Abby was honestly glad she’d come out with them, since neither woman used a cane and there was still storm debris everywhere. When she’d needled them about that, Bennie had sniffed. “What good would it do when we know every inch of this place by heart?” Then the pair had steadfastly made their way up the drive, walking arm in arm, chattering and finishing each other’s sentences.
“Be mindful that the ground is littered with branches,” Abby had said, certain that even Trudy’s keen sense of smell and Bennie’s acute hearing couldn’t detect every husk and twig. “Those kinds of things can trip up people with sight.”
“That’s why we have you,” Bennie had declared, squishing up her right eye in what passed for a wink.
“Perhaps we should contact the lumber mill or call for a wood chipper,” Trudy piped up, sticking in her two cents’ worth. “We should call Walter and see if he can come help us clean up besides.”
“Then you can get more practice flirting with the handyman, eh, Trude?” Bennie teased.
Figuring her aunts were too preoccupied to go anywhere for the next five minutes, Abby drifted away, moseying toward the rural road that ran perpendicular to the dirt drive and straight into town. The road was empty save for the dust kicked up in the wake of the utility truck that was heading off after fixing the cables. There was a pickup on the shoulder that Abby figured belonged to one of the deputies. Otherwise, all was clear.
She allowed herself to roam beyond the property line, across the unpaved lane to where a host of black-eyed Susans tipped their petals toward the sun. A carpet of violets had sprouted beneath, entangled with the clover.
How pretty that would be to paint, she mused and plucked a yellow flower, twirling its stem in her hand. In the city, there weren’t such colorful weeds. If she wanted to see flowers, it meant a walk to the florist or to the Lincoln Park Conservatory, where blooms could hardly be plucked at will.
She wondered if her baby would be happy here, if this would be a better place to rear her than Chicago. So much open space, wildflowers in abundance, bugs and toads and more birds than she could count on all her fingers and toes.
“How would you like to live here?” she asked down to her belly. “Maybe you’d like growing up on the farm as much as I did.”
Abby bit her lip at the idea, knowing she’d seriously have to think about it, depending on what happened with her and Nate. I would feel safe here, she knew. I would feel loved.
She meandered back across the road to the mailbox, its post engulfed in wild honeysuckle. The painted black box still said winston farm on the side. Although the name had faded through the years, Gretchen had never seen fit to change it. The metal door hung open, looking very much like a panting dog’s tongue. Abby reached out to shut it, remembering a time when she was a kid and had opened the door to find a bird trapped inside. With a squawk and a beat of its wings, it had swooped out, scaring her half to death.
Zzzzz. Zzzzz.
Startled, Abby dropped the black-eyed Susan she’d been holding, feeling her right butt cheek begin to vibrate. She’d stuck her cell phone in her rear pocket before they’d left in case she’d wanted to check her messages. Even a yard or two outside the fence was far enough away from the farm to get a signal.
She glanced at the familiar number and braced herself as she answered, barely getting out a civil “Hello, Nate” before he laid into her: “What the hell were you thinking, leaving Chicago without telling me? Haven’t you checked your voice mail? I’ve left a million messages!”
“You know I don’t get reception down here,” she reminded him, shoulders stiff, already on the defensive. “And the landline’s been out since yesterday’s storm.”
“If I hadn’t gone back to our place to get fresh clothes, I would never have seen your note. Why didn’t you tell me what you were up to? Am I supposed to be telepathic?”
“First off, I’m not up to anything.” Abby bristled. “And, second, I didn’t figure you’d care. Remember, you were the one who needed space,” she said, trying not to get worked up, thinking of the tiny baby in her belly and hoping it couldn’t sense her anxiety. “You’re the one who walked out, not me.”
“You’re the one who pushed me out—oh, for crying out loud,” he grumbled, and she could sense his reluctance to keep fighting. “Look, I’m not calling so we can rehash our argument.”
Then why was he calling?
Her eyes misting, she glanced up at the sky, which suddenly filled with a noisy murder of crows that decided to settle nearby on the repaired utility lines. How lovely it would’ve been if he’d told her he missed her, if he’d said he couldn’t stand another day without her. Instead, the first thing he did was lay into her about her trip to Walnut Ridge. Was this the kind of man she even wanted to help her raise her kid?
She drew in a deep breath and dared to ask, “So what do you want, Nate? And if you so much as raise your voice again, I’ll hang up,” she said, glancing back across the fence to see Bennie staring in her direction. She wondered if her aunt could hear her every word, no matter how quietly she spoke.
“What do I want?” he said, and he took a noisy breath. “I want to know why you’re keeping something from me, something I have every right to know.”
“And what would that be?” She stopped moving, though her pulse did the opposite, picking up its pace.
“Are you pregnant?” he blurted out, and Abby nearly fell over. “I found instructions for a pregnancy test in the bathroom,” he proceeded slowly, managing not to holler, “right there on top of the wastebasket. You must have ditched the sticks somewhere else because I couldn’t find them.”
“Oh,” slipped out of Abby’s mouth, and she thanked her lucky stars she’d put the test sticks and box into the pharmacy’s plastic bag before tossing it down the apartment’s garbage chute. She hadn’t realized she’d missed the directions. Although maybe it was one of those subconscious “accidentally on purpose” things.
“I just can’t believe you’d do that,” he went on, and she envisioned him pacing with his cell in one hand, tugging at his ear with the other. “Why would you keep this a secret from me?”
Abby wondered if it made her a bad person to feel good that he was angry, like at least she wasn’t the only one confused and hurting.
“Let’s not talk about this now, Nate,” she told him, lowering her voice. “We can discuss it when I’m back in Chicago.”
“And when will that be?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. She hadn’t planned to stay home more than a few days to talk to her mom and clear her head, but that was before she’d met the stranger who’d fallen from the sky, a man who might very well be her dad. “I still have things to sort out,” she added.
“I’m not kidding, Abby. Tell me the truth right now,” he said, his voice rumbling like distant thunder, “or, I swear to God, I will get in my car and drive down there this minute.”
“Sure you will,” Abby said, finding that hard to believe. He’d moved out two weeks ago, had not made any attempt to see her, had not said one kind word to her in this entire phone conversation, and she was supposed to buy that he’d drop everything and road-trip five-plus hours to Walnut Ridge to grill her on whether or not she’d seen two pink lines on a plastic stick?
If Nate had that kind of initiative, she’d love to see it.
“Don’t tempt me, Abby, because I will skip my afternoon meeting for this new app I’ve been working my butt off to finish, and I’ll leave Myron high and dry even though I promised we’d go out to dinner this evening—”
For crying out loud!
“Then do it,” she said with a hiss, losing patience with his threats. “For once in your life, Nathan March, quit making excuses! Just decide if I’m important enough and commit!”
Before he could sputter any kind of response, Abby ended the call and strode through the split-rail fence, her heart slamming against her ribs, trying hard not to hyperventilate.
Once s
he was back on the farm, she glanced at her phone to see zero bars, which was exactly what she’d expected. She had lost all reception. So if Nate wanted to reach her again, he’d have to phone the house—if the line was working—and deal with her mother first.
“Your call, Nate,” she said, feeling strangely liberated as she tucked her cell away.
Twenty-one
The phone rang, quite out of the blue.
Gretchen jumped at the noise. She hadn’t even realized the line was reconnected. She’d just shown the Man Who Might Be Sam to the sunroom, giving him clean linens for the day-bed since he’d be staying there for a while more. “I wouldn’t mind a lie-down right about now,” he’d confessed, touching fingers to his bruised forehead, and she’d left him alone to take a nap.
She was heading through the parlor, thinking about going upstairs for a rest herself, when the black beast began to trill. She quickly picked up the handset and said, “Hello?”
“Gretch? It’s Sheriff Tilby. Hold on to your hat ’cause I’ve got some mind-blowing news on that fellow you’ve taken into your house like a lost pup.”
Aw, shoot.
Gretchen sank down on the sofa, twirling the cord around her finger, a ball of tension knotting up in her belly. “Spit it out, Frank,” she demanded, despite the cotton dryness of her mouth.
“We found a 1974 Oldsmobile Cutlass half submerged in Fork Creek, just under the bridge. Driver must’ve lost traction when the storm hit, unless he’d already shucked the car to lie down in a ditch. Could be the twister tossed it when it was empty.”
He paused, and Gretchen wondered if he were waiting for applause. Instead, she begged, “Do go on. There’s more to this, I assume?”
“Yes, of course, there is, sorry,” he mumbled, and she heard the rustle of papers. “The plates were expired and rusty, like somebody had kept the car in an old barn for a spell. But we managed to trace the VIN.” The sheriff dramatically cleared his throat. “The car is registered to someone named Henry Little.”
Henry Little?
“So?” Gretchen felt a pounding at her temples. Why did Frank Tilby persist in playing guessing games? Did he do this with his deputies, too? If so, she was surprised they hadn’t shot him by now. She hardly knew what to say, and she very nearly plunked the telephone receiver back into its cradle. Bennie was right. He was persistent, worse than a stray dog with a bone. “What are you implying?”
“Wasn’t Sam Winston’s grandfather’s name Henry Littlefoot?” the sheriff asked, and she could hear the smirk in his voice.
Gretchen sighed. “Good God, Frank, everyone in town knows about Hank Littlefoot. And if there’s an ignorant soul who doesn’t, all he’d have to do is check the archives at the Historical Society. Sam’s family tree is not a secret.”
“No, it’s not a secret, is it?” the sheriff agreed. “Nothing that’s ever happened in Walnut Ridge is.”
“Could you just tell me what you’re getting at?” Gretchen twisted the phone cord around her finger until the tip turned white. “I’ve got better things to do than speculate about a car in a creek.”
“Hold your horses, missy,” Frank said, sniffing impatiently. “So I ran the name Henry Little through the system, and he was apparently a bona fide weasel. He racked up a long list of warrants in his prime. His full name is Henry Stewart Little, and he was a preacher out of Oklahoma who put down stakes in the Show Me State for a while. In fact he spent a few weeks right here in Walnut Ridge.”
“What’s that got to do with me?” Gretchen asked, having had just about enough. She untangled her finger from the cord. “Get to the point, or I’m hanging up.”
“Hear me out,” the sheriff growled.
Gretchen gritted her teeth, but she stayed on the phone.
“Henry S. Little was an evangelist who traveled around the Midwest, pitching a tent, and putting on a show. He took a lot of money from people who couldn’t afford to give it. Some of their families got wise and claimed fraud, trying to recover anything they could get.” He paused for air but picked up again before Gretchen could give him any flack. “Preacher Little told his flock he was heading off to do missionary work the last they saw him. No one’s heard from him in nearly twenty years, and no one might’ve ever heard from him again except for the car in the creek. You see what I’m getting at?”
Gretchen felt as foggy as the walnut grove had appeared earlier. “No, I haven’t a clue.”
“What if Sam Winston is really and truly dead, and this Henry Little knew enough about you and the twins and what happened to the Winstons to take advantage of the situation?” the sheriff ranted. “Like you said, it’s all there in the Walnut Ridge archives: Sam leaving on a youth mission for Africa, his going missing, Lily and Coop passing away and leaving the grove to you. Every bit of information’s laid out like an encyclopedia, and all he had to do was wait for the right moment. So good old Henry Little comes out of hiding, ditches his Olds, and shows up on your farm. Now he’s got you hooked on his amnesia story like worm bait to a hungry catfish, and he’s reeling you in.”
My word, if that didn’t sound like the plot for a really bad movie, Gretchen wasn’t sure what did.
“Good God,” she sputtered, unsure if she’d ever seethed before, but she was seething right that minute. “You’re certifiable,” she told the sheriff. “I’ve never heard such insanity in my life! You think the man I’ve taken in is a missing preacher who’s dodged the law for twenty years?” She paused to get a hold of herself, the pounding at her temples now a full-blown headache. “Stop this nonsense, Frank Tilby, do you hear me? Don’t bother me anymore!”
The man in her house—the man who’d kissed her—was either Sam Winston or his reincarnation. Gretchen knew it in her core. She didn’t say as much to the sheriff because she didn’t care whether or not he believed her. What mattered was her own heart, and it was telling her Sam had come home.
How else could she explain the inexplicable, like the storm that had come out of nowhere, the buds on the dead walnut trees, the mole on the back of his neck, the turquoise beads, and his remark about dragonflies? None of that was in the town archives.
“But, Gretchen, listen to me—”
“No, you listen to me,” she interrupted him. “Leave us alone, or I’ll phone Millie myself and tell her to keep you on a shorter leash. Now let’s say good-bye before this gets any nastier, shall we?”
“Gretchen Brink! You need to come to your senses, woman!” Tilby sputtered, turning quite blustery. “You’re a woman of a certain age pining for something that doesn’t exist! You always were a dreamer, wanting things you couldn’t have. You couldn’t even see when the right guy stood in front of you, and you blew it.”
Blew it with him? she wondered, knowing he didn’t mean her chance with Sam.
“Are you referring to yourself, Sheriff?” She could hardly keep from shouting. How preposterous could he get?
“At least I didn’t run off to Africa and leave a pregnant woman behind to bear my child alone.”
“No, you married a woman you didn’t love because it was the easy way out,” Gretchen replied, so agitated the receiver shook in her hand.
“Why don’t you calm down and see things rationally—”
“And why don’t you go to hell!”
She slammed down the handset and squeezed her eyes shut, pressing fingers to her forehead.
“Gretchen?”
Her heart in her throat, she swiveled around to see the man standing there. “How much did you hear?” she asked, wishing she’d never answered the phone. Wishing she’d told Tilby from the start to keep his damned nose out of her business.
“I heard enough,” he said, his eyes a slate gray above his high cheekbones.
“I’m so sorry, but the sheriff can’t seem to let this go.”
“Maybe it’s you he can’t let go of,” the man remarked and began walking toward her. “And every minute I stay here, I understand why more and more.”
She bit her bottom lip, unable to look away from him, thinking how the sum of his parts measured up to Sam Winston all right: his height, his slim build, the structure of his face, his reluctant smile, his strong but gentle demeanor. Only when he touched her now, when he drew her into his arms and held her there, pressing his chin against her hair, Gretchen felt something she’d never felt with Sam before.
A physical connection. A true spark.
One that had taken forty years to ignite.
Choices
Some choices we live not only once but a thousand times over, remembering them for the rest of our lives.
—RICHARD BACH
Twenty-two
July–August 1970
Sam Winston had barely seen Gretchen all summer, not since his high school graduation. She had been seated with his parents in the third row of the gymnasium, rising to her feet when he’d crossed the makeshift stage in cap and gown to receive his diploma. Her smile had glowed like a sunburst from amidst the dozens of other faces.
But that was back in early June, and it was already late July. He’d be taking off soon for a six-month humanitarian mission in Africa while Gretchen returned to school for her senior year. When he’d asked, she had come by the farm a while back to give him a haircut. But she hadn’t been by since. Sam wouldn’t doubt that she was wary of being around him, as he’d avoided her for months, sulking throughout the spring after her “can’t we just be friends” remark had ripped his heart out.
By the time he’d managed to swallow his pride and accept whatever terms she placed on their relationship, Gretchen had gotten a full-time job as a waitress at Patty Pig’s BBQ on the edge of town, where the rural route connected with the interstate highway. It kept her busy enough that she’d turned him down the last few times he’d tried to get together.
The Truth About Love and Lightning Page 20