Her mother was quiet for a moment. “You were supposed to go to the airport with him, but when it was time to leave, no one could find you. I think we finally found you in your tree house, hours after Jonathan returned from the airport. You were crying about the necklace.”
The tree house her dad had built. It’d been her sanctuary in the months after he left.
“When he didn’t come home, you withdrew, just closed yourself off. Oh, you functioned—went to school, that sort of thing—but it was a long time before you laughed again. And the nightmares. They were horrible.”
Her mom stood and walked to the window with her back to Taylor.
“I’m sorry, Taylor. I didn’t handle that time in our lives very well. I thought if I didn’t talk about it, it would be all right.”
“I know that now, Mom. I kept thinking he’d come home.”
“Well, he didn’t.” Her mother turned around, the lacy curtains billowing around her. “There’s something I should have told you and Chase long ago.” She shut her eyes and stood very still. Then she sighed. “We had your father declared legally dead.”
Taylor’s breath caught in her chest. “You had Daddy declared legally dead, and you didn’t tell me? When?”
Her mother stared down at her fingers.
“Mother, please. I know this is hard, but tell me . . .”
“Seven years after he left. Jonathan said we had to, that none of the insurance would pay unless we did. It was evident your father wasn’t coming back, no one had heard from him, and the private investigator your uncle hired couldn’t find any trace of him. We needed the money to run the farm, for your college education. Then we decided it would be better to wait until you were older before we told you.”
The words, spoken in monotone, hung flat and dismal between them.
“How much older?” Taylor’s voice cracked. “I’m twenty-eight. Chase is thirty. When were you going to tell us?”
“I know we should have, but there was never a right time.” Mom returned to the bed and sat on the edge. “Besides, I just knew your father would come back someday.”
Taylor’s anger dissolved in the face of her mom’s heartbreak. Now she knew why Mom created her own reality sometimes. It was a coping mechanism. Her mother had handled the situation the only way she knew how. “Do you think he could be dead?”
“No!” Her mom touched her chest. “I would know in here.”
Silence settled in the room as Taylor processed what she’d learned. “Is there anything else?”
Her mom traced her finger around the stitching on the quilt. “Until the day he left, your father was a good man. You must believe that.”
“How can you say that? A good man wouldn’t have left us.”
“I’m talking about before that.” Her mother paused. “I have something I want you to see.”
She hurried from the room and returned in less than a minute with a packet of letters in her hand. “Read these, and you’ll know his true heart.”
“He wrote you more than one letter after he left?”
“No. These are from earlier trips. Notes encouraging us, love letters, really. I know he never changed the way he felt. He loved us.”
Was her mom trying to convince Taylor or herself? She took the packet. A thin blue ribbon held them together.
“Read them, and if you want to talk again, I’ll be downstairs with coffee and cinnamon rolls waiting.”
After the door closed, Taylor stared at the packet. Letters from her daddy. Mom had saved them all these years. With a deep breath, she untied the ribbon and took out the first letter. It had been unfolded and refolded many times. Strong, bold handwriting flowed across the page. She checked the date. Six months before he disappeared.
My darling Allison, it began. I’ve been gone only a day and it seems like a month. Taylor read slowly, absorbing each word. It was impossible to stay detached and uninvolved. The man who had written this letter obviously loved his wife and two children.
Or was a very accomplished liar.
Each letter was several pages long with numerous references to Taylor and Chase. In one, he mentioned the outcome of Chase’s basketball games and talked about Taylor’s upcoming dance recital. In another, he encouraged them to get good grades. One by one she read them. When she finished, she stacked the letters together, retied the ribbon, and placed the packet in the nightstand beside her bed.
Taylor wanted to believe what was in the letters, that her father loved them, but his words didn’t jibe with his actions or the letter he’d sent from who-knows-where. She’d like to see that letter. She shut her door and went downstairs to the kitchen.
“Well?” her mother asked.
“He seemed to love us.”
“He definitely loved us. When he went on his trips, he wrote at least one letter.”
“Why didn’t he just call?”
“He did,” she said, a wistful smile curving her lips. “But he said a letter was something to hold on to, to read over and over. Your father was a romantic.”
The image from her dream of her father dancing with another woman materialized. She wished she could erase that from her mind like her mother erased the last letter he’d sent. If she could, she might believe the letters. “May I keep them a few days? I’d like to read them again.”
“As long as you return them.” Mom took down a plate. “Cinnamon roll?”
“Sounds good.” Taylor poured a cup of coffee and took the roll to the breakfast nook.
“What are your plans for today?” Mom asked as she sat opposite her.
“Thought I’d visit Kate.” She’d decided to talk to Kate in person about a room for Nick. “Maybe make something on the wheel. Livy is dropping by the shop around ten.”
Taylor had called Livy from the hospital to let her know she wouldn’t be coming by her office and that Scott was in the ER. She had the preliminary report on Ross finished, and perhaps they’d actually get together today. And maybe she could learn a little more about her dad from Kate. She caught her mom staring at her with a slight frown on her face. “What? Do I have sugar on my chin?”
“Should you be going out alone?”
Taylor’s spine stiffened, and she folded her arms across her chest. “I will not become a prisoner in this house.”
“You will be careful?”
“Of course I will, but I don’t think he’ll attack me in plain daylight.”
“Just don’t let your guard down.” She stood up from the table. “I have an appointment in town today. There’s plenty of food in the fridge for lunch, but I should be home in time to throw something together for supper.”
“Will Ethan be coming by again?” Taylor tried to sound casual.
Her mother blushed. “I’m not sure.”
“Is anything going on I should know about?”
“I told you, he’s just a friend.”
“Is he now? I saw him watching you, and I don’t think friendship is all he’s thinking.”
She looked at her mother with new eyes. It was hard to believe she’d be fifty her next birthday. Maybe because she didn’t look it. Her trim figure testified that working out paid dividends. Taylor hoped she’d inherited her mom’s youthful genes. Mom rubbed her left hand, and Taylor noticed her mother no longer wore her wedding ring. When had that happened?
“Nothing will ever come of it. I don’t have the energy or inclination for a relationship.” Resignation tinged her mom’s voice. “Besides, he’s too young for me.”
“Ethan’s what, a couple of years younger? That’s nothing.”
“More like five. In ten years when I’m sixty, he’ll be fifty-five.”
Taylor laughed. “Haven’t you heard? Sixty is the new forty.”
“I’m serious. You’ve seen him. Ethan is very good-looking. I’m surprised he isn’t dating one of those pretty young lawyers in Memphis. I don’t even know how this . . . attraction started. He’s always been around, but it’s like now we’r
e seeing each other for the first time.”
“Well, I think he knows a good thing when he sees it.”
“You’re talking foolishness. Don’t you have something better to do? I thought you were going to Kate’s.”
Taylor stood and lifted another cinnamon roll onto a napkin. “I am.”
“Then go and stop tormenting me.”
The lingering scent of smoke and charred wood pinched Nick’s nose as he viewed the destroyed kitchen. Angie’s kitchen. He scowled at the burn pattern etched up the wall behind the stove, blistered paint, blackened curtains, and soot everywhere. A charred iron skillet sat on the stove top, the once chrome-plated knob still turned on high.
He stepped through the rubble. Spied the broken whiskey bottle. Booze . . . a wasted life. Nick shook his head. That was not going to be Scott’s future. It was time to shake some sense into his brother’s head, and he would as soon as Scott could put two sentences together.
Nick had come out to his house to pick up a change of clothes. Scratch that idea unless he wanted to smell like a chimney. Unwillingly, his gaze traveled to where Angie’s cookbooks had lined the wall. Now the shelf and cookbooks lay in a charred clump on the blackened floor. His anger burned hot against Scott. Probably a good thing he couldn’t get his hands on his little brother right now.
Nick knelt and dug through the heap, seeking the cookbook he’d looked through yesterday. Was it just yesterday? He pulled the waterlogged book from the bottom of the pile and placed it on the kitchen table. At least it hadn’t been completely destroyed.
Unbidden, Taylor’s image popped into his mind . . . Blue eyes that deepened to violet as she’d listened to his story about Scott. Nick’s hand went to his wedding band. He’d done nothing wrong yesterday. He slid the band back and forth on his finger.
Other than want to kiss Taylor.
18
Taylor made one last pull on the wet clay and admired the height of her pot. It was good to lose herself in the clay before Livy arrived. Then would be soon enough to return to her problems, but for the moment, all she wanted to do was put aside thoughts of someone trying to kill her.
Kate stopped by her wheel. “I miss you three girls in the pottery room, but I see you still have the touch.”
“I wish.” She’d never had Livy and Robyn’s skill, but she’d had determination. Taylor wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. An oscillating floor fan swayed from side to side, stirring the air.
She stood a ruler beside the cylinder. Tall enough for a nice vase. Not bad for someone who hadn’t sat behind a wheel in a while. “Don’t know why I quit this.”
Feeling the clay as it became smooth under her hands and then transforming it into something beautiful touched deep inside her. She cocked her head to the side and studied the cylinder. “If I turn this into a pitcher, would you attach the handle?”
“Sure, honey. I’ll do yours when I do mine.”
Taylor spun the wheel, carefully bellying the cylinder. After she formed the pouring lip and trimmed the bottom, she admired her work, pleased that she hadn’t collapsed the whole thing.
“Good job.” Kate placed a freshly glazed vase in the kiln and then set Taylor’s pitcher on the drying rack beside the ones she’d made earlier. “I’ll roll these outside. In this heat, they should be leather hard by afternoon and ready for the handles. Want to make something else?”
Taylor glanced at the clock. Almost ten-thirty. It’d taken her four attempts and an hour to make the pitcher. “I’d like to, but Livy should be here soon. I think I’ll come back another day.”
She slipped off the mud-splattered apron she’d worn to protect her clothes and hung it on a peg. As she washed the clay from her hands, her cell rang. She grabbed a towel, then fished the phone out of her pocket. Her heart kicked an extra beat. Nick. She had not mentioned him to Kate yet. “Hello?”
“Good morning.”
His brother must be a lot better. She tried to match his upbeat tone. “Good morning to you too. How’s Scott?”
“They took the oxygen off early this morning and are moving him out of ICU today. I wanted to share the good news with you.”
Taylor caught a guarded note in his voice. She picked at a tiny lump of clay on the wheel. “I’m glad.”
“Um, did you ask Kate about a room?”
“Not yet.”
“If you’d rather I not stay there, I can find a place around here.”
“No, don’t do that,” she replied. “Kate’s right here. I’ll ask and call you back.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
Kate’s eyes questioned as Taylor pressed end. “I have a friend who needs a place to stay until repairs are completed to his house. Nick Sinclair.” Taylor went on to explain about Scott and how the fire occurred. “I told him about your bed and breakfast, and he was interested.”
“Would the brother be coming?”
Taylor hadn’t thought about that. “I assume Scott will go into rehab.”
Kate lifted another vase and ran a damp sponge over it. “I’ve taken in a few teens with problems, so it wouldn’t be a big deal with me. As long as it wouldn’t be a big deal with you.”
“I’m sure Nick will insist on rehab. He’s very busy working on edits for his next book.”
Kate’s brow pinched together. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. “Wait a minute—are you talking about the Nick Sinclair? The writer from Memphis?”
Taylor nodded, and Kate’s voice rose with excitement. “I’ve read every one of his books. Call and tell him he’s more than welcome.”
She dialed Nick’s number. “Kate will be pleased for you to stay here.”
“Good.” He sounded relieved. “I’ll try to be there by three. I’m meeting with a restoration company around one to get an estimate on the repairs. Hopefully, I’ll only need a place for a week or so.”
“I’ll tell her.”
Nick hesitated, and Taylor heard him take a deep breath.
“I’d hoped to stop by your house, but I doubt now I’ll have time. Will you be home tomorrow? I’d really like to see you.”
Her breath caught. He wanted to see her? “Tomorrow we’re having a picnic at the lake behind the house. Why don’t you come?”
“What time?”
“Fivish.”
“Uh, sure—I ought to be able to work a picnic in around hospital visits. I’ll call you if something comes up.”
“Good.” She ended the call and relayed what Nick had said.
“I appreciate that you recommended the B and B to him.” Kate set the now-glazed vase on the rack. “In case Nick Sinclair asks, how would you feel about the brother coming here?”
Good question. While she didn’t believe Scott was her stalker, her gut said he knew something. Maybe with him next door, she’d at least get to question him. “I’d be okay with it.”
“From what you’ve said, though, the boy needs to be in rehab.”
“I agree.” Taylor rubbed a smudge from the white case on her phone. All morning she’d been waiting for the perfect opportunity to ask Kate about her dad, and it hadn’t materialized. And probably wouldn’t. Just ask. “Do you know why my dad left?”
Kate paused with a mug halfway to the glaze bucket. “What?”
“I’m having those nightmares again, and I thought if I knew more about why he left . . .” Taylor sighed and looked off. “Kate, I really have to find him.”
Kate set the mug on a table and peeled her latex gloves off. “I don’t think anyone really knows why, Taylor. I personally believe—” She pressed her lips together. “Never mind what I believe. The important thing for you to remember is your father loved you very much. All of you.”
“Then why did he leave?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know Mom and Jonathan had Dad declared legally dead?”
Silently Kate nodded. “They didn’t have any choice, honey. Your mom asked my advice ab
out it before they actually started the process, and I told her I thought it was the only thing she could do. She needed to get on with her life—not that she did.”
“They could’ve told us. Mom insists that he’s not dead.”
“I know,” Kate said. “Sometimes your mom . . .”
“You think he’s dead.”
“The way he loved you kids and Allison . . . I just don’t see it being anything else.” She closed her eyes. “But I understand where she’s coming from.”
“Robyn?”
Kate nodded. “It’s a little different with your dad, though. I’ve heard from Robyn, and except for that letter right after he left, Allison never heard from James.”
“What about the rumors that he ran away to start another family?” She remembered the taunts from some of the kids in school. “I mean, the ten thousand dollars he took with him pretty well indicates that.”
“There were lots of rumors flying then, and if you stir this up, you’ll hear a lot more than you want to.”
A memory blasted through her mind. “I love you, Taylor. Don’t ever forget it.” He’d been planning to leave even as he told her he loved her. Just like her ex-fiancé. “Kate, what’s wrong with me? Why couldn’t I keep my dad from leaving or hold on to my fiancé?”
Kate took her hands. “Now, you listen to me. For whatever reason your father left, it had nothing to do with you. Don’t look to men for your worth, Taylor. You have a heavenly Father who thinks you’re pretty incredible. He created you because he loves you.”
She wanted to believe that, but if it was true, why didn’t God answer her prayers and bring her father home?
Tires crunched in the gravel parking lot, saving Taylor from saying something she might regret. A minute later Livy appeared in the doorway.
“It’s about time,” Kate said. “I thought you were going to change your hair.”
Livy ran her hand over the short blonde spikes. “Nah, think I like it this way.” She glanced over the rack of pitchers. “Which one’s yours?”
Taylor laughed. “The smallest one.”
“Not bad. One of these days, I’m going to work on the wheel.”
Shadows of the Past (Logan Point Book #1): A Novel Page 17
