“… so they want to come out and interview you.  I didn’t give them your number without asking first but it’d be such great publicity for the store.”

Lee practically bounced as she talked to Willow after church the next morning.  Willow’s mind, still on the sermon and wondering where the ‘one anothering’ that Pastor Allen spoke of fit into her world, nodded absently and agreed.  “Sure, that’s fine.”

“Oh thank you!  I wasn’t sure- I know you’re private and all that but-” Lee hugged her quickly and skittered out the door phone in hand and dialing someone.

Willow disappeared into the bathroom and changed her shoes in the stall.  She’d learned that if anyone saw her changing shoes, they’d feel obligated to offer her a ride home.  As thoughtful as their gestures were, frankly, most of the time she looked forward to the walk.  She was used to an active life doing for herself and the speed in which others lived theirs she found wearying.

Her conversation with Chad still tumbled in her thoughts.  Identifying the extremes was easy.  If she avoided all people, that would be selfish and unhealthy.  Her mother’s situation was unique and while she’d made the best decision for her, it wasn’t the best decision for Willow.  However, she led a busy life.  Her responsibilities filled most of her time and what was left was precious to her.  She needed to invest in friendships that allowed her to be herself.

There was no doubt in her mind.  Chad was a friend.  He’d be her friend regardless of where he went or what he did.  There was a lot of comfort in knowing that someone else out there cared about her.  She’d hoped, she’d even prayed, that somehow the contact with her family at the funeral might spark at least a cordial, even if infrequent, relationship with them but she hadn’t heard from any of them since.  It didn’t hurt- she wasn’t one to mourn the loss of that which she’d never had.  However, in hindsight, Chad was more family-like than anyone she could have imagined.

She rounded the corner and onto the highway deep in thought.  Libby was a wonderful friend.  She was the kind of woman that Willow knew would be there if she could and if not, her prayers would include Willow regardless.  Lily, however- somehow Willow instinctively knew that if Lily did move near St. Louis to be closer to her parents, her friendship would slowly follow.  Lily wasn’t an unfaithful friend as much as one who was so busy with the here and now that she found little time for the ‘back then.’

Lost in her own world of sorting relationships, Willow didn’t notice a sedan creeping along the highway beside her.  As she mentally worked out ways to reciprocate visits to Libby, send letters to Lily, and reminded herself to pray for Lee and Bill in Rockland, the driver watched her.  Eventually, Willow glanced up into the laughing eyes of Chad.

“What are you doing?”

“Waiting to see how long it’d take you to notice me.  Hop in, I’ll give you a lift home.”

She shook her head.  “No thank you.  I really do just need the walk.”

Chad smiled and waved before he rolled up the window and accelerated.  Half a mile down the road, he whipped the car around and came back.  “Are you ok?  Last night still bothering you?”

“I’m fine,” she assured him.  “I’m just enjoying the day.  Thanks.”

As Chad zipped down the highway back toward Fairbury, he realized that for once, he didn’t doubt someone when they said they were fine.  Willow hadn’t yet learned to say what she didn’t fully mean.  He prayed she never would.

***

The man on her porch made Willow feel uncomfortable.  She’d granted the interview, even though she only vaguely remembered agreeing to it.  Now that Robert Belier sat on her porch swing asking her questions that seemed completely unrelated to her work as a designer for Boho Deux, she wished she hadn’t agreed.

“My mother bought the farm in nineteen eighty-three.”

A truck barreled up the driveway and Chad raced from it looking for something seriously wrong.  Willow sat on the porch swing with a strange man but she didn’t seem agitated or upset.  Taking the porch steps two at a time, Chad leaned against the railing and smiled.

“Chad, this is Robert Belier from the Rockland Chronicle.  He’s here to do an interview for something with the store.”

Chad nodded at the reporter, commented on a nice day for an interview, and pointed at the door.  “Willow, I need to talk to you for a minute if you don’t mind?”  He glanced once more at Robert.  “Please forgive the interruption.  It’s urgent.”

Robert stood and waved her into the house.  “Mind if I take a walk around?  Take a few pictures?”

“That’s fine,” Willow agreed.  Why he’d want pictures of her farm when he was there about her clothes, she wasn’t sure but if it got him to leave more quickly, she was all for it.

Inside, Chad backed her against the door and hissed, “What’s wrong!  I broke nearly every law there is getting here.  I expected wild dogs, broken bones, or at least a nice healthy barn fire and you’re sitting out there sipping coffee-”

“Tea.  Don’t drink coffee.”

“-tea with some reporter!”

“He made me uncomfortable.”  The vulnerability in her tone almost hit home but Chad’s adrenaline was still controlling him.

“So you dial 9-1-1?”

“I didn’t!” she protested hotly.  “I dialed 1.  For Chad.  I texted 9-1-1.  See.  I have this phone thing down to an exact science!”

“I didn’t even know you knew how to text!”

Looking quite pleased with herself, Willow admitted, “Lee taught me how while we waited for the lawyers the other day.”

“But why 9-1-1?  I thought you were injured.  You scared me half to death.”

Her wicked grin told him what she’d say before she uttered a word.  “Then you’re not even mostly dead yet.  You’re fine.”

“I’m waiting.”

The innocent look on Willow’s face was priceless.  “For what?”

“For the 4-1-1 on the 9-1-1.”

“Well, I don’t know about 4-1-1.  You only taught me 9-1-1 but I needed help and couldn’t let him see me calling you so I called with my phone in my pocket.  9-1-1 was all I could be sure I’d get right.”

“You did that sight unseen?  Impressive.  So why am I here?”

Willow’s green eyes turned grey.  Chad watched as her face crumpled before him and tears threatened.  “I just felt-” She swallowed hard brushing away her tears impatiently.  “I feel so stupid and over emotionally ridiculous but he makes me uncomfortable.  I don’t trust him but I was afraid to tell him to go away.”

“Aww Willow, why?  He would have gone.”

She swallowed again forcing a lump back down her throat.  “I wasn’t sure I could get to the gun in time if he didn’t.”

Amazed to see such a strong woman reduced to such fragility, Chad wrapped his arms around her protectively.  The trembling her heavy jacket had hidden was more than evident now that he was so near.  “Shh- it’s ok.  He’s not going to hurt you.  I’ll get rid of him.”

She jumped back shaking her head.  “I need to do this interview now that I agreed to it but if you could stay-”

“I’ll stay on one condition.”

“What?”

“You start keeping coffee in the house.  It’s too cold for water and hot tea and I don’t mix.”

“Deal.”

Chad reached for the knob but Willow stopped him.  “I’m sorry Chad.  I feel so silly.  I don’t know what is wrong with me but I don’t like this man.”

Her eyes, red with suppressed tears and from rubbing, pleaded with him making her seem more vulnerable than ever.  Chad, fighting to reconcile this woman with the one who had put Chuck in his place and who butchered chickens without mercy, sent her upstairs.  “I’ll go find him.  You go wash your face or whatever you do to get rid of red eyes.  What do I tell him?”

“Anything you like.  I trust you.”

Chad gave her arm a squeeze and started outside.  Willow turned on the landing to start up the second set of stairs and watched amused as he checked the woodstove before he went back outside.  The action was instinctive, comfortable.

Outside, Chad saw Robert Belier wandering around the yard and speaking into a hand-held recorder.  “Hey, Willow will be out in a minute.  She had some things to do first.”

“She’s fascinating.  What can you tell me about her life here?  Why did they choose such a remote existence?”

“Willow lives five miles from town- I’d hardly call that remote.”

“She lives at the end of a long driveway, it’s well known around Fairbury that until her mother died, no one knew anything about them except to stay off of their property, and even now, she turned down a lucrative job in Rockland to stay here.  Why?”

Chad was beginning to understand Willow’s dislike.  “Well, I’d hardly call managing a children’s clothing store ‘lucrative’.  It isn’t chump change but-”

“Compared to her income here selling a few vegetables-” Robert insisted argumentatively.

Patience thin, Chad chose to answer the original question.  “Kari Finley moved here when she decided she wanted a more deliberate lifestyle.  Her journals speak of living life similarly to how Thoreau describes.”

“So it didn’t have anything to do with being single, pregnant and from a middle class evangelical family in the eighties?”

“Her decision for this life was, I am sure, influenced by what she wanted for her child but she left the city because of what she hoped to find here.”

Robert nodded and continued. “How did she learn all of this?”

“Forgive me if I’m rude, but what does this have to do with Willow designing for Boho?”

“Nothing really.”

“So why are you asking these questions,” Chad queried pointedly.

“This article isn’t about her designs or Boho Deux.  This article is about Willow Finley the designer.  It’s part of a three part series we’re doing for the opening of the children’s annex of Boho.  We’re doing one on the original store and their success, one on Willow Finley- who she is and how it will reflect in her clothing, and one on the new store and what it has to offer the discerning shopper in Rockland.”

Chad’s bubble deflated.  Willow obviously didn’t know what she’d agreed to.  “I see.  I’m not sure Willow was aware of that when she agreed to the interview.”

“Well, today’s reader doesn’t want to know what school someone went to or how they are just like everyone else but different.  Today’s reader wants to know who someone is at their core.  They want to understand why a person is and does who and what they are and do.”

Shaking his head, Chad stuffed his hands in his pockets.  “I don’t know exactly what that means, but I do know that living here with her mother and the way they lived, definitely had a huge impact on why Willow is such an excellent designer.”

When Willow joined them several minutes later, she was ready to invite Robert into the house.  Without Chad, she’d felt uncomfortable with a stranger in her home- almost as if she’d betrayed her mother’s careful protection.  “Let’s go inside.  I’ll show you around the house.”

For the next hour, Robert toured the house, heard stories of her childhood and watched the interaction between Chad and Willow, and filled his digital recorder with almost enough information for a book outline.  The craft room held several mannequins with partially completed samples hanging on them.  Even Chad, who had no eye for photography whatsoever, could see that the picture would be incredible.

Robert Belier stopped at the end of the driveway and took a picture of the Finley Farm.  The house and barn, barely visible behind richly colored trees, sat nestled in the fields.  A tree to his right caught his attention and he climbed over the fence for a closer look.