She glanced furtively over her shoulder and was blinded by headlights cresting the hill behind her.
Chapter Thirteen
The rumble of approaching tires on the gravel stilled the chirping crickets. To Maggie, it seemed she’d been walking for days. The night air made her skin clammy. Her guiding, distant lights were ever more elusive—a cruel mirage that teased her with hope before they receded again behind the thousandth hill.
She glanced furtively over her shoulder and was blinded by headlights cresting the hill behind her. In that moment she made up her mind. She didn’t care if the driver was another lone cowboy or Jack the Ripper. If he stopped and offered her a ride, she would take it. She moved closer to the ditch on the left side of the road and slowed her pace, walking between the edge of the ditch and the ruts that had been worn deep into the road’s surface by decades of eastbound vehicles—or perhaps even by covered wagons.
In the hours she’d been trudging along this Kansas road, the centuries had seemed to fold back on themselves. Now, strangely, she wouldn’t have been any more surprised to see a stagecoach pull up behind her than she was to see the old wood-paneled station wagon that crept to a stop at her side.
She stopped in the road, waiting. The window rolled down in a series of jerky movements. The interior lights came on and a young woman’s head appeared. At the same time the back window also slid down. Two matching curly blond heads bobbed into sight, then a third, a spike-haired boy she guessed to be about six.
“Hey!” the woman yelled. “Everything okay?”
The children echoed her question and she turned to shush them.
Maggie approached the car.
The front window jerked halfway up again. Maggie backed off a couple of steps. She, of all people, understood the woman’s caution.
“I could use a ride.”
“Your car break down?” Again three towheads popped out the back window. The woman rolled her eyes at Maggie and stretched over the backseat. “Landon Michael DeVore! Sit. Now. You girls buckle back in.”
“No. It’s a long story. I’m kind of stranded.”
“Well, where you headed?”
“That town up there.” Maggie pointed in the direction of the lights, which had withered into the night again. She hoped she hadn’t imagined them. She was beginning to wonder.
“Clayburn?”
She nodded, relieved there was a town.
“I can give you a ride. You live in Clayburn?”
“No, I’m just visiting.”
“Well, come on. Hop in.”
Maggie jogged around to the passenger side, all at once weak with relief. The woman pushed the door open and scraped a collection of coloring books and McDonald’s Happy Meal bags off the passenger seat onto the floor. Maggie got in and gingerly found a place for her feet on the cluttered floorboard.
“Where’d you come from? Oh. Sorry. I’m Kaye.” She nodded toward the backseat. “These are my kids. Well, three of them anyway.”
Maggie turned to smile and wave at the children. “I’m . . . Meg,” she said, remembering in the nick of time.
The children sat in a row on the backseat—statues watching her with unguarded eyes.
Their mother laughed. “I ought to hire you to ride with us all the time. I haven’t seen them that quiet since the last time I got a speeding ticket.”
“The cop made Mama cry,” the little boy offered.
“Hush, Landon,” his mother said. She gave Maggie a conspiratorial wink. “It worked like a charm. I got away with nothing but a warning . . . well, that and a good workout for my heart.”
Landon piped up again. “You shoulda seen how fast that cop had to go to catch Mama.”
“Landon! I said hush.” Kaye turned to Maggie. “So where are you from?”
Apprehension stole her voice for an instant. “From Salina.”
“Well, I hope you didn’t hitchhike.”
“No . . . I walked.”
Kaye tapped the brakes and stared at Maggie agape. “You walked? Not from Salina?”
Maggie nodded.
“No way. That’s like, fifteen miles.”
“It is?” Maggie was a little stunned herself, until she looked at the clock on the station wagon’s dashboard. It was after nine. She’d been on the road for almost five hours. No wonder she was tired to the bone.
“Where are you staying?”
“Um . . . one of the hotels. I don’t remember the name.”
“One of the hotels?” Kaye threw her head back and laughed. “You must mean Wren’s?”
“Wren’s?”
“Wren’s Nest is the closest thing Clayburn has to a hotel. It’s more like an oversized bed-and-breakfast.”
“Oh, yeah . . . that’s it. Do you think they’ll have a vacancy?”
“Honey, you could probably have two rooms there if you wanted.”
“Oh, good.” She wanted to cry with relief. She was so weary she didn’t know if she could walk another ten steps. “I hope it’s not too expensive.”
Kay scratched her head. “I honestly don’t know how much it is to stay there. But knowing Bart and Wren, it won’t be unreasonable. And if you’re a little short, Wren’d probably let you wash pots and pans to make up the difference.”
Maggie tucked that tidbit away.
They rode the next few miles in silence. The station wagon rumbled over an old wooden bridge wide enough for only one vehicle. A green sign declared they were crossing the Smoky Hill River. Maggie saw the lights twinkle again, closer. This time they appeared very real and welcoming. She relaxed a little.
Five minutes later the town materialized in front of them. It was tiny. Not much more than a stop in the road. But if there was someplace for her to lay her head, she didn’t care how big it was.
Kaye drove down the main street, which appeared to be almost the only street. Though neat white lines sectioned the curbs into parking spaces, every space was empty and not one vehicle cruised the road. If not for the glow of the streetlamps overhead, Maggie would have thought she’d landed in a ghost town.
“The inn’s right up there.” Kaye pointed through the windshield to an old building that took up an entire corner of the block. Lamplight shot through a filigree of lace curtains at the window. A spotlight shown on a weathered sign that declared, Wren’s Nest: Country living inside the city limits.
It was so quaint, her nose could almost detect the spice of homemade apple pie and strong coffee. Her mouth watered in response to the mere thought. She hadn’t had anything to eat since she finished off the bag of stale popcorn along the road outside Salina.
“You can let me out here.”
“Nonsense. As far as you walked today, the least I can do is take you to the door. You didn’t have any bags?”
“They’re coming later. They got lost . . . on the bus.”
“That’s a bummer.”
“Yeah.” For a minute, she had an image of that mammoth Greyhound bus pulling up in front of this inn tomorrow morning to deliver a pair of suitcases filled with her clothes, her drawings, and her precious pens and colored pencils carefully wrapped amongst the folds of cotton and khaki . . .
Brother. She was starting to believe her own lies.
She climbed out of the car and leaned to peer into the backseat. “Bye kids.”
Landon waved, and the twins giggled, suddenly shy.
“Thanks so much for the ride. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come along.”
Kaye waved her off. “Don’t think a thing of it. It wasn’t much out of my way at all.”
Maggie shut the door and took a step back. She watched the station wagon make a U-turn and head back the way they’d come. Taking a labored breath, she turned to look up at Wren’s Nest. Might as well get it over with.
She didn’t know if her mother was even alive. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
Chapter Fourteen
Maggie opened the screen door facing Main
Street and pushed the brass kick plate of the front door. A bell tinkled when she closed the door behind her.
“I’ll be right with you,” a gravelly male voice called out from somewhere to her right.
She waited, scanning the large lobby, which had as its centerpiece an ornately carved L-shaped counter that served as a check-in desk. A massive fireplace to her left was cold, yet its wide mantel, decorated with antiques and whimsical figurines, offered a different kind of warmth to the room. Beyond, to the right of the hearth, a long hallway stretched, punctuated by perhaps eight or ten doorways, each with a lighted sconce illuminating the recessed entry.
In a dining room beyond an arched doorway to her right, a jumble of tables and chairs had been pushed against the walls under the windows. In the middle of the room, an assortment of lumber spanned two sawhorses. Instead of the apple pie and coffee she’d dreamed of, the tang of sawdust hung in the air.
A clatter of dishes came from somewhere beyond the room. A man who would have been a dead ringer for Santa Claus, had he been wearing a red fur-trimmed suit, ducked under the arched doorway. The woman who bustled out behind him wasn’t far off from the way Maggie imagined Mrs. Claus to look with her white topknot and gingham apron.
“Good evening. Welcome to Wren’s. How can we help you?” Mrs. Claus said.
“I’d like a room for the night. I don’t have reservations but—”
“No problem. Let me get you set up here.” She waddled around the check-in desk and lifted a key off the wall behind it. “Bart,” she ordered, handing the key to Santa Claus, “Go out and get this young woman’s luggage and take it to 208, please.”
Maggie stepped forward, managing a weary smile. “Oh, that’s all right. My luggage . . . got put on the wrong bus. I don’t have anything to carry.”
Mrs. Claus inspected Maggie over her reading glasses. “Nothing? Not even a purse?”
She shook her head. “But I have cash to pay,” she added quickly.
The woman waved her off. “Goodness, we’re not worried about that. Don’t you fret. We’ll get you taken care of.” She leaned out over the counter and studied Maggie again. “You look flat exhausted, honey. Bart, you get her checked in and I’ll go round up the things she’ll need for the night.”
The man moseyed behind the counter and took out an invoice pad. With stubby fingers, he struggled to get the carbon in place. “Well, let’s see now. First I need your name and address.”
“It’s Meg. Meg Anders.”
“Anderson, you say?”
She froze. Had she given her real name? She was so exhausted she wasn’t thinking straight.
“Sorry.” Bart cupped a hand to one ear. “I’m a little hard of hearing.”
“It’s Anders.”
“A-N-D-E-R-S?”
She nodded and watched him print the letters in painstaking strokes. He finished and peeked up at her through bushy white eyebrows. “That dear wife of mine is a stickler about the paperwork. Wren lives in fear of an IRS audit.”
“Oh, so that’s Wren?” She pointed in the direction of the hall Mrs. Claus had disappeared down.
“The one and only. I’m Bart, but you can just call me Mr. Wren.” He gave a low, jolly chuckle, searing the Santa Claus image into her mind. “Okay, let’s see . . . I guess I need your address next.”
Maggie had decided during her fifteen-mile walk that she would “be” from California. She’d had a pen pal from that state. After copying Trudy March’s address every week from third grade until she outgrew the novelty during middle school, Maggie had never forgotten it. Trudy’s address also happened to be the date Columbus “sailed the ocean blue,” an easily remembered line from an elementary school song. “1492 Rainwater, Fall River, California.” She gave Bart the zip code, trying to make it sound as if she’d been giving out her address for years. She had to repeat it twice before he heard. There wasn’t a computer or even a cash register on the counter, so maybe they wouldn’t try to verify her information. Besides, she was paying cash.
“California, huh?” Bart said. “Whereabouts is Fall River?”
“Oh . . . in northern California. Nowhere near LA or Hollywood.” She quoted Trudy’s introductory letter and racked her brain for some other tidbits from her pen pal’s old correspondence.
“How many nights will you be staying?”
“Just one. Just for tonight.”
He mumbled to himself as he finished filling out the invoice, then looked up at her and gave an obviously memorized speech. “We’re in the middle of remodeling our kitchen and dining room, so breakfast will be served here in the lobby from six until nine. Checkout time is noon, unless you need a later time. Wren’s not too picky about that as long as we’re not full up. If you want to give me your credit card information now, you can just leave your key in the room in the morning and you’ll be all set.”
She dug in her pocket. “I’m paying cash, but I’ll go ahead and take care of it now. How much is it for one night?”
“Sixty-five dollars plus tax.” His pudgy fingers punched the keys of an old manual adding machine. The plunk of the keys and the whirr of paper tape feeding through the machine jerked her back to a childhood memory . . .
Her mother at the kitchen table late at night doing bookwork for the apartment manager after she’d already put in a long day on her feet in the factory . . .
Maggie hadn’t thought of that in at least a decade. But that was before. She stuffed the next thoughts back inside. She didn’t know if her mother was even alive. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
Bart rang up the sale, ripped off the white and yellow tapes, and laid her copy on the counter in front of her. He pointed to the total. “Sorry, but we have to charge room tax and sales tax. Jacks it up pretty steep.”
Maggie peeled off four twenty-dollar bills. He made change, and she tucked the bills back in her pocket.
“Right this way,” he said, leading her down the hallway where Wren had disappeared.
He stopped at the first room on the left. The door was open, and Wren was beside the bed. She was bent over picking at something on the carpet, her round, gingham-clad backside facing them like one of those tacky lawn ornaments Maggie had seen in suburban yards.
Bart cleared his throat, and Wren popped up and whirled to face them. “Good gravy, Bart. You pert near scared me to death. Okay, miss, you should have everything you need until your luggage arrives. Are they sending it here?”
“My luggage?” Maggie groped for an answer. “No. I had them send it on . . . ahead.”
“Oh?” Wren planted plump hands on her hips. “And where are you headed from here?”
If she were in a New York hotel, she would have told the concierge it was taken care of, not to mention it was none of his business. But somehow she didn’t mind the question coming from this grandmotherly woman. Unfortunately, she didn’t have an answer.
“I’m not sure.” It was the first honest reply she’d given since Opal Sanchez had picked her up on that off-ramp Tuesday morning.
Wren cocked her head, waiting.
“I’m still considering some options.”
“I see. Well . . .” She grabbed a dust rag off the corner of the dresser and gave Bart a shove. “We’ll get out of your hair so you can get cleaned up and get some rest.” She motioned toward the door in the corner of the room where a dim light shone on a spotless tile floor. “I put a toothbrush and some other things you might be needing in the bathroom. And there’s a nightgown I never wear hanging in the closet. You holler if you need anything else, and we’ll try to rustle it up.”
“Is there anyplace around here to get something to eat this time of night?”
“Read?” Bart put a beefy hand on his wife’s shoulder. “Wren here has all kind of reading material. You just—”
Wren tugged on her husband’s sleeve. “She said eat, Bart. Eat.” She pantomimed shoveling food into her mouth.
“Oh . . . eat. Sorry. I thought you said re
ad. I’m a little hard of hearing,” he said again. “You mean like a snack?”
“Well, I haven’t had dinner yet.”
“Good land!” Wren clutched a hand to her breast. “Why didn’t you say something, honey? Listen, you get out of those clothes and put them out in the hallway. I’ll get them washed up for you.”
“Oh, you don’t have to—”
“Now you just go draw yourself a nice bath and get comfortable, and I’ll put a tray by your door. You probably noticed my kitchen is slightly out of commission, but I can whip up a sandwich. You like corned beef?”
“You don’t need to go to the trouble. Is there maybe a vending machine somewh—?”
“Nonsense! It’s no trouble at all.” The woman clicked out a tsk-tsk and gave Maggie a little push toward the bathroom. “You go hop in that tub. We’ll take care of the rest.”
Maggie was touched—and too tired to argue. She closed the door behind them and went into the tiny bathroom. An antique claw-foot tub sat in one corner, a pile of plush green towels stacked beside it. She popped the plug into the drain and turned on the hot water. It felt wonderful to slip out of her dust-crusted clothes. Wrapped in a towel, she went to slip them outside the door. She hoped the woman would pick them up before some prankster came down the hall and swiped them. She’d look pretty funny walking along the highway tomorrow in an old woman’s nightgown.
Back in the bathroom, she examined the assortment of products the woman—Wren—had left beside the sink. There were sample sizes of luxury shampoo and soap and lotions. She smiled when she noticed they were labeled for various well-known hotel chains. The lavender scent of a little bottle of bubble bath enticed her and she squirted some under the steaming stream of water. A mountain of suds billowed up, and Maggie climbed into their warmth.
Fifteen minutes later she drained the lukewarm water and rinsed the sludge out of the tub. Then she refilled it and soaked for another twenty minutes. She didn’t know when a bath had ever felt so heavenly.
The water was starting to cool when a sharp rap at the door startled her. She sat up and smoothed her wet hair back from her face with fingertips that had turned to prunes. “Yes?”
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