by Melissa Tagg
She held her red-splotched hand out in front of her. “Yeah, I’m kind of getting that.” Her rattled tone defied her calm words.
He swung his flashlight around the room again. Surely there was a towel down here or a rag or something.
“Marshall?”
He turned in time to see her begin to sway. From the wound or the sight of the blood? He reached out to steady her with his free hand, guiding her toward a tipped-over crate. “Take a seat.”
Up close the wound looked even worse, matting her hair to the side of her face. His weariness warred with his concern as he sighed, tucked the flashlight through his belt loop again, and snagged the hem of his shirt with both hands.
“Wait, what are you—”
The rest of her words were muted by the tussle of his damp shirt coming over his head. He ignored her wide eyes and the sudden cold scraping his skin, instead reaching for her hand. He placed his wadded up shirt into her palm then lifted it to her head.
“Hold it firm.” He whirled toward the staircase.
“Where are you going?”
That was panic in her voice, plain and simple. “To get something to clean up that wound.”
“Can’t that wait?”
He started up the stairs. “Don’t close your eyes or drift off. You could have a concussion.” Must’ve been a branch that hit her before he’d pulled her out of the way.
“Marshall?”
He stopped halfway up the stairs.
“There’s a first-aid kit in the kitchen. Drawer closest to the fridge.”
He started up again.
“Marshall?”
“Yes?” His voice was tight around his impatience. Maybe he should’ve just climbed into his truck to wait out the storm. Better yet, he should’ve skipped Iowa altogether. He could’ve driven north from Milwaukee instead. Crossed into Canada.
“There’s a cat. I don’t even like him, but if you happen to see him . . .”
He allowed himself a glance over his shoulder. She looked so small down there, hunched over that crate, his shirt hiding her wound. He let out breath. “I’ll find your cat, Mara.”
“Thanks. Though, technically, he’s not my cat.”
She really felt the need to correct him at a time like this? Exasperating woman.
He might’ve said it out loud—a fitting accompaniment for his rolling eyes—but who would’ve known with another boom of thunder vibrating the house? With the aid of the flashlight, it took all of thirty seconds to locate the kitchen. Huh. From what little he could see, it looked more modern than he would’ve expected. He discovered the first-aid kit exactly where Mara said he would.
But the cat? Could be anywhere. Was he going to have to tour the whole house to find him? With the way Marshall’s luck was going—
A searing hiss cut into the night. He turned, rain thrashing the window over the kitchen sink, and there stood the cat on the counter—back arched, tail ramrod straight. “All right, pal, let’s go.”
He reached one hand toward the feline. Got a scratch in return. Lovely.
“Suit yourself. She said she didn’t even like you that much, so I doubt she’ll cry too many tears if I show up without you.”
He marched from the kitchen, not bothering to see if the cat followed. But as soon as he opened the basement door, the animal raced past his ankles. He bounded down the steps in time to see the cat jump onto the crate next to Mara.
Marshall crouched in front of her, lightly taking hold of her wrist to remove his wet shirt from her forehead. “Here, hold the flashlight for me. Tip it toward your face.”
“Do I need stitches?” She bit her lip at the end of the question, the light glowing under her chin and highlighting the spray of tiny freckles over her cheeks and nose.
Pears. That’s what he’d smelled earlier. “A little Neosporin and a bandage and I think you’ll be fine.” Though she might have a nice goose egg to show for it come morning.
He leaned closer but she tipped back. “Wait.”
“Not a serial killer, remember? I’m just going to clean it. You don’t want it to get infected.”
“I know that.” But she slipped past him, off the crate, and stood. She shrugged her robe from her shoulders and held it out. “Here.”
“That’s all right. Pink’s not really my color.”
Her focus flitted from his face to his bare chest and back again. “You’re not wearing a shirt.”
“I think we can weather the scandal.” Was he actually teasing her? Here he was wet and cold and shirtless, a scratch stinging his hand, headache and all . . .
Except the headache seemed to have faded somewhat. And the scratch was nothing. And he honestly didn’t know why, but he was suddenly glad he hadn’t driven to Canada. “I don’t need your robe. Wouldn’t fit me anyway.”
“You have to be cold.”
“I’m fine.”
“You have goose bumps.”
He sighed.
He rolled his eyes. Again.
He put on the robe.
The sleeves barely made it past his elbows and he’d have caused a seam to split if he forced it to close in front. So he ignored the belt and let the robe hang open. Which was apparently enough for Mara because she gave him a satisfied nod and reclaimed her spot on the crate.
“Now can I clean your wound?”
“Now you can clean my wound.”
He flipped open the first-aid kit and bent in front of her again.
“Marshall?”
With a light touch, he brushed her hair away from the gash marring her forehead. Made no sense, none at all, the way his pulse picked up in that moment. And she was wrong about those goose bumps. He wasn’t cold. “Yeah?”
“How long do you think we need to stay down here?”
“Until the storm stops, I guess.”
He finished cleaning the wound and stuck a bandage in place, then lowered to the floor.
“How’d you end up here anyway?”
“Got directions at a gas station.” A fuzzy memory slid into focus. Pulling up in front of the house. The sign under the tree with its stenciled letters. Laney’s magazine ad . . . had he let it blow away? His empty stomach twisted at the loss.
“I’m sorry I threw that bucket of water on you.”
“No matter. I was already rain-soaked.” How long had he lain out there on the lawn anyway? Felled by his own weakness. He really was pitiful.
But he’d made it through a day. One day. No pills. No work. No stubborn, reckless decisions that made anyone else’s life difficult.
He closed his eyes and leaned back against the damp wall. One day. It was something.
4
Lenora
Mara showed up on my doorstep looking like a wounded bird. On a summer night when I was already grieving my own clipped wings.
I’d bought the Everwood only a few months earlier and though I knew it was where I needed to be—even wanted to be—I missed George so terribly that day. Missed our adventures. Wondered if it would take longer than planned to learn how to settle.
But then Mara knocked and it was as if God said, “Here, Lenora, receive this reminder as the gift it is. Your grounding has more of a purpose than you think.”
And so I did.
I opened my door to a woman with beautiful red hair and I saw her bruises, both inside and out. My heart did that thing George used to tease me about . . . reach for the closest hurting soul and hold on tight. In fact, it’s what I’d prayed for after George died—that God would give me someone to focus on rather than myself and my newfound solitude. A new family.
I like to think that if I’d ever had children of my own, once in a while even as adults they’d need me the way Mara Bristol needed me that night.
The way I wish I’d let myself need my parents. Instead, George became my world the day we married. Why didn’t I think there was room for both? Or maybe it’s not fair to blame our romance and the carefree lives we lived—all that travel—f
or the distance between me and my parents.
Maybe it was always there.
There’s so much I’ve never understood about them, you see. Why we left Maple Valley so suddenly when I was six. Why I had no grandparents or cousins or aunts and uncles. Why Dad never talked of his past and why we only ever heard the same few stories about Mom’s childhood.
George teased me about that too—my wonderings. He used to say I could find a mystery in anything. And I would laugh and allow my questions to retreat, huddle up and wait, tucked away for another day.
But George is gone now. And “another day” finally became “today.”
My questions led me to the Everwood, once my childhood home.
And the answers ripped me away all over again.
But first . . . there was Mara. My wounded bird.
I learned some things about her right away that first night. For starters, no one had ever made that girl a proper cup of tea before. I saw the way she accepted the saucer when I handed it to her—that pinched expression that said she’d never liked the stuff but would drink it out of politeness. And then, surprise of all surprises, she discovered she liked it. That’s what a suitable steeping and just the right amount of milk and honey will do.
I learned she hailed from Arizona. Then Texas, Ohio, Illinois. I’m not sure she ever meant Iowa to be a stopping point. But she was out of money by the time she arrived at the Everwood.
Oh, and she didn’t like cats.
It took longer to learn the rest. I’d known she was running but it was weeks before I’d discover why. Months before she’d share all of it . . .
Many days I knew it was best to keep things light. So I’d tell her about George’s and my travels. Or chuckle at the strange delight she took in mixing her own cleaning products and dusting one room after another. Or I’d ply her with questions about the children she nannied.
“What made you decide to become a nanny?” I asked her one afternoon as we sat in the two dining room chairs we’d dragged into the kitchen. Yellowed linoleum still covered the kitchen floor, though it’d started curling up in one corner. The cabinets were an outdated shade of walnut, three of their doors and one drawer missing their handles. Rust stained the sink.
I’d always planned to update the kitchen first. But before Mara’s arrival, it’d seemed too hefty a task for a lone, old woman. Realization had begun to settle in, as well—the financial kind. I had enough money to redo this kitchen but only just. Until Mara joined me, many was the morning I’d awoken with the same first thought: What have I gotten myself into?
But that afternoon, myself reinvigorated and Mara more at peace than I’d seen her since that first July night, we had decided to make a list of all that needed to happen to modernize and beautify the kitchen.
She considered my question for a few quiet moments then shrugged. “I don’t know if I ever really decided to become a nanny at all. I’d been working as a housekeeper at a hotel in Phoenix for almost a year after graduating high school. I heard some guests talking about needing a nanny for the summer. Just drifted into it, I guess.”
She smoothed her hand over the notebook in her lap as she spoke, its open page displaying her crinkled handwriting—notes about keeping and painting the existing cupboards, replacing doors, flooring, curtains, appliances.
“It’s kind of funny, really. I don’t know that I ever really thought of myself as someone who loves kids. I don’t not love them, but I don’t think I’ve ever had a strong maternal instinct like other girls.”
I pulled a dripping teabag from my mug. “I think probably what you have is a caretaking instinct. A gift, really.”
“I’m not a gifted person, Lenora. Never have been.” She said it with all the nonchalance in the world.
I felt the same old compassionate twitch of my heartstrings and was sure—just sure—that somewhere George was smiling. “Mara, my dear, I have watched you run a rag over woodwork with more care than I used to take cleaning my camera lenses.”
“Because I’m weird and I like cleaning.”
“No, because you take care of things that matter to you. You’re a born caretaker. You’ve even taken care of me.”
“You’ve got that completely backward, Lenora. If anything, you’ve taken care of me.”
“Yes, well, you don’t know how many times before you showed up here, I was ready to give up on this old place. It’s been hard to keep seeing its hidden beauty amid all the work of it. In helping me care for it, you are caring for me.”
She gave a little laugh and said something about how helping around the Everwood was the least she could do. And then, we went back to our list-making.
So many conversations followed in the weeks after that while we sanded and painted the old kitchen cupboards. Pulled out that ugly linoleum floor. Perused appliances and countertops in magazines and online. Although it didn’t escape me, not in the slightest, the way Mara hid herself away when the deliverymen happened by.
A person can’t hide forever. This, I know. But we all need a safe haven now and then.
The Everwood had been that once to my family, though I hadn’t known it at the time. I was only beginning to untangle the unknown strands of my childhood when Mara landed in my life.
But the Everwood was meant to be her refuge too. I felt it deep in my bones . . . deeper than the brittle cold of an Iowa winter.
So I let her stay. And I loved her. I loved her in every way I knew how. Like a mother and a friend. Both in silence and in words. In home-cooked meals and a room of her own and occasional efforts to open up her eyes to her own inner qualities, her strengths.
Such a gift it was. To watch a hungry spirit begin to heal right in front of me. She might very well discover her wings again one of these days. Just thinking about it brings me joy.
There might be little hope left for me, but I have all the hope in the world for her.
And maybe that, I tell myself now in this strained haze where the light can’t seem to get in, is enough.
5
There was a man asleep in the basement. Wearing Mara’s bathrobe. Nearly six hours he’d been slumbering in that dank cellar, up against a cinder block wall. Exactly where he’d dozed off not long after bandaging her head.
She had about as much of an idea what to do with him as she did the toppled tree crowding the Everwood’s battered porch.
Or the police chief standing in her storm-wrecked entryway.
Sam Ross didn’t wear a uniform today and his badge was nowhere in sight. But his furrowed brow and dark eyes said what his attire didn’t—there was more to his visit than mere friendliness. So she hadn’t been imagining his misgivings at the bakery yesterday.
“I’m sorry if you drove all the way out here to see Lenora.” Did her voice sound as groggy as she felt? “She’s . . . not here.”
The police chief rubbed his clean-shaven chin. “I see. Does she know about all of this? The tree? The porch? The missing front door?”
Mara hadn’t even noticed that yet—the fact that the door wasn’t just open but gone entirely. The tree must’ve taken it out. It was probably splintered among the mess on the porch. She cupped her hands around her warm mug, willing the hazelnut brew to give her what a few fitful hours of sleep and a hasty shower hadn’t—the energy to face the wreckage around her.
She hadn’t been able to make herself survey the damage last night when the storm had finally settled. She’d crept up the back stairway instead, the one that curved around Lenora’s living quarters, too tired to deal with the fallen tree or figure out what to do with the stranger still sound asleep below.
But now . . .
Oh Lenora, what in the world am I supposed to do about this?
The tree trunk lay in a fractured slant, porch boards and roof tiles scattered in heaps around it. One roughhewn limb had fallen through the picture window into the sitting room. Guess that accounted for the shattering glass she’d heard just before Marshall wrenched her away from the f
ront door in time to avoid being knocked off her feet by the branch reaching into the entryway.
“Well, does she? I heard you tell Jonas Clancy that Lenora left you in charge of the place. You do have some way of getting ahold of her, don’t you?”
Irritation added a tick to his square jaw when she didn’t answer—but, too, concern. For Lenora?
“Look, ten years on the force have taught me to trust my instincts. My instinct says something isn’t right here.”
“Mr. . . Chief Ross—”
“Sam.” Sunlight invaded the space around him. “Are you squatting here?”
She almost spit out her coffee. “What?”
His drilling stare didn’t so much as flicker. “You hesitated to give Jonas your last name yesterday. You tampered with someone else’s mail.”
“I didn’t . . .” Well, she did.
“Your explanation about what you’re doing here was flimsy at best. Unofficial employee?” He folded his arms. “And most perplexing of all, you told Jonas you’ve been in town for eight months, yet I haven’t heard so much as a single choo-choo from the local gossip train about you. So you’re either one heck of a hermit or you’ve gone to great lengths to remain anonymous.”
Or both. “I didn’t know eavesdropping was such a big part of a police chief’s job.”
Was she seeing things or did he almost free a grin? “The point is, despite all that, I’m trying real hard to give you a chance to explain yourself before I jump to conclusions, but you’re not making it easy.”
She set her coffee mug on the check-in desk with a clunk. “Well, I’m not squatting. Lenora asked me to take care of the place. That’s what I’m doing.”
His dark eyebrows lifted but instead of arguing, he inclined his head and considered her for a moment. “I told you yesterday that I ran into Lenora a few times at the library. The time she mentioned you, she was carrying this stack of children’s books. I happened to ask her if they were for grandkids and she said no, they were for Mara. Only she clammed up real quick after that, like she hadn’t meant to say your name.”