by Becky Melby
“What they will listen to is you and Adam telling the truth about anything bad Ben has done to you. Any time he’s hurt either one of you or said things to make you feel bad about yourself.” He crumpled the empty can and tossed it. “You need to start being honest, Lex.”
“But what if he says bad things about you? What if we tell things about him, and then he tells things about you, and the court decides we can’t be either place and splits us up and puts us in different foster homes?” Her face crumpled. Tears poured.
Jake’s hands seized into fists. What kind of garbage was Ben filling their minds with? “Lex, there’s nothing he can say—”
“He knows things about you. What if he tells the judge that you got tickets for drunk driving or that you used to be Goth and you took drugs and got in a car accident?”
Closing his eyes, Jake breathed away fear. He’d had two DUIs before he was twenty. The car accident wasn’t his fault, though they’d both been drinking, and he’d smoked pot his first year in college then came to his senses and hadn’t touched it since. Old stuff. None of it would affect his chances—unless Ben had a lawyer who tried to make his past an issue. What scared him was knowing that Ben wasn’t as passive as he’d assumed. “Lex…” He tried to steady his voice, but it didn’t work. “All of that happened years ago. I was young and stupid. No judge is going to take that into consideration.”
“But it’s all true, isn’t it?”
Staring over her head at the little green tent, he sighed. “Yes. It’s all true.”
Jake stood on the second rung of the ladder in Emily’s new master bath, twisting wires and sorting through all Lexi had said. And not said.
“Would the judge think you could take care of us better if you were married?” she’d asked.
He’d answered her honestly. “Maybe.”
Lexi had smiled then. “I think so, too.” And then she’d asked if they were done talking and ran off to call Naomi.
“The judge isn’t the only one,” he muttered as he stripped a wire for the ceiling fan. Every encounter with Lexi over the past few weeks deepened his conviction that he wasn’t equipped to raise her alone. Adam he could handle, but he’d had no experience with the weird hormonal stuff.
Connecting the two black wires, he smiled at the irony. For the kids’ sake he’d tried to keep some emotional distance from Emily. Now, for the kids’ sake, he felt almost compelled to pursue her. As he loosened a screw in the mounting base, he worked on his side of a conversation he hoped to have after supper. I know you’re leaving, but—
The screen door banged downstairs. Jake sighed and mounted the antique-looking motor housing. He wasn’t up for any more twelve-year-old drama. Slow footsteps probably meant she was in tears again. “I’m in here.”
The sound stopped and he turned. The screwdriver slipped from his hand and hit the floor. “Emily. You scared me.”
“Sorry.” Her tone was flat, her face drawn.
He climbed down. “Hi.” He wasn’t sure what was supposed to follow that. “Do you like it? I can put the blades in so you can get the full effect.”
She shook her head. “It’s fine.”
Fine. It was a code word with women. The word was as neutral as Switzerland. The tone of delivery meant everything. It didn’t take a genius to break this one. Maybe the fan was okay, but nothing else was. And it was his fault.
He climbed down, wiped his hands on his jeans, and touched her elbow. She pulled away. He stuffed his hands in his back pockets. “I’m sorry about dinner the other night. Lexi—”
“I understand.”
He waited, watching as her lips pressed against each other and her blinking increased. It was hard not to smile. He’d seen the exact same look on Lexi’s face just hours ago. “I don’t.”
She looked at him. Probably involuntarily. Tiny ridges raised between her eyebrows.
“If you’re not mad about me cancelling out of dinner, I don’t understand what’s changed since Saturday. If I said something or didn’t say something, if I did something to upset you I—”
“I know about Heidi.” Narrowed eyes turned on him.
Jake swallowed hard. What did she know? And why did it matter now anyway? Only one person knew the things he wished no one knew, the things he’d confessed and repented and tried to forget. “Topher told you, didn’t he?”
Her chin drew back. “No?” She said it as a question.
“Then how—”
She sighed with so much force he felt it on his neck. “It doesn’t matter.”
Doesn’t matter how you heard or doesn’t matter what kind of a relationship I had with Heidi?
“I need to talk to you about the finishing work.”
No way was she going to throw a smoke bomb and then stand there as if she hadn’t just clouded everything between them. “I can understand why my relationship with Heidi might bother you, but considering what you told me at the cemetery, I don’t think you’re in any position—”
“What?” Her eyes blazed. Her hands flew to her hips. “You’re serious, aren’t you? Because I made mistakes in my past I’m supposed to be perfectly cool with you asking me out the night after you’re lovin’ on some—”
“Whoa! Stop. What in the world are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you and Heidi and disgusting love letters and—”
“Disgusting? Since when do you think the letters are disgusting and what does Heidi have to do with anything?”
“Not those letters, the ones under your—” Her mouth gaped. She spun around and headed for the stairs.
“Emily! Wait. You’re not making sense. I haven’t seen or talked to Heidi in over a year.”
She stopped, teetered, and grabbed the railing. “You haven’t?” She didn’t turn around.
“I broke up with her before Abby died. What’s this all about?”
A faint gasp echoed in the stairway. Her shoulders dropped and she sat down. “Jake?” Her voice was tight and hushed.
He walked down and sat one step below her.
“Did Heidi write you letters? Really mushy letters?”
He shrugged. “A few cards, I guess. She worked in our office. I saw her every day. Not much need for letters.”
Her eyes closed. The slightest smile curved one side of her mouth. “I think I’ve been had.”
“That’s cruel.” Emily couldn’t quite mask the smile Jake’s suggestion spawned. She reached overhead for the railing and pulled herself off the step. “You have to be sensitive to her feelings.”
“You dare accuse me of not being sensitive?” Jake clapped one hand to his chest. “Look at it this way—Lexi needs a graceful way out. If we treat it like we thought it was a practical joke, she can laugh her way back into my good graces. Either that, or I kill her.”
“Okay. I’m in. As long as you promise that after we get her, you have a heart-to-heart and convince her no one could ever take her place in your life.”
“I promise.”
This wasn’t going the way she’d planned. “Heidi’s” letters had steeled her with the strength she’d needed to march over here and tell Jake she was leaving. Yet here she stood, looking down at his perfectly disheveled hair, close enough to breathe in his earthy scent, laughing and conniving as if she weren’t ready to say good-bye.
October 23, 1852
Sweat dripped from Big Jim’s forehead. One foot tapped on a massive pumpkin as his fiddle rested on the knee of his breeches. Hands that seemed too large for such an instrument raised the bow again and coaxed the first few notes of “Miss McLeod’s Reel” from the strings. Music filled the barn and Hannah’s soul.
Across the room, Liam’s gaze swept the crowd and found her. He wore what appeared to be a new white shirt. Had his mother stitched it just for this night? His smile drew her—a pull she wouldn’t resist. Like the desert oases she’d read of, the space beneath fresh-cut beams, surrounded by newly raised walls, shut out the ugliness of the past few
days and sheltered them, for these few precious hours, from the fear they’d face come nightfall.
She stepped beside her father as two lines formed, women on one side, men on the other. Running damp hands along the paisley print of her skirt, she lifted her chin.
Just one dance.
Liam took his place and leaned forward enough to keep his eyes on her. As Hannah’s shoes hit the sawdust, Dolly brushed past her, strode behind the women, and planted herself directly across from Liam.
Hannah froze. The music picked up. The couple on the end closest to her joined hands and glided down the aisle then turned in a smooth half circle.
Cheeks burning, Hannah stood out from the safety of the crowd, by all appearances rejected. Head still held high, she turned and pushed through the wall of spectators. Pretending not to care, not to hear the whispers, she forced her feet to walk until she reached the stinging safety of the cold, late afternoon air.
The reel no longer tempted her feet to dance, but neither would she allow them to run. It wasn’t Liam’s fault that he danced with the girl with the fat curls pinned to one side of her head, the girl whose mother detested all that he stood for. She would wait for him here, knowing he would come for her when the song ended.
And he did, at a run. “Hannah! You know that was not of my doing.”
“I know.”
He took her hand, pulling her into the shadow of the barn. “Come here,” he whispered.
She slid easily into his arms. The sun was low, casting stretched-out shadows. “It will be dark soon. And the sky is clear. You’ll be traveling tonight, won’t you?”
He kissed the top of her head then lifted her chin. “I’ll need a memory to warm me.” His head bent. His lips touched hers—
A gasp, followed by stomping feet on hard-packed earth. “Hannah Shaw! You…traitor!” Dolly stood, hands on hips, eyes blazing.
Pulling away from Liam, she looked up at him. “Go inside. Let’s not draw a crowd.”
“I’ll be close,” he said, stepping around the corner.
“How could you?” Dolly took two giant steps until Hannah felt her breath on her face. “I claimed him.”
Hannah laughed, not intended, but fitting. “You cannot claim what belongs to another.”
“Belongs? What are you saying?”
Her hands dug into the fabric of her dress, her chin jutted forward. “Liam and I have been in love for many months.”
“You lie!”
“I do not. I have a box full of letters in my closet to pr—” Her hand flew over her mouth.
“Then it’s true, isn’t it? Liam and your father are working together to—”
“Hannah!” Liam rounded the corner, took her firmly by the elbow, and marched her away from the squawking Dolly Baker.
CHAPTER 25
Emily was breathing hard and laughing when she fell into a seat at the coffee shop. Adam plopped into the chair beside her, equally breathless. They’d tied in a power walk from her house, probably because he’d held back.
Adam craned his neck, looking out at the street. “Where is she?”
Scanning the little coffee shop’s midmorning patrons, Emily shrugged. “She’ll be here.” Dorothy’s brief, urgent call said simply, “Meet me at the coffee shop in five minutes.”
“This is so cool.”
Emily pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and slid it across the table. “Get me a regular coffee and a turnover and whatever you want.”
As she watched the front door, she added to the mental list of things she should have told Jake yesterday. But the laughter had felt so good and telling him now would put a damper on his get-even-with-Lexi scheme.
Adam returned with two blueberry turnovers just as Dorothy walked in.
“I got to thinking about that letter Hannah sent from Missouri, so I contacted a friend”—words tumbled out as Dorothy pulled out a chair—“in St. Louis and told her about it and she and her husband drove down to Fredericktown and started asking around. Look what they found.” She shoved a curling scroll of shiny paper, the kind used in old fax machines, across the table. Adam secured the corners with salt, pepper, and the turnover plate.
“My friend Delores talked to a man who does Civil War reenactments, and he got her in touch with a lady who’s writing a book about several families in the area, and she directed Delores to the Dillard family who are shirttail relatives to the Greenes and a Marvin Greene, who is five generations down from the woman this letter was written to, let her copy this letter and said he might have more written by this same man.” She stopped for a desperately needed breath. “Read it.” She dabbed her flushed face with a tissue. “This is like a puzzle, isn’t it? We had one piece, and now we add this. If only…”
Adam’s toe did a steady tap on Emily’s shoe as she tried to read over Dorothy’s endless words. What would happen to the woman’s blood pressure when Emily revealed the other pieces to the puzzle? With discreet finesse, Emily let her hair fall over her cheek and slipped her finger in her ear. With the commentary muffled, she read:
Rochester, Wisconsin
June 27, 1854
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Greene,
With some distress I write this letter, hoping not to alarm you, but that you may put my mind at ease. I have received a good word that is of great importance to a mutual friend of ours, but our friend has not answered the letter I posted on April 21. Something in her most recent letter leads me to believe she may have departed in search of the good news I wish to report to her. I do hope I am wrong and she is safe and sound with you and her father. If they are not with you and you know where I might find either of them, please answer as soon as you are able.
James P. Thornton
Adam squinted. “I don’t get it.”
Dorothy clapped her hands. “Neither do I. But isn’t this delicious? A true mystery. James P. Thornton is Big Jim, the blacksmith, so we’ve solved one little part. But what is the good news and who is the friend?”
Hand sliding over his mouth, Adam grabbed the crumpled dollar bills on the table. “I’ll get you some coffee, Mrs. Willett.” With that, he jumped up and bolted to the counter. All, Emily was sure, to keep from laughing or blurting something he shouldn’t.
Emily stared at the little woman on the other side of the table. Dorothy knew people. She had connections and resources that could prove invaluable in discovering if Hannah and her man were ever reunited. But could she be trusted? Emily traced the outline of a purple iris on the side of her cup. Should she take a chance? “Dorothy, if I told you something in confidence, something very, very important, could I trust you to keep it to yourself?”
“They talked to you, didn’t they? I knew they would.”
“They? They who?”
“The ghosts. Hannah, Elizabeth…you’ve heard them, right?”
Adam returned at just the wrong time. Though he clearly tried to temper his reaction, coffee splashed over the side of the cup, just missing the fax. “You heard the ghosts?”
“No.” Emily couldn’t look at him and maintain any level of composure. A gulp of coffee scalded her mouth, but quelled the laugh spasm. “We found other letters. In the house.”
Dorothy shrieked. A bald man at a table near the window mopped coffee from his newspaper. “You okay, Mrs. Willett?”
“I’m fine, Ernie. I just heard some good news.”
“Good news is meant to be shared.” The man winked at her.
“I know.” Dorothy sighed. “Just not quite yet.” She turned back to Emily. “Oh my.” She fanned her face with a napkin. “May I see them?”
“Of course.” And maybe I’ll throw in a little extra surprise. Should she have portable oxygen on hand if she decided to show her the cellar?
“We haven’t had a new discovery for quite some time. When Madison hears…eventually…” Dorothy shielded her mouth with her hand. “You do plan on making them public, don’t you? I won’t tell a soul what’s in them or who wrote them, I promise, but
at some point…”
“Yes. Of course. But don’t you think we should keep it quiet while we solve a bit more of this puzzle?”
“Ooh.” Faded eyes seemed to draw color from the excitement. “Yes.” She glanced at the bald man. “Absolutely.” One finger crossed her lips. “Mum’s the word, my dear.”
Adam held Mrs. Willett’s car door open as she said good-bye to Emily for the fourth time.
“You talk to your lawyer and I’ll talk to mine and as soon as you get the papers drawn up I’m ready to sign.” She finally sat down in the car, but before Adam could close the door, she popped out again. “Don’t worry about landscaping. It will be a good reason for my son to come home.”