Chapter 11
“May I help you?” Tom asked the older couple as they parked in the lot before the bike shop, got out and approached the store. It was currently closed, had been for the last hour, but he and Bill were working on their own personal bikes in the lot.
“Yes, we’re looking for Wanda?”
“Sorry, no one here by that name.” He dismissed them and went back to what he had been doing.
“Listen to me, young man,” the older man said firmly. “We were told our daughter lives here and this is the address we were given. We’re not leaving until we see our daughter. You have about three seconds before I call the cops.”
“Listen up, Pops.” Bill rose to his six-foot four height and took a menacing step forward, then suddenly yelped and lunged to the side. He whipped around and yelled, “What the hell, Willow! What did I do to deserve the hose?”
“You’re harassing my parents, that’s what.” She aimed the hose at him again, and he quickly raised his hands and backed away. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t realize.” He frowned then said, “But they’re looking for Wanda.”
“Every girl’s got to have their secrets.” She grinned and because she could. She blasted him again with the ice-cold water. “Now apologize to my parents.”
“I’m sorry.” He turned, and the expression on his face made Angie giggle. “I didn’t know her name was Wanda. I only know her as Willow.”
“Understandable.” Angie grinned, then reached up and patted his face. “Everyone makes mistakes now and then.” Then she turned and with her hands on her hips glared at her daughter. “If you think you’re going to turn that hose on me, young lady, you can think again.”
Willow grinned, dropped the hose and rushed forward and hugged her mother. “Mom, Dad.” She sighed and hugged them tighter. When they broke apart, she told them to follow her. She picked up the hose and dragged it behind her, but her father took it from her and put it away.
Willow said, “I do live here. My workshop is in the back, and I live upstairs. Come on, I’ll give you the tour.”
“First, what the hell happened to you, baby girl?” Randall looked his youngest daughter up and down and actually curled his nose.
“Follow me, and I’ll explain.” She grinned.
She walked between them and started. “As you both know when I left Oregon, I traveled a bit. I went to places I’d always wanted to see.
Sort of a bucket list sort of thing. I had left New Orleans and was headed to the Grand Canyon when I got tired and pulled over in a small town.
I got a motel room, ate supper and went to bed early.
Twelve hours later, I woke and from my motel room window I could look down on the town, and I decided to explore.
“I found a sign in the window where a woman was giving free pottery classes that day.” She stepped to the side and indicated her workshop behind her.
“Remember when I was growing up, I was a klutz? I’d drop a glass or a plate, and it’d seem like I’d break whatever I touched?
” At their nods, she grinned. “The minute I laid my hands on that wet clay on the potter’s wheel, it was like this calm came over me.
I was instantly clear-headed, focused, and comfortable.
Long story short, I never made it to the Grand Canyon, I worked with Magnolia, the woman who gave the lesson.
I worked with her for six months and found this place.
I was in a buying war with the owner of the bike shop.
We both wanted the building. He wanted the front for the public access, I wanted the back for the privacy.
“We came to an agreement and we co-own the building. This is my shop, and I live upstairs. It’s worked out for both of us.
They’ve set up an extensive security system that not only protects the bike shop, but my apartment also.
I’m the only one here at night. If something happens, the guys are only a phone call away and Mick, the owner, even set up a panic room for me.
I’m safe, happy, I have a career I love, and I’m good at what I do, and I’m making good money.
” She stepped back and indicated her workshop and as soon as her father saw the potter’s wheel, he looked at her and grinned.
“Glorified mud pies?”
“Yes.” She laughed when a flash of memory came to her of making mud pies when she was younger. “Only now I get paid to make them.”
“Wanda, I have this. Fern and I found one like this in a little artisan craft shop. Do you know who did this?” Angie held up a vase of about two feet tall that was done in mosaic greens.
“What does the bottom say?”
Angie frowned and turned it over. “It’s exactly like mine, it only has a picture or impression of a willow tree on it.”
“Then it’s mine. That’s my signature. Authors have pen names, I classify myself as an artist, and my artisan name is Willow Raintree. That’s probably why Bill gave you a hard time, no one knows my real name. I don’t know why I don’t tell people.”
“For safety,” Randall said. “And all this stuff in the boxes and on these shelves? You made them all?”
“Yes. The shelves are inventory, back stock. The boxes are going to my assistant for her to distribute them to shops all over the North West and beyond.” She giggled.
“Or that’s what my assistant tells me. Remember when I wrote you a couple months ago and said I was swamped with work? I had to restock my inventory.”
“Oh, wow,” Angie said, and Willow watched as her parents walked around the workshop. When they were satisfied, she took them upstairs and kicked off her shoes as soon as she opened the door.
“Excuse me a minute.” She went to the laundry room, closed the door and within minutes she re-emerged dressed in only a bathrobe.
“Sorry, I don’t like to track the sludge through the house.
I did it once and never again. The red clay dirt is hell to get out of things.
” She grinned when her parents snickered.
“Let me show you around. As you can see this is the kitchen, through here is the living room. Down this hall are six bedrooms, each with their own bath.”
“Oh my god.” Angie breathed in when she saw the first bedroom. “Are they all this big?”
“They are, this used to be an office building. I converted the offices to bedrooms. The bathrooms were already here. Mick’s place is on the other side of that wall, but it has two layers thick of concrete block so I never hear their bikes.
We have a connecting stairwell, my bedroom is on the third floor.
” She took them up, and they gawked at the sheer size of it.
“Now, I’m going to take a shower, go ahead and pick out a bedroom and bring your things up.
” They nodded and left, and she did as she said.
Twenty minutes later she rejoined her parents in the kitchen and immediately went to the refrigerator and pulled her ever-present pitcher of lemon water. “Want some?” She grinned at them and watched them shudder.
“No,” they both said as one, then grinned when she laughed. “The medication still makes you nauseous?”
“Yes,” Willow said as she drank down half the glass. “But I can’t complain, at least I’m alive and still healthy, and my body isn’t rejecting the organ.”
“There is that,” Randall said and walked over and hugged his daughter close to him. “Do you want to go out to eat? Or do you have plans?”
“No, I’m open. There’s this new restaurant in town I’ve been dying to try. Do you guys like Mexican?”
“Haven’t really tried it,” Angie said. “As long as it’s not too spicy, or your father will be up all night, I’m willing to try it.”
“Good.” They got around and left to go out to dinner, and after they returned, they were settled in the living room, and Willow finally asked the burning question in her mind. “Can I ask you guys something?”
“Sure,” Randall said as he picked up the remote to her TV.
“Who the hell is Christopher Evans?” She watched as her father put down the remote without turning on the TV and her mother got up and left the room, but she quickly returned with a large shoe box.
Angie sat down next to her daughter and Randall joined them on the couch on her other side, sandwiching her between them.
“You were two when Christopher and his family moved to the neighborhood. He was four, but he was already in kindergarten and Douglas got to know him on the bus. They became fast friends. When you were two and a half, you started getting sick. We took you from doctor to doctor, but you seemed to be getting worse until finally your father put his foot down and demanded answers. Just before your third birthday, they found you had Leukemia. You were immediately admitted to the hospital and underwent chemo and radiation. For the next year and a half, your life was hell.”
“Okay, I don’t remember any of that, but other than Christopher being Doug’s friend, how did this bullshit marriage come about?”
“Before you got sick, Christopher always came over to the house to play with Doug. One day you were making mud pies, and you gave him one. I overheard him talking to Doug once that he thought you were cute, but you were a pain in his behind. You were always tagging after them, always wanted to be doing what they were doing, either climbing trees, going on walks in the woods, playing forts. After a few weeks, one day I was giving you your nightly bath, and you said you were going to marry Christopher because he was the love of your life.”
Willow snorted. “And no one took into consideration that I was a little young?”
“It was cute.” Randall grinned and opened the box that Angie had set on the table. “This is the three of you that summer before you became ill.” He handed her a small stack of photos. Willow took them and frowned.
“I had dark hair?”