Falling for You

by Becky Wade

  “Me too. What do you think we should do next?”

  “I think we should have a conversation with Senator Holt.”

  Willow’s eyes rounded. “You can’t just call up a United States senator and schedule a meeting.”

  “Most normal human people can’t. But I bet you a hundred bucks that Senator Holt will make time in his schedule for me.”

  Text message from Britt to Willow and Nora:

  Britt

  I’m completely bummed about Zander leaving. Did you know that he’s planning to leave for London in TWO WEEKS, as soon as he fulfills the notice he gave his boss? Why the rush? He just came up with this idea!

  Willow

  You left to go and live in France for two years. Remember how supportive he was of you back then?

  Britt

  It was a lot less depressing when I was the one setting off on the grand adventure. It stinks to be the one left behind.

  Nora

  Sorry I’m just now replying. I zoned out for an hour or two, staring blissfully at my boyfriend.

  Britt

  Bah humbug.

  Willow

  Bah humbug.

  Nora

  Think how great this trip will be for Zander, Britt. He’s never traveled much, and now he can.

  Britt

  Outwardly, I’m saying and doing all the right, sweet, supportive things. It’s just inwardly that I’m in despair. He’s my best friend.

  Voice mail to Joe Stewart:

  Mr. Stewart, this is Lisa from Oncology Associates. I see here that you missed your scheduled appointment for a blood draw, and I was calling to reschedule. Please call me back at this number at your convenience. Thanks and have a great day.

  Chapter

  Twelve

  Just because Willow wasn’t impressed by Corbin didn’t mean that other people weren’t. And thank goodness for that. Doors opened for him every direction he turned, which was how he liked it.

  Corbin had called his publicist from the tearoom on Tuesday. His publicist then contacted Senator Holt’s people. Not only had the senator made time for Corbin, as Corbin had told Willow he would, but the senator had invited Corbin and Willow to visit him at his home in Redmond, Washington.

  It was 10:53 on Friday morning. After a drive that had taken them less than two hours, they’d arrived seven minutes ahead of schedule at the stone fence surrounding Senator Holt’s property.

  Corbin could drive short distances with his injured shoulder, but long distances were harder. Willow had insisted on driving to Redmond, and as it turned out, sitting in the passenger seat of her Range Rover came with one big advantage: the freedom to watch her.

  She was wearing big round, black sunglasses that made her look like either a movie star or a spy. She had a habit of fidgeting with the stack of bracelets on her wrist. And whenever the cars around her did anything she didn’t approve of, the skin between her brows would wrinkle, the kindergarten teacher in her would come out, and she’d talk to the cars as if they were people. She’d say “Hey, Volvo, why are you swerving?” Or, “It’s not your turn, blue van.”

  Willow gave their names over the senator’s intercom system, and the gates glided open. The drive eventually brought them to a new house pretending to be a mini castle from centuries before.

  After they’d rung the doorbell, Corbin angled a look at Willow and found that she was already watching him. An earthquake went off within him, simply by meeting her eyes. It had always been like that for him, with her.

  Immediately, she looked to the door.

  “Were you just staring at me?” he asked.

  “While thinking about how much I dislike you,” she answered.

  He chuckled. “You only wish you disliked me.”

  They’d both chosen fancier clothing for today’s meeting than what they usually wore. He’d dressed in suit pants and a dress shirt and his sling. She had on a brown sweater, pants that molded to her knockout legs, and high-heeled ankle boots. There wasn’t a single piece of dust or lint on her. Not one lock of her hair was out of place.

  Which gave him the urge to mess up her hair, to tug her sweater off one shoulder, to kiss her. Just about everything about her made him want to kiss her lately. It had been like this at the tearoom, too, and during their meeting yesterday at the inn with Charlotte.

  An elegant older woman answered the door and beckoned them into a marble foyer. She introduced herself as Marjorie Holt.

  Corbin gave their names and went right to work making small talk with Marjorie.

  He knew from the reading he’d done over the past two days in preparation for this meeting that Marjorie was Foster’s wife. They had five children ranging in age from fifty-three to forty-three and fourteen grandchildren. The senator was the head of a large family and had himself come from a large family. He was the eldest of six, raised by wealthy parents here in Redmond. He’d pursued Ivy League undergrad and graduate degrees and hadn’t looked back since. He was still going strong at the age of eighty.

  Just as his wife murmured that she’d go and fetch Foster, the senator himself came around the corner wearing a white apron over khakis and a plaid button-down. Tall and lean, he moved with easy coordination. He had a strong, straight nose, a hard jaw, and a full head of white hair. Even with the white hair, he looked ten or fifteen years younger than he was.

  “Welcome.” He shook hands with Corbin. “I’m very glad to meet you, Corbin. I was fortunate to attend the second of your Super Bowls.”

  “Were you happy or sad when we won?”

  “I’ll have to call my lawyer to ask whether or not I can legally disclose that information without incriminating myself.” He winked and faced Willow.

  “This is Willow Bradford,” Corbin said. “She’s a model and an ambassador for Benevolence Worldwide.”

  “Ah.” Senator Holt regarded her with growing recognition as he shook her hand. “Are you related to Garner Bradford?”

  “Yes, he’s my father.”

  “How lovely!” Marjorie said. “We’ve spent time with him and Kathleen on several occasions over the years.”

  “Indeed we have.” The senator gestured to the hallway. “Right this way.” He unlaced his apron and pulled it over his head as he led them deeper into the house. “I was in the kitchen just now, getting started on preparations for the dinner party Marjorie and I are hosting tonight. When I’m at home I always try to make time to cook.”

  “And I always make sure he makes time to cook,” Marjorie told them. “He’s very good at it.” She took her husband’s apron. “It was nice to meet you both. I’m on my way out the door to have lunch with a friend. See you in a few hours?” she asked the senator.

  “See you then.”

  Willow and Corbin followed the senator into an office paneled with dark wood. Senator Holt took a seat below an iron chandelier and behind a desk that had to have been eight feet long. Corbin and Willow sat in the chairs opposite.

  Most men, after being introduced to Corbin, wanted to talk football first. The senator was no different. Corbin had grown accustomed to answering questions he’d been asked a hundred times, to smiling over the mention of his career highlights as if he’d never smiled over them before, to giving out pieces of information about coaches or players or plays and making it sound like the words were coming out of his mouth for the first time.

  Since he only had to use half his brain to talk football, Corbin used the other half to focus on Willow. She was sitting quietly, her hands in her lap.

  Foster Holt broadcast good humor, but Corbin could tell that the man was no pushover. There was iron in his eyes, enough of it to have fueled decades of political battles.

  “What can I do for you?” Senator Holt finally asked. “My aides mentioned that you had some questions for me.”

  “We do,” Corbin answered. “We were hoping to talk with you about a woman who volunteered on your very first campaign.”

  “My first campaign?” The old
er man’s expression took on a nostalgic quality. “What’s the woman’s name?”

  “Josephine Blake.”

  “Ah,” Foster murmured with surprise. “Is Josephine Blake the one who disappeared?”

  “Yes,” Willow answered. “She disappeared in April of 1977.”

  “It was awful, what happened to her. She was so young. I got to know a lot of the people who worked with me on that first campaign. If you’d come in and asked about any of the others, I probably would have had a hard time putting a name to a face all these years later. But I do remember Josephine Blake, in large part because of her disappearance. As far as I know, they never did figure out what happened to her. Is that right?”

  “That’s right,” Willow replied. “There are still no answers.”

  “What a shame. Are either of you related to Josephine?”

  “My niece, Charlotte, is related to her.” Charlotte had lobbied to skip school and come with them today but Jill had held firm. “Charlotte’s determined to find out what happened to Josephine. She talked Willow and me into helping her.”

  “I see.”

  “We recently came across information about a man named Stan Markum,” Willow said, “who disappeared the same day that Josephine did. The article mentioned that Stan had been involved in a political campaign of yours. Since you only had one campaign before he vanished, it must have been the ’76 campaign . . . the same one Josephine volunteered on.”

  “That’s right. I remember Stan.”

  “Do you happen to know whether Stan and Josephine knew each another?” Willow asked.

  “They did know each other, yes. Stan lived in Montana, so he wasn’t a daily or weekly part of the ‘boots on the ground’ campaign team. However, he was one of our primary donors, and he also attended some of the campaign planning and strategy sessions. He’d had a hand in the election of Edward Russell, so he had insight and experience to share.”

  Foster leaned back in his chair, rubbed his jaw, then dropped his hands to his desk blotter. “Stan came to a few of the fundraising events we held in and around Seattle, including the gala ball. Josephine helped plan the fundraisers, so she was at those events, too.” His eyes took on a faraway cast. “I think I even remember them dancing together at the gala because I recall thinking what a striking couple they made. They were good-looking, both of them.”

  “And both were married,” Corbin said.

  “Quite right.”

  “Do you remember hearing about Stan Markum’s disappearance?” Willow asked.

  “Absolutely. Once I learned of Josephine’s disappearance, I began to suspect that something more than friendship may have existed between them.”

  “You think Josephine and Stan were having an affair?” Corbin asked.

  “I didn’t suspect that at all until they both vanished on the same day. The timing of it was what made me wonder if they’d run off together. Or, God forbid, whether something tragic had happened to them or between them.”

  “Did you share your suspicions with the police?” Corbin asked.

  “I did. But nothing came of it. I can only suppose that there was no evidence to support my theory.”

  “What do you think about what Senator Holt told us?” Corbin asked Willow an hour later. The two of them were walking from her car to a taco joint in Redmond to have lunch.

  He’d been trying to make sense of the information the senator had given them, to sort it out the way he’d once sorted what his eyes and instincts told him about a defense.

  “I don’t love the idea of Josephine having an affair,” Willow said.

  “Me neither.”

  “Especially after reading the letters from Alan to Josephine inside the box. But the senator’s theory does makes sense. An affair between Stan and Josephine would explain why they disappeared at the same time.”

  “We know that Josephine was rumored to have been having an affair when she went missing,” he said.

  “And as far as we know, if she was having an affair, it wasn’t with Keith, the poor guy from her Sunday school class.”

  “If I were a pretty twenty-eight-year-old woman who was considering having an affair, I’d choose the handsome multimillionaire from Montana over the Sunday school guy. Just saying.” For once, the sky above them didn’t contain a single cloud. Only sunshine. “What if they’re both alive and living happily on a Caribbean island?”

  “Then that means that they didn’t care what kind of agony they put their families through. Which means neither of them are very nice people.”

  “The senator’s other theory was that a tragedy had happened to them or between them,” Corbin said.

  “What do you think he meant by that? That their car could have run off the road into a lake or something?”

  “Yes. Or that Stan could have murdered Josephine and then killed himself.”

  “If murder-suicide is on the table, then shouldn’t a double murder be on the table, too?” Willow adjusted her sunglasses as she looked across at him. “If Stan and Josephine were having an affair, then Josephine’s husband, Alan, would have had motive to kill them both if he discovered them together.”

  “So would Stan’s wife.”

  They walked in silence for a few yards. She was exactly the right height. Several inches shorter than he was, but not so short that he felt like he dwarfed her.

  “What should we do next?” Willow asked.

  “As of right now, Senator Holt is the only link we have between Josephine and Stan. So how about you research Senator Holt?”

  “Agreed. But since I’m the CEO of our crime-fighting unit, I think it’s only fair that you have a bigger homework assignment than me.”

  “Fine, boss lady. I’ll research Stan.” Corbin’s attention narrowed on her feet. “Are you avoiding the sidewalk cracks?”

  “What? No.”

  “Yes, you are.” He felt a grin pull at his cheeks. He’d noticed that her strides weren’t all the same length. Some were shorter and some longer—because she never set her boots on the seams between pieces of concrete. “You never step on cracks?”

  “Not sidewalk cracks. I’m fine with tile and stone and wood and the rest.”

  “Are you afraid it’s bad luck?”

  “Not afraid, exactly. Just careful. And a tiny bit superstitious.”

  “I’ll protect you from bad luck.”

  “You are bad luck, Corbin.”

  He held the door of the taco restaurant open for her. They came to a stop at the counter and read the menu displayed on the wall behind the cash register.

  “What are you going to order?” he asked.

  “The brisket tacos.”

  “You’ve ordered brisket tacos at every taco restaurant you’ve eaten at in the last five years, haven’t you?” She didn’t need to answer. He knew her well enough to know that’s exactly what she’d done.

  “I like brisket tacos,” she said defensively. “What are you getting?”

  “I think I’m going to try the mahimahi el Fuego tacos.”

  “Those sound spicy.”

  “Spicy things are sometimes delicious.” He spent the next five minutes waving new customers past them while he slowly talked her into trying the el Fuego tacos.

  They sat at an outdoor table under a bright red umbrella and counted down before biting into their tacos at the same moment.

  Their gazes locked in an unspoken challenge while they chewed. Tears rushed to Willow’s eyes, but she straightened in her seat and stuck it out until she swallowed. After taking a sip of water, she smiled at him—a full smile without any walls between them. The green eyes he’d looked into so often in his dreams blazed with triumph.

  And then, right then, Corbin knew that he had to win Willow back.

  He had to.

  There was nothing that could be done about it.

  He’d been telling himself not to go there with her again. Not to set himself up for disappointment. Not to fall for her. But he couldn’t supp
ort any of that anymore. Not for another day. He’d tried.

  She was graceful and intelligent. Kind and independent. Calm, yet surprisingly strong. She was an adult, not a child, and she was exactly right for him in too many ways to name. In ways he didn’t even understand.

  He needed her to love him. And so he was going to make sure that she did.

  He’d experienced this kind of single-minded drive before. When he’d decided to play college ball. When he’d decided to land a contract in the NFL. When he’d decided to win a Super Bowl. He was a focused man. Once he set his mind on something he only had one gear. Forward.

  It wasn’t going to be easy. She hadn’t forgiven him for their breakup, and she’d probably rather climb Everest than take him back.

  He’d need to play his cards exactly right. He’d have to stay one step ahead of her, and he’d have to be patient, which was fine. He wasn’t scared of working hard to get what he wanted. And at this point in his life, Willow Bradford was what he wanted.

  If he could convince her to eat el Fuego tacos, he could—would—convince her to give him another chance.

  Later that afternoon, Willow and Corbin arrived back at the Inn at Bradfordwood. Willow parked her SUV, gratified to see that the inn’s grounds were free of crazy stalker fans.

  Corbin had met her here after she’d finished serving breakfast. They’d driven to Redmond and back. And now it was time for her to get busy baking cookies. Their road trip and time together had come to an end. She should feel gratified that the worst part of her day was behind her. Instead, she had the niggling sensation that the opposite was true. That the best part of her day was now behind her.

  Corbin slanted his upper body to face her, his expression assessing. “Are you free to come over to my place this weekend? I’d like to cook dinner for you.”

  Was he . . . asking her out? A tingle of what might have been unmitigated pleasure or might have been outright panic slid down the back of her neck.

  He’d protected her from Todd. He was caring for his dad. He was fantastic with Charlotte. She’d laughed more today than she’d laughed in the past twelve months combined. She could fall into a daydream just looking at him. Yet she could not allow any of that to melt her resolve. “You cook?”