“I’m not sure I can leave,” she responded.

They were quiet for a while. His heartbeat was slowing to a calm rhythm.

“I think I might try to live here, though,” he whispered.

“I think I might try to leave,” she whispered back.

“But still no chance of turning you into a nature girl?”

She laughed and snuggled in deeper. “Go to sleep, Colin.”

And, finally, he did.

The next morning, Willa was standing on a chair in her closet, reaching back for a shoe box full of high school mementoes, when Colin said from behind her, “What are you doing?”

“That’s funny, I was just wishing that a tall man would suddenly appear and help me,” she said as she jumped off the chair. “Will you get that box off the shelf up there for me?”

He showed off by doing it easily.

“What is that?” Colin asked as he handed it to her.

“Just something I want to return to Paxton when I meet her today,” she said as she set the box on her dresser. She’d been up for a while but wasn’t dressed yet. Colin had still been asleep when she’d woken up, so she’d been trying not to make too much noise.

“So this is your room,” he said, looking around. The wrought-iron bed was the one she’d slept in for most of her life, but the lamps on the bedside tables were funky crystal ones Rachel had given to her for her birthday. Her furniture was old, but some pieces were hand-painted with harlequin designs by one of her artist friends from National Street.

“Yes, this is my room.”

He had a serious case of bed head, his shirt was untucked, and his feet were bare, which for some reason she found endearing. He turned to her and said, “I slept.”

“I know.” She wasn’t going to tell him that she hadn’t. She was used to sleeping on her back and, short of sprawling out on top of him, that had been impossible last night.

He walked up to her and put his arms around her waist. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Yes, you did. And you know what this means?” He bent down and said into her ear, “It means we’re going to have to do it again.”

She laughed. “Okay, just not on the couch again. I’m too used to my bed.”

He looked over his shoulder. “It’s a nice bed.”

She took his hand and led him over to it. “It’s very comfortable,” she said as she sat on it. “And it fits two.”

Colin leaned over her, making her lie back. Still standing but with his hands on either side of her, he looked down on her and said, “Willa?”

“Yes?”

“It’s morning.”

“I know.”

“And I’m still in love with you.”

FOURTEEN

Lost and Found

Just after lunch that Sunday, Paxton met Willa in the parking lot of the nursing home and they walked together to Nana Osgood’s room. Willa was pensive but cheery, almost as though she was cautiously optimistic about something. Paxton wondered if it had anything to do with her brother not coming home last night. She really wanted to ask Willa but figured that was the kind of thing you shared only with friends.

“How are you with all that Nana Osgood told us on Friday?” Paxton said. “I couldn’t ask you yesterday, not with Sebastian and Colin there.”

“I’m okay. How are you?” Willa looked up at her, a line of concern forming between her brows.

“I’m okay, too,” she lied. “A little worried about what more she has in store for us today, though.”

“Well, it can’t get worse, so that means it can only get better, right?”

“Right,” Paxton said doubtfully, but she really did want to believe it. Something had to give.

Paxton had brought a box of chocolate truffles with her to give to Nana Osgood, even though her mother had said not to. But Paxton was tired of trying to be a buffer between Nana Osgood and her daughter-in-law, who fought like a snake and a mongoose. That was their battle, not hers. And she had enough to deal with.

Once Paxton gave Nana Osgood the chocolates, she settled beside her on the love seat. She did this gently, so she wouldn’t dislodge her grandmother, who probably weighed as much as burnt paper. Willa sat in the chair opposite them.

Agatha stroked the box of chocolates on her lap. The first thing she said was, “If the police go after Georgie, I want you to tell them what I told you.”

“I don’t think they’re going after her,” Willa said. “I haven’t heard anything from Woody Olsen. Have you?” Willa asked Paxton.

“No.”

“I don’t care what you think,” Agatha said. “If it comes down to it, promise me you’ll tell them!”

“It’s all right, Nana. We promise.”

“Okay, then.” She petted the chocolate box some more.

“The gala is this Friday,” Paxton said. “I still want you to come.”

Agatha pshawed. “You silly girls.”

“Willa and I noticed the date of the formation of the Women’s Society Club is around the same time Tucker Devlin disappeared seventy-five years ago. Is that just a coincidence?”

“No, it’s not a coincidence. There’s no such thing. The night we buried him, I told Georgie I’d always be there for her. She was afraid. She was pregnant. And I was going to help her, no matter what. The next day I got our four other best friends together and told them Georgie needed us. I didn’t give them the details, but the town seemed to know Tucker was gone. Everything felt different, like we were waking up. The six of us formed the Women’s Society Club exclusively to help Georgie. We promised that we would never turn our backs on each other again. Even if it made us afraid, even if it was dangerous, we promised we would stick together and make things right, because no one else would. Georgie’s family did nothing to help her. And the whole town saw how Tucker treated us, pitting us against each other, and did nothing to save their daughters’ hearts. We decided to become a society of women, a club to make sure women were protected. The club was something important back then. Not like it is today.”

“What happened to make it change so much?” Paxton asked. She’d been having mixed feelings about the club lately, and finding this out just made her more confused about her role in it.

“Life happened,” Agatha said. “Georgie left the club about ten years later, when the rest of us started having our own children. That’s when we began to use the club as a way to compare notes. Who had the best cook. Whose husband made more money. Georgie’s life was so different that I don’t think she felt like she belonged anymore. But I kept my promise. I was always there if she needed me. She just stopped asking. I was close enough to Ham, though, that he would come to me when she wouldn’t.”

“Grandmother Georgie was very strict with my father,” Willa said. Paxton turned to her. She didn’t understand the context, but Willa was obviously going somewhere with this.

“She was terrified he was going to turn out just like Tucker. She was terrified of everything. She was terrified this very thing was going to happen, that Tucker’s body was going to be found.” Agatha shook her head. “All her superstitions were because she wanted his ghost to stay buried. It turned into a mania.”

“Did my dad know who his father was?”

“She eventually told him he was a traveling salesman she never saw again. I think he might have deduced more. What Ham knew for sure was that living a small life was what his mother wanted for him. And he did that for her. It was a shame he died just as he was finally coming into his own.”

Willa leaned forward. “What do you mean?”

“He was going to sell his house and travel.”

“He never told me that!”

“I don’t think he told you a lot of things.”

Willa surprised Paxton by asking, “Did he quit his job at the school because of me?”