Willow Springs: A Destiny Novel

by Toni Blake

  He’d sat staring at her, mouth open, the entire time, and now he blinked. “Not working out? What do you mean? We’re your family.”

  “And you’re smothering me. Not the whole family, though—only you. And I know you mean well—everyone tells me that all the time. But knowing you mean well doesn’t make me feel any less suffocated. My God, I can’t even go on a date in this town!”

  “What do you mean?”

  It frustrated her to see him look so baffled. “What do I mean? That the one guy in this town who I really liked, who I felt comfortable with and drawn to, you drove away.”

  He blinked again, leaned forward slightly. “Who, Logan?”

  “Yes, Logan—who else?” The man exasperated her. “He’s so loyal to you and so worried about upsetting you that he doesn’t want anything to do with me now. I’ve practically thrown myself at him because of it—because I just wanted to have some fun, some normal fun with someone whose last name isn’t Romo—but you’ve managed to send him running in the complete opposite direction.”

  Now, she noticed, Mike looked tired, too. And despite herself, maybe she felt a little guilty for yelling at him, for appearing thankless for how much he cared about her. “Anna . . . Logan has kind of a lot going on right now. So, even if part of it is about me . . . it might be some other stuff, too.”

  “Amy, you mean?”

  She watched as he drew in his breath. “Yeah, he told me about that a couple days ago. So I’m sure that’s part of it. But there’s more, too—stuff I can’t really share. I’m just saying . . . it might not all be my fault.”

  Okay, she supposed she’d figured out there was more to Logan than met the eye. The fact that he’d given up being a fireman in exchange for a job as a bartender created questions. And maybe she was in a place in her life where she hadn’t really been ready to ask those questions—she was dealing with enough fresh answers of her own. But it still stung to find out Logan’s waning interest might be based on anything besides Mike’s attitude. Because Mike’s attitude, that was something they could get past. But she didn’t know if she was ready to deal with anything deeper. Damn it, she’d just wanted to find one fun, uncomplicated ray of light in the maze of cobwebs her life had become—and she’d wanted that ray of light to be Logan.

  She had no idea if her jumbled emotions showed on her face, and she didn’t really care, either. She was still in no mood to mince words. “Logan aside,” she said softly, “I just don’t know if I can keep on like this, Mike, being a part of this family in the way you want me to be.” Yes, Julie had made her feel courageous this morning, but maybe at the same time, her friend’s words had somehow given her permission to . . . stop. Stop being brave. Stop trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

  And with that, she got up and headed toward the stairs, trying now to speak evenly, calmly. “I’m going to get the rest of my clothes, then head back to Lucky’s.” Though she’d moved from Mike and Rachel’s guest room upstairs, she’d later realized she’d left behind some dirty laundry in the hamper and hadn’t been back to get it before now. “And Rachel promised to lend me a couple of books,” she went on as she climbed the steps. “She said they were somewhere upstairs, but I don’t think she got around to looking for them.”

  She sensed Mike following her up the staircase, and then heard him behind her. “Wait, Anna—at least let me help you.”

  That was fine—he could help if he wanted. But she remained overwrought, feeling like she did want to run away now. And not just from Mike and this house, but also from this town. And maybe even this entire existence she’d found here. She’d wanted to know where she came from; she’d wanted to find the people who’d lost her. But she just hadn’t expected it to be so . . . pervasive, to take over her entire life.

  “Do you know where Rachel keeps books?” she called over her shoulder as she reached the second floor, still tense and a bit rushed, even though she was trying to hide it a little more. She looked to the right, toward closed doors she’d never had the need to enter. “Maybe in the storage room?” That was how Mike had once identified one of the closed doors when she’d asked.

  And as she reached down to turn the doorknob, she heard Mike say, “Anna, wait, don’t.”

  But it was too late. She was already inside the room.

  And she knew exactly what it was the moment she saw it. It was her room. From when she was little. Left the same, all these years. “My God,” she whispered. To think she’d slept right down the hall for weeks without knowing this was here.

  “I’m sorry,” Mike said behind her, his voice smaller than usual. “I never meant for you to see this.”

  “You lied,” she said softly. But the lying part didn’t really matter. What mattered was that someone would leave a child’s room like this for twenty-five years after she was taken. Colored pillows and stuffed animals covered the pink canopy bed, and a pink ballerina border circled the room. A little white dressing table still held a small child’s brush and hand mirror.

  “I didn’t want you to know,” he said even more quietly now. “That we never changed it. I didn’t want you to think . . . we were crazy.”

  She looked up at him, looked deeper than usual—into his eyes. And she wasn’t sure why, but somehow, standing in that perfect pink little girl’s room, she understood more. She felt more. Mike’s loss. To find out that first their parents had kept the room this way—and then even after the home became Mike’s, he’d kept it the same, too. “I don’t think you’re crazy,” she whispered.

  “We . . . we started out leaving it like this so it would be the same when you came home. And then, later, no one ever talked about it or suggested making changes—because it was like . . . to change it would be to stop hoping. And I never stopped hoping. Even when people told me I was crazy, I never stopped.”

  Anna stood there, looking around the space, feeling almost as overcome with emotion as she had in the beginning, upon first meeting Mike and her family. Only this time she hadn’t expected it. She hadn’t expected to see this room. She hadn’t expected to feel this room, to sense that she’d once known this room. “I always wanted a pink canopy bed,” she said gently, drawn back into her childhood in a way that tightened her chest and stole her breath. “Now I know why.”

  And most of all, she hadn’t expected to suddenly really feel—truly grasp—Mike’s pain over losing her. Even more than when she’d seen all the pictures of her in the house, in the albums. Even more than when she’d heard all the stories from the past. Somehow, now, standing in this “room that time forgot,” she finally, really got it.

  And without even thinking about it, she turned and put her arms around his neck, hugging him warm and tight. Her big brother. Her big brother who loved her. She felt that more than in any other moment before, gut deep. And she realized that, despite everything, she loved him, too. “I love you, Mike,” she whispered against his chest.

  “I love you, too, Anna,” he said, enfolding her in his embrace.

  And they stood there like that for a long moment in which she tried her damnedest not to cry. Until finally she got hold of herself . . . enough that she could draw back and tell him the rest, the rest of what she had to say, even if he wasn’t going to like it.

  “I love you, but . . . I’m just not sure what I want to do now. It’s . . . been a lot to take in, coming here to Destiny, trying to be a part of a family I don’t remember. And I feel like . . . like it’s sort of stolen my life, stolen me, the me who I was before I got here.

  “I’ve never been part of a big family, never had siblings—nothing. I only had one woman who needed my care. And you know, I’m not even sure you really know me at all yet—the real, usual me—because you’ve never seen me in even remotely normal circumstances.

  “I know everything you’ve done is out of caring about me, and I . . . actually treasure that more than I knew until this moment, Mike. But I’m not sure I can stay here long-term. I’m not sure of anything right
now. So I just need to take some time to think, to figure things out. Without any pressure from you or anyone else.

  “I’ll stay at least until Lucky’s wedding. And I feel blessed that I came back here in time to see you both marry the women you love. I’ll always feel blessed to have found you all.”

  Logan and Mike sat at the Whippy Dip, the local ice cream parlor, after a softball game in Creekside Park. They’d kicked the other team’s ass, which had lifted Logan’s mood from where it had been the last week or so. And though their games usually came complete with a cheering section consisting of Amy, Rachel, and Sue Ann—and sometimes more—not many people had shown up in the stands tonight due to dreary weather, and despite the win, Logan was kind of glad they hadn’t ended up out with a group afterward.

  “My sister thinks you don’t like her,” Mike said, shoveling the last bite of a sundae in his mouth.

  Sitting across from him at a picnic table outside, Logan could only blink. “I thought you didn’t want me to like her.”

  “I didn’t, at first. But now, if you wanted to, I’m thinking maybe it would be okay.”

  Logan just rolled his eyes. “You are fucking impossible, man.”

  “I know,” Mike said, surprising him. “I flip-flop a lot with her because . . . it’s so strange having her back suddenly. Great, but strange.” And from there, he went on to tell Logan about his dinner with Anna a couple of nights earlier and how unhappy she’d seemed—about everything. And that, in the end, they’d made some peace—again, but that she still wasn’t sure she wanted to stay in Destiny. “Which is killing me. But . . .” Mike shook his head. “At this point, there’s not much I can do except try to back off and let her do her own thing. So . . . if you want to go out with her, you have my blessing.”

  Logan wasn’t quite sure what to do with such shocking information. And he didn’t know if Mike would be happy or pissed when he looked up from his own ice cream to say, “What if I don’t want to go out with her? What if I’m not sure?”

  “Well, under different circumstances, I might accuse you of leading her on. But I know I played a role in that. And I know you’re still trying to get a lot of stuff sorted out in your head.”

  “Thanks,” Logan said shortly, appreciative that Mike wasn’t going to come down on him right now. Then he let out a short laugh at the thought that had suddenly hit him. “You know, some days it was easier just drinking beer and lying on the couch.”

  “But that’s the problem with life in general,” Mike pointed out. “You can’t just drink beer and lie on the couch. You have to deal with it.”

  Logan only sighed. “I don’t quite know how, but I’ve ended up making a lot of messes lately, and I’m not sure how to clean ’em up. I’ve hurt Amy. I’ve offended Anna. I don’t know what I want out of life, a job, a relationship—anything.”

  “Maybe you should have a party,” Mike suggested.

  And Logan just blinked his disbelief. That was Mike’s solution? “You think a party is going to fix all this?”

  His best friend simply shrugged. “It would just be a normal thing to do. Have some people over for swimming and grilling out, like you used to.”

  Hmm, true enough. Last summer he’d had the whole gang over a few times to enjoy his place on Blue Valley Lake, as well as once this spring, and they had been good, easy times. And he’d had some guys over prior to Mike’s wedding, too. So maybe trying to recreate that kind of feeling wasn’t a bad idea, after all. Hell, a get-together almost even sounded fun to him.

  “All right then,” he said. “What the hell. I’ll have a party.”

  Amy was stressed out. And as someone who hadn’t spent much of life in that particular state, she didn’t like it.

  She didn’t know what to think about this picnic at Logan’s house. When he’d called to invite her, he’d just said, “Things have been weird lately, and I thought it would be nice to do something . . . fun, and easy. That maybe it would help things get back to normal, you know?”

  “I guess,” she’d told him uncertainly. Because she kind of thought it was going to take more than a picnic to accomplish that.

  And then he’d said, so sweetly that it had practically curled her toes, “I miss you, freckles. I miss hanging out, talking. It’ll be good to see you.”

  “Yeah, I miss seeing you, too,” she’d replied, her stomach fluttering. But after they’d hung up, she’d realized how many questions had been left hanging in the air. Were they back to being just friends now? Or more? And when he’d said he was inviting “everybody,” who exactly did that include? Anna? Surely it included Anna. And what did that mean? Were they just friends? Or more?

  “I don’t even want to go,” she told Tessa from her bedroom, putting on her bathing suit and speaking loud enough to be heard in the next room. The appointed day for the party had arrived, and the two of them had met for lunch at Dolly’s before stopping by Amy’s apartment to change. It was Saturday, and next weekend was Tessa and Lucky’s wedding, so even though this sounded like a great opportunity to do what Logan had told her on the phone—see all their friends, have fun—she couldn’t quite believe it would be that easy. “I’m too freaked out.”

  The fact was, as days had passed, she’d finally begun to accept that maybe everything with Logan was over, including their friendship. And though she’d kept right on going through the motions of her life—opening the bookstore every day, feeding the cats (both the upstairs cat and the downstairs one)—it was killing her. And while she’d, up to now, managed to keep a plastic smile pasted on her face, it was getting hard to hide her sorrow. Her mother kept asking if she was feeling okay, and just yesterday Caroline Meeks commented that she didn’t seem like her usual, perky self.

  And then this invitation had come along, somehow feeling both wonderful and awful at the same time. He wanted to reconnect! Yay! But she wasn’t sure in what way. Ugh! She’d get to see him again! Yippee! But Anna would probably be there, too. Sigh.

  “And I’d be looking forward to this a lot more if Anna wasn’t coming,” she confessed to Tessa now, who had indeed confirmed that Anna was on the guest list.

  “Look,” Tessa said, “just go into this open-minded. Try to have fun.” Though as Amy stepped into the living room, swim bag in hand, Tessa’s jaw dropped. “But you can’t wear that swimsuit.”

  Amy just blinked. “What’s wrong with my swimsuit?” The navy blue one-piece had served her well for many years, even if the Lycra was a little frayed around some edges.

  Tessa simply blew out a big, tired-sounding breath. “What’s not? Change back into your shorts. We have to run by the Daisy Dress Shop on the way and get you a new bikini.”

  Amy let her eyes open wider. “A bikini? I’ve never worn a bikini in my life.”

  “Then it’s high time you did, girlfriend,” Tessa informed her.

  And . . . hmm, maybe that was true. But Amy hardly saw the use. “Tessa, it doesn’t matter what I wear—I can’t hold a candle to Anna.”

  But Tessa gave her head a pointed tilt to say, “Look, we don’t really want him to be into you strictly for your body anyway—it’s your personality and you that he really cares about. But at the same time, we’ve been over this before, Ames, and you at least have to look like you’re . . . a girl. And that thing—” she motioned to the navy one-piece “—isn’t doing anything for your feminine wiles. Now come on—let’s go.”

  A little while later, Tessa had talked her into a simple yellow flowered two-piece suit that . . . well, even if she wasn’t completely comfortable revealing that much of her body, she did agree that it looked good. And she couldn’t deny that all her friends had always comfortably worn swimsuits like this and that it was just a matter of getting used to it and . . . liking her body, being confident. And maybe, if nothing else, the intimacies she’d shared with Logan had indeed helped her feel more self-assured in that way.

  “But I still don’t stand a chance against Anna,” she said, standing in fron
t of a dressing room mirror, Tessa looking over her shoulder.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Tessa told her, “because that’s not what this is about. This is about you being a pretty, confident, together chick and letting it show a little. You’re not in competition with anyone today, Amy. Today, just concentrate on being . . . you. And everything will be fine.”

  Amy loved Tessa for everything she’d just said. And as she stood looking in the mirror, she even . . . began to feel those things a little more: pretty, confident. And even an awareness that . . . she didn’t actually want to be Anna Romo—she liked who she was just fine. And she was glad Tessa had helped her realize all that.

  But at the same time, she couldn’t help thinking her friend was making the day ahead sound far simpler than it was likely to be.

  Eighteen

  She was vexed beyond what could have been expressed—

  almost beyond what she could conceal.

  Jane Austen, from Emma

  When Amy and Tessa pulled up, Logan’s driveway was filled with cars and Amy could see a small crowd on the dock over Blue Valley Lake. Sue Ann’s little girl, Sophie, and Adam’s twins, Jacob and Joey, ran around the yard, apparently chasing butterflies if the net Sophie held was any indication. The sun shone down from a deep blue sky dotted with only a few puffy white clouds, she could smell burgers on the grill, and there was no denying that it appeared to be an almost idyllic Destiny day.

  Still, she had the sense that she should be ready for anything, anything at all.

  As she got out of Tessa’s car, the first person she saw was Logan himself. Coming out his front door and looking downright . . . well, the word scrumptious came to mind, in a pair of red swim trunks, he gave her a gorgeous smile. “Hey, you’re here. I was starting to think you stood me up.”

  She smiled, instantly liking the sound of that. That he’d noticed. That he’d cared. That his choice of words almost implied coupledom, even if only in a very loose, open-to-interpretation way. “Hey,” she said. “We just . . . ran a little late, that’s all.” Buying me a bikini so I could try to look hot for you. And at the moment, he seemed so happy to see her that it warmed her heart and really made her feel a little silly about the bikini.