here she was, eating, sleeping, and breathing tap dancing, cramming years’ worth of lessons into a matter of days, hoping it worked. Just enough to be a chorus girl.
Not a lead.
Just a chorus girl.
That was all she needed.
Violins and drums blasted cheerily through the speakers as only 1950s musical numbers could, and Bree jumped into formation with a lively smile as she placed her hands on her hips. She watched herself in the broad mirror and straightened her posture as she exhaled, waiting for the beat.
Four. Five. Six. Seven. And—
On the seven-and-a-half beat, as she was preparing to lift her right toe, her eyes shifted to a movement in the mirror. To the reflection of the door opening. And the man who entered.
Her arms lowered slowly.
She turned.
Of all the people in the world—Chip? He stopped just inside the warehouse. Looked at her.
But it wasn’t his presence that concerned her most.
Or that he knew where she was.
It was his expression: the hard eyes, creased forehead, not even a snicker of a trick on his lips.
He strode toward her.
Just as she strode toward him.
His eyes didn’t so much as flicker toward Birdie, toward anything else, as he moved.
“Come with me.”
Before her mind had processed what he was saying, her body was moving toward him, with him.
“Um, guys?” Birdie called out, but they were already out the door.
He opened the door of his truck for her.
She got inside.
Bree felt her blood pressure rising while he slipped into the driver’s seat and put the car in reverse. He was back on Main Street, but driving away from their homes, when she finally spoke.
“What aren’t you telling me, Chip?” Her voice was low.
He shook his head. “Let me just get on the interstate first.”
Bree pursed her lips but said nothing. His truck took the on-ramp and shook with the wear of twenty-five years of hard use as it crept up to sixty miles an hour. Seventy.
She watched as Little Downtown Donuts & Dogs flew by. The Highland Ski Center. The Cracker Barrel in the distance.
Finally, with the Bristol sign flashing by, he looked her in the eye.
“Your mother called. About Anna.”
Bree’s stomach hit the floor with those five words, and suddenly she was finding it hard to breathe. Chip told Bree everything her mother had told him, all the information he knew.
“I don’t”—Bree found herself fumbling, pressing her hands against her cold and wet leotard, her leggings—“have my phone. It’s at the warehouse.”
Chip tossed her his own.
The outside world was a blur for the next thirty-two minutes as her mother spoke to her over the phone, relaying every single bit of information the family had gleaned from the doctors’ hourly updates. Retelling every single torturous moment since Anna’s downward turn that morning. Anna’s parents were the only ones allowed in the room. The rest of the family was in the waiting area. Both of Anna’s younger sisters were at home with Bree’s cousin, everyone too afraid to let them see what was going on.
By the time Bree hung up she was hunched over, her hand covering her wet eyes.
She lowered the phone to the seat, her immediate surroundings coming back into focus.
She sat back.
The truck hummed.
And then, blinking, she realized exactly where she was.
“What are you doing, Chip?”
She looked down at the seat she was sitting in, the cracked vinyl. The smell of old tobacco. Then the man beside her, the crisp white button-up. The polished shoes. One hand wrapped firmly around the steering wheel as he stared straight ahead at the road.
“I’m taking you to Knoxville.”
“But—but your meeting. I could’ve driven myself—”
“I’m taking you to Knoxville,” he repeated. “And you could use a friend.”
Fresh tears pricked Bree’s eyes as she turned to face the road again, his words more unfamiliar, unexpected, and welcome than she’d ever known words could be. She pressed her lips together as she looked out her window, blinking furiously.
A moment later, she felt his warm hand encapsulating hers.
It stayed there for the next two hours.
Chapter 22
Bree
Two days later the phone alarm chimed softly and Bree’s eyes flitted open. The first thing that came into view was Chip’s window. The crystal-clear view through his window.
He had taken down the heavy blue curtains he put up last week and taped a sign in their place.
WANNA MAKE A DEAL?
Bree’s head popped up from the pillow.
She had stayed in Knoxville Tuesday and Wednesday, taking turns with the family praying, hoping, dreading, sleeping in the waiting area, and living for news from Anna’s doctor. They