Wild Flower

by Abbie Williams

  “Are you hurting, love?” he asked, as sun peeked in the tall window to the right of the bed.

  “You’re asking again,” I muttered. My good mood had long since dissipated but Mathias was undeterred. I’d told him if he asked one more time I would banish him to the waiting room.

  “Matty-pants, if you can’t handle a little pain, you better get your ass out of here,” Tina said; she’d joined us a few minutes ago. Mom, Millie Jo, Aunt Jilly, and my sisters were just down the hall, along with Bull and Diana. Every few minutes one of them would pop over to our room just in case the action had started.

  I giggled at Tina’s words and Mathias said, “Are you kidding? You couldn’t force me out of here at gunpoint. I’m going to be right here to play catcher when my boys come out.”

  Aunt Jilly stuck her head in the door, the morning sunlight dancing over her golden hair. “Can I join you? You don’t mind one more body in here do you, Milla-billa? I’m too impatient out there.”

  “Of course not,” I told my auntie.

  She fluttered to the bed and kissed my forehead, smoothing her delicate hands over my belly in small, rhythmic circles, as though about to start a hypnosis routine; as always, her touch sent little spiraling shivers all along my nerves, an involuntary response to the electric energy of her.

  “Morning, Jills,” Tina said. “I saw your little guy with Justin at the grocery store the other day. Oh my God, he’s adorable.”

  “I’ll tell Justin you said so,” Aunt Jilly teased. “He is pretty damn adorable, isn’t he?”

  Tina laughed. “Yeah, and so’s your baby.”

  Riley Justin Miller was born last September; he possessed utterly kissable chubby cheeks and huge brown eyes, and I’d never seen a baby who smiled more than him. Possibly this came from being cuddled every second of every day. Rae was fiercely protective of him.

  “By noon,” Aunt Jilly said with certainty, patting my belly.

  As of today, no trace of Zack Dixon had yet been discovered—not in Landon, or Moorhead, or anyplace in Minnesota—and there were no leads. Charlie Evans had conducted extensive searching, at last making contact with an old woman in St. Louis who claimed to have once had a grandson by that name, one she’d not seen in over four years. It scared me way down deep in my bones that another inexplicable crime had been committed in Landon, an otherwise sleepy little town with zero history of violence.

  We’d speculated endlessly, reaching no conclusions—could Zack Dixon have been responsible for attacking Mathias in the woods last February? But again the why of it stumped all of us, even Aunt Jilly. Why would someone attack either her or Mathias? There seemed no clear motive, and though I resolved to stop losing sleep over it, the feeling lingered at the back of my mind. When I looked across our clearing in the light of the sunset and saw my man, the sun glinting in his black hair and the love in his eyes, I recognized I could never be grateful enough that he was still here, that I’d not been robbed of him; I still sometimes struggled to believe that Mathias was no longer in harm’s way…that he and I could be so happy with no repercussions…

  And then there was Noah, who’d become an unwitting hero. I talked to him at least once a week, satisfied that he was doing all right these days; he’d re-enrolled in college and was finishing up his undergraduate degree. He understood his life had been saved that night, too, and he believed in second chances, as he’d told me when I went to visit him shortly after getting home from Montana last summer. He saw Millie Jo as often as he could.

  “You think?” Mathias asked Aunt Jilly, all but hopping from foot to foot. “By noon?”

  Tish and Ruthie came around the corner from the hallway, Ruthie carrying Millie Jo and Tish with a tray containing coffee and donuts.

  “I know you’re not supposed to eat,” Tish said, making room for the tray on the bedside table. “But I figured you’d be hungry.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “There’s enough food for five people here.” To Millie Jo, who’d been worried all morning, I said, “Hi, baby. It’s all right.”

  “Well, you are eating for three,” Tish reminded me.

  “She’s been begging for you,” Ruthie told Mathias, handing Millie to him.

  “Your little brothers are coming today!” Mathias reminded Millie Jo, bouncing her on his arm as he carried her to my side. Millie wrapped her arms around Mathias’s neck and clung, resting her forehead on his jaw; she disliked seeing me like this, on an unfamiliar bed in a room that smelled like antiseptic. Mathias assured, “Mama is just fine, sweetheart.”

  “Your brothers have to push out of your mom, just like you did,” Tish said to her niece, trying to be helpful, nabbing a sprinkle-top donut and eating about half with one bite.

  “Tish,” I groaned, as Millie’s dark eyebrows knit with confusion.

  As Aunt Jilly and Tina both attempted to offer my daughter an explanation, I regarded Tish as covertly as I was able, thinking of my wedding back in October. The Rawleys had ventured to Minnesota, to our great delight, Clark bringing all of his boys, including Case and Gus. Mathias and I were so happy to see them; they loved Shore Leave as much as we’d loved Jalesville. My sisters met the Rawley boys; Ruthie was so shy she could hardly speak around them on what amounted to only a brief visit, hardly longer than the busy weekend. And Case had indeed met Tish. I sighed a little, wondering just what to do about what had happened.

  It’s not up to you to change anything, I reminded myself, not for the first time. Tish can make her own decisions.

  But I remembered again the haunted expression in Case’s eyes that night at the dance, and of the way he’d looked the next morning when they packed up to drive back to Montana…

  Camille, it’s not your business.

  “Are you all right, Milla? You want a donut?” Ruthie asked, catching my braid in her hand and gently wagging it side to side. She was so sweet—she had no idea that Marshall Rawley, sexy drummer from Montana, had told his brothers if they dared to flirt with her that he’d bust their jaws; Case had told me all about it that October weekend—he’d basically issued the same order, about Tish. Even so, Marshall hadn’t spoken a word to Ruthie the entire weekend, as though sensing it wasn’t the right time.

  “No, thanks,” I said, touched by Ruthie’s concern. Millie had started to cry and I tried to comfort her, and in the noise and confusion of everyone talking, I almost didn’t realize that my water had just broken.

  Hours later, two baby boys, just over five pounds each, were in my arms. The delivery room was once again packed with people, but I didn’t mind. Our families were so excited that I could not deny any of them this opportunity to meet the newest members. Mathias and I had settled on names during my bedrest and two brand-new birth certificates read Brantley Malcolm and Henry Mathias Carter.

  “These are my grandsons,” Bull rumbled proudly, snuggling Brantley to his powerful chest. “My boy made twins on the first try, see there.”

  Aunt Ellen and Grandma regarded Bull with amused eyes. Grandma said drily, “Camille had nothing to do with it, I’m sure.”

  I’d never seen Mathias so giddy. He lifted Millie Jo up to see Henry, who was cuddled in my arms. “Look there, sweetheart, that’s your little brother.”

  “Mama, are they going to live with us?” Millie asked, studying the baby with eyebrows quirked. She hooked a finger in her mouth, frowning like a little owl. Her expression clearly said I don’t know about this.

  Mathias kissed her cheek. “They sure are, sweetheart. You’ll love them, don’t you worry.”

  “You were this little once,” I told her. “And Mama will need your help. These two need a lot of attention.”

  “Can they play with me?” Millie asked. “They don’t look fun, Mama.”

  “Camille, you’re hogging him,” Ruthie complained, reaching for Henry.

  “Me next!” Diana insisted, and Mathias sent me a knowing grin; he couldn’t wait for us to be alone with our boys, but he also understood how much everyo
ne wanted to see them.

  I love you, I said without words, and he entwined our fingers.

  I love you so damn much, honey, he said, and tears shone in his indigo eyes.

  “We’ll be home soon,” I said, bringing his hand to my lips, kissing his knuckles.

  “We are home,” he whispered. “Wherever we are, as long as we’re together, that’s home.”

  And I tugged him close so that he could kiss my lips.

  Excerpt from The First Law of Love

  Rain was spattering the glass just a few inches from my nose as I sat there in the gloom of my apartment. I blew a long stream of smoke in the direction of the five inches of screen near the bottom of the window, cranked open in my attempt to ensure that no one would complain about the scent of the cigarette. I was stressed.

  The city was dismal under the low, weeping sky, an hour or so from sunset. The streetlight a block away went through its paces in a repeating array of blurry color, starbursts of red, green, yellow and then back to red; I watched like one mesmerized.

  I closed my eyes then, vividly conjuring up an image of fireflies at dusk, lighting the advancing darkness with their golden-green sparks of light. In the background I could see Flickertail Lake gleaming blue promises and my heart clenched on a hard note of longing.

  Landon. Shore Leave. Home.

  I hadn’t been back to Minnesota in over a year. But what did I expect as a student in the JD program at Northwestern College? Free time? A boyfriend? The ability to see my family now and then?

  I expected none of these things, as my father warned me over three years ago, after I’d been accepted to Northwestern Law. As I’d been staying in Chicago with them the warm and windy afternoon I’d received my letter of acceptance, Dad and his wife, Lanny, took me out for dinner at Spiaggia and I felt as though the universe was presenting me with an incredible gift, this chance to make something of myself.

  Euphoric could not begin to describe me that evening, buzzed as I’d been on my own glory, real and imagined. The juris doctor program. Chicago and all its glittery, delightful bustle. Dad’s beaming smile. Visions of myself standing triumphant before judges, handling and winning case after important case swirled madly through my mind as I sipped wine, too revved up for food. That was also the evening I first met Ronald Turnbull, a business associate of my father’s, only a passing introduction as he’d paused momentarily at our table to chat with Dad.

  “Ron, this is my daughter, Patricia,” Dad had said.

  Ron, silver-haired and stern-faced, intimidatingly confident of his place in the world, produced a smile for me as our hands met. “Ms. Gordon. I understand congratulations are in order.”

  “Thank you,” I responded. “I plan to prove myself and then some.”

  He chuckled at this, and I felt my shoulders square in defense, but then Ron surprised me by saying, “I’ve got my eye on you, Ms. Gordon. Perhaps we can chat when you’re on the hunt for summer work.”

  I was stunned by this pronouncement but I’d kept all of that from my expression, maintaining a professional mien. I responded smoothly, “I appreciate that very much. Again, thank you.”

  Dad couldn’t keep from grinning as Ron was led to another table. He leaned toward me and murmured, “I would love to see you ground floor, Turnbull and Hinckley. That’s promising, Tish, promising indeed.”

  “He sits on the appellate court?” I asked, peering discreetly after Ron. The appellate court was comprised of alumni and faculty; as a first-year student I would present mock cases before them, arguing against fellow students. The thought filled me with prickles of nervous anticipation.

  “Alumni,” Dad confirmed. “And Ron is an old friend. I’ve talked about you for years, honey, but you’ll prove yourself.”

  That he thought so sent the warmth of pride through my heart. Dad was an expert schmoozer; a sincere compliment from him was a rarity and so I let myself bask in the one he’d just bestowed.

  “Favors,” Lanny said, caressing her wine glass. She had not yet touched the appetizers; she didn’t remain a size two for nothing. My stepmother wasn’t exactly the evil witch I’d once believed though I still found her as shallow as a wading pool, but I was mature enough to be civil to her. She elaborated, “Favors are what get you ahead. You scratch Ron’s back now, he’ll return the gesture.” Her full, candy-tinted lips plumped into a speculative pout as she regarded me. I studied her false eyelashes as she added, “It doesn’t hurt that you’re young and beautiful, either.”

  I wasn’t sure if I should thank her or consider this a smoothly-delivered insult. Implication: that’s how a woman gets ahead in the corporate world.