Melinda Curtis - Dandelion Wishes

“I worry about Tracy all the time. Can I hope for something close to normal in her speech? What if she has an emergency and can’t get the words out quickly enough? Are people going to judge her intelligence by the way she talks? Tracy’s doctors tell me what to do and I feel hope. And then I try to help her and nothing works.” He clenched and unclenched his fists, trying to expunge the helplessness. “If we can perform CPR on this town and Tracy has a role in our organization, I’d be happy. She doesn’t have to run everything. Maybe just the gift shop. Or the tasting room.”

Slade cleared his throat.

But the flood of Will’s frustration wasn’t finished. “It’s the doubts that drive me insane. Will Tracy be like this forever? Speaking in broken English and with pain so deep in her eyes that I can’t find the bottom? I know Tracy doesn’t want any handouts from me. But if you don’t approve of hiring her, I’ll pay her salary out of my own pocket.

“Last night Slade said Tracy was a distraction. But he’s wrong. Carving out a place in the world for her is my life’s work right now. And these businesses we’re proposing can give her that place.” If only he could make Tracy see. “If I can’t fix Tracy so she can return to her old life, I need to help her create a new one. Everything else, including our next multimillion dollar sale, is a distraction.”

Will hadn’t realized an empty street could be so silent.

Slade stared at Will with fathomless black eyes that neither condemned nor supported.

“Slade,” Will began, “what I said last night... I was a jerk.”

“You get a pass,” Slade said gruffly.

“I need you standing by me. You and Flynn.” Together, the three friends could do anything—if they all concurred.

“We’re doing this, then?” Flynn asked Slade.

Their financial partner nodded curtly. “Since I’m in charge of our investments, I’ll agree to pursue rezoning if you both agree that at each step in development we review our options. If this winery ever becomes a losing proposition, we cut our losses.”

Flynn and Will agreed.

Will was determined he’d never let the winery come to that. His tension slipped away, loosening his limbs. He scanned the town square, tensing when he noticed it was empty. “Where’s Tracy?”

Flynn pointed. “She headed back along the river toward your house.”

The river path would take Tracy past Rose’s home. Where Emma, Tracy’s Pied Piper, was staying.

Will stepped off the curb, but Flynn held him back. “You have to let Tracy deal with Emma in her own way.”

Will pulled his arm free. “She’s not strong enough yet.”

* * *

“EMMA!” GRANNY ROSE returned from her visit to the elementary school in the next town around eleven-thirty, her booted feet echoing throughout the old house. “Come here.”

Emma saved the print ad she’d been revising for one of her clients on her laptop before going downstairs.

She found Granny Rose on the porch, reaching through an open window to start the record player. “Schoolchildren make me want to dance for joy.”

After her bike ride, Emma’s legs felt as if they were in plaster casts, stiff and cumbersome. Dancing would be impossible.

The Andrews Sisters began singing about a bugle boy. What little booty Granny Rose had started shaking. Her arms stretched out midair, fingers snapping. And then she held out her hand to Emma. “Let’s dance, sister. I’ll lead.”

With a slump to her shoulders, Emma shuffled forward. “Do I have to?”

“It’s either that or color!” Pointing to a coloring book on the table, Granny Rose laughed, the sound rippling above the music, cresting over Emma’s sour mood and washing away most of her reluctance.

At first, Emma stumbled through the steps of the swing like a zombie with two left feet. But then, miraculously, her muscles warmed and loosened and her spirits lifted. She and Granny cut a rug back and forth across the porch as if competing in their own dance competition.

* * *

TRACY HAD SLIPPED the noose of Will’s leash and was heading back to the house like a schoolgirl playing hooky.

Her body and spirit needed a lift. Life here didn’t feel much different than in the rehabilitation hospital. Banned from driving, she still couldn’t go where she wanted when she wanted. Harmony Valley was another cage and Will her jailer. It was hard to believe, but being a shock-therapy lab rat might allow her more freedom.

And then she heard music.

Although it was a tune from a different generation, it was the music of Tracy’s youth. The music she’d learned to dance to—big-band swing. Just listening to the song as she walked down the narrow path by Harmony River buoyed Tracy’s steps.

The Andrews Sisters beckoned her closer, inviting her to set aside her worries, if only for a few minutes. She couldn’t see Rose’s house through the trees, but with the volume up this loud, the older woman had to be outdoors, dancing on the wraparound porch as if her shoes had wings.

Tracy and Emma had danced many a summer night away on that porch. Tracy had danced away her grief after her mother died.

Taking the path around a blackberry bush, she stopped in the shade of the eucalyptus grove.

She and Emma—

Emma was dancing with Rose.

Emma.

Dancing. As if she didn’t have a care in the world. As if the crash hadn’t permanently destroyed her dreams.

Had Emma been dancing the entire time Tracy was in the hospital?

Her pulse quickened until it felt like her heart would hammer its way out of her chest if she didn’t do something. She took a step out of the shadows, but a hand on her arm held her back.

“Don’t,” Will said.

Tracy snapped her arm free and turned toward Rose’s house, fueled by anger at both Emma and Will.

Will yanked her back again. “Don’t.”

Emma had been here all this time? Dancing?

“What are you going to do?” Will’s contempt was palpable. “Dance with them?”

That was the furthest thing from her mind. Tracy wanted to yell at Emma, wanted to make her listen to all her frustrations. She wanted to shout and scream and howl in pain. She wanted to accuse and blame. She wanted to finally have someone understand the anger and uncertainty that beat a pounding staccato in her chest.

Tracy opened her mouth to tell Will what she had in mind, but all that came out was, “I...”

Her pulse dragged to a sluggish near halt.

Who was she kidding? It would take hours to get everything off her chest.

Will must have sensed her defeat because he pulled her deeper into the trees, farther down the winding path toward the river.

And she let him.

* * *

“TRACY?” EMMA STEPPED out of Granny Rose’s arms. She thought she’d seen Tracy in the trees, her blond hair catching a ray of soft sunlight. Emma ran down the front stairs and into the eucalyptus grove bordering the river. “Tracy!”

But it wasn’t Tracy who awaited her. It was Will.

Beneath the trees, he exuded none of the golden-boy aura she’d admired on Parish Hill. He was breathing heavily, as if he’d been running. But his blond hair didn’t glisten, his skin didn’t radiate vitality and there wasn’t a fleeting shout of laughter as when he’d first seen her this morning.

“How can you dance?” The anger in Will’s voice thrust barbed points at Emma, bringing her to a halt. “You were dancing like you were happy.”

The emptiness that never receded completely expanded inside of Emma, filling her with a bleakness that welled into her eyes and threatened to overflow. But she wouldn’t cry. Not in front of Will. “I wish I could make you understand. Part of me cringes every time I feel a hint of happiness because I caused the accident that nearly killed Tracy. Me.” She tapped her chest. “I carry that with me every day and I always will. But I was trying to make my grandmother happy just now. I owe it to her.”