Over the Falls Read online

  OVER THE FALLS

  A Novel

  REBECCA HODGE

  To George, Austin, Daniel, Carson, Rose, and Bianca, in thanks for your love and patience as I wander through fictional worlds.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  It is with a sense of profound amazement that I usher a second novel into the world, and I must first acknowledge you, my readers, for making this possible. Your enthusiasm, emails, reviews, and book club discussions about Wildland have been a delight. You have my heartfelt thanks.

  My writing group, the Iron Clay Writers, have once again midwifed this story into existence. Nancy Peacock, Agnieszka Stachura, Claire Hermann, and Barrie Trinkle—your friendship, your feedback, and your constant support mean more to me than I can express.

  Sincere thanks go to those who’ve worked tirelessly to transform my manuscript into an actual book. At Spencerhill Associates, Nalini Akolekar. I am so fortunate to have you in my corner, offering wise counsel at every turn. At Crooked Lane Books, Terri Bischoff, Madeline Rathle, Melissa Rechter, and the entire team—magicians all. Zachariah Claypole White provided invaluable editorial feedback on an early draft. Margie Lawson helped keep my words on track at a high-intensity Immersion class. Thank you all.

  A special thanks goes to the authors who have offered me such amazing support along this writing journey, support that has ranged from kind words on a bad day to advice on the intricacies of the publishing industry. There are too many names to list here in full, but particular shout-outs go to Barbara Claypole White, Sharon Kurtzman, Diane Chamberlain, Lainey Cameron, Alison Hammer, and Barbara Conrey.

  The Women’s Fiction Writers Association has been an invaluable source of information, opportunities, and friendship over the years, and the North Carolina Writers’ Network has provided workshops and valued connections to other local writers.

  Thanks go to all the family, friends, and colleagues who’ve cheered my writing from the sidelines. Last, but definitely not least, thanks go to my husband, George; my sons, Austin, Daniel, and Carson; and my daughters-in-law, Rose and Bianca. I would be lost without you.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Bryn

  Three buzzards circled in the distance, dropping lower each minute, confident they’d found a feast. The sight turned the warm June evening cold.

  I grabbed my bag of delivery supplies. I hadn’t been all that worried when I called my two goats into the barn and only one showed up. Thistle liked to wander, and she knew her way home. But the buzzards’ presence converted my casual concern into a more urgent rescue mission. Thistle had more than a week to go before she was due to deliver, but goats weren’t all that good at checking the calendar.

  I called Tellico, my oversized mixed-breed hound, and we set out to search the endless acres of the front pasture, hoping to find her.

  “So much for a quiet evening. Come on, let’s see what’s going on.” Talking to animals was a direct result of my years living alone, but at times it made me feel like a full-fledged Tennessee mountain crazy woman. As always, Tellico ignored my chatter but stuck close, his nose twitching as he checked every new scent.

  I picked up my pace, heading through the pasture for the boggy area near the front gate. Tellico snaked through the tangled undergrowth with an ease I envied, while the snarled vines clawed and grabbed at my jeans, slowing me down.

  I fought my way to the spot where the birds hovered and skidded to a stop. Thistle lay stretched on her side in a patch of swampy goo near the corner where my long gravel driveway met the paved state road. Her sleek red-brown coat was covered in mud, her breath came in short painful gasps, and she didn’t even try to stand when she saw me.

  “Easy, Thistle, it’s okay.”

  A long slow wave of muscular contraction rolled down her side, and she gave a pitiful bleat. She must have been in labor for hours, stuck here and in trouble while I was locked in my home office, finishing the day’s coding and meeting deadlines, but oblivious to her distress.

  The buzzards settled on a nearby tree, three heads staring in my direction, foiled for the moment but not giving up.

  “What’s going on, girl?” I patted Thistle on the neck and set my bag down on a dry tuft of grass. “Goats are supposed to have an easy time delivering. Didn’t you read the fine print?”

  I’d acquired this goat and her sister the year before, in the hope they’d keep this unused pasture chewed down to manageable levels. When it became obvious two weren’t enough to take care of the backlog, I decided to breed Thistle, my favorite of the pair. I was looking forward to having a kid around. A four-legged kid, that is. I’d been absent when they passed out the instinct necessary for mothering humans.

  “Okay, girl, hang in there. Let’s see if I can figure this out.” I’d read the chapter on potential birthing problems once or twice, but in truth, I hadn’t taken it all that seriously. Thistle would take care of things on her own, right?

  Wrong. The idea of faking my way through a challenging delivery was ridiculous, but it looked like I had no alternative.

  Another big contraction hit, so with a feeling of stunned disbelief, I pulled out my tube of K-Y, lubed up my hand and lower arm, and eased myself down into the muck. I slipped my hand inside, and in only a few inches my fingers ran into two hard lumps. Thistle’s muscles gripped hard on my hand with every contraction, but after a minute I was able to sort things out by touch. Two hooves. Two legs. I pulled back out. There was unquestionably a baby goat in there, and it was trying its best to get out.

  So why wasn’t it happening? In a kayak I could judge a crisis in an instant and respond with certainty, but acting as a goat midwife was a blind leap off a very tall cliff. I closed my eyes and wished for magical powers.

  My cell phone was in my back pocket, and this time of day, Landon was probably at home taking care of his own herd of goats. He’d drop what he was doing if I called, and in five minutes, he’d be here, full of encouragement, experience, and advice. He’d seen every sort of emergency there was, and I had no doubt he would know exactly what was wrong and exactly what I needed to do.

  Tempting, but I didn’t reach for the phone. In the three years since Landon bought the acreage next to mine, we’d mended fences together, traded tools, laughed over many a cold beer at the end of many a long day. He not only understood my mortgage worries, he knew how to get rid of tomato hornworms and the best way to nurture baby chicks. He answered my endless questions with patience, and relying on his knowledge had become second nature.

  But he had ruined that easy comradery a month before when he’d asked for far more than I could give. My no had stunned him, and I hadn’t seen him since. There was no way I could call him now for help.

  A car came to a stop on the paved road out front, hidden by the shrubbery along the front fence. Not Landon—I knew the clatter of his ancient truck—but perhaps my wishful thinking had worked, and someone had swooped in to help. They didn’t turn into the drive. Instead, a car door slammed, and the car sped off at once. Not a rescue after all, probably someone pitching garbage or getting rid of a litter of kittens—I’d have to check once things calmed down.

  But then footsteps crunched toward me on the driveway. Unexpected visitors were rare out here, particularly someone who was simply dropped off roadside. I peered in that direction, but Thistle chose that moment to scramble, her legs flailing, trying to stand. She couldn’t get any traction, but she did manage to coat me with another layer of muck.

  “Easy girl. Calm down.” If she kept thrashing like that, there was no way I’d save her and her baby.

  “Hello? Are you Bryn? Bryn Collins?” The voice came from the driveway. A boy’s voice. One that cracked as he choked out the question.

  I glanced his way long enough
to see a gangly form silhouetted against the low sun. I kept looking for an adult, but he was apparently alone. What in the world was he doing here?

  But explanations had to wait. “Yeah, I’m Bryn. Hey, give me a hand, would you? If you can hold this goat still, I can maybe get this kid out.”

  “What?” His incredulous tone made it sound like I’d suggested a leap to the moon. But he took a few hesitant steps closer, moving toward the wire electric fence.

  “Not that way. You’ll get shocked. The gate’s in the corner there.”

  He headed in that direction. Thistle settled down, and I didn’t have time to worry about the boy. I knelt behind my goat again and this time slid my hand in farther in my attempt to figure out what was wrong. Two legs, okay, that was good. The book said there should be a head stretched forward to rest on those legs, creating a nice compact package for delivery. Maybe the head was twisted back somehow?

  Water from the bog was soaking through my jeans and T-shirt, a chilling damp, and a strand of hair escaped from my ponytail, stinging my eyes. I felt my way between the two legs, expecting them to lead to a chest, neck, and head, but my hand just kept sliding between them. I was elbow deep at this point and utterly confused. What the hell?

  Slow footsteps came closer, on this side of the fence now, the boy’s shoes making wet sucking sounds in the mud. Tellico ran to greet him with a wagging tail, but I didn’t even give him a decent look. “Grab onto her halter, would you? Don’t let her get up.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” He waited, as if he thought I was going to let him off the hook, but after a long moment, he came closer and hung a small backpack on a bush. He stood as far away as possible and grabbed the side strap of Thistle’s halter. He was leaning so precariously I was afraid her slightest movement would cause him to tumble flat. Not much help, that was for sure, but at least he was trying. Thistle calmed a little despite his obvious nervousness.

  I tried to remember all the scary illustrations I’d seen in the goat manual. Head bent back? No, that wasn’t it. Rear presentation? Not that either. Curled with four feet presented? Nope. Twins? Oh no, that must be it. “I’ve got two legs here, but they belong to two different kids.”

  Tellico gave a tail wag, but the boy didn’t seem overly impressed. “Uh, isn’t it going to be hard for them to get out with you in the way?”

  Smartass. Like I was here in the mud, breathing essence of goat for the fun of it. “Yeah, yeah, I’m working on it. Hang on.”

  I could picture the problem now—twins, both trying to come head first, had each gotten one leg into the birth canal, plugging up the works. They may have been stuck this way for hours, and it was possible neither of them was still alive. A strong surge of guilt paralyzed me. I should have confined Thistle to the barn. Should have checked on her every few hours. Should never have bred her. Should have had some damn sense.

  My first attempt at breeding, and all I’d bred was death. A foul sourness coated the back of my throat.

  Stop it. Do something.

  I forced myself back to the present. Now that I could visualize the twins, the lumps I was feeling made sense. I squirmed around until I got a hand on the chest of the kid on the left, trying to remember the illustrations in the manual and hoping I was doing the right thing. I slowly pushed the kid back inside, vetoing its effort to exit.

  Every contraction was a vise clamping hard on my arm, but I finally got that one pushed out of the way. The twin on the right immediately slid toward me to fill the gap. I ran my hand along its neck to make sure its head was straight, and my fingers brushed against its muzzle. A wet tongue wrapped around them for an instant, and a fizzing joy bubbled up through my chest.

  “It’s alive. At least one of them is.”

  The boy merely grunted, but he took a step closer, as if perhaps now I’d said something he was willing to pay attention to.

  I pulled my arm out, and as if on cue, a huge contraction delivered the first kid. A moment later, the next spasm delivered the second. In only a few minutes, two wet, furry creatures were struggling to their feet beside me, fighting to get their balance, their long awkward legs skewed out at crazy angles.

  Amazing. I’d read the manuals, seen videos online, but I never expected an actual birth to give me such a spectacular rush. I was wet and muddy, weary and marveling, but all I could do was sit in the muck and grin.

  Thistle, still shaky, struggled to her feet and began licking her twin daughters. The kids gathered close and searched out her udder.

  “How do they know?” The astonishment in the boy’s voice reflected all the magic I was feeling, both of us floating on the same incredulous buzz.

  “Wonderful, isn’t it? It’s all in the hard wiring.”

  I got to my feet, holding my goopy arm out to one side as I tried to brush off chunks of mud with my free hand. Homesteading always gave me plenty of chances to ruin my clothes, but this time it had been totally worth it.

  I turned and looked full-on at my visitor for the first time, and the shock of what I saw sent sparks through my body far worse than what the electric fence would have inflicted.

  Sawyer.

  This boy looked like Sawyer, but of course he wasn’t. Sawyer would be pushing forty now if he were alive. But the powerful resemblance was unsettling. Same ice-blue eyes. Same white-blond hair. Same whorl over the middle of his forehead, the one Sawyer hated because he could never get his hair to lie flat in front.

  This boy had a left-sided dimple like the one I used to tease Sawyer about. He was watching the twins nurse hungrily, and even the way he was standing, with one foot slightly in front of the other and his hips canted to stay balanced, was an exact match to my ex-fiancé’s stance.

  Ex-fiancé, not ex-husband. While he and I were busy designing wedding invitations, discussing reception menus, and debating a final guest list, my younger sister, Del, got pregnant.

  And Sawyer was the father.

  This boy, my reluctant birthing assistant, had to be the fourteen-year-old result of that pregnancy. Sawyer’s son. My nephew. If Sawyer and I had had a son, this is what he could have looked like.

  A stab of wrenching loss lanced through my chest, making it difficult to breathe. I gave myself a hard mental kick. Hadn’t I just been thinking I had zero instinct for motherhood? But seeing him there, right in front of me, ripped open wounds I’d foolishly believed were well healed .

  I snapped myself back to reality and took another look at the boy.

  Nowadays, my mother knew never to mention my sister or her family—I’d threatened to stop paying her cable bills if she said a single word. But she had spoken of my nephew when he was born. I pulled up the vague memory. “You’re Joshua, right? Joshua Whitman?”

  He looked startled that I recognized him. Perhaps he didn’t even know about his striking resemblance to his father. Sawyer had died in a plane crash two years after he’d been born, and Del probably hadn’t wasted any time before moving on to someone new. I should have felt better when I heard the news of Sawyer’s death, knowing he was permanently out of the picture and out of my life, but instead, a fragile hope of reconciliation had shattered. It was a hope so unfounded in reality, I hadn’t even known it was there.

  The boy nodded. “Josh, not Joshua.”

  He gave me a careful once-over, no doubt itemizing the scraggly hair, the filthy clothes, my one arm coated in mud and the other still dripping lube and amniotic fluid. Del had always been a perfect-hair, perfect-nails girly girl, and it was obvious from Josh’s face that I didn’t measure up.

  “So, Josh, who did you come with?” I looked down the driveway again, still unable to believe he’d arrived alone. Had Del—or somebody else—just dumped him off? When I heard the car leave, I’d thought garbage or kittens, and the idea of treating this boy that callously dismayed me. Fourteen-year-olds did not travel from Memphis to the eastern end of the state alone.

  He looked away, silent, staring across the pasture toward the orcha
rd, where neat rows of Winesaps hid the house, barn, and creek from view. The silhouette of the Blue Ridge Mountains shadowed the horizon on all sides, their presence usually a soothing comfort. At the moment, with the son of my ex-lover unexpectedly on my doorstep, it was hard for me to pull much solace from my mountains, and it didn’t look like they offered much reassurance to Josh either.

  I waited for him to answer. His eyes dropped, and he studied his soggy tennis shoes. “I came by myself. Mom said if I needed help, I should go to my Aunt Bryn. She gave me your address.” He gave me a searching look that was so like Sawyer’s, I flinched. “I didn’t even know I had an aunt.”

  I shouldn’t have been surprised—Josh’s existence was something I’d done my best to forget, so there was no reason for Del to say much about me. But his last words were a fist that punched hard—sharp and unexpected. It was one thing for me to disown my sister—heck, I was the injured party in all this; I was justified—but it was something else to discover she had also disowned me. “Surprise. Here I am.”

  What a mess. Here alone. Needing help. Was he in trouble? Was he a runaway? Did I need to call the police? The last thing I needed was a fourteen-year-old puzzle on my hands.

  Typical Del, dumping her problems on someone else. For the first two decades of her life, that someone else had always been me, two years older and constantly told to take care of my precious baby sister. During the past fourteen years of obliviousness, I hadn’t missed that responsibility for a single minute.

  I made a valiant effort not to let my irritation show. This kid had nothing to do with all that history. “When exactly did she tell you about me?”

  “Right before she left.” Josh looked more than a little lost and confused, his shoulders slumped, his expression dazed.

  The phrase before she left sounded like more bad news, and I dreaded hearing the details. Runaway or not, he must have been traveling all day. Another few minutes delay wouldn’t be fatal. “Well, you made it here okay, and that’s a start. We’ll get it sorted out, but first let’s get these goats back to the barn.”