The Lost Daughter of Pigeon Hollow

by Inglath Cooper

  Katie shrugged. “Wheels are always a plus.”

  His smile widened. He handed her a CD case and said, “Pick one.”

  “Any Mozart in here?” she asked, teasing.

  “Would you be surprised if I said yes?”

  “No,” she said, giving him a level look of challenge. “He’s not so bad, anyway.”

  * * *

  WILLA SAT AT THE KITCHEN TABLE while Owen cooked.

  He had insisted.

  He pulled off the salad without a hitch.

  Greens, diced sweet red pepper, goat cheese and an olive-oil balsamic dressing tossed in a heavy white bowl.

  “I’m impressed,” Willa said.

  “Hold on,” he said. “I haven’t gotten to the main course yet.”

  Trout amandine. Smooth sailing here, too, until he got distracted by the search for a bread basket and let the almonds scorch.

  By the time they sat down, white candles flickering at the center of the table, he looked less than certain of the meal’s reception.

  She took a bite of the salad. “Wonderful.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Where’d you learn to cook?”

  He passed her the bread. “Living single. I have a very limited repertoire.”

  In spite of the burned almonds, which they mostly scraped aside, the trout was delicious.

  When they were finished eating, they put their dishes in the sink.

  “Dessert’s a little more casual,” Owen said. He picked up a brown paper bag, ushered her out onto the porch. Darkness had descended. A lone bird sang out in a melody of summer sound. Owen led her down to the dock where he had made a circle of rock, sticks piled high in the center.

  He spread out the faded quilt, and they sat on it.

  From the bag, he pulled a box of graham crackers, marshmallows and a couple of Hershey’s candy bars.

  “S’mores,” she said.

  He lit a match and tossed it on the sticks. “Katie kind of said you used to love them.”

  “I was once addicted,” she said. And then added, “That’s nice. That you asked her.”

  He smiled.

  The flame poofed to life, and they sat on their knees next to it. Owen handed her a stick, the end whittled to a point. She picked up the marshmallows, stuck one on and held it over the fire.

  They sat, silent, rotating the sticks until the marshmallows were toasty brown.

  Willa pulled hers off, placed it between two crackers and added a piece of chocolate. She took a bite, closed her eyes. “So good.” She looked up again to find him watching her.

  He reached out then, touched a finger to the corner of her mouth. “Chocolate,” he said.

  “Oh,” she said, wiping it with her thumb. “Did I get it?”

  “Not quite.” He leaned closer. “There. Gone.”

  He stayed where he was, his eyes holding hers.

  She dropped her gaze, then ventured another look at him.

  The night hung like a curtain around them, alive and talking.

  “I love that sound,” she said.

  “Frogs.”

  She nodded. “When I was a girl, my grandparents had a farm. Katie and I spent a lot of weekends there with them. We camped out at the pond where the cows came for water. I can remember going to sleep in our tent, listening to them and the cows grazing out behind us.”

  “Good memory?”

  Willa was silent for a moment. “It reminds me of being happy.”

  He brushed the back of his hand across her hair, a surprising tenderness in the gesture. “Are you now? Happy?”

  “Oh. Well,” she said, not meeting his eyes. “Yes. I am. Have been.”

  He tipped her chin up, forced her to look at him. “Really happy. Not just waiting to be happy.”

  She considered that, and then said, “There’s a difference, isn’t there?”

  “Yeah. That bad experience you had?” he said, his voice low. “You’ve been holding on to that, haven’t you?”

  She didn’t answer for a moment. “I guess I kind of have.”

  “Maybe it’s time you let it go.”

  The fire popped and hissed. A spark landed on the ground beside them. Was he right? Had she put her own wants and needs on hold, as if one day the hurt would disappear, and suddenly she would trust again, let herself believe in someone?

  Had she thought the pain would fade on its own, like a scar beneath the wear of time? She realized now her mistake. It wouldn’t go away until she threw it away.

  He put his hand on hers. She stared down at the connection. He turned his palm over, linked their fingers together, loose at first, and then closing tight.

  They sat that way for a few moments while she considered her own questions about whether Owen’s interest in her might be about his losing this farm. But then again, it wasn’t as if he’d asked her to marry him.

  He leaned in and kissed her, the taste of graham crackers and marshmallows sweet on their lips. And with that kiss, she decided this night was going to be about possibility. Her hand went to the side of his neck. He dropped the stick into the fire, looped an arm around her waist and settled her against him.

  He cupped her face with both hands, deepening the kiss.

  They stretched out on the quilt, turned on their sides, facing each other, kissed some more, his hand at the small of her back.

  She ran her fingers through his hair, down the width of his shoulder, the hard muscles of his arm. And all the while, he kissed her, his touch suddenly as necessary as air. Making her wonder how she’d gone her whole life without it.

  How was it a person could know in a single instant they had found the one? The one. For Willa, the answer was there in the way they fit against each other, in the way she felt completely alive beneath his touch.

  The fire popped again, throwing up a shower of sparks.

  Owen brushed the back of his hand across the hollow of her neck, slipped a thumb to the top button of her blouse, let it slip free from its snare. With his eyes, he asked permission. She closed her own, a silent answer. He dropped his mouth to the curve of her breast and kissed her there as if she were infinitely precious.

  “You’re beautiful, Willa.”

  She looked up at him. “It’s not something I’ve ever cared about, but for now, for you, I’d like to be.”

  He said her name again low in his throat, kissed her full and deep. He rolled her to her back, then slid over her, stretched her arms above her head, entwined their fingers. He felt heavy and muscled in a distinctly pleasurable way.

  Willa pulled back, hit with a sudden wave of self-consciousness. “Owen?”

  He kissed the side of her jaw, worked his way to her ear. “Um?”

  “I…it’s been a long time since I…well.”

  He looked down at her, concern in his eyes. “Are you all right? Am I hurting you?”

  She shook her head, made a short sound of laughter. “Ah, no. No.” She put her hands to the side of his face, looked up at him. “I just want to get it right.”

  He bent his head to hers, kissed her with an intensity that made her think maybe she was. “I’m thinking you’ve got the hang of it,” he said, teasing now.

  “You’re way too good at that,” she said.

  He smiled, pushed her hair back from her face. “Good as in smooth? Or good as in don’t stop?”

  “Definitely as in don’t stop.”

  “Then I won’t.”

  And he didn’t.

  * * *

  A DOZEN OR MORE CARS were parked in the drive of the enormous brick colonial, home to Cline’s friend Steve Matherson, whose parents were out of town for a week.

  “Wow,” Katie said. “Is anybody poor around here?”

  Cline turned off the van and looked at her with a smile. “Don’t let the trappings fool you. We have our share of screwups.”

  Katie got out of the van, waited for Cline to set up his chair, again resisting the urge to help.

  Once he
was settled, he waved her toward the house. “After you,” he said.

  The door opened before they reached the front step. A tall guy with a head full of blond hair loped down the steps and high-fived Cline. “Hey, man! Glad you could make it.” He looked at Katie. “And this is?”

  “Katie Addison. Katie, Steve Matherson.”

  “Hi,” Katie said.

  “You been keeping secrets, Miller?”

  He held Katie’s gaze for a second too long. She stepped closer to Cline’s chair, glanced away.

  Steve smiled. “Party’s in the house. Need some help, Cline?”

  “I got it. I’ll meet you inside,” he directed to Katie.

  “Come on, Katie,” Steve said, grabbing her hand. “I’ll introduce you around.”

  Katie glanced after Cline who was already rolling down the sidewalk at one end of the house. “I’ll go with—”

  “He’ll be fine,” Steve said. “He always goes in that way. There’s a ramp at the back. My grandmother lived with us for a while before she died.”

  It had not occurred to her that Cline couldn’t go to just any party. That it would have to be one with a handicap entrance.

  Somber-faced, she followed Steve inside, her heart feeling as if it were too big for her chest.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  WILLA LAY TUCKED in the curve of Owen’s arm. He caressed her hair, kissed the top of her head.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “If you’re thinking I brought you up here with the intention of—”

  “I’m not thinking that,” she said.

  They were quiet for a few moments. “Willa—”

  She stopped him with a finger to his lips. “Remember what you said on the boat that afternoon?”

  “Let it be,” he said.

  “Maybe that’s what we should do about this. Just let it be what it is. Not expect it to be more.”

  He stroked her shoulder with one thumb, not wanting to agree, and yet unsure how to argue against it. With Willa in his arms, Owen finally knew what had been missing in his life. And he realized that he didn’t want it to go on that way.

  “There’s something else,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said. About it not being too late for me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m thinking I might go back to school,” she said a little self-consciously, as if he might find the idea ridiculous.

  “Really?”

  “The money Charles left me…I’ve been thinking about that, too. That maybe this is my chance to finish what I started. And to help Katie get an education as well, if she decides that’s what she wants.”

  Owen let the words settle—maybe she was trying to tell him that what had just happened between them wouldn’t go any further than tonight. “It’s not crazy,” he said. “And I can’t imagine anything that would have made Charles happier.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “I do.” Owen tipped his head back, stared up at a sky full of stars.

  “Tomorrow’s your birthday,” she said. “Cline mentioned it this morning.”

  “Yeah.” So much to say, and yet not so much at all. He didn’t want her to go. But what could he say now that wouldn’t sound contrived? Wouldn’t sound as if he had a deadline to meet? If he told her how he felt about her, how could he expect her to believe that it had nothing to do with the provision in his father’s will?

  She’d bought into something she’d thought was real once before and been disappointed in the worst possible way. How could he expect her to believe this was different? That he was different.

  “I’m almost finished with the journals,” she said now, her voice soft. “Katie and I will be heading back after that.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  She hesitated, and then said, “It seems like the right thing.”

  But to Owen, nothing had ever felt more wrong.

  * * *

  CLINE SAT AT THE PERIMETER of the room, a bottle of Heineken in his right hand. Ice Cube was cranked on the music system, the bass making the ceiling-mounted speakers throb. Cline spotted Katie across the room. She waved once and smiled that smile that made him feel his balance was suddenly off.

  He waved back, then started up an intense conversation about computers with a guy he didn’t know. As soon as Katie looked away, Cline retreated to loner status.

  Two hours into the party, and he was ready to leave.

  It always went like this. People talked to him early on, and then he would end up on the sidelines, hanging out alone, trying to look like it didn’t bother him.

  Across the room, Katie smiled at something Steve had just said close to her ear. He touched a hand to her arm, and she laughed.

  Cline watched them for another moment. He set the bottle on a nearby table, wheeled his chair through the house and out the back door.

  * * *

  OWEN TOOK THE OLD GREEN TRUCK back down the mountain in low gear. The headlights glanced off grazing deer, raccoons and an opossum.

  The bench seat left only a couple of feet between them, and yet, to Willa, it already felt like miles.

  “Owen?”

  He glanced at her, one hand on the wheel.

  “Are you sorry we came up here tonight?”

  “No,” he said. “Are you?”

  “No.” She paused. “But I’m not…this isn’t usually…I don’t—”

  “I know,” he said.

  “So. In a day or two, I’ll be going, and this will just—”

  He looked at her again. “I don’t think it will be that easy.”

  “Yeah,” she said. What else was there to say?

  * * *

  KATIE WAS SO MAD at Cline, she could barely think around it.

  He had left her at the party! Without saying a word!

  And now she was being driven home by an intoxicated jerk with a real problem accepting no as an answer. No, she didn’t want to go upstairs and see his bedroom. No, she wasn’t an uptight prude.

  Steve might have come in a more expensive package, but beneath the surface, he was no different from Eddie or any of the other losers she had dated in Pigeon Hollow.

  A half-dozen beer cans rattled on the floorboard of the back seat.

  It had been a mistake to get in the car with him. She knew that now. But when she’d found out Cline had left, any interest she’d had in staying at the party evaporated altogether.

  Steve gunned the 911 engine and swung a hard right. She didn’t know the roads here, but she remembered the turnoff that led back to Cline’s.

  She shot him a look of irritation. “Where are we going?”

  “A little detour. What do you say?”

  “I need to get back. Turn around, okay?”

  “Easy, baby. It’s no big deal if you’re an hour past your curfew. You don’t turn into a pumpkin past midnight, do you?”

  He laughed at this as if it were the funniest thing ever said.

  Something like fear tickled at the pit of her stomach, only to be flooded by a tidal wave of anger. “Steve, turn the car around. Or pull over, and I’ll walk.”

  He ignored her, shifting into a lower gear and gunning the engine. They flew down a straight stretch of road, took a sudden curve too fast. Katie felt the car give, on the verge of flipping, and then right itself at the last moment.

  “Steve, stop the car!”

  He hit the brake, turning off the main road onto a narrow dirt lane. They bumped along for a quarter mile or so, until he stopped and cut the engine.

  “Let me out, Steve,” she said. “I’ll walk back.”

  He turned in the seat, put a hand on her shoulder. “What’s the big deal?”

  She gave him a glacier glare. “The big deal is I don’t want to be here.”

  He smiled a knowing smile. “Katie, I know plenty of girls like you. Let’s cut through the bullshit. You’ve been playing the innocent
all night. When we both know that’s not who you are.”

  The words struck somewhere deep inside her. Was that how Cline saw her? Was that why he had left? “You have no idea who I am.”

  “Yeah? How’s this?”

  He leaned over, kissed her hard, one hand at the back of her neck. His tongue stabbed into her mouth, and she lunged backward, banging her head on the window. An explosion of stars went off behind her closed eyes.

  She struggled, pushing at his chest.

  “You want to play like that, huh?”

  His eyes were narrow, and there was a meanness in their depths she didn’t know how she could have missed earlier.

  He lay half-across her, holding her shoulders down while his mouth ground against hers. Revulsion thickened in her throat. She was going to be sick.

  Had she done something to deserve this? Somehow asked for it? Made herself out to be a girl he could use and throw away?

  It hit her then that was exactly who she had once been. Who she had set herself up to be. Someone to be discarded. Left behind.

  But she didn’t want to be that person anymore. She thought about Cline and the way she felt smart around him, as if she could go places and do things she’d never imagined herself capable of doing.

  The old Katie was someone she never wanted to be again. The new Katie wanted more.

  She let her mouth go slack for a moment, no longer resisting. She felt his surprise, the kiss changing tack like a sail to a wind from a different direction. One second, two seconds, three…she bit into his lower lip, hard.

  He yelped, and in that instant, she reached between his legs, grabbed dead center and twisted as hard as she could.

  He let out a yowl of pain. “Bitch!”

  Katie fumbled for the door lock, popped it up and fell out of the car. She scrambled on her hands and knees, gravel piercing her palms.

  She glanced over her shoulder. Steve opened the car door and rolled out, cussing. “Come back here!”

  She got to her feet, stumbled over a tree root and nearly fell. She plunged down the dark road, found her footing and ran as fast as she could go.

  * * *

  OKAY, CLINE WAS way beyond worried.

  He glanced at the grandfather clock in the foyer. One-thirty. And still, Katie wasn’t back.

  He’d called Steve’s house just after midnight. Some drunk girl had said they’d left hours ago.