Shattered Dreams (Dream #1)

Chapter Six

Autumn

The soft sound of bells ringing makes me reach out from the quilt and turn it off. It wasn’t like I was sleeping anyway. I turn to the side, grabbing my phone and shutting it off before my arm goes back under the cover where it was. I look around the room I moved back in with my father a couple days after the accident. I haven’t been in for over eight years, eight years and nothing in this room has changed. A house where my mother grew up and we inherited when her parents died. Brady wanted nothing to do with it, mostly because he knew how much I loved this house, so he didn’t care that I moved in as soon as I turned eighteen. A house Waylon hated because it was beneath him to be in something that didn’t have fifteen bedrooms. Another reason I should have hated him, but instead I just ignored it.

Turning to my other side, I look at the window. The shade’s open as the daylight streams into the room. My body feels like it’s been run over with a Mack truck, front and back. I blink a couple of times, not looking anywhere else but the window, until I take a deep inhale and throw the covers off me and get out of bed. The cool air makes me shiver as I reach for the long sweater lying across the bottom of the bed. Wrapping it around myself, I move to the kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee.

Walking over to the pantry cupboard, I see my brother at least went out to get things to make coffee. Setting it up to brew myself a pot of coffee, before pouring myself a cup, I pick it up and walk over to the back door, pulling it open and then pushing through the storm door before standing on the back deck. The swing chair my father put up for me when I inherited this place ten years ago sways softly with the warm breeze. Instead of walking over and sitting in the swing, I walk to the steps and sit on the top one and look out into the field. The sounds of birds chirping fill the morning air as I take a sip of my hot black coffee. My mind goes back to last night and coming face-to-face with the one person I never wanted to see again. Was it irony or maybe it was karma? Whatever it was, I saw that Charlie had not changed in six years.

I mean, his appearance changed for sure. He was always handsome and the hate definitely didn’t dimmish that. The words from the last conversation we had, some all those years ago, fill my head. It was also the last night I stayed in this house, after that, I moved in with my father, right before I left town.

“You fucking knew he was drunk!”

he roared in my face; his face filled with anguish and hatred. His eyes were filled with rage. It was also one o’clock in the morning when he knocked on my door, scaring the ever-loving fuck out of me. “You did this.”

His face advanced to mine. “You could have stopped him.”

“I tried,”

I finally said, “I tried to get him to give me the keys.”

“You didn’t try hard enough.”

His words sliced through me like little shards of glass getting under your skin. “It should be you in that grave, rotting in hell with him.”

That was the last thing he said to me before he turned and stumbled into the forest like a thief in the night. My legs gave out from under me, and I sat there rocking side to side until daylight.

I take a sip of the coffee, closing my eyes and blinking the last tear away. I knew coming back home would bring back all of this. I was just hoping I would be strong enough for it.

I finish the cup of coffee before getting up and moving back inside where my phone is ringing. I place the cup in the sink, not rushing to the phone. The phone stops ringing as I walk back to the bedroom. Picking it up, I see it’s my brother.

I’m about to call him back when he sends me a text:

Brady: Just checking in. Call me when you’re up.

I put the phone on speaker, calling him back. “Hey,”

he says when he answers the phone, “did I wake you?”

“Nope,”

I reply, picking up the pillows and tossing them to the foot of the bed as I make it. “I was up and at ’em.”

“You got in so late last night,”

he reminds me, “you should have slept in.”

“I’m fine,”

I assure him, avoiding telling him I ran into Charlie. He has enough on his mind with Dad. He doesn’t need to worry about me and how I’m doing. “I was planning on getting in the shower and picking up some donuts and surprising Dad.”

“What time do you think that is going to happen?”

he asks me. “Because he’s going to want to kick my ass, and I’d rather be far away from him when you do this.”

I laugh at him. “In about an hour. Is he still at the hospital?”

It’s Brady’s turn to laugh. “You think that stubborn man would stay in the hospital if he didn’t need to be there? His words to the nurse were, ‘I can do all this lying around in my own damn house.’”

I grab the pillows, putting them back up to the headboard.

“Sounds about right,”

I say, “he’ll probably kick my ass for being here.”

“Well, there is more stuff we need to talk about,”

he says, and I sit down. “How about you swing by the bar when you’re done?”

“Sounds good.”

I close my eyes. “I will also note I don’t like your tone.”

“Duly noted, little sister,”

he responds softly. “See you later.”

“Love you,”

I say before pressing the end button, then getting up and going into the shower. I comb out my shoulder-length hair before fluffing it with my hands. I’ve always had long hair, but now I don’t let it get longer than my shoulders.

The dread that fills me is something I can’t explain or put into words. I slip my light-blue jeans with holes in the knees on before grabbing the gray tank top that sits right above the waist of the jeans, showing you just a touch of my stomach. I grab my gray sweater and put it on before snatching up my black bag and putting on my white sneakers.

I walk out the front door to my car, my hands shaking when I pull open the door and get behind the wheel. “It’ll be fine,”

I tell myself. “The worst that can happen already happened.”

I make my way down the familiar roads, turning on Main Street and heading straight to the little coffee shop that makes the best sugar donuts I’ve ever tasted in my life. I park on the street, getting out of the car and closing the door. I look around to see that people are already looking at me. One woman turns her head and then does a double take, her mouth hanging open in shock at me being here.

I try not to let it bother me; I should be used to it by now. I had to endure it for a full two years before I left. The finger-pointing, the whispers as soon as I walked into the room, the snide comments and remarks until everyone else won, and I packed up and left.

Pulling open the door to the bakery, I’m assaulted with the smell of sugary goodness right away, and my mouth waters. The woman, Maddie, behind the counter looks up from placing a tray in the window stand. "Well, I'll be." She wipes her hands on her apron. “If it isn’t Autumn Thatcher.”

She smiles at me. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

“Hello, Ms. Maddie.”

I walk to the counter, trying to hide the fact that my hands are shaking and so is my voice.

“You are skin and bones.”

She looks me up and down. “They don’t feed you where you are.”

The worry is in her voice and also in her eyes.

I laugh. “Nothing like home cooking, I guess,”

I tell her. “Can I have a box of donuts?”

I look at the case. “Half sugar, half powdered.”

“Sure thing, missy.”

She grabs a box to fill it, and the sound of bells ringing behind me means someone opened the door. My hands instantly start to shake, wondering if it will be someone I know. I mean, it’s a small town. The question is, who is it going to be?

My neck gets heated, but I don’t turn my head to look behind me as I wait for Maddie to hand me the blue-and-white box. She rings up the amount, and I pay her. I turn my head down and walk past the two people waiting in line. Lucky for me, it’s not someone who recognizes me. My chest gets tight, making breathing harder and harder. It comes in little breaths now as I rush toward my car. Getting in, I set the donuts on the seat next to me before putting my hands on the steering wheel. My head falls forward as I try to focus on my breathing, knowing I’m in the middle of having a panic attack. I haven’t had one in six years since I left town.

I close my eyes, counting to ten and then to twenty. Only when I’m at a hundred do I feel even remotely better. I start the car, making my way to my family home. The street is lined with willow trees, and I have this sense of peace when I’m driving down it. Like nothing can hurt me and it’s okay that I’m here.

I pull into the driveway, parking behind my dad’s pickup, before grabbing the box of donuts. I have one foot out the door when I hear the storm door slam shut. “What in God’s name are you doing here?”

His voice feels like a big hug, and I have to close my eyes to stop myself from breaking down. Instead, I turn to him and put a big smile on my face, though it’s mixed with tears.

“Is that any way to welcome your only daughter home?”

I ask him as I walk up the four steps to the house I grew up in, ignoring the fact he looks pale and he’s lost about thirty pounds since the last time I saw him. “Especially when I come with donuts.”

He takes the box from my hand, placing it on the floor before he pulls me into a big bear hug. A hug that I feel right down to my bones. A hug that you know, no matter what, everything will be okay. A hug I didn’t know I missed and needed until this very moment. “What are you doing here?”

he asks me in my ear, but his arms never move from around me. “Did your brother call you?”

I laugh and cry at the same time in his arms. “I’m going to kick his ass.”

“I’m going to kick your ass”—I move out of his embrace and then bend to pick up the donut box—“from here to Timbuktu.”

I look up into his gray eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

I ask softly, and he takes a deep inhale.

“What was it going to change?”

“Well, for one, I would be here for you,” I snap.

“Baby girl, you ran away from here because it was killing you.”

He puts his big strong hand on my face. “You think I was going to try to get you back here?”

He shakes his head. “Ain’t no way in hell I would do that.”

“Well, ain’t no way in hell I was not going to be here for you,”

I tell him, just as stubborn as he is, “and I’m not going to be mad at you for not telling me either.”

I raise my eyebrows. “But I am pissed you put this box on the ground.”

I hold up the donut box. “What if it got ruined?”

He chuckles. “Let’s get you inside and get you a glass of milk to go with your donut.”

“Dad, I’m not ten anymore.”

I turn to walk into the house with him. The smell is like home, and I admit I buried the fact I missed it. I buried the fact I wanted to be here, but I didn’t deserve it. I buried it all, and now that the door is open, it’s coming back in full force. No matter how quick or how fast I try to close the door, the pressure is stronger than me. The memories coming so fast and so quick, I can’t stop it.

“How long are you staying?”

he asks, grabbing two glasses and going to pour them both with milk while I pull out a chair and sit down.

“For as long as I need to be.”

The words come out of my mouth, surprising both of us. In reality, I was thinking of this week and then coming back when the time was needed, but being here, seeing my dad, I need to be here. I’m going to be here.

He’s about to say something when the storm door opens, and then slams shut. I look over to see Brady walking into the house. “I figured you would hunt me down”—he puts his hands on his hips, looking at my father, who is glaring at him—“so I saved us both the time and energy.”

I bite my lower lip. “Plus, I heard she got donuts.”

He bends to give me a side hug and kisses the top of my head.

He pulls out the chair beside me while my father pulls out another glass. “So what are we talking about?”

“How long I’m going to be in town,”

I fill him in, and he looks at me and then at Dad.

“Well then,”

he says, opening the box, “now is a good time to talk about Thatcher’s and Sweet Southern Country Whiskey.”

I look at him and then my father, who comes back to the table with two glasses of milk, putting them down in front of us before going back to get his own.

“What about them?”

I ask of the distillery that has been in our family since the twenties. My great-grandfather made his own whiskey and sold it out of the trunk of his car. Once Prohibition ended, he opened up the Sweet Southern Country Whiskey distillery with its own bar attached to it called Thatcher’s. He figured he would make it and sell it at the same time, cutting out the middleman. It’s been passed down from one son to the other. My father taking it over from his father, and when Dad’s ready, he’ll hand it over to both of us, not just my brother.

“Things aren’t looking so good,”

my father says, and I turn back to him, confused.

“That’s putting it lightly,”

Brady states, taking a bite of the powdered donut. “That is putting it very mildly.”

He looks over at me. “I don’t know if we’ll last the rest of the year.”

My mouth opens in shock. “What the hell are you talking about?”

I look at both of them, my eyes going back and forth.

“Things haven’t been…”

My father pulls out a chair. “As productive as we had hoped.”

“Dad,”

Brady grumbles, “stop with the bullshit. She is going to find out.”

“Find out what?”

I ask him, then look at my father. “What are you guys not telling me?”

“We lost a couple of big contracts,”

my father admits.

“A couple,”

Brady mumbles. “More like all of them. Let’s just say the Cartwrights are still holding a grudge,”

Brady declares, and I gasp. “Not one restaurant in town will hold our whiskey,”

he continues, “and it seeps to all the surrounding areas.”

I blink, and I think my heart is going to come out of my chest. “We have the stock; we just have nothing to do with it. We haven’t had a run in five months.”

Just that thought alone is unfathomable. We used to sell out and have people on waiting lists to get our product.

I look at them. “What about shooting it out globally?”

I ask them. “Selling it from a website?”

“There is only so much we can do,”

my brother says. “We were going to ask you if you could help.”

He looks at my father. “But Dad said no.”

“Did he?”

I glare at my father. “You don’t think I should have known that my inheritance is being flushed down the tubes?”

He shakes his head.

“You had enough on your plate,”

my father says calmly. “We could have handled it.”

“Really?”

I ask. “How is that going for you two?”

I don’t wait for him to answer before I get up and push away from the table. “Let’s go.”

I look at my brother.

His mouth is full of donut. “Go where?”

“I want to look at the books,”

I tell him, “see what we have to work with.”

“I’m not even finished with my donut,”

he groans out but gets out of his chair. “I forgot how bossy you are.”

I grab my own donut. “I guess I did too.”

I take a bite of the donut. “Now, let’s get to work.”