Bonnie Winn - Return to Rosewood

Bret followed the older man into the kitchen. Ethel stood at the stove and Samantha was at the table. “Smells good.”

“If that means you want a waffle, pull up a chair,” Ethel replied. “I don’t guess young men cook for themselves.”

Amused, at the age of thirty, to be included in the young people category, he sat down across from Samantha. “If you don’t plan to stay here, I will. Last time I had a waffle for breakfast…well, I don’t know the last time I had one.”

“Your mother must make them,” Ethel chided.

He grinned. “I live in the apartment over the business, but I don’t go to their house for breakfast.”

Samantha fiddled nervously with her fork, but her plate was almost full. Looked like she’d only eaten a bite or two. The Samantha he knew ate with gusto, lived with even more. And she’d rarely been nervous. No, she followed her own path even when it meant breaking his heart.

Bret’s appetite vanished. He shoved back his chair. “Ethel, it pains me to say this, but I’ve already eaten. Sam, you ready to look at your place?”

Relief flooded the delicate features of Samantha’s face. “Yes.”

“But you’ve barely touched your breakfast,” Ethel fussed.

“It was delicious, really.” Samantha’s smile was strained. “But I need to see the house.”

Albert’s brow furrowed, his long, gray eyebrows pulling together. “There shouldn’t be much damage from a little grease fire.”

“No, no. Of course not,” Samantha’s words tumbled out too quickly. Then she took a breath. “But you know how my mother feels about her house.”

Ethel wiped her hands on a small terry towel. “Like any woman. Go on then. You probably won’t get a decent meal ’til you’ve seen the kitchen.”

Samantha wheeled back from the table. Bret stepped forward and opened the door. She tried to push herself over the threshold, but the chair stuck. He tipped it, lifting the wheels over the low barrier.

Bret waited until they were on the grass, heading away from the Carrutherses’. “I see you’re still trying to push past anything that gets in your way.”

Surprisingly, she didn’t pop back with a quick retort.

The front door to her house was the only one open, since the back entry was a mess. He pivoted her wheelchair around so that she faced away from the house. “Hang on.” Lifting the chair carefully up the steps, then over the threshold, he rolled her inside. They headed down the hall toward the kitchen.

As they got within viewing distance, Samantha gasped, hands flying to cover her mouth.

When she didn’t speak, he pushed the chair slowly toward the center of the carnage. The beautiful, hand-carved pine cabinets were charred beyond recognition. The tall ceiling, once graced by stamped tin tiles, was now scorched, the tiles barely hanging on. Limestone counters had fallen into the remains of the lower cabinets after they’d collapsed.

The damage was exacerbated by the steady supply of air that had coursed through the shattered window. With the exception of the appliances and counters, the kitchen had been ideal fuel.

Despite opening all the windows the previous evening, the acrid smell still permeated the house. But Samantha wasn’t coughing. Instead, her head was bent, face in hands.

“Sam?”

The unexpected sound of weeping startled him. She wasn’t one to cry. When they’d broken their engagement, she’d shown regret, but even that had been tempered by the excitement of her plans. And there hadn’t been a single tear.

“Sam?” He knelt down, then peeled her fingers back. “I know it looks bad, but it can be fixed up just fine.”

Her crying deepened, her words gulping out between the sobs. “How am I going to pay to fix this?”

“Is that all?” Exasperated, Bret searched for a handkerchief. “The insurance company will cover it. All but the deductible.”

She shook her head. “The house is supposed to be vacant. The insurance won’t pay.”

His frown deepened. “Just explain the situation. Your parents can—”

“No!” For the first time, her voice gained strength. “They can’t know!”

He sat back on his heels. “What?”

“They don’t know I’m here.” Spent, the spirit in her voice drained away.

“What’s going on?”

Samantha ran her fingers over the chair’s handles, finally lifting a fragile hand to push her long, dark hair back. “I’m supposed to be in a rehabilitation facility in New York.”

His eyes dropped to her legs.

“I was working on a project in upstate New York. We had a freak snowstorm in the middle of spring. I was on top of a roof. Didn’t see the ice until it was too late. Landed a story below.” Her words stumbled to a halt, but he didn’t try to fill the long silence. “I was in a coma at first and in the hospital for months—spinal injury. My parents rushed back from Africa. When it was obvious I wasn’t getting better, they started talking about bringing me back here—putting all their plans on hold. Or, I should say, canceling them. I convinced them to pack up my apartment, sublet it, then get me to a New York rehab.”

He didn’t understand. “Why can’t they know you decided to come home instead?”

“I came back because I couldn’t afford to stay in the rehab place.”

“But insurance—”

She sniffled. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you took up selling insurance. Didn’t have any.”

His eyes widened.

Samantha was immediately defensive. “I was self-employed. I’m relatively young. I was healthy. Took all my savings to pay for the hospital.”

“What did the doctors say about your leaving?”

Her lips clamped into a firm line.

“So what was your prognosis?”

“That with therapy I could improve.”

Bret frowned again. “Then, why—”

“What doctor’s going to tell two hopeful parents that I’m stuck in this chair for life?” The defiance faded and silent tears slipped from her eyes.

Failing to find a handkerchief, Bret leaned closer, using his thumbs to ease the teardrops from her cheeks. “Your parents would have understood.”

“Exactly.” Her deep blue eyes searched his. “You know everything they’ve been through—losing Andy.” She bent her head at the mention of her deceased brother. He’d been killed in a small airplane crash five years earlier. “They finally managed to find enough sponsorship to start the school, to help kids the way he wanted to. And they’re supposed to give all that up to come back and nurse me?”

“It’s what parents do, Sam. Families.”

“Just get hurt over and over again?” She searched his eyes. “Aren’t they supposed to have dreams, too?”

Bret vividly remembered how she’d destroyed his dreams. “Family never was your first priority.”

The past reared up between them. When Samantha had been ready to pursue her far-flung career, Bret couldn’t leave Rosewood. His father was waiting for a heart transplant. While his mother took care of him, Bret stepped into his father’s shoes at the family nursery. His younger sister was still in high school at the time.

Bret had begged Sam to stay in Rosewood. She suggested that they hire someone to run his father’s business. She didn’t understand that it was more than just keeping the nursery going. There hadn’t been a certainty that his father would get the transplant in time. And Bret couldn’t abandon his family. At an impasse, their engagement ended.

Pain flashed in Samantha’s large eyes.

Although they hadn’t had any contact in eight years, he’d known about Andy’s death. Bret wondered now, as he had then, if the loss had brought home the importance of family.

Her wounded gaze lifted to the devastation in the kitchen. “Now I’ve ruined their house.”