Open Your Heart (Kings Grove #4) - Delancey Stewart Page 0,27

since Jess had died. She’d only known my wife those last few months—she didn’t know much about our marriage before Jess was sick. She had no idea about the guilt I felt all swirled in with the sadness. She looked like she was about to say something, but thought better of it, and instead she stepped near and laid a hand on my arm. “You doing okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. Maddie worried about me—there’d been periods in the last couple years where depression and self-pity had gotten the better of me for sure. But I felt better lately, and I had Maddie to look out for. She wasn’t supposed to be looking out for me.

“Come for dinner Saturday? I’m thinking about inviting Sam and Miranda and Chance and Mike.”

A party? I loved my sister, but I’d never been much of a joiner, and parties were a lot of work. I searched for an easy way to let her down, my hands wrapping the back of my neck as I thought. “Mads, I just—”

“You just have to show up. I’ll make your favorite—or Connor will, at least. And I’ll see if we can get Chance to make a cake or something.”

That was tempting. Chance baked more than most guys I knew, and it was clear his talent wasn’t isolated to construction or running a business. He’d made the occasional plate of cookies before, but now that he had Finn and Mike as an excuse, he’d been bringing around a lot more stuff from his kitchen. With another guy, I could see the crews making jokes about his masculinity. But with Chance? No way. Some guys just baked.

Maddie watched me while I salivated about Chance’s baking, and then threw one more tease my way. “I think we should invite your new renter, too. Can you do that?”

“Or you could.” I admitted defeat. But I could still be grumpy and difficult.

Maddie wrapped her hand around my arm, smiling up at me. “I haven’t even met her properly. You invite her. You might as well ride together anyway.” My sister pressed a kiss to my cheek and spun on her heel. “See you then. Oh, and get my venue finished please,” she sang over her shoulder as she hiked back toward her car.

I stood back, looking up at the huge sprawl of deck, the skeleton walls that would eventually hold retractable glass. It had a long way to go, and I wasn’t at all confident we’d get it done. But I promised my sister. So I had to try. “Come on guys, let’s push this forward.” I climbed up to help and got busy building.

The day dwindled to dusk and a sheen of dust coated my arms and face. I shoved my tools back into my truck and then walked back out into the shadow of the big structure.

“Cam, you need a ride?” Jensen, one of the crew called back to me when he saw me heading away from the parking area.

“Nah, going for a hike.”

He gave me a quizzical smile, but waved and turned away, and I trudged past the big deck and up toward the back trail to the Panoramic Point. I liked it up there near sunset, when a dusky glow of gold and grey settled around the tops of the far eastern peaks of the Sierra Nevada. If there was a mountain lion prowling these hills, dusk was hunting time and not the best time for a hike, but at this point in my life, I wasn’t worried. What would be would be, I figured.

The world looked dim at that time of day, like the colors had been muted, a dial turned down until everything was a faint echo of its usual vibrance.

I hiked for an hour and a half, pausing briefly at the ridge to take in the view I loved, to breathe in deep gulps of the thin air. And then I dropped my eyes to the darkening trail and focused on the descent.

The property my family had owned for nearly a century bordered the national forest, and the walls of the house Maddie and I built there were mere feet from the hillside that connected our familiar mountains to the backcountry. Bears and deer were common on that hillside, but as I traversed the familiar terrain, I heard again a sound that was familiar only from the previous day: The mournful howl of an animal in pain. Not the mountain lion I was sure I’d heard before, but