A Good Day for Chardonnay (Sunshine Vicram #2) by Darynda Jones

Her mom eased forward. “Cruz, honey, how about you step away from that ledge?”

Auri hadn’t even considered that. Her heart leapt into her throat when she realized how close he was. He wore old jeans and a loose T-shirt and he was shivering. He was shivering and wounded and in pain and Auri’s heart shattered.

He turned back and looked over his shoulder. “He can’t spend his birthday in a box.”

“Cruz,” Auri said, fighting Quincy.

“Can we come up?” her mom asked.

He lifted a shoulder and nodded.

Her mom gave Quincy the go-ahead and they climbed the rocks together. A few feet in front of him was a chain-link barrier no more than four feet high. If he were going to jump, he would have to climb over it first.

Auri put her arm on his shoulder. He held the box in both hands as if it were a precious thing. His cheeks were wet and dirty and his hair mussed. He just seemed so lost.

Her mom stood on the other side of her and Quincy on the other side of Cruz.

Cruz held out his elbow like he wanted her to wrap her arm in his, so she did. The lump in her throat grew bigger as he opened the box and gave his dad to the wind. He fought for control as a sob racked his body. Quincy wiped his eyes with one hand and she could hear her grandma weeping softly below them.

He put the lid on the box and reached into his jeans. “I did what you said. I wrote a poem.”

“Cruz, he would’ve loved that.”

But he handed her the folded piece of paper. “Would you mind?”

Did he want her to read it aloud? She stood confused until he stepped out of her embrace and eased closer to the barrier. She realized what he was doing.

She opened the paper and, with the help of Quincy’s flashlight, read the first line as Cruz signed it almost bashfully for his dad.

“If you can hear now, Dad, don’t let it worry you.” Her voice broke, but she continued. “The sound of happiness is summer rain as it falls on the porch. The sound of joy is the pop and hiss of a soda can opening. The sound of excitement is paper crumpling on Christmas morning.”

His signing wasn’t dramatic or sensational or boisterous. It just was. It was his message to his dad. A private thing made public, but still a private thing.

“The sound of serenity,” she continued through her constricted throat, “is an ocean wave rushing onto sand. The sound of sorrow is a sparrow singing to her lost mate. The sound of regret because things were left unsaid is thunder rumbling in the distance. It’s half-spoken words. And sometimes it’s no sound at all. But the sound of love is the loudest. It’s the sound of my heartbeat every time I think of you.”

Auri had to stop and catch her breath. Her mom sniffed beside her and rubbed her back. Cruz waited, his head down, for her to finish.

“If you can hear now, Dad, I hope you hear me talk to you sometimes and I hope you like my voice, because if you can hear now, Dad, my voice will be all of those things, and everything else you ever taught me. Thank you.”

He signed, thank you, looking at the ground because he could hardly stand on his own anymore. Quincy rushed forward and wrapped an arm around him to take his weight as, one by one, lights started flickering in the mountains around them.

Auri watched and realized they were candles being lit in the distance. And then closer, down the mountain around them, a curtain of glimmering lights, casting a soft glow.

“Cruz,” she said, pointing.

He wiped his eyes and looked out over the canyon at the hundreds of candles being lit in honor of his father. He took her hand and began sobbing in earnest on Quincy’s shoulder. Quincy hugged him and cried, too. They pulled her mom into their huddle, then Quincy lifted Cruz into his arms.

“I can walk,” he said in protest, though it was a weak one.

Quincy shook his head. “I gotcha, kid.”

Her mom led them down the trail with the flashlight as Auri took one last look into the canyon. Levi stood a little farther down. He looked up at her, smiled sadly, then turned and headed back to his truck.

Quincy took Cruz to his house to grab his things, the basic necessities, insisting he stay with him. Auri’s mom promised to sort it out, telling him he could stay with Quincy as long as he could put up with a man with a bacon tattoo.

“Hailey has offered her home, too,” Quincy said. “If you would feel more comfortable there. To be honest, half the town has offered. You can pretty much take your pick of places to crash.”

That seemed to surprise her mom, but she nodded. It would make sense for Cruz to stay with Hailey. They certainly had the room, and she had Jimmy. Either way, Cruz wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.





31


If that annoying knock is coming

from the motor and not the trunk,

stop by for a free checkup.

—SIGN AT GARY’S GARAGE




She rode with Deputy Tricia Salazar on the way to the Ravinder compound. The young deputy seemed nervous, and Sun couldn’t imagine why.

“Everything okay, Salazar?”

“Of course,” she said, a little too quickly. She had the chubbiest cheeks Sun had ever seen. And the biggest eyes. That combination made people underestimate her. Question her intelligence, which Sun had learned firsthand was a mistake. “Absolutely.”

“But?” Sun asked.

She drove through the picturesque Sangre de Cristos with both hands on the wheel, gripping it perhaps a little too tight. “It’s just, well, I’m not on the schedule for next week.”