“Stay on track,” he cautioned.
“Sorry,” she muttered. “Once everyone was asleep, I used the fire escape ladder to climb down from my window, and I went looking for Chance. But one of the dweebs heard me, and went and got Sunday.”
“I am not a dweeb,” Twila said, her voice thick with tears.
“Okay. You’re not. So stop crying.”
“I have to cry. This is my fault. If Mom dies, it will be because of me.”
“It’s my fault,” Heavenly corrected. “And Sunday isn’t going to die. Is she, Uncle Flynn?” she asked, obviously looking for and needing reassurance.
“No. How long were you outside?” he asked, trying to get a time frame because that would help him figure out how far Sunday might have gone.
“An hour.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. I set the alarm on my phone so I wouldn’t stay out any longer than that. I didn’t want to get hypothermia. When I got home, the kids were waiting in my room, and Sunday was gone.”
“And how long did you wait before you came to get me?”
“I sent them to get you right away. I figured you would know what to do.” She said it without any attitude, without any particular tone. She said it like she meant it. Like she’d really believed he was the solution to their problem.
God, he hoped she was right.
He’d been involved in plenty of searches. Sometimes, things worked out and the missing were reunited with their loved ones.
But only sometimes.
Other times, all the hard work and dedication led to heartache.
“Heavenly, I want you to wake Rosie. Have her call the sheriff. He can get some men together to help with the search. Milo, you call Uncle Porter. Maddox, you call Sullivan. You have their numbers, right?”
“Yes,” the boys responded.
“Once you’ve finished that, come back in here and sit with your sisters. No lighting candles unless Rosie is supervising, and no leaving the house. Understood?”
“Yes,” all five replied.
“Good. Where’s Rembrandt?”
“Sunday’s room. I’ll get him.” Heavenly sprinted away.
“You’re not going to take Rembrandt out in the storm, are you?” Moisey asked. “He might get scared.”
“He won’t. He’s a brave guy, and he loves to play games. So we’re going to make a game of finding your mother.”
And the sooner they got started, the better. With the storm raging, flash floods were a danger. Sunday had lived in the area long enough to know that, but that didn’t mean she’d remember.
He could hear Rembrandt racing through the upstairs hall, and he called to him as he stepped outside and into the downpour.
* * *
Sunday figured she’d done a lot of stupid things in her life. She might not remember them, but she was sure she’d kept a list when she was a kid. A nicely typed homage to her childish exploits. A written testimony of all the things that she’d done that were a lot stupider than going to church the day she’d turned eighteen and speaking vows that committed her to someone for a lifetime.
She’d probably jumped into shallow pools without checking the depth of the water, or gone to the river without her parents’ permission, or snuck out of the house late at night just to say she’d done it.
Yes. Sunday was absolutely convinced that she’d done stupid things during the nearly thirty years she’d been alive, but this?
It took the cake.
It raised the standard.
And if she wasn’t careful, it was going to earn her a Darwin Award for the stupidest way to die.
She picked her way along the bank of the overflowing river, looking for a place to cross. The footbridge was underwater, all the shallow areas now deep. The wind gusted, slapping wet hair against her cheeks and plastering her soaked pajamas to her skin.
Because, of course, she hadn’t bothered getting dressed.
She hadn’t bothered grabbing a coat.
She’d figured she’d be fast enough to climb down the ladder and nab her escapee child before a drop of rain touched either of their heads.
She had also grossly overestimated her ability to keep up with a thirteen-year-old.
By the time she’d reached the ground, Heavenly had disappeared into the storm, searching for a horse that, according to Twila, had escaped his stall.
Sunday had gone to the barn first, hoping to find Heavenly hunkered down with Chance. She’d found the horse, munching hay, damp but seemingly happy.
Had she bothered to saddle him up so that she could cover ground more quickly? Had she grabbed a blanket from the tack room or a jacket from the office? Had she gone back to the house to alert Rosie and Flynn?
Of course she hadn’t.
She’d run from the barn pell-mell into the granddaddy of all storms, screaming for Heavenly until she lost her voice.
And then, to compound the matter, she’d crossed the footbridge, knowing darn well that it washed out during storms like this.
So she was stranded and frantic to find her daughter, but she didn’t want to be stupid, because stupidity in situations like this meant you died.
“Heavenly!” she tried to shout, but all that emerged was a raspy croak.
“Heavenly,” she tried again, her bare feet sinking into muck and slipping on moss-covered rocks.
She hadn’t bothered with shoes, either, because she hadn’t imagined that she’d walk more than a few feet from the house.
But here she was, walking the riverbank, her feet stone-cold.
Her teeth chattered, and she was tempted to stop for a while, maybe find a little cubbyhole to hide away in until the storm passed.
She had to find Heavenly first.
She had to make sure she was okay.
Right now, nothing else mattered.
Her legs felt heavy, but she continued to move, trudging around the bend in the river that marked the end of her property and the beginning of Emmerson Riley’s.
Strange how she could remember that, but she couldn’t remember what she’d eaten on her wedding day or where she and Matt had honeymooned.
Had they gone somewhere?
Or had they hidden away in the little rancher on her parents’ property, pretending they were in some exotic location because they couldn’t afford to visit one?
She didn’t know.
It didn’t matter.
But she’d been thinking about Matt a lot recently. Tonight even more.
Because of Flynn. Because of the conversation they’d had and the things she’d said.
That he was a liar, and that she was glad she’d found out now rather than later.
She’d meant it, but after she’d gone in the house, she’d realized that she hadn’t really been speaking to Flynn. She’d been speaking to Matt. Just like she had been on the dock, shouting her accusations to the universe in some vain hope that he would hear.
Because she knew Flynn wasn’t a liar, and if she hadn’t been such a coward she would have found him and told him that.
Instead, she’d wasted time, pacing her room and trying to pinpoint the exact moment she’d known Matt had been deceiving her.
After their first anniversary when he’d said he couldn’t buy her a gift because they didn’t have the money? A few weeks later, she’d seen the receipt for a hunting rifle he’d bought. Seven hundred dollars. But Matt didn’t hunt, and he hadn’t wanted to learn.
He’d never even bought ammunition.
He’d hung the rifle above the fireplace mantel and bragged about his marksmanship skills when friends came to visit.
Those memories were as clear and crisp as the lightning that flashed across the sky.
“Flynn was right. You were a bastard,” she said, water streaming into her mouth as she opened it.
She was shaking violently.
She needed to find shelter, and she needed to get warm.
God, she hoped Heavenly had done the same.
“Please,” she whispered, the word torn from her mouth and tossed into the whirling storm. “Keep her safe.”
She didn’t know if she was talking to God, or praying to Him, or trying, once again, to send a message to Matt.
She was too cold and too tired to care.
She just wanted someone to hear and save her daughter.
“Please,” she murmured again, her lips numb with cold, her pulse sloshing loudly in her ears. She stumbled, her foot slipping between two river rocks.
She tried to yank free, but she was stuck tight, water swirling around her ankle and then her calf, and then her knee.
She pulled desperately, imagining her name at the top of the Darwin Award list. Imagining her kids telling the story of how their mother had survived a horrible car wreck only to die because she’d gone out in a raging storm in the middle of the night.
She yanked with renewed energy, determined to not die.
Not here anyway. Not so close to home. To her kids. To Flynn.
To all the things and people she loved.
One of the rocks gave, and she was free, flying backward and landing hard. Water flooding her nose and mouth, stealing the air from her lungs.
She tried to right herself, but the rocks were slippery, her perpetually clumsy movement clumsier from cold.
Darkness edged in as her body shouted that she needed to inhale, and her brain shouted that if she did, she’d die. Something grabbed the back of her pajama top, pulling and tugging and yanking until she was flat on her back in shallow water, staring up at the rain-filled sky.
She lay there stunned, something wet and velvety tickling her cheek.
She reached for it, touched the soaked muzzle of a dog.
“Rembrandt?” she said, her voice raspy and raw.
He licked her cheek again. Then her nose and chin.
It didn’t do much to warm her, but it sure made her feel better.
“Thanks, buddy,” she said, pulling him into her lap. He was still small enough to fit, and she had no idea how he’d managed to drag her from the river.
Somehow, he had, and she was alive, and the best way to thank him was to get up and keep moving.
“Okay,” she rasped, standing unsteadily. “Want to go home?”
He barked happily and darted away.
“Rembrandt!” she called, terrified that they’d be separated in the storm, and she’d be alone again.
He returned seconds later, nudging her calves, trying to get her to move away from the water. She was too tired to fight him, so she went, moving away from the rolling waves and overflowing banks and into a field of grass.
She was on Emmerson’s property.
She could see his house in the distance, and that’s where Rembrandt seemed to want her to go. He ran in that direction, disappeared for a few seconds, and raced back, circling her legs until he was sure she was heading the right way.
She reached the crumbled asphalt, rivulets of rainwater rushing through its cracks. The house was just ahead, boarded up, the FOR SALE sign hanging listlessly from a post in the yard.
Only, it didn’t say FOR SALE.
It said SOLD.
Byron had been right.
An investor had purchased it.
She tried not to think about the house being torn down and a Walmart going up. She was soaked to the skin and cold to the bone, and she didn’t have time to wax nostalgic about a house she’d never even been inside.
“We need to find a way inside, Rembrandt,” she shouted above the howling wind.
But the puppy had disappeared as quickly as he’d arrived, and she was alone again. Standing on the porch of someone else’s house, shivering.
She knocked on the door, because that seemed like the right thing to do.
To her surprise, it swung open.
She stepped inside and was surprised again.
It didn’t have the musty scent old houses tended to acquire. The floor felt solid beneath her feet, and she moved cautiously, walking through a foyer and into a room to the right of the door.
There were shadowy pieces of furniture in the corners. Table. Chairs.
This had to have been the dining room.
She stepped through another doorway and into a kitchen, the cupboards black in the dim light.
“I bet the living room is next,” she commented.
“He called it the study,” a man said.
She screamed, running for the back door. She could see it just ahead, boarded up, letting in no light.
She pivoted, racing back the way she’d come.
And straight into a hard chest.
Familiar arms.
And the sweet touch of lips against her forehead.
Flynn.
She threw her arms around him, buried her face in the warmth of his neck.
And she wondered how she hadn’t known the moment he’d spoken that it was him.
Chapter Fifteen
“Flynn,” she cried, her arms wrapping around his waist, her hands clutching his sides. “Thank God! I thought I was going to be spending the night alone in this house.”
“That would have been a heck of a lot better than spending it out in the rain and wind,” he replied. “What were you thinking running out of the house on a night like this? No shoes. No coat. You could have frozen to death.”
“No need for a lecture,” she responded, her teeth chattering. “I was following Heavenly. She snuck out of the house to find—”
“Chance. I know. I heard the entire sordid tale.”
“Did Twila tell you?”
“Heavenly. She made it home just fine.”
“Thank God for that, too,” she whispered, letting her head drop to his chest.
She could hear his heart thumping, the slow, steady beat as soothing as firelight on a winter morning.
She shivered, and it had nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with a soul-deep longing for this. For him. For endless moments standing in the warmth of his embrace.
“You’re freezing,” he said, dragging a sheet off one of the chairs and tucking the edges beneath her chin, his hands so gentle, she wanted to cry.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her teeth chattering.
“For what? Running out in the rain to find your daughter? I’d have done the same.” He turned on a flashlight and set it in the center of the table. It didn’t illuminate everything, but she could see his face, the deep circles beneath his eyes, the dark stubble on his chin.
God, he looked good, and she wanted to run her hands through his wet hair, tell him a million times how wrong she’d been.
“Not for that. For calling you a liar.”
“You didn’t call me a liar.” He slipped out of a backpack and set it next to the light.
“I implied that you were one.”
“Maybe, but I understand why you’d have a hang-up about lying men.”
“Not you, Flynn. I don’t have a hang-up about you.”
“No?” He met her eyes, offering the slow, gentle smile she’d come to know so well. If she lived a thousand years and never saw him again, she would still remember the way his lips curved, and his face softened, and all the things he didn’t say shone in his eyes.
“At least not a bad one,” she added, and his smile broadened.
“That’s good to know, Sunday, because I’ve kind of got a hang-up about you.”
“You do?”
“Sure.” He took a small silver square from the pack and unfolded a Mylar blanket, wrapping it around her shoulders.
Then he shrugged out of his coat and dropped it on top, tugging it close under her chin, before pulling her back into his arms.
“There,” he said. “That’s better.”
“For which one of us? Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you got the short end of the stick. I’ve got the sheet, the blanket, and your coat, and you’ve got nothing but a plaid shirt and jeans.”
“I’ve got you, so
I think things are working out pretty nicely.”
“Because you have a hang-up about me?”
“Because I missed you tonight. We usually take a ride down by the river.”
“It was raining.”
“And you were angry,” he pointed out.
“And confused about who I was angry with. I know you’re not your brother, Flynn.”
“That’s good, because I’d like to take a lot more rides with you. I’d like to bring you and the kids to Texas and let you see the ranch. I’d like to show you the old shed behind this house that contains all Emmerson’s work tools. And I’d like you to help me find and revive the rosebushes that boarder this yard.”
“Rosebushes?”
“One for every year Emmerson was married to his wife.”
“He gave her a rosebush every year?” she asked, still standing in his arms and looking into his face.
And it felt so right and so good, she didn’t think she’d ever be able to make herself move away.
“No. He was a cheapskate. Frugal to a fault. He always gave her practical things. Vacuums and new dishes and mops and brooms.”
“Ouch,” she said, and he chuckled.
“Yeah. That’s what I thought when he told me, and I was only twelve or thirteen. So he’d given her all those practical gifts, and then she got sick. Cancer. It was in her pancreas and liver. The doctor said she might have a year to live, if she was lucky. She made it two, and every month for two years, on the date of their anniversary, Emmerson brought her a rosebush. Twenty-four for their twenty-four years, and she’d lie on the couch in their living room watching as he planted them for her. Didn’t matter if it was raining or snowing or hot as hell. On the twentieth of every month, he planted the rosebush. She died on their twenty-fifth anniversary, and after the coffin was in the grave, Emmerson planted a rosebush in front of the marker. He said those roses bloomed in every color. Red. Yellow. Pale peach. All her favorites.”
“That is probably the most romantic story I’ve ever heard,” she said, caught up in it and in him.
“Romantic, yes. But he didn’t share it with me because of that. I was a kid. I didn’t care squat about romance.”
“So why did he tell you?”
“My mother was sick. She was dying, and I spent a lot of time away, because I couldn’t stand to see her suffer or to watch the way my father treated her. Emmerson wanted me to know the truth about love before it was too late. It’s not about the romantic gestures. It’s about the sacrifice. The work. The going out in every kind of weather, because you want to make another person happy.”
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