Just Beyond the Clouds

  “Brother.” Carl Joseph stopped and stared at them. He gave Cody a mildly disgusted look. “That is not how you do it.”

  “Really?” Cody leaned his head against hers. He was laughing so hard he still seemed unsteady, and she was doing the same. He had one hand on the small of her back, the other up between her shoulders.

  As they caught their breath, their eyes met, and Cody seemed to realize the way he was holding her. The laughter faded, and something different filled his eyes. A mix of desire and unbridled fear. She felt the change, too. What were they doing, standing here this way, their faces inches from each other? At the same time, she felt something brush against her middle finger. She didn’t have to look to know what it was.

  Cody’s wedding ring.

  He must’ve realized what she was feeling, because he took a step back and moved his hands to her shoulders. The laughter returned to his eyes, and the intimacy of the moment passed. Clearly, he wasn’t going to talk about the ring or why—after four years—he was still wearing it.

  And Elle wouldn’t either. She fixed her hair and nodded at Cody’s feet. “You did warn me.”

  “I did.” He dropped his hands to his sides. He was back to the confident, easygoing Cody, the one he’d just recently allowed her to know. But at least he wasn’t shutting her off, frightened by their moment of intimacy.

  And that’s what it had been, no question. Even if it lasted only a couple heartbeats, Elle had seen in his eyes, his expression, that he wondered about her as much as she wondered about him. The knowing was enough to take her breath.

  “You need work,” Daisy pointed out. She looped her arm through Carl Joseph’s. “Maybe later.”

  They all agreed that later would be better for the dance lessons.

  “I’m thirsty.” Carl Joseph pulled his water bottle from his backpack. “See, Teacher. I know this life skill. Drink your water!”

  “CJ knows.” Daisy patted him on the back.

  Elle took a drink, and so did the others. As she did, she watched Daisy and Carl Joseph, the way Daisy had such pride for every milestone Carl Joseph reached, and how he protected her at every turn. They were so comfortable around each other. Elle couldn’t help but feel a little jealous. Which of them were really handicapped if relationships came this easily for Daisy and Carl Joseph?

  After they’d packed the water bottles in their backpacks, they started up the trail again. But there was a difference. This time Cody let Carl Joseph and Daisy take the lead, and he fell in beside Elle. The trail was narrow in places, and at times their shoulders touched.

  Elle wasn’t as perceptive as Daisy, but she could sense a slight hesitation from Cody. He wasn’t angry or even distant. But though they didn’t talk about it, she was pretty sure he was caught off guard by the feelings that had surfaced during the dancing incident. Just as she was.

  As they walked, they talked about other hikes Elle had taken with Daisy, and how Cody wanted Carl Joseph to spend more time getting exercise. When they reached the top of the trail, they had talked about everything from Daisy’s childhood to Disneyland. Everything except the most obvious thing.

  Whatever was happening between them.

  The rest of the hike there were no other close calls between them, nothing but two new friends sharing an afternoon. But when Cody dropped Elle and Daisy off at their house, the four of them climbed out of his truck. Carl Joseph walked Daisy to the door and the two hugged. Elle could hear Daisy telling him about the coming week at the center and Carl Joseph trying to guess where the next field trip would take place.

  Elle and Cody stayed near the truck. “Thanks.” She looked up at him. “That was fun.”

  “It was.” He looked down at his feet and tried a few in-place steps. “I could still use a little help in the dancing department.”

  “You’ll get it next time.” Elle’s cheeks felt sunburned from the day on the mountain. A gentle wind blew by them, and Elle wondered what he was really thinking, and whether there would even be a next time.

  They were facing each other, and then, as if he were wondering the same thing, Cody took her hands in his. And in as much time as it took her to inhale, the moment became deeper, more intimate, exactly what it had been up on the patch of clover. He searched her eyes. “Elle . . . I don’t know.”

  Her heart skidded into a strange rhythm. “You don’t know what?”

  The muscles in his jaw flexed and he looked up for a long time, up at the place where big, puffy white clouds punctuated the clear blue sky. He exhaled, and it made him sound beyond weary. Then he faced her again. “I don’t know how . . .” He looked at Carl Joseph and Daisy. They were dancing again, this time on the front porch. “I don’t know how to feel or . . .” He pointed at his brother. “Or how to be like that again.”

  She willed her heart to slow down, pressed herself to find the right words. “Maybe you don’t have to.” A sad smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “It was just one dance, Cody.”

  He rubbed his thumbs along the tops of her hands. “No, it wasn’t.” He looked past her defenses. “You felt it, too.” His lips parted. He looked nervous and determined all at the same time. His voice dropped a notch. “You feel it now.”

  A part of her wanted to run into the house and never look back. Wasn’t this how things had started with Trace? It would be better by far to keep things casual, to laugh and joke about dancing and Disneyland so that they never had to talk about anything more. She gripped his hands a little tighter. She steadied herself and met his eyes again. “My mother once told me that God doesn’t give us something new unless our hands are empty.” She shrugged one shoulder and looked at his left hand, at the ring there. “You know?”

  Cody looked at her for a long time. “I have a lot to think about.” He pulled her into a hug, the sort of hug he would give his sister if he had one. “You, too.”

  “Yes.” She took a step back. Her cheeks were hotter now, and with the sun hidden behind the clouds she was certain the heat wasn’t only her sunburn. There was something she wanted to say, something she wanted him to know before he left. “Thank you, Cody.”

  He must’ve understood that she meant more than the hike, because he waited, studying her eyes. His smile touched her heart to the core. “For what . . . other than stepping on your feet?”

  “For trusting me enough to tell me that.” Never mind that it was a summer afternoon. With Cody a few feet away from her, Elle felt a chill run down her arms. “Let me know about the doctor and Carl Joseph.”

  “I will.” He took a step back and waved. “See ya.”

  After the guys left, Elle put her arm around Daisy’s shoulders and the two headed inside. “That was a fun day.”

  “Know something?” Daisy grinned and made a few silent chuckles, as if she had the biggest secret in the world on the tip of her tongue. “I love that CJ.”

  Elle hugged her sister. “I’m glad, sweetie. I think he loves you, too.”

  Daisy nodded, confident of the fact. “Hey, Mom! What’s for dinner?”

  How easily Daisy handled love. The feelings were there, and that was that. Nothing to hide or act strange about, no need for caution or pretense. Love simply was. Period. Daisy headed back to her bedroom and their mother appeared from the kitchen.

  “Help me chop carrots?”

  “Sure.” Elle knew what was coming. She and her mother had always talked about everything. Spending a day with Cody Gunner would be no different. Especially since Elle had already told her mom about Cody’s past, the heartbreaking loss of his wife, and his decision to give her one of his lungs to buy three more years with her.

  “People don’t usually love like that twice in a lifetime,” was all her mother told her. Since then they hadn’t talked about Cody, not even when Elle’s mom learned that the four of them were taking a hike today.

  Now they took up their places at separate cutting boards, a pot of water between them. For a minute, they sliced in silence. Then her mother sto
pped long enough to look at her. “I saw you outside with Carl Joseph’s brother. You looked . . . very happy.”

  Elle set down her knife and covered her mother’s hand with her own. “We’re just friends.”

  “But what about you?” Her words were gentle. “How do you feel?”

  Elle hesitated, and in that single hesitation she knew she was in trouble. She could feel the way her fingers nestled into Cody’s hand, feel the way she’d felt safe and protected on the path beside him, and how when she was in his arms she never wanted the moment to end.

  “Elle?”

  “I’m not sure.” She picked up her knife and another carrot and looked back at the cutting board. She grabbed a fast breath and found a smile. “Anyway, you should hear about the hike. Carl Joseph and Daisy were hysterical, dancing on a patch of clover halfway up the trail . . .”

  She launched into a lengthy description of the day that told her mother in no uncertain terms that the conversation about Cody, about the heart of Cody, was over. The fact was, she couldn’t tell her mother how she was feeling about Carl Joseph’s brother until she found some time alone, time to talk to God. Because before she could talk to someone else about her feelings for Cody Gunner, there was something she had to do.

  She had to figure them out for herself.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  After Cody took Carl Joseph home, after he evaded a handful of questions from his mother, he looked at his watch. Four o’clock. Four more hours of daylight. Enough time to visit the one place he wanted to be.

  The one place he had to be.

  By the time he returned to his truck and set out along the dirt road toward the back of the ranch, his head was swimming with a thousand different thoughts. Images of the hike and his time with Elle filled his heart and mind and soul. His feelings for her were rising to the surface before he was ready for them. What had happened today? And how was he supposed to make sense of it when he never planned on loving anyone other than Ali?

  He focused on the road ahead.

  He parked where he had the other night with Elle. For a few minutes he leaned against his truck and stared at the evergreens and craggy outcroppings of rock that circled the place. Then he walked up the hill and sat on the bluff. He could see miles of undeveloped foothills from here, and the serenity of the place allowed him to think. Cody had a number of spots on the ranch where he and Ali had gone to talk about her impending death.

  But this wasn’t one of them.

  He felt the tears come, felt them overflow from his heart into his eyes. Was he moving on? Doing the one thing Ali had asked of him before she died? He closed his eyes because the shock and sorrow were the same every time he thought about her. It seemed like just ten minutes ago that she was lying beside him, still fighting the disease, still breathing the same air as him. So how could she really be dead?

  “Ali . . .” He sat up straighter and pressed his fists to his eyes. Dear God . . . will it ever get easier?

  The prayer came unexpectedly, and Cody blinked his eyes open. He looked beyond the foothills, up to the distant horizon. Please, God . . . can You hear me?

  At that same moment, a warmth came over him, settling his soul and calming his emotions. A knowing filled his heart, one that gave him the strength to consider the thoughts that had been stirring inside him all day. He looked at his wedding ring, and he was overwhelmed with a certainty, one that had never hit him when he’d come here before.

  Ali was gone, but more than that, she had moved on. She was in heaven taking on the tasks and joys that God had for her on the other side. And what she’d left behind was a lesson he hadn’t wanted to act on until now. Ali believed in life, in living every minute as if it were her last.

  So how was it he’d lived his last four years as if his life were over, too? He’d resisted friendships and conversations, and he’d built up a determination never to love again. When that wasn’t what Ali stood for at all. She would’ve been angry with him for what he’d become—a closed-off man, at first afraid even to let Carl Joseph have the wings to fly. He blinked away another layer of tears. Ali wouldn’t recognize him.

  Elle’s words from earlier came back. What was it her mother had told her? That God couldn’t give a person something new unless his hands were empty. He looked at his left hand again, at the wedding ring he still wore. Elle had noticed it, no doubt. He had felt the moment when her body stiffened, when she looked away because of it.

  Cody twisted it, and for a moment he was back again, standing on a bluff in her parents’ backyard, beneath the big open Colorado sky, pledging forever to Ali Daniels. He could see her eyes, feel her hands in his. But then, like the changing direction of a gust of wind, the image disappeared.

  Wearing the ring didn’t make her any less gone. It served only as a reminder that his life had ended right along with hers. And that—Cody was sure of it—would’ve made Ali furious. Ali, who had made him promise to love again, and who had grown frustrated when he dismissed the idea.

  “You need to live, Cody.” She rarely raised her voice, but the last time they talked about his future, she grew angry with him. “I won’t stand for you to lose your passion, your ability to love, just because I’m not here anymore.”

  Ali hadn’t just hoped for him to find a new life after her death; she’d demanded it. But for four years, one season after another, he’d ignored her wishes. Not because he didn’t care what she thought, but because he could barely get out of bed each morning. Her loss made it hard for him to breathe, let alone consider love. He shifted his gaze to the distant hills.

  Until now.

  He gritted his teeth. He had tried to keep Elle Dalton out of his heart, tried from the moment he saw her. So what if she was beautiful? He could walk away from beauty. But today, on a hike that was supposed to be nothing more than an outing with their siblings, he had learned something about himself.

  He couldn’t walk away from Elle Dalton’s heart.

  Elle was passionate about love and life and people with Down Syndrome. Deep inside her wounded heart was a love for Daisy that rivaled his love for Carl Joseph, and in that, Elle was a kindred spirit.

  Part of his attraction to Ali, even though he didn’t like to think this way, had been her illness, and the fact that he might protect her, shelter her. She needed him, and that drove their love to a level that Cody hadn’t known existed.

  Elle wasn’t sick with a deadly disease, but the damage to her heart was enough to cripple her for a lifetime. Working with people like her sister was enough for Elle. She was willing to put her own feelings on ice while she served others. Better that than to experience the pain and rejection that could come with falling in love.

  And that made Cody want to shelter Elle, the same way once a lifetime ago he’d wanted to shelter Ali. He spotted a pair of deer in the distance. They stopped and looked his direction, and then ran off into the hills. Cody leaned back on the rock and thought about the hike.

  When he stepped on Elle’s feet, when she stumbled into his arms, he had the sudden urge to love away all the betrayal and rejection inside her, to protect her and care for her and teach her that love didn’t have to hurt so bad. The strength of his feelings took his breath. Feelings he hadn’t acknowledged until that instant.

  He breathed in, and as always he felt his body stop short of a full breath, the way it had done since the transplant operation. The tangible reminder of Ali that he would always carry with him.

  He looked at his wedding ring one more time. Then he stood and stared into the distance. “I know what I have to do, Ali. And I know somewhere in heaven you understand because . . . you made me promise.”

  His eyes were dry now, his thoughts more about Elle and the future than anything from the past. A sense of peace warmed him, the way it had earlier when he prayed. He hesitated a moment longer. He slid his hands into his pockets, took one last look at the sky, and then made his way back to his truck. On the way home, his jumbled thoughts all seem
ed to right themselves. And suddenly he knew exactly what he was supposed to do next.

  When he walked in the door, his family was sitting at the dinner table, just about to eat. The smell of lasagna was thick in the air, and as Cody came closer, Carl Joseph’s face burst into a grin. “Brother! You came back in time!”

  Cody laughed. He loved the way Carl Joseph made dinnertime feel like a vacation to the Bahamas. “Yes, Buddy. I made it back.”

  He raised his fork in the air. “Brother’s here for Mom’s lasagna.”

  The celebration hung in the air for several minutes after Cody sat down. Only then did he notice the way his parents were looking at each other, as if they had something they could hardly wait to say.

  Finally his dad set down his fork. “We talked to the doctor, the one Elle suggested.”

  “He called us here. On a Sunday.” His mom’s eyes grew damp, but the joy there was undeniable. “He told us about a new medication.”

  Cody was dizzy with anticipation. He looked from his mother to his father. “And?”

  “I can’t keep it, Mom!” Carl Joseph pushed back from the table and jumped up. He danced in a few circles and pumped his fists. “No more secrets! I can’t wait!”

  A tear spilled onto his mother’s cheek, and she made a sound that was more laugh than cry. “Carl Joseph is going back to the center on Monday.”

  Cody felt his breath catch in his throat. He stood and studied his parents. “You’re serious?”

  “I can keep working for Goal Day, Brother!” Carl Joseph raised both fists in the air. “ ’Cause better medicine now.”

  His mother folded her hands, and Cody noticed that her fingers were trembling. As Carl Joseph danced into the kitchen, she lowered her voice. “He had another seizure this morning.” She swallowed, fighting her tears. “It was bad, Cody.”

  A sobering shadow fell over the moment. “When . . . when can he try the new medicine?”