Balancing Act, page 5
Her instinctual response was to gather her babies and hold them close. Instead, she all but squeezed the life out of them.
Willow had tended to hover over her kiddos even before the crash happened. Afterward, she’d been afraid to let her children out of sight.
In the months following his father’s death, Drew’s behavior swung from clingy and fearful to willful recklessness. Trips to the doctor for stitches and sprains became commonplace. Willow held her baby tighter.
It hadn’t helped the situation that he’d been upset by a fake-drowning prank the first time she let go and sent her baby off to camp.
It took the clarity of hindsight, history, and a new psychologist in Nashville to identify that Willow’s hovering only worsened matters for her traumatized young son. Drew responded to her cues. He clung because she clung. Drew had come to associate a physical injury with the sense of safety of being in his mother’s arms. They’d both be healthier, mentally, living with an independent mindset.
She was trying. Though days like today made the task easier said than done.
Still, sending up the bat signal for Nana’s help was being a responsible parent, not an overprotective one. At least, that’s what Willow told herself as she removed the thermometer from the bathroom medicine cabinet.
Everything she’d done since August was aimed toward walking that tightrope between smother and support. She’d enrolled both children in activities that encouraged independence and self-reliance. Swimming, T-ball, karate—hadn’t Emma looked too cute in a gi? But organized activities needed to be balanced with free play and exploration. Lake in the Clouds offered that opportunity.
She hoped exploration hadn’t taken Drew somewhere he shouldn’t be playing.
Stepping cautiously, Willow entered her daughter’s room and approached the bed. She carefully placed the thermometer close enough to Emma’s forehead to get a reading. Normal. Thank heavens. Her poor ear had been giving Emma fits with a series of infections. On this last visit, the pediatrician warned Willow that tubes were likely in her daughter’s future.
Well, that’s a worry for another day, Willow told herself as she successfully exited Emma’s room without waking the girl. Now she could focus all her fretting on her son.
More than likely, Drew’s adventure today was simply that—an adventure. Willow needed to celebrate it, not rush to secure his safety.
Something else that was easier said than done, especially for Andy Eldridge’s widow. The echo of her husband’s voice floated through her head. Life isn’t safe! It isn’t meant to be safe. It’s meant to be lived.
The man had undoubtedly done more than his fair share of “living.” Right up until the moment he crashed his car and died.
And almost took their son to the grave with him.
Her phone rang again, the generic ringtone rather than one she’d assigned to a contact. Hoping for news about Drew rather than wedding-related business, Willow rushed to pick it up. An unfamiliar number showed on the screen. Ordinarily, she would ignore the call. Today, she answered it immediately. “Hello?”
“Willow Eldridge?”
“Yes.”
“I have your son. He’s lucky to be alive. You need to come get him.”
Willow’s grip crushed her cell phone, and she closed her eyes, catapulted into the past and another call. The words hadn’t been quite the same, but close enough. Close enough.
That’s all it took. In her mind’s eye, Willow saw red-and-blue flashing lights. She heard sirens. She rushed through automatic doors and into a crowded room where she knocked over a Christmas tree when she turned toward a reception desk.
In her ear now, a stern voice said, “I’m sending you an address pin. Here, talk to him.”
“Mommy?”
Sweet Jesus, thank you. The panic flooding through Willow eased at the sound of her son’s voice. To some extent, anyway. “Drew Bear, where are you? Are you hurt?”
“I’m not hurt. I don’t know where I am. The sign said ‘Santa’s Workshop,’ but that was a big fat lie. Mom, you have to come and get me. He won’t let me leave.”
“What? Who is he?” Please, God. Keep my baby safe.
“He’s not Santa Claus.”
“Give me the phone, kid.” The deep voice sounded hard and harsh. “Your kid trespassed on my property. You need to come get him. I won’t let him go back the way he came because I don’t want to be responsible if he falls through the ice.”
“Ice? What ice?” Willow’s voice rose an octave.
“Come now. I’ll send you the address.”
“Is he okay?” Willow demanded. “Is my son all right? Who are you?”
The stranger disconnected the call without further response.
Even as she stared in shock down at her device, Willow received a text from the stranger’s number showing an address. Her hand shook so badly she could hardly read the screen. This is what I get for letting go and encouraging independence. This is what I get for landing the damned helicopter.
Her brow furrowed as she tried to make sense of what she saw. The pinned location was nowhere near Raindrop Lodge.
“Oh, wait.” She zoomed out. Okay. This wasn’t far from the lodge, after all. If you went over a mountain and walked on a frozen waterway. “Andrew John Eldridge, I’m going to skin your hide.”
Willow took just a moment to consider her next move. Genevieve was probably still ten minutes away. But as much as she hated waking Emma from her nap, Willow dared not wait until her mom arrived to go for Drew.
Or could she wait a few minutes? Drew hadn’t sounded scared on the phone. He sounded annoyed. Petulant, almost. Was it reasonable for Willow to conclude that the stranger had no intention of hurting her son? After all, the bad-tempered stranger had called for her to come get Drew.
And yet… stranger danger. Should she call the police?
Calling the police on a Good Samaritan neighbor wouldn’t be nice. Distant neighbor. Who was this man?
Willow decided she would steal a minute for a quick call to someone who was as good as a cop in this town. She scrolled through her contact list and phoned Zach Throckmorton, the contractor her mom and Aunt Helen had hired to oversee the renovations at Raindrop Lodge. Gage Throckmorton’s son, Zach, had been born and raised in Lake in the Clouds. He knew everyone.
A deep, masculine voice said, “Hello?”
“Hi, Zach. Willow Eldridge here. I have a quick question. Do you know who owns the property at 4743 Running Elk Road?”
“Running Elk Road is the boundary line between Triple T property and some acreage owned by a guy out of Denver. He has a vacation home on it that’s been in the family for a while. Place is called the Hideaway. It’s the only property on that road that doesn’t belong to our ranch.”
“Do you know his name? The guy from Denver?”
Zach thought a moment, then said, “David, maybe? Something biblical, I think. Jeremiah? No, it’s Noah. Noah Tannehill.”
Noah Tannehill from Denver. “What do you know about him?”
“Not much. Why do you ask?”
Willow explained about the phone call and her dilemma. Zach said, “Too bad I’m not at Raindrop today, or I’d come down and stay with Emma. I don’t really know him. Guy keeps to himself.”
A recluse. Willow decided to wake her daughter up and head for Running Elk Road immediately.
Zach continued, “He’s a second-generation owner. Maybe third. I know that Dad has offered to buy that piece of land in the past, but the family refused a strong offer.”
Walking toward Emma’s bedroom, Willow asked, “Any reason to suspect that he kept the property because he needs a place to hide the bodies?”
Zach laughed. “Nah. In fact, it sticks in my mind that there’s something about him that’s positive. Makes him a good guy.”
Okay. Well, that’s encouraging. “Does he live there alone?”
“Don’t know for sure, but the few times I’ve seen him in town, he’s always been by himself. But I wouldn’t worry too much, Willow. I honestly believe Tannehill is a good neighbor.”
“He didn’t sound very neighborly when he called.”
“Could be he was afraid for Drew.”
Willow’s spine stiffened. “Why do you say that?”
“To get from your place to his place on Running Elk Road on foot, Drew must have followed Silver Creek. Being February, it’s frozen over, so he may well have walked on it. However, there are a couple places along that stretch where pools are deep, and hot springs keep the ice slushy. So it’s not safe for him to have made that hike by himself.”
Willow closed her eyes. She’d brought this on herself. She’d sent him off to explore, and explore he did. If he’d fallen through the ice and drowned or frozen to death, it would have been her fault!
No, it would not have been her fault. The only exploring Drew had permission to do this afternoon was along the path from their cabin up to the lodge gift shop. He’d had permission to spend his allowance on a candy bar, not wander off to another mountain entirely across a frozen mountain stream.
Reaching Emma’s room, Willow saw that her daughter had awakened from her nap. Good. “Thanks for the intel, Zach. Just one more thing. Is Noah Tannehill an older man?”
“No. He’s around my age. Maybe a couple years older.”
Well, hmm. So age didn’t explain the Santa comment. But some men did go prematurely gray. And if Noah Tannehill was a recluse, he could definitely have a beard.
Willow ended the call with Zach and smiled at her daughter. “You had a good nap. How are you feeling?”
“I’m okay. Can I get up now? Can I have a snack?”
“Yes and yes. Let’s get your shoes on, and I’ll grab the snack bag on the way out the door. We’re going for a little drive.”
Willow sent her mother a quick text explaining the new development, grabbed the snack bag, and ushered Emma to the car. As she buckled her daughter into her car seat, Willow’s thoughts returned to Noah Tannehill’s phone call. Drew must have had some reason to bring up Santa Claus. Wonder what it was?
“What happened to your hands?”
Noah ignored the question and turned a scowl toward the boy seated at the small table in the kitchen section of his workshop. “Do you want warm milk or hot apple cider?”
“Can I have hot chocolate?”
“No.” Noah didn’t have any hot chocolate. “Milk or cider. Those are your choices.”
“Milk, I guess. I’d rather have hot chocolate.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“What does that mean?”
“That a boy who needs something warm to drink should be satisfied with what he gets even if it’s not exactly what he wants.”
“I like milk, too.” The kid—Drew—rifled through a container filled with screws that Noah had sitting on the table. “I just like chocolate milk better.”
Noah filled a brown earthenware mug with milk and set it in the microwave. While the oven did its thing, he folded his arms and studied the boy. Noah’s temper had risen from simmer to stew when he learned that the boy had come from the lodge by Mirror Lake instead of wandering off the Triple T Ranch. While the chance of falling through the ice in one of the few deeper sections was minimal, Drew could have easily gotten wet up to his waist.
Hypothermia could have killed the kid. Noah did not need another senseless death anywhere close to his world. “What made you think it was a good idea to go off in the woods alone? Not to mention walking on the ice.”
“I dunno.” Drew shrugged his shoulders. “I just needed to be by myself for a little while. My mom worries about me a bunch, and sometimes that makes me want to be away from everything.”
That took some of the heat out of Noah’s irritation. Been there, done that. He’d never forget the look on his mom’s face that one Easter dinner when he, Daniel, and Dad had all been called into a four-alarm downtown. The weight of a mother’s concern could be a heavy burden. “Why does your mom worry about you?”
Again, that little shrug. “It’s complicated.”
Okay, this kid was too young to say something like that.
Ding. Noah turned back toward the microwave, removed the mug of milk, and placed it on the table in front of the boy.
“Thank you.” Drew tugged off his hat and gloves and stuck them into his coat pocket.
“You’re welcome. So why aren’t you in school?”
“We’re already done for the day,” the boy replied. He lifted the mug and took a sip. “I’m homeschooled. When we moved here in January, I was going to go to St. Luke’s School, but they didn’t have room for me. I didn’t want to go to public school because I was bullied at my school in Nashville and the third-grade teacher in Lake in the Clouds scared me, so my mom said she’d teach me. She’s really good at it, but she says I try her patience. If we’re still here next fall, I’ll go to St. Luke’s because I’m smart and exhausting and need kids to play with. How come the sign outside says ‘Santa’s Workshop’?”
It took Noah a moment to catch up with the whiplash-speed change of subject. Drew divulged a lot of information that piqued Noah’s curiosity. Thinking of the one-by-twofoot sign hanging on the cabin’s front porch that he’d carved in middle school woodshop and given to his parents for Christmas, he corrected, “It says ‘The Hideaway.’”
“No, it doesn’t,” the boy insisted. “It says ‘Santa’s Workshop.’ It’s kinda hard to read because the k has a big splat of bird poop on it and there’s a big crack in it, but that’s what it says.”
The bird-poop comment triggered Noah’s memory of the contents of his scrap lumber pile stacked out of sight against the far wall of his workshop. “Oh. We’re talking about different signs. My dad made the old ‘Santa’s Workshop’ sign.”
“Does your dad live here?”
“No, he’s gone.”
“He’s dead? My dad is dead, too. How did your dad die? Mine had a car wreck, and I was in the car with him, but I didn’t get hurt too bad and everyone said it was a miracle because I wasn’t buckled in. I need more miracles ’cause I break things all the time.”
“What sort of things?”
“Bones. I broke my right arm twice and I thought I broke my ankle, too, but it was only a sprain. I broke a tooth, too. Are you going to answer any of my questions?”
“No. I can’t get a word in edgewise.”
Drew didn’t pause. Instead he asked, “What happened to your dad?”
“He died from lung cancer.”
“Did he get it because he smoked? Cigarettes are bad for you.”
Noah shook his head. “No, my dad didn’t smoke. He was a firefighter, and they have a higher risk of dying from cancer than the average person.”
“A firefighter!” Drew’s eyes rounded. “Oh, wow. So he was a hero?”
“Yeah, he was a hero. Now shut up and drink your milk, kid.”
His mouth in the mug, Drew muttered, “It’s not nice to say shut up.”
“I’m not a nice man.” Noah checked his watch. How much longer until the boy’s mom got here? He wasn’t accustomed to this nonstop chatter.
Noah strode to the thermostat on the wall and punched the heater up a couple of degrees. Ordinarily, he kept a fire burning in the woodstove while he worked, ensuring the shop stayed warm. His trip into town this morning meant that the place was chillier than usual. Noah didn’t mind, but the kid needed to warm up.
At the table, Drew Eldridge slurped a long drink of milk. Then the chatterbox started up again. “How come your dad made a ‘Santa’s Workshop’ sign?”
“It was part of our holiday lawn decorations.”
“You had lawn decorations this far from town?”
“In Denver. That’s where I grew up. You sure are a nosy kid, you know that?”
“I’m a little nervous. I always talk a lot when I’m nervous.”
Noah was taken aback. After those first few minutes, Drew hadn’t seemed to be frightened. Noah hadn’t intended to scare the kid. Maybe he was just out of practice being around people. “Am I making you nervous?”
“Nah. Well, maybe a little bit. I’m mostly worried about what my mom is going to do. She’s going to be mad because I didn’t go where I said I was going, and she’ll probably punish me.”
“Does she ground you?” Noah asked.
“No. She’ll take away my Switch. It’s her new favorite thing to do. She used to not do it because I played Animal Crossing with my grandmother when we lived in Nashville. Nana really loved doing that, and Mom said she couldn’t punish her when I was the person in trouble. But now that we live in the same town, we hardly ever play. I see her almost every day. She babysits a lot.”
“Your grandmother plays video games?” Noah folded his arms and leaned against the counter. “That’s cool.”
“Yeah. She’s cool, I guess.” The boy took another long drink of milk, then set down his cup with a bit of a bang. “Oops. Sorry. It slipped. Don’t worry. I didn’t break it.”
“Good. It’s my favorite mug.”
“Whoa, you’re lucky. I probably could have broken it without meaning to do it.” The boy wiped his mouth with his coat sleeve and added, “My mom sometimes calls me Andrew-the-Accident-Waiting-to-Happen. She’d never give me her favorite anything to use.”
He paused and giggled softly. “She did let me help hang the cuckoo clock Auntie Helen gave us for Christmas, and I get to wind it every week.”
Noah put two and two together. Stifling a grin, he clarified. “Your mom wants you to break the cuckoo clock?”
“Maybe. She doesn’t like it very much. But I’m really careful. My sister and I both love Cocoa. That’s what we named our cuckoo bird.” Then, in an abrupt change of subject, he added, “I’m not cold anymore. Will you show me how the dollhouses work now?”
Noah released a long sigh. When the kid first showed up and quizzed him about the contents of Noah’s shelves, he’d begged to see a dollhouse in action. Noah had put him off, saying truthfully that Drew needed to stay inside and warm up first.
