Wishing on Willows: A Novel (35 page)

She pressed her knuckles into her eyes and shook her head. She was a giant idiot. How could she fall for the man who wanted to tear down her café? How could she fall for a man, period? But as hard as she tried to fight it, longing oozed out of control like the fizz from an uncorked champagne bottle. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to put it away again.

Lord, what’s going on? What am I doing?

Some could have turned away from God after losing a husband so young. Some might have rejected Him after such loss, but Robin hadn’t. She’d clung to Jesus with a tenacity she didn’t know existed. And somehow, she’d found peace—an unexpected blossom watered by her own tears. What she had now felt familiar and safe. It felt … enough.

At least it used to.

She grabbed the handle of her coffee cup and brought the brew to her lips. Fresh, Columbian coffee. Dark and rich with a strong, wake-me-up aroma. She let the steam curl around her face. The sun turned from pink to orange and outlined her pear tree, ripe and swollen with fruit. She was scheduled to sing at church, which meant she needed to get Caleb up and ready for Sunday school. She also needed to call Dad and wish him a happy Father’s Day. Then after church, she’d take Caleb to the cemetery to put flowers on Micah’s grave. Time pushed her to get moving. Always and forever marching her forward.

She picked up an envelope from the top of her stack, slipped her uninjured finger beneath the flap, and opened it with a clean tear. She shook the letter open with one hand and took a sip of her coffee. The mug paused in front of her lips and her heart came to a screeching halt over one word.

Termination
.

Robin clamped the letter in her hand and brought it inches from her face. It was a notice. From Roy Hodges, her banker. They were cutting off her revolving line of credit.

The ring of the doorbell silenced Caleb’s milk slurping. His head perked up from his bowl of Cheerios, the handle of a spoon gripped in his fist. Robin stopped her deranged pacing and ran her hand down the back of his messy hair. “Mommy needs you to go upstairs, Buggerboo. I have to talk to someone in private, okay?”

“But I’m still eatin’ my cereal.”

She looked into his bowl. Three meager rings floated near the edges of
the plastic. She scooted out his chair. “Go brush your teeth. And when you finish, you can play quietly in your room.”

Caleb stuck out his bottom lip. Ever since breaking his arm, brushing his teeth had turned into a battle of epic proportions. A battle she didn’t have time for right now. Not when Ian stood on her front stoop, ringing her doorbell. She gave her son a stern look. His lip jutted out farther, but he got up and shuffled out of the kitchen. She scooted him along, hurrying his slow pace, and waited until he disappeared around the corner of the second floor before opening the door.

Ian stood on her stoop, a far cry from the rumpled, vulnerable version of himself from last night. A boyish grin crept into place. “Good morning.”

She held the folded letter in front of his face. “Explain.”

He peeked around the paper. “What am I explaining?”

She shoved the notice closer. “Read it.”

“May I come in first?”

She crossed her arms and stepped back. He came inside and plucked the letter from her fingers. To his credit, his face paled as he scanned the contents.

“Did you do this?” A floorboard creaked overhead. She swallowed and stepped closer. “Did you ask Roy to cut off my line of credit?”

“What? Robin, no. Of course not.”

She hugged her middle, wanting more than anything to believe him.

“I swear, this wasn’t me.” He scanned the floor, like answers were ingrained in the hardwood. “It had to have been Mayor Ford.”

“I called him this morning. As soon as I opened the letter. It wasn’t him.”

“He’s lying. Robin, he has to be.”

“Mayor Ford may be a lot of things, but he isn’t a liar. And Mr. Hodges wouldn’t up and cut off my credit for no reason.”

A shadow fell over Ian’s face. “So you think I’m the liar?”

“No, I don’t think you’re a liar. But I do think your father might be behind it.”

He laughed a humorless laugh. “There’s no way.”

“Who else wants to run me out of business, Ian?” Robin paced to the couch. She needed space from him and the memory of last night. She turned around and startled. Ian stood closer than she expected, his gaze fierce.

“My dad is a good guy. He might be ambitious, but he would never do this.”

“It’s the only explanation that makes sense.”

“I’m telling you he didn’t do it.”

Robin pressed her fingers against her forehead, her fear so palpable she felt as though she could pick it up and measure the physicality of it. “This is a mistake.”

“What?”

“Us. This.” She motioned from her to him and took a step back. “The idea that we could ever … be anything. It could never work.”

He stepped closer. “Why not?”

“Because I’m the owner of Willow Tree Café and you’re a developer for McKay Development and Construction.” She shook her head and took another step back. Impossible, impossible, impossible.

“Would you stop shaking your head?”

Her heels ran into the baseboard of the couch. She couldn’t move any farther away unless she hurdled the sofa. And he was so close it seemed like he might kiss her again, with the notice of her credit termination in his hand.

He dipped his head.

She put her hand on his chest to keep him away, but the beating of his heart against her fingers made her longing return. It went to battle with everything she’d just said. Despite it all, she wanted him to kiss her. But before he could, the telephone rang.

Robin jumped. So did Ian. They stood, staring at one another with matching breaths until the phone rang again. She stepped around him and picked up the receiver, her voice cracking over her greeting.

“Robin? It’s Cecile Arton.”

Robin couldn’t get away. The panic was everywhere. In Ian’s nearness. In Cecile’s voice. When would it end? “What’s wrong?”

“There’s been a fire in your café.”

The roof of her café was visible over the top of Arton’s. Robin squeezed her hands in her lap and took calm, even breaths.
Lord, let it be okay. Let my café be okay
. She blinked at the lone fire truck blocking the road and the stragglers who stopped to watch the show.

Ian, who’d insisted on driving despite her insistence that she was okay, parked her car behind the bright red vehicle. Robin’s fingers trembled as she undid the clasp of her seat belt and stared up the small hill to the signpost out front. She looked past the walkway, through the flowers bursting up from the ground on either side of the cement, her attention stopping at the front doors. Everything looked the same. Surely the damage couldn’t be that bad.

The fire chief rapped on her window. She rolled it down while Ian got out of the car and opened the back door. He helped Caleb unbuckle. Her son scooted out of his seat and took Ian’s hand. Robin massaged the tightness in her neck. “What happened?” she asked the fire chief.

“Mrs. Arton called as soon as she smelled smoke. Your oven seems to be the culprit. We put it out before it could spread much further than your kitchen.”

Her stupid, good-for-nothing oven. “Am I allowed to go inside?”

The fire chief opened her door and she stepped out into the sunlight.

“The building’s all clear, but I wouldn’t let your son go in.” He led the way up the cement steps. Robin followed, with Caleb and Ian trailing behind. They stopped at the door. Glass and debris decorated her flower beds. Somebody had broken the windows. The fire chief handed over his hard hat. Robin placed it on her head and pushed the door open.

Sunlight filtered across the floor and flooded the room, revealing the damage. Behind her front counter, black smoke stains danced up her wall, charring her canvases beyond recognition. She shuffled inside, the ground
wet, the smell of smoke heavy and binding. The chairs and tables, metal and marble, stood like proud soldiers refusing to fall. She hurried to the counter. Somebody had ripped the door leading to her kitchen away. She stepped through the open doorway and pressed her palm against her chest.

Charred ashes. That’s what her kitchen—the heart of her café—had turned into. The outside of the building might look the same, but the inside had crumbled into a ruined heap. She had a hard time breathing.

Why, why, why? Why did this happen?

She spun away from the wreckage, toward the front doors. Ian stood over the threshold, Caleb peeking through his legs. Both were staring at something in the far corner, off to her right. She followed the direction of their stare and the heaviness in her chest gave way. Her piano, once polished and proud, tipped at a slanted angle, standing on a broken leg. She stumbled over and ran her hand over the ashy, damp surface. The wrath of the fire’s heat had warped the cabinet into something foreign. She pressed a finger to one of the keys. The haunted note echoed through the room. If the kitchen was her heart, the piano was her soul. And the fire had destroyed them both.

“This was my mother’s.” Her lips trembled over the words.

And then he was there, wrapping her in a tight embrace as she wept against the steady thrumming of his heart.

A phone call with Mayor Ford and a ninety-minute drive with nothing but scattered thoughts blaring in Ian’s mind landed him in Peoria. He didn’t want to believe Robin’s accusation, but he had to find out for himself. A hangover pounded in his temples, only he hadn’t had anything to drink. At least nothing alcoholic. But thoughts of Robin? Last night he’d knocked those back in enormous gulps until he was drunk with indecision.

Ian pounded on the front door of his parents’ home, then twisted the knob and threw it open. Bailey stood inside, long blond hair hanging in a loose braid down her back, a healthy, younger version of their mother. Her eyes lit up when she saw him. “Surprise!” she said.

“What are you doing here?”

“Chad and I came home a little early. I wanted to surprise Dad on Father’s Day.” She hurried over and threw her arms around him. “Did you miss me like crazy?”

He hugged her back and spotted his parents over her shoulder. Mom stood in the entryway of the kitchen, a paring knife in one hand, an apple in the other. Dad towered behind her. All the anger, all the disbelief that had built during the ninety-minute drive gathered together and pointed directly at him.

Bailey let go of his neck. “You should hear how good I am at accents now. Hollywood will be calling any day. And the words! Do you know how fun Irish slang is? I’m going to start calling all my friends
shams
. Or asking where’s the
craic
.” Her smile faltered. “What’s wrong with you?”

Ian took the notice from his pocket—the one Robin showed him this morning—and held it out to Dad. “What’s this?”

Dad scooted around Mom and gave the paper a cursory scan. “A notice of credit termination.”

“Were you behind it?” He waited for Dad to say no. To deny the accusation. His father might be ambitious and determined, but he wasn’t underhanded. He needed Robin to be wrong on this one.

“Your mother’s making apple pancakes. Why don’t you take off your shoes?”

“Why don’t you answer the question?”

The room went still. Ian could feel Bailey gawking at him in her frozen state, but he refused to look away from his father’s deadpan expression.

“Yes.”

The simple answer made Ian’s ears ring. Robin was right—McKay Development and Construction was responsible. He flung his arm toward Dad’s office down the hall. “What are all those awards for then? You won them because of your integrity.”

“I won them because I care about my employees. If making a suggestion to a banker is going to save ten of my workers from unemployment, then that’s what I’ll do.”

“I can’t believe you.”

Dad set his jaw. “What did you expect me to do, Ian? Not fight for my company? Lie down and surrender with Jim and Bob and everybody else’s jobs at stake?”

“I expected you to be better than this.” Ian crumpled up the notice. He tolerated working for his father because his father was supposed to be different than so many of the other developers out there. Turned out, Ian was wrong.