19
Drew stared out at the acres below him, cataloging them in his mind.
There was the bean field where he’d chased Savannah, and the grove of trees where he’d kissed her.
Across the highway, in the distance, was where she’d first ridden with him in the combine, and back behind his parents’ house was where they’d had the bonfire before Halloween.
He didn’t even want to look toward the cabin, which still seemed to echo with her laughter; certain things even smelled like her, and he couldn’t walk into the yard without hearing her yell his name.
It was as if the house itself had absorbed part of her, only to release it back to him when he wanted it the least.
Cold wind whipped across the top of the grain bin where he’d taken refuge from the world, but he paid no attention. Let it come. Let it blow him off the stupid thing, for all he cared.
He was still deep in his darkened thoughts when he heard a soft thud, and the ladder on the side of the two-story tank shuddered slightly. The noise came again and again, getting louder, and Drew clenched his jaw in irritation. It was probably Jonah. “Not a good time, Jay!” he shouted.
But the sound of someone climbing didn’t stop.
When he heard a person reach the top and haul themself onto the slanted roof of the tank, he turned around in anger. But then he stopped short.
“Whatever you were about to say would probably get you grounded,” his father said with a chuckle. “If I could still ground you, that is.”
Drew glowered at the older man and then returned to his original position, his arms resting across his knees and his boots pressed against the safety rail. A moment later, his dad joined him.
“Your mama’s afraid you’re going to jump,” he explained. “I tried telling her you’d be more likely to maim yourself than to actually die, but she sent me up here anyway.”
Drew peeked over the edge of the roof, the height barely fazing him—but then he remembered who he was sitting with. “Aren’t you afraid of heights?” he asked.
He felt his father shift nervously on the metal surface, and he saw the familiar brown boots spread a little wider on the rail, like the other man was anchoring himself more securely. “It’s not my favorite thing,” his dad admitted.
“Then why’d you come up here?”
“Well, like I said, your mama’s nervous, and sometimes we do things we don’t like for the women we love.”
Yeah. I know, Drew thought.
“So, are you gonna tell me why you’ve been a monster to deal with this week?”
Drew kept his eyes on the horizon straight ahead. There was no part of him that wanted to talk about this.
His father sighed. “Alright, well, I’ll tell you what I know, then.
First, I know Savannah’s car left your driveway in a rush Saturday night, and she hasn’t been around since.
I know you swapped feeding shifts with your Uncle Logan on Sunday so you wouldn’t have to go to worship—probably so you wouldn’t run into her—and I know nobody can get near you without having their head bitten off. ”
He paused, but Drew didn’t respond. That was all easily obtainable information.
“I also know Savannah doesn’t think what you two have is over, and if you weren’t up here sitting on your pride, you could probably go fix it,” his father added.
That got Drew’s attention. Of course it was over! Hadn’t she been listening? “How would you know?” he asked.
Rob Tanner chuckled softly. “Your sister is a great source of information.”
Drew scowled. This was the last thing he wanted his sister to be in the know about.
“Something about trying to cut her loose?” his father prodded, and then he huffed out another laugh. “Sounds very familiar, actually.”
Drew stilled. “How?”
Rob Tanner let out a long sigh that ruffled the hair across his forehead. “Well, son, I wasn’t always old and smart like I am now. Once upon a time, I was young and stupid, like you.”
Drew bristled, but his father held out a steadying hand. “Just listen,” he advised kindly. “Once upon a time, your mother came into this town as a traveling nurse, assigned to spend three months at the hospital in Willow Creek.”
Drew stared blankly at a buzzard drifting level with the treetops. He’d heard this story before.
“Anyway, at some point she met me and, for reasons still unknown, decided I was who she wanted. So, when the time came to take a new contract, she renewed her spot here instead; that meant three more months in the middle of nowhere. Then, when that contract was up, she renewed it again. By the time I found out that was happening, she’d been here the better part of a year, and I’d had no idea she was turning down other work just to stay with me. ”
Drew’s ears perked up. He’d heard the version where his mother came to Tennessee for work and fell in love, but he’d never heard that she could have left along the way.
“At the end of that third contract, she was given the option to spend her next assignment in Hawaii, someplace she’d been dying to go all her life.
I insisted that she take it, but she refused.
She said if she gave up her position here, she wasn’t guaranteed a chance to come back.
So, I thought I’d make it easier on her.
” Rob Tanner cleared his throat and went on.
“I broke it off, said some terrible things, and even started dating someone else just to prove my point. Your mother called me every name in the book—and actually threw a book at me once—but I thought I was doing what was best. I felt like I was falling on my sword and setting her free or something chivalrous like that, but you know what I was actually doing?”
Drew didn’t answer. He could feel this particular story a little too far down in his bones.
“I was making both of us miserable for no reason,” his dad continued, answering his own question.
“Your mama went to Hawaii and hated every second of it, and I spent three months barely able to look in the mirror. We didn’t have cell phones or social media back then, you know, so those three months were the longest and quietest of my life.
I dreamed every night that she’d found someone else, and I didn’t have any way of knowing if it was true or not.
I drove myself insane with the possibilities.
“Finally, one day, I got a postcard. All it said was ‘I’m in Carbondale if you’re done being an idiot’ and included her new address.
” Rob Tanner laughed sheepishly, running a hand back through his hair.
“When I tell you I made tracks, I mean it. You can ask your Uncle Logan; I burned rubber all the way down Grandpa’s driveway—left the tractor in the field, left the hay on the trailer.
I knew I’d be in so much trouble when I got home, but I didn’t care.
All I wanted was to get to her as fast as I could and do whatever she needed me to do to make it better. ”
Drew leaned back on his hands and tilted his head to watch his father’s face. “What did you have to do?” he asked.
His dad’s lips curved into a slow smile, and the tops of his cheeks turned pink. “There was a lot of groveling.” Then he grinned at his own memory. “You can ask your mother if you want to hear that part.”
“No, thank you.” Drew squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to picture his parents as a young couple. It was enough to know they’d later created him.
“Anyway, moral of the story is don’t be an idiot,” his father summed up. “Don’t try to make choices for her. It’s her life, and she can live it wherever and with whoever she wants, and if that place is here and that person is you, just thank your lucky stars and accept it.”
Drew mulled this over in his mind as the wind tousled his hair. He didn’t want to be the reason Savannah gave up something good, but the last four days had also been some of the worst of his life. He couldn’t imagine this feeling stretching into eternity.
It’s her life, his conscience repeated, and she did say to call her.
He let out a sigh.
“Second moral,” his dad said suddenly, scooting carefully toward the ladder, “don’t make me come back up here.”
“Hi! You’ve reached Savannah Reynolds. Leave me a message after the beep!”
Drew hung up before her voicemail could connect—for the sixth time.
He should probably say something, but this wasn’t the kind of conversation he wanted to have recorded, just in case he screwed it up again.
He pulled open the door that led to her apartment and bounded up the stairs two at a time.
Then he knocked. “Savannah?” he called. “Savannah, are you home?” He paused and waited, listening for any sounds from inside, then tried again.
After several attempts, he reached for the knob and found it locked.
Come to think of it, he hadn’t noticed her car in the lot either.
“She’s not home,” came a voice from behind him.
Drew turned and found a tall, thin woman in athletic clothing leaning against the doorframe of the only other upstairs apartment.
“She went home for Christmas; said she’d be back the twenty-sixth. I’m supposed to check her mail,” the neighbor explained.
“Oh,” Drew replied. He looked from her to Savannah’s door and back down to his phone, at a loss for what to do next. “Thanks.”
“I take it you’ve called her?” the woman asked dryly.
“Yeah.”
“And she’s not answering?”
Drew suddenly felt very uncomfortable with this whole exchange. “Not yet,” he supplied.
The woman raised an eyebrow and gave him an appraising sort of look. “Well, honey, there might be a reason for that.”
Drew felt his brows pull together in aggravation.
“Thanks,” he deadpanned, and the neighbor nodded once before backing into her living room and shutting the door again.
Drew wasted no time descending the stairs and climbing into his truck.
Obviously, it was time for plan B. He dialed his phone again, and this time someone answered.
“What?” Jonah asked without saying hello.
“Hey, you want to go to Alabama?”