by Anna Adams
“Are you sure Mommy will come?”
“Pretty certain. She didn’t say no when I asked her.”
“But she was a little mad this morning.”
Owen touched Ben’s back, flattening his palm against his boy’s shirt. “Would you like me to call her?”
Ben nodded quickly, as if Owen had flung him a lifeline.
Owen stood. It might be easier for Ben if his mother lived in this tiny house with them, but what if he got used to them being together? They couldn’t let that happen. Ben was always going to have two separate parents.
Owen pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed Lilah. She picked up immediately.
“Is he okay?” she asked.
“He’d like you to come over.”
“I’m already on the way.” She lowered her voice. “With your mother and all these people in your family.”
He couldn’t blame her if she didn’t remember who was whom. “Mom’s bringing something to eat, right?”
“A feast.”
“Good.” Sometimes he was lucky his mother worked so hard to make up for the past. “See you when you get here.”
He disconnected the call and slipped his phone into his pocket. Then he picked up the clothes Ben had dropped. “She’s on the way. Want to put these in your room before she gets here?”
“I guess.”
Owen and Ben climbed the stairs together. They remade the sports-car bed, and Ben went to punch keys at the little minicomputer made for small children on his desk. Owen straightened the beanbags on the floor and returned fallen toys to the small net hammocks attached in two corners of the room.
“I’m messy,” Ben said.
“This stuff is for you to play with. It’s all yours. You’ll just have to put it away when you’re finished.”
“You can come in here and play with me sometimes.”
“I’d like that, Ben. I hope you’ll invite me.”
“Can I get a puppy?”
Owen laughed. “Nice try, buddy. Have you asked your mom?”
Ben’s mouth puckered. “She says I’m not old enough.”
“She’s probably right.”
“Nobody likes dogs. Only I like dogs.”
Owen let that lie. He grabbed Ben’s coat and cap and mittens to put them away. “After everyone leaves, we’ll straighten up the rest of this.”
“I guess.”
The front door opened, and the sound of voices and boots being stomped free of snow drifted up the stairs.
Without warning, the past flooded back. Another pair of boots, their sound so peculiar to his father that he and his sister and brothers all knew the second Odell Gage returned home. They’d rush to hide from the monster’s heavy tread and his fisted hand, but they found no sanctuary.
Was he so different from his father? Forcing Ben to visit him, forcing Lilah to let Ben come?
His siblings seemed to be working out a recovery from the past. Chad had dealt with his anger by playing football and was now a pick for several excellent colleges. Noah had accomplished his single-minded plan of becoming Bliss’s GP and was trying to polish the tarnish off the Gage name. Celia was following him, well on her way to medical school.
Only Owen seemed to remember their past. Only he still feared he might have inherited too much of Odell Gage’s genetics, and when he looked at his son, hurrying to meet his mom, that fear was a huge lump in his throat.
“Mommy,” Ben sang out to her as he shot down the narrow stairs.
Owen followed, just in time to watch Ben leap into his mother’s arms. Lilah hugged him with as much joy as the little guy felt. Her closed eyes hid nothing. She could pretend she was stone cold and bitter, but every time she held Ben, she gave herself away. Little Lost Lilah might be covered in armor, but Ben unlocked her soft center whenever he was near her.
Owen joined his mother and Celia and Noah’s girlfriend, Emma, in the kitchen, where they were unpacking a large cooler tote. They each sneaked curious glances at Owen’s son.
“Where are Noah and Chad?” Owen asked.
Emma pointed an elbow at the kitchen door. “Bringing in firewood. They noticed you were low.”
Suzannah was already unloading even more food from the bags she’d brought inside. “I have fresh-baked bread and cold ham and chicken, some potato salad and coleslaw, veggies for dipping. Baked beans and a few more things I’ve made for you that you can take from the freezer when you want.”
She looked up with a grin as if he’d given her a gift by letting her be useful in his kitchen. “I’ve left a card with instructions for warming up each dish. There’s roast and a couple of casseroles, and I don’t know—a few other items you and Ben will like.”
“Thanks, Mom. I’m a horrible cook. But how did you find time to make all this food?”
“Too anxious to just sit and wait.” She eased him out of the way.
“Lucky for me,” Emma said, “your mom’s teaching me to cook.”
“I thought you knew how. Thanksgiving dinner was amazing.” Noah’s first love from long ago, and now his last, Emma, had hosted the entire family after she and Noah had found their way back to each other.
Emma glanced at his brother, and Noah explained to Lilah, “She kept practicing her grandmother’s recipes until she got them right.”
“You boys leave her alone. That’s the only way to learn.” Suzannah shot Lilah a look. “And, uh—your friend? Is she a good cook?”
Owen discouraged his mother with his own warning glance. “Ben seems to think so. You could probably ask her yourself.”
“Lilah, are you hungry?” Suzannah asked, her polite, Southern, ladylike manners firmly back in place.
“Starving.” With a deep breath, Lilah let Ben slip to the floor. “Hungry, buddy?” she asked.
Ben wrapped an arm around her leg but followed. She walked as if she were wearing a splint, but without the least self-consciousness.
“Can you say hello to Suzannah?” Lilah said. “She’s your grandma. I’ll bet she wouldn’t mind if you call her that.”
“I’d be honored.” Suzannah sank to his height. “I’m so glad you’re here. If you come visit me sometimes, we can play with my goats, and we’ll pick beans and tomatoes from my garden in the summer. I have a pool in the backyard that hardly anyone uses. I’d love to see a little boy enjoying it.”
Ben perked up. “I swim good.”
“But he’s not allowed to swim by himself, ever,” Lilah said, bringing conversation to a halt.
Owen understood her protectiveness, but the others clearly thought she was overreacting. He put an arm around her shoulders, not surprised when she froze. “We’ll all have to keep an eye on Ben when he’s in the pool or anywhere near it.”
“There’s a six-foot fence, Owen.” His mother looked mystified. “And the gate is always locked.”
“See?” He let Lilah go, but glanced at her to offer as much reassurance as he could muster. He didn’t want to alienate her any further. “No reason to worry.”
“We’re in the middle of the Smoky Mountains.” She must not care that his family was their avid audience. “The middle. Mountains, icy streams, rock cliffs.”
“It’s not the kind of suburbia Ben’s used to,” Owen said, “but he’ll be fine, and he might even enjoy the change.”
“These mountains are beautiful,” Suzannah said. “Sometimes we forget and take it for granted. I’ve been so grateful my children haven’t left here, though, of course, we didn’t know about Owen’s adventures in cabinetmaking.”
The room went deadly silent again. Celia covered her mouth to keep from laughing. Emma headed for the door.
“I think I’ll see if Noah and Chad went to harvest that wood from the forest.”
Owen rubbed his chest. These women might be the death of him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
LILAH WATCHED BEN and Owen walking ahead of her on the wide sidewalks across from the town’s courthouse. A slow, steady rain had melted all the snow and kept Owen from working past noon. He’d offered to take her and Ben to see some of the shops in Bliss.
Obviously, he hoped she’d be able to visualize herself in one of the small stores, selling the kind of rustic art and implements she loved best.
“Own, can I have ice cream?” Ben asked, running to stare into one of the plateglass windows. Lilah came up beside him as he tried to rub at the Santa figure still painted on the inside. “Maybe they have chocolate for you, Mommy.”
“Sounds tempting,” she said, “but we just ate lunch, buddy, and it’s cold outside.” She pulled up the hood on his jacket. “Ice cream will make you colder.”
Owen had walked ahead to talk to a man standing beside a rusted-out truck. The man glanced her way.
“Lilah.” Owen beckoned her. “I want to show you something.”
She tugged Ben, who didn’t want to abandon his ice-cream dreams. He walked along, dragging his feet. The man held out his hand for her to shake.
“I hear you like old stuff made into new stuff,” he said with the lilting Appalachian accent she found a bit tricky to follow.
“I guess I do.” She tried not to see Owen’s smile. As if he were giving her a gift.
“Butch, this is my friend, Lilah Bantry. Lilah, Butch Dayton. He sculpts with pig iron.”
“I weld,” Butch said. “Sculpt.” He gave a belly laugh. A literal belly laugh that shook the rounded mound above his faded jeans.
Lilah smiled in spite of not wanting to be drawn to this place where Owen belonged. “What do you weld?”
“Whatever tickles my fancy.” He let down the tailgate on his truck, and yanked back a tarp to reveal a writhing mass of rusted iron. “This was my kids’ old swing set. The wife had been nagging me for years to haul it away.” He leaned confidentially toward Lilah. “She worried the grandkids might get a cut or something. You know how the ladies can be.”
“Lilah is a lady, Butch, and she might be interested in this if we can get it out and set it upright.”
“I call it Superstorm.” Butch nodded at Owen to take a side of the piece.
Lilah urged Ben out of the way as the two men scooted the iron out of the truck, complete with screaming, earsplitting sound effects. As soon as they set it up, Lilah understood. The iron had been bent and twisted as if a tornado had reached down and scrambled the swing set to its own specifications.
It exuded energy and violence.
“You don’t like it?” Butch asked.
Ben reached out to grip the pieces, but Lilah pulled his hand back from the sharp edges.
“I can’t speak,” Lilah said. “It’s beautiful.”
Butch looked at Owen, who nodded with satisfaction.
“See?” Owen said to his friend. “I told you.”
“This mountain grows artisans,” Lilah said. She’d known the same breathless excitement when she’d first seen Owen’s work. “You and Owen. I can’t wait to see who comes along next.”
“Owen?” Butch arched twin, bushy brows. “You taken up welding, boy?”
“I’ve been doing a little extra carpentry in my spare time.” Owen reproved Lilah with a quick glance. “Lilah owns a gallery in Vermont. She’s looking for some work to take back with her, if you had any interest in selling.”
“Selling?” Butch rubbed two fingers against his thumb. “Like for money?”
“I can’t promise, but we could definitely talk terms if you wouldn’t mind sharing your work with me.”
“Huh.” Butch smacked his leg. “I was just going to ask the lady at the clerk’s office if they’d be interested in this thing for the spring festival. I only brought it down because they got mad when I made my pieces too big last year.”
“I’d love to take it for you,” Lilah said. “Do you have more at home?”
“Give her your phone number, Butch.”
“I ain’t got no business card, man. I’m just a farmer.”
“Do you have a phone?” Owen asked.
Butch rummaged in the voluminous back pocket of his jeans and finally pulled out a scarred and beaten flip phone. “You want me to call her when I’m standing right here?”
“I’m going to put Lilah’s phone number in your phone,” Owen said, “and then you can call her tonight and set up a time for her to come out and look at the rest of your work.” He tapped in her number, surprising her. How had he already memorized it? Then he looked at her, his blue eyes laughing. “Is all of this all right with you?”
“Sounds perfect.” She smiled at him. She’d owe him a commission for this introduction. Butch was not just a farmer. Not that there was anything wrong with farming, but how had two such artists found themselves in this tiny mountain town?
“Wait till I tell the wife. She’ll go trolling in the barn for more throwaways. My plows won’t be safe.”
With a smile at his happiness, Lilah shook his hand. The best part of her job was finding a new artist. “When you call, we’ll arrange for shipping,” she said. “I’d like to get Superstorm to my gallery.”
“Unbelievable.” Butch pointed at the sculpture. “Grab that end, Owen. We need to get this back under cover before it gets wetter.”
Lilah hugged her boy with a lovely feeling of accomplishment. She’d done some work today. She and Ben could celebrate. “We’ll be in the ice-cream shop, Owen.”
“Okay.”
Ben grabbed her hand. “That man’s funny, Mommy,” he said, in a loud voice.
It would be best not to look back. “What kind of ice cream do you want, buddy?”
* * *
“ARE YOU SURE you don’t mind driving?” Lilah asked a few days later as Owen turned up a narrow mountain road.
“I was afraid Butch’s directions might lead you to Key West. He was pretty excited about suddenly becoming an artist.”
“I’m glad. He’s ferocious. He packed so much energy into that piece.” She took a quick look at Ben, drowsing in the backseat. “I still don’t understand how Bliss managed to field the two of you.”
“Maybe a place like this draws artists. Have you looked out at the mountains?”
She did now. At mist floating out on the far, rolling ridges. At the water rushing down below, between large, moss-speckled black rocks. “It is beautiful, Owen. I see that.”
“I hope you’ll come to enjoy it, that it won’t always be foreign to you—like the way we speak,” he said, with a slow grin.
“I’m not staying,” she said. “This will never be my home.”
“But it will be Ben’s a lot of the time, and if you come with him, I’d rather you didn’t hate being here. I wasn’t proud of blackmailing you.”
“I see why you love it, but don’t get any ideas.”
How devious was he? Would he suddenly pretend to care for her again because he wanted Ben in his life full-time? Could he possibly believe she’d fall for a play like that?
“Are there other farmers like Butch?” she asked.
“All over the communities up here. We don’t have a lot to do when winter comes.” Thank goodness he’d let the subject of Ben spending a lot of time down here pass. “You’ll find other artists. You just have to be willing to drive around.”
“As long as it isn’t snowing.” She averted her gaze from the steep drop-off on her side of the car, tempted to lean toward Owen to transfer some of her weight. “You worry too much,” he said, and then silence pervaded the car. “I didn’t mean it about Ben this time. I meant you must drive in the snow in Vermont.”
“I know you believe I’
m overly sensitive about Ben.”
“I don’t have any right to suggest that.”
“I try to control any situation that concerns him because of what happened to me.” She didn’t think she had ever admitted that to anyone out loud before. “I just want to make sure no one has time to hurt him. My mother turned her back for a second, and that man asked if I could help him with his kitten. He had his hand on my shoulder and he walked me away because I was worried about a cat.” She barely remembered the details of the story the man used to lure her away, but the memory of him covering her mouth and pushing her into the backseat was painfully vivid. He’d bound her hands and feet with duct tape, and driven her into a hell that had seemed to last forever. She peered over her shoulder. Ben was sound asleep. “I’ll do everything I can to keep Ben safe.”
“I get that, Lilah, but you won’t always be able to watch him 24/7.”
His tight voice put her on the alert. “You think I don’t know that? I also know kids get hurt—it happens, so I don’t care if I annoy you by keeping a close watch over my son.”
“Are you kidding? I’m not upset with you for being afraid. I’d like to dig that guy out of his prison grave and tear him apart for what he did to you. I don’t want something like that to happen to Ben either, but I’m not anything like your abductor, and Ben deserves to have a father, as well as a mother.”
“Not a father who drinks. I begged you to stop and you wouldn’t.”
“But you never told me why. If I’d had Ben as a reason...”
“Let’s not go over this again,” she said. “There’s no guarantee you would have stopped, even for Ben.”
“How about for Ben and for you? I loved you back then.” He took a deep breath. She felt as if the car were closing in on them. “I never understood why you suddenly got the temperance bug and sent me away.”
“I figured if you weren’t willing to quit for me, then you wouldn’t be able to quit for a baby who wasn’t even born.”
“You figured it was all right to test me, but you didn’t let me know what I stood to lose.” His knuckles turned white on the steering wheel, but his voice stayed low. And husky. The way he always sounded when he was fighting strong emotions. Anger or tenderness.