The Winding Road Home

by Sally John

  “And without booze. I guess it can be done.” He seemed genuinely bewildered.

  “Is that an eye-opener for you?”

  A little smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “Thank you for having a birthday party to show me.”

  “Anytime.” On the rare occasions when he let her in like that, she realized she didn’t have a clue how harsh the world could be.

  “By the way, when were you going to let me know this was your birthday?”

  She shrugged.

  “And tomorrow? I take it the family gathering is for you?”

  She shrugged again. “No big deal.”

  “Kate! I’d feel kind of ridiculous being the only one there who didn’t know.”

  “Maybe I would have told you at dinner tonight. I would have let you buy.”

  “Do you have birthday issues?”

  “Well,” she hedged. “It’s just not something you go around announcing. It’s like asking for a gift. Or saying I’m special so you better treat me like it. I wanted to crawl off in a corner when I saw those gifts tonight.”

  “But they were just-for-fun gifts.”

  “True, but I didn’t know that while they were all wrapped up. Besides the fact I’ve only been here for two months.”

  “I can’t believe you’re going shy on me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  She turned away. “Am not.”

  He laughed. “Speaking of gifts, Miss Birthday Girl.” He went to a closet and pulled out a red gift bag.

  Her stomach somersaulted. “You gave me a laptop.”

  “That wasn’t for your birthday. That was a thank-you gift.” He set the bag on her lap.

  “You gave me a party.”

  “Doesn’t count.”

  “You spend money like it grows on trees.”

  “Habit I picked up from my dad.”

  She swallowed. “Why didn’t you put this out with the others?”

  “Mine’s private. It’s not a just-for-fun. Will you open it?”

  “Tanner, why do you do this?” As the words flew from her tongue, she yearned to snatch them from the air, to take them back. In unguarded moments tonight she had noticed him watching her. When he sensed her eyes on him, the mask quickly adjusted itself into place. She knew why he did this. She didn’t need to hear it out loud. “You don’t—”

  “The simple answer,” he interrupted, “is because I want to. And that’s because—at the risk of sounding totally sappy here—my life hasn’t been the same since you walked into it.” He settled back into the chair and crossed his legs, ankle to knee. He folded his hands and twiddled his thumbs. The nonchalant demeanor was firmly back in place. “Besides, I get a kick out of making you smile.”

  “And you think I’m quirky.” Her tone was flippant. Her heart, on the other hand, was flip-flopping to a ragtime beat.

  She pulled tissue paper from the red bag. Underneath that lay a pair of red mittens. “Aww, Tanner. You think I need these?”

  “You don’t? Look.” He reached over as she put them on and touched the palm of one. “They’ve got leather pads. Better for driving.”

  “Thanks.” She clapped her hands together. “Wow, two hands covered.”

  “There’s more.”

  She knew that. She’d spied the thick white envelope in the bag. With a quiet sigh she slowly removed the mittens and pulled out the other gift. Her name was scrawled on the front.

  The return address belonged to a travel agency.

  She met his eyes. He only waggled his brows.

  There didn’t seem to be any choice but to open it. Airline tickets fell onto her lap. Pages of a printed itinerary followed.

  Kate struggled to focus on the fine print.

  Washington, DC.

  “Tanner…” she whispered.

  “Rusty helped. She worked on the schedule with that contact she set up for you. You go in two weeks, on a Thursday. Fred said he’d print the paper without you. I’ll fill the vending machines and do the subscription mailings. It’s only for a long weekend. You’re not smiling.”

  “I will,” she blubbered through her tears. “In a minute.”

  It took more like ten minutes, but the shock began to wear off and giggles eventually chased off the weeping. She leaped from the chair and whirled around the Ping-Pong table, coming to a stop in front of Tanner.

  “I can’t accept this!”

  “Sure you can.”

  “How can I ever ever thank you?”

  “Use it. Go and find your place out there in the big world. That’s all the thanks I want.” He smiled.

  “How about a hug?”

  “That’d be nice too.”

  She pulled him to his feet and wrapped her arms around him. It was like trying to squeeze a solid oak tree. But it felt awfully comfortable…especially when his arms came around her.

  Twenty-Six

  Adele locked her front door and walked to the driveway where Graham was leaning inside the opened back end of her minivan. It was a beautiful sunny morning, a Tuesday, a rare, self-proclaimed holiday from the nursing home. Sunshine and a gentle breeze out of the south teased that spring was around the corner. A false hope, but nonetheless it fostered spring fever, encouraging that the daily routine be pitched out the nearest window.

  Which was the same effect Graham Logan was having on her. She couldn’t help but wonder if that too was a false hope. He said he would hurt her. She understood that the threat of his old life and Rand’s death hung over them, that things would soon turn complicated. Still, weren’t complications innate to relationships? Then again…what did she know of such relationships? Her teenage affair had been pure rebellion. Her friendship with Will and the two or three other men she had dated occasionally didn’t begin to compare with what was happening now.

  Well, she didn’t know. But God did. She had given it to Him, tossed her routine out the window, and cherished each moment she could spend with Graham.

  She walked up behind him now and looked around his arm. An array of single layered, cardboard boxes covered the folded-down backseat, the center seats, and floor.

  “Thanks, Graham.”

  He smiled. “You’re welcome. I don’t think they’ll slide.”

  The boxes held her pottery. Each vase, bowl, and casserole dish was individually wrapped and bound for Manning’s Art Gallery to be sold on consignment.

  “Do you mind driving?” She handed him the keys as he ducked out from under the car door.

  The bright noon sunshine glinted off his sunglasses and cast highlights in his pewter gray hair. He smiled that slow smile of his.

  “Dear lady, you could ask for anything and I wouldn’t mind obliging you.” He leaned toward her.

  She met his kiss, his lips fresh and cool with the outdoors. Scents mingled…spring air with masculine shaving cream.

  “How did you know what I was going to ask?” She reached and fingered that curl behind his ear.

  “Lucky guess.” He chuckled. “Anything else?”

  Stay. Don’t leave Valley Oaks. She shook her head. “No.”

  His eyes were hidden behind the dark glasses, but she felt them, mere inches away, studying her face. How much could he read in her expression? She glanced aside and dropped her hand from his hair.

  He kissed her cheek softly. “Well.” His voice rumbled indistinctly, and he cleared his throat. “Shall we go?”

  A short time later as they sped down the highway toward Rockville, Graham asked, “So how is it with Chelsea?”

  “About the same. She’s so distant. I want to ground her again until she stops behaving like an adolescent. Somehow I don’t think that would work. I feel like we’ve lost something between us.”

  “You have. Her childhood.”

  He was right. Saddened, Adele gazed out the side window. And then there was that unresolved issue. Naomi had suggested she take care of it soon. It involved old secrets she had never shared with anyone
but her friend. Maybe it was time.

  “Graham.” She hesitated, wondering why it was she trusted this man above her friends. Women friends from church, those who had walked beside her for years, some since Chelsea’s birth.

  “Adele, what’s wrong?”

  She looked at him. “How do you know there’s something wrong?”

  “You seem tense.”

  “I was just thinking you seem…safe. Like Smokey the Bear, Santa Claus, and Big Bird rolled into one.”

  He laughed. “Is that good?”

  “Very good. Do you mind if I unload something on you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “About my sordid past…there’s more. Chelsea’s father is American. His name is Greg Findley. He was from San Francisco.” She paused.

  “Not from Germany with an unpronounceable last name?”

  “No. I lied.”

  “Does he know about Chelsea?”

  “He knows. The thing was…when I found out I was pregnant, he asked if I needed money for an abortion. I said I wouldn’t get one. He said in that case, he was splitting. He wanted nothing to do with a baby. We were in a youth hostel in Rome. Half an hour after I told him, he was gone.” She wiped a tear from her cheek.

  “You didn’t see him again?”

  “I waited there for two weeks, and then I went home. When Chelsea was three months old, I tracked down his parents’ phone number. His mother gave me a number for him in Los Angeles. I called him. He denied ever having met me.”

  He let that sink in. “And Chelsea knows nothing of this?”

  “I couldn’t tell her she had a daddy who wanted nothing to do with her except to pay for an abortion. All she knew of my father, her grandfather, was more or less the same scenario. I didn’t want her thinking she was doomed to always being abandoned by men.” She picked at dried clay around a fingernail. “And I couldn’t tell her that it was the farthest thing imaginable from being a romantic European affair. I couldn’t tell her the truth: We were two aimless, spoiled rich Americans, stoned most of the time we spent together.” She squeezed her hands into fists. “But I have to tell her.”

  “Yes, she should know. Adele, it was so many years ago. You’ve been taking the blame long enough by saying he never knew about her. He knew and that’s his burden, not yours.”

  “She’ll resent me.”

  “Probably, but she’ll resent you more the longer you wait.”

  “I know. It’s so unfair to dump this on her though.”

  “You’ve given her seventeen years of being cherished, of not having to deal with the painful truth. Now she’s old enough to handle it. You know, it’s not going to take away those seventeen years. That’s what will carry her through.”

  “Will you fix us soup again?”

  He reached for her hand and brought it to his lips. “You can count on it.”

  Graham leaned against the kitchen wall, out of the way. Watching three women prepare dinner was far more entertaining than television. Well, perhaps not any three women, but Adele, Kate, and Chelsea captivated him.

  Adele, of course, captivated him just by being. The way she moved, her lilting voice, the little-girl dimples, the womanly mouth he had been kissing on a daily basis now for over a week…her warm attention to Rand and all the Fox Meadow residents…her dreams…

  Kate was stir-frying chicken and talking nonstop about a meeting she had covered last night. Her total lack of selfawareness made her the most refreshing person he had ever met.

  Chelsea seemed to have caught something of Kate’s spirit and behaved more normally than she had since before her mysterious truancy. Still, there were moments when she withdrew, her face a blank, her mind obviously elsewhere. Graham hoped she would clue her mother in on the problem soon.

  “And then…” Kate bit off the end of a carrot, “I asked the village board president why he thought Brady’s land was unsuitable for a wildlife refuge. Given the fact it’s full of wildlife as it is. The man sputtered.” She held up her right hand. “No lie. He absolutely sputtered. I’m going to write an editorial.”

  Chelsea laughed. “About him sputtering?”

  Kate grinned. “No. About the positives of having a refuge, even one that includes an elephant.”

  “That would be so cool to have an elephant down the road. I have a friend who would love to work at Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. Obviously he can’t do that for a few more years. I bet Gina could train people, couldn’t she?”

  Kate pointed the carrot. “Excellent idea. I’ll run it by her and maybe include it in the piece. Think of the possibilities! A petting zoo would be fun.”

  Graham asked, “What about zoning matters?”

  “The property is out far enough. It’s not prime farmland. I don’t see a problem.” She pointed the carrot again. “But that’s a good point. I’ll have to find out.”

  Adele pulled a casserole from the oven. “I’m ready. How about you, Kate?”

  “Two minutes.”

  Chelsea asked, “Is Mr. Carlucci coming?”

  For the briefest of moments, Kate grew still. Graham hid a smile behind his hand. Mention of the young man threw her into self-awareness.

  “No.” She recovered quickly. “He’s flying a charter back from Maryland.” She turned to Graham. “Again Maryland. That guy is all over the country like it’s no big deal. I bet your friend misses being near DC. I know I would.”

  He caught Adele’s puzzled look. Another twist he’d have to explain, very likely sooner than later. He had led her to believe Rand came from Chicago. Only God could have arranged for his path to cross that of the charter pilot’s in Valley Oaks. Professors and pilots… Was he out of practice or what?

  Adele untied her apron. “Maryland?”

  “Maryland?” Chelsea echoed. “Kate, a charter plane crashed in Ohio late this afternoon, near Columbus. I just heard it on the news. It was coming from Maryland.”

  The women stared at one another, shock on their faces.

  Graham said, “What kind of plane was it?”

  “They didn’t say. They won’t release any details yet.”

  Kate ran from the room.

  They all followed.

  She was in her sitting room, cell phone to her ear, squealing in a high-pitched voice, “Tanner! Call me the very minute you walk in!”

  “Kate.” Adele pulled her into a hug. “We need to pray.” She held her close, whispering quiet words into the younger woman’s ear.

  Graham closed his own eyes and prayed silently for Tanner’s safety…for the people on the plane…for the families affected…

  “Thank you, Adele.” Kate grabbed her coat from the couch. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. The airport, I guess.”

  Graham said, “It’s a charter. They won’t know anything at the ticket counters. He works for a company that owns the plane. They’re not at the airport. Do you know the name?”

  She shook her head, her eyes wide behind the glasses.

  “Let’s study the yellow pages.”

  She shook her head more violently, pulling on the coat. “You look. I’m going. I’ll find somebody.”

  “What’s your cell phone number?”

  Her face looked blank.

  He eased it from her hand and searched through the menu until the number was displayed. Committing it to memory, he handed the phone back to her. “I’ll make some calls. I know somebody who knows somebody with the National Transportation Safety Board. They’ll be investigating. I doubt I can get any names, but maybe we can learn what kind of plane, where it was headed.”

  She nodded.

  “Kate.” Adele grabbed her again. “Honey, be careful.”

  Chelsea hugged her next. “He’ll be okay.”

  They walked her to the door and watched her walk down the sidewalk and get into her VW. A few false starts later, she was chugging down the street.

  Chelsea headed back toward the kitchen.


  “Adele.” She was staring at him. “This is where I say trust me. Though you’ve no apparent reason to do so.”

  “You didn’t write her number down.”

  He pointed to his head and gave her a little smile. “It’s here.”

  “You know somebody who knows somebody on a national level with information like that.” Though her tone made it a statement, her facial expression questioned.

  “From the old days.”

  “The ones you always avoid talking about.”

  He nodded slightly.

  “Why would Rand miss being near Washington, DC?”

  “Adele. It’s complicated.” He left it at that. He had to leave it at that.

  “Are these the things that will hurt me?”

  He winced. “Unintentionally.”

  She crossed her arms, staring at him.

  “I’ll go.”

  Her face crumpled. “But then who will tell me everything’s all right?”

  He enfolded her into his arms and, when she didn’t resist, breathed a prayer of thanks.

  She mumbled, “Why is it I keep listening to my heart instead of my brain?”

  “Hey!” Chelsea was in the dining room doorway. “Dinner’s ready. Let’s move it, lovebirds.”

  Adele laughed against his shoulder. “I guess that answers my question.” She wiped her eyes and looked up at him.

  He smiled. “Lovebirds never listen to their brains.”

  Kate fished the ringing cell phone from the deep pocket of her jacket as she strode through the airport. It displayed a number she didn’t recognize. “Hello?”

  “Kate, it’s Graham. Are you all right?”

  “No! They won’t tell me anything! They can’t even figure out when he’s due in. The entire airport staff is clueless!”

  “Take a deep breath.”

  His calm voice broke through, and she stopped yelling. She had been tearing around the airport, cornering every employee she came across. The only worthwhile piece of information she learned was that the control tower security was tighter than Fort Knox.

  “Listen, Kate. I found out the plane that went down is a Beechcraft Bonanza. Tanner told me he generally flies their larger one for longer trips. He would have been flying a Cessna Citation. It’s what we flew on.”