nothing to do with Dad or for the fact I’m here because he is sick. Still, the three of us burst into tears at the same moment, and we cry together in the middle of the airport, while the world looks in at our falling house of cards.

  When the film of tears clear from my eyes and I look over my sister’s shoulder, I catch the nameless man gazing with intensity, but when we make eye contact, he snaps his head away as if I didn’t see him gawking at us like everyone else in the area.

  We all sniffle and inhale to compose ourselves. "How many bags do you have, sweetie?"

  "Just one. I’ll send for the rest of my stuff later."

  Mom’s brows furrow with confusion, and Journey’s right brow arches with a look of question. "The rest of your stuff?" Journey asks.

  "I broke up with Ace," I say, my breath catching in my throat.

  Mom and Journey clutch their chest, and their shoulders relax as if I offered them relief rather than shock. "Did he cheat?" Journey asks, blunt as ever. "I’ll castrate the jerk."

  "No, no, I—" I lift my left hand and wiggle my bare ring finger. "It wasn’t in the plans for us, I guess."

  "I know," Journey says, wrapping her arm back around my shoulders. "We knew you’d come to your senses someday." Typically, I’d pick at what she’s saying and ask how long she’s been betting my relationship with Ace wouldn’t last, but at the current moment, I don’t care enough to ask.

  "I’m sorry, honey. So, you’re moving home?" Mom asks as a genuine smile pokes at her pale lips.

  "No, she’s moving in with me," Journey says.

  I spot my
bag as it falls off the belt onto the moving conveyer, so I slip away from the conversation, happily so, and make a run for my luggage. I grab the handle of my black hard-case, but it catches on another bag, and I’m now running alongside my suitcase like a woman prancing with her four-legged friend at a dog show. I tug harder and harder until a hand shoves mine out of the way.

  Him. The man I sat next to on the plane lifts my heavy bag effortlessly and places it down in front of me.

  "You okay?" he asks with a small smile.

  "Yes, thank you for helping me with this thing.” I laugh awkwardly and slap the side of the case.

  I don’t know if he was asking if I was okay from chasing my bag or because he witnessed me crying with Mom and Journey a minute ago, but I leave with my bag before he has the chance to clarify his question.

  "What a nice man," Mom says. "I don’t have my glasses on. Is he good-looking?"

  "Mom," Journey snaps. "Not the time."

  "Sorry, I thought you were about to end up on the moving belt with the bag," Mom continues.

  I can see that to be the case because Journey is laughing so hard she’s doubled over. The thing about pain is, it comes out in every form of uncontrolled emotion. Journey rarely finds herself in a fit of hysterics. She’s more of a roll-her-eyes at a joke kind-of-girl.

  "I’m parked in a thirty-minute visitor space. We need to get moving," Mom says, swaying her arms toward the exit.

  With my hand on the door, I glance over my shoulder back at the baggage claim area. I spot the nameless man with his phone pinched between his cheek and shoulder. A wide smile stretches at his lips, and his eyes are staring right back at me. He holds up his hand for a motionless wave as if we became friends during the last few hours. Maybe he’s hoping I’ll call him.

  3

  Journey becomes car sick easily, so from the age when she was old enough to sit in the front seat of the car, she has had to claim the passenger seat, while I sit in the back. As much as I hate sitting in the backseat, it’s better than smelling vomit.

  I slide into the black leather bucket seat in the back of Mom’s Lexus SUV. The car smells like Mom’s perfume, Chanel Number 5, the same scent she’s been wearing my entire life—or for as long as I can remember. The seats are clean and scuff free; proof that her children are older and not being carted around any longer. The only thing in the back seat is a pile of papers and her briefcase.

  The papers are hospital release notes, so I leave them resting on the seat beside me.

  Journey twists the volume knob on the dashboard display, blasting an old Celine Dion song Mom must have been listening to. Journey then presses the satellite radio button, but Mom slaps the power button. "I can’t listen to music right now. I’m sorry," Mom says.

  Journey twists her head just enough to glance over her shoulder at me. We offer each other our sisterly wide-eye look, both wondering when music became too much for Mom.

  "I’ve been learning to take over all the bills," Mom says. "I found a good plumber and a handyman. An electrician too. You never know when I might need some help, and I don’t want to become a burden on either of you."

  It seems like she has known about Dad’s return condition for longer than a week.

  "Mom, we aren’t going to walk away from you. We’re here. We’re all here, together," I remind her.

  Not all of us. Dad won’t be with us much longer.

  The ride from the airport was long enough to fill the car with painful strings of silence, but pulling into the driveway, the silence is taken over by the drumming of my heart.

  Whenever I would come home from college for a long weekend or for a week after I moved to South Carolina, I would find Dad mowing the lawn or fixing the flower beds that line the driveway, but weeds are poking out of the black mulch, and leaves are covering the yard. "I hired a landscaper to do a fall-cleanup. He’s coming next week," Mom says, gesturing to the lawn.

  "I can rake the leaves," I tell her.

  "No, no, don’t be ridiculous. Our yard is large, and you’ll hurt your back or something."

  "We’ll figure it out," Journey adds in.

  Mom doesn’t respond. She rattles her keys in her hand and clunks her heavy heals against the stone walkway, which leads to the front door—the bare front door. There has never been a holiday or season to pass by without an oversized decorative wreath.

  The door opens as Mom slips her key into the lock. Dad is standing before her with a weak smile and droopy eyes, but it’s easy to tell he’s filled with joy at the sight of us three.

  "My girls are all home," he says, his voice sounding hoarse.

  Journey has been living in a studio apartment down the street for the last year, so they have been knee-deep in their empty nester’s syndrome. They had these plans for after we both moved out on our own. They wanted to vacation more and visit islands they had never been too, but they didn’t make it to any of the islands this year. Dad is also a workaholic and refuses to consider retiring at sixty-five.

  After Mom and Journey step inside, Benji, our sixty-pound husky, paws all of us with a welcoming whine. I nuzzle the side of my head into Dad’s chest, needing this hug more than I’ve needed anything else. I can count the times on one hand when I have seen him walking around the house wearing a white t-shirt and an old pair of sweatpants. "I won’t let this new generation of professionals convince me that ties are outdated," he would always say.

  Dad wraps his arms around me, but the embrace is loose and frail. He’s frail. I can feel it. His breath shudders as he leans down to place a kiss on the top of my head.

  He struggles to nudge my shoulders away from him so he can look down at me. The second I look into his eyes; all I notice are the red veins encircling his green eyes—one of his dominant features, which matches my own. The veins in his eyes are red. "I’m sorry about the letter, kiddo," he says.

  "When were you going to tell me?"

  I have been trying to block out the thought of this question, but was he hoping to avoid giving me this news?

  "Your mother has been on my case for the last two weeks to inform you both, but I couldn’t muster up the courage, knowing I was going let you down."

  * * *

  "No matter what happens in this world, I am your father, and I will always be here for you and Journey. You are my world, and nothing could keep us apart." I was ten when he made that promise. A promise he didn’t know he wouldn’t be able to keep someday.

  I want to ask him the questions I already know the answers to:

  Can you get a second opinion?

  Are you sure you’re dying?

  Maybe there’s a new trial?

  Can a miracle happen?

  The only question I don’t have the answer to is: what does it feel like to be dying? I don’t want to know the answer.

  "You didn’t bring Ace home with you, huh?" Dad asks, wrapping his arm around my shoulder as he closes the heavy wooden door.

  Before I answer, Dad lifts my left hand and nods his head. "Well, at least he didn’t do something stupid without talking to me first."

  Dad won’t be around to give anyone his blessing to marry me now.

  He won’t be able to walk me down the aisle when I get married someday.

  There won’t be a father-daughter dance.

  "I broke up with Ace.”

  Dad releases my hand and pulls me back into his chest. "Oh, sweetheart, it wasn’t because of me, was it?"

  I nod my head against him. "No, not at all. Ace is selfish, Dad. I don’t know if he could ever care for a family the way you cared for ours, and I want to be with someone who loves his family the way you always have."

  "Sometimes, men don’t grow up until they’re older, Melody."

  "I got tired of waiting a long time ago. I was holding on to hope, but hope isn’t enough for me." As the words spill out of my mouth, I realize Dad must feel the same about his life. "You don’t need to worry about me, Dad. I’m fine, I’m home, and it’s the only
important thing.”

  "I never doubted your ability to make the right decision, and I feel confident you will have a perfect life, as you have always wanted. Plus, you’ll have a new guardian angel watching out for you." Dad’s words melt into an elongated breath. My throat tightens, and my eyes burn, threatening to release the tears I need to hide for his sake.

  "How do you feel right now?" I ask.

  My gaze fixates on his hand, pressing against the stairwell banister, his knuckles are white and his fingernails purple. "I’m tired a lot. I have little energy, but I’ll tell you ... it beats chemotherapy."

  "Was there any chance the chemo would work?" I shouldn’t ask, but I must know the answer.

  "Slim, but the result would be a few more months at most," he says with a sigh. "That’s not how I want to spend this precious time."

  I need to be strong. I need to help and do what I came here to do. My family needs me. "Okay, put me to work. What’s going on with the shop? I assume you haven’t been working, right?"

  Dad smirks and pushes away from the banister, shuffling toward the family room.

  The indentation on the worn-leather couch shows where he’s been spending most of his time. I guess he’s finally getting used out of his seventy-two-inch television he had to have, then couldn’t figure out how to operate.

  He eases into the first cushion against the armrest, and I take a seat on the ottoman across from him. Mom and Journey are making a ruckus with dishes in the kitchen, but Dad doesn’t seem to notice as he leans back with a look of comfort. Benji hops up on the couch, which Mom has never allowed before, and rests his head on Dad’s lap. Even the poor dog knows something’s wrong.

  "What about your editing work?" he asks.

  "I can do it at night," I respond, having already thought this answer out.

  Dad struggles to lift his slipper-covered feet to the space beside my lap. "I didn’t want to assume you would want to take over the shop. You and Journey have your own careers to look after, and just because I have spent my life doing what I love, doesn’t mean you have to love it too," he explains.