Shadows of the Past (Logan Point Book #1): A Novel (16 page)

Taylor raised the window and backed out of the parking slot. The void in her soul widened as she blinked against the stinging in her eyes.

Frustrated, she flicked away a tear. What was the big deal, anyway? So what if Nick was probably the most honorable man she’d ever met. His heart belonged to his dead wife.

She didn’t need him.

She didn’t need anyone.

H
er
father
swung
Taylor
up
in
the
air
.
She
squealed
as
his
hands
let
go
,
and
then
he
caught
her
as
she
came
down
.
He
was
so
strong
.
He
held
her
close
.
He
smelled
so
good
,
all
spicy
and
woodsy
.

The dream shifted and Taylor was older, not yet eight as her dad fastened a necklace around her neck, then hugged her.

“Daddy, you’re squeezing me!”

“Come on. Let’s
go see if we can find Uncle Jonathan. I have
a plane to catch.” He set her down. Hand in
hand they walked toward Oak Grove.

“Can I go to
the airport with you?”

“Of course you can. You’re
a princess, and a princess gets to do whatever she
wants.”

“Oh! Daddy! I forgot my princess purse.”

“Well, we
can’t have the princess without her purse, can we?
Run get it, and I’ll find Uncle Jonathan.”

Taylor
looked up at her father. But the man holding her
hand wasn’t her father. And they weren’t outside.
They were someplace dark. The basement. Her necklace dangled from
her hand as she scrunched her eyes, trying to see
who it was. Black eyes with fierce black brows peered
from a white face, the mouth an angry red slash.
A clown. But the clown stared beyond her.

She turned
and saw her father. Taylor started to run to him,
but he wasn’t alone. He was dancing with someone,
holding her close.

The clown rushed toward her father.

“No!”

He stopped and turned toward Taylor. She caught her breath.
Then the clown was gone, and Andy Reed stood with
a gun pointed at his stepfather.

“No! Don’t do
it, Andy! Noooooo!”

Taylor jerked up, gasping for air. Newton, the Reed boy, the hostage situation that went bad . . . She tried to shake the nightmare off as her heart hammered against her ribs and the room slowly came into focus. Sunlight spilled through open curtains against pale blue walls and familiar white dresser. Her bedroom in Logan Point. She jerked her head toward the pounding on her door.

“Taylor, are you all right?”

“Mom?”

Her mother burst into the room. “You were screaming. What’s wrong?”

“Do you smell it?” Taylor pressed her hand to her forehead.

“Smell what?” Her mom sniffed the air.

“Old Spice.” She sucked a deep breath through her nose. A faint scent lingered . . . didn’t it? “Dad’s aftershave.”

“Oh, Taylor. No, honey, I don’t. Is that why you screamed? Were you having a nightmare?”

She nodded and hugged her knees to her chest.

Her mother sat on the edge of the bed, stroking Taylor’s baby doll quilt. “You’re having the dreams again?”

Taylor leaned against the headboard and nodded. “I smelled Old Spice. It was so real.”

“How long have the dreams been back?”

“Since before Christmas. I . . .” Taylor swallowed. “About the time Michael broke our engagement. And there was a case . . . a young man, not even twenty years old . . . he had a gun. Had his mind set, determined to kill his stepfather, who had just beaten his
mother almost to death. I tried to talk him down.” She turned and stared out the window. “The stepfather was drunk and called the boy’s mother a name. The boy lost it, started shooting. When it was over, both were dead.” Taylor squeezed her eyes shut against the memory.
Failure.

Mom brushed a strand of hair from Taylor’s face. “Honey, it wasn’t your fault.”

“I know. Or at least in my head, I know. Just not in my heart yet.”

“Did you get counseling?”

“Yes, the psychologist went for counseling.” She glanced up at her mother. “I need to find Dad.”

Her mother stiffened, and she put her hand at the base of her throat. “Is that what the counselor recommended?”

“I never talked about Dad with her. I didn’t have to. I already know he’s at the root of the nightmares, my failed relationships.” She moistened her lips. “Mom, it’s something I have to do. I have to know why he left.”

Unshed tears rimmed her mother’s eyes. “Why he left doesn’t matter. It had nothing to do with you.”

“Then tell me what happened. Why did he leave?”

“I don’t know. I’ve asked myself that question every day since he got on a plane and didn’t come home.” A slight tremor crossed her mom’s face. “In the letter I received a week later, he just asked me to forgive him. That’s all. No reason, not even a hint.”

“He wrote you a letter?” She had never heard anything about a letter. “Did you keep it?”

“The Memphis detective took it as evidence. They never gave it back.”

Taylor had to find those files. But this was more than she’d ever learned. “Dad didn’t give any clue the day he left that he wasn’t coming back?”

“No.” Her mother twisted the corner of the sheet. “It was the Fourth of July. Such a happy day. Half the town was here. Picnic
tables and chairs were set up under the oak trees near the old house. Your granna had already moved in with us. Oak Grove was empty except for the farm office in the basement. Your father had to be at a conference in Dallas the next morning, and he planned to leave mid afternoon for the airport in Memphis. I was so busy that afternoon I barely remember him kissing me good-bye and going to find Jonathan to drive him to the airport.”

Her mother dabbed the corner of her eye and took a tremulous breath. “My last memory of your father is seeing the two of you walk toward Oak Grove.”

“What?” Taylor sat straighter in bed.

“What’s wrong?”

“Before it became a nightmare, I was dreaming about Daddy. We were walking together to Granna’s old house. He called me his princess, then he tossed me in the air and caught me.”

Her mother’s chin quivered. “When you were a baby, he was always doing that. He loved you so much. You were his princess.”

Taylor touched the hollow of her neck. “In the dream, he fastened a necklace around my neck, and then I’d forgotten my purse and went to find it.”

“Your necklace.” Her mom struggled, blinking back the tears in her eyes. “The heart-shaped pendant he’d given you that morning. You were brokenhearted when you lost it that day.”

Her mother was quiet for a moment. “You were supposed to go to the airport with him, but when it was time to leave, no one could find you. I think we finally found you in your tree house, hours after Jonathan returned from the airport. You were crying about the necklace.”

The tree house her dad had built. It’d been her sanctuary in the months after he left.

“When he didn’t come home, you withdrew, just closed yourself off. Oh, you functioned—went to school, that sort of thing—but it was a long time before you laughed again. And the nightmares. They were horrible.”

Her mom stood and walked to the window with her back to Taylor.

“I’m sorry, Taylor. I didn’t handle that time in our lives very well. I thought if I didn’t talk about it, it would be all right.”

“I know that now, Mom. I kept thinking he’d come home.”

“Well, he didn’t.” Her mother turned around, the lacy curtains billowing around her. “There’s something I should have told you and Chase long ago.” She shut her eyes and stood very still. Then she sighed. “We had your father declared legally dead.”

Taylor’s breath caught in her chest. “You had Daddy declared legally dead, and you didn’t tell me? When?”

Her mother stared down at her fingers.

“Mother, please. I know this is hard, but tell me . . .”

“Seven years after he left. Jonathan said we had to, that none of the insurance would pay unless we did. It was evident your father wasn’t coming back, no one had heard from him, and the private investigator your uncle hired couldn’t find any trace of him. We needed the money to run the farm, for your college education. Then we decided it would be better to wait until you were older before we told you.”

The words, spoken in monotone, hung flat and dismal between them.

“How much older?” Taylor’s voice cracked. “I’m twenty-eight. Chase is thirty. When were you going to tell us?”

“I know we should have, but there was never a right time.” Mom returned to the bed and sat on the edge. “Besides, I just knew your father would come back someday.”

Taylor’s anger dissolved in the face of her mom’s heartbreak. Now she knew why Mom created her own reality sometimes. It was a coping mechanism. Her mother had handled the situation the only way she knew how. “Do you think he could be dead?”

“No!” Her mom touched her chest. “I would know in here.”

Silence settled in the room as Taylor processed what she’d learned. “Is there anything else?”

Her mom traced her finger around the stitching on the quilt. “Until the day he left, your father was a good man. You must believe that.”

“How can you say that? A good man wouldn’t have left us.”

“I’m talking about before that.” Her mother paused. “I have something I want you to see.”

She hurried from the room and returned in less than a minute with a packet of letters in her hand. “Read these, and you’ll know his true heart.”

“He wrote you more than one letter after he left?”

“No. These are from earlier trips. Notes encouraging us, love letters, really. I know he never changed the way he felt. He loved us.”

Was her mom trying to convince Taylor or herself? She took the packet. A thin blue ribbon held them together.

“Read them, and if you want to talk again, I’ll be downstairs with coffee and cinnamon rolls waiting.”

After the door closed, Taylor stared at the packet. Letters from her daddy. Mom had saved them all these years. With a deep breath, she untied the ribbon and took out the first letter. It had been unfolded and refolded many times. Strong, bold handwriting flowed across the page. She checked the date. Six months before he disappeared.

My
darling Allison,
it began.
I’ve been gone only
a day and it seems like a month
. Taylor read slowly, absorbing each word. It was impossible to stay detached and uninvolved. The man who had written this letter obviously loved his wife and two children.

Or was a very accomplished liar.

Each letter was several pages long with numerous references to Taylor and Chase. In one, he mentioned the outcome of Chase’s basketball games and talked about Taylor’s upcoming dance recital. In another, he encouraged them to get good grades. One by one she read them. When she finished, she stacked the letters together, retied the ribbon, and placed the packet in the nightstand beside her bed.

Taylor wanted to believe what was in the letters, that her father loved them, but his words didn’t jibe with his actions or the letter he’d sent from who-knows-where. She’d like to see
that
letter. She shut her door and went downstairs to the kitchen.

“Well?” her mother asked.

“He seemed to love us.”

“He definitely loved us. When he went on his trips, he wrote at least one letter.”

“Why didn’t he just call?”

“He did,” she said, a wistful smile curving her lips. “But he said a letter was something to hold on to, to read over and over. Your father was a romantic.”

The image from her dream of her father dancing with another woman materialized. She wished she could erase that from her mind like her mother erased the last letter he’d sent. If she could, she might believe the letters. “May I keep them a few days? I’d like to read them again.”

“As long as you return them.” Mom took down a plate. “Cinnamon roll?”

“Sounds good.” Taylor poured a cup of coffee and took the roll to the breakfast nook.

“What are your plans for today?” Mom asked as she sat opposite her.

“Thought I’d visit Kate.” She’d decided to talk to Kate in person about a room for Nick. “Maybe make something on the wheel. Livy is dropping by the shop around ten.”

Taylor had called Livy from the hospital to let her know she wouldn’t be coming by her office and that Scott was in the ER. She had the preliminary report on Ross finished, and perhaps they’d actually get together today. And maybe she could learn a little more about her dad from Kate. She caught her mom staring at her with a slight frown on her face. “What? Do I have sugar on my chin?”

“Should you be going out alone?”

Taylor’s spine stiffened, and she folded her arms across her chest. “I will not become a prisoner in this house.”

“You will be careful?”

“Of course I will, but I don’t think he’ll attack me in plain daylight.”

“Just don’t let your guard down.” She stood up from the table. “I have an appointment in town today. There’s plenty of food in the fridge for lunch, but I should be home in time to throw something together for supper.”

“Will Ethan be coming by again?” Taylor tried to sound casual.

Her mother blushed. “I’m not sure.”

“Is anything going on I should know about?”

“I told you, he’s just a friend.”

“Is he now? I saw him watching you, and I don’t think friendship is all he’s thinking.”

She looked at her mother with new eyes. It was hard to believe she’d be fifty her next birthday. Maybe because she didn’t look it. Her trim figure testified that working out paid dividends. Taylor hoped she’d inherited her mom’s youthful genes. Mom rubbed her left hand, and Taylor noticed her mother no longer wore her wedding ring. When had that happened?