The Truth About Love and Lightning (7 page)

“She’s having a baby,” Trudy breathed, and a slender hand clasped at her gingham-smocked breast. “Did you hear that, sister?”

“You bet I did,” Bennie said, reaching for her twin’s arm as the two of them turned downright giddy. “You’ll have to start knitting the child a hat and booties.”

“We can bring Abby’s bassinet down from the attic,” Trudy suggested.

“And dig the baby quilt out of mothballs!”

Gretchen ignored the buzz of her sisters’ voices, her own head suddenly filled with a noisy hum all its own. “Are you positive?” she asked. “There’s no question?”

“None.” Abby bit her lip, looking for all the world like the sky had fallen.

“Oh, my,” Gretchen said, barely able to breathe. She had one hand at her throat and the other settled on her own abdomen.

A tiny thrill wiggled through her at the knowledge that her flesh and blood would beget a new life, that fragments of herself—and even honest-to-a-fault Annika—would trickle down to another generation. Abby seemed far less certain, wearing a shell-shocked expression, as though the concept of carrying a child at this stage of her life was too enormous to grasp. Gretchen had no doubts her sensible daughter was already pondering how exactly she’d nurture a tiny being inside herself, watching her skin stretch and her belly expand, all the while understanding that giving birth meant someone else would depend on you wholly for years and years and years to come. Everything changed the moment you brought a baby into the world.
Everything.

My God. Abs was pregnant!

As tickled as Gretchen was, she figured it would take a few days before it had sunk in with her as well. It seemed only yesterday that she’d found herself in the same pickle, although she’d been barely seventeen, with a furious mother and the baby’s father out of the picture.

“What about Nate?” she asked abruptly, wondering how he could have walked out on Abby under these circumstances. Unless he didn’t want children and that was what had caused their split. “How does he feel about this? Is he unhappy? Doesn’t he want to be a dad?”

“I couldn’t say,” Abby told her quietly, “considering he doesn’t know.”

“He doesn’t know?” Gretchen’s voice rose, though she fought to keep the disappointment from her tone. She had so little right to judge anyone else.

“Nate’s in the dark?” Trudy and Bennie echoed, and their happy chatter ceased. They, too, stood stock-still, awaiting Abby’s response.

“I couldn’t bring myself to tell him.” Abby sucked in her cheeks. “The timing’s rotten.”

“Oh, Abs, there’s no such thing as good timing when it comes to babies,” Gretchen said, not intending to chastise. But she’d chatted with Nathan March on the phone and been around him enough holidays these past six years to be certain he loved Abigail as much as he possibly could. He certainly wasn’t perfect—he worked too much, didn’t share in chores, had all the same bad habits inherent in nearly every straight man on the planet—but she couldn’t imagine he’d walk out on Abby when she needed him most. If she had one criticism of Nate, it would be that he wasn’t serious enough; but she would never have said that he wasn’t devoted.

“Mom?”

“What?”

Abby shuffled her shoes, which looked rather wet. “Are you going to make me stand out here all night?”

“For Pete’s sake, let her in,” Bennie directed.

“We’ll make her a cup of tea,” Trudy chirped.

“Oh, sweetie, forgive me”—Gretchen sighed and took Abby’s hand, drawing her daughter inside the house—“but we’ve been shaken up quite a bit today already. My brain’s still catching up.”

“There’s a lot of that going around,” Abby murmured.

As soon as the girl was inside, Bennie and Trudy swarmed her, enveloping Abby’s slender body in a group hug. “So have you left Chicago for good? Will you stay here till the wee one’s born?” they asked, fussing as they touched her hair and her face so they could “see” her better.

“Leave the poor child alone. She’s only just arrived.” Gretchen hauled the heavy suitcase toward the stairwell, then went back to soundly close the door. “Come, come,” she said and shepherded them all into the kitchen, where a copper-tiled ceiling reflected the lamplight and lent the room a burnished glow. “We’ve just eaten supper,” she explained to Abby. “Peanut butter sandwiches and soup.”

Even though the power had miraculously come back on hours ago when she’d brought the man who fell from the sky indoors, Gretchen had been half afraid to open the fridge, thinking the lights might go out again and all the food would spoil. But she would gladly take the chance for Abby’s sake.

“Do you want something?” she asked and went over to pull on the big chrome handle. “I could whip up another sandwich or make some toast?”

“Not just yet,” Abby replied, dumping her oversize bag onto the oak table with a thud. The humidity had set her dark hair into rumpled waves around her face, and her pale skin was makeup free, her lips without gloss. She looked less like a self-confident Chicago art gallery director and more like a teenager, awkward and unsure of herself.

“How about a glass of milk?” Gretchen offered.

Abby shrugged. “I mean, I guess I should get something in my stomach soon since I’m feeding two now, but not yet. I need to decompress first.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way”—Gretchen couldn’t resist brushing an unruly strand of brown from her daughter’s cheek—“but you seem scared to death.”

Abby choked up. “I guess I am.”

“Sweetheart, it’s okay.” She sighed and pulled Abby against her, enfolding the girl in her arms and holding on tightly. “It’s going to be all right.”

The muffled voice croaked against her breasts, “Is it? Is it really?”

So Gretchen replied the only way she could, with words she wished her own mother had uttered to her all those years ago when she’d been just as petrified. “Yes,” she said, stroking Abby’s hair. “Yes, everything will work out. It always does in the end. We’re here for you, whatever you need. Please, believe that.”

Making promises like those wasn’t lying, not really. Of course, she couldn’t see the future, but Gretchen wasn’t about to tell Abby anything else. She figured it was far better than the accusatory
What in God’s name have you done?
that Annika had shrieked at her when Gretchen had been forced to confess about that summer night when she’d been so unbelievably reckless. As long as she lived, she would never forget the mortified look on her mother’s face, the disappointment in her voice. “And I thought you were such a smart girl. I thought you’d be going to college, that you’d make something of yourself outside of Walnut Ridge. How disappointing this is.” Annika had all but spat the words. “If you had asked for a condom, I would have marched you down to the drugstore to purchase some. But since it’s too late for that, we must deal with the consequences of your actions. So tell me, who is the father?” she had demanded, hands on her hips, using the tone that Daddy used to call “Mommy’s mean voice.”

Who
was
Abby’s father?

That was the all-important question in those days. Forty years ago, unmarried girls who got pregnant were little more than tainted goods. It didn’t seem to matter that someone of the opposite sex was equally at fault. Regardless of how it had happened, once the word got out, you were never looked upon the same again. If Gretchen had told the truth, it would have been far worse. So it had seemed better—safer—to answer as she had. She told her mother exactly what she’d told Cooper and Lily Winston.

“It’s Sam’s,” she’d lied, sure it was the right thing to do. His was the only name that came to mind, and hadn’t he very clearly told her he’d do anything for her? But now she wondered if lying about something so big, even with the best of intentions, had finally come back to haunt her.

And it could very well have, if the man in the parlor was who she thought he might be. If he was really and truly Sam Winston.

“Mom?” Abby drew away from her embrace, sniffling as she brushed tears from her cheeks. “Is everything all right with
you
?”

Despite the fact that a man with Sam’s eyes was passed out on the parlor sofa, the phone was dead, the front drive was blocked, and the power was on despite the snapped lines, Gretchen gave her daughter a smile meant to reassure. “We survived a twister pretty much unscathed, and you’re back home with us, Abs. I’d say we’re doing great.”

“That depends on how you define great,” Bennie harrumphed. “Tell your daughter what the cat dragged in. She’s going to find out soon enough.”

“What the cat dragged in?” Abby echoed, and her brow furrowed as she looked at her mother. “You mean Matilda brought something inside? Like a mouse or a rabbit?”

“Oh, far bigger than a rabbit,” Bennie remarked in her know-it-all way, and Gretchen wished she had a dish towel in hand to swat her.

“Please, let’s not go there,” she muttered, keeping an arm firmly around Abby’s waist.

“Why not tell her?” Trudy urged, shoving thin hands into her smock pockets and rocking back on her heels. “Tell her what the tornado dropped into the grove along with all the walnuts. It’ll take her mind off things.”

“Walnuts in the grove? But that’s impossible, isn’t it?” Abby’s tired eyes squinted. “What’s going on?”

“Later,” Gretchen insisted, ignoring the determined set of her sisters’ faces and focusing solely on Abby. “Let’s get you and your suitcase up to your old room before we do anything else.” With that, she steered her daughter through the dining room, toward the stairs, impatient to get her settled. Abby clearly looked exhausted. “I can fill you in after you’ve gotten some rest.”

“Why not now?” Abby dug in her heels at the base of the steps. “What are you hiding? Is someone else here?”

“Mmmm.” As if on cue, a low moan crept through the stillness, and Abby’s focus shifted toward the parlor.

“Someone else
is
in the house,” she said and wrested her arm from Gretchen’s grasp.

“Abs!”

When Gretchen caught up with her, Abby stood on the threadbare rug in the center of the parlor, directly in front of the claw-foot sofa, her arms stiffly at her sides.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “Who is this? What happened to him?”

A solitary lamp burned, casting Abby’s profile in shadow as she watched the man who lay so still, his eyes closed, limbs twitching, an occasional groan escaping chapped lips. Though a quilt covered his body, his face was fully visible above it. Gretchen had wiped the worst of the dirt from his skin and hair, then had taken careful scissors to his overgrown beard, trimming it to his jawline. He looked more human now, less gray than pink. The knot on his brow had already calmed from an angry purple to a rather dull red.

“Is he okay?” Abby whispered. “Was he hit by the oak when it fell?”

“He was hit by something,” Gretchen said, leaning close to her daughter. “He spoke a little when I brought him in but not enough to tell me anything.”

And he hadn’t opened his eyes since he’d collapsed. He felt warm to the touch but not feverish. Gretchen didn’t think he was truly delirious, merely in a deep sleep, thanks to the trauma his body had suffered.

“He seems familiar somehow.” Abby cocked her head, looking at him. “Is he from around here?”

Gretchen hesitated before answering as carefully as possible. “When I asked, he couldn’t remember his name. He needs to sleep and heal.”

“So the tornado picked him up and dropped him onto the farm, is that it?” Abby tugged on the fringed hem of her sweater. “And it touched nothing else? Not the house or the barn?”

“That’s pretty much it,” Gretchen replied, though Abby hardly looked satisfied by her answer. “Okay, here’s what I know,” she began, before falling into storytelling mode as she’d done so many times when Abby was a child. She described the ferocious storm that had come out of nowhere, the winds that had battered the house, banging shutters against clapboard and sending the women to the cellar, and finally the twister that had felled the mighty oak and showered the farm with debris.

As she spoke, Abby bent nearer and nearer the fellow, examining him far too closely for Gretchen’s comfort.

“C’mon, Abs.” She touched her daughter’s arm, willing her to move away. “He needs to rest. There’s nothing we can do for him at the moment.”

But Abby wasn’t listening.

“Doesn’t this recent storm remind you of another storm you told me about a dozen times before? Of rain and wind and lightning, and walnuts dropping from the clouds in scores?” her daughter said, straightening up and tucking dark hair behind her ears.

“It certainly does,” Bennie muttered and began feeling her way to the foot of the couch. Her chin tipped toward Abby, though her gaze drifted up toward the ceiling. “As I see it, there’s a simple connection, one soul who could stir things up like that.”

“Yes, yes, and who could cause the scent of lemongrass to carry on the wind,” Trudy chimed in.

“For Pete’s sake,” Gretchen said, hating that her sisters were feeding Abby’s fertile imagination. “Please, don’t do this.” She knew how much Abby had always yearned to have her father back, but she didn’t want her child to believe what wasn’t real; no matter that Gretchen had been wondering the same thing herself. “We know nothing about this man, not who he is or where he came from.”

“But do you think it could be him?” Abby crouched beside the divan much as Gretchen had earlier. She couldn’t seem to take her eyes off the injured man. “Does any part of you believe that he’s come back?”

Gretchen squirmed, wiping damp palms on the thighs of her jeans, relieved when neither Bennie nor Trudy responded. Surely neither wanted to encourage Abby any more than they already had.

“You’re tired, Abs,” Gretchen said and took her daughter’s hand, rubbing gently. “You’re upset about Nate and the baby. You’re seeing what you want to see. That’s perfectly natural.”

“You can’t tell me you’re not curious.” Abby stared at her mother, her brow furrowed. “It’s his long face and the bump on the bridge of his nose. Those high cheekbones, too. And what about his mouth? That same thin line from the photograph,” Abby went on, her eyes too bright, her cheeks too pink. “Lots of things can change, but bone structure doesn’t lie.”