“I’m going to help Grandpa,” Rose announced, springing from the table, plate in hand.
“Traitor,” Charity whispered at her daughter’s back with a little smirk.
“Really, girls? You with the whole ‘my life, my rules’ thing.” She pointed at Charity. “And you with…”
“The truth?” I offered.
“You can’t make him accept Cam. The day he brought you home with that broken nose, your dad made up his mind about him.” Mom shook her head as the sound of the faucet running started from the kitchen. “The fire sealed the deal.”
“I was nine and fell in the mine,” I argued. “Cam was the one who found me and brought me home after—” I dropped Charity’s hand and put my napkin on the table. It didn’t matter how many times I went over the events of that day; Dad would always side with Xander and against Cam. “And it was Cam who carried me out of that fire when I lost track of Sully. Cam, Mom, not Sullivan. And it was almost ten years ago!” Almost ten years since I left the white onyx bishop on Cam’s dashboard when he wouldn’t let me thank him.
“I know how you feel about him,” Mom whispered.
“Well, that makes one of us,” I muttered and stood.
“For the love of God, Willow, that skirt can’t possibly pass the fingertip test.” Mom’s lips pursed.
“It doesn’t,” I assured her, dropping my hands straight down my thighs to show her that it was a few inches shorter than her ridiculous mandate.
“I had a child out of wedlock,” Charity blurted, standing next to me.
Mom sighed, waving us off as she stood up. “This is not a competition. Now, both of you get home. The snow’s coming down heavy, and it looks like the wet stuff. I’ll handle the dishes…and your father.”
We kissed her cheeks, and after Charity had Rose buttoned up, we escaped out the garage door. One look at the accumulating snow and Rose’s dress shoes, and Charity hefted Rose into her arms.
“Crap, she wasn’t kidding,” Charity groaned as she trekked through the water-laden snow. We were up to at least five inches already.
“Here.” I scrambled, slipping twice as I got ahead of her to open Charity’s back door. “In you go, Rosie. Love you.” I pressed a quick kiss to her forehead.
“Love you!” she called back.
“I have to stop feeding you so much,” Charity complained with a grin as she lifted Rose into the SUV. “Buckle up, buttercup.” She shut the door, leaving us standing in the silence that only comes with snowfall. “It used to be easier to carry her.”
“She used to be smaller.” A wave of gratitude hit me—I’d be around to see her grow again. She’d shot up in the four years I’d been gone. “You spoke to Dad.”
“You defied him.”
We both nodded and then hugged, holding each other tight.
“I should have said something earlier, about Cam and Sully,” I admitted into my sister’s hair.
She squeezed me closer. “You did what you could when you could.”
“I should have said something earlier about you, too. About you and Rose. I never should have stayed quiet and let him shun you. I was just trying to keep the peace, but it was wrong.”
She shook her head against mine. “No. No, Willow.” She pulled back, cupping my cheeks in her bare hands. “That was my fight. Not yours. Don’t you ever apologize for that. You have always shown up for me. For Rose. And you keeping that peace is what allowed me to bring her around those first years before you went to college. You laid the groundwork for it to keep going once you left. You’re the reason we can still have these dinners. The reason I know he loves Rose more than life. You’ve held your tongue in the moments I couldn’t, and that’s something to be proud of. Restraint can be so much harder.”
I blinked furiously, keeping the burn at bay as snowflakes landed on my eyelashes and Charity’s.
“I’m so scared that I let the silence speak for me,” I whispered.
“Well, you seem to have found your voice now. Use it for good. You know, the whole ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ thing.”
“I’m not Spider-Man.” I laughed.
“You’ve survived more than anyone I know, then gotten on your feet and started going again. That makes you a hero in my book.”
“You’ve raised a daughter on your own. That makes you mine.”
She grinned and shrugged. “I just learned how to tell people no. Something tells me you did, too. Now, go back up the mountain before this gets any worse. The last thing you want is to call Dad to come rescue you if you get stuck. You’ll never hear the end of it.”
“Truth.” We gave each other another squeeze, then piled into our separate cars.
Icy air blasted as I started the engine, and I quickly turned down the vents. After Charity pulled out of the drive, I did the same, following her for a couple hundred yards. The snow fell in thick curtains, working my wiper blades overtime. Visibility was pure crap.
I turned up the road that led to my little outpost, then paused to put my car into four-wheel drive. Spring snow was nothing to mess with. It was heavy, wet, and slick. Great for snowballs and forts but horrible for driving.
My car groaned as we made it up the first ridgeline, skimming the edge of Cam’s property at the hot springs. My toes tingled, reminding me that there was nothing hot about this ride. I slammed the heat to full now that the engine was good and warm and adjusted my defrost. I’d grown up on this mountain, and while this was definitely one of my more challenging drives home, it wasn’t the worst.
Judah & the Lion came through my stereo, and I turned the volume down as I peaked, knowing that the downhill could be just as challenging with the already packed snow under this mess.
I took it slowly, maintaining traction.
“Shit!” I yelped as a doe ran out in front of me, followed by three of her friends. Fighting the instinct to slam the brakes, I pumped quickly and swerved at the last minute to avoid the fifth deer. Darn straggler.
My back end came around, sending me down the path sideways.
“A little help here,” I shouted to whoever might be listening, using every skill I had to get myself out of the slide.
I slid right off the road, and the side of the mountain suddenly felt much more death trap and much less home. If I slid much farther, I’d fall a good three hundred feet and end up in Dad’s backyard.
The tires gripped for a millisecond, and I took advantage, pulling the wheel hard, only to hit a set of boulders even harder.