A Little Beyond Hope Read online

  A Little Beyond Hope

  Tracie Puckett

  Smashwords Edition

  © 2015. All rights reserved.

  Smashwords Edition, License Note

  Thank you for downloading this ebook. The contents of this ebook are the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means— electronic or mechanical—without written permission of the author, Tracie Puckett

  In loving memory of Rachel McPherson.

  Gone, but never forgotten.

  BONUS SHORT STORY

  *

  A LITTLE CHRISTMAS MAGIC

  Chapter One

  “He’s not here.”

  “What do you mean he’s not here?”

  “He’s not here,” Bruno repeated himself. “He’s gone, away, absent. Charlie has left the building.”

  I shifted where I stood, lowering my eyes to give him a hard look. It didn’t faze him. He turned his head downward and went back to reading his book, pretending he couldn’t see my shadow looming over the pages. With his feet kicked up on the corner of his desk, a book in one hand, and his coffee cup in the other, Bruno looked content as ever. It didn’t seem to bother him that I was standing there, upset and confused.

  “I need more than that, okay?” I said, feeling my nerves stretch a little tighter. “Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How can you not know?” I asked, and it took every ounce of willpower I had left in me not to yell the words you were right here when he left!

  “Ever hear the phrase don’t shoot the messenger?” he asked, lifting his gaze for only a second. He leaned forward and set his coffee cup on a stack of paperwork, and then he leaned back in his chair again, assuming his previous position. “He left about an hour ago, said to tell you he’d be back in plenty of time to make the appointment.”

  I checked my cell phone and then looked up at the station clock to double-check the time.

  “It’s 12:15.”

  “Yeah.”

  “His appointment is in thirty minutes, Bruno,” I said, taking a step closer to the desk. “He can’t miss it.”

  “He said he’d be back,” he waved his hand, and then he flipped to the next page in his crime novel.

  “Bruno,” I said, pushing his feet off the corner of the desk. Forced to sit up straight, he finally shut the book, but not without leaving his finger in between the pages to save his spot. Annoyed that I’d disturbed his peaceful afternoon, he let go of a heavy breath and looked up to me with a blank expression.

  “What?”

  “Where did he go?”

  “I—don’t—know, Julie,” he said, now clearly losing his patience with me. “He came out of the break room, put his jacket on, and said he’d be back.”

  “Great,” I said. “Then where the hell is he?”

  “Don’t give me that Reibeck attitude,” he said, pointing his finger at me. His order was intended to sound tight-lipped and threatening, but Bruno couldn’t disguise his gentle tone beneath his frustration. He set his book aside, finally giving me his full attention. “Listen, I know you’re worried about him. We’re all worried about him. But you need to take a breath. I can’t force him to stay if he doesn’t want to stay.”

  “You know,” I let out an annoyed sigh in spite of his gentle tone. It didn’t matter how quietly he tried to reason with me; I was furious that he hadn’t held up his end of the deal. It was his day to watch Charlie, and he had dropped the ball. He was lucky I hadn’t punched him square in the face the moment I realized my uncle was missing. “Bruno, if I didn’t know any better, I’d be inclined to think that you don’t care for a second about Charlie’s wellbeing.”

  I gave him one last hard look and then turned on my heel, satisfied to leave him with that. I didn’t want to risk saying anything else in a moment of heat. He got the message loud and clear: I wasn’t happy.

  Just as I pivoted away from his desk, leaving Bruno with those last few words, the station door pulled open. A flood of sunlight rushed through the open doorway, blinding me for a moment. Lifting my hand to shield my eyes, I squinted in the direction of the door.

  “Please be Charlie,” I prayed under my breath, still trying to see beyond the blinding sunshine as it spilled through the open doors. It was the middle of December and that’s all we’d gotten lately—an endless line of sixty-degree days and beautiful weather. Between the lack of snow, my uncle’s dodgy behavior, and all the stress of everyday life, nothing about this Christmas season felt magical at all.

  Still hoping to see my uncle stride through the door, I squinted a little harder and peered through my lashes, but I only caught a glimpse of Luke. I closed my eyes and dropped my head.

  “Crap. It’s just you.”

  “I see you’re in a mood today,” he said dryly, only stopping long enough to press a quick kiss to the side of my head. He stepped forward and dropped a paper sack on Bruno’s desk—one stamped with the Marco’s Meatball Sub logo. “That’s the last time I pick up that crap for you, you hear me? You keep putting that junk in your body and you’ll be in the same boat as Chief.”

  I cringed at the thought, but Bruno didn’t react to Luke’s message. When neither of us said a word to him or to one another, Luke stared between the detective and me. His eyes darted back and forth, and it was clear he could easily sense the tension in the air. He took a hesitant step forward.

  “Okay,” he said. “What’d I miss? What’s going on?”

  “He did it again,” Bruno said, tearing into the carryout bag.

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously,” Bruno and I said in unison.

  “And someone just let him leave.”

  “He’s a grown man, Julie,” Bruno barked. “He can come and go as he pleases. It’s not like I could hold a gun to his head and force him to stay.”

  “Really?” I asked. “Because that seems like a plan that might’ve worked!”

  I watched as a frown settled across Luke’s scarred lip, and he raked his fingers back through his overgrown hair. We were doing it again—putting him in the middle. I felt a twinge of regret over the fact, because it wasn’t the first time he’d gotten caught up in similar arguments. Unfortunately for Luke, it’d fallen on his shoulders a lot lately to keep the peace, and the role of playing peacemaker was starting to take its toll.

  “Has anyone tried calling him?”

  “It won’t matter at this point,” I said, barely giving him time to finish his sentence. “We’ll never find him on time. You know how he gets. He probably won’t even answer his phone. I’ll call the doctor and reschedule ... again.”

  “Take a breath, Jules,” Luke said, letting his rough hand fall gently on my back. He pulled me a little closer, and his thumb caressed my side. “We can only do so much for Charlie, okay? He has to want our help, you know that.”

  “Yes, I do,” I said, trying to look beyond the dark circles under his eyes. He was tired; we were all tired, but that seemed the norm nowadays. “I just wish he’d understand how serious this is.”

  “We all do,” Bruno said quietly, and suddenly tears were biting at the corner of his eyes. He pushed himself away from the desk, vacated the chair, and cleared his throat. Swiping the carryout bag from his desk, he hung his head and watched the floor as he walked away from us, heading for the break room. He dropped his uneaten sub in the garbage before turning down the hall.

  We both stared in the direction of the hallway, neither sure what to say. Bruno had left us with a deafening silence, and if someone didn’t say something soon, there was a likely chance that the silence would get the best of me, and I’d be in tears for the hundredth time that day. Luke tightened hi
s hold on my waist, and I turned into his shoulder to keep from crying. I knew that that was the only reason Bruno had left just then—he needed to shed a tear or two of his own, but he wasn’t about to do that in front of us.

  Our concern for Charlie consumed us, taking control of each and every aspect of all our lives. It was mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausting.

  “Let me try calling him before we give up altogether,” Luke said, pressing a long kiss to the side of my head. He nuzzled a little closer and kissed me again. “Hang tight.”

  When he pulled away, Luke took his phone from his pocket as he headed for the front of the station. He tapped the screen a few times, held the phone to his ear, and waited for a response.

  He pushed open the door and disappeared outside just as I heard him say “Charlie! Where the hell are you?”

  In spite of my tears, I found myself fighting a smile. I imagined my uncle on the other end, spatting off something comparable to Bruno’s snap at me earlier—don’t give me that Reibeck attitude! But I knew better than to think that Charlie would give Luke any kind of grief. He wasn’t going to fight; he was just going to sit on the other end of the phone and give Luke excuse after excuse as to why he suddenly couldn’t make it to his doctor’s appointment today.

  I walked toward the doors and pressed my nose against the glass. Luke paced back and forth on the sidewalk, waving the one arm he wasn’t using to hold the phone. He wasn’t yelling, but his gestures were large, and his expression was saddened. The longer they talked, the clearer it became that Charlie had ducked out again, and now Luke was doing everything he could to reason with my uncle. But just like every other day, he would fail to get through to him.

  Luke paused for a moment and listened, and I imagined that Charlie was mid-sentence.

  I took a drive out of town and got a flat tire.

  Oh, I must’ve nodded off during the news.

  Appointment? I thought that was tomorrow.

  Those were only a few of the explanations he’d come up with over the last few weeks, and there didn’t appear to be any shortage of lame excuses in sight. He couldn’t see the importance of attending his follow-up appointment, and his erratic behavior had driven us all to the edge. It was important (incredibly important!), but we couldn’t make him understand.

  It all started four weeks ago. There were very few days in my life that I had ever felt my heart stop beating altogether, and the day I got that phone call from Luke … well, I thought I could die right then and there.

  I had just finished up one of my exams when the call came through. Luke wouldn’t give me the details over the phone, only said that something bad had happened to Charlie and I needed to get down to the hospital as quickly as I could.

  I’d arrived just as Matt came rushing through the corridor, and the receptionist let him into Charlie’s room immediately; the nurses and doctors refused to let me pass, and it didn’t matter how long or loud I argued or how many times I’d threatened to beat them to a pulp. I wasn’t Charlie’s ‘immediate family’, so I had no right to enter the room. They didn’t care that he’d been my caretaker for two years. They didn’t care that I loved him like he was my own father. They turned me away, and I had no choice but to sit out in the waiting room with Bruno, and he wasn’t in any kind of emotional state to tell me what was going on. Luke, though, showed up only a few minutes after I had, and that’s when I’d finally learned the truth.

  Earlier that morning, Charlie had delegated the briefing to the Lieutenant directly beneath him. He’d excused himself to his office, telling Luke that he’d been feeling unusually tired and just needed to sit down and rest for a little while. Twenty minutes later, Luke popped in to check on Charlie, and he found him collapsed behind his desk. He’d suffered a heart attack.

  He was in the hospital for days and kept under close observation. After they finally released my uncle back into the care of his family, I made it my number one priority to help Charlie get back on his feet. I packed my bags and started staying at the house ‘round the clock to enforce the proper habits for Charlie’s wellbeing. I assigned Matt to the task of coming up with a heart-healthy menu for the entire family. I put Luke in charge of leading and enforcing Charlie’s exercise regimen. And if it wasn’t directly pertaining to food or exercise, I took care of the rest. Once again, I was back to living with my uncle and cousin, and I was doing everything I could to keep my family from falling apart.

  Charlie hadn’t been allowed to start back at work yet, and the boredom of sitting at home day in and day out was killing him. I thought to remind him that he’d done the same thing to Luke once before, refusing to allow him to come back after the Milton shooting, but I thought it was probably best to just keep my thoughts to myself. I had to do that a lot lately.

  Little did Charlie know, though, his days at the Oakland PD were probably long behind him. Everyone but my uncle could see his career coming quickly to an end. Luke had mentioned the idea of retirement more than once, and each time the suggestion slipped off his lips, Charlie would either throw him out of the house or throw something at him. It was never a pretty outcome.

  Because my uncle had made it his number one goal to prove that one little heart attack wasn’t going to change the course of his life whatsoever, he didn’t heed the warnings all the doctors were giving him. He refused a heart-healthy diet. He refused to give a second thought to exercise. And with our constant preaching and enforcing, the stress started building up again. Late nights led to worse eating habits than before, and that didn’t help things, considering his life was sedentary as ever. It hadn’t taken too long before he’d relapsed completely back into his old ways.

  Getting him into the doctor for his follow-up appointment was not only crucial for his health, but for the sanity of everyone who loved and cared about him. He wasn’t doing well, and I refused to lose Charlie. It wasn’t even an option.

  “I called the office,” Luke said, coming back through the doors. “He’s rescheduled for next Monday at four.”

  “And what was his excuse this time?”

  “It’s nothing we haven’t already heard.”

  “He’s just going to keep doing this, isn’t he?” I asked. “He’s just going to keep avoiding us and putting off the appointments until—”

  “Jules—”

  “And then one day we’re going to find him passed out again.”

  “Julie….”

  “Then that’s that,” I said, blinking back a fresh set of tears. “We’ll be right back to square one. He’ll be in the hospital…hopefully alive! Bruno will go into shock again. Matt will have to keep cooking meals that Charlie won’t eat, I’ll have to skip school three times a week, and you will have to give up all of your free time just to make sure he’s taking care of himself.”

  “Jules,” Luke said, leaning forward to steal my gaze. “Listen to me. I’m not worried about Charlie, kid, but I am worried about you. If you don’t stop acting like this, you’ll be the next one to end up in the hospital. You’re overexerting yourself. You need to find a way to shift your attention elsewhere.”

  “Easier said than done,” I said, looking down to the floor. “He’s all I can think about.”

  “You need to try,” he said. “Please.” He dropped his forehead to mine, and the warm tickle of his breath on my face left me breathless. “Pack your stuff. Come home tonight. Let Matt take care of Charlie for one evening. We’ll make dinner, decorate the tree, and maybe even exchange an early gift or two.”

  “I don’t have anything to give you, Luke,” I said, closing my eyes. “I haven’t had a spare moment to shop.”

  “Okay, so then you can open an early gift or two,” he said, lifting my chin. “You need a distraction. Please? Come home.”

  “Luke, it’s not—”

  “Julie,” he said, and his expression sobered. “I miss you.”

  Chapter Two

  We left the station separately.

  On the other
side of town, nestled at the end of Silhouette Drive, there was a beautiful house that I once shared with Luke. He left the Oakland PD and headed for that place—the very one he’d worked his hands raw to turn into the perfect starter home for the two of us—the future Mr. and Mrs. Reibeck. That was his destination for the evening: our home, and all alone.

  As he set off for the other side of Oakland, I headed for the place I’d suddenly started calling home again, the place that I’d found refuge in after my parents’ deaths. While I hated the time spent away from Luke, and I longed to return to long nights of sleeping in his arms, I knew that my place was elsewhere: Main Street. For the time being, I belonged in that house with Charlie and Matt. They were my family, and they needed me there.

  I let myself in just in time to watch Charlie dash across the living room and flop across the couch. He closed his eyes and feigned sleep.

  “You’re not fooling anybody with that snore,” I said quietly. Still, he kept up the pretense, probably hoping that if he kept pretending, then maybe I’d get fed up and walk away. But I kept standing there, my arms crossed at my chest, watching and waiting for him to be the first one to break. “Charlie, I’m not stupid. I know you’re not sleeping.”

  He only opened his right eye to steal a peek at me, and when I only stared harder, he finally opened the other and sat up.

  “Yeah, all right,” he mumbled, swinging his legs down to the floor.

  I took a few steps forward and sat down, watching my uncle with a close eye.

  “You wanna tell me what happened today?” I mustered as much strength as I could to keep my voice calm. As angry as I was that he’d skipped out on another doctor’s appointment, I couldn’t unleash that anger on him. He needed to stay calm, and it was my job to make sure nothing triggered another episode. Again, I found myself biting my tongue. “What happened, Charlie?”