“Sick?”
“He had a very serious heart attack a couple of weeks ago. It was impossible for him to come, so he asked me.”
“Why you?”
“I guess I’m someone he trusts.”
She gripped both hands on the steering wheel, as if it might steady the tilt of disbelief inside her. “Why now? After all these years?”
“The letter should tell you what you want to know.”
Willa picked the envelope up again, stared at the handwriting. “This is why you came here.”
“Yes.”
“And why you—” She waved a hand at the building they’d just come from, humiliation settling in the pit of her stomach.
“I think that was more about something else,” he said, his voice softening. “Something I had no right to pursue.”
She wondered what he meant by that, but at the same time did not want to know. He probably had a wife and five kids waiting at home for him. A flat feeling of outrage slid in behind the humiliation.
“Read the letter tonight,” he said. “Then we’ll talk again.”
He got out of the Wagoneer and shut the door with a firm click.
She sat for a few moments, stunned, then finally started the engine and pulled out of the Hoot ’n’ Holler parking lot. The Wagoneer muffler clanked on the pavement, a shower of sparks visible in the rearview mirror.
Behind them, he stood, watching her go.
* * *
SO MUCH FOR well-laid plans.
Owen didn’t think he could have bumbled it more if he’d tried.
Willa’s reaction to learning about Charles wasn’t exactly surprising. She had a father she had not known existed. Who wouldn’t be blown out of the water by something like that?
A brown pickup truck with tires that looked like they had been injected with steroids roared into the parking lot, came to a rumbling halt. Two guys in bandanas and muscle shirts got out, swaggered inside.
Owen headed for his own vehicle, got in and slapped a palm against the steering wheel. He had asked Willa out tonight with the intention of softening the news he’d come here to deliver. So how did he explain the detour he’d taken in there with the dancing and flirting? And that kiss in the parking lot. No one had ever accused him of being the straightest arrow around, but he did have a girlfriend, and it wasn’t his style to cheat.
Still, there was no getting around the fact that he had wanted to dance with Willa tonight. That he had, without doubt, wanted to kiss her.
He had been around the block enough times to have had a lot of firsts. He’d known his share of women. But the energy between the two of them in there hadn’t felt like anything he recognized.
He ran a hand across his face. Or maybe it was just that his back was to the wall, and he was looking for an exit. Ten days to make up his mind. He glanced at his watch. Past midnight. Make that nine days.
The future had never looked less clear.
CHAPTER FOUR
ONE DINNER. One dance. It was always the little decisions that led to the big trouble.
Willa drove a few miles before letting herself glance at the letter on the passenger seat, no idea what to make of any of it.
Owen Miller had been a messenger, a delivery service. His asking her out tonight had nothing whatsoever to do with strawberries, or dancing a shade too close, or anything at all resembling romance.
Cheeks flaming, she fumbled to redo the button of her blouse with one hand.
A date. She’d thought it was a date. And he’d been nothing more than a messenger.
Tipp’s Minute Market sat just ahead on the right. Willa hit her blinker, turned in and pulled underneath a parking-lot light. She picked up the letter from the passenger seat, held it for a moment, then began to read.
Dear Willa,
I know you have no idea who I am, and most likely at this point, have no desire to. At least that’s what I’ve been telling myself for too many years to count.
I also know that your mother never told you about me. But I am your father, and I would very much like to meet you.
I sincerely hope you will indulge an old man’s wish and return to Lexington with Owen so that we might have a chance to talk.
Sincerely,
Charles Hartmore
It had to be a joke, and yet it didn’t read like one.
But it couldn’t possibly apply to her. Her father had died. What reason would her mother have had to lie about that?
She flung the letter aside and leaned her head against the seat, a sudden throbbing in her left temple. Crazy. No other word for it.
She put the Wagoneer in gear and pulled back onto the road, parking in the driveway of her house a few minutes later with little memory of how she’d gotten there.
Lights were on. Thank goodness. At least Katie was here. That was the last thing she needed to deal with tonight.
She stuck her key in the lock and let herself in the front door. Sam bounded into the foyer, tail wagging hard enough to send anything in its path crashing to the floor. She leaned over, rubbed his chin, then went into the kitchen and gave him a bone-shaped cookie from the treat jar. He trotted off, tail flagpole straight.
Music erupted from upstairs, throbbing through the ceiling. The kitchen light fixture rattled in complaint. A drum solo picked up the beat of Willa’s headache.
“Katie!”
No answer. No surprise. She climbed the squeaky pine steps to her sister’s room, knocking at the closed door. When she got no response, she opened it and stuck her head inside.
Katie had her back turned. She yanked clothes from drawers, tossing them into the suitcases on her bed.
Willa put a hand to her chest, stepped into the room. “Katie.”
Her sister whirled then, the surprise on her pretty face quickly replaced by irritation. “Can’t you knock?”
“I did.” Willa’s voice was little more than a whisper.
Katie reached over and lowered the volume on the boom box quaking on her nightstand. “What?”
“I said I did. What are you doing?”
“Packing.”
“I can see that.”
Katie dropped a handful of thong underwear into the closest suitcase, not meeting Willa’s eyes. “Yeah, don’t you think it’s time we admitted this isn’t working?”
“Katie,” Willa said, throwing up her hands. “You’re sixteen. Where are you going?”
“Eddie said I can stay with him. He’s got a place with some friends.”
Willa sank down onto the bed, palms on her knees. “Don’t do this, Katie.”
Katie looked up then, her face blanked of emotion. “I’m not like you, Willa. All you care about is doing the right thing. But we have different definitions of what that is, and I’m not ever going to be like you.”
Defiance underscored each word, and Willa’s heart wilted beneath the blow. “No one’s ever asked you to, Katie. I just want you to give yourself a fair shot.”
“Maybe this is the shot I want. Eddie’s not so bad.”
Willa pressed her lips together, certain that anything negative she said against Eddie would only push Katie out the door that much faster. “Don’t you think we should talk about this?”
Katie opened a drawer, scooped up an armful of T-shirts, and hurled them at a suitcase. “There’s nothing to talk about. I’m quitting school.”
Willa put one hand to the back of her neck. “Oh, Katie, no.”
“You quit! Why is it such a crime if I do the same thing?”
“I left my last semester of college. Don’t you think that’s a little different?”
“Is it? Sometimes I wonder if you really wanted to stay here or if it was just a good place to lock yourself up.”
Willa pressed two fingers to the bridge of her nose where a sudden pain had set up. “My coming back had nothing to do with that,” she said in a calm voice.
Katie reached for another shirt, tossed it in the suitcase. “You’re sure about th
at?”
Frustration at her sister, for her sister, churned inside her. “This isn’t about me, Katie! It’s about you. I know this may seem like what you want right now. But believe me, one day you’re going to wake up and wish you’d taken a different path.”
“You’d know about that, wouldn’t you?”
Willa flinched, the question hitting its intended mark. “I don’t regret what I’ve done.”
“But then we’re not all saints.” Katie propped her fists on her hips, her blue eyes narrowed. “I mean what about all those dreams you had? Don’t you ever wonder what kind of doctor you would have made?”
Willa wrapped her arms around her waist, anger a sudden weight on her chest. It wasn’t often that she let Katie get to her, but tonight her defenses were down. “What do you think I should have done, Katie? Left you to foster care? Pretended you weren’t my sister?”
Katie glared at her. “Yeah, maybe so. Then at least one of us would have had a chance to be happy.”
Hurt flared inside her, spread like liquid fire. There didn’t seem to be anything she could say to soften Katie’s resentment. And wasn’t that the ultimate irony? That Katie was the one harboring all the regret?
Suddenly, Willa couldn’t talk about this anymore. “You’re not going anywhere tonight, are you?”
Katie stubbed a sneakered toe against the worn rug beside her bed and shoved her hands in the pockets of her faded jeans. “No.”
Under a stifling sense of failure, Willa turned and left the room, closing the door with a satisfying thud.
Downstairs, Sam finished up the remains of his bone. At the sight of her, he stood, whined and wagged his tail. The dog was nearly human, and it wasn’t the first time Willa had glimpsed sympathy on his face. She grabbed her purse from the table in the foyer. “Come on, Sam. I could use a change of scenery.”
He was out the door in a flash, as if he, too, needed the escape.
* * *
OWEN HAD JUST LET HIMSELF into his room when his cell phone rang. His home number flashed on caller ID. He clicked on to an unusually somber Cline.
“Natalie just called,” he said. “Charles is in the hospital again.”
“What?”
“Yeah, it looks like he might have had another heart attack.”
Owen’s grip on the phone tightened. “How serious is it?”
“I’m not sure. Natalie was pretty out of it. I don’t know more than that. She asked where you were. I didn’t know what to tell her, so I just said out of town.”
He pushed a hand through his hair. “Okay. I’ll head home.”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah.”
“Drive safe.”
Owen hung up, stunned. Willa. Charles hadn’t met Willa yet. The very real possibility that he might die without doing so flooded him with a sinking sense of panic. He yanked his suitcase out of the closet, started throwing things inside.
He had to get back. And somehow, convince Willa to go with him.
* * *
WILLA DROVE, her mind going in a dozen directions.
Sam sat on the seat next to her, alternating between looking ahead and then out the window.
She followed the street through town, edging out into the county until she ended up at Judy’s. She pulled into the driveway and cut the lights. The house was small but neatly manicured, bushes trimmed. Baskets of ferns hung from the porch roof above a newly painted white railing.
Crossing her fingers that Jerry wouldn’t answer the door, Willa knocked. She waited a few moments, decided this had been a crazy idea and tripped back down the steps.
The door squeaked open. Willa turned around, and there stood Judy with a batch of pink and blue curlers in her hair, her eyes and mouth the only visible landmarks beneath a glacier of cold cream.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come.”
Judy waved a hand in front of her face. “Yeah, I know. It’s not pretty.”
Willa tried for a smile. “Have you got a minute?”
“Do you really think I’m going to let you leave without telling me what brought you out here at this hour?” She pulled the door closed and sat down on the top porch step.
Front paws on the dashboard, Sam barked his displeasure at being left in the car.
“So shoot,” Judy said.
Willa sat down, then sighed. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“How about with the date? How was it?”
She massaged the back of her neck with one hand, the tension there a hard knot. “First of all, it wasn’t a date.”
Judy raised a skeptical eyebrow. “By whose definition?”
“All concerned parties. Believe me.”
“Oook-kay. How about starting at the beginning?”
Willa stared at the step beneath her feet. “He came here to tell me I have a father in Lexington.”
Judy’s eyes popped wide. “Whoa.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“Are you serious?”
“He sent a letter saying he knows my mother never told me about him.”
Judy shook her head, pink sponge curlers jiggling. “Why?”
“I have no idea.”
“So what now?”
“Nothing, I guess.”
“Don’t you want to meet him?”
Willa lifted a shoulder. “No. I mean, I don’t know. The whole thing is just too weird.”
“What if he’s rich?”
“Judy.”
“Maybe you’re his only heir, and he wants to leave you the millions he no longer has any use for.”
“The lottery thing again.”
Judy smiled. “All joking aside, of course you have to meet him.”
“Why? What difference would it make now?”
“Because if you don’t, you’ll wonder about it for the rest of your life. That’s a long time to wonder.”
“I’ve managed twenty-eight years without him.”
“But that was before you knew he existed. That changes everything.”
Willa considered the words, wondering if Judy might be right.
“And our delectable Kentucky morsel. Where does he fit into all this?”
“Apparently, he’s an old friend of my—” She broke off there, unable to say the word. “I guess the whole dinner thing was just a big setup.”
Judy rewound a wayward sponge curler. “So you didn’t have any fun?”
“That’s not the point.”
“What’s that old saying? Don’t shoot the messenger?”
“The messenger could have just given me the letter sans the dinner and dancing.”
“Me? I would have preferred his version. You know, Willa, you’re way too young to be writing off the entire male population. Like me, you just picked wrong the first time around. Unlike me, you can still do something about it.”
Willa put one elbow on her knee, palm to her forehead. “I’ve got bigger stuff to worry about.”
“Let me guess. Katie.”
She nodded, miserable. “When I got home tonight, she was packing. She’s planning to quit school and move in with Eddie.”
Judy rolled her eyes. “Hormones must actually leech intelligence from the teenage brain.”
“She’s just so unhappy,” Willa said, shaking her head. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Maybe you’re going to have to let her make the mistake. It’s kind of like quicksand. Once you get out in the middle of it, it’s not that easy to remove yourself.”
Willa stared up at the sky. “I don’t know.”
They sat there for a few minutes, not talking. Finally, Judy said, “Okay, here’s the fix. Go to Lexington, meet this man, and take Katie with you. Get her away from here a while. Maybe that’s all it will take to make her see young Eddie in a different light.”
“She seems pretty hooked on him.”
“That old saying, absence makes the heart grow fonder?” She flapped a hand. “Hogwash. Out of sight, out of mind.”
* * *
OWEN HAD BEEN WAITING in Willa Addison’s driveway for a little over an hour when the Wagoneer rattled to a stop behind him. He got out of the Range Rover and waited for her.
She opened the door. A small beagle mix leaped out ahead of her, rocketing toward him like a mini torpedo.
“Sam, no!” Willa called out, jumping from the Wagoneer.
The dog latched his teeth on to Owen’s pants, his four legs planted like concrete columns. He growled and shook his head, looking over his shoulder at Willa for confirmation of his catch.
She bent to rub the dog’s back. “Let go, Sam.”
He did so with reluctance.
“I’m sorry,” Willa said, looking up at Owen. “He’s a little protective.”
Owen reached down and rubbed his ankle. “Is that so?”
“He’s really a teddy bear. Except when it comes to looking out for me. The only flaw is he doesn’t know a good guy from a bad guy.”
Owen let that hang a moment, then said, “At least he spared me my skin.”
She glanced at her watch, gave him a questioning look. “It’s two in the morning.”
“Ah, yeah.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Something’s come up. It’s Charles. He’s in the hospital again.”
Willa stared at him for a moment. “What happened?”
“The doctors are guessing another heart attack. I don’t know very much. But I’m heading back tonight to see him. I was hoping you would come with me.”
“Tonight?” She put a hand to her chest. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t possibly—”
“Look, Willa. I know this is all kind of crazy. I don’t want to sound like I’m pressuring you, but anything could happen. He’s a good man who’s looking to fix something he regrets. Can’t you just give him this chance?”
Her eyes softened. White teeth worried her bottom lip. “Even if I wanted to, I can’t go tonight.” She hooked a thumb at the house. “My sister. She’s having a tough time. I need to be here for her.”
“Sixteenish? Blond?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“She left a little while ago with a couple of suitcases.”
“What?” Willa whirled and ran to the house, taking the porch steps two at a time. The dog was right on her heels, barking like he’d just gotten a good rabbit scent.
The Lost Daughter of Pigeon Hollow Page 4