Keepsake (True North, #3)

by Sarina Bowen

The old Lark would never have been afraid to greet a room full of people. I knew the exact date I’d stopped being fearless. It was sixty-seven days ago.

“And that’s Jude and Sophie. They just came back from their honeymoon on Martha’s Vineyard.”

My gaze caught on the farmhand I’d met just before I left for my trip in the spring. Who could forget him? Zachariah was a thing of beauty.

“You’re pregnant!” Audrey choked on a sip of water. “No!” she sputtered. “But should I burn this top?”

“Audrey, no!” Kyle argued. “You can’t leave! Griff is going to be a grumpy bear for the whole harvest season. Do you even know what you’re doing to us?”

most Thursdays Ruth had the neighbors over for dinner. It was a tradition that started because of me. A couple months before I made the big move down the road from the Abrahams’ to the Shipleys’, Ruth had started up with Thursday Dinner as a way for me to stay connected to my adoptive family.

I wasn’t a Shipley, though. It didn’t matter how hard I tried to pretend, this wasn’t my family. And the timing of the GED book’s appearance felt ominous.

Keeping tabs on everyone else was a skill I’d needed to survive my unusual upbringing. My giant, needy family had always been rife with factions and uprisings. Listening more often than I spoke was just common sense.

It was the same discussion every week. And invariably, we ended up at the Goat, because Griff would offer to be the designated driver, and because his ex still lived over the bar. He and Audrey liked to visit Zara and her new baby.

All evening I’d been rationing my glances at May’s best friend. Now I helped myself to another one. And, yup. She was still just as breathtaking as I’d remembered.

She looked vivid, as if God had painted her features with bolder paints than he used on the rest of the world.

Since I’d already been caught staring, I didn’t bother looking away. I couldn’t have, anyhow. Lark was the most enchanting woman I’d ever met.

So the first view I ever had of Lark, she was smiling. Those dark eyes sparkled with mirth, and I caught myself smiling, too, even though I didn’t have the first clue what the two of them were laughing over.

The sound of her voice made my chest tighten each time she spoke. Whenever her gaze touched me, even for a fraction of a second, my neck got hot.

There was nobody who’d ever made me feel that way before.

“I thought she’d tell me that Lark had lost her phone or something!” May had sobbed onto Griffin’s shoulder. “But she’s missing in Guatemala. They can’t find her. They’re searching…”

I didn’t even know the girl, but her disappearance bothered me a lot.

I wondered if it was possible that one person could have such a powerful effect on me again. The answer was yes.

She was just as beautiful as I’d remembered. No—more.

Earlier, when Griffin boomed into nearly deafening laughter, she actually flinched. I’d ached to see that.

nobody had ever been more of a parent to me than Leah and her husband.

I knew that Leah hugged me on purpose—she was trying to prove to me that hugging was ordinary.

Where we grew up, touching resulted in lashes from the whip. Hugging was a punishable offense, just like talking out of turn or sneaking food from the pantry.

Maeve would grow up to be a world-class hugger. She was the center of her parents’ universe, and she had no idea that life could be otherwise.

Funny how I never really appreciated the bible until I got free of the people who’d taught it to me.

I’ll never forget the sight of Griffin doubled over after explaining what a blowjob was. “But nobody’s blowing on anything,” I’d protested

I shouldn’t need to say this—the girl is off limits.”

I was happy that he trusted me with that whole revenue stream. And? Time alone with Lark. Pinch me.

The difference between living on a ranch where books were banned and a farm where books were freely discussed and traded could not be underestimated.

I had a borrowed family. They were great, but they had done too much for me already. I didn’t have a girlfriend, because who would want a guy with an eighth-grade education who’d been kicked to the curb by his family?

Sometimes I dreamt of the hand that had reached out from between two shanty buildings, the hard fingers closing over my mouth, yanking me into the alley. That was how my ordeal began. Other nights, the dream started when I was already bound and gagged in the dirty little house my kidnappers used.

My parents—who had already endured three weeks of wondering if I was dead—were really at the end of their ropes now. I’d come back safely to them, only to start screaming in my sleep.

“I’m fine, Mom.” I said these words every day, even if they weren’t true.

I need to see you. When is a good time? How does “never” work for you, Gilman?

“These here are my babies.” Only Griffin would keep a picture of fruit where other people kept a photo of the girlfriend. “Your babies are ugly, Griffin.”

Griff always made me smile. “Are you ever going to outgrow the Star Wars quotes?” “Nope!”

There’s only one important detail about the market at Norwich,” Zach said, kicking a foot up onto the truck’s runner. “What’s that?” “The donut vendor in the far corner is a heck of a lot better than the one in the center.”

When he smiled again, his cheeks pinked up a little. God, he was cute. I loved a man who blushed easily.

He chuckled, and the sound made me feel warm inside.

The point is that someone else might get out of that place alive. If a runaway figures out how to Google ‘Isaac and Leah Abraham in Vermont’ they’ll get web hits for Apostate Farm. Then they’ll know they’ve found the right place.”

I saw his face close down, as if he were waiting for me to judge him. It had never occurred to me to shun someone for where they were born, but I could see where he might be sensitive about this. “Well, Zach,” I said softly. “You must have some great hitchhiking stories. We’ll have to compare notes sometime.”

May set the glasses on a tray and then turned to me. “On Fridays I’ve been going to an AA meeting in Colebury,”

“Where’s your better half?” he asked Griffin. “With your sister. I’m pretty sure they’re plotting something.”

Maybe that was flirtatious of me, but it was fun to draw Zach out of what seemed to be a natural reticence.

I gave a silent prayer of gratitude for the white denim shorts she was wearing,

“What do we do first?” she asked. First, we stop staring.

“You are the best boss ever, Zachariah,” she said, kicking one of her high-top sneakers onto the dash. She was just teasing, but I liked hearing it anyway.

I’d never felt more sure that I’d left the dusty confines of my childhood behind. There’s nothing more liberating than driving down a road in the summertime with the windows open, singing along to music with a pretty girl by your side.

And the crowd didn’t bother you too much?” Her eyes widened. “You noticed that about me, huh?”

I’d told Zach that it was the table which kept me calm, but that wasn’t really true. It was him.