Hope's Garden

by Lyn Cote

  Cat recognized the senior pastor’s voice and froze. Laurette!

  The senior pastor went on, “Ginny Claussen in your youth group has run away.”

  The relief that it wasn’t an emergency concerning Laurette made Cat’s knees rubbery. She sat down at her desk. Just as quickly, concern for Ginny flooded her. “When?”

  “She was supposed to visit a friend today, so her mother didn’t miss her until late this afternoon. When her mother called the friend’s house to tell Ginny to come home early, the friend’s mother said she hadn’t been there at all. Everyone has been called. No one has seen Ginny today.”

  Cat murmured, “I’ve been worried. I could tell she wasn’t happy.” Cat recalled Ginny’s sullen face. The girl had never shown even one real smile to Cat.

  “I was wondering if you have any idea where she might have gone.”

  Cat combed her memory. “I’m sorry. She hasn’t confided in me.”

  “If you think of anything, please call me at Ginny’s home. I will be staying there tonight until Ginny is found. They think she may have gone to her father in the Quad Cities, but they haven’t been able to reach him. He’s away on business. Please pray. Her mother and stepfather are frantic.”

  “I will. I’m so very sorry.” Cat snapped the phone shut. She bent her face into her hands and prayed, “Dear Lord, please protect Ginny. You know where she is. Keep her safe from harm and help her to be found soon. Comfort her family.” Cat imagined what Ginny’s parents were suffering. Losing a loved one— Cat knew that sinking, irrevocable feeling too well. She wrapped her arms around herself, chilled in spite of the humid high eighties temperature.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Gage’s voice made Cat look up. “Ginny ran away.”

  “No.” He hurried over and pulled Cat up and into his arms.

  She huddled close to him, drawing comfort from the soft cotton of his shirt against her cheek and his solid reassuring strength. She murmured, “I feel so guilty. I sensed something was going to happen. I saw the signs, but I didn’t know how to step in or if I should.”

  “I know. I felt the same way.”

  His deep voice rumbled through her since her ear was pressed against his hard chest. She pulled back and looked up into his face. “We have to do something.”

  “But what?”

  Reluctantly, she stepped out of his embrace. “We need to talk to Morgan. I think Ginny told her about this at the night pool party. I overheard bits and pieces of their conversation. I didn’t want to eavesdrop, but I was worried.”

  “Let’s go.” As he dragged her toward the nursery’s door, she managed to snag her purse and tell Hetty to close that night. He opened the passenger door to the truck. She climbed in and he drove off.

  Longing to move closer to him, Cat twisted the strap on her leather purse. “Anything could happen to her.” Images of faces of abducted children on posters loomed in her mind. She sealed her mind against the dreadful realities of what could happen to lost or unprotected children.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll find her.”

  Gage’s firm statement reminded her that she could count on her partner in a crisis. He was that kind of man.

  Within minutes, Gage pulled into the drive in front of Morgan’s small white house flanked by tired pine trees. He hoped Catherine was right and Morgan could help. They hurried to the house and knocked. Morgan opened the faded red door. The minute she saw their faces, fear and guilt filled her eyes.

  “You know where she is,” Cat stated.

  “No—”

  “Morgan, you can’t lie for her. This is too serious.” Cat took Morgan’s shoulders in both hands. “I don’t think she went to her father’s apartment in Illinois. Where did she go?”

  “I told her I wouldn’t tell…” Morgan sounded close to tears.

  Gage spoke up, “You don’t have a choice. You know even going as far as the Mississippi River is too far for a thirteen-year-old alone. Now tell us what you know.”

  Morgan began to cry, tears slid down her round cheeks. “I told her not to do it.”

  “Do what?” Gage insisted.

  “She said she hated all her parents, and she was going to leave. But I didn’t think she would really do it.”

  “Morgan, did she say how she was going to get away? Was she going to hitchhike?” Cat probed.

  The young girl rubbed her reddening eyes. “She said there were truck stops on I-80 where you could pick up rides and go all the way to California.”

  Cat bent her forehead to touch Morgan’s. “Oh, no.”

  The two syllables sounded as though drawn from deep within Catherine. Longing to comfort her, Gage instead rested his hand on the teen’s trembling shoulder. “Any other lead you can give us?”

  “She mentioned Mount Pleasant, too. A truck stop there. I didn’t think she’d really go through with it.”

  Gage said, “Okay, we’re going to call Ginny’s family and tell them what you’ve told us, so they can give this information to the police.”

  Morgan looked frightened. “I won’t get into trouble? I’ve been worrying ever since the church called to tell us to pray Ginny would come home or be found. Mom started telling me about what can happen to girls when they run away. Then I was…too afraid to tell…Mom that Ginny had talked to me. I mean…I don’t know where she is….” The girl broke into tears.

  “Don’t worry,” he reassured her. “Your mom will forgive you, but we need to give this information to Ginny’s family.”

  Morgan’s mother arrived home from running errands, just as Morgan was finishing her recital of what she knew to the sheriff over the phone. Leaving the weeping girl with her mother was a relief. Morgan was safe. But where was Ginny?

  Gage and Cat, still keyed up, walked outside into burnished twilight. A neighbor mowed his lawn. The tranquillity of the evening magnified the engine noise. A dog barked. A bicycle bell chinged. On this peaceful street in the small Iowa town, fear for a child seemed out of place, alien.

  “Cat, should we pray about this…I mean…”

  She took his hand. “Let’s.”

  “I still don’t like praying out loud.” He gave her a half smile.

  “We’ll both pray silently. Only God needs to hear us.”

  He nodded. Her hand in his gave him a feeling of connectedness he needed now. After a few moments of meditation, he opened his eyes to find her toffee-brown eyes gazing into his. “How far is Mount Pleasant from here?”

  “About an hour’s drive.”

  “Do you think Ginny would have had any luck hitchhiking there?”

  Cat considered this. “I think she would have been afraid to hitch close to town because people would have asked her questions.”

  Running away in a small town would be difficult. “So you think she might have walked for quite a while first?”

  “Yes, to get out where she wouldn’t be recognized.”

  “And walking would slow her down.” Hope flickered inside him. Finding a girl on foot sounded more reasonable. Cat nodded, watching him.

  He forced a smile for her. “The state police can cover I-80 better than we can. I think we’ll drive down all the roads on the way to Mount Pleasant in our Hope’s Garden truck.”

  She looked puzzled. “Why? I’m sure the police are doing that—”

  “Yes, but Ginny might be having second thoughts, and she might react like Morgan just did now—”

  “How do you mean?”

  “They are still kids. Morgan’s first thought was ‘Will I get into trouble?’ That’s probably what Ginny’s thinking about now.”

  “Okay. Go on.”

  “So if Ginny sees our white truck with Hope’s Garden on the side, she’ll recognize it immediately. And she might flag us down. We aren’t as frightening as a police car and she knows we would help her. Right now I think she’d be in the mood to listen to us.”

  Cat threw her arms around him. “You’re brilliant! It just might work!”
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  He relished her embrace. Her fine golden hair, fragrant with herbs and blossoms, tickled his nose. He brushed her hair with his lips, but so lightly she wouldn’t notice. The past few weeks had been agony. When would he get enough courage to tell her he loved her? He eased back. “I don’t know about you, but I can’t just sit around wondering. We may not find Ginny, but at least this will give us something active to do.”

  “Let’s go.”

  That’s my Catherine! He opened the door for her and she got back in the truck. He resisted the urge to place his hands around her waist and give her a boost. Patience. Now isn’t the time. But soon, very soon. As he drove them to the road out of town to the south toward Mount Pleasant, Cat dialed Ginny’s number and told the pastor their plan. She hung up. “He said he wishes us well. And Godspeed.”

  Gage nodded. Twilight began to mute the late August sun’s brilliance. Cat got out her Iowa map and folded it to show them just the southeast quadrant where they hoped to find Ginny. After Gage had driven out of town into the almost unbroken fields of head-high corn, Cat pointed to a possible side road Ginny might have taken to another Iowa two-lane highway.

  Sitting on one leg with her back against the door, Cat held the map and pointed directions at intersections. Gage drove on. The tall corn, green and golden with ripe silk, loomed up on each side of the road like walls. When Gage halted at each red stop sign, the din of the grasshoppers closed in around them. The screeching cicadas added their noise to the busy summer evening sounds.

  After an intense hour of driving up and down different county roads, Gage pulled into a lone gas station at a crossroads and bought them a fresh supply of soft drinks. Cat filled the green-topped cooler on the floor, then the search began again.

  Another silent, tense hour. Gage pulled to the side of the empty asphalt road and helped himself to a fresh can of cold soda from the cooler. He rolled up his window and turned on the air-conditioning against the heat and insects. “I feel like I’m getting lost.”

  Cat looked at him in the gathering dusk. Her hair glowed in the low light. “I’m wondering if Ginny might have, too.”

  Gage considered this. “That’s right. She doesn’t drive yet—”

  “So she probably doesn’t pay attention much when the family drives out of town,” Cat continued.

  “That means we should probably drive down every road in the south of the county.”

  “Yes, even dirt or gravel roads that aren’t dead ends.”

  The thought of the young girl walking down road after lonely road, afraid to stop and ask directions tugged at Gage’s sympathy. In daylight, the cornfields held no mystery. But at night, any breeze through the husks could sound ominous, eerie. A young girl’s imagination could conjure up all sorts of dangers lurking in their cover. The kid might be hysterical by nightfall.

  Or she might have already gotten to Mount Pleasant or I-80, hitched a ride with a trucker… Gage didn’t want to go down that road. He was sure ninety percent of American truckers were decent men and women, but there was no guarantee that Ginny wouldn’t find one of the questionable ten percent. Bad things happened every day. Nasty headlines from the past flashed in his mind.

  They would find Ginny. He drew in a deep breath.

  “Which way?”

  Cat directed him to the right at the fork ahead. He drove down yet another dusty gravel road. The air-conditioned-cool hush inside the truck weighed on him. Glancing at Cat, he read the way her shoulders drooped. Worry must be eating at her tender heart.

  A thought occurred to him that would distract them both. “Cat?” When would he have the courage to call her Catherine?

  She glanced at him.

  He hoped he wasn’t making a mistake. “May I ask you a question?

  Chapter Eleven

  “What?” Cat turned her eyes on him.

  He took the last swallow of sweet soda and discarded the can in the plastic trash bag hanging from the dash. “What did you want the McCanliss property for?”

  She sighed and stretched her supple legs out in front of her. “I was wondering when you’d get around to asking me that.”

  “You didn’t act like you wanted to tell me,” he said, aggrieved because his careful discretion looked like it hadn’t been needed.

  “I know.” She stopped.

  “Are you going to tell me now?” he prompted.

  “It’s no big deal. I’ve just loved that property since I used to go on hikes with my friends.”

  “What did you want to do with it?” he probed. Her pat answers didn’t fool him. Why was she hesitating?

  She stared out the window, her profile pensive. “Do you remember once you asked me if I wanted a ranch with horses and cowboys?”

  “You don’t mean that!” He couldn’t stop this from flying out of his mouth.

  “Well, not the cowboys.” She grinned at him, the waning sunlight nearly abandoning them. “But I’ve always wanted a ranch-style house on a rise above the river and a stable with a few horses.”

  “Horses?” he mused. The road took an unexpected curve. They rattled across an old wooden bridge over a creek invisible in the growing shadows of darkness.

  She nodded, then sat up straighter. “Slow down. Something moved in that pasture.” She motioned toward the right.

  Gage slowed. “I don’t see anything.” He stopped the truck anyway.

  Cat jumped out and called, “Ginny? It’s Cat. Ginny?”

  No answer. The corn husks on the other side of the road rustled in the night breeze.

  “Ginny?” No answer. Reluctantly, Cat climbed back into the truck cab and shrugged. “I guess it was just some animal, a raccoon or something.”

  He started up again. The road dipped and followed its wide curve.

  Gage picked up the topic again, “Your ranch-style house and horses seems like an achievable goal. I mean, you won’t have the McCanliss property, but otherwise what’s the problem?”

  She gave a deep sigh. “Time, money, the usual things that hold people back.”

  “I didn’t even know you rode.”

  “I don’t. Not really.” She stared out her window. “I wanted to have a horse and lessons when I was eleven. But my dad said a horse was too much money and wasted too much time. Horses take a lot of care and eat a lot of feed.”

  Gage felt a catch in his throat. Cat had loved her father and loved him still, but Gage thought her life would have been easier if her mother had lived to soften her father. His family had worked the opposite way. His father at crucial times had stepped in to check his mother. Was that why God gave a child a mother and a father—for that balance?

  “You aren’t feeling guilty, are you? That’s why I didn’t tell you.” She sounded worried.

  “I suppose a little.”

  “Don’t be.” She waved his concern away with her hand. “I couldn’t afford the land now and by the time I could, Mrs. McCanliss would be dead and the land sold to a builder for a subdivision. I realized that before you even came to town. It was just a dream.”

  So he was building a golf course on Catherine’s dream. She deserved her dream, but by now the land was bought and zoned! Catherine’s generous heart revealed itself again. “I don’t know what to say, but thank you. That land is perfect.”

  “Don’t mention it. Besides I agree with Mrs. McCanliss. I like the idea of a lot people being able to use and it enjoy that view.” Cat continued staring out the window on her side, obviously alert for any sign of Ginny. “And I’m glad you’re staying in Eden.”

  Her words flowed through him like sweet honey. She’d finally said the words he’d wanted to hear. She wanted him to stay in Eden.

  Dark had fallen on southeastern Iowa—corn and soybean fields, old faded barns, lonely farmhouses spotlighted by a single, high pole lamp, and one-street towns shut down tight for the day. They stopped for gas. On her cell phone, Cat called Ginny’s home number. The teen still hadn’t been found. State police were circulating a faxed ph
oto to be posted at all the truck stops on I-80.

  Starting off again, Cat wondered if she and Gage would run out of back roads before they found Ginny or heard she was home safe and sound. Cat didn’t want to contemplate any other possibility.

  After she’d admitted to Gage why she’d wanted the McCanliss land and that she’d wanted him to stay in Eden, they had driven on in a friendly silence. Both of them vigilant, scanning both sides of the road, they only exchanged words when they came to a crossroads where she told him which direction to go.

  The cab of the truck had become a separate little world, set apart from the solitary country roads and the problem that had brought them out here. That must have been the reason Gage had asked her about the McCanliss land. There had been a freedom in letting him know that she valued him and wanted him to stay in Eden, but there was also a hidden fear. What if he didn’t care whether or not she cared? Tonight would he, too, lift the curtain which concealed his past?

  She decided to chance it. “Gage?”

  “Yes?”

  She said a quick prayer. “Who was Manny?”

  “I told you, didn’t I? He was my first boss.” Gage’s voice sounded nonchalant.

  But she knew him too well by now. “There’s more to it, isn’t there?”

  He let his breath out in a rush. “That is an under-statement.”

  A flicker of victory flashed through her. He trusted her. “Would you tell me about him?”

  Gage nodded slowly. “His name was Manuel Ortiz. He’d come from El Salvador to America with his parents when he was just a child. By the time I met him, he was a grandfather. He owned his own lawn maintenance service and did my parents’ lawn and gardening for as long as I could remember. Before I even started kindergarten, I would watch for his truck each week and run out to follow him around. He liked kids and always had a candy bar for me.”

  Cat grinned in the glimmer of the moon’s early light. “I’d have followed him around, too.”

  Gage chuckled and leaned back. “Anyway, when I was about eleven, he started letting me tag along with him in the summer to help with other lawns and gardens. My mother was ill that year, and I didn’t have much supervision. I think that’s why Manny let me go along. Kept me out of mischief.”