Charlotte’s phone buzzes with an incoming text. Her complexion pales. Moisture pools in her eyes. She clutches her phone, her knuckles bone white.
“What is it?” Olivia touches her shoulder, sensing her mounting panic.
“It’s Lucas. He needs help.”
“Is he okay?” she asks, remembering how she left him yesterday. His smile was strained, but he promised her he wouldn’t do anything stupid.
“I don’t know.” Charlotte grasps her hand. “Take me home to Lucas, then go get my baby. Bring her back.”
Torn between chasing down Lily and helping Lucas, Olivia agrees. “Promise you’ll call if you need me.”
Charlotte nods tightly. “I will,” she whispers, on the brink of falling apart.
It must be bad, whatever Lucas has done. Please, God, Olivia whispers in her head. Keep her brother safe. She’s as anxious as Charlotte to have her siblings together again.
CHAPTER 35
“This place hasn’t changed at all.” Olivia watches the scenery pass outside her window. Green Valley Lake, the best-kept secret high in the San Bernardino Mountains. Other kids went to sleepaway summer camps. The Whitmans’ cabin was summer camp without counselors and KP duty. Campfires without corny songs. Canoe races without rules. While Lily and Tyler kept close to the cabin because they were younger, she, Blaze, and Lucas ran amok six weeks straight, year after year. She could hike the trails with her eyes closed. Bike the roads without Google Maps. Recite every flavor of Popsicle in the icebox at Decker’s Market: Firecracker, Missile, Pop Ups, Orange Creamsicle. Looking back, she’s surprised there weren’t more trips to the clinic given all the trees they climbed and fell from or trips around the lake without life vests. They were stupid kids. But those summers held her best memories.
She absently plays with her fingers, wishing she had a cigarette. She’s nervous. Blaze called the landline at the house. No one answered, but Olivia wasn’t going to spend the day twiddling her thumbs if there is any chance that Lily could be there.
Josh’s knees knock the back of her seat. He’s been restless the entire drive.
“We’re almost there,” Olivia says over her shoulder.
“Yep.” Josh cracks his knuckles, bounces his fists on his knees. Olivia prays this trip is worth the drive. She postponed her appointment with Officer Curbelo to go with her gut.
Blaze eases down their windows. The mountain air floods her with memories. Good ones of her and her siblings, like sharing a candy bar with Lucas or rowing Lily in the canoe, sticking close to shore under Harold’s watchful eye. She leans her head toward the window and lets her hair go wild.
“Nervous?” Blaze asks.
“Mm-hmm.” About Lily. Their mom and Lucas, too. Her brother’s truck wasn’t in the drive when they dropped off Charlotte. Her mom said she knew where he was and would call with an update. Olivia’s worried about him and regrets she hadn’t invited him to stay with them last night. She didn’t apologize for blaming him for ruining their summers at the Whitmans’. He was never at fault, and he needs to hear that from her. He also needs to hear that she loves him.
“I can stop by Decker’s,” Blaze says.
Her gaze catches his and the drift of his offer. She shakes her head. “I’m good.” There are other ways besides a pack of cigarettes to temper her anxiety. She looks across the lake’s glass surface and has the urge to purchase a kayak. Once this is over, she’ll ask Lucas if she can join him some days on his morning row. She misses the water at sunrise.
They turn onto the cabin’s street and memories crash into her head like a blow from Titian Crimson. “Oh, my gosh, this place.”
“I know, right? Maybe . . .” He stops and shakes his head.
“What?”
“No pressure, but maybe one day we could swing by the real estate office in town and check out some listings.”
Her brows lift. “For us to go in on together?”
“Something like that.” He pauses and smiles. “Yeah. Exactly like that. I want us to start our own traditions.”
Olivia waits for the familiar twinge of panic that sours her stomach whenever she thinks about marriage and families. It never comes. She smiles. She could have her summers at the lake back. They could invite Lucas and Lily—Josh. Tyler, too, if he was up for it. They’re too old to sleep in sheet tents under string light stars, but they can stay up all night talking around the campfire, or spend lazy days floating on the lake.
“Yeah, I’d like that.”
“There!” Josh leans into the front and points at the cabin from Lily’s picture.
There it is indeed. The place looks the same as it did the last time her family drove away. From the outside, the house is rustic with wood-stained siding. Inside, everything was top-of-the-line at the time.
“We’ve arrived,” Blaze murmurs, turning into the driveway.
“Think she’s here?” Olivia’s heart is a helium balloon rising in her throat.
“Only one way to find out.” His eyes are tender when he stops the Mercedes’s engine.
Olivia looks out her window and her pulse throbs in her throat. The curtains are drawn and porch light on, exactly how the Whitmans left the house when they closed it up at the end of summer. If anyone is here, they’re parked in the garage.
Josh is the first out of the car. Olivia and Blaze follow. Movement in the front window draws her eye. The curtains flutter, then the front door bolt releases. The door opens and a man appears. He’s tall with broad shoulders and tawny hair.
“Ty?” Blaze shuts the car door and pockets the keys.
Olivia startles. She watches the man as he talks to someone inside the house. When he looks back at them, Olivia gasps. It is Tyler.
A woman appears beside him and Olivia bursts out crying. “Lily.” Her sister’s name is a whisper and Blaze is instantly at her side, his arm around her waist. She hoped with her entire being Lily would be here, but to see her in the flesh is a shock. She’d recognize her little sister anywhere.
Dressed in silver leggings with flame-red hair, the spitting image of Olivia’s Dahlia Crimson, Lily stands frozen in the doorway. Olivia sees the moment she recognizes her son. Her face lights up, a heady combination of relief and elation. “Josh? Josh! Oh, my god.”
“Mom!” Josh runs to her.
Lily flies down the steps and across the driveway. She’s a blur, like pages flipping in a comic book. Olivia watches her sister with stunned wonder. She’s alive, she’s whole, and she’s beautiful. Mother and son meet halfway. Josh launches into Lily’s arms. She envelops him in a tight embrace and bursts into tears. “I thought I lost you.” She sobs, holding Josh close.
“Okay, Mom. Okay. Okay.”
It’s okay, Mom. I’m okay. We’ll be okay, Olivia interprets. She feels so much love for them both. Their reunion takes her breath away. Josh buries his face in Lily’s hair and cries. They rock side to side.
Blaze touches Olivia’s hand and she jerks, startled. “Are you okay?”
She shakes her head. Tears cloud her vision. “She’s here,” she whispers.
Blaze smiles. “Because you and Josh found her. You did this. Remember that.”