Butterfly Lane (9 page)

Zanny’s voice was hesitant. “This sounds awful, but I feel like we need to move fast.” John still had his arm around Zanny’s shoulders, and he could feel the tremor that went through her as she spoke. “If it occurs to him, Dad will destroy my things. Most of it can be replaced, but some of it can’t. Pictures, letters from you,” she told John.

“I’ll call Jack now.” Sarah stood and went to the phone on the wall to dial the number. Very succinctly, she explained everything to her brother. “Can you see what you can find out?”

As he answered, she looked at Zanny, her eyebrows raised. “Oh, that’s interesting. Think we could sneak in? Okay. Call me back.” She hung up and came back to the table, a speculative look on her face.

“Jack says the trailer’s dark, and Dennis’s truck wasn’t there when he got home from work. Any idea where he would have gone?”

“There’s a bar down in Wabaco he likes to go to when he comes home. I guess he could be there,” Zanny said.

“The Red Owl?” Sarah asked.

“That’s the one.”

“Good.”

Owen started clearing the table. “What did Jack say? Why is that good?”

“Because Jack has a buddy who’s a deputy sheriff. And he moonlights at the Red Owl sometimes as a bouncer. Jack said he’s heard Dennis mention going there a time or two, and he thinks his friend is working tonight. He’s going to call and find out.” The phone rang as she finished her sentence, and they all waited with bated breath as she hurried to answer it. When she turned around to face them with a thumbs-up and a big smile, Zanny let out a relieved breath.

“Okay, kids, here’s the deal. Jack’s friend is at the bar, and so is Dennis. He’s drinking, and Jack’s friend is going to keep him there. The angels are smiling on us tonight. Let’s get every box we can find and haul butt down there to the trailer. We’ll get your stuff out, and if Dennis has a problem with that, he can come tell us face-to-face.”

From the hard light in his mother’s eyes, John knew she was wishing that would happen. As much as his father was a wolf, literally, his mother was just as fiercely protective of those she loved. Even without the baby to consider, John knew she loved Zanny.

They moved fast, leaving the food and plates where they sat. Even though John trusted Jack, he knew things could get out of hand very quickly if Dennis managed to get home before they were finished.

“Do you feel up to going?” he asked Zanny as they grabbed shoes and coats. Sarah found one for Zanny, and handed it to her as they gathered in the hall.

“Yes. I need to go. I want to.”

They took Sarah’s station wagon as well as Owen’s truck. John rode with his father, and as soon as they were on the road, Owen asked the question John had been expecting.

“She’s not ready?”

“No. And I understand the urgency, Dad, but I can’t push her. She has to come to it herself.”

Owen reached out and patted John’s shoulder. “She will. And I’m proud of you for handling it so well.”

John shook his head. “It’s simple. I want her to be happy. Pushing her into marriage is not going to make her happy. As I was driving down here, I pretty much figured what was going on. But I guess I didn’t expect her to not want to marry me. At least, not like this.”

“You’ve heard your mother and I talk about how badly I screwed up right before we got married. It will work out, John. You just have to believe in her and let her know you love her.”

They made the rest of the trip in silence, while John replayed what he knew about his parents’ courtship. Through a series of unavoidable events, Owen and Sarah had been separated during a time when they least needed to be. It had very nearly put paid to their relationship.

Surely, given that John hadn’t done anything as boneheaded as his father had done, Zanny would come to the answer he wanted—and needed—her to.

“Guess I need to find some of that faith and trust I was telling her about,” he muttered as they pulled up to the dark trailer. He got out and headed for Zanny, focusing on what they were about to do instead of what was hopefully to come. Staying busy was the only way he could stay sane and not take his father’s truck to Wabaco and commit mayhem.

They managed to get all of Zanny’s belongings out of the trailer in under an hour. The resulting collection wasn’t much, Sarah thought, to reflect the young woman’s life—about ten boxes, and two garbage bags full of clothes, all told.

“We’ll put this in Ben’s room, and you can sleep in Emma’s room for the time being,” she told Zanny as they closed the door behind them and got ready to head back up the mountain.

“I can never thank you all for this,” Zanny told her. She had her arms wrapped around herself, and Sarah realized that she was leaving, for good, the only place she’d called home since she was a young child. The loss was another emotional burden in a day that had been filled with them.

“Sure you can. Live a happy, fulfilled life. That’s all the payback we need.”

They thanked Jack and his son, Rick, who’d come to help, then Sarah bundled Zanny into the car. She heard her sniffling as she drove down the holler to the main road. Without speaking, Sarah handed her the box of tissues.

“You must think I’m awful, not answering John.”

“No. I understand. I’d like to see you two married because I think you’re a good fit for each other, but that’s not my decision. And I’m glad you’re not rushing into it and are taking a little while to think. It bodes well for your future.”

“How can you be so understanding, so forgiving? What if I don’t have an answer for him tomorrow, or this weekend, or next week? What if I’m starting to show and people are starting to talk? What then?”

“Well, then we tell those people to go screw themselves.” She could feel Zanny’s startled gaze on her face, and she smiled. “And then we know who to avoid in the future, because anyone so perfect they can judge you and John for being young and in love? Condemn you without a hearing, so to speak? We don’t want to associate with them, in any event.”

She wasn’t surprised when Zanny’s tears increased. The poor girl was exhausted mentally and physically. Between stress and the pregnancy hormones, that she’d kept it together as long as she had was a miracle.

“Someday, when that baby you’re carrying is grown, you might have the opportunity to have a very similar conversation with him or her. And you’ll think back to this day, this night, and hopefully, you’ll say the right things. As a parent, it’s all you can hope to do sometimes. That, and have grandchildren whom you can spoil and send back to their parents to tame.”

When Zanny laughed, even through her tears, Sarah had the feeling everything was all going to be all right.

Chapter Thirteen

I
n the end, an episode of a popular nighttime TV drama helped Zanny make her decision. She and Sarah were on the edges of their seats that Friday night as they watched the dysfunctional family from Texas sort through lives complicated by the evil machinations of the male lead. Even though John and Owen teased them mightily about their interest in the show, Zanny thought they had paid awfully close attention to the episode.

Watching the Ewings, Zanny thought about people she knew from school who were stuck in similar, if less dramatic, situations. Her own father would have made an excellent bad-guy character. But the Campbells? They were about as genuine as it got. They weren’t perfect; they were far from it. But they were good people. They were the kind of people Zanny wanted to be around and wanted her children to grow up with.

She didn’t tell John until the next day. Amelia had a basketball game in Leslie County, and knowing they needed privacy, Sarah coaxed Owen and Rachel into going along. Owen was clearly reluctant to leave them, but after leveling a dark warning look at John, he pointed a finger at him. “Mind your manners,” he said in a low voice that had John and Zanny both blushing, then let Sarah drag him to the car.

“That wasn’t awkward at all.” John was standing beside her, his hands in his pockets, the cool wind ruffling his dark hair. The day had dawned bright and sunny, despite the cool air, and as long as the wind wasn’t blowing, the air was pleasant enough.

Zanny leaned against him. “Think we could take a walk? Maybe go down to the pool?”

“Sure.”

They grabbed a heavy blanket and a thermos of crushed ice, which Zanny was elated to find kept her nausea at bay, and headed down the hill. On the boulder overlooking the pool, John spread out the large blanket and sat down. He held his arms wide. “Come sit?”

“In a minute.” Walking to the edge of the boulder, Zanny looked down at the water. The trees had changed into their fall colors, and bright-yellow, red, and orange leaves littered the pool. They’d dammed up at the lip of the pool where the water cascaded over the edge.

“Your dad hasn’t been out yet to clean the pool.”

“He probably will this evening when they get home. He hates going to ballgames. If it wasn’t for Mom dragging him to them, he’d probably only go once a month or so, if then.”

Zanny moved to the middle of the rock, picked up a particularly bright oak leaf, and twirled it around and around on its stem. “Doesn’t that bother Amelia? That he has to be coerced into going?”

John smiled. “No. Because when he’s there? He’s totally there. He was the same way when I played, and when Ben and Emma played.”

“I remember Emma saying that now. She was half-embarrassed by his enthusiasm, but she had to be. The teenager curse, you know.” She brought the leaf to her face, sniffing it as though it were a flower. “Do you think we’ll be like that with our kids?”

“Probably. Although I don’t think either of us has the problem going out in public Dad has, so it will be easier for us to embarrass them.”

Zanny laughed, imagining the scene, and cradled her belly. “Do you think this one is a boy?”

John shrugged. “Fifty-fifty chance this one—”

Watching her words penetrate his brain was almost comical.

“Wait a minute. This one? Implying there will be more than one Campbell-Franks collaboration?”

In answer, she eased down onto his lap and slid her arms around his neck. “Let’s get married, John.”

He didn’t say anything for several long seconds, just tenderly stroked her hair back off her face. When he spoke, his voice was rough with emotion. “That sounds like an excellent idea.”

They decided that after they’d applied for their marriage license Monday morning, John would drive back to Richmond. He would be able to attend his afternoon classes, and then that next weekend, he and Zanny would exchange their vows.

“Do you think Uncle Eli would perform the ceremony?” John asked after the excitement from the announcement died down. Eli Wells, Owen’s uncle on his mother’s side, was an ordained minister. He had officiated at Owen and Sarah’s wedding, and all the kids had grown up knowing Eli as a grandfather. Though he was nearly seventy, he was still in good health and active.

“If you go down there and ask him in person, he might,” Owen answered. “Think you’re up to making a trip tomorrow?” Eli lived in Laurel County, which was about ninety minutes down the parkway from Hazard.

John looked to Zanny for confirmation, and she nodded. “Then yes. I should probably call and see if he’s busy.”

“John said that Eli wouldn’t be angry when he finds out everything,” Zanny said as he got up to head to the phone in the kitchen. He paused in the doorway to hear his father’s response.

“Eli’s strict, but he’s also kind. He’ll probably sit the two of you down for a long conversation, and I can almost guarantee you it will get pointed, given the circumstances, but it’s because he cares. He’ll want to make sure you’re as good a fit as you think you are. Sarah and I had to go through it.” Owen clasped Sarah’s hand and kissed the back of it. “We survived, and you will, too.”

The look his parents exchanged was so intimate and full of love that John felt like an intruder who’d walked in on something private. He stepped to the couch and reached down to Zanny, resting his hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him and winked.

John winked back. “I’ll go make the call.”