Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
P a snored from the passenger seat as Finn drove. The funeral and reception had tuckered him out.
The near silence took him back to the garden. He’d talked to Rose. Held her. His collar still bore the tears she cried into his neck.
He’d once called her Evie . His own idea. When they’d been close, when they’d shared almost everything.
She’d loved having a secret nickname—a play on her middle name, Everson. Not a girl’s name. A legacy name, her grandmother’s maiden name.
She’d tried to give him one, too. He refused. He liked his name.
Summers had meant free time back then. They’d been too young for jobs, too old to need constant minding. They had the run of the forest and the town as long as they followed the rules set by his parents and Ms. Magnolia.
With that freedom, they’d been adventurers when they’d been young. On the lookout for potential mysteries to be solved.
Sometimes the mysteries were small ones.
The first time, they helped Mr. Hanover find his glasses in his own hardware store.
He’d removed them to help a customer read some fine print on a package and couldn’t see well enough to find them.
He laughed when they found them in the paintbrush section and gave them a five-dollar bill as a reward. Enough for two ice cream cones.
They’d found lost dogs, lost cats, even a lost pet snake who’d thought an extension cord was part of its family. Not that they’d questioned the snake. Rose had been the one to pull it away from the cords, though. He’d feared snakes. Wanted nothing to do with them.
Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.
She never had.
Sometimes, their investigations resulted in phone calls.
The time they’d returned someone’s cat only to learn they didn’t own a cat, especially one covered in fleas and ticks.
The adventures paused when Rose fell out of a tree and broke her arm.
It had been the raven’s nest. An unwise quest. Absently, he rubbed the back of his hand against the steering wheel, the scars there a reminder of the sharp pains he’d endured while trying to help her.
Pa let out a snort and shifted in his sleep.
The view on the two-lane highway changed. Gray fog hugged the road ahead. Except it wasn’t fog. The stark scent of burned brush and wood seeped inside his car.
Red firetrucks sat either side of the road, lights flashing. He drove around a curve and pressed the brakes to slow down. Pa stirred and opened his eyes.
Finn said, “There’s a fire in the woods.”
“What?” He sat up. Low sounds of exclamation came out as he looked around. His father loved an emergency spectacle, especially one that involved flashing lights.
A black Evers Hollow Police Department SUV blocked their side of the road. A pair of police officers held small stop signs up.
As the car drew close to one officer, Pa rolled down his window. Finn tasted the smoke on his tongue.
“Pa, this is not the time,” Finn said even as he stopped the car. He knew better than to argue.
The closest uniformed officer was one they knew well.
“Officer Sheffield,” Pa said as he rested his arm on the door.
Finn nodded at the broad-shouldered man, who’d once been a linebacker for the local high school team and a good friend. “Zane.”
Zane nodded back. “Mr. Murphy. Finn.”
“What happened here?” Pa asked.
Zane touched the bill of his EHPD cap. “There’s a fire. It’s under control.”
“How’d it start?”
Zane shook his head. “Can’t tell you that right now.”
Slow oncoming traffic passed them from the other side of the road. Zane and the other cop waved the cars out of the burned area.
Zane spoke into the radio on his shoulder, then flipped his sign to SLOW , waving Finn’s car forward.
Finn said, “Thanks, Zane.”
Pa rolled up the window as Finn was directed to drive on the opposite side. Smoke hovered. Through it he saw scorched trees and a blackened forest floor. Nine firefighters in full gear moved among the trees, likely looking for hotspots.
He glanced at his pa. “Well?”
Pa frowned in displeasure. “Been awhile since we had a fire, especially this far out of town.”
Finn wouldn’t know. The only time he spent around trees was running on the trails around Asheville when he had time. Those trees were far from here.
“Damn shame about Magnolia,” Pa said. “I can’t say she liked me all that much, but she was one classy lady.”
Finn slid him a sideways look. Random statements from Pa didn’t bode well. Never before had he given an opinion on Magnolia Everson-Brooks.
As for whether the woman liked his father, he knew she liked him just fine, but he would never share. It would go straight to his head.
Finn said, “She wouldn’t have let Rose play with me if she thought ill of you.”
“Maybe it would have been better if she hadn’t.”
There it was. This wasn’t about Ms. Magnolia.
“Pa, don’t.” They exited the burned area. Finn sped up as the line of cars thinned out.
“What about my grandkids? I’m going to be fifty-nine.”
“That’s got nothing to do with things here. I’ve been busy.”
“I want a chance to spoil them rotten. Before I’m bedridden.”
Finn sent him a glance. “Really, Pa? Bedridden?”
“Never know. It could happen. Along with drool.”
Finn wiped a hand over his face. Fifty-eight wasn’t old. Not in his eyes. How was he supposed to respond?
“You know I’m proud of you, son, but I thought a lot about this. I want grandkids.”
“Pa—”
“No, I’ve made up my mind. You need to find a woman, get that Finch girl out of your system.”
He should have known. Death reminded people of their own mortality.
“Rose isn’t a girl anymore.”
“I know. My body parts might not work so well, but I still got both my eyes. That girl’s damn pretty. That’s the problem. Maybe if her face got covered in warts.”
Finn couldn’t help it. He smiled. Rose hadn’t been pretty when he’d met her.
Her large, soulful eyes carried sorrows that most didn’t as a six-year-old.
Those eyes drew him along with her odd obsession with floral rain boots.
He didn’t know why. He only knew that as the years passed, her legs lengthened, her body developed the slightest of curves, and her soulful eyes… became damn captivating.
Even now, once he’d seen her, it was hard to look away. Especially when he noticed she still wore floral rain boots, as if she weren’t so different from the girl he remembered.
“What’s that face for?” Pa said. “You think I’m crazy?”
“No, not that. It’s hard to imagine any member of that family covered in warts.”
Pa swore. “The whole lot of them—too pretty for their own good. I heard even Magnolia had the student body tied in knots back in her high school years.”
“What’s your point?”
“You talked to her. After I asked you not to. I saw you.”
“She lost her grandmother.”
“Maybe you should have sent me to do it.”
Finn shook his head as he directed his car around the gentle curves ahead. “It wouldn’t be the same.”
“Son,” Pa said in a serious tone. “She broke your heart. You said it yourself. Why would you give her the chance to do it again?”
Finn bristled. “I never said she broke my heart. We had a disagreement.”
“You had a fight. You found out she liked someone better than you, someone she planned to marry. It hurt you.”
Finn said, “That’s not?—”
“I know what I saw. Hard to miss the mood you were in then.”
Finn shook his head. He couldn’t admit that some of what Pa said was right. Rose’s eyes, the night of her engagement. Large and dark with anger, hurt, and disappointment. He’d hurt her. She’d said so.
He’d tried to see Rose the day after they’d argued.
He’d stood at the front door of the big house, waiting.
The housekeeper, Mrs. Haskell, hadn’t let him in.
Aspen had been the one to tell him Rose didn’t want to see him.
He’d tried once more later in the day. Aspen had opened the front door and repeated her earlier words.
He’d had no choice after that. His military leave was about to end. He’d flown back to his assigned military base, then received orders to deploy.
For six years, he’d avoided Evers Hollow except for visiting Pa. He couldn’t bear the thought of running into Rose alongside her husband.
Rose now lived in Evers Hollow.
According to Tess, it had been Rose that broke her engagement to Brentwood. The very issue that caused the rift between them.
“Son?”
“I know what I’m doing.”
Pa grimaced and muttered a curse. “Is that what you call it? I may not live in town no more, but I hear things. That girl’s still single, beautiful, and the town’s darling. You’re going to fall like an axed tree.”
Finn had no words that would contradict him. He’d fallen years before. He’d dated other women, tried to have relationships. All of them had failed. They weren’t her.
“I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Rose never saw me that way.”
“Her mistake.”
Finn glanced at him, wondered what ran through Pa’s mind. “Why didn’t you tell me she broke things off?”
Pa shifted in his seat. “I’m sure I said something.”
Finn frowned. “You didn’t.”
“Huh. Too late to change that now.”
It was.
“Ms. Magnolia mentioned something to me the day I spoke to her.” Finn slowed the car when he saw the reduced speed limit sign.
“What’s that?” Wariness lined his words.
“She said Mom did something for her, said she meant to repay the favor.”
Pa sighed. “She won’t get to do that now.”
“Do you know what she meant?”
He shook his head. “Your mom didn’t talk about that. Was a long time ago.”
“Pa?” Finn took the next right turn, slowed to the posted fifteen mph speed limit. He stopped his car beneath the welcoming archway at the entrance to Wylder.
Finn engaged the emergency brake. Pa opened his door and grabbed his cane from the side of the seat.
Finn swore and jumped out. “Pa, let me help you.”
With a few flavorful curses on Pa’s part, together they got him upright with his cane in hand, supporting his weaker side.
“What did Mom not talk about?”
Pa double-tapped his cane before he took a step forward. “Bingo’s starting soon. I need to get inside.”
“Pa.”
He shook his head and gave him a single glance that held firm. “It’s not your business. Leave it alone.”
The words only made Finn curiouser, but he nodded, letting it go for today.
He needed answers though, soon.
He’d made a promise to a dying woman. Despite Broome’s assurances on Rose’s safety, he had to find a way to keep it.