Wild Flower (25 page)

He wants to scare you, I realized.
Don't show him any fear.

When he was a few yards away, he quit paddling and hopped nimbly from the boat, drawing it closer to the dock, the water just past his knees. The same sunhat was shading his eyes, his t-shirt dirty and stained. The stern of his canoe was loaded with a cooler, fishing supplies, and another smaller tote. The afternoon sun danced over the water, disturbed by his motion.

“Well this is an unexpected present,” he said, walking through the lake to stand near where I remained sitting, a few feet above his waist.

“Why did you do it?” I asked, my voice steady despite the nauseous churning inside me.

He cocked his head to the side as though in surprise. Not taking his eyes from me, he asked, “Do what?”

I leaned forward and narrowed my eyes at him, and my voice was full of venom as I said, “I know what you
fucking did
.”

I expected signs of immediate retreat. Instead he moved a step closer and said, “Yes, I wrote on that napkin. Yes, I touched you at the bar. And yes, I am drawn to you. I'm not apologizing for it.”

Nervous sweat slicked down my spine; God, he was so creepy. It was the wrong thing to engage him this way, I realized too late, but still I said heatedly, “I don't mean that.”

“Then what do you mean?” he asked evenly, and I knew he was messing with me, I knew it, and at the same time I understood that I could never prove this; had I actually expected him to confess?

“You know exactly what I mean,” I hissed, burning with frustration. “You were
in my house
.”

He shifted his weight, the canoe bumping the backs of his knees. He said calmly, “I don't know what you're talking about.”

I stared at him, crawling with anger and unease. I insisted, “I know you were. And I want you out of here. For good.”

“Thank goodness it's a free country then,” he said. He was lean and strong, intimidating, and he took one calculated step closer; he could have reached and gotten his hand around my left ankle. I restrained a shudder with all of my willpower. His eyes slowly tracking all along the front of my body, he said, almost a murmur, “But if you want me in your house, just say the word. I'm free right now.”

I stood up and could not quite suppress the trembling in my knees. I said, my voice low and furious, “Never come near me or my family again. You are unwelcome on this property.”

“Or what?” he asked lightly, and there was subtle menace in his tone, even as he kept a smile on his face. His eyes glittered. “Will you tell your scar-face husband? What would he think if I told him that you've been meeting up with me lately, while he's at work?”

I stared at him in blank shock. At last I whispered numbly, “You're insane.”

He laughed at this, and then said, “I think I could love you, Jillian. I think I could love you a
whole lot
.”

“
Fuck you
,” I whispered, my voice shaking.

He winked at me and then stepped back into his canoe, sending it rocking. Catching up the oar, he said, as though we were old friends, “I'm sure going to miss you. I really am.”

Before I could respond to this, he paddled away; his small green canoe moved swiftly over the surface. Rage, and simple disbelief that someone had actually spoken that way to me, erupted beneath my skin. He didn't look back as his boat skimmed over the lake.

“Where's Mom?” I asked heatedly, upon entering the dining room no more than a minute later.

Jo, who was at the counter with Blythe's mom Christy, Rich and little Matthew, looked up at me in surprise, startled by my tone. Without answering my question, she asked, “What did Noah say?”

“He said – I'll tell you later,” I said distractedly.

“Jillian, hi there, sweetie,” Christy was saying, standing up to give me a hug.

Flustered, caught in the necessity of being pleasant right at this moment, I hugged her in return. She drew back and smiled at me, her pretty blue-gray eyes just like Blythe's. She went on, “Aren't you so lovely? It's so good to be in Landon. Nothing ever changes here, you know?”

“Jilly, you want me to make you a sandwich?” Rich asked. “You look like you could use something to eat, hon.”

Dear old Rich. I drew myself together and assured him, “No, I'm not hungry. But thank you.” To Christy I said, “It's good to see you too. Your little grandson is pretty adorable.”

“Isn't he?” she gushed, turning back to smooth her hand over Matthew's golden curls. “He looks just exactly like Junior at that age, just exactly.” ‘Junior' was her nickname for Blythe. She added, “And he's just as sweet, aren't you, precious?”

“So Noah asked if Millie could sleep over at the Utleys' tonight,” Jo said. “I told him that was all right. Do you think Camille would mind? I couldn't get ahold of her just now.”

“It's fine,” I told her, sounding more bitchy than I'd intended. “Let the poor guy hang out with his kid.”

“So what did he say?” she pressed.

“I'll explain, but where's Mom?”

As though conjured by my question, Mom appeared in the arch between the dining room and the bar, saying, “There you are!”

I made my way over to her, leaving Jo with her mother-in-law, and Mom all but pulled me into the other room. The bar was empty of customers, but Mom still spoke in hushed tones, “So I've been so upset about everything, I called over to the Angler's Inn, where Zack has been staying.” There was only one hotel in the Landon city limits, run by our long-time customers and friends, Joe and Helen Thompson. Mom went on, “I meant to tell them that they needed to ask him to leave, at once, to explain that he wasn't welcome in our town any longer. But Helen told me there was no need, as he'd checked out this morning.”

“He did?” I asked dumbly.

Mom nodded, replying, “Helen said she would have kicked him out the moment she heard he was being inappropriate. She was surprised, said he seemed like such a nice young man. She said he told her he was going out on the lake once more today, but that he had to get back to a job in Moorhead tomorrow. So he's heading out. She said he packed up his car.”

Good old small town gossip vines. I let out a small breath, absorbing this news. He had said just now that he would miss me; wouldn't that confirm that he was leaving town?

“So he's gone?” I asked, relief swamping my blood. “He's leaving Landon?”

Mom nodded.

“Thank God,” I muttered.

“Honey, tell me if anything like this ever happens again, all right?” Mom said.

I felt a small twinge as I said, “I will,” as now I didn't feel the need to mention that I had just seen him down at the dock. It would only make Mom more upset, needlessly, since he was leaving.

Thank God
, I thought again. And then I said, “Mom, we need to talk about Noah.”

***

Rae was sleepy, grumpy and
out of sorts when I collected her from Ruthie, so I walked her home for a nap. Clint was at work and Justin was still in Rose Lake, and hated that I was ill at ease in my own house, on the lookout for
rocks
, for fuck's sake. The door was tightly locked, the windows shut, and there didn't appear to be a thing out of place. Rae wanted to sleep in mine and Justin's bed, so I settled her there with her elephant and then covertly scanned our room, my eyes roving over every surface. Nothing was disturbed and my shoulders relaxed a little more. I bent to kiss my daughter's soft hair and then headed back to the kitchen, determined to make a good supper.

He's leaving town. It's all right now.

But why can't I get a sense of things?

That bothered me almost more than anything else, Aubrey and Zack combined. I breathed in slowly, trying to center myself, and then pulled an old cookbook from the shelf near the fridge, opening to Gran's favorite lasagna recipe; though it was July, I decided to make it. The recipe was everyone's favorite. I ran my fingertips over the page, food-splattered from a thousand uses over the years. I pictured Gran in the kitchen at Shore Leave, poring over this same book and deciding what to make for dinner, whipping up a batch of her special chocolate frosting that no one else had ever come close to perfecting. I always thought that Gran might secretly prefer it that way. I smiled a little, wishing so badly to be near my grandmother, at her hip while she stirred the powdered sugar and cocoa and melted butter, handing me a whisk to lick.

“Gran,” I whispered, and then called upon my great-aunt, begging softly, “Minnie. What's wrong?”

The empty kitchen was soft with afternoon sun, mellow and richly-tinted. I had propped open the window above the sink, now that I was home, and could hear a chorus of birdsong, thousands strong from the sound of them. Not a breath of wind stirred the pines outside. I listened hard, as though expecting to hear their voices.

“Tell me, please,” I pleaded with them. “Why haven't I had a Notion? You never told me that they would go away.”

Of course there was no response, and I felt absurdly abandoned. I shook myself together and clicked on the radio above the fridge as I worked, searching the cupboards for the ingredients, pretending that somehow Gran or Great-Aunt Minnie would find a way to communicate with me.

***

“Doesn't that sound like fun,
Mom?” Clint said excitedly, leaning around his loaded plate as though expecting one of us to try and snatch it from him at any second. He was on his third square of lasagna.

“It does,” I agreed, smiling at him, glad beyond measure to have my family at the table. Rae resembled a circus clown, her little mouth ringed with tomato sauce as she continued happily eating. Justin sat back, having eaten at least two pieces himself, and regarded me with a lazy smile. He was freshly showered, as he'd been a mess when he'd gotten home from looking at the boat in Rose Lake with his dad. It was an old Evinrude outboard and needed a lot of work, but that was their specialty. My husband was wearing his swim trunks and a white t-shirt that accentuated his deeply tanned skin, his black hair and dark eyes, and as always, looked a little like a dangerous pirate. A very sexy dangerous pirate. Mom had told him about Zack leaving town, and his own relief at this news had lifted the tension from his shoulders too.

“Bly really wants to show his mom the campgrounds around here,” Justin added. “He's so excited about taking the kids that I feel like I can't say no. He's like a damn puppy.”

I giggled at this description. Blythe had asked if Justin would come camping with him, Christy, Millie Jo and Matthew. Clint had begged to join them (and Jeff, if Liz and Wordo would un-ground him), and of course Rae. Justin said they would leave in the late afternoon tomorrow, if that was all right by me.

“Jo and the girls and I will have a sleepover,” I assured him. “We haven't had a girls' night in ages. Jo and I have been so bitchy at each other that it will do us good to have to sleep in the same space.”

“Mom, what's for dessert?” Clint asked, polishing off the last of the food and then rising to put his plate in the sink. Rae leaped up behind him, not to be outdone.

“Ice cream,” Justin said, winking at me, and I blushed, smiling right back at him.

“I feel like we need to stay here one more day, at least,” Mathias said. We were still beneath the covers in the guest room bed, and I had told him about my dream.

“I agree,” I whispered. The words spoken in the dream seemed etched into my mind; I could not shake the terrible sensations of ancient pain, brutally sharp-edged, and overpowering loss. I pictured our little cabin back home, where Malcolm Carter had once lived, where he had dictated the telegram from Christmas Eve, 1876. Had Cora meant to live there with him? Had that been their intent? For the second time homesickness for Landon washed over me and I said, “I really just want to go home. I want to move into our cabin and I want to forget all of this. I hate feeling so helpless, Thias. She wants us to find her, but where can we even start? It's impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible,” he said quietly, stroking my hair. He said, “Even a year ago, if someone would have told me that I would be living in the little homestead cabin in Landon with the love of my life, I wouldn't have believed it. And yet here I am, with you. Oh God, I can't even begin to explain how grateful I am. What brought us together, if not the impossible? How do you explain all of the things that have happened since we've met? Fate, destiny, past lives…I don't know exactly, honey, I couldn't explain it articulately, but maybe that doesn't matter. I think we can find her. I feel like…”

“Like what?” I asked tenderly, cuddling closer to him, threading our legs together.

“Like we should take the horses for a ride today,” he said. “Garth said something about that yesterday. What do you say we go have breakfast and then saddle up Clover and Renegade?”

I felt a smile lift my lips at his words. I agreed, “That sounds wonderful.”

Even before we opened the bedroom door, I could smell bacon. The kitchen, once we reached it, was a wreck. Cartons of eggs, coffee filters in the sink, boys all over the place. Clark was at the stove with a cast-iron pan, Garth was slicing onions, Case hiding behind sunglasses, even in the house, looking pale beneath his sunburn as he sipped coffee. Everyone wished us good-morning and I asked what we could do to help.

“Now, I'm just plain offended at that, doll,” Clark said. “You're our guests. And I told you I was looking forward to spoiling a lady.”

Mathias ended up helping as it was, toasting bread while Garth added the onions and peppers to Clark's pan, and the younger boys poured me coffee and plied me with cream and sugar. Marshall set the table; only Case huddled in a rocking chair in the corner, obviously hung over.

“I could get used to this,” I teased, as the littlest Rawley brother refilled my mug yet again. I told him, “Thank you so much,” and he blushed with pleasure.

Breakfast was a noisy, messy affair, everyone talking and no one really listening, though Garth was delighted to hear that we planned to stay an extra night.

“I don't suppose you'll want to sing with us tonight then?” he asked. “We have a Friday show at a bar just a few miles away.”

“I would love to,” Mathias said.

“You too?” Garth asked me, and I nodded at once.

“Shit, we'll talk you two into moving here yet,” he teased.

“Maybe we can talk all of you into coming to our wedding, at least,” I said in response. “This October.”

Clark heard this, even seemingly miles away at the head of the table, and he agreed, “It's a date.”

***

Despite Cora's presence in the
back of my mind, our day was fun. Clark saddled horses for Mathias and me, and we were joined by Garth, Case, and the littlest brother, Wy. I had only ever been on a horse one time in my life, back in Minnesota with my dad and Tish, years ago. Clark decided that I should ride one of their mares, a small, gentle horse. He called her a sorrel; her name was Penny and she was a rich golden-brown, with a blond mane and tail. I loved her at once. She was patient and hardly flickered an eyelash as I slipped my foot into the stirrup and climbed atop her back.

There, I scanned the yard from an unfamiliar vantage point, delighting in the feel of the animal beneath me; I envisioned myself galloping with her over the land, like an outlaw from the movies, racing towards the sunset, and then giggled at my own imagination. The sight of Mathias on a tall chestnut called Archer did things to my insides. He looked so right…he looked like Malcolm, I could not deny this. He was again borrowing the black hat from yesterday and was currently sitting with both reins in one hand, chatting comfortably with Garth, their horses side by side. If I narrowed my eyes and hazed my vision, I could swear that this was who they actually were: Malcolm Carter and his old friend Grant Rawley.

We rode into the foothills, where the bitterroot flowers grew in thick, low-lying profusion. I trailed the four of them occasionally, lagging behind and studying the landscape under the steady July sun. I had been given a hat as well, one of wide-brimmed straw, grateful for this as the day burned with increasing heat. Mathias looked back at me as I fell from the group the first time.

“I'm fine!” I called. “I'm just admiring everything.”

Mathias, Garth and Case couldn't seem to stop talking. Wy, the little guy, was kind-of doing the same thing as me, enjoying himself quietly; he would ride in a wide arc and then circle back, sometimes peeking at me and then looking shyly away. As the hours passed, he seemed to gain confidence, and drew his lovely black-and-white horse near mine.

“Hi there,” I said.

“I'm eight-and-a-half,” he replied.

I hid a smile and replied, “I would have guessed ten, at least.”

He smiled broadly at this.

I said, “I have a little girl who's two. Her name is Millie Jo.”

“That's a pretty name,” he said politely. And then, “This here is my own horse. She's a paint and her name is Oreo. Your hair reminds me of her mane.”

“Thank you,” I told him, touched at these words; his tone indicated he meant them as a compliment. “She is a beautiful horse.”

“My mom died when I was six,” he said next, catching me off guard.

“I'm so sorry,” I told him instantly. I didn't know exactly how to respond, but he kept talking almost at once.

“She died in a car accident,” he said. “She wasn't old enough to die. I miss her a lot, but Daddy takes good care of us. I have all my brothers, and they watch out for me.”

“You're lucky for that,” I said softly, watching him as he spoke. His little face was shadowed by his hat brim, his eyes solemn, his nose already beginning to dominate his face, just like all his brothers. Shaggy brown hair hung down from his hat in the back.

“I s'pose,” I said.

We rode in silence for a time, the three men perhaps fifty feet ahead of us, laughing and enjoying one another's company. I studied Mathias as he rode, fantasizing for a second what it would feel like to be sitting in front of him on his horse, riding together. As though sensing the heat of my thoughts, he looked back at me and lifted one arm in a wave. I waved back at him, so absorbed with the thought of riding double with him that I hardly heard the boy's next words.

“Wait, what did you say?” I asked him.

“I see her too,” he said again, and my eyes snapped to his face.

“See who?” I whispered.

Looking at the horizon, he said softly, “Cora. I never said anything to Daddy or the others because I was afraid they would be mad and think I was just trying to get attention. But I'm not.”

“When do you see her?” I asked him intently.

“I've seen her two times now,” he said. “I know Garth said he was dreaming when he saw her when he was little, but I think he was just too scared to admit that she's not a dream. She just comes and sits on my bed. I see her weird eyes, but they don't scare me. The first time she just touched my hair. She didn't say a thing. But then the next time she told me she was trapped. I think…I think she's been trapped for a long time.”

“Trapped?” I repeated. “Where? Did she tell you anything else?”

“Somewhere around here. Far, but not too far. That's all I know.”

“Anything else?” I asked, desperate for more.

He shook his head. “I'm sorry.”

Dammit, Cora
, I thought then, perhaps irrationally.
Dammit. Can't you be a bit more clear?

“I'm glad you told me,” I said to Wy. “Thank you.”

“I never believed in ghosts until I saw her,” he said. “Do you think everyone who's died is trapped here, somewhere?”

His question tore at my heart, and I said at once, “No. No, of course not. I think that when there's a ghost, it's because there's unfinished business associated with it. Like with Cora.” It was such a cliché answer, but I wanted him to be comforted; certainly he was thinking of his own mother with this question. And to some extent, that was what I really believed about ghosts.

He nodded, seemingly satisfied.

“Case said my mama and his mama are in heaven together,” Wy said then. “That they talk up there and can see what we're doing down here.”

“His mom died too?” I asked. “When was that?”

“Back a long time ago,” Wy replied. “She was sick, though. And his dad is white trash. That's what all the ladies in town say, anyway.”

“They do?”

“What's that mean?” he asked me.

“Well…” I hesitated. Searching for a suitable response proved more difficult than I would have imagined. At last I settled upon, “It's a mean way of saying that someone is poor, usually.”

“Daddy doesn't believe that they're white trash,” Wy went on, shifting in his saddle. “Case and Gus are the best friends we have. They do pretty much live with us. Their pa doesn't care what they do. He doesn't watch out for them. Daddy says it's because he's haunted.”

“Haunted?”

“That's what Daddy says. Not by Cora, though, I don't think,” he said in all seriousness. “By other things. Daddy says old Mr. Spicer has a demon, that's what.”

I shuddered a little at this phrasing.

Wy added, “I don't know how you get yourself one of those, but it sounds scary.”

“It does,” I said softly. There were far too many demons in the world, real or imagined, as this young boy already seemed to fathom. To lighten the air, I said, “So, we sang for quite a crowd last night.”

“Garth and Marshall said you guys were really good. I bet that's fun, up on the stage. We sing around the fire all the time, at home,” Wy said.

“I guess we're singing again tonight,” I told him. “Maybe your dad can bring all of you to watch.”

Wy bounced in his saddle. He said excitedly, “That would be fun! Will you ask him, please? Pretty please? You're so pretty Daddy won't be able to say ‘no' to you, I know it.”

I giggled at his confidence in my feminine wiles. “I'll do my best, I promise.”

It was getting to be late afternoon by the time we got back to the homestead, and my legs were sore from gripping the saddle all day, as I informed Mathias.

“I'm a little bowlegged, now that you mention it,” he said, helping me down from Penny's back and squeezing me close. He kissed me flush on the lips and said, “That was great. You and the little guy seemed to be having quite a conversation.”

“We were. I'll have to tell you about it,” I said.

“You up for singing again tonight?” he asked me, and I grinned into his beautiful eyes, removing his hat and roughing up his thick black hair. I said, low, “Yes, and tonight let's keep the hat, what do you say?”

His eyelids lowered and he said back, “Your wish is my command, honey. I seem to remember making you a promise last night…”

“Hey, you're gonna scare the horses,” Case teased us, coming to take Penny's reins. “Trading spit that way.”

“Show time in two hours,” Garth added, leaning his forearms over Penny's back. “So let's get cleaned up, shall we?”

The Roadhouse was just exactly as its name implied, a dive bar on the outskirts of Jalesville, the kind of place that your mom would warn you about but where you'd actually end up having more fun than you could ever imagine. I dressed in jeans and a red blouse with short, fluttery sleeves, and kept my hair loose over my shoulders. Clark had lent me a pair of beautiful copper bracelets, which he said had been in the old steamer trunk with Malcolm's telegram, and these jangled merrily on my right wrist. Mathias was decked in his cowboy hat and jeans, as were Case, Marshall and Garth, and I felt a little like a celebrity as we entered the little bar to deafening whistles, cheers and hollers.

“Our reputation precedes us,” Garth joked, winking at us.

Clark had been planning to bring the boys as it was, and had taken little convincing. We required a table for ten to accommodate our group, and as we sat amidst the glow of neon beer signs, multi-colored string lights and candle lanterns, I couldn't seem to stop smiling. The Rawleys were the brothers I'd always wished I had. Wy insisted on sitting beside me, and so he was on my left and Mathias my right; Case was directly across, recovered from his headache, already well into his third beer.

Demons
, I found myself thinking, before shoving that thought away.

We ate steak. Elk steak, it turned out, which was a local specialty. The crowd grew until they had to prop open the double doors leading to a small brick patio.

“Are you nervous tonight?” I asked Mathias, leaning against him so he would kiss my face. I loved that about him; whenever I was in proximity, his beautiful lips would touch my cheek, my temples, sending shivers all along my jaw.

He kissed the corner of my lips and said, “A little. Nothing like last night. I didn't quite think I'd make it.”

“I'll join you guys halfway through,” I said. “I want to watch for awhile.”