No Time For Goodbye: Lynne Garrett Series, #1

By Mary Jean Kelso

Lynne Garrett returns to Virginia City, Nevada, to be in a friend's wedding expecting a simple, quiet ceremony set amidst the charm and antiquity of the famous old mining town. Instead, the wedding plans and a life are threatened.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9781613090541

Book preview

Dedication

To Sandy Lemmon, a lifelong friend

One

Abanner hanging across the front entrance to the City Park boldly stated, WELCOME GRADUATES! Lynne Garrett’s heartbeat quickened as she drove beneath it.

Graduation had seemed so long in coming. Yet, here it was—the Sunday before the ceremony. She had made it! She had completed her senior year of high school and soon would be starting a new job.

Lynne parked her car and walked up the short pathway that led to the picnic tables. She tripped on a tree root that grew beneath the smooth dirt where it created an almost insignificant bump in the trail.

Hey, watch it there, a teasing voice called out, you might hurt the tree.

Lynne, having glanced back to see what she had stumbled over, looked up now to see who the chiding guest was.

Nearby a young man, the date of a classmate, balanced himself on the smallest area possible of his wheelchair’s tires.

Lynne recognized him, now, from her former physical therapy group.

He smiled and gave her a thumbs up signal. You’re doing okay, he said.

So are you, Brad, she replied with a smile.

Brad was someone who’d seen her at her worst and she felt a bit uneasy. He had heard her angry, frustrated outpourings as the group, all disabled in some way, had exercised in the swimming pool after their individual physical therapy sessions.

Lynne nodded to Carol, Brad’s date, and sat down at the table next to them. She moved both legs to make sure the prosthesis she wore was still attached properly. The fear that her artificial leg might come loose was an ebbing concern. Except for rare reminders like this, she thought of it as a part of her—like her blonde hair and blue eyes.

She turned her mind to other things to avoid the memory of the auto accident that had caused the loss of her left leg and her best friend. She watched fellow students involved in a baseball game on the playing field nearby. She heard their jovial shouts as one of the teachers joined the group.

Carol broke into her thoughts, I hear you’re going back to Virginia City.

Lynne nodded. Yes, I’m going to be in a friend’s wedding.

Lynne thought about Vicki Potter’s letter that had led to the planning of the trip. It had arrived only a few days before.

VICKI GOT RIGHT TO the point.

I wanted you to be among the first to know that Frank and I are getting married, she wrote.

Frank? Lynne recalled the young man with dark, wavy hair several years older than either she or Vicki.

She remembered, also, her first visit to Nevada. Her Aunt Pat, an artist, who lived near Vicki, had given Lynne a party to introduce her to some of the local teenagers. Frank had been Vicki’s date.

Now, her Aunt Pat was temporarily living near a medical facility in the East. She had taken her daughter, Becky, there in search of treatment for an acute kidney ailment that might require a transplant. With Pat Holstead away, Lynne had thought there would be no chance for her to return to Virginia City in the near future—until Vicki’s letter arrived.

WANT SOME POP, LYNNE? Brad asked, interrupting Lynne’s thoughts. Carol and I are going over to the refreshment table.

Sure. Coke, please.

One regular Coke coming up, Brad replied as he spun his chair around and headed toward the snack table with Carol keeping pace beside him.

Alone for a few minutes now, Lynne reached into her purse and took out Vicki’s letter. As she reread the pages she thought about the fun she had had preparing for the evening’s festivities last summer. She experienced a twinge of fear as the memory of other, more sinister, events of her first visit to Virginia City surfaced in her mind.

She raised her eyes from the letter and looked around the park in unforgotten apprehension.

During her first flight to Reno, Nevada, a man had followed her. There would be no threat this time, she reassured herself as Brad raised a can of pop in the air and smiled at her. She smiled back, then shook her head as if to clear it and returned her attention back to Vicki’s letter.

The letter was one of many she had received since they met. Vicki kept her informed of the progress of her and Frank’s romance.

Lynne read more of the latest letter.

I want you to be my Maid-of-Honor, okay?

Okay? Lynne mused. It was a terrific idea! She was thrilled to be returning to Nevada’s liveliest ghost town!

Your graduation is Friday, right? Vicki wrote. You can fly down on Tuesday—I’ll pick you up at the airport in Reno. The wedding will be the following Saturday. I know it’s short notice but I’ll explain when you get here. We can have lots of fun getting everything ready. It won’t be too elaborate though."

Planning a wedding could be fun. And, it would be a chance for a vacation before she started her new job the Monday after the wedding.

Here it was, the Sunday before Graduation already. So much to do, so little time.

She wondered what Vicki and Frank’s rush was. Less than a week was pretty fast to get a wedding organized—even a small one. But then, Vicki usually moved swiftly when her mind was made up. Lynne decided she would just have to be patient until the two of them could talk.

Hardly a day went by that she didn’t think about her friends in Virginia City. Vicki, and some of the other teenagers that had come to the party, had gone together to buy her a silver dollar as a souvenir of her trip. She remembered the weight of the coin that was kept in her jewelry case at home. Her friendship with Vicki was solid like the coin, she thought. And with Jeremy, she hoped.

Like Vicki, Jeremy Hastings had been extra special too, only in a very gentle, yet strong, way.

And, like Vicki, Lynne’s Aunt Pat had introduced her to Jeremy. On her first visit to Virginia City he had shown her around the area. He and his Jeep had taken her over the back roads, as well as into the normal tourist sites. He had even helped rescue her from a stranger that followed her from the plane. Jeremy was a part of her life that was impossible to forget. Although they had become close friends she tried to push any romantic thoughts of him out of her mind. They lived in two different worlds—Jeremy studying at the University of Nevada at Reno and Lynne completing high school over four hundred miles away in Eugene, Oregon.

She had dated other boys in her class at Crestview High, yet her thoughts had remained with the dark-haired half-Paiute young man in Nevada.

The two of them had occasionally exchanged notes during the school year. She wondered now if she would see him again on this trip.

Brad and Carol were back quickly with the drinks and Lynne occupied the rest of the afternoon by keeping her mind in the present instead of the memories of the past or anticipation of the future. She intended to savor the last few days she would share with her classmates.

WHEN LYNNE DEPLANED in Reno on Tuesday, there was stillness in the air as if the day had been quite hot. A gentle breeze bathed her in soothing warmth in the breezeway. Somehow even the terminal felt different when she reached the bottom of the escalator. It was as if the excitement of Nevada generated through her shoes into her whole being.

She scanned the waiting area for Vicki until her friend waved to her from the lobby near the luggage carousel.

Vicki! It’s great to see you, again. You’ve changed! Lynne remembered her as a plain-appearing girl with straight brown hair and a well-scrubbed face. Although her hair still hung down to her waist, she now wore light makeup to enhance her features.

I couldn’t have a nose job, Vicki said, half in jest as she tapped the tip of the appendage, so I learned how to disguise it with make-up.

Lynne laughed. Vicki had always been unnecessarily self-conscious of her nose. Someone had once told her that plastic surgery on the nose was a Hollywood fashion years ago. When she began comparing her facial features to those of her friends, she developed a complex that refused to go away.

You look great, Lynne. You’ve changed, too.

I may be a little taller but...love must agree with you. If that’s the incentive it takes, maybe when I find the right guy, I’ll burst into bloom, too.

The two girls walked to Vicki’s car and were soon driving down city streets in the Reno area that were familiar to Lynne from her last visit.

When they reached the turnoff to Virginia City the final rays of the sun had transformed the patches of snow on Mount Rose into a fluorescent pink hue. Lynne wondered if the mountain’s name was derived as much from its evening hues as from the name of the man who built his home in the valley below.

Vicki turned left onto the Comstock Highway away from Mount Rose and up the winding Geiger Grade toward her home.

Daylight dimmed to dusk. By the time the girls reached the last curve into Virginia City, darkness enveloped the town.

As Lynne saw the twinkle of lights below, she sensed a peace in the air. The dark of night separated the town’s streetlights from the stars like frosting between the layers of a cake. Although nearly a year’s time had elapsed since her last visit, it was as if no time at all had passed. Lynne felt as if she had come home.

Wait until you really get to know Frank, Vicki was saying as Lynne visually saturated herself with the outline of Virginia City that was exposed in the street lights.

They drove a short distance on C Street and turned downhill toward the Potter residence.

You never really got to know him before, Vicki continued. He’s really special.

I know, Vicki, from your letters and phone calls. Besides, you wouldn’t be marrying him if he wasn’t, Lynne told her friend.

About that, Vicki spoke as if she felt the need to explain her decision to someone she could trust. She knew that Lynne, while she might not understand, was a true friend. I didn’t know how you would react to my getting married.

What do you mean? Lynne asked.

Well, some people say I’m too young to get married. Frank is almost twenty-four, so that seems all right. The difference in our ages doesn’t seem to bother anybody in particular.

Frank’s finished accounting school and is a CPA. He wants to be an auditor for the state gaming commission. But, Vicki paused, well, he’s had this really good job offer from a Laughlin casino that he just can’t pass up. So we decided, why postpone the inevitable? Getting married now only moves our plans up a couple of years.

Lynne looked at Vicki’s face illuminated by the car’s dash lights. She sensed that she was not going to change her mind regardless of what anyone said. She was probably looking for reassurance that she was doing the right thing.

With both of us working, Vicki continued, we can get an earlier start on buying a home and having the things we want. If we wait, we may never be able to afford a house. Besides, we couldn’t stand being so far apart.

You don’t have to explain your plans to me, Vicki, Lynne stated. You’re just the first of what I expect to be a long line of friends who get married. I’m just happy that you truly love each other enough to make a formal commitment.

"It may be a bit old fashioned,