by Nicole Helm
“North Star came up with a plan,” Shay said calmly. “It’s been approved by the feds. Holden’s agreed. Your mother has agreed. You don’t have to. You have an equal say in this, but before being angry about how we came up with the plan without you, why don’t you let us tell you what it is.”
Willa didn’t know what to say or feel, but Shay’s calm helped some. “All right.”
“In this plan, the North Star tech team would pull the necessary strings to have William, Vera and Willa Zimmerman die in a car accident tomorrow. This will keep those that have your name from coming after you. We think we have most of the men with your name currently being processed by the feds, but this is an extra precaution.”
Willa looked at Mom. “So, we just wouldn’t exist?”
“You’d be dead,” Shay said. She was so calm, so straightforward it didn’t feel quite as crazy as it should. “Which means your farm would go up for auction. A nice young couple named Holden and Harley Parker would purchase the farm, to live in with Holden’s mother, Reeva Parker.” Shay nodded at Willa’s own mother. “There’d be no connection to who you were, and you wouldn’t have to leave. We can create whatever kind of cover we need for Holden so he wouldn’t have to be here 24/7.”
24/7. Because Holden was still an operative. Not...hers.
“What about...” Willa didn’t know how to bring up Dad. She didn’t know how not to.
“A man by the name of Josh Parker, Holden’s father and Reeva’s estranged husband, will be placed in a psychiatric hospital. Should he recover, it’s very possible he could join you here,” Shay continued in her very bland tone.
Willa felt like her mind was whirling in circles. They were going to fake kill her off. Like a soap opera. Except this wasn’t some brand-new identity she was being given. Not exactly.
“But it’s your name,” Willa said, staring at Holden. He was giving her family his name.
“Holden Parker doesn’t exist and hasn’t since I joined North Star.” He shrugged. “It’s a good enough name to give.”
Willa pushed out a breath. “I don’t know what to say.”
Mom cleared her throat, and Shay pushed back from the table. She nodded at Holden, and without a word, they left the room so that it was just her and her mother.
“Mom...”
“I know this is a lot. But I’d hoped... You’d still have this place. You’d still get to be you. It would give your father and I a chance to quit in a way we’ve never been able to.” Mom’s eyes were shiny with tears, but they didn’t fall. She squeezed Willa’s hand fiercely. “I want you to be safe, and I want you to have what we couldn’t give you before. This does that. But if you don’t want it...”
“I want it. I do.” They were giving her the life she’d always wanted. Separate from what her parents were. “Would you quit?”
Mom nodded. “I told Shay that I could help her group as a kind of consultant if North Star ever needed it, but I don’t want to be in the field anymore. Not after...” She swallowed. “Your father has been unraveling for a while now. I didn’t know how to stop it. I didn’t know how to get us out. So I just kept pressing forward, hoping something would...get better. I’m sorry it took...this. But this is what he needs. To be out.”
“He tried to kill us.”
This time a tear did fall over Mom’s cheek. “I know. And I know he would have done it. He was...so lost. So broken. The stress of what we’d done... He couldn’t handle it, and I can’t... Oh, Willa, I know it’s awful. I wish I could be angry, but I’m only sad.”
Willa swallowed at her own lump and nodded. “Me too. He wasn’t...him. Even when he was fighting me, it was like I was fighting someone else.”
Mom nodded. “So, with this plan, he gets help. And maybe he comes home. Maybe he doesn’t. I can’t think that far ahead. I just know...when you love someone, you figure it out. I love your father. I... I know he would have killed us. I don’t know how to reconcile that. His brain let him down. It couldn’t bear the weight of the stress any longer. I saw it coming, but I just kept hoping...” She shook her head. “We’ll get him the help he needs. One step at a time.”
One step at a time. Willa took a deep breath. “Okay. I’ll do it.”
“I don’t want you to do it just for us. Just for him. I want—”
“Mom, I love you. And Dad. And this place. And in this scenario, I get everything I love, everything I want.” She thought of having Holden’s name. But would she have him?
One step at a time.
“We’ll do it. We’ll become new people and have new lives.” Willa smiled and squeezed her mother’s hand. “And we’ll be together. There’s nothing I want more than to have that.”
* * *
HOLDEN FELT LIKE Willa had been inside forever. Shay had gone to her room to check in on Sabrina’s progress. Holden had needed fresh air. The stars.
He paced the porch, Jim at his heels. Waited forever and ever. When Willa finally came outside, Holden felt like his nerves were strung so tight they’d snap. But he’d made his choices, hadn’t he?
She looked down at Jim, watching Holden’s every move. “You have a devotee.”
“Yeah, he’s all right.”
She smiled at that.
Ever since Shay had brought to him her plan to give Willa and her family new identities, he’d had a plan. She could have what he’d lost. A family with his name. He’d give it to her willingly. He’d protect her with everything he was, even if it was simply a name.
But it was bigger than that, and he didn’t know how to tell her. Didn’t know how to...explain anything. Which was why he ended up sounding like an idiot.
“We, uh, have to get legally married. I mean, the tech team is going to forge it, but it’ll be...a legal thing even though we didn’t...”
She cocked her head and studied him. “I’ve never seen you quite so nervous.”
He straightened. “I’m not nervous.”
“You seem very nervous about legally marrying me via forged document.”
He sighed. “Well, you’re back to your normal self.” Thank God.
She smiled up at him. “I’m getting there.”
She stood there in the evening dark, haloed by the lights on inside the house. Her house. Our house. She was...like no one he’d ever known. She’d chained him to a bed. She’d fought him. She’d survived all this and could still...smile. Even after she’d cried.
There were things in front of them that wouldn’t be easy, but that didn’t change what he felt. What he wanted. “I love you.”
“That sounded less nervous.”
“Damn it, Willa.”
“I think I’m Harley now.”
He pulled her to him, because she was toying with him and he probably deserved it. “You’re still Willa. You’ll always be Willa. You’re safe now.” He let out a long breath, framing her face with his hands, careful of the bandage. “I want to make us work, I do. But I have to go. Sabrina’s trying to stop a hit man from taking out the name your mother gave us. She’s like...my sister. If I can help, I have to.”
Willa nodded, wrapping her arms around his neck. “But you’ll come back.”
“If you want me back.”
“We’re going to be married, as far as I can tell, so you kind of have to.”
“It’s not real. I mean, it’s real, but... You can have that life you wanted. Where you talk to the lady at the post office and have friends and... You might find there’s someone better suited to—”
“I won’t find you out there, and you’re who I want. Maybe it’s soon and fast, and maybe we’ll find out something that can’t be overcome. But I doubt it. Because I love you, and when you love someone, you choose... You choose to figure it out.”
Choose. That was a word that hit him hard. “I didn’t get to choose when I was a kid. Losing my par
ents. My siblings. I didn’t have a choice in any of that. I think I went through life without making any real...choices. Not the kind you build your life on. Because you’re right, I didn’t care if I was alive. At best, I cared about doing a little good in the world, but that was only at best.”
“Your best is pretty good, Holden Parker.”
He didn’t realize he’d needed to hear that. Needed someone to say, out loud and to his face, that he’d done okay.
“Go. Help your sister. Then come back to me, and Jim. In one piece.”
He lifted her hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to her palm. “I promise.”
That was a promise Holden kept.
* * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from Spring at Saddle Run by Delores Fossen.
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Spring at Saddle Run
by Delores Fossen
CHAPTER ONE
MILLIE PARKMAN DAYTON muttered a single word of profanity when she looked at the name on the sliver of paper that she’d just drawn from the bowl.
A really bad word.
One that would have gotten her mouth washed out with soap had she still been a kid. Because it’d been a while since anyone had crammed a bar of Dial Antibacterial into her mouth, Millie steeled herself for a mouth washing of a whole different kind.
Sitting in the front row in the town hall of Last Ride, Texas, Millie’s mother, Laurie Jean Parkman, gasped and then lost nearly every drop of color in her face. No easy feat, considering she was wearing her usual full coverage makeup. After the color drained, her mom pulled out the mountain-size emotional guns.
Tears filled her eyes.
Narrowed eyes that had also gotten the full makeup treatment. Laurie Jean’s now hot baby blues warned Millie she’d better think fast and figure out a way to erase everyone’s memory of what she’d just said.
Making waves brings shame—that was Laurie Jean’s motto. It wasn’t exactly needlepointed on pillows around the Parkman house, but it’d been served up verbally and often enough with morning oatmeal and the occasional mouthful of Dial Antibacterial.
Shocked chatter rippled through the town hall. There’d be gossip. Then, pity and forgiveness. Millie knew the folks of her hometown of Last Ride would cut her enough slack to overlook the f-bomb. More slack than she would ever deserve.
Because she was a twenty-nine-year-old widow.
And because everyone in the room knew why she’d cursed. With the name she’d just drawn, life had just given Millie a big f-bomb poke in the eye.
Twenty Minutes Earlier
THE GLASS BOWLS filled with names sat like giant judging eyeballs on the table in front of the Last Ride town hall. Someone on the Last Ride Society Committee—obviously, someone with an inappropriate sense of humor—had put labels on them.
“Bowl o’ Names” on the left.
Not to be confused with bag o’ salad or Bowl o’ Tombstones on the judgy glass “eyeball” on the right.
Millie’s stomach fluttered because she knew her name was in the left bowl, a place it’d been for eight and a half years since her twenty-first birthday. She was in good, and also bad, company since the name of every living adult Parkman relative in Last Ride was in that mix with her.
At last count there were about three hundred and eighty, and names were added as her cousins, nieces, nephews, etc. came of age. Names were subtracted when cousins, nieces, nephews, Parkman spouses, etc. passed. Or fulfilled their assignments.
The right bowl was jammed with folded slivers of paper with names, as well. No more coming of age for these folks though. These were names taken from the tombstones in all the local cemeteries. Millie didn’t find it comforting that the Bowl o’ Tombstones was stuffed to the brim.
And that her husband’s name was in there.
It had been for twenty-two months since Royce had been killed, and his name had been crammed in the mix shortly thereafter. Millie hoped it stayed there until she was part of the whole “ashes to ashes/dust to dust” deal. Then, some unlucky Parkman kin could have a go at doing their duty and do the research that would almost certainly stir up more gossip than it already had.
The memories came. Of Royce’s fatal car wreck. Of the fact that Millie could no longer remember his taste. His scent. Or the last time Royce had told her he loved her. But there was something she could recall in perfect detail.
That what she’d had with Royce had been a big fat lie.
Millie felt the memories and the lies roll into a hot ball, one that would surely spiral her into a panic attack if she didn’t stop it. She needed fresh air, but bolting now would cause every eye in the room to turn and look at her.
To pity her.
To whisper about her behind her back.
Millie didn’t want the pity any more than the gossip or the memories so she started silently repeating the mantra that she’d latched on to shortly after the panic attacks had started.
Beyond this place, there be dragons.
It was something she’d seen written on an antique map, a way to warn travelers of dangers ahead. A beautiful map of golden land and teal green waters. The image of it soothed her and sometimes—sometimes—it reminded her not to go beyond the gold and teal. That if she crossed over into the dragon pit of grief, she might never come back.
Beyond this place, there be dragons.
The back door opened, bringing in yet more heat and a spear of the May sun that would warm things up even more before it set in a couple of hours. The trio of overhead fans whirled, scattering the heat, some dust motes and the clashing scents of perfumes that the majority of attendees had splashed on.
“I volunteer as tribute,” the newcomer called out.
The newcomer, Frankie McCann, was decked out in a full Hunger Games/Katniss Everdeen costume, the cool leather one from the scenes in the last movie. She’d even braided her hair, but unlike Katniss, Frankie’s locks were a blend of pink, peach and canary yellow.
Frankie’s announcement caused a few giggles, including a hoot, holler and a knee slap from Alma Parkman, the president of the Last Ride Society. There were also some scowls as the “eyes” turned toward the back of the hall. Millie tried to poker up her face and show nothing. Because pretty much any kind of reaction from her would spur more of that pity and gossip. Millie also kept that blank face when Frankie sank down beside her.
Even if Frankie hadn’t come decked out as Katniss, her presence would have stirred up talk, but Frankie had a right to be here. Seven years earlier, when Frankie had been barely twenty-one, she’d married Tanner Parkman, Millie’s brother, and even though they’d divorced only a year later, Frankie had given birth to Tanner Junior. Or Little T as people called him. Since there hadn’t been a provision in the Last Ride Society to remove divorcées or those who’d given birth to Parkmans, Frankie had remained in the Bowl o’ Names. Much to the disapproval of those, well, who disapproved of a lot of things.
“Hey, this is a good turnout,” Frankie remarked. Her voice was like a perky dose of sunshine. Not the kind to give you heatstroke but the extra sunny kind that felt good after a long winter.
“It is,” Millie agreed. Though it was the usual turnout as far as she could tell.
There were about eighty people who fell into one of three categories. Those who truly wanted to honor their founder and ancestor, Hezzie Parkman. Those with too much time on their hands who came for Alma’s homemade snickerdoodles and any gossip they might have missed. And the final group was those who made time and came only out of a sense of duty.
Millie was in that last batch.
As for Frankie, she was all about honoring the founder, eating the snickerdoodles and apparently having fun while doing it. Then again, having fun pretty much defined Frankie’s attitude about life.
Millie envied that attitude. That warm sunshine voice. Heck, she envied Frankie. But admitting that would only put her and her mom and dad under more scrutiny. Her folks didn’t need any scrutiny—as Laurie Jean so often told her.
Plenty of times her mom dressed down Tanner. And Frankie. That’s because Tanner had a habit of doing whatever the heck pleased him and no longer feared Dial Antibacterial threats. Frankie owned a costume and party supply shop and also did tats and piercings on the side. While she was good at her chosen profession, it wasn’t a profession that met with Laurie Jean’s approval. Also, Frankie wasn’t a Parkman, or a Dayton like Royce, so DNA and career choices counted against her. In Laurie Jean’s mind, a lot of things counted against a lot of people.
“Heard about what happened at the gallery,” Frankie muttered to Millie.
Millie suspected—no, she knew—everyone in Last Ride had heard about what had gone on at Once Upon a Time, the antiques and art gallery that Millie’s grandmother had left her.
“What a mess, huh?” Frankie remarked.
“Yes,” Millie agreed. “Mess is definitely the right word for it.”
Two very large macaws, Dorothy and Toto, had escaped from the pet store and had flown into Once Upon a Time when someone opened the door. Along with spilling Millie’s megaslurp of coffee and scattering her stash of cherry Jolly Ranchers on the floor, the birds had toppled tables, knocked down paintings from easels and pooped on a Victorian silver nut spoon before being caught.