Six Years Gone (Gone #1)

by Jessica Gouin

  “My boy is finally back!” Aunt Claire cries, pulling me in for a hug harder than I thought a lady her age could squeeze.

  When she lets go, Uncle Stanton approaches and gives me a manly handshake. “It’s nice to see you again, son. How’s our girl doing?” He gestures to the car we started to restore when I was in high school. Uncle Stanton finished the car a few years after I left and handed me the keys the minute I returned to the States. He said it was always meant for me.

  “She’s running great. I’m keeping her maintenance up like you said. I haven’t had any issues with her at all. It’s really good to see both of you. You look great, Aunt.”

  I can tell she’s had more work done since the last time I saw her. She has fewer wrinkles on her forehead and her lips seem bigger.

  Uncle grabs my bag, and we head inside.

  While I was going to school, I missed my aunt’s cooking. She definitely held nothing back with this meal. Clam chowder, fried chicken, potato salad, corn bread. I thought I would never stop eating.

  “Well, I would ask how dinner was, but you nearly licked your plate. I’ll take that as a compliment.” Aunt gloats, taking the plates and serving dishes into the kitchen.

  “It was just what I needed. Thanks.”

  Aunt Claire takes my empty plate. “Your uncle and I are very proud of you, Lachlan. We realize you weren’t given very many options when your father….” She looks away and takes a deep breath. “Anyhow, we just want you to know you’ve made us both so very proud of you.”

  I nod, and she carries the plates to the sink, turning on the tap to run the water. The sounds of her clattering dishes in this kitchen brings back memories. Good ones. From before everything went to shit.

  “You must be exhausted. Why don’t you go watch TV in the den or rest upstairs? Just leave any dirty clothes you have in the laundry room. I usually run a load in the mornings.”

  “I remember. Actually, I’m going to step out for a minute. I left my cell phone charger in my dorm room by accident, so I’m going to pick up a new one.”

  “Oh, okay. Well, don’t be gone too long. I want to hear all about this house you’re going to look at next week.”

  Something’s weird about Aunt Claire today. She doesn’t seem like the aunt I used to live with in high school. I understand time and circumstance changes people, but there’s something I can’t quite put my finger on with her. Uncle Stanton seems completely like his old self, which is nice and reassuring. Maybe I’ll talk with him later about Aunt, just to make sure her health and everything else is okay. I worry about her all the time.

  On my way to the electronics store, I pass Woodsview High School. I haven’t set foot on these grounds since I disappeared from California six years ago. I wonder how the baseball team made out the year I left. I wonder if Nathan was angry when he found out I went back to Australia and never said good-bye to him.

  Mostly, I wonder about her.

  Not a single day has gone by that I don’t think about her. What must she have thought when days passed? Then weeks turned into months. Then months into years.

  I never came back.

  I want to know why she never answered any of my calls and why, after only a few weeks, the phone was disconnected.

  I never expected life to play out the way it did when I got back to Australia. I never wanted to do any of what I had to. But I did, and I can’t take back the last six years no matter how hard I try. They’re gone.

  Without thinking, I make a left down a side street near the school. Then another. Then another, until I’m parked outside of her house. My heart slams against my ribcage so fiercely I hear it beating in my eardrums. My trembling hands clutch the steering wheel as I stare at the house, unsure how I got here or what I want to happen next.

  A minivan slows next to me then pulls into the driveway. My breathing stops altogether while I wait for her to emerge. Flashes of her married to some guy—or worse her crazy ex-boyfriend—with children, achingly plays in my head.

  The driver’s door opens, and a woman steps out, long dark hair whips away from her face from the wind.

  My held breath releases, but a new wave of panic sets over me.

  She moved away?

  She’s gone, just like all those years….

  She gave up on me and left Woodsview. She always talked about leaving this town behind her as soon as she graduated. She couldn’t wait to leave with her brother, Owen, but those thoughts didn’t occur to me when I was gone. Each time I thought of her, I pictured her here, in Woodsview. I pictured her in that house or at the gazebo. Even the ranch where she works…worked. I don’t know.

  The realization hits me so hard I have no clue what’s happened in the last six years or where she is.

  Did she wait at all for me?

  The dark-haired stranger takes frequent worried glimpses at me while she unbuckles a child from the van. I take that as my cue to leave and allow my heart to steer me toward the final stop of my Woodsview tour.

  It’s not very late in the evening and the golf course is still open, but there’s only a few people playing and they’re a fair distance away. That damn hole in the fence is still there. I smile to myself as I crouch down to squeeze my body through.

  This gazebo is the only thing that brings back more good memories than Aunt Claire’s cooking.

  God, the memories engraved into these wood beams. Her hands in my hair, her red lips swollen from my mouth, hearts racing as hands wander.

  I sit on the bench, lean back, and close my eyes, resting my arms behind me on the railing. Tracing the grain with my fingertips, I wish more than anything in the world she was here with me.

  I wish it was six years ago and I never left. I wish I sent my aunt and uncle to take care of everything in Australia and I stayed here with her. I wish I came back for her sooner. I wish she was still here, waiting for me….

  The pattern in the grain goes from smooth to rough and jagged on the inside lip of the rail. I open my eyes to inspect the spot.

  There’s an address carved into the wood.

  Why would someone chisel their address, or someone else’s address, in the railing of this gazebo?

  Taking my cell from my back pocket, I snap a picture of the address just as the phone powers down and the battery dies.

  Shit, I need to get a charger before the store closes. I take one more look at the address, mouthing the name. I’ve never heard the street before. I don’t even think it’s in Woodsview. It could be where the gazebo was made, but usually the company would burn their stamp underneath the wood somewhere. Not carve it in this way.

  It’s a few minutes before closing when I get to the store but I manage to grab a new charger. The urgency to plug my phone in is overwhelming. I don’t know the address, but something tells me I should.

  Aunt Claire greets me the second I close the front door. I forgot how much she used to hover. “Lachlan, love, did you get what you needed while you were out?”

  I toss my keys in the bowl below the oval mirror. “Yep, just going up to my room. You’re right, I’m exhausted. Raincheck on that talk?”

  “Of course. Sleep tight.”

  “Thanks. You, too.” I kiss her cheek then move past her to climb the stairs to my room.

  “Lachlan.”

  I turn to face her.

  “I’m really glad you’re back.”

  “Not back, Aunt Claire. Just passing through.”

  I notice the way her hands wring together and the tone of her voice. The worried demeanor I know all too well.

  When it was clear I wasn’t coming back to Woodsview for a while, my aunt and uncle came to Australia for a few months. They’re the only family I have left and they gave up their lives for me on more than one occasion. I’ll always be indebted to them. But it was during the time they were with me that I started to notice things weren’t right with Aunt Claire. It felt like she was keeping something important from me. Something bigger than I could handle at that
time.

  Lying in bed, I stare at the picture on my newly charged cell. I search the address on the google maps and I was right about one thing. It’s not a company. It’s a house about two hours away.

  With nothing but a clear schedule and an overbearing aunt in my immediate forecast I decide to take a little road trip the next morning.

  The drive was supposed to take two hours. I may have extended the trip to eight. I don’t know what I’m expecting to find wherever I’m going, but my stomach knots itself anyway.

  I stop three times to unnecessarily top up my gas tank, twice to eat—although I never really took a bite of the food—and a few dozen times to pull over and breath.

  I’m here.

  I park across the street and watch the home for a few minutes. One car I don’t recognize sits in the driveway, but there’s a garage, too, and it’s big enough to fit a Jeep. No lights seem to be on inside the house, but that could be because it’s daylight and there’s no use for them.

  Okay, time to man up and ring the bell. For all I know, this could be a random address. It doesn’t feel random, though. It feels very much like it was meant for me to find it. Who else even goes inside a gazebo on a golf course? It could have been Sawyer’s way to leaving bread crumbs for me to follow.

  I crack open the car door and walk across the street. My legs take me up the driveway to the sidewalk, and finally the door. An autumn-red door stands between me and whatever the address means.

  Part of me prays to anyone willing to listen that she’s going to be on the other side of that door.

  Part of me prays she’s not.

  I raise my sweaty palm, ring the bell, and wait.

  Chapter TWENTY-ONE

  Sawyer

  This.

  This is the best part of the day. For all four of us, really. At least, I hope it’s their favorite part of their days, too. When we’re all together around the table. When we come back to each other.

  We made a promise to one another a long time ago to always come back when the day is done. No one leaves.

  Not anymore.

  Some days, when nothing goes my way and I want to quit my life, I sit at this table and stare at the faces in front of me and thank my stars I have them here to keep pushing me forward. I would have given up a long time ago if it weren’t for these faces.

  “Sloane, pass the rice.”

  “Coming,” she sings from across the table.

  On her left, Owen laughs and shakes his head. “Well, someone had a good day. Lots of sales?”

  Sloane takes a longer-than-necessary drink from her glass of water. “Not exactly.”

  Laugher bubbles from all four of us. We know what that means.

  Owen places his grease-stained hand over hers. “Babes, I love you. With all my heart. I really do. And, I love that you know what you’re good at and you can make a living from your talents. Not everyone is lucky in that way. But, one day, you should emerge from your workroom in the back of your beautiful shop and take a good hard look at the way your customers admire your creations. You’re amazing. Hands down, the best at your craft. But, there’s more to owning a business. You have to actually sell the stuff you make.”

  Sloane pulls her hand out from under my brother’s and holds it up to stop him from saying any more. “Hey! I resent your super long and condescending speech. I sell things.”

  I clear my throat.

  “Okay, well, Sawyer sells most of the inventory, but that’s only because she’s a better salesperson than I am.”

  Sloane discovered her extraordinary talent for taking furniture and home décor and transforming those pieces into one-of-a-kind works of beauty when she was a young girl. Last year, Owen and I finally convinced her to take the risk and open her own shop. Revamped has been doing great. Her antique and diverse style is unlike anything this town has seen, and she has really made a name for herself.

  During the beginning stages of Revamped, I offered to pitch in during the day. I needed work anyway, and Sloane needed to make pieces while keeping the front of the shop open. Owen works full-time as a mechanic at a friend’s garage and didn’t have the time to help her out. Win, win. Most days she locks herself in her workroom while I run the front.

  Owen opens his mouth to say something again, but the doorbell rings.

  Sloane, seeing a way out of this repeat conversation, jumps up, offering to answer the door. The three of us continue eating in her absence.

  After a few minutes of silence, Owen cranes his neck to see who’s at the door, but his attention returns to the table and he shrugs, obviously unable to see the unexpected visitor.

  People don’t tend to show up at our house unannounced, so, out of sheer curiosity, I toss my napkin on the table, slide my chair back, and cross the dining room toward the front door. If some measly salesperson trying to scam me out of money, or preacher talking about how only God can save us, thinks he can interrupt the best time of my day, they’re about to regret ever ringing my bell.

  “Sloane, what’s the hold up? Who’s at the do—?”

  The entire world gears down around me in slow motion as the visitor comes into view.

  His appearance is slightly different, but the same familiarity encompasses him—broader frame, brown hair that seems thicker maybe, shorter. His eyes have changed the most. The brown hue is the same of course, but the light has burned out. There’s no glimmer. No affection. No life. Just brown.

  Certainly, there’s no denying the same intangible, unexplained, and unpredictable pull I instantly feel in the presence of Lachlan Williams.

  The boy I fell in love with six years ago, the boy I thought would love me forever, the boy who shattered me into a thousand pieces, the boy who nearly took my life stands on my doorstep.

  Sloane tears her attention from him to stare at me, mouth hanging wide open. “He umm, he’s…here for you I think.”

  Silence looms between us. After all this time, he’s here. The lifetime of seconds that ticked away at an agonizingly slow pace finally reach me, as though someone hit the play button on my life. So many emotions hit me like a freight train and knock the wind out of my body.

  With every fiber of my being, I thought I would never see his face again. Before I lost faith, I played out scenes in my head, over and over until it drove me to my breaking point and I would then look for other ways to take away the memories. To erase everything that happened between us, the good and the bad. Those alternative ways nearly cost me everything. I would fantasize of his epic return—showing up at the ranch where I used to work, finding me after we moved out of Woodsview. Every scenario would end with him telling me he regretted leaving. That he wished he would have stayed. That he missed me every second we’ve been apart.

  Then I grew up. I realized I was foolishly wasting my time. The person sitting in the next room, waiting for me to come back to the table to finish dinner, showed me what real, unconditional love is.

  I stopped waiting for the return of a ghost.

  As I stare into his magnetic eyes, all of the insecurities and pain that grew inside me in his absence return with force.

  Curiosity as to why he’s here and what he could possibly want after all this time turns into anger for not being there when I needed him.

  I narrow my eyes at his lack of words and reach in front of Sloane to push the door closed.

  Lachlan comes to life, and his hand darts out to stop the door before it shuts in his face.

  “Sawyer.”

  One word.

  His voice.

  My heart.

  The ache.

  I let out a long breath and cast my eyes down, unable to look at him. He’ll see the soul he crushed.

  He clears his throat, and I find the strength to look at him. “It’s really you. Grown up Sawyer Matthews. I wasn’t sure you lived here. If this address was yours.” He pauses as if I’m supposed to interject some thoughts or feelings. My brain is still comprehending how much deeper his accent
is. When I don’t respond, he shifts his stance. “What I mean is, okay this is going to sound insane, but I was at our…the old gazebo yesterday, and I noticed an address. This address. I just knew…I don’t know how I knew, but I did. You left this address for me, didn’t you?”

  Hope flashes across his face, bringing him to life, making him real. His hope annoys me. What about all the hope I used to have?

  “I wasn’t trying to be cryptic. That address is six years old. I didn’t realize it would take so long for you to find me.”

  I try to close the door again. I’m done with this. This was all I wanted for so long, but now that he’s actually here, I don’t want it anymore. I need to return to the love of my life in the other room before he comes in here to find me.

  Lachlan stops the door again. “You don’t understand. I know what happened six years ago and what I promised you in the gazebo. There’s a very long and very complicated story behind the past few years.” He takes his hand off the door and runs it through his hair, grabbing the back of it. Déjà vu creeps inside me. “Please. I know you don’t know me anymore and I understand why you would never want to see me again, but I came all this way, I found you, and I need you to just know I tried. I couldn’t come back when I wanted to. I know it was so long ago you probably want nothing to do with me. I guess I deserve that, but please know I tried. But, you vanished.”

  “I disappeared because I had to. After you walked away.” It’s a struggle to keep my voice at an even level. If I lose myself right here, years of pent-up anger and frustration and insecurities will fly out uncontrollably.

  “Had to? You had to disappear?”

  This is not the place to discuss our histories. I’m not even sure I want to talk about anything with him. Nothing is owed to this stranger standing on my doorstep. Barging into my world isn’t what I thought would happen.

  “What do you want, Lachlan?”

  He stiffens as if hearing his name from my lips pains him the same way it did when he spoke my name.