“Your fault!” I couldn’t quit screaming this at Marshall.
Case was on me again, lifting me into his arms and carrying me back inside. A detached part of me felt terrible for what I was putting my husband through by acting this way; his cinnamon-brown eyes were wet with unshed tears as he set me gently onto the couch and said, “Please sit here…” and he implored me with his eyes and voice, “Please, sweetheart, for me.”
I nodded weakly; he rightly knew that I would do anything for him.
“I’ll be right back,” Case said, and went outside again.
Ruthann, I begged, cupping my forehead and reaching out with my mind, trying to sense her. Maybe she had stayed at a motel, maybe she was somewhere in North Dakota right now. But I knew she wouldn’t let us worry this way. Even if she was furious at Marshall, surely hurt by his angry words, she was soft-hearted enough that she would never make us worry. Even if we deserved it.
My phone rang. I was sure it was Mom or Aunt Jilly – when I saw Dad’s work number, his office at Rockford, Gordon and Bunnickle in downtown Chicago, I immediately assumed that Mom had called him. And then I thought, my mind ignoring rationale and clinging to a spark of hope, Maybe Ruthie went there. Maybe she bought a plane ticket…
“Dad, is she there?” I asked upon answering.
A brief, surprised silence, before my father apparently chose to ignore my question and said gravely, “Tish, I’m so upset…”
“Did Mom call you?” I interrupted. Dad’s voice was so familiar and there was a tiny, undying part of me that still longed to believe in him, to hero-worship, despite everything.
“No,” he said, and his voice was gruff with both puzzlement and concern.
Then how had he heard about –
“Tish, honey, I hate to tell you this, I hate it deeply,” Dad began.
“I know,” I said, over his words. “And we’re –”
“You know?” Dad asked incredulously, this time interrupting me. He said, “How did…they just found him…”
I was so utterly confused. Dumbly I echoed this phrase, asking, “Found him?”
“Rob,” Dad said, and roughly cleared his throat.
“What?” I could hardly force the sound of this one word from my mouth.
Dad cleared his throat again, before saying somberly, “He overdosed, Tish. Probably three days ago now. They found him in his apartment just this afternoon…”
Once, as a kid, I’d begged Camille to spin me on one of those rare tiny merry-go-rounds, the ones with a base no more than two feet in diameter, basically the equivalent of a single-seater. It was in a park somewhere on the way to Landon from Chicago, in a summer years past. Camille warned me that I would be sick, but I’d insisted and she finally relented. The way I felt right now could only be compared to that long-ago afternoon, when I’d staggered to the reeling ground and threw up all my lunch.
Whirling and revolving, the merry-go-round completely out of control.
Like a mechanical toy, I lurched to my feet and walked with jerky steps across the kitchen and to the bathroom. Later, Case would find my phone in the garbage, where I had unconsciously chucked it right then. I fell to my knees beside the toilet and heaved into the bowl.
Ruthann.
Robbie.
Oh God…
This can’t be happening…
But the world would not stop spinning.
***
“They’re searching for her car,” Case told me, coming into the bedroom. I lay curled on our bed, despising myself for being so weak, for being unable to face everyone who had gathered in our tiny living room. Instead I huddled around my belly, smoothing my palms repeatedly against the movement of our daughter, finding a measure of comfort in her presence.
At his words I pressed both hands to my face. Case had closed the bedroom door and curled around me on the mattress, his big, strong body so warm as he gathered me close and held me securely. I could feel his heartbeat and I curled my fingers tightly into his. He kissed my hair and his concern was palpable.
“My heart is breaking to see you this way,” he whispered painfully. “I’m so sorry. I hate this so much.”
In the past few hours, I had told Case about Robbie’s death, our local sheriff Jerry Woodrow had come and gone, and all the Rawleys had flooded to our side; in times of need, they gathered instantly. Marshall was more of a wreck than me, if that was even possible. He refused to be comforted and had instead driven back to his and Ruthann’s little apartment, in the hope that she might show up there before morning. I felt, childishly, that all hope had been extinguished, at least momentarily. At least until tomorrow. Tomorrow I would have to get up and face this, find a grain of hope, but for tonight I could not muster the strength to climb from the trench and instead clung to my husband.
“Can’t they trace her phone?” I asked again.
“The battery must be dead, because they couldn’t,” Case whispered. “Baby, you need to eat something. Will you eat something, please, sweetheart?”
I whispered, “I can’t right now. I will…tomorrow…”
Tomorrow, which would not restore Robbie to life; somehow I knew that it would not restore Ruthann to us either.
Oh God…oh please no…
I wept, unable to stop, begging, “Don’t let go…”
“I’m here,” Case assured me, time and again. “I love you and I’m right here, sweetheart. I will never let go of you.”
Midnight came and went. The state patrol put out an APB on Ruthie’s car, as it had been over twenty-four hours now. No word. Minutes ticked by as though counting down to a detonator. Clark brought Wy home; Garth, Sean and Quinn had all gone to the apartment, desperate to talk to Marshall, but Sean called to tell us that Marshall wouldn’t let them inside.
“We’ll try again tomorrow,” he concluded.
I dozed for no more than fifteen minutes once our house was empty, my head aching and congested with tears, and yet it was enough time for a dream to spring to life on the screen of my closed eyelids. In the dream I was following Ruthie. My heart beat joyously to see her. I tried to call to her, but no sound emerged from my dry throat and her back was turned. She was moving swiftly away from me, her curls swinging down her spine, barefoot along a path that led into a forest. Setting sunlight created an auburn halo around her entire body. The sight both transfixed and horrified me; the light was not angelic, as it should have been, but instead deeply ominous.
Ruthann! I tried to scream.
But then, before my eyes, she disappeared.
I woke sweating and disoriented, my heart seizing with fear.
Sharp knocking on the door.
For a moment, still enmeshed in the dream, I couldn’t make sense of the sound. Mutt and Tiny weren’t barking. Case wasn’t right beside me – but then I could hear him, out in the living room.
Marshall’s voice, heated and frantic, yet there was a note of something in it that had not been present earlier – a note of resolve. I sat up, still seeing the image of Ruthann moving away from me and then disappearing…
Disappearing right before my eyes…
I suddenly knew, deep in my innermost heart, where all the things I could not explain were stored, what she had done. I also knew that she was in unimaginable danger.
Through the bedroom door, Case asked, “Tish, are you awake? Marshall wants to talk to you…”
I clicked on the lamp and immediately squinted, telling my husband, “I’m awake.”
Marshall all but burst into the small bedroom and sank to his knees beside the bed. I had never seen such stark desperation on anyone’s face, such agonized urgency. His gray eyes were wrecked, tangled with torture. He asked with quiet intensity, “Where are those letters, Tish? Did you burn them? Oh Jesus, tell me you still have them…”
He knew – he had realized too.
“I can’t go there. I can’t go with you, Marshall. It has to be you alone,” I said. I was shaking so hard that my teeth ratt
led; Case moved immediately to the bed and curled me close to his warm chest.
“I know,” Marshall said, having regained tentative control, and a fraction of his fear was replaced with determination. He said quietly, “I need those letters.”
It would be dawn in just a few hours. I looked hard into Marshall’s eyes and begged him, “Find her. Oh God – what if…”
“No,” Marshall said intently. “Don’t say it. Don’t even think it. I will find her. I will find her or I will die trying. I love her. Oh God, I love her and I hurt her so much. I will bring her back. I swear on my life, I will bring Ruthann back.”
Coming in Fall 2014...
The Civil War has ended, leaving the country with a gaping wound. Southern orphan, Lorie Blake, has worked as a prostitute since she was fifteen, carefully guarding her aching heart from the disgrace forced upon her every evening. Sawyer Davis, who fought bravely as a Confederate soldier for three bitter years, is now ravaged by haunting memories and the loss of his entire family. When their paths intertwine in a river town whorehouse, neither is prepared for the passionate intensity of their attraction to each other.
Forced to flee, Lorie joins Sawyer and his traveling companions—his two best friends and an incorrigible young boy with a heart of gold—on their journey north to Minnesota, where they long to build new lives. But danger pursues them in the form of a vindictive whorehouse madam and two ex-Union soldiers: one insane, the other bent on revenge. Lorie, soiled and shamed, must come to grips with her past and a secret that she cannot yet bear to reveal: her pregnancy by another man.
Through it all, Sawyer and Lorie know only one truth: they must be together. Even if it means challenging Death itself.
About The Author
Abbie Williams has been addicted to love stories ever since first sneaking her mother’s copy of The Flame and the Flower; and since then, she’s been jotting down her own in a notebook. A school teacher who spends her days with her own true love, their three daughters, and a very busy schedule, she is most happy when she gets a few hours to indulge in visiting the characters in her stories. When she’s not writing, teaching or spending time with her family, you’ll find her either camping, making a grand mess in her kitchen at various cooking attempts, or listening to a good bluegrass banjo.
Check out all of her books: Forbidden; Summer at the Shore Leave Cafe; Second Chances; A Notion of Love; Winter at the White Oaks Lodge; Wild Flower; The First Law of Love: Until Tomorrow; Heart of a Dove
Until Tomorrow Page 35