Woodlands

by Robin Jones Gunn

  Leah sat down but not very quickly.

  Collin took a seat next to Leah on the couch. He seemed to be searching for the right words. When he met her gaze, his expression was sincere and concerned. “Leah, you know me. I’m from here. You were with me when I fell off the boulders at Heather Creek and broke my arm.”

  “That’s right,” Leah said, a smile creeping across her lips. “We went fishing together that one time.”

  Collin nodded and smiled. He seemed pleased finally to have initiated a shared memory that brought a smile to Leah’s face. “We were fishing for frogs,” Collin corrected her. “The creek was thick with them that year, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah. I got in trouble for leaving my dad’s bucket at the creek when I took off on my bike to go for help. Do you remember how I told you to stay there and put your feet up?”

  Collin chuckled.

  “I don’t know where I got the idea that if you thought your arm was broken you should raise your feet. How old were we? Nine?”

  “At least nine. Maybe ten.”

  “I’d forgotten all about that,” Leah said.

  “It was a little harder for me to forget,” Collin said, leaning forward. “This is exactly the point I wanted to make, Leah. We go back quite a few years. I trusted you to go for help that day, and now I’m asking you to trust me. I can help you with this.”

  Leah felt herself calming. It was easy to melt into the softness of the leather couch under Collin’s dark gaze.

  “I didn’t want to have to disclose this to you,” Collin continued, “but it seems the only way to help you understand. We have reason to believe that Seth Edwards is, for lack of a better word, an opportunist. We ran a check on him last week, and I’m afraid the results weren’t very promising.” Collin reached for the file he had left on the coffee table. He opened it to the first page and showed it to Leah.

  The paper was a credit report showing that Seth Edwards had filed bankruptcy and backed out of almost $30,000 in credit card debt.

  “But he was in Costa Rica for the last four years.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Leah thought quickly. She didn’t have any proof. The melanoma and the tan skin were the closest she could come to proving he had been in the tropics.

  “This paper details his police record with the Colorado police. As you can see, it’s for possession of illegal drugs.”

  “Police record? Colorado? Collin, you must have the wrong Seth Edwards. Where did you get this information?”

  “From a very reliable service we’ve used for years.” Collin closed the file. “I see I don’t have to subject you to the rest of the information listed here. The question for you is whether you truly know Seth Edwards or not. Is he reliable? Has he been telling you the truth?”

  Leah sat back in stunned silence.

  “Let me help you consider the facts,” Collin said. “As a friend. You’ve only known Seth Edwards for a few weeks. I’m sure he’s told you exactly what he wanted you to believe. As I see it, he’ll be eager to marry you, but once the estate is his, Franklin added no provision for cancellation on any grounds. In other words, Seth could very well marry you, take everything, and disappear.”

  Collin reached over and took Leah’s hand in his. “We go way back, Leah. I would hate to see any man do that to you. Especially if one of the most precious treasures he takes with him is your heart.”

  Leah needed air. She couldn’t breath. She couldn’t think. Pulling her hand away from Collin’s, she stood up and said, “I need to get back to work, Collin.”

  He stood beside her and said, “You can see why I didn’t want to drop all this on you on Saturday. I was enjoying being with you too much. Please call me.” He began to reach into his pocket and then stopped and pulled out his hand. “That’s right, you already have my card. Consider me a friend, Leah. That’s all. A friend who cares and can help you through this. I’m sure a woman like you could find good use for a quarter of a million dollars.”

  Leah all but fled the law office. She drove like a crazy person toward the hospital and then realized she couldn’t work in her state of mind. She needed to think. Suddenly, she knew where she could go.

  Turning at the next corner, Leah put her foot to the accelerator pedal and headed for the Victorian mansion on the top of Madison Hill.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  I can see how you would feel that way,” Jessica said sympathetically, as she and Leah slowly rocked together in the porch swing. “That was an awful lot of information to take in.”

  “Maybe I don’t exactly feel like I’m going crazy,” Leah said, retracting her previous statement with a sigh. “That might have been an exaggeration. I’m overwhelmed; that’s more accurate. I feel overwhelmed, and I don’t know who to trust.”

  “You have to trust God,” Jessica said simply.

  “I know, but I mean, I don’t know if Collin is telling me the truth about Seth.”

  “That’s my point,” Jessica said. Her smile accentuated the faint, half-moon scar on her upper lip. “God knows which one is trustworthy. Let him reveal it to you. Trust him.”

  “That’s much easier said than done,” Leah muttered, taking a sip from her iced tea glass. “I saw the credit report. The name was definitely Seth Edwards.”

  Jessica didn’t comment. Leah had hoped Jessica would say something like, “There has to be more than one Seth Edwards in the world. They must have gotten the wrong one.” But Jessica just closed her eyes, and Leah had the impression her friend was praying for her. Leah didn’t know why Jessica hadn’t invited her to pray aloud the way they had when, months ago, they had prayed together regularly.

  Leah slowly drank her iced tea and forced herself to breathe deeply. She felt herself calming down and a sense of peace coming over her. Forming her own, silent prayer, Leah asked God for wisdom and direction. She told him she wanted to trust him but was having a hard time, in case he hadn’t noticed.

  Jessica opened her eyes and smiled at Leah. “I have a very good lawyer in Los Angeles. Greg Fletcher. If it would be of any help, I’d be glad to forward the papers to him and ask him to check into the situation for you.”

  “Do you mean forward Franklin’s will or the file on Seth?”

  “Do you have the file on Seth?”

  “No.”

  “Then just the will,” Jessica said. “Maybe Greg won’t see anything in it. I don’t know. I’m not sure how Greg could help, but if you think you would like me to contact him, I’d be glad to.”

  “I would. It’s my right to obtain a second opinion. We encourage patients to do that all the time with doctors.”

  “I’ll get his number,” Jessica said. “If you tell his secretary you’re my friend, she’ll make sure he calls you as soon as possible.”

  Jessica went inside and left Leah alone in the swing. The late morning sky was stuffed with clouds. Only remnants of blue showed through. It was warm, not hot. The hanging geraniums were still dripping from when Jessica had watered them just as Leah pulled into the driveway and frantically ran up the steps.

  This house on Madison Hill has become such a place of comfort and blessed retreat in my life. Then Leah recognized an ironic twist. How strange that it was built by the man who started all this property-ownership, land-rights, inheritance business. Never in a million years would I have guessed I would be linked to this property in such a bizarre way.

  The air was filled with the scent of coming rain. Everything was still except for the sound of a slow moving honeybee, drunk on the sweetness of his cargo. Leah spotted the bee in the hydrangea bush and felt sympathetic for his dilemma. He had so many blossoms from which to choose. The flowers were adorned in their finest, soft pink gowns like enticing belles of the ball, torturing the one bewildered bee with their wild-scented pollen.

  Suddenly a thought came to Leah with clarity and strength. If she did have the money from Franklin’s estate, she could live in a house like this. A quarter of a million d
ollars could buy a lot of beauty and peace. Not to mention how incredible it would be for the Glenbrooke Zorro to have such resources available. Leah felt certain she could make good use of the money. And if the fifty acres were the woodlands she thought they were, the land that bordered Camp Heather Brook, Leah could give that land to Shelly and Jonathan, and they could build their tree house camp. As far as Franklin’s house was concerned, she could fix it up and rent it out. Glenbrooke had few rentals in that neighborhood.

  The opportunities seemed as bountiful as the blossoms available to that bewildered honeybee. Leah hadn’t seen it from this angle at the lawyer’s office, but it was beginning to make sense. Maybe this was something worth fighting for, on the offchance Seth really was a rogue. Franklin never would have put such a qualification in the will if he had known what his nephew really was like.

  “Wait a minute,” Leah said to herself. “What am I saying?” She pressed the cold, iced tea glass to her cheek in an effort to shock herself into thinking more clearly.

  How can I even think of Seth that way? What if Collin ran the report on the wrong Seth Edwards? What if Seth truly loves me and is an honest, God-fearing man? If we marry, the inheritance will be mine as well. I don’t need to pull it away from Seth and claim it all for myself.

  The front door opened, and Jessica appeared with one of her ubiquitous three-by-five note cards. “Greg’s number,” she said, handing it to Leah. “And a verse for the day to give you some encouragement.”

  Leah looked at the reference. When she saw it was Psalm 37:4, she said, “You gave me this one before. I’ve even memorized it. ‘Delight yourself in the LORD; and He will give you the desires of your heart.’ ”

  “I thought it might be a good reminder to you in the midst of all the confusion.”

  “Thanks,” Leah said, rising to go. “And thanks for being here for me. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  Jessica hugged her. “Keep me updated, okay? I’ll be praying my little heart out for you.”

  As Leah drove to work, she thought about how much she depended on Jessica’s prayers. It was astounding to think that Jessica might very well be the only person in the world who prayed for her. Where would she be if Jessica hadn’t been praying all this time?

  The realization prompted Leah to pray herself. And she had plenty to pray about. Her biggest concern was what she should do that night when Seth showed up at her house for dinner. Should she come right out and ask him about the credit and police reports? What would he say? If Seth had managed to lie so convincingly to her for these past few weeks, wouldn’t he continue to lie and convince her of whatever he wanted?

  When Leah arrived at work, she pushed all thoughts of the intense morning from her mind. She had to. The hospital was busy, and she was half a day behind with no backup support from Mary.

  Of the many phone messages her coworker from ER had taken while covering Leah’s desk that morning were messages from Alissa, Seth, and Collin. Leah chose not to return either man’s calls, but on the way home, she dialed Alissa’s number on the cell phone.

  “A Wing and a Prayer Travel,” Alissa answered the phone.

  “Hi, it’s Leah. I received a message that you called earlier today.”

  “Yes, I have good news for you. Or interesting news. Before I tell you what it is, I want to remind you that you gave away the last vacation package that fell in your lap. You might want to reconsider this one.”

  “What? Did the radio call you to say I’d won their grand drawing? Around the world for two?”

  “Not quite that glamorous. The trip I’m talking about is to Hamilton Hot Springs for the weekend. They called today since I had made the arrangements for Franklin, and this was the phone number listed. They wanted to know if any of the party of three wanted to schedule a massage. I tried to cancel the whole reservation, but they said they required two weeks’ notification, and since it’s for this weekend, they couldn’t refund the money.”

  “What do you mean this weekend? I was supposed to take Franklin the last weekend in May.”

  “Really? The last weekend? He told me it was this weekend when he set up the reservations. I wonder if he was confused.”

  Leah’s heart began to pound. This was exactly the kind of evidence Collin was looking for to build a case against Franklin’s changing the will.

  “Are you still there?” Alissa asked.

  “Yes, I’m here. Go ahead. What were you saying?”

  “I was saying, the trip is paid for. It’s in your name. Why don’t you go up for the weekend and treat yourself for once? It’s not too late for me to schedule a massage for you.”

  “A massage? I don’t need a massage.”

  “But you could use some time away,” Alissa said.

  Leah couldn’t argue with that. “Okay, tell me what I need to do.”

  “Just show up at the hot springs on Friday, any time after three. I have a brochure and a map, if you need it.”

  “Yes, I need a map. I’ll come by tomorrow to pick it up.”

  “Good for you,” Alissa said. “I think Franklin wanted this for you even more than he wanted it for himself.”

  Yeah, well, I know what he really wanted. He wanted to play matchmaker with Seth and me in the same place where he shared romantic memories with Naomi.

  “You have two rooms reserved, so why not take some friends, if you don’t feel like being by yourself.”

  “Can’t you cancel one room if I keep the reservation on the other?”

  “Possibly but not likely. The second room still is listed in Franklin’s and Seth’s names. Franklin was hopeful when he made the reservation that Seth would go with you, although Franklin told me Seth wasn’t sure he wanted to go.”

  Leah sighed. “No, he didn’t want to go. Seth didn’t think Franklin should go either. Nothing is ever easy, is it? Let’s drop the whole topic of Seth going. I’ll go. That’s that.”

  Alissa paused on her end of the line, apparently not sure what to make of Leah’s comment.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Leah said. “Thanks for letting me know about this, Alissa. You’re right. I should get away now.”

  Leah pushed the End button on her cell phone. When she turned the corner to her street, the first thing she saw was a PDS truck parked in front of her house.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Leah turned off the car’s engine and sat in front of her house looking for the PDS truck’s driver. She didn’t see anyone at her front door. Seth might have gone around the back of the house to pick up Bungee. Maybe he was avoiding her after the meeting this morning. She wondered if he needed time to sort out this turn of events as much as she did.

  Leah realized how awkward it would be to see Seth, now that they suddenly were expected to get married. Before today she hadn’t even allowed herself the luxury of daydreaming about such an outcome to their growing relationship, but now it was set, established by someone who hadn’t asked them what they thought of the idea.

  Ironic, Leah thought as she compared the similarity between this situation and the account of Jacob and Leah in Genesis. To obtain Rachel, Jacob had to take Leah. For Seth to inherit the estate, he had to take Leah. She didn’t like the comparison one bit.

  What concerned her even more, as she sat in her car, alone with her tormenting thoughts, was the possibility that Collin was right. What if Seth had known all along that the original will was in Leah’s name? What if he had been romancing her to gain all that Franklin had left to her? What if Seth never cared for her, and it was all a lie? He could hire his own lawyer to refute the conditions, find a way to cut the marriage clause out of the will, and take the entire estate for himself.

  Leah didn’t know what to think or who to believe. She successfully had pushed it all away at work, but now that she was home the situation’s complexities came rushing at her with a fresh urgency. She needed some answers.

  Leah punched the phone number for Jessica’s lawyer into her cell p
hone. She reached a voice mail message inviting her to dial a pager or leave a message. Leah left a brief message and then dialed the pager as well, giving her home phone number.

  She knew that, if she ate something, her energy level might be restored. That’s when she saw Jack from PDS crossing the street and jogging back to his truck. The older couple across the street were waving good-bye to him. Jack called out a cheerful hello to Leah and drove off down the street.

  You can now enter your home safely, Leah. Seth is not lurking in the backyard ready to spring on you.

  Once in the house, the first thing Leah did was change into shorts and a T-shirt. Then she went into the backyard to check on Bungee and Hula. She found Hula in the mudroom, lapping up the few drops left in the bottom of her water dish.

  “Poor girl. I should have realized you were sharing your water. Would you like some dinner, too? It looks like Bungee cleaned you out.”

  As Leah filled the water and food dishes, she called for Bungee to come in through the doggy door. A moment later a very dirty bundle of fun came bounding in.

  “I thought you might come when the word ‘dinner’ was mentioned.” Leah roughed him up behind the ears. “How did you get so dirty, Bowser?” She looked out the window and felt relieved to see her garden was still intact. He must have been digging along the side of the house to have such a snootful of dirt.

  Leaving the dogs to their dinner, Leah went out the back door and located where Bungee had been digging. He had made a royal mess, but it was just dirt along the side of the house, and he hadn’t disturbed anything. If he had to dig, that was a good place to do it. Leah turned on the hose to water her garden. The sight of tiny green sprouts sticking up in straight, neat rows made her smile.

  Maybe I don’t want a big mansion on a hill. Maybe this is all I need to feed my soul. A little place of my own. A little garden.