Free Small-Town Dreams by Kate Welsh Page B

her now-pale face. He dropped the ax and went to her. “What’s wrong?” he asked as he reached out to grip her upper arms, afraid she might drop at his feet.
    She blinked as if she’d just realized where she was. “Cassie,” she said, her voice shaken and low. “No one calls me Cassie. Not since Cassie went on vacation and came home Cassidy.”
    “I’m sorry,” he apologized immediately, though he still had no idea what he’d done or what her cryptic comment meant. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
    “It was just…I guess a blast from the past is the only way to describe it.”
    Josh sat back against the hip-high stump of a long-dead tree that he’d been whittling away at for the past several weeks. He took his baseball cap off and wiped his brow with the sleeve of his plaid flannel shirt, all the while considering her. “I understand how that can be,” he said carefully. “I never know why it happens. But you do. Do you want to talk about why hearing a nickname turned you three shades of pale?”
    “When I was a young child, my parents called me Cassie. We went to Colorado for a skiing holiday when I was six. They loved to ski and so did I. They taught me before I could ride a two-wheeler. One minute we were singing by the fire in our rented cabin, and the next there came this roar that I’ll never forget. I can still see my father jump up and run to the big window that faced the mountain. My mother was right on his heels. He turned back and opened his mouth to say something. But he never got it out. I remember that the windows were black as the night, and in a split second they turned white, then burst inward behind him. The next thing I knew I was being swept away into a world that was cold and white—then everything went black.”
    “Avalanche?” Josh guessed, horrified for the child she’d been.
    Cassidy nodded, biting her lip, her eyes full of tears. “I woke up a few times before the rescuers found me. I remember crying for my parents. Being cold. Then even the cold faded. I woke in the hospital with my grandfather sitting by my bedside. ‘Cassidy,’ he said, ‘you’re going to have to be very brave. Your parents are dead. We’re all the family each other has now. We have to stick together so we can carry on the Jamison name.’ Until that moment, I was just Cassie. After this, I was Cassidy Jamison, heir to Jamison Steel. And you know what? I don’t mind you calling me Cassie at all because I think I need to be her again.”
    “That’s an awfully large burden to put on a child,” Joshua commented, then realized that he was holding her again, albeit loosely by her forearms. He let go quickly and stepped back, saying a quick prayer for strength. He was supposed to counsel her, not hug her. He was supposed to care about her, not come to care for her. It was a probably a fine balance, but he was sure there was an almost physical line—and one he could not cross. He didn’t have the right.
    He cleared his throat. “So while you’ve been playing hermit up there in Ma’s prize guest room, you’ve been thinking,” he quipped, hoping to sound at ease. “That’s good. But dwelling on your problems too much is as bad as pretending they don’t exist. I have an idea. I visit an older woman who lives up the mountain. She’s a shut-in. Would you like to go along for a change of scenery? The view of the valley from her back porch is spectacular.”
    Josh held his breath, waiting, hoping she’d agree. He could see that she needed a break. Maybe if she saw how difficult someone else’s life was, she’d forget to dwell on her own unsettled circumstances. And maybe exposure to a woman like Maude would fan the flames of the hunger for spiritual things that she’d given him a glimpse of that night outside Earl’s.
    “Are you sure she wouldn’t mind a stranger showing up out of the blue?”
    “Maude loves company. She just can’t get in to town much anymore.” Josh decided to take her