Into the Storm (Signal Bend #3)(7)

Both Erwins nodded, and Shannon showed them up to their room. She would direct them to the Chop House for dinner. The people of Signal Bend were especially protective of No Place, the town bar, as their own place, and they didn’t want outsiders there. Already that was changing—it was the only bar for miles— but it was still not a place that welcomed newcomers easily. It was a place where the regulars wanted to be able to enjoy a good fight when one broke out.

Shannon was new to town, and only just beginning to find her way into the outer circle, but she understood that Signal Bend had for years been both isolated and insulated. That remove had been killing the town, but it had also made them suspicious of strangers and change. Now, the town was beginning to thrive, but they had to learn a whole new paradigm, one that included people they didn’t know, one that meant change.

oOo

That night, after she’d served a nightcap in the parlor to the five guests—two couples and a single—of the inn on this midweek summer evening, Shannon retired to her apartment behind the manager’s office.

She’d thought it would take a hard adjustment to get used to living where she worked, never being fully off the clock. But so far she really enjoyed it. She was well compensated for the inconvenience of being on call through the night, and she was already starting to think of the inn as her home.

And the apartment was nice—cozy and well appointed, with a small but complete and modern kitchen, a bathroom with a spa tub, a sitting room, and a nice bedroom. Her condo in Tulsa had been bigger, and she’d had to put a lot of her things in storage, but she had everything she loved best. Her windows faced onto the garden in back and the fields at the side, so she always had a lovely view.

She stripped out of her work clothes, flexing her toes into the lush, pale cream carpet of her bedroom floor, and eased into a set of summer silk pajamas—camisole and shorts in peach. Good lingerie was a decadence she’d allowed herself from the moment she could afford it. She felt oddly more powerful when she was wearing something silky and lacy under her clothes—a kind of fragile armor.

She caught her hair up in a clip and washed her face. Then she went out to the kitchen, and poured herself a big glass of a nice chardonnay, and settled into her comfy white sofa in the sitting room, prepared to spend a couple of hours vegetating in front of the television. She felt at peace. Quiet and alone in her own little space.

Television was a surprisingly rare phenomenon in Signal Bend. Only satellite reception was possible, and not many could yet afford it. The inn had the full complement of possible channels, however. Shannon turned her set on with no clear idea what she was in the mood for. She scrolled through aimlessly, pausing every now and then to see if a show might catch her interest and then moving on after a few minutes.

Eventually, she landed on a show about adoption—what turned out to be a documentary about adoptees reuniting with their birth parents. Shannon moved on quickly, but then, after a few more minutes of scrolling, went back. She set the remote down on the side table. Nesting in an old wound, she watched.

CHAPTER THREE



Holly and the girls lived about an hour or so south of Little Rock. In the truck, pulling Isaac’s trailer, it was about an eight-hour drive—more than that with pit stops. Show had the trailer and truck packed up around ten the same night he’d picked up the boxes from the B&B, the same night of the morning he’d first gone into the house. Feeling impelled by a force beyond his reckoning, he’d gotten into the truck right then and started driving. By the time he pulled up in front of Holly’s apartment building, he’d been up twenty-four hours. And for the first time in ten months, he’d gone twenty-four hours without a drink.

He’d needed one—being alone in that house, packing up his family’s belongings, feeling the ghosts of the life he’d lost bearing down on him from all corners, had nearly unmade him. There was booze in the house, too—three bottles of Jack Daniels and half a bottle of a Maker’s Mark, which had been a gift from Isaac two Christmases ago. But Show had known that once he started he wouldn’t stop, and the thought of passing out in that house stopped his blood. So he’d forged on, telling himself that he would go back to the clubhouse when he was done and drink himself unconscious then and there.

But then everything had been packed. The house was suddenly half a house, important pieces, vital organs, missing, and he’d needed to see his girls. He couldn’t wait. Packing up the clothes and toys they’d left behind, smelling their smell haunting their room, had made him ache for them. His little flowers. Daisy was gone, really gone. He’d never have her again. But Rosie and Iris? They were still here. They were still his. He’d let Holly have her way, let her take them from him, but they were no less his for a piece of f*cking paper.

With that thought, he’d gotten into his ancient pickup and hit the road for Arkansas, driving through the night, stopping only for gas, food, and coffee. When he figured out which apartment was hers and walked to the door, he was buzzing on caffeine, fatigue, and uncertainty. He didn’t know what he’d find when Holly opened that door. He didn’t expect it to be good.

He knocked.

He heard Rosie say, “Somebody’s at the door, Mom.”

Then, at the same time that he heard but could not make out Holly’s raised voice, he heard Iris, his baby flower, right at the door. “I got it, Momma!” And then a series of locks turning. The door opened, and there was his baby, wearing a blue vest, white top, and blue plaid skirt—like a private school uniform. She was nine now, and she’d grown noticeably. Her wavy, gold hair had gotten darker and really long, and she had a big white bow clipped in it.