Midnight Sons Volume 1 by Debbie Macomber

first.
    “How are things going?” Pearl Inman asked, letting herself into the library.
    “Fine, thanks.”
    “I brought you a cup of coffee. I was hoping to talk you into taking a short break.”
    Abbey stood and stretched, placing her hands at the small of her back. “I could use one.” She walked to the door and looked outside, wondering about Scott and Susan, who were out exploring. It was all so different from their life in a Seattle highrise. She knew Scott and Ronny spent a good part of each day down at the airfield pestering Sawyer.
    If Scott wasn’t with Ronny, then he was with Sawyer’s dog. Abbey couldn’t remember a time her son had been so content.
    Susan and Chrissie Harris spent nearly every minute they could with each other. In two days’ time they’d become virtually inseparable. Mitch Harris had stopped by to introduce himself. Mitch, Abbey recalled, worked for the Department of the Interior and was the local public safety officer. He seemed grateful that his daughter had a new friend.
    “I can’t believe the progress you’ve made,” Pearl said, surveying the room. “This is grand, just grand. Ellen will be delighted.”
    Abbey knew that Ellen was Sawyer’s mother and the woman who’d donated the books to the town.
    “I don’t suppose you’ve seen Sawyer lately?” Pearl asked, pouring them each a cup from her thermos.
    “Not a word in almost two days,” Abbey admitted, hoping none of her disappointment showed in her voice.
    “He’s been in a bad mood from the moment you got here. I don’t know what’s wrong with that boy. I haven’t seen him behave like this since his father died. He blamed himself, you know.”
    Abbey settled on a corner of the desk and left the chair for the older woman.
    “What happened to his father?”
    Pearl raised the cup to her lips. “David was killed in an accident several years ago. They’d flown to one of the lakes for some fishing, which David loved. On the trip home, the plane developed engine trouble and they were forced down. David was badly injured in the crash. It was just the two of them deep in the bush.” She paused and sipped at her coffee.
    “You can imagine how Sawyer must have felt, fighting to keep his father alive until help arrived. They were alone for two hours before anyone could reach them, but it was too late by then. David was gone.”
    Abbey closed her eyes as she thought of the stark terror that must have gripped Sawyer, alone in the bush with his dying father.
    “If I live another sixty years I’ll never forget the sight of Sawyer carrying his father from the airfield. He was covered in David’s blood and refused to let him go. It was far too late, of course. David was already dead. We had to pry him out of Sawyer’s arms.”
    “It wasn’t his fault,” Abbey whispered. “It was an accident. There was nothing he could’ve done.”
    “There isn’t a one of us who didn’t tell him that. The accident changed him. It changed Hard Luck. Soon Ellen moved away and eventually remarried. Catherine Fletcher grieved something fierce. That was when her health started to fail.”
    “Have I met Catherine?” Abbey asked, wondering why Pearl would mention a woman other than David’s wife.
    “Catherine Fletcher. Used to be Catherine Harmon. No…no, she’s in a nursing home in Anchorage now. Her daughter lives there.”
    Pearl must have read the question in Abbey’s eyes. “Catherine and David were engaged before World War II. She loved him as a teenager and she never stopped. Not even when she married someone else. David broke her heart when he returned from the war with an English bride.”
    “Oh, dear.”
    “Ellen never quite fit in with the folks in Hard Luck. She seemed different from us, standoffish. I don’t think she meant to be, and I don’t think she realized how she looked to others. It took me a few years myself to see that it was just Ellen’s way. She was really quite shy, felt out of place. It didn’t