The Lost Daughter Of Pigeon Hollow. Inglath Cooper
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whined and wagged his tail. The dog was nearly human, and it wasn’t the first time Willa had glimpsed sympathy on his face. She grabbed her purse from the table in the foyer. “Come on, Sam. I could use a change of scenery.”
He was out the door in a flash, as if he, too, needed the escape.
OWEN HAD JUST LET HIMSELF into his room when his cell phone rang. His home number flashed on caller ID. He clicked on to an unusually somber Cline.
“Natalie just called,” he said. “Charles is in the hospital again.”
“What?”
“Yeah, it looks like he might have had another heart attack.”
Owen’s grip on the phone tightened. “How serious is it?”
“I’m not sure. Natalie was pretty out of it. I don’t know more than that. She asked where you were. I didn’t know what to tell her, so I just said out of town.”
He pushed a hand through his hair. “Okay. I’ll head home.”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah.”
“Drive safe.”
Owen hung up, stunned. Willa. Charles hadn’t met Willa yet. The very real possibility that he might die without doing so flooded him with a sinking sense of panic. He yanked his suitcase out of the closet, started throwing things inside.
He had to get back. And somehow, convince Willa to go with him.
WILLA DROVE, her mind going in a dozen directions.
Sam sat on the seat next to her, alternating between looking ahead and then out the window.
She followed the street through town, edging out into the county until she ended up at Judy’s. She pulled into the driveway and cut the lights. The house was small but neatly manicured, bushes trimmed. Baskets of ferns hung from the porch roof above a newly painted white railing.
Crossing her fingers that Jerry wouldn’t answer the door, Willa knocked. She waited a few moments, decided this had been a crazy idea and tripped back down the steps.
The door squeaked open. Willa turned around, and there stood Judy with a batch of pink and blue curlers in her hair, her eyes and mouth the only visible landmarks beneath a glacier of cold cream.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come.”
Judy waved a hand in front of her face. “Yeah, I know. It’s not pretty.”
Willa tried for a smile. “Have you got a minute?”
“Do you really think I’m going to let you leave without telling me what brought you out here at this hour?” She pulled the door closed and sat down on the top porch step.
Front paws on the dashboard, Sam barked his displeasure at being left in the car.
“So shoot,” Judy said.
Willa sat down, then sighed. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“How about with the date? How was it?”
She massaged the back of her neck with one hand, the tension there a hard knot. “First of all, it wasn’t a date.”
Judy raised a skeptical eyebrow. “By whose definition?”
“All concerned parties. Believe me.”
“Oook-kay. How about starting at the beginning?”
Willa stared at the step beneath her feet. “He came here to tell me I have a father in Lexington.”
Judy’s eyes popped wide. “Whoa.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“Are you serious?”
“He sent a letter saying he knows my mother never told me about him.”
Judy shook her head, pink sponge curlers jiggling. “Why?”
“I have no idea.”
“So what now?”
“Nothing, I guess.”
“Don’t you want to meet him?”
Willa lifted a shoulder. “No. I mean, I don’t know. The whole thing is just too weird.”
“What if he’s rich?”
“Judy.”
“Maybe you’re his only heir, and he wants to leave you the millions he no longer has any use for.”
“The lottery thing again.”
Judy smiled. “All joking aside, of course you have to meet him.”
“Why? What difference would it make now?”
“Because if you don’t, you’ll wonder about it for the rest of your life. That’s a long time to wonder.”
“I’ve managed twenty-eight years without him.”
“But that was before you knew he existed. That changes everything.”
Willa considered the words, wondering if Judy might be right.
“And our delectable Kentucky morsel. Where does he fit into all this?”
“Apparently, he’s an old friend of my—” She broke off there, unable to say the word. “I guess the whole dinner thing was just a big setup.”
Judy rewound a wayward sponge curler. “So you didn’t have any fun?”
“That’s not the point.”
“What’s that old saying? Don’t shoot the messenger?”
“The messenger could have just given me the letter sans the dinner and dancing.”
“Me? I would have preferred his version. You know, Willa, you’re way too young to be writing off the entire male population. Like me, you just picked wrong the first time around. Unlike me, you can still do something about it.”
Willa put one elbow on her knee, palm to her forehead. “I’ve got bigger stuff to worry about.”
“Let me guess. Katie.”
She nodded, miserable. “When I got home tonight, she was packing. She’s planning to quit school and move in with Eddie.”
Judy rolled her eyes. “Hormones must actually leech intelligence from the teenage brain.”
“She’s just so unhappy,” Willa said, shaking her head. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Maybe you’re going to have to let her make the mistake. It’s kind of like quicksand. Once you get out in the middle of it, it’s not that easy to remove yourself.”
Willa stared up at the sky. “I don’t know.”
They sat there for a few minutes, not talking. Finally, Judy said, “Okay, here’s the fix. Go to Lexington, meet this man, and take Katie with you. Get her away from here a while. Maybe that’s all it will take to make her see young Eddie in a different light.”
“She seems pretty hooked on him.”
“That old saying, absence makes the heart grow fonder?” She flapped a hand. “Hogwash. Out of sight, out of mind.”
OWEN HAD BEEN WAITING in Willa Addison’s driveway for a little over an hour when the Wagoneer rattled to a stop behind him. He got out of the Range Rover and waited for her.
She opened the door. A small beagle mix leaped out ahead of her, rocketing toward him like a mini torpedo.
“Sam, no!” Willa called out, jumping from the Wagoneer.
The dog latched his teeth on to Owen’s pants, his four legs planted like concrete columns. He growled and shook his head, looking