The Bridge (12 page)

Ryan couldn’t stay, couldn’t stand to breathe in the dank musty air where once life had shone so brightly. He took a final look and returned to the counter for the scrapbook. Then he drove home and sat at his desktop computer. It was time to get busy.

Time to tell Charlie Barton’s family what had happened.

T
he opening page of Charlie’s scrapbook doubled Ryan’s determination. The book was a gift from Edna Carlton, a woman Ryan didn’t know. But her words gave him a single-minded purpose. She wrote that The Bridge had given her a second chance at life.

It was exactly what Charlie needed. A second chance.

Ryan made a few phone calls and easily convinced the owner of Sally’s Mercantile to set up a donation center for anyone wanting to help Charlie. He worked through the scrapbook like a detective, and by three o’clock that afternoon he had written private Facebook messages to thirty-seven former customers of The Bridge. His message was the same to all:

You don’t know me, but we have something in common. At one point we found solace at Charlie Barton’s bookstore in downtown Franklin. The Bridge made a difference for me, and I know it made a difference for you because I found your name in Charlie’s scrapbook of customers
.

People he considered family
.

Now Charlie is in trouble. He was in a serious car accident yesterday afternoon and today he’s fighting for his life at Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville. That’s not all. The Bridge suffered devastating damage in the flood that hit eighteen months ago. Charlie tried to reopen, but he didn’t have the funds or the books and the place remains closed. The accident happened after Charlie had given up all hope of ever opening his doors again
.

I’m not sure how you can help. But I’m asking you to join me in praying for a miracle for Charlie Barton. The miracle of a second chance. Beyond that, if you’re in the area, there’s a donation drop-off set up at Sally’s Mercantile. We’re looking for books, new, old, used, anything you can give. I’d like Charlie to wake up to more books than he knows what to do with
.

Charlie loved all of us. Now it’s our turn to love him
.

Sincerely, Ryan Kelly

Ryan felt his hope rising. Certainly, this many people could make a difference. But by late that evening he was deeply discouraged. Though he checked every hour, none of the former customers had responded. Then Donna called with an update. Charlie was clinging to life, but he’d made no improvements.
Please, God . . . don’t let it end this way for Charlie
. Ryan stayed by his laptop through the night, but by the time he turned in, he had heard from only two
customers, both of whom promised to pray. But since they now lived out of the area, they couldn’t do much more.

What good could possibly come from such a weak response? The prayers were great, but where would the books come from? Ryan felt drained physically and emotionally. He would try again tomorrow, contact the
Tennessean
about the city getting behind a book drive for The Bridge, and maybe try to find the rest of the customers. He was surprised how many weren’t on Facebook, but maybe if he Googled their names, he’d get further. Even then he doubted he’d find the one person he was desperate to find. The person who would care about Charlie Barton’s tragedy as much as he did. The girl he had thought about every hour of that sad day.

Molly Allen.

C HA P T E R  E I G H T

T
he week before Christmas was insanely busy at the animal rescue shelter. Parents needed gifts for their kids, and by that Friday, four days before Christmas, lots of people were practically desperate. A rescued pet was often the perfect solution. That and the fact that hearts were softer this time of year—more willing to help, more open to visiting the shelter and leaving with a cat or dog.

Molly hadn’t seen so many animals leave with homes since she’d opened the foundation. Even better, she had authorized fourteen music scholarships for kids from foster homes. A music scholarship came only after a child had been a part of the Allen Foundation’s music development program through high school. The years of work with her foundation were paying off. Lives were being changed.

The work had been arduous, since Molly liked to be in on researching each scholarship application and the extent of the need. Still, as she walked into her apartment late that afternoon, as she shook off her umbrella and flipped on the lights, she felt more satisfied than she had all month. She brewed a pot of coffee and opened a can of food for her cat.

“It’s going to be a good Christmas, Sam.” She liked to tell the cat things like that. Saying them out loud made them easier to believe.

Sam meowed in her direction and turned his attention to his food bowl.

Molly pulled out her phone and checked her schedule. She had a show tonight with the children’s theater, a performance of
The Nutcracker
. Call time was in two hours. She could hardly wait to be surrounded by the music, lost in the story. The play’s director had pulled her aside after the first rehearsal. “You have the talent to play first violin.” She’d raised her brow. “But you don’t have enough time. Or do you?”

“I don’t.” Molly had appreciated the compliment. She might not have made it to the New York Philharmonic, and she might never play Carnegie Hall, but
she had never let her dream die. Tonight she would play second violin.

She smiled. Ryan would have been happy about that, at least.

Her coffee was ready. Molly poured herself a steaming mug, added an inch of organic half and half, and sat down at the kitchen counter. She picked up her phone and thumbed her way to the Twitter app. Time didn’t allow her to check in often, but it was one way to stay in touch with people in the music business, as well as contacts and friends she’d made in Portland. Facebook was too time-consuming, but Twitter was doable.

She scrolled down the timeline, smiling at the occasional reference to shopping frenzies at the mall and failed attempts at wrapping gifts. Then something caught her eye. Maybe out of nostalgia for the past, Molly followed @VisitFranklin—a Twitter account that kept her posted on the happenings of the town she once loved. Somewhere in her heart, she probably hoped to see occasional updates on The Bridge or Ryan Kelly, but that never happened and she generally breezed over the town’s posts.

This one made her set her coffee down, made her
breathing quicken. The tweet didn’t contain much information, but it was enough.

Charlie Barton, owner of The Bridge, still in ICU after car accident. Find out how you can help
. At the end of the tweet was a link, and Molly clicked it, her heart skittering into a strange rhythm. Charlie Barton? In ICU? A website opened with a photo of Charlie and another of The Bridge. The headline read
FRANKLIN RALLIES IN SUPPORT OF LOCAL BOOKSTORE OWNER
. Molly stared at it and then at the pictures.

It wasn’t until she started reading the article that she gasped out loud. Once she got past the details of Charlie’s accident and the devastating effects of the Nashville flood on his store, she reached the part about the book drive.

The effort is spearheaded by Ryan Kelly, one of Barton’s longtime customers and a resident of Nashville. Kelly is a professional guitarist who spent the last five years touring with one of the nation’s top country bands.

Molly read the line two more times. She felt a smile start in her heart and work its way to her face. “You
did it, Ryan . . . you chased your dream.” She spoke to the article as if he could hear her. He had done what he told her he’d do, and now he was the one leading the charge for Charlie Barton. Sadness came over her again. She would do whatever she could to help Charlie. At the bottom of the article was information on how to reach Ryan, a Facebook link, and the phone number of Sally’s Mercantile.

She checked the time. It was two hours later in Nashville, too late to do anything now. As she finished her coffee and dressed for the show, she couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened. The flood and Charlie Barton’s accident and Ryan’s determination to repay the man for his contribution to the people of Franklin. He had probably married his Mississippi girl and moved her to middle Tennessee. By now he might have a family, two or three children.

As she took her seat for second violin and the opening performance of the weekend run, as she felt the music come to life beneath her fingertips, she was comforted by one thought. For all she didn’t know about Ryan Kelly, she knew this much. Their time together at The Bridge had to count for something.

Because he had followed his dream.

T
chaikovsky’s music spoke to Molly the way it always did. This time it swept her from the small theater into the past, to the days when she first studied the composer at Belmont University. When they reached the second act and the song for Clara and her prince charming, Molly felt like she was playing a soundtrack to every wonderful moment she’d ever shared with Ryan.

The haunting strains of the violin seemed to cry out the question wracking her heart, the one that wouldn’t leave her alone. What had happened? How could he have kissed her that way, held her so closely, and looked at her with the certainty that their friendship had turned a corner? How could he have been so convincing in his feelings for her and then apologized the next day?

One song led to the next, and with every stanza, a plan began to form. She needed to get to Franklin, to the hospital room of Charlie Barton. She had two performances tomorrow, but Sunday was open. She could fly to Nashville in the morning and be at Charlie’s bedside before nightfall. Her staff could carry on here, and she could fly home Christmas Eve.

There was one problem.

She had no idea what to do if she ran into Ryan. His pity, his apology, had been part of the reason why she’d left Belmont and made her father happy by returning home. She couldn’t stay at school knowing Ryan didn’t share her feelings. Her heart would’ve broken again every day. Ryan had chosen the girl back home over her. She had no way around that fact.

So what about now? How would she feel running into him, seeing his wife on his arm, and facing the awkward moments that were bound to follow? As the ballet ended, she thought of a way. It wouldn’t protect her heart, but it would protect her from his sympathy. She’d do what other girls had done to look taken, what her receptionist did when she went out with friends just so guys wouldn’t hit on her. It might’ve been an old ploy and a little outdated, but it would get her through the weekend.

She would wear her mother’s wedding ring.

He would think she’d gone home and fallen hard for Preston, and he wouldn’t question her, wouldn’t feel sorry for her. In that way—and only in that way—could she work alongside him and his wife. She could do her part to help Charlie Barton. Maybe she could
even find a way to tell him she was sorry, add her apology to his. She could let him know that she never meant for their friendship to cross lines. It was a crazy idea then, and it seemed even crazier now. In light of where life had taken them.