Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

C aroline kept stroking Judy's hair as she pressed her into her stomach. Belle hung on her arm, and Caroline wondered when she'd become the strong one. When people had started relying on her to know what to do and where to go.

They'd gone to lunch once she'd returned from the Rhinehart Ranch, and they'd barely finished before the sky had opened up. Since they'd gotten a seat in the garden, and it had a woven grass roof, they'd been able to weather the first ten or fifteen minutes.

Then the hail had started. That had forced everyone to empty the outdoor tables, and now Caroline stood inside the restaurant, wondering how much longer it would pour like this. She'd seen others rushing by outside, and they were drenched to the skin. They'd parked down the street, and they'd all be soaked within two steps.

"It's going to let up soon," Caroline promised. A rumble of thunder decided right then was a good time to make its voice known, and she slowly closed her eyes. She needed more patience, but she didn't know where to find it.

She didn't mind standing at the window, looking outside, but she needed a jar of Biscoff spread and a spoon if she was going to do it for much longer. Crunchy Biscoff, not the smooth kind.

Her phone emitted a bloopety-bloop noise, and her heartbeat went wild. Dawson. Dawson had just texted her. Maybe he'd be in the area with a giant umbrella that would cover the whole block and everyone in this bistro could get where they needed to go without getting a single drop of water on them.

She tugged her phone out of her purse and angled it away from Belle, though her sister was engrossed in her own phone.

Hey, Caroline, I have some bad news. Not sure if you've seen the weather, but it's pouring, with some hail, and I've been summoned to an emergency meeting with my brother tonight, so I'm not going to be able to make our date work.

One big sentence, and she could only imagine the cowboy saying all of this in one breath. Literally, could only imagine it .

He'd texted again, right after that, and he'd said, I don't want you thinking I don't want to see you. I do. Badly. So…I was thinking breakfast. My place. Tomorrow morning. Then I thought that was too cliché. Totally overdone. So now I'm thinking I can pencil you in for lunch, barring any other weather or brother emergencies. Let me know what you think.

What she thought was that Dawson Rhinehart wanted to see her. Badly. She smiled, something like a soft sigh slipping from her lips. Then she let her fingers fly.

Too bad about tonight. But as luck would have it, I'm free all day tomorrow, what with it being Saturday and all.

She lowered her phone to her side, but she didn't put it away yet. She did press on the volume button on the side to get it to quiet, because Belle would eventually catch on that someone kept texting her. Someone with a specialized chime.

Her phone buzzed, and Caroline glanced down at it. Great. At the risk of being that cowboy, I have to let you know I only get an hour for lunch.

I'll bring something to your cabin , she typed out before she could think too hard about it. He wouldn't even be able to drive to her house and back in an hour. Then, feeling flirty and outside the boxes of what made her Caroline, she added, You can't make your own schedule? Or take a longer lunch? It's the weekend .

The ranch does not care what day of the week it is, Miss Thompson.

She giggled before she could stop herself, and Judy looked up at her. Caroline dropped the smile from her face, cleared her throat, and tucked her phone back into her purse.

"It's letting up a little," someone said, and she took that as her cue to leave. Then she wouldn't be able to look at her phone, even though it tempted her.

"Let's try to get home." She smiled down at her niece. "I don't think we'll be able to go to the petting zoo this afternoon."

Judy's face fell, but she hurried to look toward the window as another round of thunder rumbled through the sky.

"Belle," Caroline said, maybe a bit too harshly. But her sister had semi-disappeared into her device. When she looked up, her eyes contained a hazed layer that took a few moments to dissipate. "We need to go now."

"Okay." Belle moved with her just fine, but Caroline suspected that if she hadn't guided Judy, Belle would've left her behind. Impatience and irritation threatened to kick their way up her throat, and then she reminded herself that Belle was only one month into a divorce that she hadn't wanted.

Caroline could be kind instead of snappy, and she took a deep breath as she followed someone out onto the sidewalk. The rain still drizzled, but she wouldn't have to drive home dripping all over her SUV. She wouldn't have to help Judy get out of her wet clothes—or Belle.

They made it to the SUV, and Caroline opened the back door for Judy with a "Up you go, little lady."

Her phone blooped again, and Caroline took a precious moment in the intensifying rain to silence it all the way. The last thing she needed was Belle noticing and offering to check it for her. Behind the wheel, she smiled over to her sister. "What should we do this afternoon now?"

"Hot chocolate," Judy said from the back seat. "Caramel popcorn. And a Barbie movie."

Caroline smiled at her niece, though the last thing she wanted to put on was a Barbie movie. Judy loved them, though, and she looked in the rearview mirror. "Do you want the mermaid one, or the princess one?"

"Mermaids!" Judy swung her legs that didn't quite reach the floor in the SUV, and Belle did smile over her shoulder to her daughter.

She leaned her head back against the rest and focused on Caroline. "I could make the caramel, and you can pour it over that rice cereal you love."

Caroline had just eaten plenty for lunch, but she did love her sweets. So she gave Belle a smile and said, "Absolutely."

Once home, Caroline got Judy and Belle inside, made sure Gondola had enough water, and left her sister to make the caramel-covered cereal. Then they'd all pile onto the couch, with the lights off, and put a movie on.

She didn't mind the simpleness of her life. In fact, it was something she'd desperately worked to achieve. A job she enjoyed and could do. A place to call home. A refuge. A sanctuary away from the storms her life had once been.

In the bathroom, where she'd barricaded herself so she could check her messages in private, she looked up and into her own eyes in the mirror. "If you're going to start dating Dawson, you have to woman-up and talk to Belle about it."

She breathed in, and her shoulders lifted. She'd been through a lot, and those shoulders had carried so much all on their own. She could carry her sister for a little bit too.

"Jesus will," she murmured. Jesus would carry them both when they needed it, Caroline knew that. She bowed her head and let herself just be for a few seconds. She just breathed, and appreciated that she still could. She let her mind think whatever it wanted. She pulled her shoulders back down as she exhaled, and the rest of her tight muscles followed suit.

And then, when she looked up, she prayed, "What's the right thing to do here?" She'd been divorced and rebuilding her life for five years, but Belle hadn't even made it five weeks yet. She still had a long road in front of her, and Caroline wanted to be there every step of the way.

Her phone fizzed in her palm, which indicated a text from Belle. Caroline switched her gaze to it, not sure what she'd find. I'm not feeling like making anything , Belle had said. I can't stop crying, and I don't want Judy to see me like this. I don't want to do this. I can't keep living like this. I don't know how to do this.

Caroline heard and felt the pure desperation, the pure agony, in her sister's texts. Tears touched her eyes, and Caroline didn't know how to console this hurt. She had no bandages for this kind of pain.

She had, however, experienced this exact torment, and she'd somehow made it through to the other side. I know, my sweet sister. But you must.

There was no other advice to give her. Caroline had experienced some very dark hours herself, and she'd hung on. She'd clung to certain truths that had somehow provided a pinprick of light that had eventually grown brighter and brighter until she didn't feel so cold, so alone, so lost.

She left her bathroom and bedroom and went across the hall to Belle's bedroom, where her sister had already escaped. She sniffled and sobbed, and Caroline hurried to wrap her sister up in a tight hug. That had always helped her to feel like she wasn't about to splinter apart cell by cell .

"Hey," she soothed. She didn't say it was okay, because nothing was okay in Belle's world right now.

"I'm s-sorry," Belle said. "Everything reminds me of this beautiful thing I thought I had but didn't."

"I know, sissy. I know." Caroline stroked her sister's hair back off her cheek and forehead. "You take your time. I'll go spend the afternoon with Judy."

"She must be so sad too." Belle looked at her with a measure of hope in her expression. Hope Caroline didn't understand.

"I'll talk to her," she promised, finally deciding that perhaps Belle thought Judy wouldn't be sad that she didn't get to see her daddy anymore. But that wasn't rational or possible. Of course Judy—a real human being though she was only six years old—missed her daddy. She missed her friends in Phoenix. She'd been removed from the only life she'd ever known and brought to Three Rivers to live with her aunt.

She'd start at a new school next week. In a strange place. Everything unfamiliar.

Caroline had done the same thing when she'd left her marriage, and she'd done it all again when she'd taken this new position and had to come to Three Rivers.

She stayed with Belle for another minute or two, then carefully eased herself away from her sister, tucked her back into bed, and left the bedroom. As she walked, every step brought more strength to her mind .

Judy deserved someone to care for her, someone to see her and provide for her, and Caroline could do that while Belle grieved. As she moved into the living room, she didn't see her niece, and Judy hadn't camped out at the dining room table to color either.

Caroline called, "Judy?" and headed for the back door. She had a beautiful, fenced backyard that would've housed a dog so perfectly, and a pang of sadness hit her that she couldn't have the canine she wanted.

Although, with Judy and Belle here now, perhaps she could. The dog wouldn't be home alone all day with her sister here.

"Jude?" Caroline moved across the back deck and found Judy on the swing set that had come with the house and yard. "It's going to rain again, sweetheart. You can't stay out here for long." She looked up into the sky, with its angry gray clouds and the threat of more rain and hail and maybe worse.

"Okay," Judy called, seemingly unconcerned about another round of rain showers.

Caroline wrapped her arms around herself though she wore a pink sweater with a fox on the left side. She wanted to call Judy in right now, because she didn't want to stand on the back deck. "It's not about you," she muttered as she turned and went back inside. She also didn't have to stand outside and wait for Judy. The girl knew how to come back inside .

She put together the caramel popcorn, only reserving a bit of the sticky mixture to pour over her preferred crunchy treat—Rice Chex. Judy liked popcorn better, and Caroline settled her in front of the TV with the snack and the Barbie mermaid movie.

She didn't have to watch that either, but she did. She made dinner and fed Judy, neither of them seeing nor hearing from Belle again. Caroline stewed and stewed and stewed over Dawson, suddenly glad their date that evening had been canceled.

There was no way she could leave Judy with Belle tonight, and she had no words to tell her sister she was going to start dating again.

She took food to Belle, who didn't stir when she entered the bedroom, and she left the plate on her sister's nightstand. She fed Gondola and got Judy in the tub. She towel-dried the girl's hair, wondering how different tonight had been than she'd anticipated this morning, and she left Judy to color and read for an hour.

"I'll be back to tuck you in," she promised, and then Caroline sighed a ginormous sigh as she went into the kitchen only she had once maintained alone. Now, evidence of the two extra people living here sat everywhere, and Caroline pushed against the need to clean up.

She succeeded, and instead, grabbed the crunchy Biscoff jar from the cupboard, grabbed a spoon, and moved to stand in front of the front window. Her neighbors had been nothing short of amazing, each of them bringing her something treasured over the months.

A jar of grape juice, made from the Concord grapes lovingly grown all spring and summer. A pineapple upside down cake—an entire cake—leftover from someone's wedding. A loaf of honey sourdough bread, delivered in a brown bag with heat seeping through it.

Porch lights had started to come on as darkness lingered only minutes away. "My favorite time of day," Caroline said to herself. She loved dusk and twilight as it led another day into rest.

She liked to think through her day and what she'd done, what she could be grateful for, and what she could do better with the following day. She loved that God gave her multiple chances at some things, and she never ended a day without kneeling down and thanking Him for His great blessings.

So lost in her thoughts of that day—and how bored she'd been without a date to look forward to and only animated movies to occupy her time—was she that she didn't notice anyone pulling into her driveway.

She did, however, see the man as he crossed in front of her line of sight. With startling recognition, she said, "Dawson?"

The doorbell rang before she could move to open the door and tell him not to touch it. He moved like a ninja, that cowboy.

She'd barely slid the spoon out of her mouth from her last bite of Biscoff when Belle said, "Caroline?" She flicked her eyes toward the door. "Who's here?"

Caroline spun toward her, then back to the door, her boring evening and quiet contemplation suddenly anything but those things. "It's just…." She nodded to the plate of food in her sister's hand. "Go eat your dinner. I'll just…take care of this."

With that, she side-stepped over to the door and opened it, Biscoff and all.