by Tanya Agler
Caleb folded his arms and closed himself off. He must believe she’d purposely tried to defraud the bank to gain money for a mortgage. Bile rose in her throat and she gripped the table, eager to find anything solid, anything dependable.
“What’s your suggestion?” Caleb’s wry tone didn’t escape her, and her mind kept spinning.
“Simple, really. Mrs. Decker sells this house, as well as the wellness property, to the bank. The proceeds will benefit the victims of her and her ex-husband’s schemes. After all, this might be the proof the district attorney needs to connect her crimes to Mr. Decker’s. If she sells and the proceeds are distributed in a fair manner benefiting those who’ve lost so much, I’m sure the DA will look favorably on you over such an action.”
Garrity’s words hung over the table, and every muscle in Lucie’s body melted away to nothingness. Of course, Caleb would want her to go along with this. His parents’ future would be secure again.
Everything she’d worked for was gone—her family’s house, her business, her honor. Franklin Garrity was ripping it all away over an honest mistake.
But how could she convince Caleb of that? How could she convince anyone? How would she look Mitzi in the eye, or Mattie or Ethan? How would she look at herself in the mirror?
Caleb reached for his phone. Her stomach roiled as he unlocked his screen. Was he calling the district attorney, or his parents to let them know of their windfall?
She wouldn’t be able to protect the woodpecker habitat, and she could no longer protect Mattie and Ethan from the cold ugly truth that people would believe the worst of them no matter what they did. Maybe it was for the best they’d have to move away from Hollydale now. At least she could take Mattie and Ethan somewhere people wouldn’t know about their father.
Never before had she felt so alone.
“I find it interesting that Lucie entered your bank late in the afternoon, yet these papers are stamped with the next morning’s date. When I went to your bank to apply for a mortgage, your employee stamped the documents in front of me.” Caleb didn’t open his phone contacts but instead scrolled through his photos.
He was fighting for her. He believed in her.
“You’re mistaken about Mrs. Decker’s timing. She must have submitted her application in the morning. It’s bank policy to stamp it when received, and this has ‘a.m.’ in the corner.” Garrity nodded once for emphasis.
Caleb enlarged the photo on the screen, but it was too far away for Lucie to tell the details.
“These two photos aren’t mistaken.” Caleb handed his phone to Garrity. “Neither is the date on my phone, which doesn’t match the date stamped on the document. These are photos of the paperwork Lucie submitted. Have a close look.”
Franklin Garrity held the phone almost to his nose and his face paled. “This can’t be correct. This picture of the paper shows the figure Lucie quoted.”
She noted she was Lucie again. She pulled out her phone—Caleb had forwarded her the pictures in question. She hadn’t been mistaken, after all. Caleb believed in her when evidence appeared to the contrary and even she had lost faith in herself.
Caleb took back his phone. “What’s stopping me right now from calling Sheriff Harrison about you?”
Franklin Garrity squinted his beady eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Extortion.” Caleb’s answer came without hesitation.
“There’s been an honest mistake somewhere. I didn’t stamp the papers. I was only following up on an irregularity.” A bead of sweat popped out on the banker’s forehead. “You have my word I’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“My bookkeeper, Tina, also has a scanned copy of the document I sent to her. That’s more proof in my favor.” Lucie searched her mind for an explanation before she connected the dots. “You might want to start by questioning your new teller. Her sister invested five thousand dollars in Justin’s Ponzi scheme.” Then she sighed, wanting this behind her. “If she falsified the date, I don’t want any publicity. No arrests, nothing like that. Just a promise I’ll be treated fairly from now on.”
Lucie extended her hand toward Mr. Garrity, relief zinging through her.
“Why?” He kept his hand to himself.
Lucie inhaled and exhaled a quick breath. “I am building a business and my children’s futures. I want them to be free to make their own choices with the support of the community. Hollydale is my family, and I want the residents to be their family.” Her voice caught on the last part and she stopped talking.
Besides, she had nothing else to say to Franklin Garrity. Nevertheless, she kept her hand extended.
“If the teller did this, she’ll be fired. The bank’s integrity always comes first.” Mr. Garrity pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose. “I don’t understand why you’d let off someone who did this. That makes no sense.”
Lucie kept her hand held out, hard as it was. “She made a mistake, a bad choice, but I know what it’s like to have people lose faith in you. I don’t want that for her.”
Garrity held up his chin. He snapped his briefcase shut and walked away without shaking her hand. The front door slammed behind him.
Caleb jumped to his feet and pulled Lucie into his arms, surrounding her in a firm embrace. For now, she surrendered to the peace and calm he offered. This was pure Caleb, everything good in the midst of a maelstrom. She snuggled into his chest, allowing herself one minute of bliss. If nothing else, she was thankful for his trust in her. She drank in his acceptance. With some luck, it would sustain her through what she’d have to do next. Drawing strength in his support, enough for a lifetime, she moved away.
“You came back,” she said.
As much as she wanted to move forward with him, there was no future for her in Hollydale. If Garrity refused to shake her hand even after she’d been wronged, how could she ever set things right here?
“I’m only sorry I left in the first place. You needed me.” He reached for her hands.
Midnight entered the room and entwined her body around Caleb’s legs.
So much of Lucie’s life had become intertwined with his over the past few weeks, and it was best to rip off the bandage and move on. Pita’s barks and Ladybug’s grunts from the direction of the mudroom gave her the opportunity she needed to distance herself. She moved toward the kitchen, but Caleb held on to her hands.
“They can wait for a minute. And I want to talk to you before we get Mattie and Ethan.”
His use of we caught her off guard. Her parents had found true love against the odds. Georgie and Mike had worked everything out after a bumpy beginning, scaling their own version of the high ropes climbing wall. She wanted to rely on someone, to lean on them in the hard times, to laugh in the happy ones. But she needed to go before anything bad happened to Mattie and Ethan. If she was destined to end up alone, so be it.
“What’s to talk about? I’ll make sure the new owner of the center honors your lease.” If she’d kicked him, he’d have looked less hurt.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m done, Caleb. For the past couple years, I’ve worked hard to rebuild bridges, but someone just framed me for a crime I didn’t commit. Someone has to think about Mattie and Ethan, and that person is me. They’re not going to grow up in a town that doesn’t want them.” She’d held it together when the police officer had informed her of her parents’ deaths, and when the FBI agent had informed her of Justin’s crimes, and she’d hold it together now.
At least until tonight. There were no guarantees once she slid under her covers for one last time before she sold her house and the center property. Then she’d repay Mitzi and her aunt. No new mortgage applications for her.
“They won’t grow up alone here. They’ll have Mitzi, Georgie and Mike, Jonathan and the girls, and me. And my parents.”
“What do you mean, your parents?”
“They know I came back.”
“Oh.” An hour ago, that would have changed everything. Now, she still felt empty inside.
Caleb stepped toward her, real concern on his face. “When I came to Hollydale, I received a hero’s welcome, but it was nothing compared to the welcome in this house. Everyone else patted me on the back and went on with their business. But your family became my family. I love you, Lucie.”
His eyes glinted with the promise of a real home, of fidelity, of love.
Mitzi was right—Lucie was running. But she had to. If she stayed here, she’d lose all self-respect. No matter how much she loved Caleb, she’d never lose herself again.
“Be my family,” Caleb whispered.
His earnest gaze almost ate through her resolve. It would be so easy to stay and build something more romantic than her wildest dreams, but her children and his father needed her to keep her feet planted on the ground. “You already have one.”
She ran to the mudroom and released her dogs. It was time to reclaim her family and move on.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CONCENTRATION LINED Lucie’s face, and Caleb tried to keep his gaze focused out her car windshield. Dusk gave way to evening. While the gray clouds still hovered, not yet pouring forth their bounty of sleet and ice, the temperatures were taking a turn for the worse. Lucie’s car heater vented lukewarm air the best it could, its system humming and groaning along.
She pulled in behind Caleb’s car in the cabin’s small parking area. The minute she engaged the emergency brake, her hand was already reaching for the door handle.
“Lucie, talk to me.”
He owed it to them to try one last time to get through to her. Lucie was everything he’d ever wanted, and so much more. Long ago, he’d have given anything for a day in the sun, free of the hospital bed; so much so, he swung the pendulum the other way and devoted himself to his work. Lucie brought balance into perspective for him. Work and home coexisted hand in hand, respectful of each other.
She sighed and turned to him, pain etched in her eyes. “If anything ever happened to Mattie and Ethan because I chose to keep them here...” She gulped as she composed herself and closed her eyes for a minute. “I have to protect them from the slings and arrows the town might hurl at them.”
“What about you? Who looks out for you?” Caleb wanted to reach over the console and connect with her, hold her hand, let her know she wasn’t in this fight by herself.
“Why does anyone else have to look out for me? Mitzi pointed out I run away to protect myself. It’s easier to look out for myself than have someone disappoint me again.”
Even she appeared taken aback by her honesty.
“People aren’t perfect. We have to take a chance on each other. Besides, if anyone knows about running, it’s me. I ran from Hollydale, seeking an escape from my past, wanting to start over where no one knew about my surgery or my scars. Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they’re not there, though. We all have scars. But confronting the past, staying in one place for a future? That’s everything. That’s love.”
The raw huskiness of his voice breathed truth into everything. Her blue eyes held the proof she was considering everything he’d laid on the line.
Then she blinked and clenched her jaw. “My scars are too deep. I won’t let Mattie and Ethan stay in a town where they’re not wanted.”
She turned and opened the car door, the cold rushing in. Giving his heart to her hadn’t made a difference. She’d rejected him anyway. Lucie hurried up the stairs to his cabin.
Watching her sprint away from him proved to him that something was missing from his life. Love.
For the first time, he’d found the love he sought, but she’d thrown it back in his face. Instead of finding his way to a home with love and acceptance, he was back to square one.
In a few minutes, everyone would file out of the cabin and, once again, he’d be alone while everyone else went and lived their lives.
Then again, home wasn’t a cabin or a house or a town. Home was being with the people you loved, the people who loved you back. Lucie had never said she didn’t love him, just that she couldn’t live in a town that didn’t have the backs of her children.
Finding his way back home to her was what mattered, not the street address or the place. Caleb hopped out of the car, ignoring the twinge in his back, determined to tell her it didn’t matter where they lived as long as they had each other.
Home was with Lucie and Mattie and Ethan. Caleb hurried into the cabin, intent on her hearing him out one more time.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
LUCIE STARED AT the cozy room, expecting to see Mattie and Ethan.
“The kids were tired, so we got them to lie down in Caleb’s room,” Tina explained. “We checked on them a couple of minutes ago. They didn’t even budge from where they buried themselves under the covers. Poor dears were exhausted.”
As much as she wanted nothing more than to scoop up Mattie and Ethan and take them home, the questions in Drew’s eyes demanded an answer. “Mr. Spindler...”
“Drew. We don’t have to stand on formalities anymore.” He glanced at his clothes. “Besides, I’d like to stay dry tonight. My wife and son both vouched for you, and those kids talk about Caleb like he hung the moon. I only have one question for you, and I’ll take your answer at your word.”
Lucie clenched her fists at her side. “For the last time, I didn’t know what Justin was doing, and Mr. Garrity was mistaken about something and he knows the truth now.”
Drew shook his head. “My question is this. Do you love my son?”
His question sank into her core. When she’d emailed Caleb before he’d returned to Hollydale, everything was supposed to have been simple. For once she’d had a plan that would help her win back the respect and hearts of the citizens of Hollydale.
Then Caleb had come back and everything had gone topsy-turvy. She’d reconnected with that part of herself long gone, the side that believed in rainbows, soul mates and happily-ever-afters. Caleb had helped her see that a dilapidated log, which others would gladly pass by without looking for any value within, could be the home for a nest with a treasure of endangered bird eggs inside.
Preconceived notions were just that, and they kept people from looking within. Someone had seen a nuisance and discarded Ladybug but, over time, the scared bulldog rebuilt trust and had become a beloved family member. Someone had dropped off Fred and Ethel, and now they lived in her shed, happy with an old couch and leftovers and lots of love.
Seeing past the surface could bring so much more to life.
With Caleb and Lucie in their corner, Mattie and Ethan would grow up secure in the knowledge that the surface didn’t matter as much as what was underneath—honesty and love.
“Yes, I love your son, and it’s time I stop running from him.”
The door opened behind Lucie. Caleb entered and only the crackle of the fire snapped the silence. “Do you mean that?”
“Absolutely. Let me get Mattie and Ethan and then I’ll say it again. I’ll say it every day for years to come.”
Lucie went to Caleb’s room, opened the door and frowned. The room shouldn’t be this cold. Her gaze went to the open window, and chills rocked her body. Racing to the bed, she whipped back the covers to find stacks of pillows forming the lumps Tina must have seen earlier. Mattie and Ethan. Where were they?
A scream pierced the air and Lucie barely registered it as her own. Footsteps sounded behind her and Caleb’s woodsy scent reached her as he wrapped his arms around her.
“What’s wrong?” He shivered. “Why is the window open?”
“Mattie and Ethan.” That was all she could get out.
Caleb snatched a paper from the pillow. “I can’t read this.”
She gathered herself together. Mattie and Ethan needed her t
o stay strong. “Let me see.”
Caleb handed her the paper, and Lucie placed the puzzle pieces together.
“They went in search of treasure.”
Everyone in town knew who Franklin Garrity was, even Mattie and Ethan. The twins must have thought they were helping her by going in search of a new treasure. Didn’t they know they were her treasure?
Caleb touched her shoulder. “Wait here a second.”
She turned as he passed his parents standing in the doorway—Tina’s face ashen, Drew holding her up. Less than a minute later, Caleb returned. “My metal detector’s missing.” Caleb faced his parents. “Call 9-1-1 and tell them the kids are gone.”
There was no use standing there anymore. “Tell the authorities I’m out looking for them. If they come back to the cabin, call me.” Lucie ran to the door and Caleb reached out to hold her back. She looked up. Every minute was precious.
“We’ll find them.” Caleb put his arms around her. “We need a logical plan.”
“My children are out there in the dark, and it’s getting colder by the minute. You and Mike figure out a plan. I’m bringing them home.”
* * *
“MATTIE! ETHAN!” LUCIE’S voice reverberated around the high ropes course.
“My mom’s at the wellness center, searching room by room. Dad’s staying at the cabin. They’ll call if they find them.” Caleb caught up to her and she stopped, her tear-streaked cheeks taking hold of his heart and twisting hard. “Sheriff Harrison should be here any minute, and he’s put the word out for volunteers to help search.”
The wind whistled around them, the tops of the pines softly swaying. Only a sliver of the new moon peeked through the forest, no glow aiding them in their search. The murmur of the rushing river, so close, lulled him into a false sense of calm. There could be no peace while Mattie and Ethan were out there somewhere, no comfort in the green mountains that had been his mainstay for the past few weeks.