Nolan: Return to Signal Bend

by Susan Fanetti

  “It was in March. I was thinking Father’s Day, but…”

  Father’s Day was the coming Sunday. Iris made an executive decision—risky, but she knew how Geoff worked, so there was a decent chance he’d have done it himself. “Do you have income coming in, Gia?” She wasn’t even fifteen yet. As Iris recalled, her birthday was in July. That one she more or less knew; she’d been around enough in summer to have been to a few of Gia’s birthday parties.

  “Yeah. I babysit, and I muck stalls and work the horses at Uncle Len and Aunt Tasha’s.”

  Iris carried the doorknocker over to the sales desk. “How long do you think it would take you to pay back…say”—she checked the ledger to see what Geoff had listed as a bottom price—“a hundred and fifty dollars?”

  Clearly excited by the chance Iris was hinting at, Gia turned her eyes up, thinking. “Um…like, to the end of July. Unless I get money for my birthday in a couple of weeks. I probably will. The uncles like to give money.”

  Iris laughed; she knew that one herself. A fold of twenties was an easier gift for the uncles to manage, especially for a girl. “Let’s make an agreement that you’ll pay this off by the end of August. That way you don’t have to go around broke half the summer.”

  “Really?” Gia’s smile shone like a beacon. “Thank you! Thank you!”

  Geoff didn’t do layaway or store credit, but Gia was Isaac Lunden’s daughter, so Iris was making a bet that he’d have made an exception. If not, well, then she’d just pay for the knocker herself.

  It just seemed the right thing to do. She was enjoying Gia’s happiness about it, and she felt, for the first time since she’d gotten the call to go to Little Rock, legitimately happy herself.

  When Lilli finally came in to collect her daughter, the knocker was boxed and wrapped and ready for giving. Gia nearly floated out of the store, carrying the package in both her hands.

  Iris waved at Gia and her mom as they left.

  Alone in the store again, she felt lonely. She pull her phone from her pocket and dialed Nolan’s number.

  ~oOo~

  “There is nothing that smells better than this.” Nuzzling the back of baby Austin’s neck, Iris took another deep whiff. “I can’t even tell you what that smell is, but wow. Somebody should bottle it.”

  Adrienne laughed. “Eau de Motherhood. Pretty sure it’s a chemical thing to make sure we love on our babies. But yeah, you could get high on the way babies smell—most of the time. It’s not always so awesome, trust me.”

  Iris settled the sleeping baby more snugly to her chest. “You would know. Dad says you’re a one-woman population explosion.” She grinned. “He also says I’m not supposed to tell you he says that.”

  Austin was Adrienne and Badger’s fifth child, and Henry, their first, was only eight years old. The youngest four had all been born in a bit more than five years. It seemed like her stepsister had been pregnant most of the time Iris had known her.

  They were sitting in the big, messy living room of the house Badger, with the help of the Horde, had built for his family. It was a long, ranch-style house, with huge living room, dining room, and kitchen, six bedrooms, and four bathrooms. Maybe the biggest house in the whole town—and yet humble, too. Just a country house, white with black shutters and door, a long covered porch on the front, and a simple concrete patio in back. They’d moved in before they’d had a sports team-size family; lots of kids had been in their plans from the start.

  With so many kids running around, and with a brand-new baby in the mix, the place was bursting with toys and baby gear and piles of laundry and dishes. Iris had come over on her day off to help out. Aside from wanting to snuggle the baby and hang out with family, she was looking for something to keep herself busy. Each new day that Nolan was gone made it harder to believe he’d be back. On her own, all she could think about was whether he was hurt, and her brain could conjure up some terrible scenarios.

  She wondered if someday, if he never came home, he would fade to the back of her head. The thought made her feel sad and ill.

  In response to Iris’s comment, Adrienne laughed and shrugged, pulling her back to the moment. “He’s not the only one who says that. I just love having babies. Being a mom…God, it’s the best thing. Even when they don’t smell like that. I don’t know—it’s like I was made for it. I told Badge I wanted to have babies until my body gave out. Which I think is now.”

  “What do you mean? Are you okay?”

  “Oh, yeah. I’m totally fine. But I might not be if I got pregnant again. Having four so close together wore some things out, I guess.” She waved off Iris’s frown. “But five is a great number. We all fit in the truck, and we fill up our table, and everybody has somebody to play with. I have my perfect family.”

  Iris smoothed her hand over the strands of ginger silk on Austin’s little head. Adrienne was right about that smell—Iris reacted to it on a biological level. She wanted this baby to be hers. She wanted to be a mom, but usually, that was just a thing that she knew would happen someday. Right now, with his tiny bottom resting on her forearm, his body curled like a little bean against her chest, Iris wanted a baby. She wanted a baby with Nolan. That had been part of the future they’d just started to talk about.

  Before she’d left, and then he’d left.

  But she’d come home. He hadn’t. Not yet.

  Needing to get out of her own head before she started bawling and woke the baby, Iris forced a smile and asked, “Do you miss working?”

  “No—I mean, when I need something for myself, I call Shan, and I go to the B&B and help out with a wedding, do the photos or something like that. But I like being home and being Mommy. I had big dreams once, and I tried to live them, and it wasn’t at all like I thought—or what I wanted. They were better as dreams. This life is what I want.”

  Iris nodded, understanding completely. “It’s the only life I ever wanted. I always felt deficient because I couldn’t tell people what I wanted to be when I grew up, or graduated, or whatever. I’ve always…I don’t know…felt like I’m already who I’m supposed to be. I like me this way.”

  In her arms, Austin woke and began sucking lustily on his fist. After a second, he gave up that attempt and began to complain. Adrienne held out her hands, and Iris stood and carried the baby to his mom and his meal.

  As Adrienne settled her son at her breast, she said, “You’ve always been like that, as long as I’ve known you, and it’s not deficient at all. Knowing who you are and being comfortable in your skin is a gift. Being able to stand up for yourself like that and hold to it when people push is strength.”

  “You know—only here, in Signal Bend, do people seem to be okay with that, and everybody here is. It’s so weird.”

  “Not that weird, if you think about it. We made our family out of people who struggled with what others thought they should do and be. We all get it. Cory told me once, before Badge and I were married, that the Horde is the family we all chose when the one we started out with broke. I guess that’s not exactly the same for you—the Horde is the family you started out with—but I think the point still holds. We all know what it’s like to need to be something other people don’t understand.”

  “The family I started out with broke, too,” Iris said, her voice stilted by a wave of emotion that had crashed over her chest, fed by her fretful melancholy about Nolan.

  Adrienne looked up, abashed. “I’m sorry, Iris. I didn’t mean—I’m sorry.”

  Iris shook it off. “It’s okay. You’re right—the point still holds. I just wish I hadn’t lost this family for so long. It’s the only home I know. I wanted—want—to share that with Nolan. I need him to come home.”

  Her sister reached over and squeezed her hand. “He will. He’ll come home, sis. He knows what he has here. And he loves you.”

  Tremors of emotion still shook inside her, and Iris felt her eyes prickle with the potential for tears.

  “Moooooom!” Henry ran in, breaking the mome
nt. Their old dog, Hector, was right at his heels, as always. “Megan and Caroline are playing dolls with Iron Man and the Hulk! They took them without asking!”

  Before Adrienne or Iris could answer, the monitor on the table lit up—John was awake from his nap and yelling to be released from his crib.

  Iris collected herself and stood. “I got John.”

  “Thanks.” Adrienne turned to her oldest son. “When Austin is done eating, I’ll talk to the girls, okay? Can you let it wait until then?”

  Henry made a face that fully conveyed his sense of umbrage.

  “It would really help me out, bub.”

  “Fine,” he grumped. “But they’re making them kiss Barbie. It’s gross. The Hulk doesn’t kiss anybody. The Hulk smashes.”

  Iris laughed. “Come on, Henry. Let’s go get John. You need to get him trained early on the proper conduct of The Avengers.”

  ~oOo~

  It’s Nolan. Leave a message. If you want to hear back, make it short and sweet.

  “I love you, Nolan. I never had a dream for the future until I fell in love with you, and now it’s all I can think about. I’m surrounded by everything I want, except you. I don’t know what you’re doing or why you left, but I hope it’s giving you what you need. I love you so much. Please, honey. Please be okay. Please come home.”

  Iris lay in bed with her arm curled around Toby and her phone to her ear. Alone like this, away from a life that went on with aggressive normalcy, she let herself cry as she left a message to a phone Nolan didn’t have.

  It didn’t matter that his phone wasn’t with him. This was all she had of him, her only way to reach him. Maybe, she thought, the feeling behind the words would go out into the ether somehow and make its way to him.

  It was all she had. Not nearly enough, but all she had. She dialed again.

  It’s Nolan. Leave a message. If you want to hear back, make it short and sweet.

  “Please come home. Please come home.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Nolan was awake for a long time before he thought to open his eyes or move. He came up from the depths of whatever dark place he’d been, first dreaming, then understanding he was dreaming. Then there was a strange time when he’d thought he was dreaming but grew to understand that he wasn’t.

  That was horrible, when awareness settled on him that the pain he felt was real-world pain, that the heat was real-world heat. He tried to force his mind back into the dark, but it wouldn’t go. Instead, his senses caught onto whatever hooks they could and pulled him back into the world.

  He opened his eyes. Above him were rafters and logs—a ceiling. His head hurt too much to try to move even his eyes, so he simply stared at the ceiling until it came into clear focus. He made out the grain of the wood, the faults—knot holes and gouges. Not a high ceiling, then. It wavered strangely, and it took him some unknown amount of time to understand that it was candlelight, or lantern-light—flickering flames of some sort—that made the view seem to move.

  His chest hurt—fuck, no, it was in agony, like he’d been impaled by a fence post. In comparison, the pain in his head barely warranted note. Lifting his head up, he looked to see what was tearing him in half.

  All he saw was his bare chest, wrapped in white bandages. He raised his arm to touch—he tried to raise his arm, to bring his hand to his chest, but it wouldn’t move. He tried again and felt a tight pressure on his wrist. He tried his other hand. Same thing.

  Finally, his mind began to clear, and he understood. He was tied to the bed. He moved his feet—his ankles were tied, too. Following on that understanding, his memories rushed in.

  This was David Vega’s cabin.

  He was in Vega’s cabin. Vega had shot him. With an arrow. And then clocked him in the head for good measure.

  But why was he alive? They’d been alone in the middle of the Canadian wilderness. Why was he still breathing—and patched up? But tied to the fucking bed?

  A new wave of illness rolled over Nolan as he understood. Torture. Vega wanted him well enough to torture. He thought of all that had been done to Show, Len, and Badger. And to his father. Show’s flesh whipped into hundreds of scars. Len’s eye taken and his arms and legs sliced, his hands broken. Badger flayed and broken. And Havoc, his father—his fingers severed, his feet burned, his guts spilled onto the floor. None of it for any reason except opportunity.

  Vega had been Julio Santaveria’s right hand then. He had overseen it all. He had been working for their own government, and yet he had been in charge of all of it. He’d killed Havoc himself.

  And now Nolan was at his mercy, too.

  Panic took root in his belly and surged up, seeming to swell and stretch his chest. His heart thumped so hard that his vision pulsed. The pain in his chest—the left side, so close to his heart that every beat of that frantic organ made agony shoot into his left arm and bite at his fingertips—was almost too much to bear.

  His head felt hot and strange, and his thoughts wouldn’t stay in order. It occurred to him that he might have a fever, too. Maybe he wouldn’t get well. Maybe he would die before Vega could get him well enough to torture. That seemed a best-case scenario now.

  Iris.

  The thought of her tumbled through his head, and he caught it and held on. He missed her so fucking much. He’d come up here, gone through all this, to get right with his past, to balance the scales of his life and Havoc’s death, to avenge his father and put that pain and loss to rest—all so that he could see a life beyond it. So he could love Iris and build a future with her, so he could be the man she deserved, not that needy, desperate piece of shit who couldn’t even let her take care of her sick mom without losing his mind.

  He had come up here to make the man who had taken so much from him, and from those he loved, pay, and to neutralize the risk he still posed.

  And he had failed. Now he would die, probably horribly, and then maybe Vega and his friends would turn their sights on the Horde again. Nolan understood that he would die having failed absolutely everyone he’d ever loved.

  That thought billowed in his head, and the despair it loosed pushed him back into darkness.

  ~oOo~

  He couldn’t have been out for long, because he was still alone when he woke again. This time, he came awake with full clarity. He lay unmoving for a few minutes, making as certain as he could that he was indeed alone. Then he lifted his head and scanned his surroundings. His head swam; the hot pain in his chest was bad, and now his throat burned, too, but the ill feeling in his head, though duller, was somehow worse. It made his mind feel muddy.

  He was in what he supposed was the main room of the cabin. He was tied not to a bed, but to a folded-out sleeper sofa—or a loveseat, more like; the bed was narrow, built for one. Wondering if being bound to a folding bed meant some kind of opportunity to work himself free, he moved as much as he could, testing the bonds, trying to pull the end of the bed up with his bound legs. All that seemed to accomplish was to send a sledgehammer of fresh pain into his left shoulder and his chest. His vision dimmed and his hearing roared with the bite of it.

  When all that settled down and he could think again, he lifted his head once more, and saw all he could.

  It was dark outside, but not full dark. Evening. Two lantern sconces on the far wall and two more on a nearby table provided that flickering light. The air smelled faintly of burning kerosene.

  The room was kitchen and living room, and the furniture was sparse. The kitchen consisted of a pump sink, a free-standing cabinet, some shelves, and the table where the lanterns flickered. Two straight-backed chairs were pushed in under it.

  Other than the table and the loveseat, the only furniture in this room was an old-fashioned wooden rocking chair next to a big black wood stove.

  Nacto had said that this place was way off the grid, and he hadn’t been wrong. Not even solar power, no real plumbing, nothing.

  There was a door on each wall. They all looked the same—one of them h
e had trouble seeing from his vantage; it was on the same wall as the loveseat he was tied to—but Nolan assumed that two were front and back exterior doors, and that one of them led to a bedroom. The other, he didn’t know. A bathroom or another bedroom.

  He tried to envision the exterior of the cabin and orient himself that way, but doing so didn’t improve his guess much.

  Taking up the wall near what he guessed was the front door was a weapons rack: three hunting rifles, a shotgun, two bows, and an M-16. How much firepower did one man need?

  Focusing on the environment had brought reason back to his head and given him mastery over his pain as well. Turning his attention to himself, he tried to understand his bindings. Rope. He was bound tightly with rope. With the extreme limitation on his mobility, and in the dim gold light of the room, he couldn’t see well enough to understand the kind of rope, but it felt stiff and sharp. Plastic braided rope, he guessed. Shit.