Chapter Twenty-One
“I hope she’s okay,” Linnea said a little ruefully as they crunched through the light snow, Betsy and Biscuit several paces in front.
The sky was dark with unshed snow, the earlier fall had covered the grass and the trees in a light dusting, turning the orchard into a winter wonderland. Biscuit’s tail was high as he bounded along the path, Betsy never more than a step away. Nat had never spent an afternoon like it—never thought he was the kind of man to go on a family dog walk. It was terrifying how comfortable he felt strolling along, teasing Betsy and resisting the urge to take Linnea’s hand, the comfort just adding to the confusion stirred up by his mother earlier in the week. Confusion not aided by his work, his latest song even more poignant and uncertain than those that had come before.
Poignant, uncertain and, he was sure, the best thing he had written so far.
“Things no better?” he asked.
Linnea shook her head. “It ebbs and flows. She loved the Santa Lucia festival and I thought that was a breakthrough, but it seems like the slightest reminder of her old life and she regresses. I hoped if I didn’t pay any attention to her behavior then she would get over it. I was just being a coward.”
Nat couldn’t believe that was how Linnea saw herself. This brave, fearless woman, taking on every challenge life threw at her. “That’s the last thing you are,” he said, but Linnea shook her head.
“No, I am. I need to tackle this, to explain in no uncertain terms that this is our home now and she needs to give it a shot. It’s not fair on Betsy—or on me. I almost didn’t come for a walk just now, but giving an eight year old veto power over my life is wrong and unfair. No child should have that kind of responsibility. I just need to be honest with her. To let her have her say, tell me how she feels—and to let her know that Marietta is a new start for all of us. Me included.”
“That sounds heavy.”
“It is. But I guess they need to be prepared. They’ve had so much change already, but there’s bound to be more ahead. I mean, if I’m going to think about dating in the future, they need to understand that they are still my priority, to understand that no one will replace their dad, but I’ll need to let them know I am ready to live a little. Whatever feels right and reassuring and age appropriate.”
“So this is it, you’re back in the dating game?” Nat should be pleased; he wanted Linnea to be happy, to live a fulfilled life, but jealously shot through him, chillingly cold and brutal. Give it up, Hathaway. What did you expect? That she sits around waiting for you to drop back into town every year or so?
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Linnea said cautiously. “I’m not actively looking. I won’t be downloading any apps or uploading my profile onto any websites but, if I meet someone, I’m open to seeing what happens, just like I have with you.”
“Glad to have been of service.” Nat tried to keep his voice light, but Linnea shot him a curious glance.
“I’m sorry I had to cancel Thursday.”
“That’s okay. Vika mentioned that Betsy was pretty sick.” They both looked at Betsy bounding through the snow, cheeks red, scarf flapping and laughed.
“Too many sweets, I think. She’s good now. I was looking forward to it, Thursday I mean. Let’s plan another date in. I believe you promised me dinner.”
“You’re going to be disappointed. I can just about make a passable pasta, but nothing worth waiting for.”
Linnea flushed. “Will you think I’m terribly forward if I say it wasn’t the food I was looking forward to?”
Nat’s blood heated at her words, at the glow in her eyes, at the way she moved closer so their arms touched. “Linnea Olsen, are you trying to seduce me?”
“Not here and now. But hopefully at some point this Christmas.” She looked up then and straight at him.
Nat caught his breath at the desire and want in her eyes. He was pretty sure his own mirrored the expression.
He swallowed. “I’m flattered.” How he kept walking he wasn’t sure when all he wanted was to turn to her, to push her back against the nearest tree, and hold her there.
To kiss her full mouth, run his hands over her enticing curves, to hear her tell him how much she wanted him, to whisper how beautiful she was as he peeled her clothes off… he quickened his pace, hoping the exercise would cool his need.
“I always wished we had, back then. I thought I should wait until I was in a committed relationship, until I was in love. Truth was…” Linnea paused and Nat looked at her, waiting for her next words while desire thundered through his body. “I think I was in love with you, I was just too proud to acknowledge it to myself, too proud to tell you.”
Nat released a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “I think I was in love with you too.” Maybe he still was. Maybe he always had been. He just had no vocabulary for the emotion beyond his guitar and the music in his head.
“I’m older now, learned a lot about regret, about not leaving things unsaid, undone. I think if you were sticking around, I would be in danger of falling for you again, but just because you’re not, doesn’t mean that I don’t want to be with you.”
Nat looked ahead. Betsy and Biscuit were out of sight around the curve in the path. It was just them, alone in a tree-filled landscape with snowflakes drifting down, landing on heads and shoulders, cheeks and lips and eyelashes. He grabbed Linnea’s hand and pulled her off the path, coming to a stop when she was backed into a tree, every curve pressed against him, her breath coming fast as she melded into him.
“You deserve more than pasta and Lacey’s spare room,” he said hoarsely.
His mouth found hers for a few dizzying seconds. He’d told his mother he didn’t know what home felt like—he’d been lying to himself. Linnea felt like home. Holding her. Kissing her. Tasting her.
“After Christmas, come away with me. For a night. You deserve a hotel room, a spa, a restaurant…”
“That sounds amazing.” She wound her arms around his neck, pulling him even closer. “I’m happy with a takeout from the diner and the Summer House though.”
His teeth scraped along her neck as he inhaled her scent, her pulse fluttering wildly against his mouth. “I know you are, but I’m not. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this properly.” He released her reluctantly at the sound of a small pair of feet and four paws running through the snow.
“I do like a masterful man,” Linnea said. “It’s a date, Nat Hathaway. Tell me when and where and I’ll be there.”
*
Betsy and Biscuit were both tired as they all retraced their steps back to the house, Biscuit staying close to Nat’s heels and Betsy holding onto his hand. For a man who didn’t want to be tied down, he looked awful content. Linnea banished the thought, guiltily. She shouldn’t try and read more to Nat than there was, try and domesticate him. He had the career he always wanted waiting for him. She needed to be happy for him.
To her surprise the front door was wide open, Vika standing out on the porch wrapped up in her coat, an anxious look on her face. “Linnea! Thank goodness,” she cried. “Have you got Elsie with you?”
Time slowed and Linnea’s heart slowed. Each beat so loud, so painful she could barely breathe. “Elsie? No. She’s in her room. Isn’t she?”
“She isn’t, I’ve looked everywhere. Oh, Linnea, I don’t know where she is.”
Linnea staggered, only vaguely aware of Nat grabbing her and holding her. “She can’t be outside! It’s getting dark. It’s snowing.” The rising note of hysteria in her voice shocked her, but she was powerless to stop it.
Nat’s grip on her tightened. “She might be hiding in the house.” His voice was calm, steady, and Linnea jumped at the suggestion.
“Yes, that makes sense, she might have fallen asleep. Remember, I did that time, Mom? We should search the house.” But she shivered as she looked out at the darkening orchard and the forest beyond. This was Montana. There were bears out there, bobcats and wolves. Lynxes and mountain lions. Elsie was barely four foot tall.
Nat squeezed her shoulder before he stepped away. “Why don’t you look in the house and I’ll get a flashlight and scout the orchard. I’m sure she’s inside, either asleep like you suggested, or awake and bored witless waiting to be found, but I’ll take a look just in case. Call me when you find her, okay?”
“Okay.” Linnea nodded, her mind whirling with unwanted scenarios each more outlandish than the last.
Elsie limping barefoot in the snow. Elsie confronting a lynx. Elsie alone on the highway. No. She scolded herself, taking a deep breath. She was the adult here. She had to stay calm for Betsy’s sake, for her father’s health.
Taking a deep breath and standing tall was the hardest thing she had ever done. Harder than telling her parents she was pregnant. Harder than delivering a eulogy at Logan’s memorial service. Harder than picking her life up and moving it across seven states. She forced a smile and held a hand out to Betsy. “Come on, darling, show me all her favorite spots. First one to find her gets a bar of chocolate from Sage’s.”
It didn’t take long to search the house from top to bottom. Linnea looked in every corner of the meticulously clean and tidy attic, through every closet, under every chair, table, and bed, behind every pair of drapes. She checked the woodshed, the tree house, and under the porch, her usual squeamishness about spiders or skunks brushed aside. But there was no sign of Elsie. Nat had been gone for a good twenty minutes with no contact and she had to assume he hadn’t had any luck either—although out in acres of snowy orchards, as dusk turned to dark, his task seemed impossible.
Panic was rising, dark and all-encompassing, but Linnea ruthlessly squashed it down. She didn’t have time, didn’t have the luxury for panic—or for the self-blame hovering at her conscience. She shouldn’t have left Elsie behind while she went for a walk with Nat. She should have spoken to her earlier. She’d been kissing Nat while her daughter was—where? What kind of mother was she?
Her first emotion when Logan died was anger. Anger that he had gone away without them, that he had chosen such a risky pastime while a father of two young children. That he had been so very irresponsible. She was no better, out flirting while her child was home alone. Unhappy, in trouble, and alone.
“Any sign,” her mother asked in a low voice when Linnea returned to the kitchen, one eye on an increasingly anxious Betsy and Linnea shook her head. “I don’t think she’s in the house, Mom, which means she’s out there.”
“Have you heard from Nat?”
Linnea’s phone was turned up to its highest volume, but she checked it anyway. “No, and it’s far too much for him to search all the grounds alone. Look, can you get Dad to take Betsy over to Pernilla’s? I don’t think either of them should be here right now. I’m going to call the sheriff’s department and get them over here. I’d rather risk finding her somewhere indoors and calling him out for nothing than possibly leave her out there alone a minute longer.”
“Linnea, I am so sorry. I saw her go to her room. I knocked and when she didn’t answer I thought she was sulking. You know how she can be. I should have gone in earlier, I should have called you, I…”
Her mother needed comfort and reassurance, but Linnea was finding it harder and harder to hold herself together, there was simply no more to give. Later, later she might have the luxury of breaking down, of holding her mother and letting her mother hold her, but right now she had to fold her lips tight, holding up a hand to stem her mother’s increasingly hysterical flow.
“It’s okay,” she said, hardly recognizing the cold, flat voice. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. Get your things, Betsy-baby. Morfar is going to take you to Aunt Pernilla’s. Can you get your PJs and toothbrush too? No, don’t cry. It’s an adventure.”
Tears were pouring down Betsy’s cheeks. “I don’t want a sleepover.”
“I know.” Linnea had no idea how she sounded so matter of fact. “It’s just in case you’re still there when it’s late, in case you get sleepy.” She glanced at her mother who was making a furtive phone call in the hall, relieved when her mother nodded. “I need you to keep an eye on Morfar, can you do that?”
Betsy made a heroic attempt to choke back her tears. “And when I get back, Elsie will be here?”
“That’s the plan. Go and get your things.” But Betsy hesitated, her face unsure.
Vika laid a hand on Linnea’s arm. “Go help her, I’ll call the sheriff. I was the last one to see her, after all.”
The guilt intensified, hot and smothering. Linnea nodded and took Betsy’s hand, leading her up the back staircase to the pretty bedroom the sisters shared, with the sloping ceiling and dormer window. Mechanically, she collected Betsy’s carefully folded pajamas and put them in a bag. “Fetch your toothbrush, baby,” she said.
Betsy ran off to the en suite bathroom she and Elsie shared, only to run back, brandishing her toothbrush, her eyes wide and filled with fear. “Elsie’s toothbrush, Mommy. It’s gone.”
The next half hour passed with agonizing slowness. Linnea’s father didn’t make too much of a fuss about being sent away with Betsy, although he was obviously desperate to stay and help search. Luckily Betsy had attached herself to him with limpet-determination and it was clear she was only happy about leaving if he was with her.
“I’ll call you the second I have any news.” Linnea promised, kissing them goodbye, praying she would be calling soon, praying even harder the news would be good.
The sheriff and deputy Rory Watson arrived just as Andreas was pulling away, but instead of heading straight out, they insisted on a full debrief; timings, Elsie’s last seen movements, what she had been wearing, what she had taken with her. Linnea’s heart twisted with shame, with pain when she recounted she had gone for a walk without her already upset daughter, when she told the sheriff that Elsie had packed her schoolbag with her pajamas and toothbrush and Nantucket, her teddy bear. That her beloved daughter had run away.
If Elsie came home safely, then Linnea would do everything in her power to ensure her daughter felt safe and secure, that she knew how much she was loved. All Linnea needed was her girls. She would never need reminding of that again.