Dandelion Wishes. Melinda Curtis
She paused before setting down Emma’s coffee, taking in her bike shorts, tank top and messy ponytail. “Going for a bike ride?”
“Up Parish Hill.” The main road through Harmony Valley wound along the river and then at the northern tip of town ribboned its way up the hill.
Her grandmother nodded approvingly, straightening the morning paper. “But why keep you away? It’s not like you’re the devil.” Granny sighed. “Well, piffle. We’ll just see about that today, won’t we?”
“It’s been so long. Tracy probably thinks I’ve abandoned her.” She hadn’t. She hadn’t been able to get past Will. But Harmony Valley didn’t have security guards. “I’m going over there later in the morning and hopefully Will won’t have her locked up in the attic.”
“Now I wish I’d never let that computer nerd into my house on Sundays, although he did like show tunes. I caught him singing along once.” Granny Rose slid into a chair across from Emma, so clear and normal that last night’s long-john dance and fatigue seemed like nothing to worry about. “No matter. Tracy’s here and Harmony Valley is a small town. You’re bound to bump into her sometime and then you can have a nice long talk.” Granny Rose reached across the table and touched Emma’s hand. “Speaking of talking, let’s talk about your fears regarding your art. No one ever got through an artistic block by ignoring it.”
The beginnings of a dull rumble filled Emma’s ears. She clutched her warm coffee mug. “I’m not—”
“You’re not blocked? Or you’re not ignoring being blocked?” Granny Rose’s faded blue gaze was gentle. “It takes more than talent to fill a canvas or a sketchbook. You need drive and passion.”
“And courage,” Emma added over the intensifying noise of the car accident replaying in her head. She willed herself to shut it out and her hands to stay steady on the mug. “It’s impossible to be creative without courage.”
Granny Rose’s white eyebrows arched. “Since when did you lack courage or passion? I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to force you to stop painting or sketching to eat. Sometimes you get so lost in a project you lose all sense of place and time.”
Fear shuddered through Emma’s veins, threatening to sweep her away. Being lost in a project was precisely what had made her crash and nearly kill Tracy. Her mind had been more focused on an idea for a painting than on the road.
Emma planted her coffee mug on the table with only slightly trembling hands and peered more closely at her grandmother’s to-do list. “This is for today?”
“No, dear. It’s my morning to-do list. Don’t change the subject.”
Emma did anyway. “Mow lawn, weed vegetable garden, make cupcakes, visit Cloverdale Elementary, bring easel down from attic.” Forget that most people younger than her grandmother wouldn’t accomplish that much in one day, let alone one morning. Granny Rose was going to bring down the easel. She expected Emma to paint while she was here.
The dull roar in Emma’s head increased, reverberating down her arms into her fingertips until she had to sit on her hands to stop their shaking. It was nothing—nothing—compared to what Tracy had to go through every day. Emma forced her lips into what she hoped was a smile. “Just looking at your list tires me out. When was the last time you relaxed and had a cup of coffee with your friends?” The last thing she needed was Granny Rose tired and slightly out of it two days in a row.
“Pish. My friends drink wine at the end of the day. We’re too busy living life to dawdle over coffee every morning.” There was nothing out of the ordinary about Granny Rose today. She had all her usual bounce and energy, more at eighty than Emma had at twenty-six.
“How about if I do the yard work after I go for a bike ride?” Exhaustion was just what Emma needed to clear her head, which had begun to throb.
“That would be lovely. I’ll start on the cupcakes. I’m staging a production of The Music Man with the fourth graders in Cloverdale. My cast needs to keep their strength up.” With no mention of the easel, Granny Rose stood and bent to kiss the top of Emma’s head. “Don’t forget in all your rushing to stop and see the world.”
“I might say the same to you.” Emma smiled, more easily this time as the pounding at her temples receded slightly. She finished her coffee and went in search of her old ten-speed bicycle in the garage. A few swipes of a rag took care of the bike’s cobwebs and Emma was on her way.
The sun hadn’t risen high enough to chase away the morning fog. It clung to the grapevines and blanketed the river. The bicycle tires glided over the pavement with only a whisper of sound. She crossed the bridge into town slowly, taking in the way the first bright rays of light snuck through the trees, admiring the varying shades of silver green on the eucalyptus bark. An image flashed in her mind’s eye of a canvas filled with the scene before her, but it was quickly followed by a ripple of panic-driven, leg-pumping adrenaline.
“Be aware of your surroundings,” Emma mumbled. “Stay in the moment.”
The road took her behind the few businesses on Main Street. Soon she was at the beginning of the loop that wended its way up Parish Hill and down on the other side of town. The first switchbacks were soft grades. Emma managed them easily. Then the hillside steepened, and fog and eucalyptus trees gave way to the occasional oak and sunshine. Poppies and dandelions thrust optimistically upward from the gravelly soil.
Emma rounded a bend and saw a jogger ahead.
Buff, blond and bossy. Will Jackson.
A photographer would have snapped the image. Everything about him was golden, from his hair to his tan skin to the way the early morning light illuminated him.
The sight of Will set her teeth on edge.
He’d kept her away from Tracy for six months.
Emma considered turning around, but he’d most likely see her retreat. That stubborn Willoughby pride, the one she could have sworn she didn’t have, egged her on. She shifted gears and pumped the pedals like she meant business, which meant she nearly fell over.
Emma righted the bike and shifted gears again. She wouldn’t let Will beat her to the top.
* * *
WILL’S IPHONE SHUFFLED to a Blink-182 song that had a fast beat his feet didn’t want to keep time to. He was sucking in air like a clogged air filter on a ’57 Chevy. But he kept pushing up this hill. Each time Will took on Parish Hill, he made it a little farther. There were ten switchbacks. He’d managed six the other day before slowing to a walk. Someday, he’d run all the way to the top.
The town council meeting was tonight and Will had a lot of people to see beforehand. It had been a month since their permit and rezoning requests had been put on hold. A month of pulling together facts, drawing up blueprints and kissing up to residents who might support them. Tonight, he hoped he and his friends weren’t going to stand alone.
A sound behind Will had him spinning on the defensive. It wasn’t unheard of—if you believed local myth—for a mountain lion to attack out here. He cocked his arm back, ready to launch his only weapon besides his signal-less iPhone—a water bottle.
But it wasn’t a mountain lion behind him. It was Emma, legs churning pedals as she rounded the turn below. She wore black bike shorts and a tight blue flowered tank top, exposing most of her lithe limbs. Emma might have pulled off the professional racer look, if not for the uneven back and forth, near-tumbling way she worked the bike. And the way that she was smiling beneath a pink helmet decorated with daffodils and ladybugs.
Laughter filled the air—warm, unbidden and unexpected.
His, Will realized with a start, watching Emma close the gap between them.
He frowned, put his hands on his hips and told himself Emma hadn’t heard him laugh. He waited for her and what would certainly be another argument about visiting Tracy.
Instead of stopping at his