After the Rain

By Lilian Darcy

How do you stop being angry at someone when they’re gone?

Kira Shepherd Blair’s older sister Neve died eighteen years ago at River Bend Park, on the night of the 1996 Marietta High School senior prom, and Kira is still mired in feelings she can’t resolve. So much of her life has been shadowed by Neve, from the adolescence she spent banished from the family spotlight because Neve was so greedy for it, to the bad marriage she made at twenty-one because she and her parents needed the security and the promise of a future, after Neve’s tragic death.

Kira is working to make a good life for herself and her ten-year-old son Jake after her divorce and is finally starting to feel that she’s getting on track, when Neve’s high school boyfriend Casey “Jay” Brown comes back to Marietta and turns everything upside down.

Casey has never known in his heart how much he was to blame for what happened to Neve that night, but when he and Kira are forced to work together at the renowned Haraldsen Architectural Foundation in the foothills of the Absaroka Mountains, she leaves him in no doubt as to her opinion on the issue.

That’s how you stop being angry at someone when they’re gone. You channel your anger onto the man you hold responsible, the man who’s right here, no matter how heart-stoppingly gorgeous he is.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tule Publishing
• Release date: Jul 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781940296142

Lilian Darcy

Lilian Darcy has now written over eighty books for Harlequin. She has received four nominations for the Romance Writers of America's prestigious Rita Award, as well as a Reviewer's Choice Award from RT Magazine for Best Silhouette Special Edition 2008. Lilian loves to write emotional, life-affirming stories with complex and believable characters. For more about Lilian go to her website at www.liliandarcy.com or her blog at www.liliandarcy.com/blog

Book preview

Author

Keep Up with your Favorite Authors and their New Releases

For the latest news from Tule Publishing authors, sign up for our newsletter here or check out our website at TulePublishing.com

––––––––

One

Are you really sure you want to go back there, CJ?

Casey was a little startled by the name his mother had used. There had been quite a pause before the words, too, which she had filled by reaching without haste for the cream to add to the coffee his father had just poured for her.

CJ.

She didn’t ever call him that any more. Hadn’t for years. CJ was a nickname from his childhood, one that had gradually morphed to Casey Jay and then just simply Jay in his teens, when he’d been cool and rebellious and his mother’s hair had begun to turn gray—not that those two things were connected, or anything.

At eighteen, when his family had moved from Marietta, Montana to Portland, Oregon there had been another shift in his naming—an abrupt one, this time. He’d become plain, serious Casey from then on, and he’d known even at the time that this was a deliberate strategy on his parents’ part, to make a clean break with the past.

Half a life-time later, at the age of thirty-six, he was successful, confident, and—financially—better than secure, yet on telling his parents that he was about to move back to Montana, he was suddenly CJ again, in Mom’s eyes. Ten years old. In need of guidance and protection and parental concern.

His mother’s slip seemed to sound a note of warning. You’ve moved cities three times since you finished college, she said, and now you’re moving again. And to Montana, of all places. Isn’t there any kind of... personal tie to keep you in Chicago? You seemed settled there.

She was asking him about his love life, Casey knew. It worried her that he hadn’t married and settled down yet—which he thought, yes, he would do, eventually, but he wasn’t in a hurry enough to go hunting for it, and in Chicago there’d been enough women hunting him thanks to his success. He was over that, while his mother worried about his lack of emotional commitment too much, the way she was currently worrying too much about the Montana thing."

It’s a dream job, Mom, he said. Principal architect in residence at Fjellutsikt—

"Lordy, where?"

You remember, Laurie, Dad prompted. That place way up the valley.

Fjellutsikt is the name of the Haraldsen Foundation ranch. It means Mountain View in Norwegian.

Well, that’s pretty.

But, yes, you’re right, it’s a bit of a mouthful so I understand people mostly just call the place ‘the foundation’ or ‘the ranch.’

You’ve gotten him off track, Laurie, Dad complained.

Casey took up his original thread again. Anyhow, yeah, there was a strong hint from Lars Haraldsen that he envisages my taking over from him as Director of the Foundation, if things work out. The man is spry, but he’s got to be in his eighties, so we’re not talking a twenty year apprenticeship.

But what about your company?

I still own my one-third share. I’m still on the board. We have an excellent team in place and most of what I need to do, I can do via computer or phone. Otherwise, I’m told there’s a helipad, not to mention Bozeman Airport just over an hour away.

Are your partners good with your move?

My partners told me to go for it. It enhances the S.I.C. Systems profile to have one of their founding partners actively practising as an architect in a highly-regarded establishment. From a career point of view, I’d be insane to turn this down. He’d made a special weekend trip from Chicago to Portland to tell his parents about it and catch up with his sister and two of his three brothers, several weeks before he was due to start the job.

He’d known that his news needed a face-to-face conversation.

Still... Dad said. He was frowning, worried, just like Mom. They’d both made big sacrifices for him eighteen years ago when they’d left Montana, and clearly they thought he was about to undo all their hard work.

"I don’t see it as going back, Casey argued. I’ll be living on the ranch itself, not in Marietta."

But it’s the closest town, his mother pointed out.

So I’ll shop there sometimes. It’s just a town like any other.

His parents fell silent, and into the space in the conversation fell Casey’s own half-acknowledged qualms. On second thought, maybe he wouldn’t shop in Marietta. Maybe for him it wasn’t a town like any other. Maybe instead he would cut through to Bozeman on back roads and use the much larger and more urbanized population center as his hub for going to a baseball or hockey game, stocking up on groceries, sitting over a cold beer in a warm bar.

Neve Shepherd’s ghost couldn’t haunt him there.

People won’t have forgotten, Dad said. Not in a small town.

He was talking about Neve, too.

I haven’t forgotten, either, Casey said. And I carry the memories and questions with me wherever I go, so does it really matter where I actually live?

Questions? Mom said slowly. She curled her fingers around the draped neckline of her sweater. Oh damn... What do you question, after all this time?

Casey sighed through his teeth, wondering how he’d lost control of the conversation so fast. He’d known it would go in this direction. He’d intended to head it off with his common sense and his reassurances, but boy had he failed. He said carefully, How much was it my fault that she died?

It wasn’t, Mom snapped out, so fast she almost bit her own tongue. She leaned forward, her whole body suffused with a sense of urgency. There was never any suggestion of that. Not from the sheriff, not from her parents. Of course it wasn’t your fault!

I don’t mean that night. I don’t mean what happened, or how it happened. I mean... that we were even there at River Bend Park... that she was so out of control, and I was supposed to be her boyfriend, but I could never figure out— he stopped.

Hell, he couldn’t talk to his parents about this, about what Neve had really been like, about how much of a mess she was, underneath all that superficial confidence and glamor, and how he’d never understood the reasons for it, or whether he could have helped her, been more to her than the convenient high school boyfriend who picked her up for school and took her to the prom.

See? Mom said. "This is why we’re worried, Casey.

Dad added gruffly, Is any job really worth giving yourself this grief?

Casey said slowly, So maybe the opportunity in the job isn’t the reason I should go back. Maybe the reason I should go back is exactly what we’re talking about. Neve’s death. If I still have questions, then I need answers, and maybe Marietta is the only place I’ll find them.

Mom and Dad both stayed silent at this, with those anxious, stricken looks still on their faces.

Two

We’re going to be late, Jake said.

No, we’re not, honey, Kira reassured him. But this was the third time he’d said it, and she was starting to think he might be right.

Not very late.

Just a couple of minutes.

But when it came to ice hockey practice, for Jake a couple of minutes counted as twenty, and though Kira always figured on forty-five minutes to drive from home to the new year-round rink in Bozeman, traffic or weather could often make it a little longer. During winter when the snow and the roads had been especially bad, she’d had to borrow her father’s four-wheel-drive pickup, and even with that there were a couple of times when they hadn’t made it to practice at all.

Today, she’d tried to fit in one more tiny errand at home while Jake stood by the front door issuing his usual pleading warnings about getting to practice on time, so she felt guilty as the car tires squealed for half a second, making the turn into the rink parking lot.

The clock on the dash read 5:59.

See? Jake said tightly.

This clock is five minutes fast. You still have six minutes to change. I’ll drop you at the entrance and then go park while you run in.

Okay. He picked up his battered sports bag, laden with skates, helmet, gloves, uniform, shin guards and who knew what else, and scrambled out of the car before it had even come to a full stop.

She should talk to him about that, because it wasn’t safe, but he was already pounding up the steps to the rink entrance, his scrawny ten-year-old body moving as fast as it knew how, with the big bag weighing him down. She should talk to him, but since he’d discovered skating and then hockey eighteen months ago at his buddy Tyler’s ninth birthday party, he’d been so passionate about the sport, she didn’t always have the heart to scold him for things like putting punctuality ahead of safety.

The parking lot was almost full, with the overlap of figure skater cars and hockey player cars that usually occurred at this time of day, and Kira had to crawl down three rows before she found a spot. At least it wasn’t a maze of piled-up snow banks, the way it had been for so much of the long winter, now mercifully over. It was May, and gorgeously warm. That might not last, but at least, please God, they were done with the snow for the next five months.

She’d just clicked the locking button on her key fob when she saw Jake’s team coach Shaun heading from an even more distant parking spot. So much for her son’s fears about not getting here on time...

Hey, Kira, he greeted her. Where’s Jake?

I dropped him at the entrance. He thought he’d be late.

Shaun gave an apologetic grimace. But as you can see, Coach is even later, so he’s okay. He’s doing great, by the way. So keen.

Tell me about it!

I’d better run. He set off at a lope, while Kira realized she’d left her book in the car. She headed back for it. Some parents never took their eye off their child during games or practice, but she always very deliberately brought a book to read or work to do. As a single mom for the past two years since her divorce, she worried enough about suffocating her only child with too much attention and tried to step back when she could, although that wasn’t always easy.

Jake must have moved fast in the change room. By the time Kira entered the rink, someone on the scratchy, echoing PA was announcing the end of figure skating time and the start of hockey time, with no resurfacing of the ice in between, and her son was the first player on the rink. Pairs of graceful legs in stretch leggings and white boots swished toward the exits, but some of the figure skaters wanted to snatch their final chance for a jump or a spin, and the two coaches were still finishing up their private lessons.

Kira saw a gorgeous teenage girl in a cherry red practice outfit gliding backward on one foot over the ice, her head dipped almost down to her boot and her leg angled perfectly in the air, and then she saw Jake, also going backward.

Oh, no, no...

Collision course.

A strident and all-too-familiar voice yelled a reprimand, but Jake didn’t hear.

A second later, there came the metallic sound of two blades connecting, and Jake and the girl both fell. She got up right away and skated off, casting an irritated glance over her shoulder and then going back to repeat her sequence of movements one more time.

Jake still sat on the ice. He’d come down hard on his backside and it looked as if he’d hit himself with his stick, maybe bitten his tongue. He wasn’t crying. He wouldn’t do that. At ten, he’d rather barf in public than cry. But he looked as if he was having to fight not to, and he was clearly hurt, bruised and shaken.

A familiar figure skated over to him and started yelling—the same strident voice that had reprimanded him before the collision occurred.

Corinne.

Owner of the same last name—Blair—as Jake and Kira herself.

Kira’s lungs turned to rock and a headache snapped into place like the flick of a switch. Of course it would be Corinne.

You need to watch where you’re going. Corinne’s harsh voice carried across the rink, through the stale metallic chill of the air. She didn’t use Jake’s name. "You are not supposed to be on the ice. I will not have my skater disrupted in her routine when Regionals is only five months away and we’re in the middle of a lesson! You will get off the ice right now, and I will be speaking to your coach."

From his awkward position Jake nodded, staring down at the ice between his splayed legs. He was muttering something. An apology, maybe. Kira couldn’t hear from this distance.

Then he scrambled clumsily to his feet. He moved awkwardly and almost fell again, holding his body stiff. He stood there for a long moment, while Corinne continued to glare at him with her hands on her hips and her square shelf of a bust practically casting a shadow over his head, then he skated away, trailing his stick and moving crookedly. He was definitely hurting, and Corinne hadn’t taken even a second to check that he was okay. Nor had she called Jake by name, acknowledged their connection, or spared a glance in Kira’s direction.

Although she must know I’m here.

Kira felt sick to her stomach with anger, but she put that on hold, because she’d been angry at Corinne Blair, on and off, for so many years she didn’t bother to count them any more. She hurried to Jake instead, curbing her instinctive need to bend down and give him a hug and tell him how great he was. He’d be embarrassed if she did that. It wouldn’t help him, even though it would probably help her.

Most of his buddies were now swarming onto the ice, making the big shell of the rink din with the sounds of sticks and blades and voices.

Don’t embarrass him, Kira, she reminded herself firmly. As a mother, it could be very hard to hold back, sometimes. All she really wanted was to squeeze him and kiss him the way she would have done when he was three. Instead, when she reached the rail, she made herself say calmly, from several feet away, You okay, Jake?

Yeah. I’m fine. He added on a mutter, after a moment, Was it my fault? He dabbed at his lip with a finger and Kira saw blood.

A little, for not looking, she said, and found a paper napkin in her purse. She held it out. Jake took it and pressed it to his mouth. The bleeding seemed to be stopping. It was just a small cut, thank goodness, but his lip already looked discolored and swollen enough to distort his whole face. But the girl wasn’t looking either, Kira added. She was having a lesson, though, and that takes priority.

But they’d announced the start of hockey ice time.

I know, that’s why it was only a little your fault, and partly hers, too. There were mistakes on both sides. They should have been leaving the ice. Her coach shouldn’t have yelled at you.

It was Corinne. Her coach is Corinne.

I know.

Maybe she didn’t recognize me, in all my gear.

That’s probably it.

It wasn’t.

Up until this point she’d been scrupulously honest with her son about the incident, but honesty on this last issue was one step too far. Kira knew perfectly well that Corinne would have recognized Jake. After all, she’d known him all his life.

Kira knew with even more certainty that Corinne would have relished the opportunity to yell at him, because he was Jake. They were practically related, the two of them. Corinne’s children shared the same blood as him, as half-siblings. Jake was Corinne’s ex-husband Dean’s son from his second marriage—to Kira—and since Corinne had never forgiven the divorce, she was never going to forgive the re-marriage and the new child, either.

The woman could hold a grudge. She had no reason for the grudge, since her divorce from Dean Blair had been finalized for two years before Kira and Dean had even met. Kira had never been the Other Woman in the relationship, and Jake was even more of an innocent party, but Corinne still made her feelings of dislike for both of them transparently clear.

Now Kira and Dean were divorced, too, and just over a year and a half ago Dean had moved to Kalispell—Kira had begun to suspect he had wife number three somewhere on his radar—so he barely saw Jake, his youngest son. Jake went to him for two weeks over the summer, and the occasional weekend or holiday scattered through the rest of the year. Once in a while, Dean made the time to pay a visit, but that was about it.

Meanwhile, Kira’s four adult step-children—ex-stepchildren?—were all scattered. She’d never managed to forge much of a positive relationship with Charisse and Tenille, the two eldest, and to be honest she hadn’t ever thought it would be possible. She’d aimed for a polite truce, and more or less achieved it, but only after several years.

She and Charisse were almost the same age, and Tenille at almost thirty was around two years younger. Hardly surprising that they’d been actively hostile to their father’s ridiculously young second wife. Charisse was married now in Helena, and Tenille was in Idaho and newly engaged, with the formal engagement party coming up here in Bozeman at Corinne’s house in June.

Kira and Ryan, Corinne’s only son, had never been openly at odds, but they’d never had much of a relationship, either. He’d gone off to college in Colorado shortly after Kira and Dean’s marriage, leaving the youngest, Lindeen, the only one who’d still been around to spend her mandated two nights a week at Dean’s. Now Lindeen was twenty-six, and living in California.

For the first year of her marriage, Kira had tied herself in knots attempting to build a good relationship with Lindeen and failing over and over again. Then baby Jake had come along, and Linnie had adored him on sight, and all the work Kira had put in had suddenly paid off. The teenager had decided that her new step-mom was pretty cool, after all. She and Lindeen were very close now, and she hoped they always would be, even though they didn’t see each other very much.

Corinne, on the other hand...

Kira could not deal with Corinne at all, but saw her not just on family occasions but at the ice rink twice every week.

Jake didn’t know how hard this was for her, because she kept it to herself. She couldn’t burden him with such an adult problem when he loved hockey so much. She’d tried suggesting that he play at Bozeman’s older rink, the Haynes Pavilion, instead, but that wasn’t open year-round, and Jake wanted to play in the spring and summer kids’ leagues, too.

So they came here, to the much newer rink, and she sucked up Corinne’s presence the way she would have sucked up pretty much anything, for Jake’s sake. You okay now? she asked.

He nodded. Yeah. ‘m fine. He swarmed back onto the ice in a crowd of his fellow players, and Kira hoped that he would have largely forgotten the incident by the time practice was over. With luck, their drive home would be filled with eager questions from him, all beginning with, Did you see when...?

And for some of those incidents she’d be able to answer, Yes, I did, because she did watch some of the practice. But for others she would tell him honestly, No, I must have been reading, then. Sitting in the chilly bleachers in a warm jacket, sipping coffee or hot chocolate from a paper cup.

She’d said to Jake in the past, when he’d asked her about it, You wouldn’t want me watching you every single second of practice, would you, as if you were a bug under a magnifying glass?

Naww, I guess not, he’d answered slowly, thinking about it. Bodie’s dad does that, and makes him go through everything he did wrong, afterward. And Ethan from school’s mom says, Suu-per! Good job!" every time he gets even a C on an assignment or throws a piece of trash in the bin."

Oh, yeah?

"Or if he, like, breathes. Good job, Ethan! Breathing! You are exceptional!"

Kira had laughed. Yeah?

"You are short-listed for a gifted-and-talented scholarship to the National Breathing Academy."

And you are hilarious.

And precious.

And she was so angry at Corinne for taking out an ancient and pointless grudge on an innocent child.

Corinne and her skater, Alicia, were still in the process of leaving the ice, gliding side by side along parallel to the barrier and talking, their voices low and