Emilie Richards - No River Too Wide

“I’m not a counselor, just a friend, and a new one. I think it’s going to be difficult to put all that behind you. It’s going to take years. But you said something earlier that I want to put out on the table. You said you weren’t going to bore me with stories of your past?”

Jan realized she had done just that again. She didn’t know what to say, but Taylor went on.

“If we’re going to be friends, and I want to be, we’re going to have to bore each other with stories of the past. Because that’s what friends do. Only neither of us will be bored, Jan, because friends are interested in each other. I know you’ve been through hell, and whenever it’s helpful to talk about it, I’ll be happy to listen. I probably won’t have any answers, but that’s okay, too.”

“Do you have stories you’ll share?”

“I could spend hours just telling you about my mom and me, and all the years I kept her away. And about getting pregnant at seventeen and holding a grudge against Maddie’s father most of her life. I’m light-years from perfect, so with that out on the table, we can just find our way together, okay?”

Jan felt tears glaze her eyes, but she smiled. “Friends,” she said.

“Good. Now let’s talk about something that’s also important.” Taylor smiled, too. “What we’re going to put on our pasta tonight.”

Chapter 8

Harmony’s mother had been living at Taylor’s house for three days. Harmony still couldn’t quite believe it. Using Rilla’s cell phone, she had spoken to her mother twice. In the unlikely event the Reynolds’ landline was being monitored, they had all agreed that Harmony would use Rilla’s cell and Jan would use Taylor’s for extra security.

Jan.

She still couldn’t get used to her mother’s new name. Janine Stoddard was Jan Seaton now, and while the Jan made sense and might even be risky, Seaton had been picked out of thin air. Moving On had found it was easier for women to remember their new names if their initials stayed the same. That might be risky, too, but not as risky as a woman forgetting what she called herself these days.

The name change wasn’t official, of course. Jan had no ID that said Seaton, but she also had no intention of needing ID.

Harmony had tried to fill her days with work and Lottie, but her mind was focused on the extraordinary turn of events that had brought her mother to Asheville. The Topeka paper had moved on to other stories, so news was difficult to come by, but she knew from the last conversation she’d had with her mother that her father still hadn’t been sighted. His disappearance was perplexing, even worrisome, since no one could monitor his movements. Was he searching for both of them, following the trail Moving On had so carefully laid to the West? Was he following the real trail to North Carolina, so that one day soon he could show up on Harmony’s doorstep?

Neither seemed particularly likely, and that was the worst of it. After years away from home, trying to think like her father brought back a childhood in which she’d tried to anticipate his every move and mood. She had hoped those days were gone forever. She never wanted to give him that much thought again.

Right now, though, she was thinking about the evening to come. “Lottie Lou, you’re going off with your daddy again,” she said, bending over the car seat where her sleepy daughter was fidgeting.

Lottie flailed her fists and screwed up her face in protest. Harmony wondered if Davis would give her back the moment Lottie started to fuss. The baby was normally good-natured, but her afternoon nap hadn’t gone on nearly long enough.

Harmony was still surprised Davis had asked to take Lottie for the evening. She had assumed his mother was back in town, but when she asked he’d said no. Maybe he had been vague, but Harmony had been pleased at the opportunity to have a babysitter.

Because she had a date.

With everything else going on, she had forgotten all about it until that morning—too late to back out politely—when Taylor called to remind her. She was having dinner with a friend of Taylor’s, and she hadn’t been to Cuppa—where she used to be a server—for months, but it was a comfortable, casual kind of place to meet a guy, so she’d agreed. The plans had been made, of course, before her mother arrived.

Since she believed in signs—at least when they were good ones—the fact that Davis had called right afterward to say he wanted to take Lottie for the evening had convinced her she had to go.

The doorbell rang, and she wondered if Davis would remember it took time to lug the baby downstairs. She was almost at the door when he tapped and opened it. “I thought you might like some help getting her down.”

This wasn’t a sign; it was a miracle. She swung the car seat in his direction and he took it. “I’ll bring the diaper bag,” she said, gathering it from the sofa, along with her purse. “I’m going out, but I’ll have my cell phone with me.”

“I’ll call before I bring her back.” He bent over the car seat and smiled at his daughter, who still didn’t look happy. “Are you ready, Peaches?”

“Peaches?”

“She has cheeks like little peaches. You never noticed?”

She was thunderstruck. Was this the same Davis whose main thought when he found he was going to be a father was whether a baby might help him secure a promotion at work?

“I might as well tell you I have a woman with me,” he continued. “Her name’s Amy, and she wants to meet Lottie.”

That sounded more like the old Davis, and Harmony sniffed. At least he’d told this Amy person he had a daughter.

She followed him down the stairs to his car, and as Davis struggled with the baby’s car seat, the woman on the passenger’s side opened the door and swung her legs around to sit sideways. Shining red hair was arranged over one shoulder, and her makeup was so carefully applied that Harmony figured it had taken as long to do it as she had spent on her own in all the months since Lottie’s birth.

“You must be Amy. I’m Harmony,” she said when Amy didn’t speak.

Amy nodded. “Does she cry a lot?”

“Just when she’s unhappy.”

As if on cue, Lottie began to whimper. Amy’s lovely face tightened into something approaching a grimace.

Harmony really didn’t want to help, but she knew it was the right thing to do. “She didn’t have a very long nap this afternoon, so she’s tired. She’ll probably fall asleep quickly. She’ll be in a better mood by the time she gets out of the car.”

“Maybe you should have given her a longer nap.”

“Short of drugging her or hitting her over the head, I’m not sure what I could have done.”

“I believe in schedules.”

“Most people who don’t have children do.” Harmony stepped back and addressed Lottie’s father. “Davis, make sure you call if you need advice. Me, not your mother.”

He grunted something profane about seat belts and infant car seats, and she left him to figure out the mysteries of parenthood by himself.

Upstairs she took a moment to peer at her face in the mirror. Freckled, with sandy lashes. Wide mouth, slightly crooked teeth that should have worn braces—which her father had frowned upon as vanity—long, pale brown hair that was only streaked with blond because she was out in the sun so often, not because she had the time to do anything about her hair except let it grow.

She was going to be late if she did anything much to improve what she saw. She scraped a little mascara on her lashes and brushed some mineral powder over her freckles; then she grabbed her purse, which felt as light as air after hauling a diaper bag, and peeked through her window to make sure Davis was gone. Since the coast was clear, she headed downstairs and away.