by Amanda Wen
But even at this crowded table, one chair remained empty.
Jack’s chair.
Annabelle’s heart ached at the vacancy whenever she sat down to a meal. But removing it would tear the wound open anew. So it stayed.
“More gravy?” Kate held out the gravy boat, and Annabelle took it from her small, thin hands. Oliver’s rosy-cheeked, delicate-featured bride looked like she’d be more at home in an English tearoom than on the Kansas prairie. But Kate had proven tougher than she looked, and she and the headstrong Oliver clearly adored one another. It was a good match.
“You all still thinking about moving?” John Patrick asked from the other side of the table. Annabelle passed the gravy to Stephen and stifled the knot in her stomach. Oliver had discussed striking out on his own since shortly after Jack died. At first, she thought it was restlessness. Eagerness to marry Kate and start his own family. And after the wedding, he’d stayed put. Built a cabin on a corner of their land and farmed.
But talk of leaving hadn’t stopped. He’d spoken of Harper County. Sumner County. Even the newly opened territory of Oklahoma.
Oliver’s dark eyes met Kate’s pale blue ones in a glance that spoke volumes. “We were going to wait until after dinner to tell you, but … we’ve a firm destination in mind.”
Annabelle froze, fork halfway to her lips.
“Where?” Caroline asked.
Another glance between husband and wife. “San Francisco.”
The words coldcocked Annabelle. “California?”
“Why so far?” Mary looked as wounded as her mother felt.
“Kate has a cousin there, working for the railroad.” Oliver laid tanned, work-roughened fingers over his wife’s porcelain hand. “He says there are jobs. And the land’s fertile. The climate mild. Not like here.” He spat the word.
Annabelle’s heart tore with the same pain she’d felt at nine, watching Papa ride away. The same as when she’d rushed to Jack’s side and found him already gone.
“So that’s it?” She strove to keep her voice from rising. “You’re up and leaving then?”
“It’s still under consideration, Mother.” Oliver’s tone carried a hint of chastisement. “Nothing’s finalized yet.”
Kate turned to Annabelle. “Perhaps you could come with us?”
“What?” Annabelle couldn’t have been more taken aback if her soft-spoken daughter-in-law had shouted her suggestion.
“Come with us,” Oliver echoed. “To California.”
“I couldn’t simply …”
“Yes, you could.” Oliver’s eyes held a wild glint. “Thomas is grown, Caroline and Joseph will be wed and living in Colwich by year’s end, and the rest could come along.”
Maggie Ann gasped, and her gray eyes lit. “Are we moving?” The child carried Annabelle’s own adventuring spirit.
At least, the spirit she had once.
Annabelle laid a hand on her daughter’s head. “I don’t know. I …” Leave the house? The land? Three of her children a thousand miles away? “I moved cross-country in a covered wagon once. I’m not sure I’ve got it in me to do again.”
Oliver waved a hand. “We’d take the train all the way. No oxen required.”
“But what would I do about the house? The farm?”
“You’d sell it, of course.”
Annabelle shut her eyes against the panic roaring through her. “No. I can’t sell this land.”
“Why not?” Oliver pressed. “It’s only a house. Only land.”
Her eyes snapped open. “It’s not only any of those things. This land—this house—was Jack’s dream. His labor of love. His legacy. I’ll not dishonor his memory by pawning it off to the highest bidder.”
“So you’ll farm the land yourself?”
“If I must, yes.”
Oliver’s fork slammed to the table. “Don’t be ridiculous, Mother.”
“I’m not the one who’s being ridiculous.”
Between them, Kate’s face paled, and she stared at her lap, looking as though she wished for the earth to swallow her whole.
Annabelle took a shaky breath and lowered her voice. “You’ve both worked so hard, and you’re finally seeing the fruit of your labors. You’ve had good crops the last two years, despite drought. Why would you leave when everything’s starting to go well?”
“Because everything’s starting to go well.” Oliver’s mouth tightened and twitched under a great struggle. “That’s what this place does to you. It lulls you into complacency. Makes you think you’re through the worst of it and you can finally get ahead. But a fire comes. Or a blizzard. Or a run-of-the-mill afternoon thunderstorm that knocks you off-balance and throws you to your death.”
Annabelle’s lips parted at the pain in her son’s voice. He’d been the fastest to bounce back from Jack’s passing. The first to put hand to plow and do what needed to be done.
And in so doing, he must have stifled a world of grief.
“This place killed my parents. The aunt who took me in, and the uncle who raised me. If not for you, it’d have killed me too.” Flashing eyes fixed on her face. “And you yourself lost a baby and a husband to this god-forsaken land. Why would you ever want to stay?”
Oh. It made so much sense it hurt. How could she have been so blind to the agony Oliver carried?
“But the Lord himself promised there’d be trouble. Life is hard. Things like this can happen anywhere.”
His jaw tightened. “That may be. But I never knew loss until I came here. And one by one, the people I love get picked off by illness or natural disaster or plain old bad luck. And I’ve no intention of sticking around to watch the rest of you die too.”
Wood scraped against wood as Oliver shoved his chair back, nearly toppling it in his race to escape the room. With a worried glance, Kate set her napkin aside and hurried after him. Maggie Ann’s face crumpled, while the rest of the children exchanged murmurs of shock and concern.
Annabelle cradled her youngest to her chest and grappled with the enormity of it all. Oliver’s pain. His decision.
The decision that now required one from her.
It would kill her to be abandoned again. To watch Oliver and Kate pack up and leave for California, perhaps never seeing them again.
But to pawn off Jack’s dream? The one thing she had left of him?
That might kill her too.
Sloane set the diary aside with a frustrated sigh and pushed back from her office desk. Looked like her brilliant plan to forget Garrett and lose herself in Annabelle’s life qualified as an epic fail. Given the content of the most recent entry anyway.
Emptiness. Loss.
The gaping hole a loved one left with his departure.
She stalked to the fridge and fished among the lunch sacks and takeout containers for the leftover enchilada she’d packed. Maybe she should set the diaries aside for a while. Find some less emotionally involved way to learn the rest of the story. Census films and cemetery records would tell her in an instant if Oliver and Kate had gone to California. If Annabelle went with them. That would be the logical way.
Garrett, no doubt, would heartily approve.
Colleen entered the little kitchen area, brow creased. “Are you all right? I just heard.”
Sloane stuffed the enchilada into the ancient microwave. “Heard what?”
“Warren Williams bought the Spencer place.”
“Yes. He did.” She jammed the start button, and the microwave whirred to life.
“Are you all right with that?” Colleen’s gentle brown eyes sought Sloane’s. “I know how attached you are.”
“Yep. Fine.”
“Really?”
Sloane removed the enchilada from the microwave early and gave it an experimental taste. Blech. Still cold. “The money’s for his grandmother. He did what he had to do.” She returned her lunch to the microwave and slammed the door.
“I’ll believe that when you do.”
Sloane harrumphed quietly as C
olleen bustled around the corner to her desk.
“So, not that this is any of my business.” Colleen’s chair creaked under her weight. “Are you pretending you’re fine for the sake of the relationship?”
“There is no relationship. Not anymore.” The microwave dinged off the surface of her sorrow, and Sloane popped the door open. Fragrant steam puffed up from the enchilada. A good sign. “Garrett’s a planner. I didn’t fit in with his plans. He’s moved on. So should I. It’s for the best.”
“Simple as that.”
Was Colleen being sarcastic? It was hard to tell. But there was no point in dwelling on it. Sloane forked up another bite of enchilada. Still cold in the middle. Back into the blasted microwave.
“Shame,” Colleen said over the microwave’s hum. “I thought you two were good together.”
The simple phrase pushed at the lid she’d slapped onto her emotions. They were good together. Garrett’s sharp wit and keen intellect matched her own. His dry sense of humor and innate knowledge of when to use it helped her not take herself so seriously. His deep blue eyes never failed to draw her in. Those creases in his cheeks when he smiled always made her want to smile right back. He shared her faith. He loved his family. He liked jazz.
“You’re right, we were.” It was the truth. Feelings aside, they were, indeed, good together.
And yet there was no room for feelings. Garrett had made that perfectly clear. Despite the shimmer in his eyes, the huskiness in his voice, the tremble in his thumb when he brushed it across her cheek and told her he was crazy about her … she still wasn’t part of his grand master plan. The plan logic dictated he follow.
The microwave dinged once more, and she retrieved her lunch for a third time. She plunged her fork straight into the middle, took a bite, and—
Ouch. Their diva of a microwave had finally come through. And now she’d have a burned tongue to contend with the rest of the day.
Perfect.
At least it distracted her, if only momentarily, from all she felt about Garrett. Good thing too, because it didn’t matter how she felt. That his departure left her feeling as dull and colorless as the plastic container in her hands. That she woke with his name on her lips, aching for him and angry with him and awash with all sorts of things she shouldn’t feel, didn’t want to feel.
Garrett clearly wasn’t feeling any of those things. He’d made his plans, checked off his list, and stuffed her neatly into a box marked Pleasant Diversions. Nice for a time but never meant to last.
He’d made his choice. He’d moved on.
So should she.
Help me do that, she pled as she sank into her chair and set her lunch on her desk. Help me think about something else, help me—
Her computer chirped and she pounced. Then froze.
To: HistorICT
From: Marinera72
Hi, Sloane! This is a bit out of nowhere, but I’m going to be in Wichita on business next week. I don’t know if you’re ready for this, and I don’t know if I’m ready either, but—deep breath—I’d really like to meet you.
Sloane blinked. Gaped at the message on her screen.
It was quite possibly the swiftest answer to prayer she’d ever received.
Half-hearted rain spattered the windshield as Garrett drove down the turnpike to Wichita. Gray clouds hung heavy overhead, a dismal, disheartening start to what would no doubt prove to be a dismal, disheartening morning.
He reached for his cup of gas station coffee and took a bitter, lukewarm sip. It was early. Too early. Not that it mattered. He’d tossed and turned most of the night. And the night before that. And the night before that.
Every night, in fact, for the last two weeks. Since he shook Warren Williams’s hand and took the man’s enormous check, the knot in his gut had grown ever tighter. So much so that he couldn’t even deposit the check. It still sat there, snug in his wallet.
His grip tightened on the wheel. In a couple hours, this would all be over. His meeting to finalize the sale was at nine, and then he’d be free. Free from all the angst and strain and stress and hassle. It would be done. Finito.
Maybe then the knot in his stomach would ease and he could bring himself to deposit Williams’s check.
Maybe then he could work on his broken heart.
He missed Sloane. Every minute of every day. They hadn’t been together that long, and frankly he hadn’t expected it to hurt this much. But hurt it did. And sear, and ache, and every other verb for pain he could possibly think of. His missed those dimples in her cheeks when she smiled. The sparkle in her eyes when she made some new historical discovery. The mischievous quirk of her mouth when she was about to let loose another snarky comment.
Desperate for distraction, he turned up the radio. Traffic reports and stock market updates would keep his mind off things.
But the frequency that was all talk, all the time in Kansas City simmered with a sultry Diana Krall number here in Wichita. One that instantly called up a vivid image of Sloane onstage in that don’t-you-dare-blink blue dress.
He’d give anything to hear her sing just one more time. To listen to her mesmerizing voice massage the ebbs and flows of the melody. To see her heart-melting smile as she basked in much-deserved applause. To guide her down the stairs offstage, cup her face in his hands, and kiss her senseless—
This wasn’t helping. Not at all.
He gritted his teeth and switched the radio off.
At last, he exited the highway onto Jamesville Road. In a cruel irony, the offices of Williams and Son Development were on the same street as his grandparents’ farm. Just a couple miles to the south.
He slowed as he approached the familiar gravel road to the left. After today, the property wouldn’t be theirs anymore. A few months from now, it’d be unrecognizable. So maybe he should take a minute to pay his respects. See the place one last time.
He was already miserable. What could it hurt?
Memories assaulted him as he bumped along the rutted driveway. The first time he ever drove was here, at the tender age of fourteen, behind the wheel of Grandpa’s ancient Chevy pickup. His mother, grandmother, and the chickens had all squawked their disapproval, but Grandpa was steadfast. His patience infinite.
Much of what Garrett learned about driving—about life—came from him.
From here.
And over there. Grandma’s garden. A lump formed in his throat at the memory of the tomatoes she used to grow. Summer wasn’t complete until he bit into one, flavor exploding in his mouth and juice running down his chin. They’d ruined him for all other tomatoes. And the county fair ribbons Grandma brought home every year proved he wasn’t alone in that assessment.
Nothing but weeds grew there now. Grandma hadn’t gardened for years.
And there. The patch of mud where Sloane got stuck the first time she came out here. He pulled up beside it, the brown puddle rippling in the rain. Sloane, shoes in hand, mud halfway up her calves. The adorably embarrassed way she’d admitted her need for help. The grateful shine in her eyes when he bailed her out. Heaven help him, he’d push cars out of the mud until he dropped if it meant she’d look at him like that.
What he wouldn’t give for things to be different. For her to be sitting in the passenger seat right now, giving him that don’t be an idiot, Garrett look he’d grown so fond of. To tell her, Y’ know what? Let’s keep the house. Let’s live here. You and me. Let’s get married and make adorable, snarky babies. Let’s eat bad-for-you desserts in the kitchen and kiss on the front porch and make love in the clearing by the creek. Let’s make this house what it was always meant to be.
Let’s make it a home.
He wanted that. Craved it. He’d never known an ache so strong, a longing so deep. It volcanoed up from his very core, up and up until it erupted in a cry of anguish. His fist pounded the steering wheel once. Twice. He gripped the wheel so hard it hurt, and his head fell forward onto white-knuckled hands.
He gasped under the weight of
pain. Of clarity.
He loved Sloane.
And if it were up to him, she’d be in all his plans. Every last one of them, from now until the end of time.
But it wasn’t up to him, was it?
He had to do right by Grandma. Had to stick with the plan.
Even if that plan would utterly shatter his heart.
With a shuddering breath, he raised his head from the steering wheel. Took one last look at the house and scrubbed his hands over stinging eyes. Then he swallowed his anguish, stuffed all the emotions down deep where they belonged, and put the car into gear.
He’d given his feelings free rein for long enough. It was time to put logic and reason back in the driver’s seat.
Time to enact his plan. Time to sign on the dotted line.
Time to get this over with.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
GIVEN THE OMNIPRESENCE of Williams and Son Development signs between the highway and the company’s offices, Garrett expected a towering skyscraper. Instead, the command center of one of the city’s largest developers was an unassuming beige brick building sandwiched between a Presbyterian church and a Dairy Queen.
Inside, a receptionist escorted him to a conference room, where a trio of suit-clad men milled around a large wooden table. All of them balding, all of them middle-aged, all of them talking about golf.
He hated golf.
A box of doughnuts from the expensive place around the corner festooned the center of the table, flanked by a pair of French presses and an array of matching mugs. Real coffee. Not the convenience-store swill that had kept him going all morning. He started to reach for some, but a sudden queasiness made him step back.
“Mr. Anderson, I presume?” One of the suits approached with an extended hand and introduced himself as a member of Warren Williams’s legal team. And then another. And another. All of them had names like Bob. In fact, maybe their names were all Bob. He wasn’t paying enough attention to be sure.
“Is Warren not here yet?” one of the Bobs asked.
Another Bob jerked a thumb toward the opposite wall. “He’s in his office. Said he’d be a second.”