Winter's End Read online

  Marc knew he was a meager replacement for his father in that regard. He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I’m going up for coffee. Want some hot chocolate?”

  Jess shook her head. “Kayla brought me some cappuccino mix from the market. I had some of that. It was really good.”

  Cappuccino mix? What was the matter with a fourteen-year-old drinking hot chocolate? Why did Kayla insist on thrusting her into a grown-up world?

  Marc swallowed the retort. Jess was growing up. He needed to understand that. She needed his love and support, not his criticism. On that matter, Kayla saw things clearer than he did. He headed to the house, thoughts jumbled.

  Jess had yet to cry. He’d expected her to fall apart at their father’s bedside, but she hadn’t. She’d knelt, prayed and held Pete’s cool hand until the undertaker arrived. Then she bent and kissed her father goodbye.

  That worried Marc. Girls cried all the time, didn’t they?

  Not Jess. And not Kayla, either. What was up with that?

  He had no clue, but he’d mention Jess’s stoicism to Kayla when he saw her next. He wasn’t sure if he should delve, ignore or commiserate, but Kayla might have advice. He didn’t want Jess hiding her feelings out of concern for him, trying to protect him. She’d always had a soothing nature. She must have gotten that from his father, because it didn’t come from his mother.

  That thought stopped Marc.

  Jess didn’t get her nature from his father. Or anything else. She wasn’t Pete DeHollander’s child except in name.

  Marc fought an urge to track down his mother and give her the tongue-lashing she deserved. Then he’d find the man she cheated with and…

  And…

  Marc dropped his chin. He flexed his hands.

  If there hadn’t been a man, there wouldn’t be a Jess. Of that he was certain. Out of horrible circumstance came wondrous good.

  Jess was wondrous. She was his sister, the kid he’d helped raise. The girl he’d schooled in principles of horse husbandry from the time she could walk. Strong, faithful, beautiful Jess was a DeHollander, regardless of blood, and he’d take on anyone who tried to prove otherwise.

  His father told him to talk to Kayla.

  He would, once the visiting hours and funeral were behind him. He’d sort things out, ferret out details his father may have shared.

  He couldn’t hate her for being attentive to his father’s confession. Hadn’t he deliberately steered clear of that?

  But his father persisted, even to the point of death. He’d needed Marc’s understanding and wanted Marc’s forgiveness of his mother’s wrongdoing.

  One out of two he could grant his father. He’d give his understanding, but the revelation about his mother’s impropriety just made her easier to resent.

  She’d used his father from the beginning. That didn’t win her sympathy points in Marc’s book. She was cool and callous, self-absorbed. Those were the facts and nothing would change them.

  The back door opened. Jess stepped in, her hair damp.

  “The rain started?”

  She nodded. “Like melted ice pellets.”

  “Two months of this and we might see spring.”

  She crossed the room to lay her head against his chest. “I love you, Marc. I’m so glad I have you for a brother.”

  He held her tight, refusing to weigh the portent of her words. “Me, too, kid.”

  A sigh grew within him, threatening to swallow him. He was her brother, regardless of birth. She was his baby sister, his to cherish and care for, bonded by all that was good and wholesome in this crazy, mixed-up world.

  He’d defy anyone who tried to change that.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Kayla carried her hat and scarf to the Saturday morning funeral. The weather proved softer, no rain or snow, and a hint of spring freshened the air.

  Fool’s spring, the locals called it. Anyone with North Country experience knew the real thing didn’t hit until May, if then. The late-day forecast called for rain out of the northeast and that generally meant a good soaking, plenty cold.

  Kayla slipped into a back pew. She spied Sarah and Craig on the front left, with Craig’s family.

  People stood shoulder to shoulder in the small church. The DeHollanders touched a lot of lives. Between the farm and the feed store, there were few locals who didn’t cross paths with Pete or Marc several times a month.

  Kayla bowed her head and prayed that this show of love and support would bolster Marc and Jess. She prayed for Marc’s strength and an easing of his bitterness and anger toward his mother.

  A gentle touch brought her head up.

  Marc leaned down. “Sit with us. Please?”

  He looked burdened and weary. Kayla stood. “Of course.”

  He held her hand as they made their way forward. For just a moment Kayla imagined herself a bride, her white dress soft and flowing. Flowers in her hair. A veil trailing against scattered petals.

  Jess hugged her as they reached the front pew. “Thanks for sitting with us. I miss you already.”

  Kayla hugged her back. “I’m always here, honey.” Guilt nudged her. She wouldn’t always be there. She was leaving soon, pursuing different challenges, new horizons.

  Jess could call her. They’d have gabfests on the phone. Laugh about fashions, cry over boys. It wasn’t the same as comforting the girl in person, but it was the best Kayla could offer.

  With the interment postponed, everyone gathered at the farm to celebrate Pete’s life once the service concluded. Friends and family laughed and cried together, their kinship born of hard work and shared times, good and bad.

  Hours later, the last guest left. The Macklin women cleaned up, refusing to budge until the last pan was put away. Once everyone had gone, Kayla got the full import of how empty the house seemed.

  “Too quiet.” Marc’s gaze wandered the kitchen. Jess had gone to bed despite the early hour.

  “Yes.” The rain came, wind-driven and hard, a bone-chilling nor’easter. It beat against the still-hard ground, vengeful, gathering in swift-moving rivulets, the ice-packed soil unreceptive.

  “Thanks for coming.”

  “I wanted to be there. And here.” Kayla swept the house a look. “For a quiet man, he certainly had a presence.”

  “Yes.” Marc drained his mug and looked at her. “Can I talk to you about something?”

  Kayla looked up at him, unsure what to expect. “Sure.”

  “Come in here.” Marc led the way to the darkened living room. Dappled firelight played a game of shadows as flames licked clean-split logs. He flicked on a lamp. “Have a seat.”

  His voice was serious. Kayla sat and watched him pace before he drew up a chair. “Dad talked to me before he died.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. Seeing the clear stairway, he turned back. “I don’t want Jess to hear this.”

  Kayla exhaled. “Okay.”

  “He talked about my mother. He said…” Marc hesitated, his look questioning, his voice low. “Things. He wasn’t real clear, but he made two statements I need to share with you.”

  “Why me?” Kayla sank as deep into the cushion as she could without disappearing altogether.

  “He said you knew about them.”

  Drat. “Marc, I—”

  “Let me finish. He said Mom left because she feared she’d hurt Jess.” Marc shook his head. “The idea that anyone could hurt a baby is beyond me, but that’s what he said.”

  Kayla nodded.

  “And that Jess wasn’t his child.”

  Dear God. Kayla dropped her head. How did she get herself into the middle of this? Why was she involved at all?

  Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.

  She didn’t feel like a peacemaker. She felt like an interfering know-it-all who managed to plunk herself into the middle of an already-convoluted family dynamic.

  “Kayla? I need help understanding this, and I don’t know who else to ask. Did Dad
talk to you?”

  Kayla gnawed her lower lip, awkward. “Yes.”

  Marc regarded her, his look inscrutable. “I need you to be honest with me.”

  Now was the time to explain her relationship with Arianna. For a long moment Kayla stared at the floor. The whorls in the aged-sculpted carpet blurred, then cleared. She gritted her teeth, sought Marc’s gaze and began her story. She hadn’t gotten very far when Marc grabbed her hands.

  “She came back?”

  “Yes.” Kayla sighed and met his look. “I took care of her in the hospital. She’s the reason I went into hospice care. Anna, Arianna,” she corrected herself, “was also the reason I started going to church.”

  Marc stared at her. “Go on.”

  Kayla stood and paced. “She was ill. I didn’t know who she was because she used her maiden name.”

  “Hernandez.”

  “Yes. She was so warm, so kind.” Kayla paused at the window, scowling at the dark skies, the driving rain. “Nothing like the woman you remember.”

  “How’d she die?”

  “HIV.”

  “Sex and needles. That’s my mom.” Disgust colored Marc’s voice.

  “She was different when I knew her,” Kayla insisted. She crossed back to Marc. “She was sorry for what she’d done.”

  “Too little, too late.”

  “She wanted forgiveness.”

  “Fat chance.”

  “Marc.”

  He looked up, his expression flat.

  “Your father forgave her.”

  “I’ll never understand why.” Marc’s face hardened as she watched. “Especially if what he said about Jess was true.”

  “It’s true. He told me last week,” she revealed. She put her hands out, palms up. “He knew all along and forgave her anyway.”

  “He was always weak where she was concerned.”

  “Weak or in love?”

  “Is there a difference?” Marc clenched his hands. The veins on the back bulged. “He coddled her.”

  “He understood she was sick.”

  Marc’s laugh bore no amusement. “Sick? Spoiled, maybe. Conceited. Full of herself.” He shook his head. “That’s not sick, it’s selfish.”

  “She was bipolar,” Kayla began.

  “And didn’t like her meds. Yeah, I’ve heard the excuses,” Marc retorted. “It doesn’t wash, Kayla. She was selfish and egocentric. She made choices, day by day. If the meds helped and she truly loved us, she would have taken them.” His jaw went rigid. His eyes narrowed. “But she didn’t and used every excuse in the book to gain my father’s sympathy.”

  “He loved her.”

  “She cheated on him, made our lives a living hell and bore another man’s child, then abandoned that child so that Dad and I raised her. What kind of love is that?”

  Kayla folded her arms to ward off the chill of his words. A high-pitched cry from the stairs grabbed their attention.

  “Jess.” Marc crossed the room, his hands out. “Did we wake you?”

  She stared at him, mouth open. “I’m not Daddy’s little girl?”

  Kayla moved forward.

  Marc reached out a hand. “Jess, come here. I don’t know what you heard, but—”

  Jess looked from Marc to Kayla and back. “I’m not your sister?” She descended the last stairs, her hand pressed against her mouth. “Then who am I?”

  “You’re my sister.” He reached the stairs and tugged Jess into his arms. “You’ve always been my sister. You’re all I’ve got, Jess.”

  She pulled away, her face wreathed in grief and disbelief. “Whose child am I?”

  Marc shook his head.

  Jess turned to Kayla. “Do you know?”

  Kayla reached out a hand that Jess shrugged off. “Don’t ask me that, Jess. I’ve seen you with your father. You’re his child in every way that counts.”

  “Except biology.” Jess’s expression broke Kayla’s heart.

  Marc stepped forward. “Jess, let’s sit down and talk about this.” He ran a hand through his hair. The anguish on his face reflected his sister’s pain.

  “No.” Jess grabbed her coat and headed to the door. “Just leave me alone. I don’t want to hear any more lies from either of you.” At the door she whirled about. “I trusted you. Both of you.” Her torment encompassed Kayla and Marc. “Look what’s come of it.”

  “Jess.”

  Jess leveled a heated stare at her big brother. “Right now I hate you, Marc. All I ever wanted was what you took for granted. A mother and a father who loved me. You had that, and didn’t appreciate it. Now I realize I never had either.”

  The door slammed in her wake.

  Marc grabbed a flannel. “I’ve got to go after her.”

  “Of course. Take a light. And your cell phone. It’s getting dark.”

  Marc strode to the kitchen and came back carrying a long-handled flashlight. The phone was tucked in the pack on his waist. He didn’t waste time on goodbyes. At the door, he turned. “Kayla—”

  “Go.”

  He nodded and disappeared through the door. Kayla moved to the window and watched him turn toward the barn. “Watch over them, Father. Help them cling to one another.”

  Jess’s expression came back to her. The girl’s existence had just been jerked out from under her. That was catastrophic at any age. Fourteen? Riddled with hormones and unanswered questions? Kayla prayed for a good outcome.

  The phone rang an hour later. “I can’t find her.” Marc sounded frantic. “I’ve checked everywhere. I’m in the Jeep and the trails are bad.”

  “Would she have gone that far?” Kayla tried to think like a fourteen-year-old. She came up short.

  “I checked the barns and the store before I took off,” Marc explained. There was a short pause. “I’ll keep looking. Call me if she shows up.”

  “I will.”

  Kayla eyed the dark, the storm. Would Jess have willingly stayed out in the growing torrent?

  No.

  Kayla tugged on one of Marc’s hooded flannels. She stepped off the porch and ran for the barn, her feet slapping droplets of cold water against her legs.

  She was thankful that Marc left a constant light on in the barn. A gust of wind jerked the heavy door from her hands as she stumbled in, sending it into the wall. The quick bang startled some stock. Thuds of shifting hooves and bulky bodies sent adrenaline through Kayla’s veins. Tugging, she pulled the door shut and worked to calm her heart.

  The wet night held the smell of old straw and fresh urine. She wrinkled her nose and edged forward.

  Something skittered.

  Kayla wavered, staring in the direction of the disturbance, then moved her eyes away. She wasn’t sure she wanted to see the responsible party.

  “Jess?” Kayla edged forward, then tried again, louder. “Jess?”

  A bawl resounded near her right ear. Kayla turned and stared into the eyes of a big red cow sporting a shaggy white mullet, very “eighties.” The cow bawled again and reached a damp snout toward Kayla.

  “Back, you.”

  A wall ladder led to the upper reaches of the barn. Kayla headed that way, eyes darting.

  Another cow wailed. Hooves shifted just before a second cow peered at Kayla over a wooden divider. “Nice cow. You’re locked in there, right?”

  The cow declined comment. She stared at Kayla, wondering…what? What did cows think? Kayla had no clue.

  “Okay, then.” Swiping damp palms against her pants, she grasped the ladder. Surely Jess would be here, snug in the haystacks. She wouldn’t stay out in the rain, soaked and sodden, when there was a warmer alternative? “Jess? I’m coming up.”

  Rung by rung she climbed the ladder, despairing her slick-bottomed clogs. More than once they slipped, causing her to hold tight with her hands while she worked to regain her footing. On rung three that wasn’t so bad. By rung fourteen, she was more concerned about the drop to the concrete floor. Reaching the top rung, she stared into the shadows. “Jess?
It’s Kayla. Are you up here?”

  A slight sound came from the piled straw. Kayla nodded. “I’m coming.”

  Grasping the bar, Kayla pulled herself through the entry. Her left foot scrabbled, but the bar provided balance. She pushed forward, eyeing the upper reaches of the gambrel roofline.

  The loft lay before her, large and airy. Stacks of straw stood sentinel around the open middle. At the far end stood a basketball hoop, key lines painted on the floor below. Marc, no doubt. Sarah had said he was a teenage jock. Kayla pictured him here, practicing his shots, banking the balls. Another sound interrupted her thoughts. She moved forward. “Jess?”

  She half expected to see the teen curled into the loose straw, but no. No Jess.

  A light shone from the right. Kayla moved that way

  A small room stood there. There was nothing aesthetic about the enclosure, thrown together with aged two-by-fours and barn siding. Kayla moved to the front of the room. The door stood ajar. The door, like the walls, was a patched job of crossed wood and planking. She nudged it open. “Jess?”

  A tiny sound came from within. Stifling a thankful sigh, Kayla pushed through the door. Her action set the door in motion. As she stepped into the room, grateful to have found Jess warm and dry, the door swung shut with a gentle click.

  Kayla turned at the sound, then swung back, eyeing the room.

  Jess was nowhere to be seen. The room was small, maybe ten feet square. Harnesses hung on the walls. A couple of old saddles sat in a corner, near a wooden stand. Bleached-yellow loose straw littered much of the floor.

  No Jess.

  Kayla didn’t want to think about what she’d heard, the tiny cry. On a need-to-know basis of barn sounds, she wanted to be out of the loop. Decisive, she crossed to the door and pulled.

  It didn’t budge.

  She gave the knob another hard twist and yanked.

  The mechanism came away in her hand. As her predicament registered, she heard the other half of the rusted handle clatter to the floor beyond the door.

  Kayla stared at the broken lever in disbelief. A chill raced down her spine. Fighting panic, she pushed the doorknob into the hole and wiggled it.

  Nothing. Stripped clean.

  A skittering beyond the door made her step back. She’d heard that sound before. Oh, yeah. Some sounds you never forget. Looking for something to use as a weapon, her eyes traveled up.