by Rose, Amelia
Chapter 2
Alyssa waited outside next to her car, her left thumb absentmindedly rubbing against the indent in her ring finger. It was a nervous habit, one that her husband, Kyle, always used to joke about.
Why do you rub your wedding ring all the time? He would ask her. Are you worried it’s going to grow legs and run away? He would always laugh when he caught her doing it. In the beginning it had been because she wasn’t used to the weight of the ring on her finger, but after he died it was to remind her of him. It had been three years since the accident, but she had only recently stopped wearing the ring, and now she couldn’t get used to its absence.
In the garage she had been able to forget that her life was surrounded in tragedy. She had been so wrapped up in finding out what happened to Clara that she had begun to act and feel normal around Woody. Kyle had been attached to her every thought until Woody had made her laugh. With the laughter had come a sort of release and attraction that she hadn’t felt in years. It had immediately grounded her and she had reigned in her emotions.
Alyssa didn’t think she had a right to feel happy. How could she, when someone she loved was dead? She was thinking about this when a shadow appeared in front of her, jolting her out of her thoughts and causing her to jump and sigh out loud a little at the same time.
“I’m sorry.” Woody said, holding out his arm to steady her. When he touched her, she felt a spark flare up across her skin and it was so unexpected that she pulled away from him.
“I’m okay,” she responded. “Sorry, you just startled me a little there. I was a million miles away.”
“I could tell,” Woody said smiling. “If you’re anything like me, you’re probably too focused on your hunger pains to think of anything else.”
At the mention of food her stomach rumbled a little bit. She hadn’t eaten anything since dinner last night and now that she had calmed down a little she was beginning to realize just how hungry she really was. “I must be. I hope this café you’re taking me to is good.”
“Best in town,” he reassured her.
“Probably the only place in a town this size,” she responded as she followed him across the parking lot. She almost laughed when he climbed into an old, white Volkswagen Thing. “I don’t think I’ve ever actually ridden in one of these.”
“Well, now’s your chance,” he said as he grinned and patted the worn vinyl seat.
*
He couldn’t help but notice the smile that lit up her face when she climbed into the Thing. It was a car his mother had always loved, and even though he’d never met her, he drove the car as a kind of tribute to her memory. They drove through town and pulled up at a house on Main Street with a white picket fence out front and a wide driveway.
“Why are we stopping here?” Alyssa asked as he got out of the car, walked around to her side and opened the door to let her out.
“We’re here to eat. This is the café,” he told her as he started to walk down the path and around to the back porch door.
She started to walk around the front of the car but stopped. He didn’t look back but instead kept walking until he heard her footsteps crunching on the pavement behind him. He nodded hello to a couple of regulars who were sitting on the back porch deck and walked into the house under a wooden sign with the words “Main Street Café” etched into the grain.
“Oh my, this is interesting,” he heard Alyssa whisper as she came up behind him.
His smile was now so wide that his cheeks were hurting. They walked across the room to the side of what used to be the living room. The inside of the house had been gutted and transformed to look like a café, but the wall décor still looked like the inside of a regular home, complete with bookshelves and pictures on the wall. The difference was that there were seven different patio table sets spread out across the hardwood floor where people were eating.
Woody strode up to the counter, “Hey Melissa, can we have a couple of menus? My friend, Alyssa, is new to town and I promised to take her to the best we have.”
“Now hush, Woody. You know we’re pretty much the only game in town for a decent lunch.” Melissa answered as she reached underneath the built-in bar and pulled out two paper menus and handed them to him. She was tall with thick auburn hair that cascaded across her shoulders when she bent down. When they’d been in high school, everyone had wanted her to play basketball but she’d refused to do so telling them that she was too big and clumsy.
“That’s what I told him,” Alyssa said as she took the menu from him. She was smiling again, and he joined in as Melissa stepped out from behind the counter and led them to the back of the room. “In fact,” she continued, “I never would have even found this place if it weren’t for Woody. This is a really neat set up you have here.”
“Here’s your regular table.” Melissa said motioning to the table that was closest to the kitchen door. And then she turned to Alyssa and flashed a thousand watt smile, “And thank you! I really wanted to do something completely different with my restaurant so I decided to combine the idea of home cooking with a traditional café.” She looked at Woody and slapped him on the shoulder. “Most of the locals thought I was crazy, but it’s worked out well enough!”
Someone else walked in the door, and Melissa excused herself to see to them. As soon as she was gone and they had ordered, Alyssa set in on him with the questions.
“What happened? How did he find her? Is everything okay?” she asked in rapid fire succession. He could tell by the pinched look on her face that she had been holding back as long as she could. If the situation weren’t so serious he might have chuckled a little at her outburst.
“This is the story as I understand it,” Woody started. “I’m sure you know more about the beginning than I do, so why don’t you fill me in on that, and I will tell you what happened afterward.”
Alyssa studied him for a moment and then nodded her approval, letting out her breath in one long sigh before beginning.
“Clara has a stalker. She doesn’t know who he is, she’s never seen him. He has been playing a game of cat and mouse with her for months, shutting off her electricity and freezing her bank accounts. It had started getting more and more personal, and that’s why she was heading to my house. I’m someone so far in her past that he shouldn’t know about me. Plus, I don’t have much connection with the outside world since I’m one of those ‘reclusive writer types’ so we thought she might be able to stay there off the grid and start to get her life back together.”
When she spoke, she moved her hands through the air and he noticed that there was a slight indention on her ring finger where a ring had recently sat. Although he tucked this information away for later, he decided not to bring it up now.
“Clara was on her way to your house then when her radiator in that old truck blew up?” he asked.
“Yes. The truck was her brother’s. She was hoping it would make this trip without any problems, but I guess it was just too much to ask of the old thing.”
“It almost made it, and that’s saying something for a truck with that many years and that many miles on it,” Woody replied proudly.
“I guess so,” Alyssa answered. “Now it’s your turn. Spill.”
“Well my brother Shad is the one who found Clara on the side of the road and he brought her truck in to get it fixed up,” Woody started. “Since it was on a weekend, he offered her the use of one of the farmhand apartments.”
“Okay, so that was on Friday?” she asked.
“Late Friday night,” Woody reciprocated. “Then a freak electrical storm came through on Saturday and knocked out the power. The guy came in posing as an electric company worker and tried to kidnap Clara. Shad stopped him and our sister Melinda arrested him.”
“That’s a very simplistic view of what happened,” Alyssa answered dryly.
“I’m a pretty simplistic guy,” admitted Woody. “If you worry too much about the details, you’ll end up getting lost in them. All I needed to
know was that they were safe. The ‘how’ and the ‘why’ of everything else doesn’t seem to matter.”
“I don’t think I have ever looked at life that way before, “ Alyssa said as her blue eyes looked at him with a haunted edge to them. He knew from experience that there was a sense of loss and conflict there which had lasted for years. There was a moment of silence while the waiter set their food down.
When they were once again alone at the table, Woody continued his thoughts. “If you worry your whole life about the big picture, I think you miss everything else that’s going on around you. Right now, this moment is king.”
“I like that…” she said before they started eating.
*
As soon as lunch was finished, Woody drove Alyssa out to the farm where she got to see Clara for the first time in years. When the Volkswagen pulled up in the driveway, Alyssa spotted a blonde woman running down the dirt path to greet them. Alyssa had expected someone a lot less exuberant. However, the woman who was running at her was fresh faced and happy.
“Alyssa!” Clara exclaimed as she threw open the door to the Thing and pulled Alyssa into a tight hug before the car had even stopped rolling. “It’s so good to see you!”
“Same here,” Alyssa told her, pulling back from the hug to look into her friend’s face. “I gotta say though, Stanhope agrees with you.”
Clara reached up and pushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear and smiled at the same time. “Really?”
At that moment a taller version of Woody stepped up behind Clara and held out his hand. “Hi, I’m Shad, Woody’s brother. I’m glad that you found his shop safely.”
Then he put his hand on Clara’s shoulder and looked into her eyes with such a tender look that a warm blush instantly colored Clara’s cheeks. Alyssa knew then that it wasn’t the town that had been good to her, but rather this man who had put a smile on her face.
“Yeah, although I’m sure that my sneaking in and accosting him about Clara probably wasn’t what she had in mind when she sent me the letter,” Alyssa replied, smiling as Woody rounded the front of the car to join in on the conversation.
“Ah, that was nothing. You were just worried.” Woody said as they started walking back to the house.
“It sounds like I had a right to be,” Alyssa said turning to look at Clara. “Are you okay?”
“I’m much better now that I know he’s safely behind bars. He has a name and a face now, something I can combat instead of just swinging at shadows.”
Alyssa nodded. She understood completely how relieved Clara must feel to be able to put a face to her fears. Right after the car accident she didn’t know who had caused the wreck that had taken her husband and son from her because they had left the scene. When the police did find them, it was so hard to see that the monster she had hated blindly for months, the demon whose unknown face haunted her waking and restless nights, was nothing more than a middle aged soccer mom who had ran a red light because she was too busy trying to text and drive.
She also knew having someone to blame did not always make it easier to fight, but that was a different story. A hand rested on her shoulder, causing Alyssa to jump a little. She looked up to see that Clara was studying her. “Are you okay?”
Alyssa forced a smile. “Me? I’m fine. You guys are the two who were attacked,” She said as she looked over at Shad and the bruises that had darkened his arms and cheek.
Clara looked at her knowingly, but then decided not to pursue the conversation any longer.
Just then a large black and white SUV pulled up in the driveway with the words “Sheriff” written on the side. A woman got out and started to walk over to them. She had the same sharp eyes and strong jaw line as her brothers, but on her it looked beautiful. Not even having her dark auburn hair pulled back into a severe bun could lessen how stunning she was.
“How are you guys doing today?” she asked as she approached Clara and Shad. For a moment, Alyssa had the distinct impression that Melinda was ignoring her on purpose and then judging her reaction.
“We’re doing well, Melinda,” Shad told her and then immediately turned to Alyssa. “Have you met Clara’s childhood friend, Alyssa yet?”
Melinda turned her gaze on Alyssa, and she felt the weight of its judgment. After a moment she answered. “No, I haven’t. Hello, Alyssa. Sorry that you had to come to Stanhope on such a bad note.” When she extended her hand, Alyssa took it in her own and made sure to return a firm grip. When she did Melinda smiled in response. She may have just met Melinda, but one thing she knew for sure was that she didn’t ever want to be on her bad side.
“Do you feel ready to give your formal statement?” Melinda asked, turning back to Shad and Clara.
“Yeah,” Shad said, “I want to get this over with.”
“It would probably be good to move this inside then.” Melinda told them. When they went to go inside Woody put his hand on the small of Alyssa’s back, and she felt the heat and electricity pour out of him even through the fabric. Before she realized what she was doing she found herself leaning back into his hand as they walked up the stairs and into the house.
Chapter 3
It had been a long day by the time Woody led Alyssa into the Slice and Suds. Even though he had heard about the things that the stalker had done to Clara, he hadn’t realized the extent of what that had meant to her life.
They went to a corner booth away from a lot of the noise. After Woody ordered a pitcher of beer and a pizza, he turned to Alyssa.
“I don’t think I realized how much of our lives are susceptible to hacking,” admitted Woody. “Hearing what that guy did, makes me want to completely disconnect from the outside world.”
“Aren’t you already?” Alyssa asked.
Woody thought about that for a moment and then laughed. “That’s very true. If I had a problem with my electric bill I could just go downtown and straighten it out. I’m not a nameless person. That can be good or bad depending on your point of view.”
“Bad?” Alyssa asked as she poured her first cup of beer.
“Yeah, “Woody confided. “If you’re a teenager trying not to get caught doing something you shouldn’t, it can be a bad thing.” He smiled and leaned over the table when he spoke as if he were unveiling a great secret to her. When he did that, she took a deep breath, his cologne lingering in her nostrils causing her stomach to clench with an unexpected surge of desire. She fought that urge down and leaned back in her chair.
To cover her uneasiness, Alyssa barked out a quick loud laugh that was so loud a few people turned back to look at them. Woody started laughing as well.
“I hadn’t even thought of it that way.” Alyssa mused. There was a twinkle in her eyes when she said this, and he found himself going out of his way to make her smile even more. Before he realized it, he was telling her stories of the three of them when they were growing up and getting into all kinds of trouble.
“…and then Shad bet Melinda that she and her friends couldn’t catch the mare and ride her bareback in the pasture in the middle of the night.” He was mid-story when they polished off the first pitcher of beer and he motioned to the server to order another one.
“Did they?” she asked, her eyebrow elevated in curiosity as she leaned over the table.
“Well, Melinda wasn’t about to give up without a fight, so she and her friends went out into the pasture and waited by the fence. The mare kept circling closer and closer, but they could never coax her all the way to them.” He poured them both another glass of beer before continuing. “But instead of giving up, she launched herself from the fence onto the mare’s back at a distance of about ten feet.”
“So she made the bet?”
“Technically, I guess.” He answered cryptically.
“Technically?” Alyssa turned her head slightly while shooting him a puzzled look. “What does that mean?”
“Melinda did manage to cling onto the old mare for thirty seconds, which was the time on the origina
l bet. However, when she fell off she landed on some rocks and cacti and had to be taken to the hospital.”
“Oh that’s horrible!” Alyssa exclaimed. “Was she okay?”
“Yeah, she broke her leg, but it was nothing that could keep Melinda down. No, what was worse was the trouble Shad got into when Dad found out what happened.”
“He probably caught a lot of slack for being the older brother.” Alyssa observed. She thought about how lonely her childhood without siblings had been by comparison. There was Clara’s family, but it wasn’t the same. There was no one there to lean on, depend on, or get in trouble with. She had longed for a big family for as long as she could remember.
Woody smiled a little. “He did. But he also did a lot for us since Mom was gone and Dad was always working the farm.”
“Where was your mom?” Alyssa asked.
“She died.” He answered, and the openness and smile that had been on his face a moment before suddenly tightened and the corners of his lips dropped.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have intruded.” When she spoke he saw that she started rubbing her thumb along the indentation in her ring finger. Her discomfort in the situation translating immediately to her need to instinctively reach for comfort from her missing ring.
“It’s not a problem. It happened a long time ago.” He gulped down the last of his beer and poured another.
He had almost told her that he had been the reason his mom died, that she hadn’t been able to survive his birth and that in order for him to live she had to die. These were the thoughts that haunted him, the ones that he had never given voice to, not even to Shad. Now, however, he found himself wanting to tell this woman whom he’d only met this morning about his mother’s death. Instead he found himself searching for a way to change the subject.
“Do you play pool?” he asked as he looked across the room and realized that one of the tables was open.