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CALISTA
I HATE FUNERALS. I HATE snow. I hate Tristan Granger. My eyes drifted up to the cold gray sky that seemed to delight in torturing my red cheeks with icy flecks. It was easy to imagine each big, fluffy flake zeroing in on me, gleefully laughing as it hit its target. Trying to remind me why, once upon a time, I found snow to be one of the most magical things on earth. Today, I refused to be persuaded.
Watching the evil, taunting flakes was a better alternative to looking at the stately mahogany casket, topped with an enormous white rose spray, hovering above the frozen, unforgiving ground. I couldn’t believe my brother-in-law was gone. Jonathon was only thirty-eight—just four years older than me. I couldn’t believe a lot of things lately. Mostly that I was back in Aspen Lake.
So much for my solemn vow to never move back to my hometown, even if it were the only safe haven in the zombie apocalypse. I’d much rather take my chances with brain-eating humanoids. Perhaps, though, I had already lost my mind by coming back here to join the emergency room staff at Aspen Lake General.
As I sat on the stiff white gravesite chairs, I placed an arm around the reason I’d broken that very promise. Quinn was my kryptonite, and I would do anything for my fifteen-year-old niece. She turned to me, trembling, but not from the cold. Though we were nearly the same height now, I wrapped her up tight, doing my best not to look at the man on the other side of her—Tristan, her uncle. Once upon a time, I’d thought he was magical too. But that was a long time ago. Thirteen years ago, to be exact. Thirteen years of pretending he didn’t exist. Living in the same town now was going to make that difficult, but I planned on doing my best to keep up the charade. If there was one thing to be said about me, it would be that I am determined. And I had never been more set on anything in my life than forgetting my niece’s uncle. Even if his amber scent wafted my way, begging me to remember him.
A word of advice: never date—or fall in love with—the older brother of the man your sister plans to marry, even if you doubt she’ll actually marry him. It could make for some of the most awkward moments of one’s life. Exactly like the one I found myself in now.
The pastor, who hardly knew Jonathon, droned on and on. I’m pretty sure Jonathon only went to church on Easter and Christmas to keep up appearances. The Grangers were all about appearances. If Aspen Lake had royalty, the Grangers would consider themselves dukes and duchesses.
“Jonathon was a blessing to all who knew him,” Father Ashton pontificated elegantly, yet not sincerely. I refrained from saying “Liar” under my breath. My niece’s tears on my shoulder weren’t only because she was going to miss her father. There were things I had recently learned about my dearly departed brother-in-law that had me wearing pink to this shindig instead of black. I’d probably stomp on his grave later for good measure. The only mourning I demonstrated was for my Quinny, as I called her. I could never stand to see her hurt. If I could take her pain upon myself, I would.
It was probably a good thing I didn’t know about all of Jonathon’s misdeeds until recently, while he lay dying in his hospital bed from liver cancer. If I’d known any earlier the louse was cheating on my sister, Stella, and heavily self-medicating with alcohol and drugs over the years, I may have had to revert to my crusader days.
Calista the Crusader, my mom used to call me. She said it was my superhero name. I wasn’t sure how heroic I was, but I loved to right any injustice I could. Even if that meant putting beef bouillon cubes in every showerhead in the boys’ locker room when I was in high school. That was the least the football players deserved after brutally taunting my friend Javier, the student team manager. They’d relentlessly tortured him for being too small and not “manly” enough to play. Okay, so I may have also cut all the elastic out of their underwear during the same practice. That was more torturous for me, though. Teenage boys’ underwear should come with a toxic warning sign.
Sadly, I had to be more careful with how I went about seeking justice these days. Becoming Dr. Calista Monroe came with certain drawbacks, or perhaps standards was a better word. The Hippocratic oath was kind of a stickler when it came to not harming people. It sure took the fun out of seeking revenge. Perhaps becoming a doctor was my ultimate revenge. The wild child troublemaker—or whatever it was that people from the right side of the lake loved to call me—was never supposed to amount to anything … except for maybe becoming a model prisoner. Well, I showed them. I have yet to see the inside of a jail cell. I suppose I have my niece’s uncle to thank for that, but that’s another story I couldn’t think about without admitting that Tristan exists.
“He was a beloved husband to Stella and a doting father to Quinn,” Pastor Ashton lied again.
I peeked over at my sister, sitting between her in-laws, the grand duke and duchess, otherwise known as Frasier and Cordelia Granger. They were as pretentious as their names. All three of them sat straight as pins. They were each clad in black cashmere coats with high collars, so cold and pale they resembled vampires. Not one tear fell among them.
Despite Jonathon’s, let’s say, shortcomings, Stella still claimed to love him. So, she was either too afraid to ruin her makeup in public, or, as I feared, she was emotionally shutting down. She’d never been able to handle any sort of crisis. Her go-to strategy was to pretend it had never happened. At eighteen, she became obsessed with Jonathon to help her forget the pain of losing our father. I was only sixteen. When our mom died a few years later, she became obsessed with her body to cope—or to not cope. Quinn was just a baby at the time, which meant Stella mostly left Quinn in my care. I would watch her for hours on end every day while my sister attended every fitness class she could and went shopping with Cordelia. Retail therapy was the only therapy Stella believed in. So much so that for Quinn’s first two years of life, I was more of a mother to her than Stella. Quinny even looked more like me, with dark hair and hazel eyes that hinted toward forest green. I loved Quinny more than life itself.
This is why when Quinn asked me to come home, after they’d given her dad only weeks to live, I couldn’t refuse. For as perfect as Stella looked on the outside with her gorgeous wavy red hair, stunning green eyes, and enviable figure, she was a mess inside. Years of denial and running will do that to a person. I knew eventually it was going to catch up to her, and when it did, I needed to be there for both Quinn and Stella.
Cordelia caught me staring and scowled. And not just her normal disdainful scowl that she always saved for me.
This would be a good time to mention that I wasn’t just wearing pink, but a pink elf costume. A cute hat and pointy-toe shoes included. So maybe today I was being a crusader after all. Probably more like a rebel without a cause. My defiant younger self took over this morning when I saw the costume hanging in the closet. Normally, it was something I wore during the Christmas season at the hospital I worked for in Phoenix. It was always a big hit in the pediatric unit. Not so much at this funeral. I guess it was my way of saying I would let no one control me. That even though I was now a doctor and temporarily living with my sister and Quinn in their very upscale home near the lake, I was still me. And … it was a definite slap in the face to my brother-in-law. He would have hated it more than his mother, who was dipping her chin down at me and wishing me dead with her cold gray eyes.
I was used to that look from her. While Cordelia wasn’t thrilled when either of her sons fell for girls from the wrong side of the lake, she eventually grew to love Stella. It thrilled my sister to be molded in the image of her mother-in-law. All Stella ever wanted was to be from the “right” side, the side our mom grew up on. That was until Mom fell for a simple handyman from the wrong side. Her parents disowned her after she married my dad. Because of that, we never knew my rich, snobby grandparents. I was sure I would run into them now that I lived back in town, but they would probably ignore me, just like always. More fun times to look forward to. Hopefully I would be wearing the elf outfit or something akin to it.
I smiled at Cordelia to let her know her threatening look no longer held any sway with me. It was the best kind of revenge. She was one person who was sure I would end up as a model prisoner and ruin her son’s life. Cordelia was afraid Tristan wouldn’t do exactly what she and Frasier wished him to do. Their plan for him included running Granger Outfitters, the premier wilderness store of not only Aspen Lake but the entire West Coast. They got their wish, which meant I didn’t get mine. Who dreams of being married to a ski instructor, anyway? I suppose I still did. I loved the thought of being with someone who lived his passion, no matter how little money it paid. That’s what my dad did, and I wouldn’t have traded all the money in the world for our simple upbringing, filled with homemade gifts and hiking, fishing, and board games for entertainment. Not to mention all the love a kid could ask for.
It’s not like I had a lot of time for romance, anyway. Even though I was past the grueling residency years, being in emergency medicine still meant almost sixty hours every week. When I wasn’t working, I was sleeping—alone. Very alone. It was better than thinking you were someone’s world, only to have him tell you he needed to quit you like a bad habit. No need to mention who said that.
It was all ancient history. The Grangers had the new duke of the kingdom all lined up, and I got to prove to them they were wrong about me. Not that they would ever admit it. In the end, I didn’t really need them to. I loved my job. As exhausting as it was, it was my passion.
Cordelia sneered at me before turning back to the pastor. Snowflakes littered his salt-and-pepper hair, yet he continued his litany of lies. I couldn’t exactly blame him. No doubt the Grangers paid him to say such things. After all, it would probably be in poor taste to mention that Jonathon wasn’t eligible for a liver transplant because of all the drinking he’d done over the last several years. Or that he had constantly missed my niece’s track meets because he was a selfish jerk.
“Jonathon never missed an opportunity to help his family and friends, especially his best friend and brother, Tristan.”
Tristan coughed.
I swore I heard a derogatory word in that cough, something I’m pretty sure started with bull. Before I could stop myself, my head whipped in his direction, wondering what it was all about. The one truthful thing Pastor Ashton had said was that Tristan and Jonathon were best friends. Or at least I thought that was true.
Unfortunately, Tristan turned his head toward me at the exact wrong moment, and we locked eyes. It had been thirteen long years since I had looked into those pale baby blues full of wonder and … No, no, no. They were just pretty eyes with the lushest dark eyelashes in the history of eyelashes. Nothing more and nothing less. No meaning existed in them, no matter how deeply they were currently trying to penetrate my own gaze. I also didn’t care one iota that he had only gotten better looking with age. My mom once said he looked like a young Clint Eastwood, with his chiseled jawline covered in a fine layer of stubble and dark bronze-brown hair with a classic taper cut. She wasn’t wrong. At thirty-nine, he had a few strands of gray running throughout his locks, but it totally worked for him. I only meant it probably wasn’t turning anyone off. Of course, he completely repulsed me. In fact, I felt like vomiting.
Yet, I didn’t turn away. I seriously hated myself for it. He shouldn’t exist to me. He was a mere phantom of my past. My niece’s uncle.
Tristan offered me a faint smile.
That, I couldn’t have. It was his stupid smile that had started it all.
I whipped my head back toward the pastor, no breath left in my lungs. More snowflakes began to fall and barrage me, begging me to remember days on the ski slope and building snow shelters for educational purposes with Tristan. It’s good to know how to survive if you get stuck in the wilderness during a snowstorm, and how to share body heat. Oh, the body heat.
