Currant Creek Valley - By RaeAnne Thayne Page 0,86

to be okay to drive home? It’s late.”

Caroline’s big grandfather clock had chimed 1:00 a.m. about ten minutes earlier. The time of death was actually ten-thirty but it had taken all this time to handle the formalities, first the doctor and then the funeral home director.

“I’m fine,” Alex answered, squeezing the hand of the hospice nurse. “Thank you, for everything. You’re a hero.”

Helen managed a watery smile. She had known Caroline all her life, too, and cared for her deeply, especially these last few months of providing end-of-life treatment.

“Get some sleep,” Alex said.

“You, too, dear.”

She nodded, though she knew sleep would be a long time away. She felt scoured raw, like one of the pans in her kitchen.

She locked Caroline’s door with the key, wishing her son had been able to make it back from Japan for the end, but it had happened so suddenly.

One moment Caroline was drinking lemonade on her porch, the next it seemed she was clasping Alex’s hand to say a final goodbye.

At least Ross had spent several days with his mother a few months earlier. It was probably better that way, so he could remember his mother as she had been most of his life instead of the frail shadow she had become at the end.

She walked toward her vehicle down from the porch steps Sam had only just fixed. The storm of the afternoon had blown away and the night was starry and bright, sweet with the promise of summer.

She wanted to walk. To just head off through the darkened streets of Hope’s Crossing and walk and walk and walk until this pain eased, but her car was here and if she left it, she would have to arrange a way to pick it up.

And her dog had been alone far too long today, though she had called one of her neighbors to let him out a few hours ago.

Her eyes felt gritty and every muscle in her body throbbed with fatigue.

As hard as the long vigil had seemed, she was deeply grateful she had been there at the end.

Caroline’s last words seemed to echo through her. “Go. Live.” She had thought that was the last thing Caroline could say but she had added, barely audible, one word.

“Love.”

Now, remembering, the tears she had fought back all evening burst through and trickled down her cheeks as she drove through the empty streets of Hope’s Crossing.

Not completely empty. On Willow Creek Road, on her way to her house, she saw a pickup truck parked in front of Charlotte’s house.

Sam.

A quick glance up on Charlotte’s doorstep showed her two people, shadows, really, wrapped in an embrace.

She had to jerk her gaze back to the road before she drove into a telephone pole.

She didn’t think it was possible but she still had room for fresh pain to slice through the grief.

Once when she had been eight, she had broken her arm riding her bike down the hilly street behind their house. Two weeks after the cast came off, she had been jumping on the trampoline in the backyard and had fallen on it, breaking it again. The pain the second time had been far worse because the bone and sinews had still been damaged from the first break.

Her heart had been broken once, so long ago she could now barely remember it.

This time, she knew, the pain would be worse. Much worse.

Charlotte and Sam were perfect for each other but seeing them together would hurt worse than breaking her arm again and again.

* * *

SAM KEPT ONE EYE on the time while he navigated through summer traffic toward the community center where he was supposed to have picked up Ethan from his summer art camp ten minutes ago.

He pulled around an RV going about five miles an hour as its driver looked for an elusive parking space. Ahead of it was a minivan with a luggage carrier on the top, probably with the same goal.

The summer tourist season was in full swing, making him grateful he had spent a few months in town during the shoulder months. Though the big tourist draw was the winter snow, summer in the area still offered a bounty of recreational activities, from fishing and camping to mountain biking and kayaking.

So far he mostly had found the increasing crowds manageable, a few annoying moose jams aside. He wasn’t particularly looking forward to the crush in winter and the inevitable invasion but he figured by then he might be able to approach it with