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Another Maple Junction happy ending courtesy of fairy godfather Lewis, who’d turned the lone rebel into a respected car mechanic, simultaneously repaying the boy’s good deed and filling a vital job vacancy.
Sarah had eventually taken notice of Derek’s turnaround while home from UW–Madison one weekend. She’d gotten a flat tire on the way into town one Friday night and had called Maple’s only full-service garage. He’d fixed the tire and thrown in a tune-up. She’d taken him to lunch. After that, the favors had kept on flying. He’d changed her oil. She’d helped him shop for clothes. He’d fixed her parents’ leaky sink. She’d taken him to movies with more dialogue than explosions.
When she graduated, he’d presented her with a modest engagement ring. A no-frills elopement had soon followed, as had the purchase of their house, made possible by her unspent wedding fund and a generous gift from the Cutlers.
Sarah sighed against her pillow. Everything had been going so well for so long. But only because nobody ever crossed Lewis Cutler. She wouldn’t usually be doing it herself. But this was for Kelsey. Who, just like the rest of them, had a legitimate birthright here in Maple Junction.
Chapter Three
Ethan was edgy at the sheriff’s office the next morning, determined to track down Sarah for a quick, frank talk about Kelsey. Why hadn’t she answered the door last night? It would have been easy to find her two weeks ago when school was still in session. Despite the arrival of Amy Joy, Sarah had watched over her morning kindergarten class most days, relying on her aide to handle the get-up-and-go tasks. Occasionally, the baby had even hitched a ride along in her buggy. Things were like that in the small town, with obliging parents and staff wanting to make it easy for Sarah so she’d return next year.
It turned out all Ethan had to do was hit Harvester Avenue, where he spotted willowy Sarah sitting idle on a bench in front of the corner drugstore at Fifth Street, her hand gently rocking Amy Joy’s big springy buggy.
Pretty as a picture was the new mother, dressed in a green peasant blouse and denim shorts, her wavy gold hair captured in a ribbon. With bare legs crossed, she bobbed a sandaled foot in time to “Spanish Flea,” an Herb Alpert tune played by two clarinetists from the Whittier High School band busking at the corner. Amused passersby were tossing coins into an upside-down baseball cap.
The boys froze at the sight of him, probably wondering if they needed a permit to play.
Ethan didn’t know or care. “Go ahead, knock yourselves out.”
Happy, they tooted on with gusto.
Peeking at the dozing baby under the buggy’s visor, Ethan leaned against a nearby lamppost. Sarah wasn’t going to be able to avoid him this time. Funny that she’d tried it last night. But she was one tough girl and had kicked him out of the treehouse in her father’s apple orchard more than once. Landing on apples sure did hurt! He still couldn’t bear to eat one.
“Nice day, Sarah,” he greeted genially.
“Perfect.”
“How’s our baby girl doing?”
“Swell. As you can see for yourself.”
“They grow up so fast,” he marveled. “Assert their independence so early.”
She gaped at him. “What do you mean?”
“I could’ve sworn I heard her crying alone in your house last night. Naturally, I got right off the bell. Waited though, to give her a sporting chance to respond but I guess she just couldn’t crawl the distance.”
“Don’t be silly, Ethan.”
“Of course if you had been there, you’d have answered the bell, right?”
“Well, sure. I mean, none of us were there. Must have been the radio you heard. Derek keeps it on when we go out. To fool burglars.”
Her brown eyes were bright and steady in spite of the lie. She and Kelsey could sell anything to anyone back in the day—watered-down lemonade, bruised apples, day-old pastries, all with convincing sincerity. He expected that would still hold true, at least for her.
“So why did you drop by last night, Ethan?”
It was a smart move to ask, knowing she was already trapped.
“I was following up a rumor about Kelsey coming. Is it true?”
“Yes!” She clasped her hands gleefully. “A crazy twist, huh?”
The craziest.
“C’mon, take another look at Amy Joy,” Sarah urged suddenly.
“Why?”
“This time, note the sweet little rosebud dress she’s wearing.”
He leaned back over the pram. “Very nice.”
“Sent to her by guess who?”
“Kelsey.”
“Exactly.” She closed her eyes and smiled up at the sun. “Amy Joy’s only outfit from out of town. Makes her look sharp and unique, like her aunt Kelsey.”
It was becoming impossible to talk over the music. Ethan turned to discover there were now four musicians on the corner. He decided to sit on the bench beside Sarah to make himself heard. “How long have you known about Kelsey’s homecoming?”
“I’ve kept the news under wraps a little while,” she admitted. “There seemed no hurry in giving grudge-toting people time to get worked up about it and plan a negative campaign. So how is Mr. Grudge himself taking it?”
“Lewis is a little worked up.”
“As expected.”
“Is he the reason you pretended not to be home last night, Sare?”
“Okay, yes,” she relented. “Neither Derek or I felt like dealing with the Cutler issue at that hour.”
“He’s bound to have an interest, Sarah. In his mind, Kelsey robbed him of his only child, his main reason for living.”
Sarah’s face hardened suddenly. “You know as well as I do that Kelsey didn’t hurt anyone on purpose. Ever.”
“Still, the fact remains—”
“Cutler and those other fools drove the poor girl right out of town.”
“A college education from Bryn Mawr is hardly a sentence at San Quentin.”
“Oh, but how she struggled to earn it. She had to maintain the best grades to keep scholarships and worked some very crummy jobs.”
“I guess I never realized.”
“Nobody did. Kelsey was forced to take the fall for the accident, then it was out of sight, out of mind.”
“Are you suggesting the case was poorly handled?”
“Sheriff Norton hardly solved it.”
“He couldn’t with so little to go on.”
“I was highly suspicious of his methods even then.”
“What I remember most is struggling with the loss. In the long run, it’s all been about moving on, trying to forget.”
Hoping to regain his composure, Ethan stood, dipped into his blue uniform shirt pocket for his sunglasses and put them on his lean, taut face. But Sarah wasn’t finished with him.
“Maybe it’s time we took a fresh look at the whole mess, put a stop to the anger—encourage Kelsey to move home for good! That’s exactly what I intend to do. Go stuff that in one of Lewis’s big stinky hand-rolled cigars.”
Encourage Kelsey to move home? That was what was behind this? Ethan was completely floored. The idea of having her back in town, so full of fun and wit, was one he’d given up on long ago.
Just then a big motor coach wheezed to a stop at the curb, the way it did every day round this time. Sarah signaled the band of musicians on the corner and they broke into the Whittier High anthem.
Suddenly things all fell into place in the gray matter behind the tinted lenses. Sarah wasn’t out here by chance. Kelsey was due home the same way she’d left, on a Greyhound bus. This Greyhound bus.
Ethan inhaled sharply in anticipation as the bus door folded open.
Passengers disembarked, mostly a stream of UW students home for the summer.
He sensed Sarah standing beside him now, holding her breath, too.
The sliding door remained open but no one else appeared. False alarm maybe. It did seem impossible that after all these years Kelsey Graham was going to walk off this bus or any other bus to ever set foot back in Maple Junction.
Then a figure in a tight, colorfully striped sundress registered in his brain, along with Sarah’s wild scream. It was her! Kelsey. Here! Finally home.
The same old Kelsey, but different somehow.
As Sarah rushed forward to hug her, Ethan took time to readjust his decade-old picture of the cute and curvy girl with wild bleached brown hair and whimsical green eyes. The adult Kelsey was trimmer with a neat brown cap of hair highlighted red. No longer cute but, rather, beautiful—stunning! The only disappointment lay in her eyes. While still as rich and deep as tropical seas, the whimsy was gone, replaced by the tired wisdom of one who’d seen too much, who carried a number of regrets.
Ethan could especially relate on this last count, and all because of Kelsey herself. The biggest regret of his life was that he’d let her get away.
Few in town probably realized their history, or recalled when they’d kicked their tight friendship up a notch. It had been the summer before their sophomore year and their crowd had slowly been starting to date. In Ethan’s opinion Kelsey had possessed a sparkling personality, had been the prettiest girl in class and, unlike most, had always been up for a fevered game of basketball or baseball with the guys. Being such good friends and next-door neighbors, it had seemed natural to ease into some private little dates for swims, hikes and picnics to experiment with their affections, find out what a real kiss felt like.
It was all Ethan thought he’d ever want.
Until autumn, when he became a standout on the Whittier High football field.
He and Brad were the only sophomores on the varsity team and a few clever plays soon ensured their photos were splashed on the front page of the school paper. With celebrity came perks, like acceptance into upperclassmen cliques. Senior girls started calling—girls with cell phones and cars and big ideas! Brad handled it with poise, accustomed to feeling important due to Lewis’s status around town. But Ethan went wild over the sudden attention. He eagerly accepted all invitations to picnics and parties, reveling in his new-found fame.
There was never an invitation for Kelsey, but she didn’t complain when he shot off without her. In fact, she appeared to make light of the whole thing, pointing out that they weren’t even going steady. But deep in his heart he suspected she might care a little bit, as he sometimes caught her watching him forlornly from her stoop as he hopped into a car full of kids at sundown. She didn’t crack so many jokes anymore, either, or barge into the Taggert kitchen to help his mom bake a cake or join his folks in a game of poker.
Just the same, he was too preoccupied to worry about it.
By season’s end, the football-hero novelty started to wear off. The upperclassmen decided that underneath the jersey he was just a kid after all and wouldn’t fit in at their upcoming graduation parties.
Kelsey was indeed still his pal, albeit at a greater, more formal distance. By the start of the Christmas season, Ethan was desperately missing the romance they’d shared and decided to win back her affections.
Busy with his own social life for so long, he hadn’t even noticed he had competition from his best friend, Brad. In hindsight, he realized there had been a few outward signs, like Brad treating Kelsey to a Hostess cup-cake at lunch or offering her a lift home from school in one of the Cutler cars. But at the time, Ethan’s attention was pulled in too many directions to piece it all together. He didn’t get the total picture until the week before Christmas, at Brad’s annual holiday party. Gathered round the Cutlers’giant decorated tree in the great room, small fun gifts were exchanged.
Brad whisked out several boxes for Kelsey but most of them could have been filled with sawdust for all Ethan remembered. The only gift that mattered was the silver friendship band Brad gave her.
And nobody but Ethan appeared the least bit surprised.
As Kelsey gleefully slipped the ring on her finger, it was clear he’d already lost her.
Maybe if she’d made a bigger fuss at the start of his ego trip, he’d have snapped out of it. Or more likely, he should’ve just known better in the first place.
After that, the best Ethan could hope for was a friendship with the happy couple, digging up girls for double dates, making-out with one in the back seat of one of the Cutler fleet, while Brad and Kelsey cuddled in the front.
Then eventually a cruel twist of fate had taken even that much away from him.
Since she’d left town, Ethan had worked to rediscover their magic with someone else. But, it had never happened.
Now the old temptation was back. And Ethan was left holding—of all things—the baby, a sobbing Amy Joy, whom Sarah had awakened with her squeals. He’d seen no option but to pluck her from the buggy and attempt to calm her.
He cuddled the squirmy, howling infant for what seemed an eternity—perhaps sixty seconds—before the girlfriends broke free and Sarah scooted over to take Amy Joy. Cradling the infant, she turned back to Kelsey to give her a closer look. Kelsey stroked the baby’s head, remarking on how cute the dress looked on her.
“What’s wrong, peanut?” Sarah cooed as Amy Joy continued to fuss. “Did that big guy scare you?”
“It was your screaming that scared her in the first place,” he said, inspecting some drool on his freshly pressed uniform shirt to try and settle his nerves. When he abruptly looked up, he caught Kelsey’s gaze. His heart shifted at the indecision there. She must be unsure about him, too.
It made it easier to take charge.
“Welcome home, Kel.” With that simple greeting, he tentatively held out his arms. Miraculously, she slipped into them. As she pecked his jaw, he had to fight off a shiver. Seemed rude not to kiss her back, so he pressed his mouth to her forehead, the safest convenient spot.
Not so safe after all. The brief contact was enough to pick up her familiar body scent mingled with a sweet cologne. Heat rippled clear through him.
She pulled back, appearing more relaxed as she addressed the driver unloading her two suitcases from the storage compartment underneath the bus. Sarah, meanwhile, had put the wailing baby back in the buggy and was paying off the musicians.
The girls met back at point Ethan, now transformed into a dazed uniformed statue.
“I am so sorry, Kel,” Sarah gushed. “I had planned to go over to the café with you, but Amy Joy won’t stop crying so I should take her home. Can you drop by later? Anyone can tell you where we live.”
Kelsey smiled. “I know where you live. The old Hawkins house on Earle Street. I recognized the address all along.”
“Oh! Sure.” Sarah looked sheepish as she gripped the buggy’s handle. “Come over as soon as you can.”
Watching Sarah zip off, Kelsey shifted awkwardly, aware of Ethan lingering beside her. She hadn’t expected to be one-on-one with her special ex-next-door neighbor this soon. “Well, guess I’ll go look up Mom.”
Ethan apparently took this as a signal to grasp her larger suitcase.
“What are you doing, Ethan?”
“Coming along.”
“Oh. You don’t have to.”
