Home To Family

One of Matt D’Angelo’s brows lifted. “Didn’t that hurt?”

“No,” she lied, trying to suck cold air through her slightly parted lips.

“You sure?”

“It doesn’t,” she claimed, mortified. “Okay?”

His mouth quirked. “Guess it’s true what Danny says about you.”

The mention of his friend Danny LeBrock made her spine stiffen. She hated him. He insisted on trying to torment her with every dumb variation of her name he could think of—Help-Les. Friend-Les. Wit-Les. Lately he’d been partial to Hope-Les. She stared at Matt rigidly, unable to contain her curiosity. “What does Danny say about me?”

“That you’re the toughest girl he’s ever met.”

“He’s an idiot. I’ll bet he doesn’t even know very many girls. What girl would talk to him?”

Over the rim of his cup, Matt’s eyes sparkled in a look she’d seen him use on the other girls and several teachers. “Yeah, that’s probably true. Danny can be a loser sometimes.” He took another sip of chocolate, and she pretended to do the same.

“Can you taste anything yet?” he asked knowingly.

She nodded, though that wasn’t really true.

“Mom makes the best hot chocolate. She says the recipe is over a hundred years old and came all the way from Italy. From her mother’s family.”

She had to admit, Matt’s parents seemed like nice people. Mrs. D’Angelo had brought Leslie gloves to wear when she saw that she had forgotten her own. Without muttering a complaint, Mr. D’Angelo trudged down the trail time and again to keep them supplied with hot chocolate from the resort’s kitchen. They were so unlike her own folks, she wasn’t sure they were real.

Leslie gave him a look of mild interest, refusing to seem too impressed even though the chocolate was completely unlike the watery, instant brew she was used to. The rich mixture had filled her insides like a hot bath.

Someone called Matt’s name, and he looked over his shoulder. One of the girls he hung out with gestured for him to come back to the ice. He turned to Leslie. “Do you want to skate? We’re going to start up a game of whipcracker if we can get enough people.”

Her heart gave a little kick like a can-can dancer. As much as she wanted to say yes, she couldn’t. Her flailing trip across the ice would be as inept as a two-year-old child’s. Worse, maybe.

She fumbled around for inspiration, but came up empty. “I didn’t bring skates,” she said at last. “I came to work, not have fun.”

She sounded irritable, when she’d meant to sound practical. Matt didn’t seem to mind. He gave a little inside chuckle that threatened to draw her into the warm circle of his personality. “Take it easy. I’m just asking if you want to skate a few minutes, not rob a bank. I can snag a pair from the lodge if you want. We always keep extras for guests.”

“Look, I’m not interested.”

“Why not? I’ll bet Mrs. Elliott will watch the stand by herself for a while. She’s pretty cool for a teacher.”

Panic turned the chocolate in her stomach to an icy waterfall. She’d been hungry for friendship this year, but she wasn’t prepared for this overture. Not from someone like Matt D’Angelo, who probably had to beat friends off with a stick.

She gave him a challenging look. “Why are you talking to me?”

He looked genuinely puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not like your friends.” She jerked her head toward the ice, where several of his buddies were clowning around, waiting for him. “They won’t like it if you make them be nice to me.”

“I don’t make my friends do anything,” he said with a scowl. “And they don’t tell me who I can talk to.” He tilted his head at her. “Why are you so mad? Do you really want to fight over playing a couple of stupid games on the ice?”

Anger killed all sense of caution within her. “I can’t skate, okay? I never learned.”

She expected him to laugh, but he didn’t. “Is that all?” he asked. “Shoot, I can teach you in two minutes. Lucky for you, I’m the best skater on the lake today.”

Someone had to keep him from being so arrogantly sure of himself. “You’re not very modest,” she told him.

“Why should I be? It’s the truth.”

“I don’t want to learn to skate,” she said precisely.

“Sure you do.”

“No, I don’t. I want you to go away and leave me alone.”

She waited to be rewarded with anger from him now. How many times had he been told to get lost? Not many, she’d bet. But in the next moment, she caught sight of real catastrophe on the way. Danny LeBrock had skated off the ice and was crab-walking toward them.

He came up beside Matt and gave her his usual evil grin. “Hey there, Brain-Les.” His eyes raked over her mismatched clothes. “Nice outfit. Did you steal that sweater off a scarecrow?”

Most of the time Leslie ignored Danny’s taunts, vowing never to let him get to her, but the conversation with Matt had given her a wild, flaring discontent that left her unable to heed anything resembling rational behavior.

She lifted her chin. “Could I ask you a question, Danny?”

Danny looked suspicious. “What?”

“Is it true what everyone says? That your family tree is really just one stick and your father is also your uncle?”

It took him a moment to understand the insult. She caught sight of amusement in Matt’s eyes and the slightly off-centered lift of his mouth.

Danny paled and then his features tightened to cold-blooded scrutiny. Even at that young age, Leslie knew she’d made an enemy for life.

He shook his head. “I sure can’t figure out how you’re too dumb to make good grades when you have such a smart mouth.”

“Considering that your belt buckle probably weighs more than your brains, I’m surprised you can figure out much of anything.”

Ruddy blotches added more color to Danny’s cheeks as disbelief swept over him like a tide. He looked for help from Matt. “Who does she think she is?”

“Someone who doesn’t like to be insulted, I guess,” Matt said. “Let it go, Danny. Don’t spoil a nice day by being a total jerk.”

Danny made a move to come around the counter toward her. “Do you know what I should do?”

Matt halted him by taking a small step into his path. “What?” he asked. “Shut up and go back to the ice?”

After chewing the sides of his mouth for a moment, Danny blew a disgusted breath. The tightness in Leslie’s chest began to ease as he backed away. “We’re getting up a hockey game on the far end of the lake,” he said to Matt in a sullen tone. “If you can tear yourself away.”

They watched him filter into the crowd of skaters, then Matt turned back to face her. “My father says a still tongue makes a wise head,” he told her. “You ought to be more careful about the battles you pick.”

“Seems to me you ought to pick better friends.”

He laughed and tossed his empty cup in the waste-basket. “Most of the time I don’t pick them. They pick me.” With a few graceful steps, he was on the ice again, skating backwards as he called out to her, “Let me know if you and Danny ever decide to duke it out. I’ll hold your coat.”

Turning, he disappeared into the crowd of skaters. Leslie didn’t see him again that day.

On Monday morning Danny LeBrock showed up at school with a butterfly bandage plastered across his swollen nose and a black eye. One of the girls who specialized in classroom gossip told Leslie that Matt D’Angelo had accidentally flattened Danny during the hockey game on the lake. Nobody seemed to know the exact circumstances, but Danny sure didn’t seem chummy with Matt that day.

Leslie made a point to catch up with him between classes. She didn’t waste time with vague hints as she came up beside his locker. “I hear you whacked Danny LeBrock. Nearly broke his nose.”

He stopped twirling the combination lock and looked at her. “Yeah. His face picked a fight with my elbow during the hockey game Saturday. My elbow won.”

“Did you do it on purpose?”

“No. Why would I do that?”

“You mean, besides the fact that he’s a nasty little creep who probably has a 666 birthmark someplace on his skull?”

“That’s not very nice,” he said with a laugh. He shook his head and went back to fiddling with his lock. “No wonder you have a hard time making friends.”

“I don’t. I’m just picky. Unlike some people.”

His eyes swung sharply back to her. “Danny isn’t my friend.”

“Since Saturday?”

“Since forever. I can’t help who tries to hang around with me. My mother says I’m charismatic. That means—”

“I know what it means,” she said. “I hope your mother also tells you that a little modesty is a good thing in a person.”

“You know, you’re a riot, Meadows. You ought to have your own television show.”

He looked annoyed now, and her heart banged up in her throat, but her battered dignity wouldn’t allow her to back down.

“I don’t need anyone to fight my battles for me,” she told him.

“No. You don’t,” he said in the mildest tone she’d ever heard. But in the next moment, her insides swam with an odd sense of loss when he slammed his hand upward to shut his lock. Giving her a final sullen look, he turned away and left her standing in the hallway.

She was quite sure that that would be the last conversation she’d ever have with Matt. She avoided him for weeks, and he certainly seemed oblivious to her presence. But in the spring, her life suddenly went from bad to worse.

Her father lost his job in construction. After drowning his misfortune at a bar, Quentin Meadows decided that the best way to handle unemployment was to slash his ex-foreman’s tires and smash the windshield of his truck. He spent two nights in jail.

Leslie endured those forty-eight hours as though she’d been sentenced as well. She listened to her mother cry, tried to convince her to eat something, and wished she had the nerve to run away.

By then she should have been used to the self-destructive events that seemed to pepper her life as a member of the Meadows family. And this one wasn’t too bad, really. Although everyone knew about it, none of the kids mentioned the incident when she came back to school. Not even Danny LeBrock, who had stopped calling her names and was now focusing all his attention on some other poor victim.

Leslie had forgotten about her English teacher and worst nemesis, Mrs. Bickley.

The woman hated her for the lack of thought she put into her homework, for daydreaming in class, but mostly—Leslie was sure—for being poor. Rumor had it that Bickley had come from the wrong side of Lightning River herself and despised any reminder of that past, especially from a slacker like Leslie Meadows.

The last-period bell had rung when Mrs. Bickley caught the attention of every kid. “Just one moment, class,” she said, sounding as though she’d just remembered something. “Leslie, I meant to speak to you.”

Leslie didn’t say a word as she stood beside her desk and waited. It was her first day back, and she was determined to keep a low profile. All around her she could feel the other kid’s stares, their eagerness to go. The girls blew impatient breaths. Behind her Danny LeBrock smothered an oath. Beside her Matt slowly stuffed homework papers into his notebook.

Mrs. Bickley gave her a sweet smile. Leslie should have known right then that trouble was coming. “Can you come to school early tomorrow morning?” she asked. “I’d like you to make up the test you missed yesterday.”

“Sure,” Leslie said. “What time?”

“Seven o’clock?” the woman replied, pretending to hunt for her scheduling book.

That was another bad sign. Bickley was a neat freak who knew where everything on her desk was.

After a moment, the teacher frowned. “Yes. Can you make it that early? I mean, your father isn’t still…going through his current difficulties, is he?”

There was a snort of laughter from the back of the room and a few tittering whispers. Blood pounded loudly in Leslie’s ears. That swipe had to be deliberate. It had to be.

“You mean, is my Dad still in jail?” she asked in a voice that hardly shook at all. “No, he’s out. I don’t know what terrible trouble he’s got planned next, so I’ll get Mom to bring me.”

Bickley gave Leslie one of her mechanical smiles that never reached her eyes. “That will be fine, then. I’ll be waiting for you at seven. Class dismissed.”

Leslie nodded and stumbled awkwardly out of the room. She didn’t stop for anything or anyone. She didn’t take the bus home that day. She ran past the school’s track-and-field hut, through the open meadows that were just starting to pop with spring wildflowers, down the back alleys of Broken Yoke where trash cans overflowed. She followed Lightning River all the way to the turnoff for the interstate, and only stopped running when the stitch in her side doubled her over.

By the time she went home it was almost dark. She was drenched in sweat, breathing so heavily that she felt dizzy. Her parents weren’t home, but that didn’t surprise her. She fell on the old plaid sofa that smelled of beer and cheap perfume and wondered just how fast your heart had to beat before it killed you.

The next day she felt better. The horrid feelings that had curdled her insides yesterday were locked down so tight there was no way they could get out again. She was completely calm. She got to school early.

The door to Mrs. Bickley’s class was already open, but the English teacher wasn’t there.

Leslie went over to the woman’s desk and pulled on the top drawer, relieved to find it unlocked. She’d half expected to have to pry it open. Inside were all the supplies Mrs. Bickley treasured, everything tucked away in tidy little compartments.

She fished the jar she’d brought out of her backpack, unscrewed the lid, and dumped a quart of raw honey into the drawer.

She didn’t expect to get away with it. She didn’t really care. She was almost in a stupor, watching the honey spread in a slow, golden river over everything in its path.

When the classroom door opened and closed, she knew it would be Bickley. Drawing a deep breath, she straightened, fully prepared for a shriek of horror and a swift march down to the principal’s office. The wrath of God was about to descend on her pretty quick.

But when she lifted her eyes, it wasn’t Mrs. Bickley she saw coming toward her. It was Matt D’Angelo.

He didn’t say a word, and neither did she. She watched him inspect the damage. His features didn’t give much away. Maybe his mouth tightened a little.

Finally, he looked back at her. “I thought you were just fooling everyone with your grades, that you were really pretty smart. But you’re actually dumber than a box of bent nails.”

Those were practically the first words he’d said to her since February. She crossed her arms and gave him a sullen look. “I wasn’t expecting an audience.”

“Doesn’t matter if anyone sees you or not. Bickley’s gonna know you did this. Everybody will.”

Leslie shrugged. “I don’t care.”

“No reason why you should, I guess. Not after what that bitch said in front of everyone yesterday.”

She blinked. She’d never heard Matt say anything remotely nasty before. Maybe she wasn’t the only one who would end up in hell someday.

He went quiet again, staring down at the mess in the drawer. He shook his head as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“How did you know I was in here?” she asked.

“I watched you from Coach Mitterman’s office. I’m his gopher this semester. I figured you weren’t coming in early just to make points with Bickley, so I thought I’d check it out.”

“I’m glad you didn’t get here in time to stop me,” she said in a determined voice. “You couldn’t. And I’m not going to run away and pretend I don’t know anything.”

He snorted. “No. You wouldn’t want someone to keep you from getting a three-day suspension. If not more.”

“I don’t care if they expel me from school for good. It will just be what everyone thinks I deserve anyway. No one expects anyone in the Meadows family ever to amount to anything. Including you.”

He frowned, looking annoyed. “I’ve never said that.”

“You don’t have to.”

He stared at her, hard, while she continued to throw him mutinous looks.

“You know what your problem is, Leslie?” he said at last. “You’re so busy trying to make sure no one thinks you care about anything that you don’t know how to act normal. You have a chip on your shoulder as big as Mount Rushmore. You never say please or thank you or…” He gave a rough laugh, as though disgusted with himself. “Oh, forget it. Bickley’s gonna come in here any minute and have a cow. You’ll probably make matters worse by spitting in her eye, and then she’ll flatten you but good. That’s probably what you need anyway.”

Surprisingly, his apparent dislike for her hurt more than anything Danny LeBrock had ever said. Tears stung the back of her eyes, but she refused to let them come. “Then you’d better get out of here. I wouldn’t want you to see what happens if she tries to lay a finger on me.”

He sighed heavily and shook his head. “There’s no saving you. Danny was wrong. You’re not Hope-Les. You’re Clue-Les.”

She bristled. “At least I’m not so full of myself that I have to duck my big head to get it through the doorway.”

He gave her that smile that made the girls giggle nervously. “Smart aleck.”

“Over-achiever.”

“Idiot.”

They subsided into a strange silence then, and in that moment the classroom door opened again. This time it was Mrs. Bickley. She approached them both with a frown between her overly plucked eyebrows.

It didn’t take her long to see the damage. The honey sent up a sickening sweet odor that began to turn Leslie’s stomach a little. When it came right down to it, she wasn’t sure just how she’d handle the woman’s reaction.

Mrs. Bickley, as pale as her crisp, white blouse, ignored Matt completely and snapped her gaze over to Leslie. She knew perfectly well who the guilty party was. “How could you do such a hateful thing?” she asked through the middle of her teeth.

“Actually, she didn’t,” Matt spoke up from behind her. “I did.”

Even after all these years it was still so clear to Leslie—the shock on Mrs. Bickley’s face, her refusal to believe Matt capable of such a trick. He stuck to his story, that he had done it because she had given him a B on the last test when he’d been sure his essay had deserved an A. Leslie had come into the classroom after he’d poured the honey, he told the astonished teacher. When Leslie opened her mouth to protest, he gave her such a threatening look that she clammed up again, so shocked she couldn’t have spoken anyway.

What could Principal Smith do in the face of such a calm, unshakable confession? Matt was suspended for three days.

No one had ever gone out on a limb like that for Leslie. All her fights had been fought alone, and she was shaken by Matt’s gesture, then suspicious. Why had he done it?

Finally, she recognized it for what it was.

On the third day of his suspension, Leslie hitched a ride up to Lightning River Lodge. Mr. D’Angelo was in the lobby, stoking the huge fireplace with pieces of wood as big as the television set at home. She asked to see Matt, and when he scowled and told her Matt wasn’t allowed to see anyone, she begged. He told her she could have five minutes.

She found him around the back of the lodge, chopping wood. There was so much of it piled around him that he looked like he’d been doing that chore for a week. When he saw her, he stopped and waited for her to reach him, wiping sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his shirt.

He didn’t look mad, though she wouldn’t have blamed him if he had. All the words she’d rehearsed up the mountain road deserted her. Panic began a slow crawl up her spine because she knew she wasn’t going to get this right.

He frowned. “Now what have you done?”

She shook her head, unable to speak.

He pointed to her face. “Then what’s with the plumbing problem?”

She realized that her cheeks were wet with tears. Humiliating. Such a stupid reaction. She wished she could turn around and run down the mountain, because she realized that Matt D’Angelo had offered her something she didn’t think existed. With his gesture of friendship, he had changed her whole life.

She remembered the short lecture he’d given her in Mrs. Bickley’s classroom. Plunging in before she lost her courage, she said, “You were right. I do have a chip on my shoulder. But you’re wrong about one thing. I do know how to say thank you, because I’m saying it now. Thank you.”

He stared at her for a long moment, while her heart missed beats. Then his deep, generous smile was all the reward she could have asked for.

From that moment on, they were friends.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE REALIZATION that her feet were freezing brought Leslie back to the present. She checked her watch. She’d been standing—lost in those early memories—on the snowy trail that led down to Lightning Lake for twenty minutes. She turned and trekked back up the path, recognizing this small side trip to the lake as a subconscious delaying tactic.

Why should she delay entering the lodge? The Matt D’Angelo she knew had never been the type to hold a grudge. If he was upset about last night, he’d say so, and they’d talk it out.

But that’s your real fear, isn’t it? What if he’s not the Matt D’Angelo you know anymore?

The sort of thing he’d been through last year could change even the strongest person.

She drew a deep breath. With renewed determination she turned away from those uncertainties. They’d been friends too long to let something like this spoil everything.

Halfway up the trail, Leslie encountered Tessa D’Angelo.

Last year Nick’s daughter, full of adolescent high spirits and hormonal confusion, had inflicted a great deal of worry on the family, but she seemed to have settled down considerably since her father had married Kari. She was normally cheerful and upbeat, but this morning she wasn’t smiling.

“Good morning,” Leslie said as the teenager approached.

“Nothing good about it,” Tessa replied.

“What’s wrong?”

“If you’re smart, you’ll turn around and head back down the mountain right now before it’s too late.”

“Why?”

Tessa jerked her head toward the lodge entrance. “World War Three is about to break out in there between Nonno Sam and Mr. Waxman.”

Leslie gave her a surprised look. Sam D’Angelo had been friends with Leo Waxman, the town electrician, for years. Both men served on the town council together, and she knew that Sam and his wife, Rose, were godparents to Leo’s son. “But they’re like brothers.”

“Yeah, well, that was before a chipmunk somehow got in the back door and Mr. Waxman’s German shepherd chased it all over the place and destroyed everything in its path. It looks like someone took a chainsaw to the lobby.”

Leslie noticed that Tessa gingerly cradled a dish towel in her arms, and suddenly the material moved. “Is that it?” Leslie asked.

As though the chipmunk wanted to acknowledge her interest, it squeaked softly.

“Yep. Poor thing is scared to death, but it will chill out once I let it go down by the lake. I just wish it hadn’t climbed up the Christmas tree.”

“Not the big one in the lobby?” Leslie said, almost in a whisper.

“That’s the one.”

Leslie’s eyes widened. After all these years she knew the D’Angelo family Christmas traditions very well. Sam D’Angelo’s hunt for the perfect blue spruce—one for the lobby and one for the family’s private quarters—was treated like a mission handed to him by God. And Rose spent hours decorating them, insisting that every ornament be hung just right, that every light be held erect with a pipe cleaner so that it stood like a candle.

“The tree fell over,” Tessa continued. “Dad and Uncle Matt are trying to get it to stand again, but I think it’s a goner.” She placed a gentle hand on top of the towel, as though offering comfort to the little creature inside. “Really, if you were a chipmunk being chased by a big dog, wouldn’t you head up the nearest tree to escape? And it’s not like it planned to come into the lodge. It was probably looking for somewhere out of the cold.”