Past Forward- A Serial Novel: Volume 3 Read online

  “That’s heartbreaking,” Carol whispered, leaning on David’s arm.

  “I hope she’s up to this. She said she was, but if she seems awkward—”

  “We can go—” David offered almost too eagerly.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d rather you stay. I think it’d be worse if you didn’t.” Chad found the necessary salad ingredients Willow had requested explaining her enterprise as he worked. “She sells the excess to a local woman who runs our market.”

  “Did I see a planted garden already? Isn’t it early?”

  “She did that last week. They have a whole system for extending the growing time. I don’t really understand it, but she says they’ve only lost things to frost once, so it must work,” Chad explained.

  In the kitchen, Willow pulverized beef into thin strips for “pizza.” Hands covered with raw meat, she turned, shrugged, and said, “Consider yourself hugged. You really don’t want me to.” She wiggled her fingers and then went back to flipping meat and pounding it.

  After so much explanation already, Chad felt a bit like a docent of the Willow farm and lifestyle as he answered the unasked question in their eyes. “Willow had pizza once and liked it but thought there wasn’t enough protein, so this is her version. It’s delicious.”

  Chad started to wash the vegetables but Willow waved him away from the sink. “Why don’t you show them around the house? I’ll have this ready in a few minutes.”

  A deep sigh escaped before Chad could prevent it. Giving the Finleys an apologetic glance, he pointed out the basics of the kitchen. “Obviously the stove—wood fueled. There’s a mini-ice box under the counter over there. That door next to it is to the pantry. I’d show you, but Willow would probably whack me with the tenderizer. I’ll show off her preserving skills after lunch.”

  She smiled at him as Chad kissed her temple. “You’re ok, lass.”

  “I still feel foolish,” she murmured under her breath, her eyes watching her grandparents until they stepped into the dining room to give them privacy.

  “I hate that you hurt like that, but you couldn’t have done anything that would have made me feel better than to call like you did.”

  “I couldn’t breathe,” she admitted.

  “Panic attack.” He hugged her.

  Her head dropped onto his chest. “And I know how much men love it when women sob all over them for an hour so they get to sleep on the nice hard floor.” She frowned. “How can you manage to get up with so much energy after missing so much sleep?”

  “Goes with the job.”

  She nudged him toward the doorway. “They’re waiting. Go. Thanks.”

  The grand tour began in the dining room and continued into the library. David had to be coaxed from the room, each book title tempting him to linger more than the last. Carol, on the other hand, listened and viewed everything with an eye of a mother who cannot reconcile the sights before her and the child she knew. It seemed as if everything he showed her sparked the comment, “I can’t believe she…”

  Chad led the Finleys back down the stairs and into the kitchen. “I was amazed the first time I saw her making soap to use up excess milk, but now it’s just something I see occasionally. They use a lot of soap around here.”

  “We get very dirty around here!” Willow retorted flinging water at him.

  Carol and David exchanged delighted smiles as Chad wrapped his arms around her waist tickling her. Willow was happy—they saw it. Relief washed over him before he realized how silly he had been. The Willow in this kitchen was a very different person than the young woman who had looked lost and out of place in her own home nearly a year before. They would understand.

  “Isn’t she amazing?”

  “It won’t work, Chad; you’re dead. I have every intention of shooting you tomorrow; and don’t you forget it.”

  Carol looked around the spacious kitchen and asked, “Why did Kari decide against electricity in the house again?”

  “It was during the rewiring, actually. I always thought it was kind of ironic that she gave it up as a result of upgrading it.” Willow shrugged at the confused look on her grandparents’ faces and said, “Mother liked being forced to relax in the evenings—not having noise distract her—but she didn’t want to be without power if she needed it, so she just turned it off once it was all fixed.”

  “Doesn’t it get hot?” David stepped away from the woodstove as if already overwarm.

  “Sometimes, but we just go down and jump in the pool on those days. We have—had—spray bottle fights some nights too.”

  “You have a pool?” Carol peered through the kitchen window as she spoke.

  “Down in the stream. Nice deep one.”

  “How about cooking in here though. It’d heat up the whole house with that stove.”

  “Mrs. Finley, may I show you the barn?” Chad winked at Willow as he escorted her grandparents from the house to the “summer kitchen.”

  After lunch, Carol smiled across the table and said, “Tell us about your wedding, Willow.”

  Some of the awkwardness that had settled among them dissolved as she answered questions. After describing a few of her plans, she brought her grandmother upstairs to see the preparations. Chad and David remained downstairs looking indulgently amused as she they heard her say, “We made this lemon marmalade for the gifts. I am surprised at how much I love it.”

  “She seems less…” David searched for the right word.

  “Lost. She looked so lost the day I met her, and it was worse the day you were all here.”

  “Yeah.” It wasn’t very eloquent, but the word spoke volumes.

  Though unsure how much of her story he should share, Chad enjoyed talking to someone who had seen Willow in those early days. “I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to see her so excited. I thought I’d never convince her to have any kind of wedding.”

  “I would have thought that kind of creativity would be right up her alley.”

  “You catch on quickly.” Chad explained that he’d used that very argument to start the creative juices in the first place. “Once she got started, there was no stopping her, but I guarantee you, this is like no wedding you’ll ever attend.”

  The women’s voices occasionally drifted down from upstairs. Eventually, Chad offered to show David more of the farm. “It sounds like they’ll be up there for a long time.”

  First, he led David to the pastures to show him the sheep and cow. He introduced Ditto, shooed barn cats out of the way, and finally led him across the field to the familiar oak. “We finally got a headstone out here. I thought maybe—”

  One look at it and David’s eyes filled with unwanted tears. “She didn’t do this herself?”

  “She would have, but she always says she can’t work well with wood. My cousin helped me.”

  “We’re very grateful that you kept coming. What made you do it?”

  He’d never been able to answer that question to his satisfaction. “I don’t think I could have answered that yesterday, but standing here—” Chad swallowed hard. “I think it was the day I came out and she was hand-digging this grave.”

  “Oh, God no!” David’s words were a prayer rather than an oath.

  “It was truly the most heart wrenching thing I’ve ever seen. Now that I think of it, every time I resisted returning, I remembered that. I wasn’t conscious of it, but how do you forget something like that?”

  “Kari was always too independent for her own good. We foolishly encouraged it. She got her own apartment five miles from home, just because she wanted to prove she could do it.”

  “Kari was a wonderful woman,” Chad agreed.

  “I’m not so sure that was so wonderful. It’s what resulted in so much pain for so many people.”

  “She had a fault. I agree. I understand that. But you’ve seen the daughter she raised. Willow is who she is because of Kari’s training and influence. She rose above her mistakes. Maybe not how you would have hoped but—”

/>   David’s voice grew hoarse until it was nearly a whisper. “We searched for so long. At first, we worried. Did she go hiking somewhere by herself and fall? Would someone find bones and never know it was her? Had she been kidnapped? Was she too stubborn to tell who we were for a ransom? Our relationship was good. We were sure she hadn’t run away. Why would she run away? The police asked, and we were so cocky. ‘Our daughter doesn’t need to run from her own home. It’s not like we were keeping her prisoner in ours!’ Oh, we were so arrogant.” Only through sheer willpower was David able to keep talking without breaking down completely.

  “Our marriage suffered,” he confessed. “I had to call off the detective agencies. I couldn’t afford it anymore. I’d borrowed everything I thought I might be able to pay back. Carol almost didn’t forgive me for that.” David raised his pain-filled eyes to meet Chad’s. “Why did none of the detectives ever find anything on her? She had to have had bills. I know it wasn’t as easy to find people then as it is now, but surely when someone looked up basic things in the state, it should have come up!”

  “Everything is in the financial company’s name. Accounts are in their names etc., but from what I can see, their names are just the signatories on some kind of corporation type set up, so you’d have to be looking for that kind of set up to find it, and why would anyone look for something like that?”

  “It’s like she wanted to make sure we couldn’t find her no matter what.”

  Chad turned to walk back to the house. “She did exactly that. She wanted to make sure you didn’t find her. She was trying to protect you. She misunderstood a warning from Steven Solari.”

  Near the back door, Chad stopped David. “By the way, I suggested that she consider asking you to ‘give her away.’ I don’t know if we’re even having that portion of a wedding ceremony—you won’t believe the things she is and isn’t including—but I want you to be prepared. If she asks, please find a way to say yes. If she asks, it is because she has decided you are worth investing in, and you’ll crush her if you refuse.”

  “I couldn’t refuse. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t refuse anything of Kari’s child. Why do you think I’m here? Do you think I wanted to put myself through this pain? But she’s Kari’s girl. She’s my little girl’s daughter. I had to come, and I couldn’t deny her anything no matter how much my sense of self-preservation argues.”

  Chad studied him for a moment and then, crossing his arms, he nodded. “I hope sir, for your sake as well as hers, that you learn to love her for herself. You’ll never be sorry.”

  “You’re not.”

  A grin split Chad’s face. “Sorry? You’re right. I’m not sorry in the least. Aside from Jesus, she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  Chad and Willow walked along the stream talking at dusk. “He said yes. I didn’t think he would.”

  “I thought he might. I mentioned you might ask. I wanted him not to be surprised by it. People sometimes agree to things they don’t want to do and vice versa when something comes at them from out of the blue, so I warned him.”

  “Oh.” She hadn’t considered that.

  “Want to know what he said about it?” Her nod encouraged him. “He said almost verbatim, ‘There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for Kari’s girl.’”

  “He loved Mother.”

  “Loves, Willow. He still loves her. She isn’t extinct, she’s just moved on.”

  Uncomfortable with the topic, Willow turned it in a new direction. “So when do I get my wedding gift?”

  “He’s all paid for, but we can’t pick him up until Monday after the wedding. How about me?”

  “It’s a surprise. I won’t tell you where you’ll find it or what it is, but you’ll know it when you,” she hesitated, struggling for the right word, before she sighed. “Well, when you see it I guess.”

  He untangled their fingers and draped his arm around her shoulder using it as a way to steer her one hundred eighty degrees. “Well now that is intriguing. Tell me, would anyone know it when they saw it or only me.”

  She thought for a moment and shrugged. “I doubt most people would notice it, but I can think of a couple who might. It’s more what you won’t see than what you will. I think.”

  “So will I drive you crazy if I ask lots of questions every day or two?”

  “Definitely.”

  His arm pulled her closer and he kissed the top of her head. “Good. I’ll be sure to bug you often.”

  “Chad!”

  “How about I go milk the goats, you go do whatever you have to, and we go bowling in Brunswick. Chuck says you’re a blast to bowl with.”

  “Keep your wrist straight and let go just—” Chad quit trying. It wasn’t worth the air forced through his lungs. She flung the ball recklessly. There was amazing force behind it— even sending it across lanes at one point.

  Chad, on the other hand, after the first two or three frames, got into a reasonable rhythm and bowled a decent game. Willow pretended to be affronted, but even Chad could see her pride in his success. He nudged her as he reset for a new game. “Wanna know what I think is totally amazing about you right now?”

  “Well, it certainly isn’t my brilliant bowling skills.”

  “I love how someone as competitive as you are—and I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone more competitive than you are—loves to see others succeed at their goals even if it means you lose.”

  “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or an insult.”

  A protest rose, but he saw the teasing glint in her eyes and shook his head. “You will never bore me.”

  “I was reading one of those bride magazines and it says I’m supposed to keep the ‘magic alive’ by being ‘unpredictable’ at times and by being ‘playful.’”

  “What kind of garbage is that?”

  Willow laid her cheek on his head as she stood beside his chair, hugging him. “Exactly my question, Chaddie laddie.”

  On the second game, Chad tried a new approach. He followed behind her until she was ready to let go of the ball and then held her wrist steady as she let go. It fell into the gutter with an obnoxious thud. Patiently, he tried again. And again. It felt as though he played a double game, first on his turn and then helping her keep a reasonable form.

  After a few frames, Willow pushed him out of the way. “I want to copy you now and see if I’ve learned.”

  It was a mistake. A huge, glaring, sidesplitting mistake. She took two steps forward, swung the ball back, slid her left foot behind her right, spun in place, and landed on her backside. Chad blinked. A look of stunned surprise froze in Willow’s eyes and on her features.

  “Are you ok?”

  “Um—” she began, thoroughly embarrassed. “Are you referring to my body or my pride?”

  “Either.” It didn’t help when he began chuckling.

  “Both are bruised, but I think I’ll survive.”

  “There is good news, Willow.”

  “There is?”

  His chuckles grew to chortles and finally exploded in hilarity. “Of course, the ball didn’t touch our lane. You get to go again and no penalty.”

  “Oh joy.” She scrambled back to her feet, strode to the ball racks, and searched for a different ball. Carrying one in each hand, and one in the crook of one arm, she hurried back to the lane and glared at him. “I think it’s time to try different weights.”

  Her instincts were correct. By the end of the night with a fourteen-pound ball, she was able to hit the pins more often than she missed them. She still hadn’t managed a strike or a spare, but Willow was now more determined than ever.

  “I’m coming back. Not only am I coming back, but next time, I’m not leaving until I get a strike, and I don’t care what it costs or how many days it takes.”

  Chapter Ninety-Six

  He stepped in the back door, calling for Willow, but no answer came. The house was too chilly for Willow to be home, but he hadn’t gotten a call from her. Concern for her grew, caus
ing in his throat. The danger was over. Where could she be?

  A note tacked above the sink sent a wave of relief over him followed by disbelieving chuckles.

  Chaddie,

  I hereby confess that I have taken myself to Brunswick for bowling practice. I hope you get off work in time to come join me, but otherwise I’ll probably start home around six o’clock. I have a flashlight attached to my bicycle, so it’ll be ok.

  Ryder said he’d take care of the animals.

  Missed you today,

  Willow

  P.S. Do you know what happened to my phone?

  A cop entered the bowling alley. What was a cop doing at Brunswick Lanes and out of uniform? Jake watched, wary as the man wandered up and down the lanes and then back to the counter. “Has a young woman, twenty three, blond, green eyes, probably in jeans—oh, and a really bad bowler?”

  Oh, yeah, with that description—total cop. Aloud, Jake asked, “Willow?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She’s probably in the bathroom. She’s been bowling non-stop since eleven-fifteen—” he paused. “There she is.”

  Jake watched as the man called to Willow and then jogged to meet her at her lane. The way they hugged briefly, with no kiss or lingering touches, made Jake assume relation. Whoever’s ring Willow wore, it wasn’t the cop’s. No man would be so—what was the word—chaste with a woman like that.

  Curious, Jake went to do a sweep of the lanes, getting ready for the leagues starting in just over an hour. He neared them and heard Willow call the cop, “Chad.” Seconds later, she asked about his shift on “beat.” Cop from Fairbury no less. Cool.

  Chad’s arm draped across her shoulders, and he pulled her to him for another hug, kissing the top of her head. Jake noticed and his brow furrowed. That wasn’t very brotherly behavior, but engaged couples just weren’t that casual and that affectionate both. He’d never seen anything like it. Maybe he was her brother. Maybe she almost died or something. Yeah. That must be it. She was his little sister who almost died from leukemia or lupus—or Lou Gregory’s or whatever that thing was called. That was it. Jake felt better having sorted the not-so-sordid details of Willow and Chad’s past and future.