The Truth About Love and Lightning (26 page)

Gretchen felt as foggy as the walnut grove had appeared earlier. “No, I haven’t a clue.”

“What if Sam Winston is really and truly dead, and this Henry Little knew enough about you and the twins and what happened to the Winstons to take advantage of the situation?” the sheriff ranted. “Like you said, it’s all there in the Walnut Ridge archives: Sam leaving on a youth mission for Africa, his going missing, Lily and Coop passing away and leaving the grove to you. Every bit of information’s laid out like an encyclopedia, and all he had to do was wait for the right moment. So good old Henry Little comes out of hiding, ditches his Olds, and shows up on your farm. Now he’s got you hooked on his amnesia story like worm bait to a hungry catfish, and he’s reeling you in.”

My word, if that didn’t sound like the plot for a really bad movie, Gretchen wasn’t sure what did.

“Good God,” she sputtered, unsure if she’d ever seethed before, but she was seething right that minute. “You’re certifiable,” she told the sheriff. “I’ve never heard such insanity in my life! You think the man I’ve taken in is a missing preacher who’s dodged the law for twenty years?” She paused to get a hold of herself, the pounding at her temples now a full-blown headache. “Stop this nonsense, Frank Tilby, do you hear me? Don’t bother me anymore!”

The man in her house—the man who’d kissed her—was either Sam Winston or his reincarnation. Gretchen knew it in her core. She didn’t say as much to the sheriff because she didn’t care whether or not he believed her. What mattered was her own heart, and it was telling her Sam had come home.

How else could she explain the inexplicable, like the storm that had come out of nowhere, the buds on the dead walnut trees, the mole on the back of his neck, the turquoise beads, and his remark about dragonflies? None of
that
was in the town archives.

“But, Gretchen, listen to me—”

“No, you listen to me,” she interrupted him. “Leave us alone, or I’ll phone Millie myself and tell her to keep you on a shorter leash. Now let’s say good-bye before this gets any nastier, shall we?”

“Gretchen Brink! You need to come to your senses, woman!” Tilby sputtered, turning quite blustery. “You’re a woman of a certain age pining for something that doesn’t exist! You always were a dreamer, wanting things you couldn’t have. You couldn’t even see when the right guy stood in front of you, and you blew it.”

Blew it with him?
she wondered, knowing he didn’t mean her chance with Sam.

“Are you referring to yourself, Sheriff?” She could hardly keep from shouting. How preposterous could he get?

“At least I didn’t run off to Africa and leave a pregnant woman behind to bear my child alone.”

“No, you married a woman you didn’t love because it was the easy way out,” Gretchen replied, so agitated the receiver shook in her hand.

“Why don’t you calm down and see things rationally—”

“And why don’t you go to hell!”

She slammed down the handset and squeezed her eyes shut, pressing fingers to her forehead.

“Gretchen?”

Her heart in her throat, she swiveled around to see the man standing there. “How much did you hear?” she asked, wishing she’d never answered the phone. Wishing she’d told Tilby from the start to keep his damned nose out of her business.

“I heard enough,” he said, his eyes a slate gray above his high cheekbones.

“I’m so sorry, but the sheriff can’t seem to let this go.”

“Maybe it’s you he can’t let go of,” the man remarked and began walking toward her. “And every minute I stay here, I understand why more and more.”

She bit her bottom lip, unable to look away from him, thinking how the sum of his parts measured up to Sam Winston all right: his height, his slim build, the structure of his face, his reluctant smile, his strong but gentle demeanor. Only when he touched her now, when he drew her into his arms and held her there, pressing his chin against her hair, Gretchen felt something she’d never felt with Sam before.

A physical connection. A true spark.

One that had taken forty years to ignite.

Choices

Some choices we live not only once but a thousand times over, remembering them for the rest of our lives.

—
RICHARD BACH

Twenty-two

July–August 1970

Sam Winston had barely seen Gretchen all summer, not since his high school graduation. She had been seated with his parents in the third row of the gymnasium, rising to her feet when he’d crossed the makeshift stage in cap and gown to receive his diploma. Her smile had glowed like a sunburst from amidst the dozens of other faces.

But that was back in early June, and it was already late July. He’d be taking off soon for a six-month humanitarian mission in Africa while Gretchen returned to school for her senior year. When he’d asked, she had come by the farm a while back to give him a haircut. But she hadn’t been by since. Sam wouldn’t doubt that she was wary of being around him, as he’d avoided her for months, sulking throughout the spring after her “can’t we just be friends” remark had ripped his heart out.

By the time he’d managed to swallow his pride and accept whatever terms she placed on their relationship, Gretchen had gotten a full-time job as a waitress at Patty Pig’s BBQ on the edge of town, where the rural route connected with the interstate highway. It kept her busy enough that she’d turned him down the last few times he’d tried to get together.

So he’d made a point to go to Patty Pig’s just to see her, asking to be seated in her section, for all the good that did. The joint—oh, and it was a joint—had been noisy and crowded, an incessant string of “you done me wrong” country songs blaring from the jukebox, truck drivers loudly jawing, the smell of pork, cigarette smoke, and unwashed humanity thick in the air.

As he chewed a sloppy brisket sandwich, he watched her race back and forth between the tables in her bright yellow uniform, pale hair pulled off her sweat-damp face. Half her job, he decided, appeared to involve dancing away from strange men grabbing at her rear end.

“Can I see you later?” Sam had asked after she’d torn his check from her pad and slapped it down on the table. She’d looked so deflated, like she needed a little cheering up, and he wondered if Annika was responsible. Since her father had left, Gretchen always seemed to be doing too much. “Nothing big, I promise. Maybe we can go for a drive,” he’d suggested.

“Later tonight?” she’d said, frowning, and tucked her pencil behind her ear. “I don’t know, Sammy. We’ll see,” was the best she could give him.

Only, they didn’t end up going for a drive, not that night or any night for weeks on end. Not until Sam got a phone call from Gretchen around dinnertime on a Monday evening, barely a week before he was set to depart for West Africa in mid-August.

“Can you meet me at the park?” she’d asked, such urgency in her voice that Sam worried before he even knew anything was wrong. “I need to talk to you alone.”

“When?”

“Is now too soon? I have a shift in two hours.”

“Now’s good,” he assured her.

He took the truck into Walnut Ridge, driving as fast as he safely could on the unpaved road, clouds of dust kicking up in his wake. When he reached the town square, he parked smack across from the sheriff’s office. He half expected to run into Frank Tilby, who was in training as a deputy to his old man.

But Sam didn’t bump into the sheriff’s son on the sidewalk, or when he popped into the drugstore to buy two ice-cold bottles of Coke. Downtown Walnut Ridge seemed blissfully empty in the heat of high afternoon, in that lazy hour before dusk.

He marched across Main Street, passing the gazebo and the bandstand, heading over to the park proper where the local kids flew kites and played soccer. The green space was empty now save for a few stragglers not yet ready to abandon one of the remaining days of summer for home and supper.

Sam found Gretchen sitting on a bench, staring into space, her pretty face crumpled, looking for all the world like her life had just ended.

He slid onto the bench beside her and offered her a Coke. “You thirsty?”

She shook her head but took it anyway, tucking it between her thighs, bare below the ragged bottoms of her denim shorts. He could see a scrape over one kneecap, and it reminded him of the Saturdays they’d run loose on the farm, getting all sorts of cuts from climbing trees and pretending they were pirates, seeing who could scramble up the imaginary ropes to the bird’s nest first. Gretchen often won, and she’d shout from the highest bough, “Land, ho!” Even with her hair tangled and face smudged with dirt, she’d beamed victoriously.

But she hardly appeared as carefree at the moment. Tears skidded down her face, plopping onto her blue tank top.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, setting his soda on the grass so his hands were free. He touched her arm, not sure of what to do. “C’mon, you can tell me.”

“I’m in trouble, deep trouble,” she mumbled as more tears tumbled from her lashes. She had shadows below her eyes, blotches on her freckled cheeks. Her collarbone jutted noticeably above the scoop neck of her tank. She sure looked like she hadn’t been sleeping much, or eating much for that matter. “I dug myself into a big hole, Sam, and I don’t know how to get out.”

If it had been anyone else, Sam might’ve instantly thought it was drugs or booze or petty theft. But he couldn’t imagine Gretchen getting into anything heavy. No matter what her family had gone through, she’d always been the best kind of girl. She’d taken care of her blind sisters, had put up with a mother who rubbed all of Walnut Ridge the wrong way, had lost her father to divorce, and still managed to keep a smile on her face, most of the time anyway. But not now.

“What could you possibly have done?” he asked, dying to put his arm around her and comfort her, but afraid she’d take it the wrong way. He didn’t want her to think he was coming on to her because she was feeling weak. “I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think.”

Her chin trembled as she nodded. “Oh, it’s bad,” she said, unable to meet his gaze. “I can’t imagine what my mother will say when I get up the nerve to tell her. I wouldn’t be surprised if she kicks me out.” Gretchen exhaled noisily and fiddled with the neck of the Coke bottle, finally plucking the thing from between her thighs and depositing it on the bench. “I made a huge mistake, and I don’t think there’s any good way to fix it.”

Sam still couldn’t envision anything Gretchen would have done that could be so unforgivable. “Did you get fired? Did you steal something? Did you burn all of Annika’s awful paintings?”

Glumly, she told him, “No, nothing like that.”

So Sam asked the next thing that came to mind, the short hairs at the back of his neck prickling even as he said it. “Did that idiot Frank Tilby get you into trouble? Because if he did, I’ll kick his butt.”

He might be the sheriff’s kid, but Tilby was no angel. Sam had seen him drunk as a skunk, out driving the back roads in his pickup with his buddies, hunting lights turned on, tossing beer cans out the windows. Had Gretchen been in the truck with him when he’d hit something or someone? Sam wasn’t blind. He’d hung around some of the high school baseball games, watching Gretchen’s eyes on Tilby. He knew they’d seen each other some, though he didn’t like to think about it.

“If he’s hurt you, Gretch—” Sam continued, balling his hands into fists.

“No!” She stared at him, wide-eyed. “I swear, Frank has nothing to do with this. I’ve hardly seen him all summer. All he does is play baseball, get wasted, and work for his dad.”

Though he wasn’t sure that he believed her—she could have been lying just to keep him from hunting Frank down and knocking out all his teeth—Sam gave her the benefit of the doubt. He leaned back against the bench, following her gaze and staring off into the distance. “If it’s not Tilby, then what is it?” he said. “You’ll feel better once you get it off your chest.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” she said and averted her eyes, staring at her lap again.

The sun had dipped below the line of trees, the sky less a blue than a mix of mottled pinks and purples. Hardly anyone remained except an older woman walking a dog that kept stopping to sniff every bush within leash length.

They sat there in silence for another ten minutes, the nightly chorus of crickets warming up their serenade. An owl did a soft
who-who
in the distance. Sam figured Lily was wondering where he was and why he was late for dinner, as he’d run out of the house without telling anyone where he was going. But Gretchen was more important than a scolding from his mother.

“I’m pregnant, Sam.”

“What?” he said, not sure he’d heard right. She’d caught him half listening. “What’d you say?”

“I’m pregnant,” Gretchen repeated, and still he couldn’t believe it.

Sam peeled his arm off the back of the bench and turned to face her. Gretchen’s head was down, avoiding him, which didn’t help matters any as Sam found his own gaze drawn toward the spot beneath her ribbed tank top that covered her belly. She looked as slender as she always had. She must be wrong. She couldn’t possibly be right.

“No,” he whispered, mostly to himself. “You can’t be.”

“I missed my period,” she told him, sniffing back her tears. “I went to a clinic over in Washington and took a blood test. There’s no mistake, Sam. I’m going to have a baby.”

“Maybe you need to take another test,” he said, hardly able to focus. Both his brain and his heart clouded up, darkening like the evening sky. “Maybe the first one was wrong. I could take you back tomorrow and you could do it over again—”

“No.” She tucked hay-colored hair behind her ears, her fingers trembling. “I don’t need to retake anything.” She dropped her hands to her thighs and began softly sobbing. “It wasn’t wrong. I messed up and now I’m paying for it.”

“How?” he asked, his breaths choppy, feeling as though his chest had been cut open wide. “How did it happen?”

“I was stupid is how. It was an accident,” she said as she wiped futilely at her falling tears. “It was a crazy night at work, and I was so dead on my feet. Nothing’s been going right for months and months, you know, not with Annika, not with”—
you,
Sam was sure she was going to say, but instead she finished with—“anyone. This guy who came into Patty’s, he was so sweet to me. He was with friends, they said their car had broken down. He was so gracious, not at all like the normal crowd.” Her freckled features screwed up, and she exhaled slowly. “When his pals took off, he hung around until I clocked out.” She shrugged. “I left with him because he made me smile.” She played with the frayed edge of her shorts. “I’ve hardly had any fun all summer, working so much, giving the money to Annika for bills. I can’t even remember exactly how it all happened, but it did.” She dropped her head into her hands, crying harder now. “It was just one of those things—”