High-Stakes Homecoming

“The farm was left to me in the will.”

It took him a full thirty seconds to realize that it wasn’t just he who had said those words, she’d said them at the same time.

Their gazes locked. He felt the shock roping between them.

“You are the crazy one,” she breathed, so raw and soft he couldn’t hear her. But he saw her lips move, knew what she said. She was shaking, visibly now, and white as a sheet. “Get out of here!” She yelled that. There was no missing it.

She tore off suddenly, leaving him stunned just long enough for her to get in the old Ford. The engine rattled to life and, in the light from the dash’s interior, he could see her reach first one way, then the other, slamming down manual door locks.

The truck rammed backward, sliding on gravel in the drive, then reared forward. Was she trying to run over him? He jerked back, almost losing his balance in a dip in the gravel drive, and sidestepped out of the way.

Red taillights disappeared up the hill.

Son of a bitch. He started walking.

The house was pitch black.

“Birdie?”

Willa slammed the side door of the farmhouse as she barreled inside, turned back just as quickly to hit the bolt, then ran for the front door and then the back door, making her way by perfect memory, and bolted those, too. She wouldn’t put it past Penn to come charging in here, since he seemed to think he owned the place.

“Birdie!” she yelled again.

She heard the telltale sound of Flash’s doggy nails padding through the house toward her. A second later, the hound—part basset, part whatever—was pawing at her legs, then dropping down to go check his food dish.

The old house creaked in the wind outside. Had to be a tree down somewhere. Electricity was the first to go out here. Phones next. She fumbled for a phone, checked the line. Dead, as expected.

Cell service was only a fantasy in the country, so the isolation was quick and complete.

If Penn came stomping up here, she’d have no way to call for help. She stood there in the old house, a shiver crawling up her spine.

Creepy, that’s what this house was sometimes in the dark, in the storm, during lonely nights. Yet she loved it, every crumbling inch of its Gothic architecture. She’d moved in the week of the Haven earthquake, and sometimes the town’s collective, overly active imagination about the consequences of that so-called “perfect storm” of low pressure, dense moisture, and geologic instability, niggled at her mind.

She’d seen the bursts of red lights right here on the farm, the same mysterious lights that had been talked about in town and on cable news, when a paranormal detective had been interviewed. Foundational movement for oncoming paranormal activity, the spokesperson for PAI, the Paranormal Activity Institute, had claimed. Nonsense, of course.

Most people had been scared that night, but for some reason, Willa had felt folded in, protected. Nothing on the farm had been damaged. The house, with all its aged faults, had held its ground, while the building in town where she and Birdie had rented an apartment, had crumbled. She had come to this house at just the right time, and the house had saved her. She knew that was fanciful dreaming, not anything supernatural, though. And those moments when she got a little creeped out? That was just the insidious whispers in town about strange happenings getting to her…and the dark, sometimes lonely nights.

The house breathed history, history she didn’t have on her own, and to her, it also breathed the future. It was hers! Penn and his cousins had been treated fairly in the will. They had nothing to complain about.

Where had any of them been during Otto Ramsey’s dying days?

Who had cared for him out of love, not money?

Not a one of his grandchildren. And she had loved the old man, despite his sins. He had been like her own grandfather, the one she’d never had in her own, torn-up, far-flung, dysfunctional family.

She called Birdie again, headed through the dark house for the kitchen, Flash at her heels. Maybe Birdie was sleeping. She needed a flashlight. And she didn’t even want to think about Penn Ramsey, much less how much trouble she was going to be in if she had to come up with the cash to fight for what she’d been given. She didn’t want to think about how awful it had felt right down to her bones to see him, either. What he’d said about the house being left to him in the will…

Total crap.

Maybe he had an old will. Otto Ramsey had written a new one, and left the farm to her. He’d left investment money to his niece Jess, and the same to Penn. Another old family property had gone to his other grandson, Marcus, who’d moved into a house out there years ago and didn’t care about Limberlost any more than Penn and Jess ever had.

What if she was the one with an outdated will, and Penn had a newer one? No, no, she was so not going to think that way. She couldn’t believe Otto Ramsey would do that to her.

Not after what had happened. Not after how he’d promised her to make up for it.

She owned this farm. She and Birdie. He’d promised it to Birdie as much as he’d promised it to her. He’d doted on the girl. He wouldn’t do this to Birdie.

Willa reached the kitchen, called Birdie and held carefully still, listening to the old house breathe. Birdie was a light sleeper. Surely she would wake up as she’d called her. But…

No patter of little socked feet. No, “I’m in here, Mama.” She felt an anxious tightening in her stomach.

What if…?

She dropped the pickup keys on the scarred farmhouse table in the kitchen where she now stood. She pulled open a drawer where another flashlight was kept, then headed for the stairs, ordering herself not to panic. Birdie wouldn’t have gone anywhere….

Would she? She’d told her to stay put. Willa’d looked out the window a few hours ago, seen through the leaf-barren trees in the dusky light that cows were in the road below. By the time she’d rounded up all but the one recalcitrant calf and gotten the fence fixed, it’d been long past dark.

She’d left Birdie watching TV. Birdie always got scared when the lights went out. Storms scared her, too. Birdie was like her. Or like she had been, once: timid, innocent, often shy. She hoped her daughter wouldn’t have to toughen up the way she had. She wanted so much for Birdie, so much more than she’d had.

Willa pushed down the lump that swelled in her throat and took the stairs in bounds. The house was filled with old, original wood paneling that made dark corners everywhere in the dead of night, though it could be beautiful by day. The flashlight bounced gold globes of light as she raced up, Flash right behind her. The wall was lined with old photographs, some in sepia, some in black-and-white. It was a wall of eyes, and sometimes she thought it was the creepiest part of the farmhouse.

Birdie’s room was the first one to the right. Bed, empty. She whirled, ran to her own room to see if Birdie had gone in there.

“Birdie!”

Her bed—empty, too.

She called her daughter’s name again. Flash barked, as if picking up on her distress. No response. Dammit, dammit, dammit! And she’d been down there in the road, worrying about a calf.

Willa flew back down the hall, down the stairs, past all those eyes, back into the front parlor, nearly tripping over Flash in the process. No Birdie.

She could hear the boom of her heart.

Birdie’s favorite stuffed horse lay at the foot of the antique rocker in one corner. Interlocking blocks scattered across the green and blue-rag area rug between the stone fireplace and the old, brown suede sofa. Crayon drawings and worn-down colors occupied an old camp box that served as a coffee table.

Panic shifted to full throttle.

What if Birdie had gone outside to look for her—fallen down, gotten hurt? Maybe she was even unconscious. Dead in a ditch. Her mother’s mind leaped to every worst-case scenario. She wanted to call the police, but surely that was silly. She hadn’t even looked outside yet.

And the phone was dead anyway.

She could drive out for help; but what if Birdie came back? She had to be here for Birdie. She had to find Birdie. Alone, in the storm. Oh, God. She ran for the door.

A sudden, heavy pounding on the front door nearly had her jumping out of her skin. She stopped short. Penn. She’d totally forgotten about Penn.

“Willa! Open up!”

She didn’t want to talk to Penn. She didn’t want to see Penn. No way was she opening that door. There was no pretending she was all big and bad, when she was in a total panic.

Tears, absolutely unallowable, pathetic, weak tears burst right down her cheeks. She swiped at them roughly. Birdie. She had to think about Birdie.

She forced her feet to eat up the last few steps, flung the door wide.

“Willa—”

“My daughter’s missing,” she interrupted him.

“What?”

“My daughter is missing! I’m afraid she went outside. I’m afraid she went looking for me. I’m afraid…”

Tears, clogging her throat. She didn’t want Penn Ramsey’s help. She didn’t want anyone’s help, but least of all his. And he was staring at her like she was out of her mind.

Which, of course, she was.

She pushed past him. Screw him. Stupid of her to think he’d help.

Powerful arms hauled her back. Back against a chest so hard, so warm, so…Oh God! So capable—so what she needed right now. A strong, capable man, when she was in a panic.

What was wrong with her? A man was the last thing she wanted ever again, for the rest of her life. Stop falling apart, she ordered herself.

He turned her in his arms and he was right there, a breath away. Her arms were mashed to his chest, the flashlight pointed upward, illuminating the cut of his jaw, the straight line of his nose, the disturbing intensity of his eyes.

Her pulse thumped off the charts.

“Do you have another flashlight?” he demanded.

She shook—fear, or something else, she had no idea. Her brain had up and quit. Flashlight. He asked for a flashlight. He was going to help her find Birdie. And she was going to force herself to let him, because Birdie was more important than her pride or her self-sufficiency or even this house.

“I—yes.” She ran to the kitchen, flung the drawer open so hard it fell on the floor. She dropped to her knees, using the flashlight to find the flashlight, scattering fallen kitchen tools and notepads and nonsense out of her way.

She bounded back to her feet and nearly barreled right into Penn. He took the other flashlight out of her trembling hand. She felt the warmth of his fingers brush hers, electric.

Scary.

She felt tears on her cheeks again.

“Willa.” His voice, searingly soft now, froze her to the worn, hardwood floor. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll find her.”

She swallowed hard, nodded. “Of course.” She had to find Birdie. Had to. And would. No other outcome was tolerable.

But she didn’t believe everything was going to be okay. Not so long as he stayed.

Chapter 3

They were both already soaked to the skin, and going back out into this wild storm was only going to make things worse. But there was no other choice. A dog bounded up behind her, barking.

“Get a jacket, Willa.”

She looked at him blankly, then turned, told the dog to hush and opened a closet near the front door to grab a rain slicker. She put it on, pulling the hood over her head, and moved past him to the door that was still standing open wide, the dog trotting right after her. She avoided meeting Penn’s eyes. She looked small in the oversize slicker. The short, wispy cut of her hair revealed every delicate line of her features, features that looked fragile now, like glass ready to shatter.

But she was tougher than she looked, he knew that.

He followed her out onto the wide, covered farmhouse porch. Old rocking chairs with peeling paint lined up in front of the house, the way they always had. A porch swing’s chains rattled in the wind at the far end.

“How old is your daughter?”

“She’s four.”

Four. God. This wild night was no place for a four-year-old child. No wonder Willa looked like she was about to go crazy.

“You’re positive she’s not in the house?”

“Of course I’m positive she’s not in the house!”

“Where’s the other one?” The other one that should be almost fourteen now.

“What other one?” she asked impatiently. Then…She now met his eyes. “There is no other one.”

She walked away from him.

“Birdie!” she shouted, her voice hopelessly lost in the wind and rain.

There is no other one. He shouldn’t even want to explore that, and now wasn’t the time to find out what had happened to the baby Willa had been carrying the day he’d walked away. It hadn’t been his baby, anyway. And this wasn’t the time to think about that betrayal, either.

He hurried after Willa and the stumpy-legged mutt that kept pace with her. She’d asked for his help, but he was damn sure she didn’t really want it. She loved her daughter—that was clear, too.

Loved her enough to ask him for help.

He caught up with her at the bottom of the porch steps, reached for her arm to stop her.

“It’s important right now not to race off in a hundred directions,” he said grimly. “Does she have any favorite places on the farm? Hiding spots? We’ll search there and the barn, then we go back and call the police if we don’t find her.”

“The phones are out already.”

“Then we go for help in your truck. Or one of us goes for help while the other one stays here,” he added, seeing the resistance on her face before she even opened her mouth. She didn’t want to leave Birdie alone, even if they didn’t know where the child was.

But it was just as obvious that they couldn’t search four hundred acres by themselves. The farm was massive and partly wild. Otto had abandoned any real farming years ago, and much of the land had grown up over time, turned back into woods. In the old days, Otto’s father before him had had all kinds of money, but not from farming. There was oil and gas under this farm, and at the turn of the last century, there’d been drilling everywhere. Most of those wells had been abandoned decades ago, leaving nothing but rusted well sheds and crumbling derricks, not to mention pipes running everywhere, some of them sticking out of the ground or jaggedly cut off.

There were plenty of ways for a child to run into trouble or to get hurt rambling around in the dark while panicked. Plenty of ways for Willa to get hurt, too.

He wondered what kind of name Birdie was, but he didn’t ask. Willa charged off and he kept up with her. In the bouncing flashlight beam, he spied the old herb garden to the side of the house, with its paving stone paths and geometric design, the huge stone sundial in the center. And he saw something new in the shadows beyond it.

Wooden playground equipment. What the hell?

Maybe she had been living at Limberlost for a year, after all. Eighty-two-year-old Otto Ramsey hadn’t put in a slide and swings for himself.

There was a barn on the hill and another below, in the meadow. As far as he was concerned, if they didn’t find her up here, there was no sense heading farther afield before getting help. But he’d have to convince Willa of that.

The wind ripped back Willa’s hood, baring her head as she ran toward the barn. He chased after her, helped her with the heavy wooden latch on the barn door. Inside, their flashlights swerved and crossed. She called Birdie’s name. The barn smelled earthy and like home, and he was stunned for a harsh instant. There were horse stalls up and down the barn, but only one horse poked its ebony head over a stall door.

Willa raced between the stalls, looking into every one. She whirled at the end of the barn, faced him. Raw emotion hit him again, this time with the appalling urge to take her into arms and promise her he’d find Birdie.

He shoved the thought away as he saw the steel under her painful fear.

“Where now?” he asked.

“She has a treehouse. That’s all I can think.”

“Let’s go.”

They left the barn. He latched the door while she tore ahead. He followed the erratic bounce of her flashlight beam in the wind and rain.

Willa climbed the wooden steps nailed to a huge cherry tree before he even got there, and nearly fell down into his arms as she barreled back down.

“She’s not there!” Her eyes flashed a near-hysteria that she was clearly working hard to control.

“Get me the keys to your truck.”

She didn’t hesitate. He raced after her toward the house, but she was back in the doorway with a set of keys before he reached it.

“Please.” Her eyes shone bright in the dark. “Please get help.” She was begging, and clearly past caring who was helping her.

She stood in the door, the light from her flashlight spilling at her feet. The truck was parked at the side of the house. He jumped in, gunned the engine to life, and started to back up when he realized abruptly what felt so strange about the way the vehicle sat.

He got out, slammed the door, and flashed his light down at the tires.

The rear passenger-side tire was flat.

His blood froze in his veins. He knelt down and studied the tire in the light. He couldn’t see any reason for it to be flat, though the rubber was thinning and hadn’t worn well. No obvious puncture, or at least not one he could see in this light. He went for the spare, soaked beyond belief at this point, and stood back, stomach hitting the ground when he pulled it out.

The spare was flat.

He’d never seen so many things go wrong in unison in his whole life—from the failed brakes on the Land Rover right up to Willa’s tires. Maybe that text message he’d gotten this morning had been from the Universe.

But if he hadn’t come to Haven tonight…

Willa would be alone right now. And no matter how he felt about her and the past, the thought of her being alone in these circumstances brought out every protective instinct in his body.

Stupid and incomprehensible and flat-out crazy as that was.

Penn turned, headed for the house, dreading giving her the news. Willa’s daughter was out there, and no matter what had happened in the past or how Willa had hurt him, or even what kind of mess they had in front of them over the will, there was a lost little girl, and that was all that mattered right now.

Willa yanked the door wide before he reached it. He could see the same dread in his gut on her face before he opened his mouth.

“The truck’s got a flat and the spare’s flat, too,” he told her.

“I just drove the truck!” She didn’t want to believe him. In fact, she pushed past him as if she thought he was lying.

He followed her back out into the rain. She ran to the truck, dropped to her knees in front of the tire, then was back up, wheeling to find the spare where he’d left it on the ground.

She looked up at him then.

Her face was so stricken, so pale in the shine of his flashlight, he couldn’t tell the difference between tears and raindrops on her cheeks; but he knew it was a combination of both that he saw.

“Did you do this?” she yelled at him over the storm.

“What?”

“What is going on? Did you flatten the tires?”

“Are you crazy?”

“I’m sorry.” She deflated, pressed shaking fingers to her mouth. She turned away, stared desperately out into the storm-dark woods.

He wanted to blame her for that bit of insanity, but he knew she was out of her mind with worry. Whatever else he didn’t believe about Willa, what he did believe was her love for her daughter. He didn’t know why it stunned him so. Even animals had mothering instincts. Willa didn’t have to be a perfect person to love her child.

Still, it rocked the cold, ugly image he had made up in his mind about Willa’s character.

“I have to find her,” she shouted now, wildly.

“Not alone.”

She stared at him for a long, awful moment. She was terrified, that was clear, and not just of the storm and her lost daughter.

Willa was terrified of him.

That rocked the cold, ugly image, too. She was vulnerable.

“I am alone,” she said with an achy honesty that seared him even deeper.

Again, he wanted to know what had happened to Jared. Why Willa would have been living with Otto. How she came to be alone.

“Not tonight,” he said. “You’re not alone tonight.”

Obviously, she wasn’t thinking clearly, though maybe if she wasn’t scared of him, a man she’d once betrayed, a man she hadn’t seen in fourteen years, she would be certifiable for sure.

“And you can’t just go charging out there,” he went on. “I know there’s a map of the property here somewhere. We’ll get extra batteries and we’ll organize our own grid search. It’s important that you don’t get lost as well. Birdie needs you.”

He saw her throat move in the wild darkness.

“I’m scared,” she finally said. “I don’t understand what’s happening, but something is really wrong. I’m scared!”

And he knew she hadn’t wanted to admit that out loud, knew she regretted it right away. She hated being vulnerable, hated it and wanted to hide it, and she couldn’t. She was too scared, teetering on full-blown panic.

And that’s why he didn’t tell her that he was scared, too. Something was wrong. This entire series of events was bizarre.

The spring wind whipped higher, colder, suddenly, and something hard struck his head, his arms. The hound yelped, hit.

Hail.

Huge, golf ball-sized hail. The kind of hail that could kill a person.

“Run!” he yelled, grabbing Willa’s arm, dragging her in the opposite direction of where he knew she wanted to go.

Penn gave her no choice, forced her into a dead run toward the house, and Willa was terrified her skull was going to be split in two by the hail at any second. And what good would she do Birdie then?

They reached the house and he yanked open the door. Willa ran inside, Flash whimpering at her heels, and she pivoted back to see Penn’s dark figure fill the doorway behind her.

The door shut, blocking the storm and the terrible night, leaving her wet and shaking and scared as he turned around.

“What about Birdie?” she half sobbed, and caught herself.

She was looking to him, Penn, to tell her what to do now. She was so far gone, it was ridiculous. How could so many things go wrong at once?

Penn’s gaze riveted beyond her.

“Willa—” he started.

She felt a prickle at the nape of her neck.

“Mommy.”

The scream that had been clawing its way up Willa’s throat came all the way out.

She dropped her flashlight and swung wildly. There Birdie stood, in her favorite Pooh Bear jammies. Her big hazel eyes gazed up at Willa, so big, so bright, without her glasses. Emotion smashed into Willa. She didn’t remember moving her feet across the short distance that separated them. She was just there, reaching for her daughter.

“Birdie, Birdie, Birdie.” She sobbed her daughter’s name over and over as she clutched her against her chest, dropping down, nearly falling crazily backward as she held her.

Birdie lifted her small face to her, her eyes wide and scared. Willa was scaring Birdie. She had to pull herself together.

“I was worried about you, sweetie. I couldn’t find you.”

“I was sleeping.”

“You weren’t in your bed!”

“I was in your bed, Mama. I was scared of the storm.”

Birdie hadn’t been in her bed! She’d checked! But right now she didn’t care, it was a senseless point. She couldn’t resist tugging Birdie tightly against her one more time. Wherever she had been, she was here now. In her arms.

“You’re wet, Mama,” she mumbled into Willa’s chest, wriggling in her mother’s arms.

“I know. I’m sorry.” She was soaked and she didn’t care. But she didn’t need to soak Birdie, too. She forced herself to let Birdie draw back.