Brothers, Page 3

  A squeal of brakes split the air again. A sign whirred past welcoming the train to the town of Tanglewood. The giant beast slowed and then stopped. I had gotten so used to the noise that the instant quiet stunned me. I could hear voices in the distance, the engineer or one of the other train workers. My body tensed as it suddenly occurred to me that they might be inspecting the train. Did they arrest people who jumped boxcars?

  I decided not to wait and find out. The train had come to a complete stop. It was my best chance to jump out without breaking a leg or leaving behind a significant amount of skin.

  I leaned out and squinted into the glacial breeze rolling down off the mountains. Two men stepped up onto the second engine and disappeared. I sat down on the edge of the floor and pushed off. It turned out that the boxcar had provided some protection from the cold. Now I had nothing but my own thin arms to protect me. I wrapped them tightly around myself and headed away from the tracks and my less than magical carpet.

  I was not fifty steps into my journey to find, at the very least, a bathroom and warm corner to take shelter, when the clouds above began dripping an icy rain. The drops were misty and light at first, but with each step, they fell faster and harder. It seemed like everything was working against me.

  Whenever things seemed especially bleak, like now, I thought about Lolly. She had glowing skin and a gracious smile that never faded, no matter how bad things got. Even when the bills were piling up and the fridge was close to empty and Lolly had to work extra shifts at the hospital, leaving me on my own for hours, we were always absurdly happy. One particularly grim day, the day I stayed home from school with the flu, always stood out to me. A collector came and took some of our rental furniture, leaving us with a few folding chairs and a wobbly kitchen table. I ended up transforming our tiny apartment into a castle using sheets, my crayons and the cardboard from a refrigerator box our neighbor had dumped in the parking lot. Lolly returned from her shift and stood in the center of the room in her nurse's uniform, working hard not to cry. She looked around at the cardboard thrones and flouncy drapery made from bed sheets. "Joelle Taylor Sutton," she said, "you don't just make lemonade out of lemons. You make lemon chiffon pie." After that we sat against our cardboard thrones and ate crackers and peanut butter. In our minds, it was a feast fit for royalty.

  My time with Bobby had been filled with so much despair, I had lost that enthusiasm for life. I needed to find that girl again, the one who could make pie from lemons.

  5

  Zach

  The rapid fire of bullets came from the living room. Jesse had taken the cold fried chicken, leftover from lunch, out to the den to eat while playing video games.

  I lifted the pile of dishes out of the sink and started the hot water. Every dish in the kitchen was dirty, and we'd resorted to eating off napkins. I decided to bite the bullet and fill the sink with soap and water.

  Rain splattered against the kitchen window as the mountain breeze pushed it across the yard. The temperature was unusually cold for spring. I shut off the water and was just about to dive my hands into the frothy suds when my phone rang. I pulled it out and paused, wondering if it was easier to ignore my mom's call or get it over with. I opted for the second choice.

  "Hey, Mom."

  "Zachary, how is everything in Tanglewood? You boys never call anymore. Are you eating right?"

  I surveyed the cluttered kitchen table. The pizza crusts from this morning's cold pepperoni and green pepper breakfast were still sitting on crumpled foil, and yesterday's cheeseburger wrappers were wadded up and sitting on a plate of half eaten tater tots. "Yep, like kings."

  "I'll bet. You need to eat from the four food groups."

  "If you count beer and ketchup as food groups, we're right on target."

  A loud mom sigh floated through the phone. "I just got off the golf course. The sun is shining out here, but I saw you were getting some cold rain up in Tanglewood. I hated the weather up there."

  "Along with everything else about the place." The summer before I started junior high, Mom and Dad called Jesse and me into the kitchen. We should have known something was up when our nutrition obsessed mom stuck hot fudge sundaes in front of us just an hour before dinner. Jesse and I always knew that our parents weren't all that fond of each other. Mom had grown up in Tanglewood, but like me, she'd always had an itch to leave the place. That sticky summer day, while Jesse and I shoveled scoops of ice cream into our faces at breakneck speed, worried Mom might, at any minute, change her mind, my dad announced that their marriage was over. A week later, Mom packed up and moved to Arizona to live with her sister where it was warm and dry. When Dad died, she came back for six months, until I turned eighteen. She couldn't wait to get back to the warm climate, and Jesse and I were just as glad not to have her hanging around, telling us what we were doing wrong and nosing into our social lives. We'd spent our teen years without her, and suddenly, having a mother just wasn't working for us. She was just as happy to kiss us both on the cheeks and head back to her sister's house.

  "Zachary, have you heard from Sage?" She went straight to the nosing in on personal stuff. I preferred to keep the topic about healthy eating.

  "Nope. And I'll just preempt your next question with my usual—no one special in my life yet, Mom. Hey, I've got some stuff to finish." I headed out to the den. Jesse was still hunched over the controller. He didn't pull his attention from the game. "I think Jesse needs one of your four food group pep talks. He eats like he's three years old."

  Jesse's face popped up. He creased his brow in question.

  I handed him the phone. "It's Mom."

  He yanked his hand back as if I was handing him an angry rattlesnake. His arm waved wildly in the air, telling me no.

  "Here's Jesse, Mom. It was good talking to you."

  Jesse grabbed the phone from my hand. I heard him listing the foods he ate today as I left the room. The impressive mound of soap bubbles in the sink had started to dissolve. Jesse's end of the conversation was pretty quiet, which meant Mom was going on about something. It was almost comical to have her come up with motherly nuggets over the phone when she had basically missed our last ten birthdays and Jesse's high school graduation. Although, she had an excuse for that because she'd twisted her ankle on the golf course just days before. Apparently, every three or four weeks, the woman woke up feeling as if she needed to stretch her mom muscles and give her two sons unwanted advice.

  "Yeah, Mom, I will. Yes," Jesse said with frustration as he stepped into the kitchen.

  I glanced back at him. He gave me the finger with his free hand. I turned back toward the window, and a glimmer of movement caught my eye. Rain had mixed with dust on the window pane, so I leaned closer to get a better look.

  Jesse slapped my phone down on the table behind me, but the scene outside had my full attention.

  "You suck, but you're doing the dishes, so I won't have to kick your ass this time," Jesse muttered as he started to walk out.

  "Hey, Jes"—I didn't pull my gaze from the yard—"Is that your coat hanging on the hook outside the shop?"

  "Shit. Yeah it is."

  I tilted my head to get a better view. "Just thought you'd like to know that a pretty amazing pair of legs is walking away with it."

  "What? Fuck." Jesse raced out the door and I followed.

  The long legs picked up speed. The coat thief pulled the hood up over her head and made a run for the woods behind the shop. The terrain was wet and rough and littered with pine needles, but her legs weren't just amazing. They were fast.

  Jesse circled around to stop her as I came up behind her. She heard us closing in on her. The coat slid off her shoulders, and she spun around with it in her hands. "Here. I'm sorry."

  Long brown hair framed her face and hung in waves around her thin shoulders. She looked pale and tired and incredibly cold standing in shorts and a thin t-shirt in front of the tall spruce trees lining the yard. Her big brown eyes were glassy. Her button nose was red fro
m the cold, almost as red as the lush pair of bow shaped lips beneath. Her stunning beauty was not lost on my brother either.

  Jesse recovered faster though. He took a cautious step toward her as if she was a frightened fawn. "That's all right. Put it back on."

  I headed slowly toward her. She was too exhausted to run. Her body trembled violently from the icy rain. Her gaze shot from Jesse to me and back again. Jesse reached her first. He took the coat from her hand and wrapped it around her shoulders.

  She looked up at both of us. "I'm sorry, I'm not usually a thief." Her voice wavered and her face paled more. "I'm just really cold . . ." Her dark lashes fluttered, and her head lolled back as she collapsed into Jesse's arms. He swept her up.

  "We need to get her warm." I was already heading back to the house. "I'll put some more wood on the fire."

  Jesse crossed the yard with the girl as I filled the crate with wood from the stockpile. I hurried inside.

  Jesse lowered her onto the couch, still wrapped in the coat. I tossed more logs on the dying fire. The fresh wood cracked and hissed as flames surrounded it.

  I grabbed one end of the sofa. "Lift up the other side. We need to get this closer to the fire." We moved it a few feet from the stone hearth and lowered it to the ground.

  A tiny sound came from the girl's lips. Her eyes opened slowly. She looked up at the beams on the ceiling in confusion. Not wanting to scare her by looming over the couch like a menacing tattooed giant, I knelt down behind the couch. Jesse did the same on the opposite side.

  Her face turned from side to side. Her chin had stopped trembling, and some pink came back to her cheeks.

  She glanced over at the fire. "Where am I?" There was more whisper than voice coming from her lips.

  "You're in our house in the town of Tanglewood. I'm Jesse and this is my brother, Zach."

  "I'm Joelle. Whose coat did I steal?"

  "It's mine," Jesse said. "And you can steal it whenever you like."

  Her long lashes closed, and it seemed she would drift off to sleep, still drowsy and exhausted from the cold. Jesse looked over at me. I could read his thoughts. She was incredible, like a delicate piece of art. But where the hell did she come from?

  Her almond-shaped eyes opened again. The fire glittered in her brown eyes.

  "Joelle, Tanglewood is sort of out of the way." I brushed a wet strand of hair off her forehead. "How did you get here?"

  She seemed to be considering her answer. The corner of her lip turned up in a hint of a smile. "I came by magic carpet."

  "Did you say a magic carpet?" Jesse asked.

  "Actually, it was a rattling old boxcar. I just thought magic carpet sounded better."

  "So you ride the rails?" I knew there was an entire group of people who traveled from place to place jumping boxcars. This girl didn't really fit the image I had in my head of a rail rider.

  “That was my first trip on a train." She turned her face to the fire and closed her eyes to feel the heat on her skin. "I hadn't really planned on it, but I needed to leave—" A hitch in her throat halted her words. She grew quiet. Whatever it was that had caused her to jump a boxcar, it wasn't something she could easily talk about.

  "Hey, are you hungry?" Jesse asked.

  Her hands lifted out from the coat. She was holding a flattened granola bar. "Found this in the pocket. So I guess I was stealing this too."

  Jesse flashed her that gold medal smile that caused many women to make bad decisions. I hated that fucking smile. "Yeah, since I don't even remember putting that granola bar in the pocket, I think we can find you something a little fresher." He took the bar from her hand.

  I pushed to my feet. "Do you want a roast beef sandwich?"

  Her eyes sparkled at the mention of roast beef. "With mustard?"

  "Of course. What do we look like? Cavemen?" It was a relief to see color in her face. I dreaded to think what might have happened if I hadn't looked out the window. Even with Jesse's coat, she wouldn't have survived the night outside.

  She scooted up against the arm of the couch. "If you two are examples of prehistoric man, then I was born at the wrong time in history."

  "Hey, make me a sandwich too while you've got the stuff out," Jesse suggested.

  "Why don't you come into the kitchen and make one for yourself?" I titled my head to let him know to follow me. He reluctantly pushed to his feet.

  "Holy shit," Jesse whispered as we walked into the kitchen. "It's like the heavens opened up and dropped a shiny little star on our doorstep. Did you see those eyes? Those lips? Hell, those legs?"

  "Yeah, Jes, I'm not blind. It's a good thing I spotted her out there." I pulled the roast beef and mustard out of the refrigerator.

  Jesse pulled the bread off the counter. "I'll say. She'd have frozen to death tonight. Can't believe she's all alone. Man, some jerk is at home throwing his fist through a wall for losing her."

  I glanced out toward the living room. The fire cast a glow over the room. Joelle was curled up in the oversized coat, watching the fire. "She's definitely running from something or someone."

  "What should we do?"

  I squeezed the mustard on the bread. "We can let her stay here until she figures out where she's headed. How much trouble can one shiny little star from heaven be?"

  We both stopped the sandwich production and watched as our big, always wary of strangers, dog stood up from his pillow in the corner of the den. He padded across the room on his massive paws toward the couch. Jesse moved to head in there and stop him from growling at the wet stranger on the couch, but I placed my hand on his arm to stop him. We watched in silence as Bear walked in front of the couch and looked up at Joelle with his black eyes. Bear was a wolf hybrid, half wolf and half something far more domestic. Most people were afraid of him, which worked perfectly for a dog who didn't have much love for strangers. In fact, we'd found him abused, starved and left for dead on the side of the road, so he didn't care for most people. Couldn't blame him for that.

  "Oh wow, aren't you beautiful," Joelle's voice was stronger, less shaky than before. She pulled her hand free from the coat, and without the slightest hesitation, she stroked Bear's thick gray fur. Bear released a satisfied dog sigh and plopped down in front of her.

  "Shit, look at that. Turns out Bear is a big ole flirt," Jesse muttered. "You're right. She doesn't take up much room. She probably doesn't eat much, and Bear has given her his nod of approval. How much trouble can she be?"

  6

  Joelle

  The sandwich warmed me from the inside and the fire from the outside. I felt human again. After leaving the train, I'd followed a sign that pointed out the way to Coltrane Park. It was really more a patch of green on a corner with a sandbox and jungle gym, but it had a bathroom. I'd nearly wept tears of joy when I saw the restroom sign. After that, I spent a long afternoon sheltering in quiet corners and under shop awnings. Tanglewood was a small but bustling little town. In between the usual pharmacy and hardware type stores were shops displaying handmade wares. A potter's shop, where the owner proudly displayed that his name was indeed Harry, had a front window filled with beautiful glazed pottery of every shape and size. Next to Harry's pottery shop was a store called Glass Fancy. The sign boasted that the Fancy family had been creating glassware for three generations. The displays in the window had included a blown glass dragon that was so fluid in beauty it looked as if it was flying through the air instead of suspended in glass. An intricate, labor intensive glass carousel lit with flickering lights sat in the other corner.

  I'd turned the heads of most of the people milling about the sidewalk and traipsing in and out of the shops. I was dressed for summer and not for the arctic chill sweeping over the town, making me look even more out of place. A few had nodded politely and some had just stared. I had no doubt that the town was small enough for locals to all know each other.

  Stupidly, I'd left the lights of the town to look for an empty house or car to take shelter in. There were no street ligh
ts and the roads twisted in every direction. Most of the houses disappeared, and I ended up lost. I was close to breaking down in despair when I smelled smoke from a fire. I followed it, deciding that where there was fire, there was warmth. I came upon a clearing with a rustic cabin and some outbuildings. The coat was hanging on a hook on the outside of a brick building. My feet took off toward it before I even gave it another thought.

  Bear, the dog who looked far more like he belonged in the wilds of Montana than lounging in front of a stone hearth, rolled onto his side with a deep groan. Zach had gone into the kitchen to wash dishes, and Jesse had gone to his room to find me a dry shirt. The brothers were definitely not a polished pair of boy next door types, but for some reason I hadn't felt even a second of fear when I woke on their couch. I could only vaguely remember collapsing in front of a wall of trees. By then, I was so cold and hungry, I felt like an empty shell of a person. I could no longer think about anything but getting warm.

  I pulled the coat closed as I glanced around. The small cabin looked as if years ago it had been decorated by a woman, faded lace curtains on the front door, a still life of roses in a vase over the mantel and a braided rug under the couch and table in the corner. Most of the colors had faded from the curtains and rugs. The rest of the place was all guy. A video game console sat under a massive flat screen television, a high tech item that looked completely out of place and time in a cabin that looked as if it was at least a hundred years old. Muddy work boots were lined up along the stone hearth, and at least one shirt and two pairs of socks hadn't made it to the laundry basket.

  Heavy footsteps creaked the wood plank floor behind me. Jesse circled around the front of the couch holding a blue flannel shirt in one hand and socks in the other. He had the kind of face that you would find grinning up at you from a fashion magazine. A guy who with his long hair and tattoos was just raw enough around the edges to make advertisers clamor to have him model their clothes. He was tall with broad shoulders that strained against the fabric of his shirt.