He wouldn’t call the place warm, so clearly they turned down the heat between guest stays, but the chill didn’t capture his breath, and he slid off his boots to walk across the rug and stand in front of the grand fireplace. Wide enough for a kid to sit inside the hearth and get warm after skating on the lake or tobogganing through the snow. There was new leather furniture in the space, but old conversations rose and maybe, for a second, he could hear his father’s voice, reading the Bible.
“The angelof the Lordencamps around those who fear him,andhe delivers them. Taste and see that the Lordisgood;blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.”
The words warmed him.
He walked into the kitchen, stood in the room that had been painted yellow by his mother one gloomy winter. He was ten again, sitting at the kitchen table with his brothers, fighting over the last pancake.“Settle down. There’s more,boys.”
Wow, he missed her. Could still hear her praying for them as they left for school.“This is the day theLord has made,let us rejoice and be glad init.”
He found his way then, to the den, his father’s hideaway, and stared at the bookshelf, empty now, save for a few paperbacksleft for guests. He took one down—a well-read, dog-eared version ofThe Daybreakers, book six of The Sacketts series. His father, no doubt, had fancied the Bowies were like the tough, hard-scrabbled family of Louis L’Amour’s west.
Maybe they were.
The words of his father’s journal roused inside him, settled.
“They’re your sons even morethan they’re mine. I trust you with their paths,even when those paths take them from me.”
Jericho walked over to his father’s wooden desk, the one with the scrolled legs. He could almost see the old man sitting there, tapping out figures on his computer. Jericho traced his finger along the grooves in the weathered leather top.
“Give me wisdom to guide them,faith to release them,and time enough to see the men you’re shapingthem to be.”
Maybe he owed his father the same apology he’d given Harley.I’m sorry Ididn’t come home,Dad. I’m sorry I wasn’t the son you wanted me to be.
He closed his eyes.I miss you.
Then, softly, a voice inside ...“The legacy I want isn’t just thisresort—it’s you. You were made for this.”
He drew in his breath, the words from the fight before the crash, fresh. Brutal. And yet ... maybe the fight hadn’t been about coming home ... but rather his dad saying he knew him.
He loved him.
“Help them totrust you in all things,with their lives,their hearts,their futures.”
For a second, it was summer. Jericho was sitting on the shore, the fire flickering in a ring of stones, his father beside him. Funny, it didn’t seem like a memory, but it could have been.
And then his father looked at him, smiled. And weirdly, he heard his voice, almost as a tremor inside him. “Youwere made for this,son. Made to rescue. Made tosave. That is the hero I raised.”
Maybe it wasn’t his father at all, but ... He put his hand to his chest. Breathed in. Yes, the new heart was still there, the ache gone.
Yes. He was done running.
Jericho sat at his father’s desk, his hands on it. “God, if you want me to come home, to help helm this place, this legacy, I will.”
He waited for a voice, maybe, or even a sort of yes in his heart. But he didn’t get it.
Huh.
Maybe the legacy wasn’t about the resort but being the kind of man who carried on the Bowie name. In word and deed. Doing what he’d been designed for.
That, he could do. Would do. “Whatever you ask of me, I’m yours.”
A sort of peace fell through him. And there it was, suddenly, the conversation finished.
He got up, Harley’s words in his head, and headed up the stairs to the bedrooms. Four of them, his at the top of the stairs, facing the dome. He entered and discovered a queen bed, his old checkered blanket replaced by a thick comforter and fancy pillows.
But his light—the old tiffany lamp with the multicolored glass—still sat on the bedside table.
He looked down at the dome, to her window, and turned on his light.