Cara Colter - A Vow to Keep

She had been right, too. When the pain, the humiliation of failure, had subsided, he had realized his divorce had freed him to do all the things he loved. He had bought a motorcycle first, and then, with his appetite for solitary adventures whetted, he had taken up traveling. Not the posh, resort kind of traveling his ex-wife would have enjoyed, but true exploring of a world so rich in diversity and culture he sometimes wondered if he would have time to discover and experience all the things he wanted to.

Still, he knew his contentment with his own lifestyle, combined with the wariness created by his divorce, had made him a solitary soul. Maybe, somewhere in the past seven years, he had even become a selfish, self-centered man.

What other excuse did he have for not being there for a friend? Though, when he thought of Linda, he thought their relationship might be a little more complicated than friendship.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly to her daughter.

“Her whole life was about me, and now I’m gone, too. Uncle Rick, she needs a purpose. Promise me you’ll find something at Star Chasers for her to do.”

A gauntlet laid down. It would be foolish to pick it up. What did he know about helping a woman whose dignity had been shredded and whose heart had been broken? On the other hand, he knew all about promises. Vows. He didn’t want to be that responsible for another human being’s happiness, ever again.

“She needs to be around people,” her daughter said with the absolute authority of one young enough to still believe she knew everything. “She needs to have something to do. She loves old houses. She still has pictures of some of the early ones that you and her and Dad restored together. That interest could be channeled constructively, before she sells off anything else.”

He heard himself saying, cautiously, “I can’t make your mother do anything she doesn’t want to do, Bobbi.”

“Promise me you’ll try.”

Maybe it was the hour of the morning that weakened him, or maybe it was the pleading in that tender young voice.

“Okay. I promise.”

“Thank you, Uncle Rick!” There was hope in her voice, as if she truly believed he could fix something so desperately fragile. But he already felt regret. He knew he shouldn’t get involved in this. Helping someone who was heart weary was like treading on sacred ground.

Still, he’d offer Linda a job, she’d say no and his duty would be done.

But the promise he’d just made implied more than a lackluster effort. That was the problem with promises. They required way more of a man than he was prepared to give.

Dumb to get involved, Rick thought, staring at the phone after he’d hung up, but what if Linda did need something? She would be too proud—and too angry—to ever ask him.

Anger he deserved, he reminded himself, rubbing the last of the sleep from his eyes. Anger he deserved because he had kept her husband Blair’s secrets from her.

And he kept one still.

What had he just let himself in for? He got out of bed, went to the kitchen and poured a glass of milk. One thing he knew, he was not going to face Linda Starr without a plan.

AT FIRST she thought he was not there.

Linda Starr laid low in the long September-gold grass and adjusted the binoculars on the reedy area of bulrushes just beyond the boundary of her picket fence–enclosed backyard.

The ground was gilded silver with frost, but she was only vaguely aware of the cold penetrating her pajamas as the morning light, cool and gray, seeped into the darkness, turned the river’s back eddy into a startling strand of light. Across the river, downtown Calgary hummed to life, headlights like strings of moving pearls joined the high-rise reflections in the still waters of this tiny, quiet inlet of the swift moving Bow River.

Unbelievable that she had seen him here, nearly in the heart of the city. It had been a gift, and she realized, resigned, it was one that might not be repeated.

She began to feel the cold and to notice the steady hum of life across the way, in stark contrast to the stillness where she lay shivering. She had turned on the coffeepot before she had come out, and now its scent drifted out her open back door, calling her back to the warmth of the tiny house she had only slept in for three nights.

She rose to her knees, groaned at the stiffness in them and then froze. She saw him, his silhouette that of a ghost taking solid form as the light deepened to rose on the river. Her breath caught in her throat as she witnessed alchemy, dawn turning white feathers to platinum. A whooping crane. Linda had read about him after her first sighting yesterday.

He was one of the rarest North American birds, and the tallest. His wingspan was seven and a half feet. Most people would never see such a bird in their lifetimes. She, startled at her own whimsy, took it as a sign that she had made the right decision to buy the tiny house behind her.

Her knees protested, and she shifted her weight ever so slightly but enough that the bird turned to her suddenly, the brilliant red of his face filling her binoculars, the yellow of his eye defiant. With a buglelike trumpet—ker-loo, ker-loo—he stretched his wings so that she could see the black-tipped undersides, witness how truly magnificent he was.

He lifted his wings, and then rose, all power and grace, into a morning sky that had turned a shade of turquoise blue that left her eyes smarting. She could hear the whoosh as he claimed the freedom of the heavens. She watched him, felt as if he were setting course for the morning star.

Whimsy, again. Where was that coming from? She had always considered herself so pragmatic. Not, she reminded herself, that a pragmatic woman would have purchased the faintly dilapidated little house behind her.

She kept the binoculars trained on him long after he was just a speck. That’s when she became aware of the miracle.

Happiness had eased into her, as sneakily as the morning light had chased away the darkness.

She contemplated the feeling for a moment, let the word roll through her mind. Only thirteen months ago her world had turned upside down, been broken to pieces as if picked up by a tornado and smashed back down. She remembered thinking on that black, black day, I will never again know joy.

Or that most dangerous of things, hope.

There was that whimsy again, because spotting the rare bird made her hope for a life where tiny surprises could delight, where cold grass could make her skin tingle with the simple awareness of what it was to be alive.

She had barely formed that thought when the hair on the back of her neck rose. She was aware, before she heard the softly cleared throat, that she was no longer alone in her backyard. Ah well, Linda chastised herself, that was a lesson about believing in happiness that she should’ve learned. It was like throwing a challenge before the gods, one they seemed all too eager to accept.

The intruder must be a murderer, she decided, just as her daughter had warned her when Linda had insisted on buying this little house, next to the bird sanctuary, in an old, old neighborhood where crumbling houses, such as hers, stood next to in-fills and add-ons and houses lovingly restored to dignity.

Mother. What are you thinking? You’ll be murdered in your sleep, Bobbi had said. As if dead bodies littered the quiet streets of one the oldest districts in Calgary. Though, of course, those scruffy young neighbors, tattooed and long haired with the pit bull and boards over their windows, had given Linda pause.

Well, she thought, with faint satisfaction, if her daughter was right about the murderer, at least Linda was not asleep. In her pajamas, though! Heart hammering, ridiculously embarrassed about the pink flannel printed with cartoon devils, she rose off her knees, stretched with what she hoped was a lack of concern—she was sure the criminal element could smell fear—and turned to face her fate.