Suzanne Mcminn - High-Stakes Homecoming

Wooden playground equipment. What the hell?

Maybe she had been living at Limberlost for a year, after all. Eighty-two-year-old Otto Ramsey hadn’t put in a slide and swings for himself.

There was a barn on the hill and another below, in the meadow. As far as he was concerned, if they didn’t find her up here, there was no sense heading farther afield before getting help. But he’d have to convince Willa of that.

The wind ripped back Willa’s hood, baring her head as she ran toward the barn. He chased after her, helped her with the heavy wooden latch on the barn door. Inside, their flashlights swerved and crossed. She called Birdie’s name. The barn smelled earthy and like home, and he was stunned for a harsh instant. There were horse stalls up and down the barn, but only one horse poked its ebony head over a stall door.

Willa raced between the stalls, looking into every one. She whirled at the end of the barn, faced him. Raw emotion hit him again, this time with the appalling urge to take her into arms and promise her he’d find Birdie.

He shoved the thought away as he saw the steel under her painful fear.

“Where now?” he asked.

“She has a treehouse. That’s all I can think.”

“Let’s go.”

They left the barn. He latched the door while she tore ahead. He followed the erratic bounce of her flashlight beam in the wind and rain.

Willa climbed the wooden steps nailed to a huge cherry tree before he even got there, and nearly fell down into his arms as she barreled back down.

“She’s not there!” Her eyes flashed a near-hysteria that she was clearly working hard to control.

“Get me the keys to your truck.”

She didn’t hesitate. He raced after her toward the house, but she was back in the doorway with a set of keys before he reached it.

“Please.” Her eyes shone bright in the dark. “Please get help.” She was begging, and clearly past caring who was helping her.

She stood in the door, the light from her flashlight spilling at her feet. The truck was parked at the side of the house. He jumped in, gunned the engine to life, and started to back up when he realized abruptly what felt so strange about the way the vehicle sat.

He got out, slammed the door, and flashed his light down at the tires.

The rear passenger-side tire was flat.

His blood froze in his veins. He knelt down and studied the tire in the light. He couldn’t see any reason for it to be flat, though the rubber was thinning and hadn’t worn well. No obvious puncture, or at least not one he could see in this light. He went for the spare, soaked beyond belief at this point, and stood back, stomach hitting the ground when he pulled it out.

The spare was flat.

He’d never seen so many things go wrong in unison in his whole life—from the failed brakes on the Land Rover right up to Willa’s tires. Maybe that text message he’d gotten this morning had been from the Universe.

But if he hadn’t come to Haven tonight…

Willa would be alone right now. And no matter how he felt about her and the past, the thought of her being alone in these circumstances brought out every protective instinct in his body.

Stupid and incomprehensible and flat-out crazy as that was.

Penn turned, headed for the house, dreading giving her the news. Willa’s daughter was out there, and no matter what had happened in the past or how Willa had hurt him, or even what kind of mess they had in front of them over the will, there was a lost little girl, and that was all that mattered right now.

Willa yanked the door wide before he reached it. He could see the same dread in his gut on her face before he opened his mouth.

“The truck’s got a flat and the spare’s flat, too,” he told her.

“I just drove the truck!” She didn’t want to believe him. In fact, she pushed past him as if she thought he was lying.

He followed her back out into the rain. She ran to the truck, dropped to her knees in front of the tire, then was back up, wheeling to find the spare where he’d left it on the ground.

She looked up at him then.

Her face was so stricken, so pale in the shine of his flashlight, he couldn’t tell the difference between tears and raindrops on her cheeks; but he knew it was a combination of both that he saw.

“Did you do this?” she yelled at him over the storm.

“What?”

“What is going on? Did you flatten the tires?”

“Are you crazy?”

“I’m sorry.” She deflated, pressed shaking fingers to her mouth. She turned away, stared desperately out into the storm-dark woods.

He wanted to blame her for that bit of insanity, but he knew she was out of her mind with worry. Whatever else he didn’t believe about Willa, what he did believe was her love for her daughter. He didn’t know why it stunned him so. Even animals had mothering instincts. Willa didn’t have to be a perfect person to love her child.

Still, it rocked the cold, ugly image he had made up in his mind about Willa’s character.

“I have to find her,” she shouted now, wildly.

“Not alone.”

She stared at him for a long, awful moment. She was terrified, that was clear, and not just of the storm and her lost daughter.

Willa was terrified of him.

That rocked the cold, ugly image, too. She was vulnerable.

“I am alone,” she said with an achy honesty that seared him even deeper.

Again, he wanted to know what had happened to Jared. Why Willa would have been living with Otto. How she came to be alone.

“Not tonight,” he said. “You’re not alone tonight.”

Obviously, she wasn’t thinking clearly, though maybe if she wasn’t scared of him, a man she’d once betrayed, a man she hadn’t seen in fourteen years, she would be certifiable for sure.

“And you can’t just go charging out there,” he went on. “I know there’s a map of the property here somewhere. We’ll get extra batteries and we’ll organize our own grid search. It’s important that you don’t get lost as well. Birdie needs you.”

He saw her throat move in the wild darkness.

“I’m scared,” she finally said. “I don’t understand what’s happening, but something is really wrong. I’m scared!”

And he knew she hadn’t wanted to admit that out loud, knew she regretted it right away. She hated being vulnerable, hated it and wanted to hide it, and she couldn’t. She was too scared, teetering on full-blown panic.

And that’s why he didn’t tell her that he was scared, too. Something was wrong. This entire series of events was bizarre.

The spring wind whipped higher, colder, suddenly, and something hard struck his head, his arms. The hound yelped, hit.

Hail.

Huge, golf ball-sized hail. The kind of hail that could kill a person.

“Run!” he yelled, grabbing Willa’s arm, dragging her in the opposite direction of where he knew she wanted to go.

Penn gave her no choice, forced her into a dead run toward the house, and Willa was terrified her skull was going to be split in two by the hail at any second. And what good would she do Birdie then?

They reached the house and he yanked open the door. Willa ran inside, Flash whimpering at her heels, and she pivoted back to see Penn’s dark figure fill the doorway behind her.

The door shut, blocking the storm and the terrible night, leaving her wet and shaking and scared as he turned around.

“What about Birdie?” she half sobbed, and caught herself.

She was looking to him, Penn, to tell her what to do now. She was so far gone, it was ridiculous. How could so many things go wrong at once?

Penn’s gaze riveted beyond her.

“Willa—” he started.

She felt a prickle at the nape of her neck.

“Mommy.”

The scream that had been clawing its way up Willa’s throat came all the way out.