Every Road to You

Pride swelled in Tia’s heart. Max had been right. Her job was done.

Ethan Wright had it all wrong. She wasn’t the one who needed to talk to his grandmother. He did. If Carol told him what she’d just told her, even her stubborn grandson would undoubtedly see her happiness and be thrilled for her.

Still, Tia was curious about one thing.

“So how does a trip to the slammer fit into this story?

Carol pulled her hand back and reached for her coffee cup. “Well, in all the fun, the party may have gotten a little loud. My friend Edna’s neighbors called the cops, who asked us to hold it down,” she said. “And we tried. We really did.”

“The police had to come back,” Tia surmised.

Carol nodded. “But it was a different officer the second time, and he wasn’t so nice. In fact, he was rude and condescending.”

She put her a fist on her hip and wagged the index finger of her other hand. “‘Isn’t it past you Q-tips’ bedtime?’” Carol mimicked the officer. “‘Time to break it up and head back to the old-folks’ home.’”

“Uh-oh,” Tia said.

“Uh-oh is right,” Carol huffed. “I consider myself an easygoing woman, but I wasn’t having it. Especially off a kid I assisted the doctor in bringing into the world. I don’t care if he was all grown up and wearing a blue uniform.”

Tia sipped her cooling tea as she listened. At this point, Carol’s story was more interesting than her breakfast.

“I told him to watch his tone, and he said to me, ‘Settle down. I’m warning you,’” Carol mimicked again. “He’s warning me, after I fished broken crayons out of his snotty little nose when he was two,” she said. “Long story short, we argued. He got hot around the collar and hauled me downtown on some bogus charge of breaching the peace.”

Again, Tia wondered if Ethan had sat down and really talked to his grandmother, and gotten her side of the story. Carol may have been in the wrong for back-talking the law, but it was completely understandable.

“Still, I can’t believe he arrested you.”

Carol shook her head. “He didn’t. Not really. I was detained a couple of hours, and then he called Ethan, my thirty-one-year-old grandson, to come get me,” she said. “As if I were senile or a brat whose parent had been summoned to the principal’s office. I swear, I nearly lit into him all over again.”

Only pausing to take a breath, Carol continued, “Instead of Ethan reading him the riot act, he basically thanked the officer for seeing to his senile old granny.” She fixed her gaze on Tia. “Then he runs straight to you, and for what? Last time I checked, I was seventy-four, not four.”

Tia cleared her throat. “He blames me. He believes I’m the evil puppet master behind the changes you’ve made lately.”

Carol nodded at the waitress, who then topped up her coffee, and Carol turned back to Tia. “That’s a load of bull. You made me look amazing and feel good about my appearance again. However, I was the one who decided to start living the life I want to lead, and there’s not a thing my grandson can do about it.”

Tia watched the older woman open a sleek cross-body bag and pull out a folded sheet of paper. She opened it and slid it across the table.

“What’s this?” Tia asked, skimming what appeared to be some kind of list.

“My bucket list,” Carol answered proudly.

“Oh, my God, you actually did it,” Tia said. “I’m impressed.”

“When you first suggested it, I wasn’t so sure. The idea made me feel like I had one foot in the grave,” she said. “But the more I thought about it, I realized I’d been living like I’d had both my feet planted in one for years. It’s time for me to stop putting off things I really want to try. No matter how frivolous or downright silly.”

Tia could feel her chest practically expanding with pride as she smiled across the table at Carol. This was the real reason she’d started the spa division of the company. She’d wanted to use beauty and outward changes to give women the courage to take bigger, bolder steps toward their dreams.

Tia took a closer look at the typed list. It contained nearly a hundred bullet points, including skydiving, riding a Harley and playing poker in a national tournament.

“‘Pub crawling the honky-tonks on Broadway,’” Tia read, noting the red line scratching it off the list.

“Done.” Carol winked.

“‘Ride one of the biggest, baddest roller coasters of the summer,’” Tia continued to read.

Carol nodded. “When my daughter was young, we’d take her to amusement parks, and I wanted to go on the roller coasters with her, but I was just too chicken,” she said. “I’d end up sitting on a bench like a stick-in-the-mud watching everybody else have fun. I did the same thing when I took Ethan as a boy.”

Tia had no memories of amusement parks or roller coasters as a kid. There were no family vacations. Any childhood trips, like everything in her parents’ lives, revolved around Espresso company business.

She pushed the errant memory from her head, not wanting to go down that road. Still, she couldn’t help appreciate the irony. The business she once resented, she was now rallying to save.

“Are you sure you don’t want to start off with something smaller and not so bad?” Tia asked, focusing instead on her friend.

Carol shook her head. “Nope. No wussy coasters,” she said. “I read about one called Outlaw Run in Missouri on the web. Along with being one of the few wooden coasters in the country, it has a sixteen-story drop and double-barrel roll.”

Tia laughed and held up her hands. “Stop. You’re making my stomach drop and roll just talking about it.”

“I plan to ride that baby at least twice before the end of the summer,” Carol said.

“Ambitious list.” Tia was about to return the paper to her friend when a handwritten item caught her eye.

The one who got away.

She pointed it out to Carol. “What’s this?”

“Nothing.” The older woman shook her head and her brown skin flushed red.

“Are you blushing?” Tia asked, intrigued.

“Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.” Carol hurriedly snatched the list from her hand. “I was just doodling.”

Tia stared across the table at her. She’d immediately noticed there was something different about her friend. Something that had nothing to do with her makeover or attitude shift. The handwritten item had been the clue, but Carol’s reaction confirmed it.

“Who is he?” Tia asked.

She held up a hand to forestall the denial forming on Carol’s lips. “I already know there’s a him. You were practically beaming when you walked in here, and now you’re blushing.”

Carol’s sigh held a dreamy edge. “His name is Glenn Davies and he once was the love of my life,” she admitted. “I think he still is.”

Tia leaned forward in her chair. Now she was really interested. “You didn’t mention him when you came in for your makeover, and you were at the spa all day. How long have you two been seeing each other?”

“A week.” Carol chewed at her bottom lip. “He’s only just moved back to town. We ran into each other last week and we’ve been seeing each other ever since.”

“You two are moving pretty fast, aren’t you?” Tia asked.

“We’ve wasted too much time already. Still, somehow when we’re together the decades melt away.”

Carol’s face glowed like a woman in love’s. Tia couldn’t help wonder what had broken them up in the first place.

“What happened between you two that you didn’t end up together? Well, until now.”

The older woman shrugged. “It’s a typical story, almost a cliché. Good girl falls for bad boy. I was young and my folks disapproved of our relationship. After high school, he got a job out of state and asked me to come with him. I wanted to but couldn’t bear disappointing my parents. I didn’t see him again until last week, fifty-seven years later.”

This time it was Tia who reached across the table for her old friend’s hand. “I’m happy for you.”

She meant it. Feelings that five decades apart had failed to extinguish deserved the chance to thrive.

“Thank you, dear,” Carol said. “Now, enough about me. The topic has dominated our entire conversation this morning, and it’s beginning to bore me.” She pinned Tia with her gaze. “You don’t seem yourself. Something bothering you, other than my ogre of a grandson paying you a visit?”

Tia shook her head. “Just work stuff,” she said.

The temptation to confide in Carol was strong. She hadn’t had anyone else to talk to but Max.

Her brother, Cole, was off doing his own thing, and her sister, Lola, the current face of Espresso Cosmetics, was more adept at causing problems than helping to figure out solutions.

Still, Tia didn’t want to mar Carol’s happiness by dumping her problems on her.

“Come on,” the older woman coaxed. “I’ve known you since you were seventeen. I know when you’re worried.”

Tia exhaled. “Yesterday, I tried to talk to my father about Espresso’s financial situation again. To say it didn’t go well would be an understatement.”

Concern creased Carol’s still-youthful face. “I didn’t realize things had gotten so bad.”

The pink uniform–clad waitress came to check their table, and Tia gave her the okay to clear her plate of now-cold pancakes. Replaying the scene with her father in her head had stolen her appetite anyway. She couldn’t remember ever seeing him so angry, and when she was younger she’d given her parents plenty to get angry over.

Tia grimaced. “The revenue from the spa division is the only thing keeping us afloat.”

“What about Cole?” Carol asked. “He practically ran the place single-handedly during your mother’s illness. Surely he can...”

Tia shook her head slowly. She was about to convey the brief conversation with her older brother, when the phone inside her purse rang.

She peeked inside her bag and saw it was Max. It was unusual for him to call this early, so it had to be important.

“You mind if I take this?”

“Go ahead,” Carol said.

Moments later, Tia ended the call.

“Everything okay?” Carol asked.

Tia rolled her eyes. This was the last thing Espresso needed. “It’s Lola. Apparently, there’s some trouble concerning the photo shoot for next year’s spring campaign in Albuquerque. Lola’s refusing to go,” she said. “You don’t mind if we cut this short?”

Although, technically it wasn’t her job to intervene in this issue, as a Gray, Tia considered it her responsibility to help. She signaled the waitress and quickly paid the check. Her sister was well aware of the company’s precarious finances. They no longer had the time or money to waste on her antics.

Carol glanced at her watch. “Of course not, dear. I’m supposed to meet Glenn in a few minutes anyway. There’s a special early showing of the new comic book superhero action movie opening today. Glenn’s a huge fan of the one that flies around in a red cape.”

Tia barely heard a word. Her mind had already fast-forwarded past superheroes to her next move—shaking some sense into her spoiled, entitled baby sister.

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