Little Girl Lost. Marisa Carroll
building.
The butterfly house he’d read about on the Internet, he supposed. Along with the three small, fifties-era tourist cabins to his left, it gave Painted Lady Farm and Guest Lodging its claim to fame.
Butterflies.
Beautiful, ethereal, innocent. And in many cultures said to represent the souls of lost children.
The stuff of his sister’s nightmares.
They were what had drawn him to this place.
Did it hold the answers he sought? Or was it just another dead end?
He’d find out soon enough. He turned his attention to the vintage cabins, one of which, the largest, he’d already reserved. They were painted the same cream color that highlighted the house and barn, but were accented in pine-green with window boxes filled with red geraniums, just coming into bloom. Round-backed, metal lawn chairs flanked the front doors inviting weary travelers to sit a spell and watch the sun set behind the hills.
The cabins, a reminder of times when travel cross-country was an adventure, not a blur of fast-food restaurants and strip malls glimpsed from a super-highway, were as carefully preserved and maintained as the barn and house. It was just good business to keep the place in top-notch shape, Hugh reminded himself. It was no indication whatsoever that the owner was a good and caring person who loved the land and its buildings. None at all.
A small sign, hanging beneath the larger one, proclaimed the farm and cottages the property of one Faith Carson and directed guests to the butterfly house for check-in, or to the back door of the main house if the butterflies weren’t in season. But butterflies were very obviously in season this late May afternoon. A big yellow school bus was parked in the gravel lot beside the barn. Small children raced around the yard, some brandishing what appeared to be large, colorful foam butterflies attached to sticks, the boys attempting to fight duels, the girls swirling around like ballerinas. It seemed he had arrived in the midst of an elementary school outing to see the butterflies that Faith Carson raised.
Now was probably not the best time to announce his arrival. He wanted to meet the object of his search alone. If he had to wait until nightfall to gain that advantage he would.
He put the Blazer in gear and drove up the gentle rise to the top of the hill. An old but well-maintained cemetery occupied the crest, weathered marble stones warming in the sunshine. The lettering on most of the markers was so faded he couldn’t read them from the road except for the newest one. The name engraved on the granite stone was Mark Carson and the date of death, just days short of three years before. It was the grave of Faith Carson’s husband.
Hugh pulled the Blazer onto the grass and opened the door. The air was humid, filled with the scents of newly turned earth and the sound of birds. A gigantic red pine shaded the oldest of the stones. As he walked, he realized many of the graves belonged to Carsons, some predating the Civil War if he was reading the faded numerals correctly. Probably all related to the dead man whose headstone drew him closer almost against his will. Hugh had no idea what it was like to have roots this deep.
He’d left home at seventeen. And after their mother had died in a car accident five years ago he’d had no one but his half sister, Beth, in his life. To his eternal regret he hadn’t returned to Texas to take care of her then. Instead he’d sent her off to the father she’d barely known in Boston. She’d been miserable and lonely, and like many miserable, lonely teenage girls she’d gotten pregnant. And run away. The flight had ended in a terrible accident that had killed her boyfriend and robbed Beth of her memory and almost her life.
And had sent him in search of a child she didn’t remember.
A newborn baby that had disappeared without a trace.
Hugh hunkered down on the balls of his feet and peered more closely at the lettering on the stone.
Mark Carson
Beloved Husband of Faith and Father of Caitlin
The question that had driven him to this place wasn’t whether the dead man was the father of Faith Carson’s two-and-a-half-year-old daughter. But whether Faith Carson was actually her mother.
Or was the child she called hers, really his sister’s baby?
That was what he’d come to Painted Lady Farm to find out.
Faith waved the Bartonsville Elementary School bus out of the yard. Having 35 eight-year-olds underfoot for an hour and a half was exhausting. She wondered how teachers could do it all day, every day. Still, she enjoyed having the school groups come to the butterfly house. It was the kind of thing Mark would have loved to see happen.
She turned back to the T-shaped glass-and-metal building that had been specially designed by an entomologist friend of her late husband. The top portion of the T was a greenhouse, open-sided now that the weather was warm. It contained a small gift shop where she sold butterfly and hummingbird feeders and figurines along with gardening books and paraphernalia. It also contained tables of colorful bedding plants and shrubs that especially appealed to butterflies and hummingbirds, along with vegetable plants and kitchen herbs.
The butterflies themselves were housed in the back half of the building in a gardenlike setting that Faith had spent the entire winter after Caitlin’s birth creating on paper, and the summer after bringing to reality with hours and hours of backbreaking work.
It had taken a sizable portion of Mark’s life insurance settlement to build the greenhouse and butterfly habitat. Perhaps too much, but it had been for the best that part of her comfortable nest egg had been spent, since that had forced her back into working two days a week at the Bartonsville Medical Center. And being back at work had forced her back into society, which was important for Caitlin if not for herself.
At first she had avoided anything to do with the small farming community where members of her husband’s family had lived for four generations before his grandparents had moved to Cincinnati after the end of World War II. Now she was the only Carson who shopped along Main Street, belonged to the garden club and attended the church where one of the stained-glass windows had been dedicated in the family name, but she felt at home. She had put down roots. No more crisscrossing the country as Mark moved from one troubleshooting systems project to the next for the huge software conglomerate he’d worked for. Next year she’d enroll Caitlin in Sing, Giggle and Grin Preschool two mornings a week. Her daughter was bright and quick for her age. A slender, elfin-faced bundle of energy with silver-gilt hair and her own green-gold eyes.
The center of her universe appeared at the back door of the house. “Hi, Momma,” Caitlin called in her piping, toddler’s voice.
“Hi, Kitty Cat,” Faith called back, lifting her hand to shade her eyes from the bright spring sun. On the western horizon storm clouds had begun to form, not an unusual occurrence for this time of year, but it wouldn’t hurt to check the weather forecast when she got back into the house. It was tornado season after all. But for now the spring afternoon was perfect, warm and only a little humid.
“I awake,” Caitlin announced unnecessarily.
“I can see you are.”
“She did take a nice nap.” Faith’s older sister, Peg, appeared behind Caitlin and hooked her finger inside the collar of the child’s pink Winnie the Pooh embroidered sweatshirt to keep her from tumbling headfirst down the porch steps. “And she went potty like a big girl, too.”
“You did?” Faith clapped her hands, making her tone excited and incredulous.
Caitlin nodded vigorously. “Big girl.”
“You are a big girl. Mommy’s so proud of you.” Faith opened the wrought-iron gate that separated the old herb garden she was slowly restoring and Caitlin’s play area on the other side of the brick walkway, from the rest of the yard.
Faith gathered the little girl into her arms and hugged her tight. Caitlin was the most precious thing on earth to her. Her whole life revolved around her daughter. Having her to love was nothing short of a miracle.
Caitlin