They’d just turned onto Highway 93 from the freeway. Shane pulled over onto the shoulder of the one lane highway, and shifted into park. “What do you mean, save her? She had cancer. How could he save her?”
“This can’t be included in your book. None of this can be part of your book, Shane.”
He waved his hand, impatient. “It’s off record, yes. So was it cancer, or not?”
“She didn’t have cancer. That’s the story they put out there, it’s what Bill wanted everyone to think.”
“She was forty-two when she died. How did she die then? Did Bill kill her?”
Jet shook her head. The silence stretched.
And then Shane’s expression changed, awareness dawning. “She killed herself,” he said quietly.
“Yes.”
He sat back, swallowed hard, his hand rubbing across his jaw. “I can’t believe it.”
“Troy found her. He tried to revive her. It was too late.”
Shane hit his fist against the steering wheel, the thud loud in the silent car.
It was in that moment she saw what she’d been missing. It was right there in front of her all this time but she hadn’t seen it. Nor had any of the others. She wasn’t sure how she’d missed it because suddenly it was glaringly obvious.
Shane was a Sheenan.
Shane was—incredibly, impossibly, unquestionably—one of them.
“Shane,” she whispered.
He just shook his head. There were tears in his eyes. He shook his head again, and she understood he wasn’t shushing her to hurt her. He was shushing her because he was hurting.
Chapter Eleven
Shane was silent as he drove. He had no words. He struggled to process everything Jet had said. He was grateful Jet didn’t try to initiate conversation. He couldn’t speak if he wanted to. He’d known his mother had died back in 1997. He’d even visited the family cemetery earlier today in Cherry Lake, paying respects to his mother’s and grandmother’s grave, but he’d believed the story he’d read that she’d battled a lengthy illness, and then ultimately lost.
He found it significant his mother had taken her life. It helped explain the intense family dynamics. The Sheenan brothers weren’t born aggressive a-holes. They’ve been shaped by tragedy and had closed ranks out of necessity.
Maybe they had more in common than he’d thought.
The thought was bittersweet, but also strangely comforting.
On the outskirts of Cherry Lake, Shane broke his silence. “We’re almost there,” he said. “Just a few more miles.” And then he told her about the town, and how it earned its name from the cherry orchards rolling from the edge of Flathead Lake to the base of Mission Mountains. He told her how the first cherry trees were introduced into the valley in the late 1800s, and it wasn’t until 1930 that some enterprising farmer planted the first commercial cherry orchard.
He told her how, when he’d stopped by a grocery store in Cherry Lake earlier in the day to buy a few things for the cabin, he’d commented on how quiet downtown was to the cashier, and the cashier—an older woman who’d been born and raised in Kalispell—said the tourists stayed away from Cherry Lake in winter, but as soon as June rolled around, the tourists would return to open up their vacation cabins and cottages and run speed boats and jet skis on the lake all summer long.
Shane glanced at Jet. “I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I thought the speed boats and jet skis sounded fun.”
Jet smiled. “You’re such a boy.”
“It’s fun to be a boy. Do you have fun being a girl?”
Her smile turned mischievous. “If I’m with the right boy.”
“Are you?” he asked, voice deepening.
She turned to look at him and her gaze met his and held for a second before she nodded. “Yes.” Her cheeks warmed. “As long as I’m with you.”
The sun was beginning to drop as Shane turned off the highway onto a smaller lane that curved up the hill away from the lake. They climbed for a half mile or so, and the trees became taller, thicker, and the road more narrow.
“You’re sure we’re going the right way?” Jet asked, as the lake disappeared from sight and the sinking sun was hidden by the shadow of the mountain.
“Almost there.”
“It seems pretty remote.”
“The cabin’s on a couple acres.”
“And you picked this one because….?”
“It has an interesting history, and happened to be available.” He slowed to turn off onto the dirt road that dead-ended in front of a log cabin.
It wasn’t a very big cabin, just one and a half stories tall, with stacked log walls and a small, rustic front porch. A stripped log bench sat beneath the front window, with neat stacks of firewood tucked under the bench seat, while a carved wooden grizzly cub stood sentry next to the front door.
Shane carried their bags from the car and set them down on the porch to fish the cabin keys from the grizzly cub’s hollowed leg. After unlocking the front door, he pushed it open, flipped on the porch light, and invited her in.
The cabin was essentially one big room, a combination living room, dining room and kitchen. A big river rock fire place anchored one side of the cabin while the kitchen with the oak and pine cabinets, and what looked like a new stove, anchored the other. There were trusses in the vaulted ceiling and wooden shutters at the windows, with most of the shutters already open. The heater had been turned on, too, so the cabin was toasty warm.
“It’s cozy,” Jet said, giving her nod of approval. “Cute.”
“There’s a loft bedroom upstairs, and two bedrooms downstairs.” Shane closed the front doors and set the luggage by the couch. “You take whichever bedroom you prefer.”
Jet peeked into each bedroom on the main floor. One had a queen bed with an oversized red and black quilt while the other room had two twins already made up with sheets and colorful Pendleton blankets.
“I’ll take the twin bed,” she said. “You take the queen. You’re bigger than me, you need the extra room.”
“I’ve learned to sleep anywhere so I don’t care about the size—”
Jet cut him short by marching into the twin bedroom and shouting, “Mine!” The door slammed shut behind her.
He stared at the door a moment before cracking a slow smile. Ah, Jet, his girl.
Ball of fire. Just like the glow of orange ink near his elbow. He needed to add some ink for her. Something that would honor her. A heart? No, that was too easy. It had to be more original, more profound, more Jet. But what would it be? What could be as strong and sweet as his girl?
That was when he knew he was keeping her.
That was why people promised to love forever. Because he wanted her in his life, at his side, forever.
He loved her. He knew she had feelings for him, too, but how could he ask her to choose him without telling her who he really was?
But it was hard.
He wasn’t good at talking and sharing. He’d spent too many years bouncing around as a kid, one foster home to another.
Most of the foster homes were tolerable. There had only been a couple truly bad ones in the dozen he’d known. In general, people were decent and, in general, those who became foster parents did it for the right reasons.
No, he’d never been adopted. But that was as much his fault as the system’s because he hadn’t tried to endear himself to any of the couples or singles or families that he’d lived with. He’d never been rude, but he’d never sucked up, or showed vulnerability, or deep gratitude or any real emotion.
His social workers used to talk to him about “opening up a little,” so his foster families could get to know him, and then maybe they’d want to keep him, but Shane had just stared blankly at the well-meaning social worker until the man or woman dropped the topic. Even as a little kid, adoption was out. It wasn’t an option, not for him, as he had a mom, and a family, and his mom would be coming for him. So he’d waited. And waited. It had taken him a long,
long time to accept it that she wasn’t coming. He’d burned with anger over the lies and games. It would have been better if someone, at some point, told him she wasn’t coming. It would have been better to know as a young child that she’d never return.
Maybe that was why he’d wanted to hate the Sheenans. They were the ones she’d kept. Five other boys…
It had killed him to know he was the only one she’d given away.
But Shane was beginning to understand. He still didn’t have all the pieces, but he had enough now to know she hadn’t come for him because she couldn’t.
She couldn’t.
And for the first time in his thirty-four years, it was enough.
It was fine. He got it. She was just a woman…once a young girl.
How she must have suffered knowing he was somewhere else…how it must have burned within her.
“I forgive you, Mom,” he whispered. “I forgive you.” And forgiving her, he felt a rush of pure love. The kind of love he hadn’t felt since he was just a small boy.
Tears burned the back of his eyes and his chest seized, the air bottling within. The years were tumbling away, the anger falling, shattering at his feet. Words he’d refused to think, feel, believe filled him, overwhelming him.
Words of love. Words of comfort. Words he was sure she needed to hear.
Blinking hard, he cleared his eyes and let his heart talk to her. I love you, Mom. It’s okay. Don’t worry anymore.
Tears weren’t manly. Tears were a sign of weakness but he couldn’t help himself. He’d waited his whole life to tell her this and it was impossible to hold the emotion in. Love was so powerful. It was really the only thing that mattered.
Remembering her Bible—he’d brought it from the Sheenan homestead—he took it from his satchel and lightly ran his fingertips over the still black cover. Mom.
Flipping the cover open he went to her name. Catherine Jeanette Cray.
And then he felt her. She was with him. Her energy wasn’t heavy tonight, nor was it sad. She was just quiet. Waiting. Listening.