Risk Everything. Janie Crouch
been engaged to Tanner for seven months. In love with him since almost the first moment she’d met him months before that. But she was only just now getting to the point where she could make coherent sentences about her emotions directly to him alone. He didn’t seem to mind when she stuttered over words or blurted out often socially inappropriate declarations. He took it in stride and had learned how to “speak Bree fluently,” as he called it.
But it wouldn’t be just Tanner at the wedding in two weeks. It would be a bunch of people who didn’t speak Bree fluently. She was going to make a complete fool out of herself and embarrass him. She already knew it. And didn’t see any way to get around it.
“Hey, do you really not like it that much? You look gorgeous.” Cassandra made eye contact with Bree in the mirror as she peeked over her shoulder.
“No, it’s not the dress.” Not just the dress, although the dress was pretty much an icon for the fraud Bree felt like. “It’s the whole wedding. I’m just not good at this stuff, you know that.”
Cassandra grinned. “You’re not giving yourself enough credit for how far you’ve come in the last few months. Think about what we’ve done with New Journeys.”
Cheryl smiled her encouragement too. “A far cry from that exhausted woman who fell asleep at the diner table over a year ago.”
The seamstress came in and positioned Bree’s arms to do the pinnings for the final fitting. Cassandra was right in a lot of ways. When Bree moved here a year ago, she’d barely known how to talk to anyone. Now she was helping run a very successful women’s shelter program. It had grown so big that a few months ago they’d had to move into a larger facility.
“New Journeys still doesn’t mean I’m not going to make a complete idiot out of myself in front of the town during the ceremony.” Bree spun in the opposite direction when the seamstress motioned for her to do so. “Good thing we’re not going to split the aisles between the bride’s side and the groom’s side. My side would be so empty we might tip over the whole church.”
Bree’s only family was her cousin Melissa. She and her husband, Chris, and their twin nineteen-month-olds were coming, and Bree was so thrilled to see the babies that had first brought her and Tanner together. But it still didn’t make up for the fact that Tanner had been born and raised in Risk Peak and knew half the residents of Grand County personally.
Cassandra shook her head. “You know people here love you. Mom would probably sit on your side. I definitely would. We both like you better than Tanner anyway.”
Bree laughed as the seamstress finished her pinning and began to carefully take off the lovely gown. Cassandra was right—the people in Risk Peak cared about her. She needed to remember that.
And try to live through her own wedding.
An hour later, Bree and Cassandra were pulling up to the three-story office building on the outskirts of Risk Peak that had been converted into apartments and bedrooms for the shelter. The stress from the wedding planning and dress fitting melted away when Bree saw it. This place gave her purpose. This place made a difference in women’s lives.
Bree knew what it was like to live in fear and feel like she had no options. If she could help take that same heavy sense of despair from another woman, she would gladly do it. She’d been teaching computer skills to the women at New Journeys for the past seven months; Cassandra offered training in basic cosmetology for those interested in that route.
Cassandra and Bree walked in the main front door that opened into the hallway and expansive living room of New Journeys. The living room was giant—they’d deliberately knocked out a number of walls when they remodeled the place to give the room a wide-open feel. A television sat in one corner with a couch and a couple of chairs around it. A second corner had been turned into a giant reading nook, with books of every kind and for every age. The other end of the room held a table with a half-completed jigsaw puzzle and board games stacked on a corner shelf.
This was the family room, even for the people here, many of whom struggled to understand what a family was supposed to feel like. Family was another concept Bree hadn’t understood very well before meeting Tanner and coming to live in Risk Peak.
She hung her lightweight jacket on a wall hook and looked around. Even May in Colorado could be cool. Everything was as it should be—loud and relaxed. Women talking, kids laughing, the TV on in the background, the dog running around in circles after its own tail. Late afternoon tended to be a boisterous time around here.
“Bree Cheese!”
Bree smiled at the sound of the two small voices calling her name from the table and chairs over in the corner. It was one of her favorite sounds in the entire world.
Sam and Eva, seven and five years old respectively, were the two children of Marilyn Ellis. They’d lived here for four months with their mom.
Marilyn had been Bree’s best computer student to date. Even though the woman hadn’t graduated from high school, nor gone to college, she picked up the computer classes Bree taught with the ease of a natural.
And had also become one of Bree’s good friends to the point that she was even going to be a bridesmaid in her wedding. Little Eva was going to be the flower girl.
“You guys should let Miss Bree get in the door before you start screaming your heads off for her,” Marilyn admonished softly. Marilyn did everything softly. In the four months Bree had known her, she had never once heard the other woman raise her voice.
Bree didn’t know everything about Marilyn’s situation before she arrived in Risk Peak, but she knew her husband had put her in the hospital and was now awaiting trial. Marilyn and the kids had been some of the first residents at New Journeys. And when they’d opened the new facility, Marilyn had agreed to take a full-time job as the building facilitator and sort of den mom.
She excelled at it.
“Of course I want to see these two as soon as I come in the door.” Bree pulled the kids in for a hug. “Who wouldn’t want a squad of rug rats chanting their name first thing?”
And it was true. To see how Eva and Sam were blossoming made it worth any possible crazy name the kids might call her. Including Bree Cheese, which had been the compromise between them calling her Bree the way she had wanted, and Miss Daniels, the way Marilyn wanted.
“Schoolwork, you two. Got to make sure you’re ready for next week’s camping trip.” Marilyn pointed back to the table. The kids moaned and tromped forward like they were headed to the guillotine.
Bree laughed at their dramatics, delighting in it. Just a few months ago they would’ve never acted that way. “Their teacher must be pretty mean.”
Marilyn gave a small smile. She was their teacher since she’d decided to teach them at home for the rest of this school year rather than add the trauma of a new school to an already traumatic year. “They’re so excited about the camping, I can hardly get an hour’s worth of work out of them.”
“Understandable.” Bree smiled once more.
“Everything okay here while we were gone?” Cassandra asked.
“Nothing of particular interest. That pipe in the hall bath is still leaking a little.”
“And no word about Jared?” Bree asked softly.
Marilyn flinched at the sound of her estranged husband’s name before smoothing her features. “Nothing either way.”
Jared’s lawyer was trying to get him out on bail, something Marilyn definitely didn’t want happening.
“Okay, good.” Bree nodded. “Keep us posted.”
“I will. Although finding out details isn’t easy. Ironically, because of privacy issues.” Marilyn sighed softly and looked over at Eva and Sam. “The kids are sad that Chandler is gone.”
Bree met Cassandra’s eyes and then looked