Secrets of Forever

by Marie Ferrarella

  That surprised her. “Oh?”

  “Yes,” Neil acknowledged. “And somehow that seemed a lot safer to me than what you’re proposing.”

  “Don’t worry,” she assured Neil as they approached the clinic directly behind Dan, “I’m not going to have you going any faster in my car than you’re totally comfortable with.”

  Neil gave her an extremely dubious look. “I sincerely doubt that.”

  * * *

  To Neil’s surprise, after he placed his phone calls to make arrangements for the loan of the medical equipment, the driving lesson went surprisingly well. Contrary to what he had expected, Ellie turned out to be a very patient, very thorough, teacher. She didn’t point to any of his shortcomings and set a pace for him that he found exceedingly comfortable. She only went on to the next new point after he had mastered the last one. And although he felt himself having a little difficulty with a couple of the executions, she never once made him feel as if he was failing in the endeavor.

  “Okay,” Ellie announced as Neil made his way back to the spot where they had first begun the driving lesson.

  “Okay?” he questioned, confused by what she was telling him. For his money, he just felt as if he was getting started.

  “Yes. I think you’ve done enough for one day,” Ellie said. In no way was she being judgmental. On the contrary, she sounded as if she was congratulating him.

  He looked at her in surprise. “You’re kidding,” he protested.

  Ellie grinned. Things had gone better than she’d hoped and she really felt good about this—as she hoped that he did.

  “Doc, you’ve been driving for almost two hours. You don’t want to overdo it.” She could see he was about to protest that he wanted to continue. While that made her feel very good about the whole endeavor, she really did need to stop the lesson now. “Besides,” she told him, “I have a delivery to make in half an hour and I’ve got to get ready to leave.”

  “Are you driving somewhere?” Neil asked. It was hard to miss the hopeful note in his voice. “Because if you are, maybe I can—”

  “I’m flying,” she told him, cutting Neil’s offer short.

  “Oh.” He looked disappointed, even though he attempted to cover his reaction. “Well then, I guess I can’t come with you.”

  She surprised him by saying, “Sure you can.” She knew he hadn’t wanted to hear that, but she teased him by continuing. “There’s no passenger on this flight, so you’re more than welcome to come along.”

  “Let me rephrase that,” Neil said. “I’d better not come. I survived one flight, I don’t want to push my luck,” he emphasized.

  She could only interpret that one way. “You really think I’m going to crash?”

  His answer surprised her. “No, I really think I’ll embarrass myself and throw up. I narrowly avoided it the last time.”

  Ellie laughed. Apparently, they had crossed a new threshold when it came to honesty. “I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit, Doc. Besides, how will you ever earn your ‘sea legs’ if you don’t keep challenging yourself?” she asked.

  “Hey, dealing with Miss Joan was challenge enough,” he told her. That was definitely enough challenge for anyone. “And I did let you take me out for a driving lesson.”

  Ellie inclined her head, giving him the point. Neil was right. “Sorry, I tend to get greedy when things are going so well,” she apologized. “All right, Doc, where do you want me to drop you off before I go pick up the freight for my run?”

  That was easy enough to answer. “The medical clinic will be fine—but if you’re pressed for time, I can walk there.”

  She pretended to take offense. “Are you trying to tell me that you don’t want my company?”

  He stared at her. Where had she gotten that idea? “No, I’m trying to be thoughtful.”

  And then Ellie smiled at him and he realized that she was pulling his leg. He also realized that he was really getting to like that smile.

  “So am I,” Ellie said. “Sit tight, Doc. I promise to get you there with no bumps, no bruises, and totally in one piece.”

  And then she winked.

  It was the wink that did it. It alerted Neil that any way he looked at it, this woman was going to be quite a handful. She represented the unexpected and, after being micromanaged to the nth degree by his ex, he had to admit that this was really a pleasant change. A very pleasant change. And he welcomed it.

  “If you’re interested, I’m available for another lesson tomorrow, same time, same place,” Ellie told him as she let him out at the medical clinic. “Unless one of your doctor friends come through with that mobile treadmill and that EEG machine by tomorrow.”

  “I think at the very least it’s going to take another day or so,” he told her. Then added with a smile, “So, if you’re up for a lesson, so am I.”

  Ellie nodded. “Okay, I’ll be here.” She beamed at him as he closed the passenger door and turned toward his destination. “You did well today, Doc. Really well.”

  One compliment deserved another, he thought. And, in his opinion, she had made something he had put off indefinitely seem very easy. “I had a good teacher.”

  Ellie smiled as she nodded. “Maybe next time, you’ll let me teach you how to fly.”

  “Let’s just put a pin in that for a while,” Neil told her. There was such a thing as getting too ahead of himself, he thought. Flying a plane had never been on his list of things to do. Ever.

  “Oh, but you don’t know what you’re missing,” she told him.

  “Yeah, well let’s just keep it that way for a while,” he told her. Mentally, he added, For a long while.

  Ellie made no comment. She merely smiled and, he had to admit, though no words were exchanged, her smile did unnerve him.

  He honestly didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.

  * * *

  Ellie went ahead and made her run, picking up some much needed supplies from a store located more than seventy-five miles away. The supplies were for Ramona Santiago Lone Wolf, the town’s vet.

  Driving her ancient station wagon, Mona met Ellie in the open field located just behind her vet facility.

  “I appreciate you getting these to me so quickly, Ellie,” Mona told her as she got out of her vehicle. “There are times when I really miss Doc Elliott,” she said, referring to the old town vet. “I never used to feel that I was operating without a net when he was around. He always seemed to know what to do, what to say. And I could lean on the man,” she said wistfully.

  Ellie was unloading her plane, piling the supplies on top of one another. She knew exactly how Mona felt. She had the exact same feelings when it came to her grandfather.

  “I guess that happens to everyone eventually. It’s the way of the world.” She smiled at the pretty veterinarian. “Old Doc Elliott must have been an endless source of information for you.”

  “Oh, for everyone,” Mona agreed. “There wasn’t anything he didn’t know about animals. Not to mention that the man was also like the town historian. Do you know that he was the only one in Forever who could remember when Miss Joan first came to live here?”

  Now that she thought of it, she had heard something to that effect. The woman was so much of a fixture in Forever, it seemed as if she had always lived there.

  Ellie paused, trying to remember details.

  “Wasn’t she married back then?” Ellie asked. “Something about a husband and a baby boy who both died in some sort of a natural disaster, or something like that? A flash flood, I think, was the way the story went.” As she talked, bits and pieces of details came back to her. “That’s why she was so closed off for so long and why it took Harry more than thirty years to convince her to marry him.

  “That would almost be romantic if it wasn’t so sad,” Ellie commented. With a mighty effort, she deposited the l
ast of the supplies from her plane onto the ground.

  “If I remember it correctly, it wasn’t a flash flood, it was a car accident,” Mona told her. “Miss Joan’s husband was pretty much of a scoundrel and he ran off with Miss Joan’s sister. Zelda or Zoë or something like that,” she said, totally surprising Ellie. “Doc Elliott said that her husband took the baby because he was trying to get back at Miss Joan for giving him such a hard time. As if anyone would applaud a womanizer,” the woman said in disgust.

  “And they were killed in a car accident?” Ellie asked, still attempting to absorb the information. In all the years she had lived in Forever, she had never heard this story. She was still a little doubtful about how true it was. Not that she didn’t believe Mona, but it just seemed so unusual that there was never any mention of it. “Are you sure about this?” she pressed.

  Mona nodded as her voice took on a somber tone. “The baby died instantly. Miss Joan’s husband lingered for a few days before succumbing to his injuries.”

  “And the sister?” Ellie asked, stunned by this revelation.

  “Not a scratch,” Mona declared. “She was the one who was driving.”

  Ellie felt almost numb. She tried to reconcile the information with the woman she had known all her life. “How awful.” She couldn’t help ask, “How come I’ve never heard any of this before?”

  “Out of respect for Miss Joan,” Mona told her, “Doc Elliott didn’t want the story getting around.”

  Okay, she could understand that. But something else was bothering her. “So then why did he tell you?” she asked. It didn’t seem to make any sense.

  “He told me because he thought it might help me out. I was going through a tough time. I won’t go into any of the details,” Mona told Ellie, “but suffice it to say that it did help. And, out of respect for Doc Elliott, I never told anyone.”

  “Until now?” Ellie questioned. Again her curiosity was raised. “Why say anything now?”

  That was simple enough to explain. “Because sometimes secrets can eat up our insides. I think that maybe it would do Miss Joan some good to own up to this. Maybe she can even finally call a truce with her sister.”

  “A truce?” Ellie questioned. This seemed to be getting more and more involved.

  “Yes, according to what Doc Elliott told me. When her sister came to see Miss Joan to try to tell her how very sorry she was for everything that had happened... How she would give anything if none of it had ever happened...” Mona then repeated in an aside, “Like I said, Miss Joan’s husband was a scoundrel and he turned her sister’s head and talked her into running off with him.” Then concluded, “Miss Joan told her to get out. That she never wanted to see her again.”

  “And did she?” Ellie asked. She couldn’t imagine never speaking to her own sister, no matter what Addie might be guilty of doing.

  “Nope,” Mona answered. “Not that anyone ever knew about any of this. I mean, nobody but me even knew she had a sister, and that was just because of what Doc Eliott told me. The woman left town a long time ago. From what Doc Elliott told me, the story died down, time passed and Miss Joan just became the Miss Joan we know today.”

  “How do you know this even happened?” Ellie questioned.

  “Because Doc Elliott wasn’t the type to make things up, even for a good cause, like to help me deal with things.” Mona took in a breath. She had spent enough time in the past. “All right, let’s get this all back to my clinic and I’ll settle up with you there. I’ve got horses to treat if I don’t want this thing to spread and we wind up with a full-fledged epidemic on our hands.”

  Ellie nodded but, unlike the sheriff’s sister, her mind wasn’t on sick horses. She was still focused on what Mona had told her.

  “You want me to keep this between us, Mona?” she asked the vet.

  Mona thought the matter over for a moment.

  “Actually, you do what you think is best. Maybe it’s about time someone go looking for Miss Joan’s sister and, if she’d still alive, bring her back here so that fences can be mended. I’d say that thirty or more years is definitely enough time to have passed.” She looked at Ellie. “Don’t you think?”

  “Oh, more than enough time,” Ellie agreed, nodding her head.

  She couldn’t wait to get home to tell Pop about this new-old development.

  Chapter Eleven

  Ellie went over what she wanted to say to her grandfather a number of times in her head as she drove back to the ranch. But when she finally arrived and found him in the tack room, she could only blurt out, “Pop, how long have you lived in Forever?”

  Eduardo was focused on repairing an old, beloved saddle whose leather had become extremely worn in places. Ellie had offered to buy him a new one, but he had turned her down. Not because he hadn’t wanted her to spend the money but because the saddle had a great many memories associated with it. Too many to mention, or recreate, he’d mused.

  Surprised by the question, Eduardo looked up.

  “You know the answer to that as well as I do, Ellie. I came here when you were six and Addie was four. Your father and mother had just gotten into that terrible car accident.” He set down his tools and gave his granddaughter his full attention. “Being notified about that accident had to be the very worst day of my life. But that day became the best day of my life because that was the day I became the guardian of two precious little girls.”

  The events were foggy and jumbled in her head, but Ellie could still remember some things. “I remember that Miss Joan came and got us in the middle of the night. She took Addie and me to her place, right?”

  “Right.” Eduardo studied his granddaughter, wondering why she was asking after all this time had passed. “Where is this going, Ellie?”

  She wanted to get a few things straight first before she went on to tell Pop what she had found out. “There wasn’t anyone else living with her at the time, was there?” She didn’t remember that there was, but she could have been mistaken.

  “No, there wasn’t.” Eduardo rose from the seat where he was sitting and faced his granddaughter. “Again, where is this going?”

  Rather than beat around the bush, Ellie decided to dive into the subject headfirst. “Did you know that Miss Joan has a sister?”

  Eduardo frowned slightly, the lines in his forehead deepening. “No, you’re mistaken. I heard that she had a son, a toddler actually, and a husband. They both died in some sort of flash flood many years ago, but as far as I know, no one has ever asked her about it and she never volunteered any information. I certainly never heard about a sister. Why?” He cocked his head, looking at his granddaughter intently. “What did you hear and who did you hear it from?” he asked. He knew that gossip was alive and well in Forever, as well as thriving here some of the time.

  Ellie didn’t want to name names yet. “I got it from a very reliable source who heard it from someone she trusted—”

  “Ah, third-hand information.” Eduardo nodded knowingly. His eyes narrowed slightly. “You know what I think of that sort of thing, Ellie.”

  “Yes, I know, but there has to be some way that we can check this out, some sort of records that can be accessed to see if this information can be verified,” she insisted. “It might be true,” she stressed, more than willing to give the possibility of Miss Joan having a sister the benefit of the doubt.

  Eduardo gave his granddaughter’s question some thought. “Well, you could try asking the sheriff’s wife, Olivia, to look into the matter. She’s a family lawyer and, if anyone would know how to access this kind of information, she would. But this seems very important to you—why now?”

  “Pop, Miss Joan might be facing a medical crisis...and you know her. If it comes to that, if she needs an operation and has to go to a hospital to get it, she’s not going to want to hear about it. If she has family somewhere, like a sister, and we could find that pers
on, maybe she could talk Miss Joan into having the procedure done,” Ellie argued.

  “Ellie, you are presupposing that she is going to need surgery and that she is going to refuse to have it done,” Eduardo said. “Miss Joan is not a stupid woman,” he reminded his granddaughter. “Why don’t we just wait and see what those tests tell the doctor?”

  That was simple enough to answer. “Because I don’t like waiting to the last minute. I believe in being prepared. I always have.”

  Eduardo shook his head and laughed softly under his breath. “Lord, but you are your father’s daughter,” he said fondly. “He was always obsessing over things like that when he was your age, too.”

  Ellie liked hearing that she had something in common with her father. For the most part, both of her parents were mere shadows in her memory. And that only made her that much more committed to following through on this new mission she had set up for herself.

  Miss Joan had been there for her and for her sister, even though Addie had no memory of the time. As for her, Ellie could actually remember Miss Joan coming into her home and telling her and her sister that they were going to be staying with her for a while. When she had asked why, Miss Joan had gathered the two of them onto her lap, held them close for a moment and said that they were going to be with her until their grandfather came for them. She was the one who’d broken the news to them that her parents had “gone to heaven.”

  Ellie vividly remembered the scent of cinnamon when Miss Joan had given them the news and she remembered seeing tears in the woman’s eyes as she’d spoken.

  Beyond that, there were only disjointed bits and pieces floating through her mind. But Ellie knew she owed the older woman a great deal.

  Looking back now, knowing what she had just learned, Ellie realized that Miss Joan had been reliving her own tragedy because of what had happened to her and Addie.