“Yes. Although working at 3:17 Cabinets, I’ve learned it all, including installation.”

  “3:17?” I sat back down at the table. “Does that have something to do with measurements?”

  “No. It’s based on a verse, Ephesians 3:17, about being rooted and grounded in love.”

  Did everything in his life have something to do with God?

  Zach seemed oblivious to my skepticism. “I’m taking college classes when I can. My goal is to become a master cabinetmaker. Maybe start my own business one day. But I’m satisfied with where I am right now.”

  “Well, there are advantages to being the boss, you know.”

  “I’m sure.” Zach finished his water. “I have to admit I never saw you as a party planner.”

  “Me, either.” I took a bite of my toast, waiting for the inevitable question.

  “So how did you get involved with Festivities?”

  “My freshman year was a bit of a bust. I dropped half my classes. I wasn’t as ready for college as I thought. I took summer classes so I could still graduate on time.”

  “You were never a quitter, Payton.”

  I moved the slices of fruit around on my plate. How was I supposed to respond to a compliment from Zach Gaines? And why was I even telling him all of this? He’d asked about Festivities—nothing more. But then again, this was better than awkward silence.

  “I roomed with Kimberlee during my sophomore year of college. She’d transferred in and I, well, I wanted a do-over.” More like I needed a do-over. “What I didn’t realize was Kimberlee was a party girl—in the nicest sense of the phrase. If she heard about someone’s birthday, she celebrated it. Banners on doors. Special cupcakes she made in the common-area kitchen. Photo collages on Facebook. Pretty soon, people were asking her to help plan surprise parties for their friends. And then campus groups started calling her to see if she’d coordinate events.”

  “I still don’t see what got you into the business.”

  “I said yes.”

  “You said yes . . . to what?”

  “Kimberlee got in over her head helping plan a surprise party for one of the girls in a sorority, and she asked for my help—just that one time, of course. We realized we worked well together. She’s this mad genius when it comes to party themes and all the fun, fun, fun—”

  “And you?”

  “I’m the behind-the-scenes part of the team. I coordinate our commitments, manage our bank account, our social media . . . that sort of thing. When she got started, Kimberlee was having so much fun, she ignored the business side of things.”

  “Sounds like the perfect combination.”

  “So far. When she decided to start a business after graduation, she asked me to join her. I decided ‘Why not?’”

  “But you didn’t go to college planning to start a small business.”

  “No. I ended up switching my major to business management.” I placed my dishes on the counter.

  “Just leave those. I’ll take care of them later.” Zach rested his elbows on the table, chin on his hands. “You said you couldn’t sleep because you had a rough day yesterday. Can I ask why?”

  I faced Zach again, leaning back against the kitchen counter, thankful he’d remained seated at the table. For some reason, his question wasn’t invasive. “It was a culmination of a lot of things. The high school thing stressed me out—obviously. And then . . . my sister Jillian was diagnosed with cancer about two months ago.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. How bad is it?”

  “Worse than we thought.” I gripped the edge of the counter. “She’s planning her wedding and facing chemo and radiation.”

  “She’s got to be scared.”

  “Yeah. I think we all are. And it . . . it brought up memories of Pepper’s death for my mom, which made it even harder.”

  “I can only imagine.”

  “Yeah.” I tugged at the ends of my hair. I must look awful. No sleep. No shower. No makeup. “Listen, I should head out. Let you get to wherever you were headed.”

  “Wait.” Zach rose from the chair. “Before you go, would you want to see the bench I made? For Pepper?”

  Oh.

  Zach must have taken my silence for assent. “We can walk there in less than ten minutes. If it’s okay with you, I’ll bring Laz along—”

  “No.”

  “No?” Zach stopped. “Okay, we don’t have to bring Laz.”

  “No. I mean, no, I don’t want to see the bench.” I pressed my fingertips against my temples. “I need to go.”

  “Whoa. Slow down, Payton.” Zach raised his hands as if he were surrendering. “I’m sorry if my suggestion was out of line. I thought you might want to see the bench, that’s all.”

  “I can’t . . . I really think I should just leave—”

  Zach took two strides and faced me as I moved toward the front door. “Payton, stop for a minute. You’ve been up all night. It’s an hour-and-a-half drive back to North Denver. Why don’t you rest here for a few hours and then head home?”

  I stiffened. “Stay here?”

  “Yes. I’ve got some things to do. Just take a nap. I can put Laz outside or leave him here, whichever you prefer. I’d feel better knowing you had some sleep before you drove again.”

  “Why are you being so nice to me, Zach?” His eyes were pewter gray and a faint scent of soap lingered on his clothes. We were too close. “I’m not going to change my mind about you talking to my parents.”

  “I know.” Zach shrugged. “I’m not going to ask you about that again. I just don’t think you should be driving right now. That’s all.”

  Once again, Zach was acting like we were friends—but we weren’t. I wasn’t about to curl up on his couch and take a nap. I was a big girl and I could take care of myself.

  I preferred to take care of myself.

  I sidestepped around him. “I appreciate your concern, but I’ll be fine. Thanks for breakfast. If I could use the bathroom, then I’ll get out of your way.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  I was more than sure.

  “Well then, would you do me a favor and text me to let me know you made it home safely?”

  Who did Zach Gaines think he was, my father? I agreed—knowing I wouldn’t text him—and traded cell phone numbers with him.

  But as I drove away, I still couldn’t figure out why I’d driven all the way to Winter Park. To Zach’s cabin. Maybe even though I’d said no to his invitation to see the bench, there was a part of me that had wanted to say yes. A very small part. It was like sitting on a swing at the park and pushing into the ground with the balls of my bare feet so that my legs were straight. Swaying back . . . but then I stayed frozen, refusing to lift my feet off the ground, tuck them underneath myself, so that I could lift off into the air.

  Not yet. Not yet.

  If I crossed the field . . . walked alongside Zach to see the bench he’d made . . . went back to that spot . . . to that night . . . If I told the truth that Pepper died instead of me, it would be like swinging higher and higher and then jumping off into the unknown. Falling, falling . . .

  And who would catch me?

  He’d missed church. No big deal. He could still catch up with his friends for lunch if he wanted to.

  Zach rested his hands on top of the bench, closing his eyes. He’d been so close. When he’d spotted Payton parked alongside the road, he’d thought God had answered his prayer so much sooner than he’d anticipated. She’d looked as exhausted as he used to feel after a cross-country meet. But maybe fatigue, not divine intervention, had lowered her defenses and allowed her to say yes to his offer to make her breakfast.

  They’d been comfortable for a while. And then she’d shut him out the moment he mentioned going to see Pepper’s bench.

  Zach shifted, hands gripping the rough wood of the bench. “Here I am again, God. Am I rushing her? Did I hear You wrong?”

  He waited in the stillness, Laz stretched out on the ground by his feet. Maybe the time with Payton hadn’t gone the way he’d hoped, but then, he hadn’t anticipated seeing her at all today. He had to remember that things not going exactly the way he wanted them to go didn’t mean he was a failure.

  His time with Payton wasn’t wasted.

  She’d talked to him. Told him about her life—not just facts, but personal details. And now that he knew about Jillian’s cancer, he’d start praying for her, too.

  His life was proof that prayer changed things. Changed people.

  Zach rotated his left arm, pushing back the sleeve of his jacket and then doing the same with the sleeve of his flannel shirt, revealing the tattoo etched into his forearm—this one created by a professional. A grayscale image of pine trees that started above his wrist and covered the inside of his arm. The foremost tree was smaller and lighter in color than all the rest.

  If someone looked close enough, they would notice the word REDEMPTION and Ephesians 1:7 written along the bottom of the tattoo. A reminder that God had forgiven all of his mistakes—even the mistake that wove his life together with the Thatcher family.

  Three lives—his, Payton’s, and Pepper’s—intersected one winter night by a trio of choices. God could resurrect—redeem—anything. Anyone. He could only hope Pepper was in heaven. And he would continue to pray for Payton, the sister still on earth.

  On so many nights when his choice to be sober . . . to stay sober . . . flooded his mind with images he’d rather forget, he’d sit on the edge of his bed and trace the outline of the tattoo. Turn his thoughts into a broken prayer for himself . . . for the Thatcher family . . . for Payton.

  God was the author and finisher of his faith. His story wasn’t done yet. And neither was Payton’s.

  18

  MONDAY MORNING. And here I was walking in not one, not two, but three hours late.

  In the past month, I’d wrecked my reputation of being the first one to arrive at work and the last one to leave. I just never realized how proud I was of the self-appointed honor.

  It wasn’t like Kimberlee and I competed against one another. Festivities was based on trust, not rivalry. But my work ethic was part of being a team player—doing my part to make Festivities successful. Unlike Kimberlee, I wasn’t a party waiting to happen. I wasn’t able to pull off blue highlights and a multitude of rings and also be comfortable with wealthy socialites or eighty-year-old matriarchs or twentysomethings planning a wedding with an exorbitant budget and too many ideas for how to spend it. But I could ensure things ran smoothly behind the scenes both at the office and at our events. I could make Kimberlee’s life easier. After all, she’d rescued me when my life had run off the rails—as useless as a middle attending a summer volleyball camp with a broken ankle.

  If this had been high school volleyball practice and I’d shown up late, I’d know just what to do. Offer no excuses. Suit up. Run a mile’s worth of laps around the gym perimeter and then join the team in whatever drill they were working through. But this was Kimberlee, not Coach Sydney.

  “Sorry I’m late.” I tossed my purse on my desk, digging through it in search of my makeup bag.

  “I’m not your mother. Or your boss.” Kimberlee set a mug of coffee on my desk. “This is for you. You’ll need to add more sugar. It was for me, but you look like you need it more than I do.”

  “I didn’t put on any makeup yet.” I spilled the contents of the clear plastic bag onto my desk. Mascara, foundation, several compacts of eye shadow, an eyelash curler.

  “I could say something like you’re going to need an extra layer—”

  “But friends don’t say things like that, do they, Kimmie?”

  “And friends don’t call their friends Kimmie, either, do they?”

  “Sleep deprivation does funny things to a girl.” Humor, however slight, was better than feeling exposed.

  For the moment, I ignored the much-needed makeup on my desk and cradled the coffee mug in both hands, the better to hide the ever-present tremor in my fingers. Maybe I’d skip the eyeliner today.

  “What’s going on, Payton?”

  I set aside the mug, thankful for the warmth that had seeped into my skin for those brief seconds, and selected a neutral shade of eye shadow. Opened the compact, swiped the brush through the powder. “I’m just having a rough time sleeping lately.”

  “Okay. But why?” Kimberlee perched on the edge of my desk. “I know we’re business partners, but I thought we were friends, too. Good friends. You’ve stood by me through everything from bad haircuts to breakups.”

  I tossed the brush aside. No makeup was better than poorly applied makeup, no matter how haggard I looked. Poor Kimberlee and Bianca would just have to put up with looking at me au naturel all day. I, on the other hand, could avoid mirrors.

  “Payton?”

  Fine. Kimberlee wanted me to talk? I’d talk.

  “I broke up with Nash—”

  “Oh, come on! This is not about Nash.” Kimberlee snorted. “I’ve seen you break up with plenty of guys and you never lost sleep over any of them. Don’t try to convince me that you were so in love with Nash that it’s keeping you awake at night. Not buying it.”

  If only all this upheaval was about breaking up with Nash. But it wasn’t, and Kimberlee had seen right through my diversionary tactic. Why couldn’t the sleepless nights, the loss of appetite, the inability to focus be caused by something as simple as breaking up with a guy?

  The daily to-do list sat on my desk—the one I always prepared. Bianca must have printed it out. She was doing both her job and mine. Maybe I needed to find a pen and add, Tell my family the truth to the list.

  “I . . . I’ve been having these odd dreams.” The admission was a flat whisper.

  “What kind of dreams?”

  “My twin sister, Pepper, shows up and, um, talks to me.”

  I had to give Kimberlee credit. She didn’t freak out.

  “What does she talk about?”

  “Different things.” I leaned back in my chair. “She asks about me. My family. She wanted to know why I wasn’t playing volleyball—”

  “Volleyball? Because you played together in high school?”

  “No. I mean, yeah. But we’d also made plans after we graduated. Pepper would have gotten a college scholarship. And I’d thought about volleyball, too.”

  “You never told me this.”

  “Well, those dreams got wrecked.”

  “Why?”

  I didn’t answer.

  How could I explain something I’d never said out loud before? It had all made sense to me ten years ago—an emotional cause and effect. My actions caused Pepper’s death. No amount of medication or time or space or penance erased that truth. Why should I get what I wanted out of life when Pepper didn’t? When I was the reason Pepper didn’t?

  And my family still didn’t know the truth.

  “Payton?”

  “Sorry.” I took a long sip of the coffee, savoring the warmth. “So, yeah. I’m not sleeping well. And the dreams make me anxious.”

  “Anxious how?”

  Now Kimberlee sounded like the psychologist who used to lead group sessions at the hospital. At first, I was quiet during the sessions. Let everyone else talk. Answer the “How are you feeling today?” and “Why do you think you feel that way?” questions. But then I learned that if I wanted to get out of the hospital—if I wanted everyone to think I was fine, that I was getting over Pepper’s death—I had to talk.

  “How are you feeling today, Payton?”

  “Better.”

  “Why do you think that is?”

  Because that’s what you want me to say. “It’s helping me to listen to other people talk.”

  “How does that help you?”

  Because then I don’t have to talk. “I realize I feel sad. And angry. And that I can find different ways to process my emotions.”

  For once, the guy made eye contact with me. Had my answer sounded too rote? If nothing else, I was a fast learner.

  I rubbed the heel of my hand against my sternum. “Talking eases some of the tightness in my chest.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, Payton. I hope you’ll participate more in the group in the future.”

  “I’ll try.” Anything to get out of here.

  “When you stare off into space like that, I’m not sure what to do.” Kimberlee’s voice pulled me back to the present. “Let you stay where you are or bring you back.”

  “I’m sorry.” I held the empty mug close. “Just shake me or something.”

  “Right.”

  Kimberlee wasn’t some unwelcome stranger prying into my life, jotting notes in a chart whenever I said something—notes that I never got to see. What had they written about me, anyway? Did a group of them sit around later and read over all the different scribbles?

  “Maybe you should ask Pepper why she’s showing up in your dreams.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I know it sounds a little crazy, but haven’t you ever read about how powerful dreams can be? Symbolic? And you keep dreaming about Pepper. Isn’t it true that twins have this special, almost-magical connection? Maybe that’s still there, even though Pepper’s gone.”

  Pepper and me. The identical, powerful Double Trouble.

  “It’s true, Pepper and I were close.” How much of this did I want to remember? “My parents even said we had our own language when we were toddlers. Nobody else understood what we were saying, but we understood each other perfectly—or so they said.”

  But no relationship is perfect. And people change. And twin relationships aren’t magical.

  “You know what? I appreciate you listening. I really do.” I eased past Kimberlee so I could rinse my empty cup and then insert a fresh pod into the Keurig. Time for caffeine, round two. “But don’t you think it’s time to table this ‘Let’s analyze Payton’ discussion and get to work?”

  “Why do I get the feeling you’re not telling me something?”

  I faced away from my friend. She was persistent. And right. I poured water into the top of the Keurig. Why not tell her the truth? Someone not involved? Kind of like a trial run. If I stumbled over my words, so be it.