Shadows of the Past (Logan Point Book #1): A Novel (22 page)

“Abby!” Mortified, Taylor tried to avoid Nick’s gaze.

“And on that note, we’ll take our leave,” Jonathan said with a chuckle. “Out the door, young lady, before your aunt skins you.”

“Sorry about that,” Taylor said. She almost wished she could follow Jonathan and Abby. “You were looking for me?”

“Would you like to drive down to the lake with me?” A smile teased at Nick’s mouth. “That’s if your headache is gone, or you don’t have something else you need to do.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “The lake?”

“Yep.” The smile spread to his eyes, and the green flecks deepened. “The rest of your family said they would consider selling me twenty acres on the other side of the picnic area. Of course, you’d have to agree.”

“You’re kidding. That’s great! Which piece of property?”

“Jonathan said something about it being part of the Roberts’s place. Starts at an old oak tree?”

“I know where it is. We’ll take the farm truck, but let me get my sneakers. Be right back.”

Humming, she hurried upstairs to change shoes and put her hair into a ponytail.

Nick wanted her to go with him . . .

Scott forced another spoon of potato salad down his throat. If he didn’t eat at least some of the food Kate Adams had brought, she’d stand over him until he did. A ceiling fan whirred softly, stirring the air on the porch. On the wall, an oversized weather gauge hovered at the ninety degree mark. Even so, he shivered as he sipped sweet tea and wished for whiskey.

“Scott, can I get you anything else?” Kate asked, swinging open the screen door. Her nose wrinkled when she noticed the tiny amount he’d eaten.

“No, ma’am. I think this is enough. Thank you,” he added politely. His mama would be proud. He slouched in the swing, wishing Kate would leave. Where was the old man? Charlie. That was his name. He was a drinker. Scott could tell. “Where’d your husband go?”

Kate sat in the chair by the swing, her black eyes boring into his. Now he knew how a grasshopper felt pinned to a board.

“Won’t do you any good to find him,” she said. “He’s not drinking now.”

A slow flush burned up his neck. “It’s not easy, stopping like this.”

“I know, but do you want to be like my Charlie? Struggling to stay sober at his age?”

He shifted his gaze beyond Kate Adams to a nearby field.

“Do you want to get clean and stay that way?”

“Sure.” He turned back to her, the word slipping easily from his mouth. Immediately, her eyes pinned him again. Sweat beaded his upper lip
.
“Everybody expects me to.”

“No,” Kate corrected him. “Everyone
wants
you sober. There’s a difference. The question is what do
you
want?”

Scott’s mind scrambled for an answer. Instinctively, he knew his glib replies wouldn’t work with this woman. He swallowed hard. Did he want to be sober, or did he want to keep living like this? He searched his heart. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d stayed sober for a whole week. “I . . . don’t know if I can.”

“I won’t tell you it’ll be easy, but you can do it. God will help you.”

“God? After everything I’ve done? No way.” He wanted to look away again, but her gaze held him fast.

“We’ve all done terrible things, Scott. You don’t get cleaned up to come to him. He cleans you up afterward.”

Her words sparked a glimmering from the past. He’d learned all about God in Sunday school when he was a kid, but . . . “Would he really forgive me?”

The phone rang, and Scott jumped.

“Yes.” Kate squeezed his hand. “We’ll talk about this later. I better get that before it wakes Charlie.”

Scott leaned back in the swing as Kate went to answer the phone.

“Yes, he’s awake and doing fine.” There was a pause. Her voice changed. “I’ll tell him.”

A
bout last night . . .” Nick’s voice trailed off as the farm truck hit a rut in the road.

She knew that tone of voice. Had heard it before with Michael, and the boyfriend before him . . . she’d expected it all along. She rocked forward as the truck hit another rut. “Look, it was just a kiss or two. Don’t put too much spin on it. I understand—we live in different worlds.”

He shot her a startled look.

She pointed to herself then to him as she tried to hold her heart together. “You didn’t think
I
thought you . . .”

“No, of course not,” he said a little too quickly. “I—”

“It’s okay, forget it.” She turned and stared out the window as Pete waved at them from Jonathan’s travel trailer. Circles ringed his sleeveless shirt and his tanned biceps glistened in the afternoon heat. She returned the wave. Ethan must have changed his mind about sending him to Jackson today.

“Pete Connelly, right?”

“Yeah. We went to high school together.” Oak Grove loomed to her right. “I see Jonathan pulled off those old boards.”

“He’s repairing that old house?”

“He was before we received an offer on the sixty-five acres the house sits on. He and my dad grew up there.” An unexpected
shiver slid down her back. “A lot of the time, Oak Grove is where I am in my nightmares.”

“You mentioned nightmares at the restaurant.”

“Yeah. Well, this is where they take place. They get pretty wild sometimes with a clown chasing me.”

“Clown? What’s the significance of that?”

She took a shuddering breath. “I don’t know. Except clowns have always terrorized me. But it doesn’t end with the clown.”

“It gets worse?”

She nodded. “About six months ago I was working a case. Wasn’t called in until the last minute, and someone died. Sometimes the clown in my dreams is the shooter.”

“Taylor, I’m so sorry. After I met you, I read about that case online. From what the article said, there was nothing you could do. That kid meant to kill his stepfather.”

She closed her eyes. She’d tried to tell herself that over and over. Didn’t stop the feeling that she’d failed.

“Have you been inside the house since you’ve come back home?”

“No. Things keep coming up. Not sure I want to explore by myself. Jonathan had said he’d come with me.”

Nick slowed the truck. “Why don’t we stop now? You wouldn’t be by yourself, and exploring the place of your nightmares could—”

“No, thanks.” He didn’t want to date her but yet he wanted to be the white knight that chased away her inner demons? Not likely.

“On the way back, maybe?”

She bit her lip. “I’d rather ask Scott a few questions.”

“Let me call Kate and see how he’s doing.” Nick took out his phone and called the bed and breakfast. After a brief conversation, he hung up. “Kate seems to think he’s up to it. She said she’d tell him to expect us.”

“Thanks.”

“How about your dad’s file? Did you get it yet?”

“Got it Friday afternoon. Tomorrow I’m going with Livy to interview the detective who investigated the case.”

“That sounds promising. Learn anything you didn’t know?”

She wrinkled her nose. “One of the cops who investigated his disappearance died suspiciously.”

“Coincidence?”

“No such thing as coincidence when it comes to crime. Next on my list is to check the Logan Point newspapers printed around the time he disappeared. They’re archived at the library.”

“I’m a pretty good researcher. Why don’t I do that for you?”

“I hate for you to bother.” The lane forked. “Take the right lane. The old oak I used to climb should be just ahead.”

“Wouldn’t be any bother at all. And when you’re out and about, you really need to be careful. Your mom reminded me of that after lunch.”

She grunted. “She wasn’t happy I went out running yesterday.”

“I know. But she’s right. Just because nothing’s happened in the past few days doesn’t mean the threat is gone.”

“I’d like to think he’s lost interest,” Taylor said as they climbed out of the truck. At least that’s what she hoped. She was more than a little frustrated with her inability to get into her stalker’s mind and his on-again-off-again pursuit.

Unless her stalker
was
Scott. She tried to dismiss the thought—she’d settled in her mind that Scott didn’t meet the profile. But with him incapacitated, it could explain why she hadn’t received any more threats. She pushed the thoughts away and concentrated on showing Nick the land.

An hour and a half later, Taylor sat beneath the spreading limbs of the oak, listening to the soulful riffs of “Summertime” coming from Nick’s harmonica. They’d walked the land, and he’d infused her with his enthusiasm. The plan he carried in his heart was perfect for the twenty acres. As he’d talked, she’d pictured the cabins, the repairs to the existing boathouse, even the kids.
It’d be great to see kids romping these woods and swimming in the lake like she had.

Her head nodded to the slow rhythm of the song as Nick wound the music down and then sat quietly beside her. “I can play that on the piano,” she said.

“You play the piano?”

“Learned how after my dad left.” She looked at him. “Do you always carry your harmonica with you?”

“Usually.” He sighed and tapped the harp against his knee. “Playing calms me, helps when I’m trying to make a hard decision.”

“Buying this land?”

He nodded. “I’m pretty sure it’ll be more than I’ve budgeted, but I keep thinking about how many lives could be changed. Without intervention, the boys I want to bring here don’t have much of a chance. If they could just live a different kind of life for a few months, they could see they don’t have to continue down the wrong road.”

“It’s a worthy goal.”

“Can you imagine what it would be like for a boy who’s known nothing but concrete and asphalt to come here?”

Nick’s wistfulness captured her heart as a light breeze from the lake stirred the air. “You’re going to do this, aren’t you?”

“Depends on whether I can afford it.”

“Did Jonathan quote you a price?”

“No. He said to look at it first, but Kate has already warned me that land around here will be high.”

“Jonathan says we’ve been offered a million dollars for that sixty-five acres.”

Air whooshed from Nick’s lips. “That’s more than fifteen thousand an acre.” He glanced toward the water. “This will probably bring more, being on the lake.” His shoulders slumped.

“Can you afford it?”

“It’s a lot more than I’ve budgeted. Nonprofits don’t usually buy prime real estate.” He slid the harmonica in his shirt pocket.
“There’s enough from Angie’s insurance policy to pay for it, but I’ll need donations to build the cabins and run it. Potential donors might view the land purchase as extravagant.”

“You don’t have to advertise what you paid for it.”

He gave her an odd look. “No, but they’ll want to know, and I’ll tell them.”

Taylor thought about the boys he’d described and tried to imagine growing up in a big city, never knowing what it was like to roam the woods or swim in a lake. As a child, she’d never known anything else. Two swans glided from beneath the weathered boathouse, occasionally plunging their heads into the water, searching for food. Were they descendents of the ones who were here when she was a child?

Nick stirred beside her. “Kate says God will provide.”

She bit her lip to keep from laughing. “Not even God can get my uncle to reduce his price.”

“You never know . . .” He turned to her. “I try not to limit God.”

“And I do. That’s what you’re really saying.” She clasped her hands together and softly asked, “How can you trust God? He took your wife. Your brother almost killed himself . . .”

“So you think God doesn’t care about me.” Nick plucked a blade of grass and folded it in half. “I won’t lie to you. I struggled with my faith when Angie died.” He broke the end of the blade off. “But in the end, my faith is what sustained me.”

Taylor absorbed his words. Then unfolding her legs, she stood and walked out on the pier past the boathouse, stopping to scoop up a couple of small stones. The lake stretched before her like a sheet of glass.

Abruptly, she sailed one of the stones out across the lake, and it rippled the water in their little cove with each skip. She turned and sailed another one and caught her breath as the rock startled one of the swans and it lifted off the lake. Years vanished, and she saw another swan in another time . . .

It’d been in autumn the year she turned seven, and she and her
daddy had come to the lake to gaze at the night sky. She tried to count the stars. “Oh, Daddy, there must be a billion stars up there.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “I’m sure there are, honey. Did you know God set each and every one in place and named them?”

Her father’s laughter had startled a swan. She would never forget the sight of it lifting off the lake in the moonlight, her hand in her daddy’s. They’d been a family.

She clenched her jaw. No, she’d only thought they were a family. It had all been a lie.

Still, she’d give anything to feel her daddy’s hand wrapped around hers one more time.

She walked back to Nick. “Want to know why I don’t agree with you?”

“If you’d like to tell me.”

Taylor sat beneath the tree again, wrapping her arms around her knees. “Mom and Daddy took me to church every time the doors opened. He was a deacon, Sunday school teacher, you name it, he did it. When I was eight, I asked Jesus into my life. I believed God loved me. My daddy was so proud—so proud that the next week he walked out of my life. Didn’t even stay around for my baptism.”

She rested her chin on her knees. “When he first left, I believed with all my heart that if I prayed hard enough, God would bring him home. My Bible even told me he would. ‘Ask and you will receive.’ It didn’t happen. I asked and I did not receive.”

Overhead the haunting
kee-ee-ar
from a red-tailed hawk filled the air as it soared against the cobalt sky.

“That’s when I decided if there
was
a God, either he wasn’t powerful enough to bring my father home, or he wasn’t listening to my prayers.” She lifted her face toward Nick and narrowed her eyes. “So, don’t tell me he has a plan for my life or cares about me.”

Nick remained silent, and she got to her feet and walked to the end of the pier.

“Taylor.”

Strong hands turned her around. When she wouldn’t look at him, he lifted her face. His green-flecked eyes caught her gaze and held it.

“I wish I could take your pain away.”

She allowed Nick to draw her into his arms and rested her head on his chest, feeling his strength wrap around her. “It’s my fault he left. I did something wrong.”

“You know that’s not true.” He stroked her back.

She relaxed into his embrace and wished she never had to move. Finally, she sighed. “I know. I even told my niece the exact same thing this afternoon about her mom . . . It just hurts so much.”

“Oh, Taylor.” He cupped her face in his hands.

Desire smoldered in his hazel eyes, and Nick lowered his head, capturing her lips. There was nothing tentative about this kiss. She slipped her hands around his neck and lost herself in his arms, giving back as much as he gave.

Holding Taylor, kissing her, came as naturally to Nick as breathing. In spite of his determination otherwise, he was falling in love with this beautiful woman.

He lifted his eyes, and his gaze caught the weathered boathouse. It’d stood the test of time. He turned his head from the lake to the land they had walked together. He wanted this land, and he wanted Taylor beside him, helping him build the camp. He simply didn’t know how he’d get either one.

In the bedroom closet, Scott found a pair of jeans and a T-shirt Nick must have bought. With a shaky hand, Scott wiped sweat from his eyes. How could he sweat and freeze at the same time? He stripped off his pajamas and almost stumbled pulling on the jeans. Dr. Martin. She was coming to talk to him. Probably have him arrested.

Black dots swam before his eyes as he took a shaky step toward
the door. He glanced back at his bed. One look and they’d know he was gone. He stuffed pillows on the mattress, then covered them with the blanket. Ought to buy him a little time. The door creaked open, and he held his breath as he looked down the hall. Empty.