It's Never too Late - By Tara Taylor Quinn Page 0,2

spite of the tears on her cheeks. “You know I do.”

“And you need to know that even if I went, I’d be back for you.”

“I’m going to the pig roast, Mark.”

* * *

IT MIGHT BE SUMMER, but in the mountains of Colorado the evenings were still chilly.

Addy had a cup of tea. Dressed in her favorite jeans, the short ones that she could wear with flip-flops rather than two-inch heels, she hugged the warm rose-embossed china with both hands, legs curled beneath her, and stared at the photo on the living room wall.

The woman in the picture was beautiful. With long dark hair falling softly around high cheekbones and a rounded chin, Ann Keller had always had a kind word for everyone. In most of Addy’s memories, Ann was smiling, her brown eyes glistening with love like they were in that picture.

Except for the times when she hadn’t been. Those had mostly involved Addy’s father. And only toward the end.

Shuddering, she looked away, toward the backyard oasis she’d built behind her small, one-bedroom, one-bath house. The landscaping and yard art, all carefully chosen in greens and blues and yellows, surrounded a pond with a waterfall that ran 24/7, three hundred and sixty-five days a year.

Rock, paper, scissors. She used to play the game with Ely. Paper covered rock, scissors cut paper, rock pounded scissors.

And water killed fire.

No, that wasn’t part of the game. Fire had come later.

She listened for the water, a sound that soothed, and glanced back at the photo. Addy was there, too—a pixieish five-year-old with a big gummy grin and missing front teeth. Her straight blond hair was up in a ponytail. She’d loved that red polka-dot sundress. Maybe because of the red patent leather shoes she’d had to go with it—Dorothy’s shoes, she’d told her mother the day they’d bought them. Maybe she’d loved them so much because her mother had had a dress and sandals that matched. Or maybe because she could still remember the shopping trip, the day that they’d picked out the attire. It had just been her and Mom that day and they’d played Princess and Queen while they’d tried on lots of different outfits. Addy and her brother, Elijah, were going to be in a publicity photo with their mother, who’d just been signed to her own cooking show. Two years older than she was, Elijah had been gung ho about the photo—but not about tagging along to buy clothes. He’d opted out of the shopping excursion.

But her big brother had been just as excited as Addy had been the morning the three of them had gotten ready—she and Mom in their dresses and Ely in his new suit and red tie—and then piled into the car and taken off for the studio in Phoenix, ready to embark on a great adventure.

After the pictures, Mom had taken them to a nice restaurant and eaten hamburgers and French fries with them—even though she much preferred the fancier foods she’d become known for. And then they’d changed clothes in the lush bathroom just off the dining room, and headed to the zoo.

It had been a great day. Perfect. The best ever.

It had also been the last day Ann and Ely spent on earth.

CHAPTER TWO

“I DIDN’T EVEN graduate high school, Nonnie. College isn’t for me.”

“You graduated, Mark.” Eighty-one-year-old Gloria Heber glanced pointedly at the GED certificate that she’d lovingly framed and hung on their living room wall next to a cheap Mona Lisa print that she’d also lovingly framed.

Mark didn’t put a lot of stock in a certificate he’d hardly had to work for. But he’d already played his age card. His grandmother didn’t think thirty was too old to start college. Not by a long shot. She’d spouted off a list of people, one of whom was in her sixties, that she’d heard of from so-and-so and such-and-such, who’d graduated from college.

“I’m a Bierly boy,” he said now, feeling like a twelve-year-old again as he faced down the determined curmudgeon who’d had him quaking in his boots since he wore baby booties. “I’ve never lived outside this town. Hell, I’ve never lived outside this house. And you want me to go all the way to Arizona? It’s a desert out there! And hot as Hades.”

Ella thought he was leaving. She’d gone to the pig roast. And then pretended like she’d had a good time. She’d also asked if he’d made his decision yet. And he figured, just as soon as he wrote and