The Truth About Love and Lightning (25 page)

“So you’re telling me there’s nothing there?” she asked as a tightness deep within her began to loosen, the lock on her most guarded emotions slowly opening up; she felt so close to breaking. “You don’t feel bound to this place in ways you can’t explain? You don’t feel a sense that you belong?”

She was pushing it, she knew, something she’d discouraged Abby from doing. So much for taking her own advice.

He said nothing at first. Then he reached up to touch her cheek, and Gretchen instinctively leaned into him, pressing against his scarred palm. She closed her eyes, frightened by how much she wanted this, how desperately she needed him to be Sam, all in one piece, the past forgotten, ready to move on together.

“I was wrong,” he said in a rough whisper. “There is something here, and I do feel it strongly, whoever I am.”

She wanted to tell him she was sorry, if she needed him to be someone he was not. But as she parted her lips to speak, he kissed her with such unexpected gentleness that the dam within her broke.

“Oh,” she breathed, and her arms went round his neck, her fingers catching in his hair as she kissed him back.

The moment didn’t last long, and when they drew apart, she felt as muddled as if she’d awakened in the middle of a dream. She didn’t want to open her eyes. She wanted to keep them closed so she could imagine she was sixteen, kissing Sam in his truck, steaming up the windows and telling him, “I love you,” over and over instead of pushing him too far away to reach.

Twenty

“ . . . so are you leaving some of the wood with us? Because I would think you should, since it was our tree,” Bennie lectured one of the sheriff’s deputies, both of whom had shut off their chain saws to entertain Abby’s aunts’ questions.

At least it appeared that there would be room to get a car through the driveway soon enough, as long as Bennie and Trudy didn’t talk the men’s ears off so they could get back to work before the sun went down.

Abby was honestly glad she’d come out with them, since neither woman used a cane and there was still storm debris everywhere. When she’d needled them about that, Bennie had sniffed. “What good would it do when we know every inch of this place by heart?” Then the pair had steadfastly made their way up the drive, walking arm in arm, chattering and finishing each other’s sentences.

“Be mindful that the ground is littered with branches,” Abby had said, certain that even Trudy’s keen sense of smell and Bennie’s acute hearing couldn’t detect every husk and twig. “Those kinds of things can trip up people with sight.”

“That’s why we have you,” Bennie had declared, squishing up her right eye in what passed for a wink.

“Perhaps we should contact the lumber mill or call for a wood chipper,” Trudy piped up, sticking in her two cents’ worth. “We should call Walter and see if he can come help us clean up besides.”

“Then you can get more practice flirting with the handyman, eh, Trude?” Bennie teased.

Figuring her aunts were too preoccupied to go anywhere for the next five minutes, Abby drifted away, moseying toward the rural road that ran perpendicular to the dirt drive and straight into town. The road was empty save for the dust kicked up in the wake of the utility truck that was heading off after fixing the cables. There was a pickup on the shoulder that Abby figured belonged to one of the deputies. Otherwise, all was clear.

She allowed herself to roam beyond the property line, across the unpaved lane to where a host of black-eyed Susans tipped their petals toward the sun. A carpet of violets had sprouted beneath, entangled with the clover.

How pretty that would be to paint,
she mused and plucked a yellow flower, twirling its stem in her hand. In the city, there weren’t such colorful weeds. If she wanted to see flowers, it meant a walk to the florist or to the Lincoln Park Conservatory, where blooms could hardly be plucked at will.

She wondered if her baby would be happy here, if this would be a better place to rear her than Chicago. So much open space, wildflowers in abundance, bugs and toads and more birds than she could count on all her fingers and toes.

“How would you like to live here?” she asked down to her belly. “Maybe you’d like growing up on the farm as much as I did.”

Abby bit her lip at the idea, knowing she’d seriously have to think about it, depending on what happened with her and Nate.
I would feel safe here,
she knew.
I would feel loved.

She meandered back across the road to the mailbox, its post engulfed in wild honeysuckle. The painted black box still said winston farm on the side. Although the name had faded through the years, Gretchen had never seen fit to change it. The metal door hung open, looking very much like a panting dog’s tongue. Abby reached out to shut it, remembering a time when she was a kid and had opened the door to find a bird trapped inside. With a squawk and a beat of its wings, it had swooped out, scaring her half to death.

Zzzzz. Zzzzz.

Startled, Abby dropped the black-eyed Susan she’d been holding, feeling her right butt cheek begin to vibrate. She’d stuck her cell phone in her rear pocket before they’d left in case she’d wanted to check her messages. Even a yard or two outside the fence was far enough away from the farm to get a signal.

She glanced at the familiar number and braced herself as she answered, barely getting out a civil “Hello, Nate” before he laid into her: “What the hell were you thinking, leaving Chicago without telling me? Haven’t you checked your voice mail? I’ve left a million messages!”

“You know I don’t get reception down here,” she reminded him, shoulders stiff, already on the defensive. “And the landline’s been out since yesterday’s storm.”

“If I hadn’t gone back to our place to get fresh clothes, I would never have seen your note. Why didn’t you tell me what you were up to? Am I supposed to be telepathic?”

“First off, I’m not
up to
anything.” Abby bristled. “And, second, I didn’t figure you’d care. Remember, you were the one who needed space,” she said, trying not to get worked up, thinking of the tiny baby in her belly and hoping it couldn’t sense her anxiety. “You’re the one who walked out, not me.”

“You’re the one who pushed me out—oh, for crying out loud,” he grumbled, and she could sense his reluctance to keep fighting. “Look, I’m not calling so we can rehash our argument.”

Then why
was
he calling?

Her eyes misting, she glanced up at the sky, which suddenly filled with a noisy murder of crows that decided to settle nearby on the repaired utility lines. How lovely it would’ve been if he’d told her he missed her, if he’d said he couldn’t stand another day without her. Instead, the first thing he did was lay into her about her trip to Walnut Ridge. Was this the kind of man she even
wanted
to help her raise her kid?

She drew in a deep breath and dared to ask, “So what
do
you want, Nate? And if you so much as raise your voice again, I’ll hang up,” she said, glancing back across the fence to see Bennie staring in her direction. She wondered if her aunt could hear her every word, no matter how quietly she spoke.

“What do I want?” he said, and he took a noisy breath. “I want to know why you’re keeping something from me, something I have every right to know.”

“And what would that be?” She stopped moving, though her pulse did the opposite, picking up its pace.

“Are you pregnant?” he blurted out, and Abby nearly fell over. “I found instructions for a pregnancy test in the bathroom,” he proceeded slowly, managing not to holler, “right there on top of the wastebasket. You must have ditched the sticks somewhere else because I couldn’t find them.”

“Oh,” slipped out of Abby’s mouth, and she thanked her lucky stars she’d put the test sticks and box into the pharmacy’s plastic bag before tossing it down the apartment’s garbage chute. She hadn’t realized she’d missed the directions. Although maybe it was one of those subconscious “accidentally on purpose” things.

“I just can’t believe you’d do that,” he went on, and she envisioned him pacing with his cell in one hand, tugging at his ear with the other. “Why would you keep this a secret from me?”

Abby wondered if it made her a bad person to feel good that he was angry, like at least she wasn’t the only one confused and hurting.

“Let’s not talk about this now, Nate,” she told him, lowering her voice. “We can discuss it when I’m back in Chicago.”

“And when will that be?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. She hadn’t planned to stay home more than a few days to talk to her mom and clear her head, but that was before she’d met the stranger who’d fallen from the sky, a man who might very well be her dad. “I still have things to sort out,” she added.

“I’m not kidding, Abby. Tell me the truth right now,” he said, his voice rumbling like distant thunder, “or, I swear to God, I will get in my car and drive down there this minute.”

“Sure you will,” Abby said, finding that hard to believe. He’d moved out two weeks ago, had not made any attempt to see her, had not said one kind word to her in this entire phone conversation, and she was supposed to buy that he’d drop everything and road-trip five-plus hours to Walnut Ridge to grill her on whether or not she’d seen two pink lines on a plastic stick?

If Nate had that kind of initiative, she’d love to see it.

“Don’t tempt me, Abby, because I will skip my afternoon meeting for this new app I’ve been working my butt off to finish, and I’ll leave Myron high and dry even though I promised we’d go out to dinner this evening—”

For crying out loud!

“Then do it,” she said with a hiss, losing patience with his threats. “For once in your life, Nathan March, quit making excuses! Just decide if I’m important enough and commit!”

Before he could sputter any kind of response, Abby ended the call and strode through the split-rail fence, her heart slamming against her ribs, trying hard not to hyperventilate.

Once she was back on the farm, she glanced at her phone to see zero bars, which was exactly what she’d expected. She had lost all reception. So if Nate wanted to reach her again, he’d have to phone the house—if the line was working—and deal with her mother first.

“Your call, Nate,” she said, feeling strangely liberated as she tucked her cell away.

Twenty-one

The phone rang, quite out of the blue.

Gretchen jumped at the noise. She hadn’t even realized the line was reconnected. She’d just shown the Man Who Might Be Sam to the sunroom, giving him clean linens for the day-bed since he’d be staying there for a while more. “I wouldn’t mind a lie-down right about now,” he’d confessed, touching fingers to his bruised forehead, and she’d left him alone to take a nap.

She was heading through the parlor, thinking about going upstairs for a rest herself, when the black beast began to trill. She quickly picked up the handset and said, “Hello?”

“Gretch? It’s Sheriff Tilby. Hold on to your hat ’cause I’ve got some mind-blowing news on that fellow you’ve taken into your house like a lost pup.”

Aw, shoot.

Gretchen sank down on the sofa, twirling the cord around her finger, a ball of tension knotting up in her belly. “Spit it out, Frank,” she demanded, despite the cotton dryness of her mouth.

“We found a 1974 Oldsmobile Cutlass half submerged in Fork Creek, just under the bridge. Driver must’ve lost traction when the storm hit, unless he’d already shucked the car to lie down in a ditch. Could be the twister tossed it when it was empty.”

He paused, and Gretchen wondered if he were waiting for applause. Instead, she begged, “Do go on. There’s more to this, I assume?”

“Yes, of course, there is, sorry,” he mumbled, and she heard the rustle of papers. “The plates were expired and rusty, like somebody had kept the car in an old barn for a spell. But we managed to trace the VIN.” The sheriff dramatically cleared his throat. “The car is registered to someone named Henry Little.”

Henry Little?

“So?” Gretchen felt a pounding at her temples. Why did Frank Tilby persist in playing guessing games? Did he do this with his deputies, too? If so, she was surprised they hadn’t shot him by now. She hardly knew what to say, and she very nearly plunked the telephone receiver back into its cradle. Bennie was right. He was persistent, worse than a stray dog with a bone. “What are you implying?”

“Wasn’t Sam Winston’s grandfather’s name Henry Littlefoot?” the sheriff asked, and she could hear the smirk in his voice.

Gretchen sighed. “Good God, Frank, everyone in town knows about Hank Littlefoot. And if there’s an ignorant soul who doesn’t, all he’d have to do is check the archives at the Historical Society. Sam’s family tree is not a secret.”

“No, it’s not a secret, is it?” the sheriff agreed. “Nothing that’s ever happened in Walnut Ridge is.”

“Could you just tell me what you’re getting at?” Gretchen twisted the phone cord around her finger until the tip turned white. “I’ve got better things to do than speculate about a car in a creek.”

“Hold your horses, missy,” Frank said, sniffing impatiently. “So I ran the name Henry Little through the system, and he was apparently a bona fide weasel. He racked up a long list of warrants in his prime. His full name is Henry Stewart Little, and he was a preacher out of Oklahoma who put down stakes in the Show Me State for a while. In fact he spent a few weeks right here in Walnut Ridge.”

“What’s that got to do with me?” Gretchen asked, having had just about enough. She untangled her finger from the cord. “Get to the point, or I’m hanging up.”

“Hear me out,” the sheriff growled.

Gretchen gritted her teeth, but she stayed on the phone.

“Henry S. Little was an evangelist who traveled around the Midwest, pitching a tent, and putting on a show. He took a lot of money from people who couldn’t afford to give it. Some of their families got wise and claimed fraud, trying to recover anything they could get.” He paused for air but picked up again before Gretchen could give him any flack. “Preacher Little told his flock he was heading off to do missionary work the last they saw him. No one’s heard from him in nearly twenty years, and no one might’ve ever heard from him again except for the car in the creek. You see what I’m getting at?”