If I'd Never Known Your Love (2 page)

Julia leaned back in her chair and stared at the newsletter design she'd been working on for the past three hours. The client wanted new and different, but not too new or different; bold, but not garish, with lots of white space, yet not so many pages that it would up the mailing cost. Which meant that the client wanted exactly what everyone else wanted— only different. And, as always, it was a given that the job had to be finished in two days, maybe three—a week at the absolute outside. The three graphic designers who used her on a freelance basis provided a cushion between her and unreasonable clients. She'd become so spoiled working at home that she shuddered at the thought of ever having to go back to work in an office. Thankfully, with Evan's career going as well as it was, especially with the new partnership, she'd never be faced with that decision again.

She glanced out the window at the sound of squabbling finches and saw that the bird feeder was empty. Keeping it filled was Evan's job—his joy, really. Hanging it from the massive live oak that dominated the backyard was one of the first things he'd done when they'd moved in. When he'd spotted the first diner, he let out a whoop that had made her abandon her unpacking and run downstairs to check on him. As a transplanted Kansas farm girl, she found it hard to drum up the same level of enthusiasm over something she'd always taken for granted, but she never let on that seeing the bulbs Evan planted in the fall push through three inches of soil to emerge as flowers in the spring was anything short of a miracle, or that rushing inside to grab a Peterson Field Guide wasn't an immediate response to spotting a new bird or butterfly.

Evan had an insatiable curiosity about everything, and had built a library that contained twice as many research books as fiction rides. He'd passed the trait on to their children, somehow fostering in them the idea that learning was the best kind of game.

Needing a break, she took a scoop of sunflower seeds outside and spotted the mouse that Evan had caught in Shelly s room and released in the backyard. It was sitting on the wooden deck under the feeder, eating seeds the birds had carelessly tossed aside as they sought one more to their liking. With half a tail and a scar down its side from a previous encounter, there was no doubt it was the same mouse. It stopped chewing and stared at her, showing more curiosity than fear. Deciding she posed no immediate threat, it tucked the seed into its cheek and picked up another before climbing the brick retaining wall behind the tree and disappearing under an azalea bush.

In the short time they'd been there, Evan had mentally transformed the backyard, feeling about it the way she felt about the house. He dragged her out there at least once a day to listen to his plans, pointing out which azaleas and camellias he would keep, what he would put in place of the ones he removed and where he would plant the hundreds and hundreds of bulbs that would fill the yard with a rainbow of color each spring.

She mentally added the mouse-spotting to the list of things she would tell Evan when he phoned to let her know that he'd arrived. Nine hours to go. An eternity.

With the exception of a couple of backwoods fishing trips with his buddies, Evan had never been out of phone contact with her for an entire day. He always called from work, sometimes to share something funny or sad, sometimes just to say hi, mostly, he claimed, because hearing her voice brightened his day. Her girlfriends insisted he was a freak of nature, that no normal man married ten years looked at his perfectly ordinary wife as if she were a Victoria's Secret model or lit up like a sparkler whenever she came into a room.

In the beginning she'd assumed that what she and Evan had was simply a slightly altered version of the love all married couples shared. Then she'd stepped into her thirties and saw how few of their friends' marriages were surviving. It scared her. She'd never considered herself unique in anything and wondered if she was simply oblivious to the clues. By the time her own sister, Barbara, had figured out her husband had been unfaithful and had confronted him, he'd not only admitted he'd been seeing someone but told her it was his third affair in their five-year marriage, one of them a woman he'd met on their honeymoon.

Julia tried to picture Evan cheating on her and couldn't. She tried to picture an argument that would tear them apart. Impossible. Finally, she tried to imagine him falling out of love with her or her with him. It was as inconceivable as nonfat chocolate.

A really good nonfat chocolate.

Later that night, eight o'clock came and passed, then nine and still no phone call. At ten she put the kids to bed, promising they could call their dad when they got home from school the next day. By eleven she'd traced his flight and learned that it had landed an hour late, but safely.

Figuring they'd been optimistic about how long it would take to get through customs, Julia added another hour to her calculations. That made him an hour late—time that could be accounted for with a few extra minutes to get a cab, more traffic than they'd anticipated at that time of night, a problem with his room, running into an old friend.

The phone would ring any minute.

But it didn't.

She made another pot of coffee, not to stay awake but because it gave her something to do. Fifteen minutes later, she called the hotel. It took several minutes to find someone on the night crew who spoke English. He told her Evan hadn't checked in. She asked to leave a message and then changed her mind. Evan would know she was worried and didn't need a reminder.

Finally, her ability to come up with a reasonable explanation for not hearing from him exhausted, her nerves raw, her mind teetering on panic, she heard the phone ring.

"Where have you been?" she said instead of hello. "I've been so worried."

"Julia, it's Harold." He hesitated for agonizingly long seconds. "I'm afraid I have some bad news." Again he paused. 'I’m sorry, I tried to think of a way to tell you this that would make it easier, but there just aren't any words. It appears Evan's been kidnapped. The driver hired by Gutierrez Construction to pick him up at the airport said several men with guns waylaid their car and took Evan. Ernesto Gutierrez called the police and then me. I told him I would—well, that I would let you know."

"Kidnapped?" With everything she'd imagined, she hadn't come close to this. "Why Evan? That doesn't make sense." Denial gave her precious moments to escape the horror. There had to be some mistake. He couldn't be one of those blindfolded men and women she'd seen on the evening news, terrified into a shuffling numbness, bruised and bleeding, sitting in front of masked gunmen, pleading for their lives.

"Ernesto said there are a couple of political groups that grab anyone they believe can pay. It's how they finance their armies."

"We don't have any money."
Please, God. Not Evan. Let there be some mistake.

"But I do. There's no way they could have known Evan had taken my place. They must have thought they were taking me.

"Julia, I can't find the words to express how sorry I am. This is my fault. It should have been me. I swear to you that I will do everything it takes to get Evan home.

Ernesto is working on it already. He said he has a friend whose uncle was taken and that he will get in touch with them to find out what we should do. As soon as we hear from the kidnappers, whoever they are, we'll do whatever they ask."

"I have to go there," she said.

"Julia, there isn't anything—"

"I have to be there, Harold."

"Yes, of course. I'll have my assistant make the arrangements first thing in the morning."

That was hours away. "No, it has to be now," she told him. "I can get a flight online and be on my way by morning."

"Let me do this for you. Please. I have a friend who has a charter company. I can get you there faster through him than you can get there commercially."

"All right "she agreed, reluctantly. But she couldn't just wait. She had to do something. She could pack. And call her sister, Barbara, to ask her to stay with Shelly and Jason. Her mother and father had to be told. They would have a hundred questions.

Especially her father. He'd never been someone to sit and wait for anything. "You'll phone as soon as you hear something? Anything? From anyone?"

"I promise."

She packed and then called Barbara, waking her, needing her, knowing that she would be there as soon as she could get dressed and drive over.

Barbara arrived in her bathrobe just as Julia finished telling Shelly and Jason what had happened to their father and why she had to go to Colombia. Shelly cried. Jason's eyes grew ever wider as he listened with the rapt attention of a seven-year-old whose only experience with violence was a video game where the good guys always won.

With the aplomb and authority and sensitivity of a kindergarten teacher on the first day of school, something she'd experienced seven times in her teaching career, Barbara took over. She calmed Shelly and corralled her into helping with breakfast, giving her something to do. Julia handled Jason, responding to his endless questions with the same answer—that she didn't know.

After seeing them off on the school bus, her bunny slippers decorated with birch-tree leaves that she'd gathered as she'd hurried across the front lawn, Barbara stood at the bottom of the stairs and shouted up to Julia.

"What can I do now?"

"Call Mom and Dad."

"Okay—but you know they're going to want to talk to you."

Julia came to the bedroom door."Tell them I'll call when I get to Colombia, when I actually know something. And tell Dad that I know how much he's going to want to be there, too, and that I appreciate it, but—" She paused and took a deep breath. "Damn. I'll call them myself."

"Let me give them the news and then I'll pass the phone to you."

The small kindness tipped Julia over the emotional edge, and she broke down. She flashed to mental images of Evan being wrestled from the car, a gun stuck in his ribs, a blindfold, a racing car, men shouting at him in a language he didn't understand. Had they hit him? Was he bleeding? She hugged herself, her tears punctuated by deep moans.

Please, please let them realize they've made a mistake and let him go,
she silently cried over and over again, collapsing to the floor. "No-o-o-o-o-o----Oh, please, please let him go."

Barbara ran up the stairs, forgetting her leaf- encrusted slippers and leaving a trail of yellow in the threadbare green carpet. Crouching to enfold Julia in her arms, she said,

"He s going to be all right. Just keep reminding yourself that kidnappers don't take people to hurt them—they do it for the money."

"We don't have any money," she sobbed."We used every bit of our savings to buy this house. There's no way I could get it sold in time to pay a ransom. Harold said he would help, but—"

"I have some money put away and so do Mom and Dad. We'll find a way, Julia."

Abruptly shaking herself, she moved free of her sister's arms and stood, wiping her eyes with her hands. "I can't do this. Don't let me do this, Barbara. I have to stay strong.

What good can I possibly be to Evan if I don't?"

Harold kept his promise and called Julia even when he had nothing to report, innately knowing if she didn't hear from him she would assume the worst. The arrangements were finalized for the flight, and Julia, Harold and a nurse, whom his wife, Mary, had insisted he hire, were on their way to Colombia by noon.

To keep herself sane while Harold slept off the painkillers he'd needed just to get out of bed to go with her, Julia searched the plane for a magazine, something to distract her if only for an hour or two. She found four on golf, one on fishing and the past six issues of
Sports Illustrated.
She also found a tablet, spiral-bound and blank. With no clear idea what she would say, or why she felt the sudden, compulsive need, she took a pen from her purse and began a letter to Evan.

As she wrote she discovered a peace and connection that were almost mystical. Evan would read what she wrote. She believed that with her heart and her soul. She had to.

One Day Missing

My darling, Evan,

I know I've told you this a dozen times in a dozen different ways, but I was a little
bit in love with you even before we met. You were all my girlfriends could talk about
the whole two weeks I was stuck at home after I broke both my legs jumping out of the
hayloft. Of course the guys who came to see me never mentioned you unless I asked.

All they wanted to talk about was why the football team that most of them were on
was doing so well, and how they were sure they would make the state championship,
finally. They thought I cared more than I did because I was a cheerleader and
couldn't get to the games.

Maybe it was something I heard in my girlfriends' voices, or maybe I noticed how
animated they're came when they talked about you. Whatever it was, I could hardly
wait to get back to school and see you for myself Looking back, it's easy to
understand why you had the effect on them that you did. You were the bad boy from
Detroit who showed up one morning walking across the school yard looking like
you'd just stepped out of the movie
Grease.
You were Danny Zuko with your long hair
and black T-shirt and jeans. Only, unlike John Travolta, you never smiled.

You didn't talk, either. Not to anyone. For a group of small-town Kansas farm girls you
were the most exciting thing to come into their Hues since puberty.

Becky Roberts insisted that even the teachers were a little afraid of you. What great
gossip you provided for a bunch of kids who'd lived their entire lives in Bickford,
Kansas. Oh, Evan, if they'd only known.