Wildflowers from Winter (12 page)

She had the sudden urge to go there now.

Her eyes adjusted to the dark, and snow began to fall. Fat flakes clung to her hair and gathered like moondust over her shoulders. She stepped over a low string of barbed-wire fencing and came to the bank of the stream. The frigid water flowed over rocks, making its way to the Mississippi River. Bethany wondered, as she approached, if the rock would look as big as it did when she was a child. She looked over the bank and yelped, cupping her hand over her mouth to squelch the sound.

Somebody was already there.

Evan turned, earbuds plugged in each ear. He pulled them out and stood. Clumps of dirt came loose from the embankment and plunked into the stream. “Bethany? What are you doing here?”

Bethany couldn’t answer. She was too busy trying to catch her breath. When her heart resumed a semiregular beat, she gaped at him through the darkness. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“I needed a place to think.” He brushed snow from his hair. “This is a good spot for it.”

She took a few steps down the bank and joined him by the rock, unsure how she felt about her and Evan sharing the same thinking spot.

“So what are you doing here in the middle of the night?” He held out his hand and gathered falling snow on his glove. “Right before a snowstorm?”

A hint of familiar music mixed with the frozen air. It wasn’t the twang she’d expected. “Is that Bach?”

“Country’s not the only thing I listen to.”

“Huh.” She stared at the creek, hypnotized by the snowflakes melting in the uneven stream of water. “I love Bach.”

Robin was responsible for Bethany’s affinity for classical music. The infatuation started in junior high, when the two of them would go to Robin’s house after school, drink ice-cold Snapple, and eat lemon bars while Robin’s mom, Mrs. Delner, played the piano in the sunroom. She produced
music so elegant and sophisticated that Bethany often pretended Mrs. Delner was her mother and that big, beautiful house was her home.

Evan sat on one edge of the rock and nodded to the spot beside him. “Are you going to sit?”

She wasn’t sure she wanted to stay anymore. How was she supposed to gather her thoughts with a slightly hostile man sitting beside her? She was about to make her excuses and leave when Evan said something that made her stop.

“This spot reminds me of Dan.”

The snow continued to fall. It was as if somebody had placed them in the center of a giant snow globe. Bethany pulled the blanket over her shoulder and sat on the edge of the boulder, as far away from Evan as she could get. But the distance was minimal and the warmth of his body beside her made her ultra-aware of her own. She studied his profile. “Don’t you ever sleep?”

He wound the cords of the earbuds around his iPod. “It’s hard to come by these days,” he said.

She understood. She had a hard time with it too.

Silence settled between them, but this time it wasn’t as unnerving as it had been in the car. Something about the vastness of the night and the softness of the snow diffused the tension.

Bethany was first to speak. “I used to come here a lot when I was younger.”

She could feel Evan look at her.

“In the spring and summer, the bank of this creek is covered in wildflowers.” When she was a kid, she used to lie in their scent and stare up at the wide expanse of the cloud-dotted sky, listening to the trickle of the stream and the cicadas in the trees. “At least it used to be.”

“Still is.”

Bethany closed her eyes and pictured it—the purples, whites, and blues
of sweet william and Virginia bluebells. It seemed impossible that something so beautiful could grow up from the cold, hard ground her boots rested on now. “I used to pick them and make bouquets for my mom.”

“Well, this pasture will be flooded with them next year. We’re supposed to have a brutal winter. Lots of snow.”

“What does that have to do with wildflowers?”

“The snowier the winter, the more wildflowers you get in the spring.”

“Really?” She stared at the barren land surrounding them, disappearing beneath a layer of white. “I didn’t know that.”

The snow fell faster. Thicker.

Bethany brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped the blanket around her shins. She rested her chin on her kneecap and let her eyelids sink with heaviness.

“You’re wrong about Dan’s faith, you know.”

She stiffened. “I hope not.” She tried hard to keep the bitterness in check, but some of it slid out with her words.

Evan stared at her for a bit longer than politeness warranted. She ignored him and focused her attention on the sound of trickling water.

“What’s your story?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you so angry with God?”

“I’m not angry. I’m indifferent.”

“Okay.” He drew the word out, like he didn’t believe her at all.

She tugged at the blanket again and glared through the darkness.

“Come on, Bethany. There has to be a reason you react the way you do.”

“You wouldn’t understand.” The man hung a cross from his rearview mirror, for crying out loud.

He chuckled.

“What?”

“It’s just … I’d probably understand more than you think.” He scuffed
his boot against dirt and snow. “I wasn’t always such an upstanding Christian, you know. I went through a time in my life when I was pretty ticked off.”

Bethany arched her brow. “Somehow, it’s not so hard to imagine.”

His lips curved into a private grin—one that held a secret he wasn’t about to share. Her stomach fluttered. He looked down at the ground and took his smile with him.

“So why were you angry?” she asked.

When he looked up, his grin was gone. “My best friend in high school died in a car accident my senior year.” He picked up a pebble near his feet and flipped it around in his hand. He took a deep breath. And his fist tightened around the small rock. “I was driving.”

Bethany’s face softened.

“I was the good Christian kid, just like my parents raised me to be. I didn’t drink. I was the designated driver—made the
right
choices. Except we got in a car accident anyway, and I had to bury my friend.” He peered at her with that same intense look, the one that made her feel as if he could see past her skin and bones, right into her soul. “I was angry at God for a long time.”

A few snowflakes caught on Bethany’s eyelashes, and she blinked them away. “You seem to be over it now.”

“Thanks to Dan.”

Bethany pressed her lips together.

“He might not have been a conventional Christian, Bethany, but your grandfather was a man of strong faith.”

She wanted to shrug him off or change the subject. How had they ended up here, anyway? “What’s your point?”

Evan tossed the rock into the stream. “I’m sure Dan would have liked the chance to tell you the same thing he told me.”

“Which is … what?”

“Even if we do everything right, things are still going to go wrong.”

The words stuck. She tried to shake them off, like the snow accumulating on her blanket. But they wouldn’t budge, and something about them broke her heart.

Maybe because they were Grandpa Dan’s words, and she longed to hear him say them instead of Evan. Maybe because she’d done everything right at Parker Crane and lost her job anyway. Maybe because those words were so different from the message Pastor Fenton preached when she was a girl. Or maybe, just maybe, it was because those words might have saved her father’s life.

TWELVE

T
hrough Bethany’s sleep-induced haze, the idea of somebody working a drill in her room made sense. She turned her face into the pillow, trying to block out the sound. Only when the drilling stopped did the haze dissipate enough for Bethany to realize the noise had been her phone vibrating. She also remembered where she was and why she was there. Today she would bury her grandpa. And last night, she’d shared the oddest moment with Evan. She snuggled deeper into the bed and brought the sheets over her chin.

The drilling came back. She removed her hand from beneath the pillow, flopped her arm toward the vibrating until she made contact. Whoever called had left a message. She didn’t recognize the number on her screen or the man’s voice.

“This is Drew McCarty, Daniel Quinn’s lawyer. I need to meet with you, David Quinn, and Evan Price about your grandfather’s will.”

She propped herself onto her elbows and swiped her bangs from her eyes.

“I thought it might be easiest if you and Evan could come to my office after the funeral. It’s located in downtown Davenport.”

She grabbed for her purse on the floor by the bed and rummaged for a pen. “Please give me a call.” Her fingers found one just as he gave his phone number. With no paper to write on, she jotted the numbers on the back of her hand.

After the message ended, she escaped the warmth of the heavy quilt and brought her feet to the floor. A drafty chill swept across the bedroom. She wrapped her arms around her waist and crept to the window. A thick blanket of snow covered the countryside, already sullied by trails of boot tracks leading from the house to the shed, to the barn, and out to the fields. Just seeing them all made her tired. Overhead, dark clouds rippled across the sky and stretched past the horizon. More snow was on its way.

Dreary weather for a dreary day.

She’d planned on driving back to Chicago as soon as the funeral ended, but now it sounded like she would need to make a detour first. As she dressed for the funeral, she couldn’t help but wonder what Dan could have left her and David, other than a few savings bonds and some knickknacks to remember him by. What could be so complicated about his will that it couldn’t be explained in a letter or a phone call? Dan had never been a wealthy man. The farm had been enough to provide food and shelter and the comforts of a middle-class life. He farmed the land because he loved it, not because it filled his coffers. And now, most likely, it would be sold to pay off the mortgage.

Bethany stifled a yawn as she made her way down to the kitchen. She grabbed the plastic bin of Folgers from one of the cupboards and scooped a few generous spoonfuls into the top of the coffee machine. Compared to her usual Espresso Macchiato from Starbucks, Folgers smelled like a cheap imitation of the real thing. She opened a cupboard and took out a John Deere mug just as footsteps and a sneeze sounded behind her.

She turned—and for a deluded second—expected to see Dan. She found Evan instead and did a quick double take before fumbling her mug into the sink. He looked up from fastening his cuff links. She picked up the mug and then scooped more coffee grounds into the filter, scolding her heart for having such a ridiculous reaction.

With black dress pants, a moss-colored button-up, and his face clean shaven, he looked nothing like a farmer.

She dodged his gaze and flipped the coffee maker’s switch so the brew would be ready before they had to leave. He’d dressed so casually for the visitation, she’d expected the same today.

“Good morning,” he mumbled.

She snuck glances at him in the reflection of the microwave door as he moved around behind her. “Did you get any sleep?” she asked, forcing her voice to steady. The words Evan had spoken to her last night, and the way in which he had spoken them, clung to her.

When she turned, he was standing much closer than she expected. The glass on the microwave should have read, “Objects are closer than they appear.” She pressed her back against the counter and tried to ignore the dark ringlets of hair curling above his collar or the way the color of his shirt brought out the green in his eyes.

He reached over her to grab a mug. “Have you talked to Robin this morning?”

Bethany grabbed a dish cloth and started wiping a counter that was already clean. “She didn’t answer her phone.”

“Did Dan’s lawyer call you?”

She stopped wiping. “Yeah. This morning.”

He filled his mug with tap water, standing so close she could smell his aftershave. “You meeting with him later this afternoon?”

She nodded, trying to contain all the things that pounded against her skull. Losing her job. Dan dying. Running into Pastor Fenton. Robin’s pregnancy. Her strange conversation with Evan last night. His closeness right now. They gathered together, eliciting a helplessness she loathed. She needed to get out of her head, regain her composure. Only she had a funeral to attend.

He took a slow drink and studied her over the rim, a suspicious look cast across his face.

She left the dishrag bunched atop the counter and abandoned her mug.
The coffee would make itself. Without offering an explanation, she exited the kitchen.

“What?” Bethany fixed her eyes on Drew McCarty. She must not have heard him correctly.

He leaned over the conference table. “Dan left you the farm. All five hundred acres.”

Her mouth dropped open. She expected a meager savings bond, and maybe—if her grandpa had been smart—a few IRAs. She did not expect a farm. She blinked several times to clear the fog that came with Drew McCarty’s news. What in the world was she supposed to do with a farm? “He didn’t give it to Evan?”