No River Too Wide (14 page)

“I think you should bring it. You never know what’s going to come up, and I might be a few minutes late.”

That seemed to satisfy her. “You don’t have to rush.”

“Thank you, I’ll remember that.”

“My mom’s afraid I’ll have a seizure, but I haven’t had one in a long time. Not since they operated on my brain.”

Jan lowered her voice, as if she were trying to keep a secret from Taylor. “Moms are that way.”

Maddie rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it.”

“I’m going to buy a new cell phone today, and then you’ll be able to call me if you need anything.”

“My mom thinks I need a babysitter, but I don’t.”

“I think your mom is babysitting
me,
so that just makes me a friend with a phone.”

Maddie laughed, her feelings obviously soothed. “Bye, friend.” She left for school in a flurry of flopping brown hair and flapping pink baby-doll top. Vanilla, all fluffy fur and big brown eyes, stood at the door and whined. Then, job finished, she trotted off to make herself comfortable on the sofa.

“You two are getting along.” Taylor spoke from the kitchen. “I’m delighted.”

“Maddie’s great. You’re doing a wonderful job with her.”

“She likes having you here. She won’t admit it, but she’s so much happier now that I don’t drag her everywhere.”

“She’s a good student. I can’t believe what they’re learning in school these days. I barely knew what she was talking about when she showed me her math homework last night.”

“My dad’s the math wizard. He’ll be the go-to math tutor when we need one.”

Ethan Martin, Taylor’s dad, was on his way to the house right now, and Jan would be meeting him for the first time. She couldn’t remember when she’d had a conversation with a man other than Rex, who’d made sure she was never alone with anyone of the opposite sex. She’d had that brief encounter in the park with the young man with the brightly colored cap, but he had been a stranger who would remain one. She had no idea what to say to Ethan, who would be visiting often, and she wasn’t looking forward to the encounter.

The day’s schedule was complex. Maddie’s school had started two hours later, because of special testing for some of the older students. Taylor and her father were heading over to the new studio to check on renovations, so Taylor had offered her car so that Jan could have lunch with Harmony. Jan would meet Taylor at the studio after lunch and take her home.

The lunch plans had been all too cloak-and-dagger. Harmony was borrowing Rilla’s car to get to the restaurant, and Rilla would use hers. It was a simple precaution, similar to making calls using Taylor and Rilla’s cell phones. The restaurant itself was in Black Mountain, a longer drive for Harmony than for Jan, but she had promised she didn’t mind. She planned to take a few back roads just to be sure she wasn’t followed, although there was no reason to think she might be. No strangers had been seen prowling around the Reynolds Farm or parked on the road. They hadn’t received strange phone calls. So far all was as usual.

They were meeting early enough to avoid the lunch rush and because Jan wanted to buy a cell phone before she picked up Taylor. With a little internet research Taylor had confirmed the information that Moving On had given her. She could buy the phone, along with activation and refill cards, at a discount or electronics store using cash. When she activated the account, she wouldn’t be required to give information about herself that anybody could trace. From that point on, when she needed more minutes she could buy them at a participating store, again with cash.

Life under the radar wasn’t going to be easy. She still had to find a job without using her Social Security number, because that number was the quickest way for Rex to find her, but luckily a job wasn’t yet an emergency. A car was also essential, but Taylor had suggested that Jan find one she liked, then give Harmony the money to buy and register it in her name. There were ways to accomplish what Jan needed to. It was even possible that the government might give her a new Social Security number if she could prove she had been abused and was in danger. But right now her life and those kinds of decisions were on hold.

Because Rex still hadn’t surfaced.

“So here are my keys,” Taylor said, coming to stand beside her. “I had a problem with the engine stalling last week, but my mechanic did some adjustments and it’s fine now. There’s nothing unique about driving it. It’s just an ordinary sedan.”

Jan knew that wasn’t quite true. The young Buddy had been an enthusiastic
Star Trek
fan, and the dashboard of Taylor’s car looked like something from the starship
Enterprise.
But Jan was used to nice cars. Rex had traded his every two years, an expense he had justified, although he had never justified any make or model for his wife.

Whatever else Taylor planned to say was interrupted when the front door swung open again and a man with grayish-brown hair and Taylor’s golden-brown eyes came through it.

“I’m late. I’m sorry,” he told his daughter, who was right in front of him. Then his eyes turned to Jan. He smiled warmly and immediately held out his hand. “You must be Harmony’s mom. I’m Ethan.”

She could not make herself touch him. She couldn’t have done it even if everyone’s life had depended on it, if the roof had threatened to collapse on the three of them if she didn’t.

Clearing her throat, she nodded, carefully not looking at the outstretched hand, as if by not seeing it, she wasn’t being rude not to take it. “I’m Jan.”

He realized immediately he had made her uncomfortable. She saw a flash of recognition and regret in his eyes, but he nodded as if nothing had happened and slipped both hands in his jeans pockets. “How do you like Asheville?”

The question was simple enough, basic and easy to answer. She wet her lips. “It’s lovely,” she said through gritted teeth, feeling as if she’d given a two-hour lecture on a subject she knew nothing about.

“I’m glad you think so. I know Harmony loves it here. And for that matter we love having her here, too.”

“I’m glad.” She realized that was the third two-word sentence she had uttered, but there was no hope for better. She just wanted to get away from Ethan Martin. He looked nothing like her husband. She was sure he
was
nothing like her husband. But he was male, like Rex, vibrantly so, and she felt as frightened as a rabbit being run to ground.

Taylor smoothly took over. “Enough small talk. We’ve got to get over to the studio before the flooring guy gives up on us, Dad. Let’s walk out together.”

“Did I hear you and Harmony are going out for lunch?” Ethan asked on the front porch.

“They’re heading over to Black Mountain,” Taylor said, as if she had been asked instead. “Jan, make sure you try the fried green tomatoes, if you like them. I had them the last time I was there, and they were amazing.”

“For such a skinny lady seriously into health and fitness, you are way too fond of fried food,” Ethan told his daughter.

“Jan’s promised to make beer-battered eggplant for us one night this week. She serves it with cocktail sauce as an appetizer. Like oysters.”

“I’ll bet Jan’s eggplant’s a keeper.”

Jan could not let this go on. She was an adult who had once thrived in social situations, and now something better was called for. She cleared her throat. “I’ll have to make it. When you’re coming to dinner. So you can see, I mean.”

“That’s an invitation I’ll accept with pleasure.”

They were in the driveway now, and Jan noticed Ethan had parked just behind Taylor’s car. She had quickly learned never to go outside without investigating her surroundings. Now, as Taylor and her father said goodbye and pulled away, she took a long look up and down the street before she went around to the driver’s side. Satisfied that nothing seemed out of the ordinary, she opened the door.

She wondered when things would get easier. Right now everything was a challenge. She no sooner got over one hurdle than the next one appeared.

In a minute she would take a stranger’s car for a twenty-minute drive through one town she hardly knew to another she didn’t know at all. For a moment she wasn’t sure she could do it, just as she wasn’t sure she would ever again be able to have a normal conversation with a man.

But what kind of life would she have unless she tried?

And if she didn’t try, then no matter where Rex Stoddard was, no matter what he was up to, wouldn’t he have succeeded in his plan to destroy her?

Chapter 12

Lottie looked like a little princess in the dress Davis had bought for her at an expensive children’s boutique. Harmony knew where it had come from and what he had paid, because he’d forgotten to remove the price tag.

Davis had bought his daughter a dress. Furthermore he hadn’t taken the price of the dress out of his monthly support payment.

She was still waiting for the end of the world as she knew it.

“You look so beautiful,” she told the baby as she lifted her out of the car seat and pulled the dress back down over her diaper. And Lottie did. The emerald-colored dress with white smocking and pink embroidery brought out the green in the baby’s eyes, which, after months of uncertainty, seemed to have settled on hazel as the color of record. Clearly Davis had noticed.

Lottie squirmed restlessly in her arms, and Harmony turned her so she could see the world go by. The baby’s fine brown hair was clipped back from her face with gold barrettes that, with luck, might last until Harmony got her inside the restaurant.

She wanted her mother to at least glimpse her only granddaughter at her very best. Janine had missed so much. The birth, the first smile, learning to crawl. In a way it was like meeting a stranger for lunch. There was so much to catch up on, it was really like starting all over again.

Too much to catch up on, and too much to bury.

Rilla had recommended the bistro, and as Harmony climbed the stairs and went inside, she was sorry the weather wasn’t just a little warmer so she and her mother could sit at a table on the wide front porch. On the rare occasions when her father and brother had been away in the evenings, she and her mother had taken dinner out to their front stoop to sit on the steps to eat. Impromptu picnics had been one way of trying to make their time together special.

Janine would love this expansive, breezy porch, but maybe that reminder wasn’t the best.

Inside, Harmony scanned the room. She liked the light wooden floor, the jewel-toned walls. She didn’t like the fact that even though she was a few minutes late, her mother wasn’t already sitting at a table.

She asked to be seated in a corner, and the hostess brought a high chair for Lottie, but Harmony decided to hold the baby as she waited so she wouldn’t be in the chair too long.

One glass of iced tea later—as well as two gold barrettes now in the diaper bag—she saw her mother come in.

For years she had wished for this moment. She had wanted Janine to be free of their past. Now here she was.

“I’m sorry I’m late.” Janine approached the table tentatively, as if she was afraid Harmony might ask her to leave.

Harmony’s joy at seeing her mother was dampened by annoyance. What did Janine—Jan—expect? That Harmony, like her father, would attack her for this small infraction, these minutes spent waiting?

“You don’t need to be sorry.” She heard the edge in her voice, and she toned it down immediately. “I’m just glad you got here. Did you have problems finding the restaurant? Or Black Mountain?”

“No. Taylor has a GPS unit, but I stalled at a stop sign. I’m not used to her car.” Jan sounded anxious, although Harmony could tell she was trying to hide it.

“What did you do?”

Instead of answering, Jan held out her arms for Lottie, and Harmony lifted the baby off her lap so her mother could take her.

“She’s so beautiful,” Jan said with a catch in her voice, as Lottie went to her without a fuss. “I see you in her, but she’s not a dead ringer.”

“Her father’s not bad to look at. If Lottie takes after him a little, it won’t be a tragedy.”

“There’s so much I don’t know.” Jan sat and settled Lottie on her lap. The baby immediately began to play with her watch, utterly absorbed in turning it around and around.

“First tell me how you handled stalling,” Harmony said.

Jan looked up. “Other than a few words I told you never to use?” She gave a short, nervous laugh. “I wasn’t sure what to do. The last thing I wanted was to call for assistance and show the police my driver’s license. Luckily nobody was behind me, and when somebody finally did come up, I just waved them around. After the car sat awhile I tried it again, and it started right up.”

The words had all come out in a rush. Harmony realized her mother must have been really frightened. “I hadn’t thought about that, about your license, I mean. Could somebody trace you here if the police made a report?”

“Anybody can be found, no matter how carefully they hide. It depends on how much money is spent looking for them, and how willing they are to live under the radar. When you left...” Jan shook her head.

“What?”

“Your father was sure he could find you without anybody’s help.”

“That sounds like good old Dad.”

“If he had hired somebody with qualifications, they probably would have found you pretty fast.”

“I guess I’m lucky he’s such an egomaniac.”

“It’s hard to hear you talk that way, Harmony,” Jan said gently.

Harmony felt a flash of anger. “You think he deserves my respect? No chance of that. Please don’t tell me he did the best he could and loved me in his own way, okay?”

Jan didn’t answer.

Harmony knew she had to stop snapping at her mother. “I’m glad you restarted the car,” she said in a softer voice.

“I need to buy my own. I can’t continue to inconvenience Taylor. But I think I’ll need your help. The smartest thing will be for me to find one I like and let you put it in your name.”

“Mom, how are you going to afford a car?”

“That’s a story. Let’s order first.”

A few minutes later, order made and Lottie in the high chair working on chopped fruit and dry cereal Harmony had brought along, Jan sat back in her chair. She looked exhausted, her skin an unhealthy gray, her hands unsteady, as if the simple act of having lunch with her daughter and granddaughter had completely drained her.