Mariah Stewart - Coming Home

The rafters set off on the river, and he silently wished them luck and safe passage through the treacherous white water.

There was frost on the grass behind him, and from his perch, he watched a curious moose calf pick its way to the shore. Grady wondered where mama was; you rarely saw one without the other this time of year. The baby waded tentatively into the calm waters in this part of the river and took a long drink, then turned and scampered up the bank and disappeared into the meadow that ran behind the rock on which Grady sat.

As the sun was now fully up, Grady returned to the campsite and set about making coffee. The others would be up and about soon enough, and his workday would begin. He loved this stretch of wilderness and usually looked forward to spending a few days here, but this week, his heart wasn’t it in. He found himself looking forward to the half-hour drive back to Bozeman at the end of the day, where he’d drop off his group, so that he could head home.

But once back at his house, Grady was as restless as he’d been while out at Bear Trap Canyon. He unpacked his gear, cleaned up what needed cleaning, and threw what needed washing into the washer. He took a shower and washed off the trail dirt, then heated some frozen soup for his dinner. He tried to get into reading a James Lee Burke novel-it was set in Montana, and featured two of Grady’s favorite fictional characters-but the drive from Bozeman had taken longer than he’d anticipated and the hour was late, and he just couldn’t keep his eyes open. But once in bed, he couldn’t sleep. It took him a good hour to figure it out, but he reluctantly had to admit that he was lonely.

He’d gotten used to being alone-which he didn’t mind-but being alone and being lonely were two different things. In a very short period of time, he’d gotten used to being with someone else, and now being alone felt lonely.

He rose early the next morning and set out to watch the sun rise over the mountains, a sight that never failed to touch him, but that morning, a cloak of clouds wrapped around the hills and allowed only a tinge of light to edge through. The sunset that evening lit the sky with fire, but it wasn’t the same as watching it set on the peaceful Bay from the dock in St. Dennis. By day’s end, he had to accept that nothing in his life here felt the same since he returned from Maryland, and he wasn’t so much of a fool that he couldn’t figure out why.

So what, he asked himself after his third sleepless night in a row, was he doing in Montana, and after he completed the hike he’d committed to for the following week, what reason would he have to stay?

“Hal, I think you’d better start over from the beginning.”

The mug Beck held in his right hand wavered, and he placed it on the table carefully. He, Mia, and Vanessa sat around Hal’s dining-room table, where Hal had served coffee and brought them up-to-date on the events of the past two weeks in an oh-by-the-way sort of manner.

“This all started the night of the wedding? And no one called me? Our plane didn’t take off until almost one in the morning. We could have come back-”

“And that’s exactly why we didn’t call you. It was your wedding night, Beck. You’d had a glorious wedding and plans for an equally glorious honeymoon.” Vanessa paused. “It was a glorious two weeks, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, yes.” Mia sighed. “Totally glorious.”

“There you are,” Vanessa said. “Besides, Hal was here. He knew what to do. He handled it.”

“Well, actually, Grady handled it, mostly.” Hal looked across the table at Beck. “I hope you don’t mind, but I temporarily made him a part-time officer. Mostly because I wanted him to be able to carry, and he didn’t have a weapon with him. Since he was spending so much time with Vanessa-”

“Really?” Mia turned a happy face to her new sister-in-law. “Do tell.”

Vanessa shrugged nonchalantly. “Nothing much to tell. He was with me when the break-in was discovered, and while we were checking it out his rental car was damaged. So he offered to stay and watch my back.”

“Is he still here?” Mia turned to Hal eagerly. “Is Grady still working with you?”

“No, it was just for the one day,” Hal explained. “That’s all it took for him to get this guy and take him down.” He smiled at Mia. “The boy is good-took charge, no nonsense, figured out how to get into Ness’s house and create enough of a distraction that he could get Dent to turn his back. But once we had Dent, Grady left for home.”

“The same day?” Mia frowned.

“He said he had…” Vanessa almost said a job to do but she caught herself in time. She’d given him her word that she wouldn’t be the one to spill the beans to Mia about his business venture, and so far, she’d been able to keep that. “Something to do that couldn’t wait.”

“What, a horse to feed?” Mia made a face.

Vanessa shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him.”

“So what happened to the accomplice?” Beck asked. “The woman?”

“No charges were brought against her,” Hal told him. “Jackie Weston wasn’t involved in either the break-in or the damage to Grady’s car, and if she hadn’t come to me when she did, who knows what might have happened to Vanessa. It would have ended very badly for everyone. As it was, the only person who got hurt was Maggie.”

“I don’t understand how Maggie got involved in this whole thing in the first place,” Beck said.

“She’d stopped by my house to drop off something, and Edmund Dent was already there. He forced her inside at gunpoint…” Vanessa told him, “and forced her to call me at the shop and tell me I had to come home, or he’d kill her. Instead, she tried to warn me, told me not to come. I could hear him smacking her around while we were on the phone, so of course, I went-”

“You let her go?” Beck turned to Hal.

“Beck, he couldn’t have stopped me. I had to go. I didn’t want her blood on my hands. Maggie was very brave.” Vanessa took a deep breath and looked across the table to her brother. “I learned something really important through all this. She may not have always been much of a mom-let’s face it, Maggie’d never have been a contender for Mother of the Year-but she’s still my mother. And I guess I… I guess I love her.” She paused and recalled what she’d said to Grady. “Sometimes you just have to let go of the past for the sake of the future.”

“I’m glad that she was gone before we got back. I don’t know that I’m ready to let go, to tell you the truth. I don’t know that I want to,” Beck said. “Pulling that stunt-showing up at the wedding uninvited… I don’t know what she was thinking.”

“Well, now, I guess she was thinking that she wanted to be there on the most important day of her son’s life.” Hal spoke up. “Even if she hadn’t been there for some others.”

When Beck didn’t respond, Hal added, “And I expect she’ll be coming back once she concludes her business in North Dakota.”

“Why would she do that?” Beck asked, his eyes narrowing.

“I suppose because I asked her to.”

The room fell silent for a moment. Then Beck said, “Hal, why would you do that? After all she did… let’s face it, Maggie’s never done anything but hurt you. She’s hurt all of us, everyone who ever loved her.”

“I suspect that people can change if you give them the chance. I’m okay with giving her another chance. Besides, like Vanessa just said, sometimes you have to let go if you want to move on.”

Beck shook his head. “She’s going to hurt you again. She can’t be trusted.”

“Well, I guess we’ll have to wait and see how it all shakes out.” Hal took a sip of his coffee. “Anyone need a refill?”