High Country Holiday

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He knew it was foolish, but he couldn’t help but feel responsible. When he was a kid he’d overheard her telling someone he was a preemie, but it didn’t take a mathematician to figure out his folks had to get married. Maybe if he hadn’t come along, Ma would have married someone more deserving of her.

Cody shook his head as he rounded a treed curve, the windshield wipers beating a sporadic rhythm against the lightly falling snow. By the time he’d entered school here midautumn of fifth grade, he’d been pulled in and out of schools in three different states and five different towns. It was amazing he’d managed to graduate at all. He owed that to his mother—and to his own stubborn streak.

And speaking of stubbornness... He glanced at the box on the seat beside him. Had he been wrong to turn down the gift cards for his mother? Paris meant well and he hadn’t intended to hurt her feelings as he suspected he had. God only knew how many people had slipped a little something extra to Ma in the years he’d been gone. After his departure from town, he hadn’t had much to spare for her at first. He should be thankful, not resentful, that people cared.

Paris couldn’t have known her thoughtfulness would push a hot button. Touch his pride. He’d overreacted.

Lord, I’ve got to stop taking things like this so personally, seeing it as a slap in the face every time someone is moved to an act of kindness on my or my family’s behalf.

As he pulled onto the property that his mother had optimistically named Hawk’s Hope in deference to a Canyon Springs property-naming tradition, his cell phone chimed.

“Yo, Trev. Any word yet?”

“Not yet,” Cody’s business partner, Trevor Cane, confirmed, “I hoped maybe you’d been contacted directly.”

He could picture his stocky, well-groomed friend pacing the tiles of his Phoenix patio. It would be a balmy sixty-five degrees down there today, quite a contrast to the mountain country a few hours north and six thousand feet higher.

Cody chuckled. “If I get the call, you’ll know when I know. That wouldn’t be anything I’d keep to myself.”

“I guess I’m getting antsy. Do you think we’ll hear anything soon or is that wishful thinking?”

Cody was antsy, too, although he wouldn’t admit it to Trevor. So much rode on this business deal, and hearing a “yes” would sure be the answer to a truckload of prayers.

“It might not be until after the first of the year. I advise you to sit back, relax and enjoy your family while you can. If this goes through as we hope, there’s going to be more than enough work to keep us both occupied for some time to come.”

“How much longer will you be up there?”

“At least until Christmas. Things are still touch-and-go with Dad.”

He glanced toward the trailer. He’d started cleaning up the property, clearing out old tires, broken equipment and other assorted junk. But there were repairs still to be made to the trailer itself, fencing and outbuildings. Maybe one day, though, he’d get Ma that cabin in the pines Dad always promised her.

Cody reached for the cookie box, then stepped out into the lightly falling snow. “Ma’s running interference between Dad and the hospital staff, trying to keep him calm and them from calling the cops.”

Nicotine and alcohol withdrawal and a stroke on top of that. Not a nice combo.

“But the good thing is—” Cody gave a bitter chuckle as he unlocked the front door and stepped inside, his nostrils flaring with distaste at the lingering scent of stale cigarettes “—his right arm is incapacitated, so he won’t be swinging it at me anytime soon.”

“Man, it had to be tough growing up that way.”

For almost a dozen years, he and Trev had been as close as God probably intended real brothers to be. He hadn’t had any contact with his half brothers since he’d been in middle school and they’d gone out on their own. But his friendship with Trevor had more than made up for that lack.

“Yeah, well, I guess this is where I’m supposed to say growing up like that made me who I am today. Right?” Cody placed the cookie box on the dining table.

Trevor huffed a laugh. “That’s one way of looking at it.”

It was the only way to look at it, otherwise it made no sense. No sense at all. Just like coming back to town and discovering Paris hadn’t married...

As if picking up on his line of thought, Trevor ventured deeper. “So, did that dream gal of yours and her hubby come home for Thanksgiving?”

Even though he’d long ago faced reality and dated a number of women since leaving Canyon Springs, when Paris had gotten engaged his friend and his friend’s new wife had been there to pick up the pieces. They’d reeled Cody back in when he’d foolishly acted out in ways for which he was now ashamed. Trevor and Maribeth had played an instrumental role in directing his steps toward God, for which he’d be forever grateful.