Chapter 14
Olive turned off the two-lane highway onto a dirt road that she hoped was the right dirt road. The early-morning sun slanted through the windshield and directly into her eyes so she couldn’t see the map app on her phone. Unsure, she pulled over and eyed the screen again. Good news: she’d remembered the exit to her parents’ farm just fine. Bad news: she still wasn’t ready for this.
She probably should’ve asked someone to come along with her instead of leaving the house at dawn on her own. But Gram was in charge at the senior center today. Katie would’ve come, no questions asked, but Olive refused to ask her to take a day away from Joe’s side.
Noah would’ve dropped everything as well. She knew it. But she also knew he had to Zoom into a work meeting, and he too should be free to go to the hospital today.
So she’d left a note on the coffee maker—the one place she knew everyone would see it—and had gone alone.
When Olive was growing up, Gram always preached about believing in yourself. She’d told a young Olive many times that if she stated her intentions, and if she believed them, like truly believed, then those intentions would come true.
Olive had disproved that theory many times, but that was probably because she’d never quite believed that she deserved what it was she wanted.
She was working on that. Take two days ago, for instance. When she’d had the nightmare and been awoken by Noah, who’d so sweetly taken care of her, holding her against his very fine, very hard body. It’d taken her less than two seconds to wish for a kiss. And hell, maybe she’d finally lined up her intentions with truly believing, because she’d gotten what she’d wanted . . . at least for those few minutes.
She stopped at a crossroads and was pretty sure she needed to go right, but she stopped again to make sure, just as her phone buzzed with an incoming text.
Katie: Seriously? You can run but you can’t hide.
Olive: What am I hiding from?
Katie: You know what. And I know that you know that I know.
Olive: Points for the Friends reference. Still have no idea what you’re talking about.
Katie: You and Noah. Go.
Olive: Again, there is no me and Noah.
Katie: But if you marry him, we can be sisters for life.
Olive: I thought we were already sisters for life.
Katie: Well, duh. But I want to go to your wedding. I want to babysit your babies. Our kids will be cousins. I mean, sure, my brother’s super bossy and annoying and stubborn, and living with a man isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. They use one soap product for everything. One! Can you imagine using the same soap on your booty that you use for your face? Gross. Also, they make a lot of weird noises, and then there’s the issue of sharing a bathroom. Don’t get me started on that.
Olive: Gee, you make it sound so great.
Katie: Does it help to know I wouldn’t trade it for anything?
Olive: Sorry, we’ve got a bad connection, you’re breaking up, I gotta go.
Katie: It’s a ducking text!
Katie: Dear autocorrect, it’s NEVER ducking!
Katie: Hello?
Katie: Dammit.
Olive started driving again. She’d definitely be losing internet soon. In some areas of the wild Sierra mountains, things were just about as remote as one could get in the continental U.S. The road in and out of the farm had never had internet, and though there’d be some efforts to change that, she was pretty sure it hadn’t happened yet.
So when Stephanie called, Olive was surprised she could get through. “What’s up?”
“Just wanted to let you know I’m sending you a file with everything you wanted for the zoo campaign.”
“Great, thanks. I’ll look it over later today and get back to you with any changes.”
“Trust me, you won’t have any,”
Stephanie said. “So . . . you getting lucky yet?”
“Ha, and none of your business.”
“That means no.”
Olive sighed. “Gotta go.”
When her phone buzzed again two minutes later, she answered with “Still not getting lucky.”
“That’s not what I hear.”
Olive grimaced at Gram’s voice. “Hey.”
“Don’t ‘hey’ me. You kissed Noah and do you say anything to me about it? No.”
Oh dear God. “How did you—”
“Because, Olive Summer Porter, I know everything. Now spill.”
“It’s not what you think. And I thought you had an event today.”
“I do. But I’d have dropped everything like a hot potato to drive out to the farm with you rather than see you go alone.”
“And I’d have loved that,”
Olive admitted. “But we both know this road is terribly bumpy and it would’ve hurt your back.”
“Damn old age. Damn old bones. Damn stupid, annoying doctors.”
Olive smiled. “Those ‘damn stupid, annoying doctors’ have finally gotten your pain under control and we’re going to keep it that way.”
Gram sighed. “Don’t ever get old.”
“I’ll try real hard,”
Olive said wryly.
“And honey? You’re doing the right thing. I know you won’t sleep well until you find out your mom and dad are okay. You always were such a good girl. I love you.”
“Love you too, Gram.”
“Call me the minute you get there, just so I know.”
“If there’s service. I’m probably going to lose you any second now. I’ll call you on my way back, soon as I’m able.”
She’d barely disconnected when her cell rang again. “Still not getting any.”
Dead silence.
She glanced at her screen and sucked in a breath. Noah.
“Olive.”
And damn if her heart didn’t skip a beat at the sound of his low, husky voice saying nothing but her name. No, she told herself. Stop it. Don’t remember the kiss. Remember what he’d made clear to everyone at the hospital.
They weren’t a thing.
The fact that it was true, and also that she’d implied it first, didn’t matter. What did matter was how he seemed so absolutely one hundred percent certain.
“Olive? You there?”
She drew a deep breath. “Thanks for calling, but I can’t come to the phone right now. Leave a message at the beep and I’ll be sure to not get back to you. Beeeeeeep.”
“The beep needs some work,”
he said dryly.
She sighed. “What do you want? I’m about to lose service.”
“Why did you go alone?”
“Because.”
He didn’t say anything. Had she gotten lucky enough to have lost service already?
“I thought we agreed that someone should go with you,” he said.
In case she found something bad, he meant. She sighed. “I have someone with me.”
“Who?”
“You, on speaker.”
Then, sensing the conversation was about to deteriorate, she put a chipper smile into her voice. “Welp, this has been fun, but I gotta go—”
“Wait.”
He drew an audible breath. “I get it, what you’re doing. I’d be doing the same thing.”
She swallowed past the sudden lump in her throat. “Thank you,”
she said softly.
“And Olive? If someone I cared about was missing, I’d want you to be the one looking for them.”
This was what she’d always gotten from him. Unconditional acceptance.
“You’re going to be safe,” he said.
“Safe is my middle name.”
“I mean it, Olive. There’s been a run of campsite thefts in the entire Tahoe area all season. People have reported two men in their twenties showing up with guns and taking whatever they want from terrified campers. Stay vigilant and be careful.”
She drew a deep breath. “I will. And Noah?”
Nothing.
“Noah?”
She stared at her phone. Great. Now the service punked out.
Luckily it took concentration on the gravel road or she’d probably have gotten more anxious the closer she got. Okay, who was she kidding? She was already at maximum anxious capacity.
After a few more moments, the gravel road turned to dirt. She’d been both anticipating and dreading this part. On the one hand, it meant she was only a few miles from the farm. On the other hand, the Mini wasn’t meant for off-roading. She’d known it would come to this. She parked and began walking.
Two miles and a few wasp scares and filthy shoes later, she stopped at the gate to her parents’ property—thirty acres of land that her dad had inherited a long time ago. Back then, it’d been overgrown, rocky, and completely undesirable. But as he’d told her when she’d been little, free was free. He wasn’t big on hard work, but he’d always had a green thumb. So he and Olive’s mom had gone with their strengths. They’d parked a trailer on the property, a home that had never really felt like one.
At least not to Olive.
Just looking at it, all her insecurities and fears of not knowing where she belonged came rushing back, knocking the wind out of her. At the same time, her heart began pounding because—her parents’ truck wasn’t in the makeshift driveway.
Just a sprinter van she’d never seen before.
Maybe they’d come into a windfall and traded in the old truck. She looked around, feeling unexpectedly, shockingly nostalgic. All her life, her parents had worked just enough to eke by, spending most of their time going from fair to fair, or festival to festival, loving their life.
It really wasn’t their fault that Olive hadn’t loved it as well.
The trailer looked dark and vacant, but the greenhouse her dad had so lovingly built had sounds coming from it, and she caught sight of a person moving around inside. A man. A tall one.
Her dad! Probably tending to his plant babies. She could even hear the distant thumping base of “I Will Survive”
by Gloria Gaynor—his favorite song for the stevia section of his greenhouse. And if she strained, she could also hear Bach, which he played for the indica section. “I’m going to kill him,”
she told the gray clouds gathering overhead, having no idea why she’d spent so much energy worrying, or taken the day off to come up here, for that matter.
Heading straight for the greenhouse door, she yanked it open. Lush greenery filled every inch of the space, making it difficult to see from one end to the other. “Dad?”
A few plants rustled, and from the mix a man appeared, making her gasp and take a step back. Because nope, not her dad, but a stranger in a Metallica T-shirt.
“What the hell?”
they said in unison.
“Who are you?”
Olive demanded.
A small dog had run toward her, no discernible lineage, just a super cute scruffy brown mutt with sweet brown eyes, wearing a matching Metallica T-shirt, his entire body vibrating with happiness.
“Well, the little fellow there is Buddy,”
the man said. He also had scruffy brown hair and brown eyes. And though he looked friendly enough for a giant of a man, he wasn’t broadcasting his thoughts.
“And you are?”
she asked, staying at the door.
“Oh, I’m Buddy too. See, same T-shirts, same name, get it?”
She squatted down and slowly reached out to Buddy.
The dog plopped to the floor and rolled over to expose his belly.
Obliging, Olive gave him a rubdown. “I can’t help but notice that Buddy isn’t a boy, but a girl.”
The human Buddy shrugged. “I’d never assume someone’s gender. Buddy likes ‘they/them’ pronouns.”
Olive nodded. Then shook her head. “What are you doing here?”
“We live here. I rent the driveway,”
Buddy said. “I work the greenhouses with the owner of the property.”
“That’s my dad. He and my mom aren’t here?”
Buddy scratched his head. “No.”
“Do you know where they are?”
Buddy gave another shrug. At this point, Olive was going to start a drinking game, a shot for her every time he lifted his bony shoulders up and down. “You have no idea where they went?”
Buddy looked around, like maybe they were in the greenhouse and he hadn’t noticed. “They were on a walkabout. That’s what they said the last time they called to check in on the plants.”
“They call you to check in?”
Olive asked. “When was the last time you heard from them?”
“Um, it’s been”—he scratched his head again—“maybe a week? Or two? They did say they’d be calling again soonish to check in and make sure everything was going okay with the next, erm, harvest, but that it might be tricky, what with spotty internet and possibly running out of data.”
Yep, that was her parents. “So you think they’re okay?”
Buddy laughed. “I’m sure of it. The jar of ayahuasca tea is gone.”
Great. Terrific. “And you have no idea where this walkabout was taking place?”
“They went somewhere new with another couple. It involved a spiritual awakening and reconnecting with their inner child.”
Their inner child? They’d never disconnected with their inner child! She drew a deep breath. “And you don’t know where they started this trek?”
“Walkabout, and no. I just take care of the plants, that’s it.”
Olive was pretty sure there was no new info to be had from Buddy, but she wasn’t ready to give up. “This couple they went with. Have you ever seen them before?”
“Nope. They met on Craigslist. They were all going to share a yurt rental somewhere.”
He scratched his head again. “Maybe near Mount Eagle? Not sure.”
She let out a controlled exhale. It didn’t help. “Thank you. I’m going to check out the trailer.”
Buddy gave her a go-for-it sweeping gesture.
She walked through the wild grass to her childhood home. She didn’t have a key, but was pretty sure she wouldn’t need one. And true enough, it was unlocked. Open for anyone who came by and needed the space.
With a sigh, she stepped inside. The trailer was probably from the eighties. Maybe even the seventies, but while old and faded, it was spotless.
That was her mom’s doing. Her mom loved clean. Her dad not so much. When Olive had still lived here, her bed had been the pulldown couch along the wall opposite the pull-down dinette table. The couch’s cushions were the same, as were the crochet pillows and blanket folded at one end.
She sat there, leaned her head back, and hugged the pillow she’d watched her mom make when Olive had been, what, maybe five? “Where are you guys?”
she whispered. “Are you okay?”
But if the trailer knew, it kept their secrets.
Buddy stuck his head in the door she’d left open. “You okay, miss?”
“Olive.”
And nope, she wasn’t okay. “If I leave you my number, can you call me when you hear from them again?”
“Sure.”
She nodded, wishing she could convince herself that none of this was necessary, that her parents were okay, but she couldn’t.