"I'll make sure my projects are in order and head down there," I tell her. "I'll see you tonight."
"Thank you, Cade," she says. "You don't know how much this means to me."
The wavering is gone from her voice, and I give a short laugh as I end the call.
What in the hell is she up to?
I quickly dial Franklin.
“Yes, sir?” he answers, sounding far calmer than earlier in the conference room.
"Franklin. I am going away for a few days. I'm sending instructions to your email. Review them. They'll get you through the meetings for the rest of the week, and help you handle anything that might arise."
"You're leaving? We're at a critical time in the recreation development, and there's still a ton of planning to do for the high school program."
"I'm sure you'll be fine. You can handle it. That's why I hired you. I don't know how long I'm going to be gone. I'll let you know when I know more."
It's entirely possible Grammie is just lonely and looking for some extra attention, or that the problems with the house are as serious as the ones she often calls me over to her other home to handle, like replacing light bulbs and driving screws back into pieces of furniture. If that's the case, I'll spend a couple of days with her, then head back home and to the office. I'm confident Franklin can handle anything that might happen until then. I put enough fear into the vendor for the recreation development to ensure that even an idiot like Ian can get the permits put through immediately, which means the original plans can move forward. I’ve also created extensive and detailed plans for the high school woodworking program. All Franklin needs to do is present those to Mr. Norton and get his approval – and I know he is up for the task. He's given far more complicated presentations before, and if he can manage to talk at a normal speed, he'll do just fine.
Ending the call, I spend another hour in my home office, finishing up the notes for Franklin. Hitting 'send', I head to my bedroom to pack my suitcase and change. There's no point in wearing my suit to the country. There's no one out to look good for. Not anymore, at least. I force myself to push that thought away. If I go too far down that path, I might talk myself out of going at all. I shove my feet into my trusty work boots, grab my suitcase, and walk out of the house. My driver walks out of the gatehouse, having seen me on the screen that monitors each of the entrances to the house.
"Thanks, Jacob, but I don’t need you this afternoon. I'm going to take my truck. I'm going to be away for a few days or so. You should go ahead and take that time off. I'll text you when I'm coming back."
Jacob gives a single nod. He's never been a particularly verbal person, which is one of the reasons I’ve been so happy with him as my driver. At the end of a long day at work, the last thing I need is a chatty driver wanting to shoot the breeze about it.
I walk around the side of the house on the brick path that weaves through the lawn toward a converted carriage house behind the main house. Opening up the doors, I head directly toward the pickup truck parked in the first row of my vehicle collection. I toss my bags into the back seats, climb behind the wheel, and head toward Grammie's house. I could have had Jacob bring me and drop me off, but I wanted the solitude, and quiet, of making the drive by myself. By the looks of the clouds overhead, it's going to start raining soon. It will be nice to sit on the porch tonight, glass of bourbon in hand – Grammie always has the best stuff – and listen to the storm roll in.
Chapter There
Fiona
I can barely see anything in front of me. The windshield is so smeared with dust, dirt, and ick that I'm struggling to see what’s ahead of us clearly. I try to rise a little bit higher in the cracked leather seat to look over the broad swaths of mud along the bottom of the windshield, only to be stopped by bugs who met their untimely demise across the top. I hunker down further and dip my head to see if I can look through a miraculously clear corner. Finally, this lets me see enough to confirm we've turned down the road of fields close to Grammie's house.
"Something wrong?"
I glance over to the driver's seat. The man Grammie sent to pick me up from the airport looks approximately one-hundred-years old, and his voice is so faint, it’s barely louder than a whisper. Despite his fairly crotchety appearance, he shot out of the airport lot and has been driving like a bat out of hell since. I grab for anything I can hold onto as the truck skids around a sudden corner. Unfortunately, the truck may have come into the world the same time he did, and several of the structural features that should be on the interior of the door are long gone. My hand slides across the surface, and my body sways sharply across the cabin. Finally, I manage to fight gravity and resume a seated position. When I'm reasonably sure we've returned to all four tires, and are moving in a forward direction, I shake my head.
"No," I say. "It has been a while since I've been out here, though, and it looks different."
"Don't look much different to me," he drawls.
My eyes slide over in his direction.
"Has it been a few years since you’ve seen it, too?"
He shakes his head.
"No, ma'am. This is my grandson's farm. I moved out here to be with him last year. I walk these fields just about every day."
"Isn't that nice," I say.
He performs a sudden and drastic swerve in the middle of the road, and I whip around to look through the back window. Nothing seems to be there that might have inspired the maneuver, which disturbs me more than if there actually was something. Suddenly I hear the crunch of gravel beneath the truck tires, and I look up to see the dark outlines of buildings just ahead. A sense of relief washes over me as I begin to recognize my surroundings more. It surprises me just how much I have forgotten the area that was once so familiar to me. I look around and know I'm close to what was once my summer home. I know these are the fields I would count to determine how long it would be until we arrived at the house. I know I've ridden down this road countless times before in Gramps' pickup truck. He even taught me to drive along one of these back stretches. Yet as we draw closer to the house, I still feel strangely disconnected from everything.
As the country house begins to come into view, I feel especially relieved because right around the fourth inexplicable hairpin turn this man had taken on the way from the airport, I started to wonder if I had gotten into the truck with a complete stranger who had orchestrated a complex murder scheme. Thinking back, I probably should have waited for my driver to approach me rather than walking up to this man, the first person who looked like he might live out as far as Grammie, and asking him if he was my ride.
The truck barrels toward the sprawling house and finally pulls to a stop. I look through the truck window at Grammie's house and feel myself sink a little bit. The house looks tired of holding itself up, as though no one had been inside in a long time. But I know that's not true. Grammie is in there right now, and she needs me.
"Well, let's get a move on," the man who never introduced himself says. "That sky is looking mighty angry and likely to open up any second. I'll help with your luggage."
I open the door and gingerly climb out of the rusty, creaking truck. Walking around the back, I watch the man release the tailgate. He gets up on his toes and reaches for my suitcase. I'm stunned it's still there. With only the front bench in the cabin, the truck couldn't accommodate my carry-on, my oh-so-pleasant driver, me, and another huge bag, so I had no choice at the airport but to put it in the bed. At the time, of course, I didn't realize not tethering it down meant it would have to perform several death-defying feats just to make it to the house. But it has miraculously survived the drive, and now seems to be cowering from Old Man Driver at the back of the bed, as he reaches toward it with his skeletal fingers.
"It's alright. I've got it," I say, stepping up beside him so I can try to scramble into the bed after my luggage.
As if just to spite me, his fingers grab onto the handle on the side of the bag and starts inching it toward himself.
/> "Are you sure you brought enough with you? Miss Rose said you might be sticking around for a bit."
"What else did Miss Rose tell you?" I ask.
"That she took a tumble and her granddaughter was coming along to help her."
"I plan on being here just as long as she needs me, and then I'm heading home. But no matter what, I can’t be here more than three weeks."
Why am I telling him this?
"Why is that? Too good to stay with your Grammie any longer than that?"
He launches himself toward the luggage and flattens on the tailgate. Gripping a higher handle on the suitcase, he tries to yank it closer. I grab onto it and pull it closer. The last thing I need is for this ancient man to crush himself with my luggage on my first day back.
"That is because three weeks is all of the vacation time I have, and if I don't want to lose the job I worked really hard to get, I can't stay longer than that."
Why did I tell him that?
"So, you've had three weeks of vacation saved up, and you haven't even come to see her once in… goodness knows how long?"
"She told you that, did she?" I ask, looking at him sharply. "Well, did she tell you that she comes to see me? Or that I haven't been out here in years because this is where my heart was broken? Did she tell you my first love crushed me into a fine powder and let me blow away in the wind right there on that front porch? Did she tell you I never wanted to come back here, because I didn’t want to have to face that, and it's taken everything I have in me to get over and move on? Especially after my engagement ended recently? Huh? Huh? Did she tell you that? Did she?"
Why in the hell am I still talking to him?
I don't really have anywhere to go from here except into the house. Gripping my suitcase in one hand and my carry-on in the other, I take a step back from the truck and try to look as dignified as my outburst will permit me.
"Thank you very much for the ride," I say.
He grunts at me and gets back in the truck. By the time I've climbed up the steps onto the porch and gotten to the front door, he has squealed away. I take hold of the doorknob, but immediately notice it's locked. This strikes me as strange. Grammie never locks the door in the country. She used to explain it to me in long-winded tales about remembering a better time in a world where you wouldn't even think about locking your door because you could trust your neighbor... something about fresh air and goodwill toward men... deer don't break into your house... but a bear once did. From there it always got a little fuzzy, and I would tune out. I shake the doorknob again, pushing against the weather-worn door to make sure it isn't just warped into place. When it still doesn't budge, I step back and look around the porch. Memories are lurking around every corner, and I struggle to keep myself from focusing on them as I take note of everything that has stayed the same since the last time I was here. The glider at the far end of the porch is still in place, the table sitting next to it as if just waiting to hold a glass of sweet tea. A pair of rockers is on the other side, both still. I look down at the wood planks in front of the door.
Shit. That's changed.
The welcome mat that always sat at the base of the door is no longer there. In its place is a rectangle of slightly discolored wood. I wonder how long it's been since that mat was there. Knocking on the door, I lean close and call inside to Grammie. I don't hear her coming toward the door, so I start looking around the porch. Every hook embedded in the edge of the overhang of the porch holds a hanging bucket. They used to overflow with flowers in shades of pink, purple, and blue. I once tried to convince Grammie to replace the purple ones with white for the Fourth of July, but that led into a discussion of whether we would need to change out the pink for red. By the end of the conversation, she had progressed to having to change the entirety of the landscaping of the house. I never suggested it again.
New flowers grow in the baskets now, but they are all bright yellow. I stare at them for a few seconds before returning to the door to pound on it again. When she still doesn't reply, I start feeling nervous. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice something balled up under the table set beside the glider. Leaning closer to it, I realize it's the welcome mat from the door. I drag it out with the toe of my shoe and flip it around, hoping somehow the key to the door has clung to it. Though I could never convince Grammie to lock the doors when we were in the house, she somehow had no problem locking it when we weren't. Anybody and their brother could wander right in while we were inside sleeping or just going about our lives, but lord help them if they tried to come in when absolutely no one was there. Unless, of course, they peeked beneath the welcome mat and found the key hidden there like every other welcome mat in history.
I feel a little tug at my heart. As much as I fuss about the locks, it is just another example of what makes Grammie so endearing. On a whim, I glance back down at the spot where the welcome mat once sat. Two of the slats in the porch are cracked and broken, creating an oval gap. I crouch down and look into the hole. The dark clouds have rolled in thick across the sky, and I know any second now the sage words of the Mystical Truck Driver will come true, and not only will I be locked out, but trapped in a storm. The space beneath the porch is too dark to see anything, so I take out my phone and shine the flashlight down into it. The light glints off something metallic, and looking closer, I can tell it's the key. Hoping not too many creepy crawlies have taken up residence under the porch, I ease my hand between the jagged sides of the hole and reach for the key. It's just out of reach, and I lower myself to my belly, trying to press one eye to the space between two boards so I can watch what I'm doing. I feel something brush up against my hand, and I resist the urge to fling myself off the porch and run.
This is starting off spectacularly.
Finally, I feel my fingers wrap around the key, and I'm able to bring it up. It's damp and dirty from spending who-knows-how-long under the porch, but it's in my hand, and I'm going to take that as a victory in the context of the rest of my day so far. Putting the welcome mat back in place for good measure, I grab my bags and unlock the door.
"Grammie?" I call as I step into the house. "It's me. It's Fiona."
I pause for a moment to contemplate the compulsion people have to clarify who they are when calling out to someone in the house. I'd hope Grammie would be able to identify my voice by now, but it still feels like the right thing to do. I glance into the dark living room to one side and don't see any signs of Grammie being there. Moving further into the house, I check the kitchen. Part of me expects to find it filled with the smell of peach pie and coffee, but it, too, is still. A slight chill rolls through me being inside the house again. It's been more than ten years, and I can see the effect those years of neglect have had on the house. Though I know Grammie kept coming back here for several years after I stopped, the house feels cavernous and forgotten. I can see signs of age as I move through it, and I feel another wave of guilt. Grammie stopped coming out here as frequently when I vowed I'd never come back, until eventually, her visits petered out completely. I know this place meant so much to her and Gramps, and that being away from it for so long couldn't have been easy for her.
Calling out to her again, I cautiously start up the steps. The rain has started, the droplets steadily drumming on the outside of the house, and the sound creates an even eerier feeling. Finally, I make it up to the top of the steps to Grammie's room. The door is open a few inches, and I press my hand to it to guide it open, unsure what I'm preparing myself for as I hold my breath. Once the door is fully open, I see Grammie laying in her bed. Small black earbuds are tucked into her ears, the wires trailing down over the pink Rosebud design of her nightgown to connect with a sleek smartphone in her lap. I walk in a few steps, and she looks up at me. She jumps slightly and pulls the earbuds out of her ears.
"Shit! You scared the hell out of me," she gasps.
"Me?” I ask. “You scared the hell out of me. I've been knocking on the door out there for the last ten minutes. I had to dig
around under the porch to find the spare key to get in."
"I didn't hear you," she says.
"Obviously," I say, gesturing at the phone. "What are you listening to?"
"Meditation videos," she says. "The doctor says my stress levels are too high, and that listening to these will help me to calm down and focus on healing."
I glance at her leg and notice she's wearing a large black and grey medical boot.
"Is it really that bad?" I ask, pointing at the boot.
"The doctor gave it to me to wear," she says.
I note it's not exactly an answer to my question, but I'm too worried to really focus on that. I've never seen Grammie sitting in her bed in the middle of the day. Unless, of course, during one of our traditional movie marathons. Looking at her like this – I don't know what I'm supposed to think. She seems so weak and fragile. Those are words I never would have used to describe her, but as I look at my grandmother, I can't help but feel disheartened. This is a woman who would have never been seen in a nightgown at this hour, and got up so early when I was little, I was convinced she woke up the sun. Everyone needs someone or something to wake them up in the morning, and I just figured Grammie did it for the sunrise every day. Now here she is, sitting in her bed in her nightgown in the middle of the day, her leg encased from toes to knee with a heavy plastic boot to stabilize her bone.
A sudden crash of thunder makes me scream and jump, and I'm just getting my breath to regulate, my hand pressed to my heart, when another loud sound makes me jump again.
"What in the living hell?"
The loud sound continues to echo through the house, and I realize someone is knocking on the front door. I look at Grammie, who seems invested in something on the screen of her phone.
"Someone is at the door," I say.
Unexpected Daddies Page 28