Redemption Road (Jackson Falls #5) by Laurie Breton Page B

look pale.”
    “I’m fine. Do you need help carrying your bags?”
    “I can handle it.”  She examined her sister more closely. She
hadn’t seen Casey in several years, but she was still familiar enough with her
to recognize that something was a little off. “You sure?” 
    “I’m sure. Maybe I’m coming down with something. There’s been a
bug going around.”
    Colleen unlatched her door. “Look, I’m sorry. I really don’t want
to fight with you, and I do appreciate everything you’re doing for me. If not
for you, I’d be sleeping in my car.”
    “You wouldn’t be sleeping in your car. If I wasn’t here, you’d
have gone to Bill and Trish’s house.”
    “Trish hates my guts.”
    “No, she doesn’t. I don’t know where you got that idea.”
    “It seems pretty self-explanatory to me.”
    “You know what I think?  I think you’re laboring under several
misapprehensions. But I won’t try to change your mind, because I know it’s
pointless. You’re going to have to learn the truth all by yourself.” Casey
opened her door and exited the car. Turning, she gave Colleen a last, searching
look. “I’ll see you at suppertime,” she said, and slammed the door shut.
     
    ***
     
    She’d finished unpacking her clothes, and they now hung neatly in
the surprisingly large closet. The cleaning supplies were stored, the handful
of groceries she’d picked up at the IGA safely put away, the picture she
planned to hang lying on the kitchen table, awaiting a hammer and nails. Colleen
sat on the foot of the queen-size bed and bounced on it a couple of times. The
mattress was firm, but still had some give. Not too hard, not too soft. Like
Goldilocks, she seemed to have serendipitously hit upon the perfect place to
sleep. Except that in her case, it probably wouldn’t matter if it was
comfortable. She hadn’t slept—really, truly slept—since Irv died, and she
suspected it would take more than a comfy mattress to change that.
    She glanced around the room and grimaced. The décor was tasteful,
but bland. Generic, like a hotel suite. Home, sweet home. If she didn’t
do something to make it hers, she’d never last those three months. Picking at the
soft chenille bedspread, Colleen sighed. The real problem wasn’t the décor. The
real problem was that she didn’t want to be here. She wanted to be home, in
Palm Beach, in her own house, with Irv. But that wasn’t possible. Irv was gone,
and life as she’d known it had come to a crashing halt. Without Irv, home no
longer existed. She’d tried to hold on for as long as she could, because
sometimes, she could still feel him there in the house, his love surrounding
her like a soft, warm blanket. But in the end, a house was just a house, given
meaning only by the bonds between the people who lived there. Until death do
us part. It had parted them, all right. Suddenly, inexplicably, and irrevocably.
    She supposed she had to go downstairs now, track down her brother-in-law,
and ask him for a job as a glorified gofer. It wasn’t something she could put
off indefinitely. She needed to work; for each day that she spent living on a
MacKenzie grant, it would grow increasingly difficult to meet her own eyes in
the mirror. At least if she was working for Casey and Rob, she could delude
herself into believing she was earning her keep. But asking for the job would
be painful. One more thing that made her feel like a beggar. One more
mortifying hit to her self-esteem.
    Colleen got up, threw on the new winter coat, and headed down the
outside staircase to the studio on the ground floor. Inside the studio, musical
notes floated on the air: a single acoustic guitar and a man’s soft voice. She
followed the sound, past the reception desk, piled high with stacks of paper
and other clutter, to the door of her brother-in-law’s office. Guitar in hand, Rob
sat on his tailbone, sneakered feet propped on the desktop and bony ankles
crossed, his fingers creating magic from those