She came to a gentle curve in the road that looked like it might start down the other side of the bluff. So engrossed was she in the far-away sights that she did not realized a truck heavily loaded with baled hay and riding the center of the road was rounding the curve from the other direction until they were nearly nose to nose.
Kari jerked her steering wheel hard to the right; at the same time the truck slammed on its brakes. As Kari’s car started to pass the truck, a bale of hay, rocked by the truck’s sudden stop, tumbled off the top of the load—onto Kari’s car.
Dust and hay flew everywhere.
“You idiot!” The words flew from Kari’s mouth as she stared—appalled—at the damage. The Caddy’s hood was scratched and dented; the windshield was cracked and crazed. The bale of hay had seemed to explode on impact and was scattered everywhere, including inside of her car.
A lot of the scattered hay was attached to Kari—in her hair, on her clothes, even in her mouth. She spit hay and dirt and coughed.
The farmer standing just behind the driver’s door (Kari hadn’t even looked at him yet, so engrossed was she in the damage to her car) said nothing, but Kari had the impression that he was shaking his head and rubbing the back of his neck.
She turned in her seat and cut loose. “You idiot,” she repeated. “You think you own this road? Look what you’ve done to my car!”
He was studying her and, still without saying anything, reached over her seat and plucked a strand of hay from her hair. Kari looked down, finally realizing she was covered in hay.
It was, quite literally, the final straw.
She pushed open her door, shoving him backwards, all the while directing a string of obscenities at him. Kari didn’t even know where she’d picked up half the words she used, but use them she did. And how.
The man found his tongue then. “Whoa. I hadn’t expected such nasty words from such a good-looking woman.”
Kari glared at him and felt her face flushing as another burst of anger flooded her—this time directed at herself. Along with the anger flowed guilty regret.
Here I thought Jesus had come into me and he’d changed me, she fumed. Some change! I . . . Her anger gave way and sadness took its place.
Oh, no! What have I done? What if he won’t stay with me now? she questioned. Anxiety rose in her throat.
What if I’ve driven him away? O Jesus! Where are you? Please don’t leave me! I’m so sorry! Please don’t leave me! Please! Don’t—
She couldn’t breathe. The panic clamped down as the old voices and her old fears swept over her chanting, “We don’t want her! We don’t want her!”
O Jesus! The blood pounded in her throat. Her heart thundered and she began to gasp. As her sight dimmed, Kari clutched at the arm of the man next to her.
And then, of course, she passed out.
~~**~~
Chapter 21
She was sprawled in the dirt road when she woke up, gravel poking the back of her head and a shadow looming over her.
“Kari! Kari, wake up!”
Cold water trickled onto her face. Unfortunately, some ran down her nose and she started choking. Coughing to clear the water running down the back of her throat, Kari sat up and realized that the shadow was a man in a straw hat.
“Back off, buster! You’re too close!” Kari complained. She coughed a few more times. “What were you thinking? Were you trying to drown me?”
The man stalked a few steps away, jerked his hat off his head, whacked it across his thigh, and ran his hand across the back of his neck and then up his neck and over his head. He was facing away from her, but Kari could still hear him growling angry words.
Kari looked around. She sat between the two vehicles, covered in dust and hay and, if she wasn’t mistaken, would soon be sporting a bruise on her backside from her abrupt impact with the graveled surface.
She crawled to her knees and grabbed the handle of her car door, using it to haul herself up. As she usually was after a full-blown panic attack, she was jittery and weak.
“How about you sit down in the car for a few minutes?” The man was back and Kari nodded, grateful that he opened the door and steered her onto the seat.
When the wave of weakness passed, she sighed. “I’m sorry. Sorry I hogged the road, sorry I yelled, sorry I cussed.”
“Are you sorry you just scared the ever-living crap out of me?” he demanded.
Kari shook her head. “It was a panic attack. Takes me a few minutes to get over it. No big deal.”
His voice rose. “Yeah, well how was I to know that? I thought you’d had a heart attack or something! In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re not exactly near a state-of-the-art medical center!”
“For heaven’s sake! Quit barking at me!” Kari yelled.
She finally looked at him, really looked at him. Piercing blue eyes stared out of a face weathered by the wind and sun. His hair was cut short and bleached white with golden red streaks. He looked to be in his early to mid-forties. Beneath his glare of indignation Kari perceived worry. A heavy weight of worry.
She softened her tone. “I-I’m all right. Truly. It’s just . . . ” Her eyes swept over the damage to her car again and, without notice, she burst into tears. “It’s just my car! My beautiful C-C-Caddy!” she sobbed.
“Yeah. That is a real drag.” He laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry, Kari. I’ve got a good friend who specializes in classic cars. I’m pretty sure he can get it fixed up, good as new.”
Kari sniffed. “Really? Is he far from here?”
“No; lives a couple of farms that way.” The man pointed west. “Just beyond the McKennies’.”
“Are you sure that he . . .”
“That he knows what he’s doing? Being farmers doesn’t make us all backward hicks,” he growled. “For your information, Jeff is a certified mechanic and holds some pretty prestigious awards for his vintage restorations.”
“All right. Sheesh. I just needed to know. You don’t need to get all defensive.” Then Kari frowned, suspicion creeping into her mind. “Hey! You just called me ‘Kari.’ How did you know my name?”
The man smiled, but it was a tired smile. “Uncle Quan said you’d be driving a classic Cadillac. Bright red. Not too many of those on these dusty back roads.” He held out his hand. “Søren Thoresen. You’ll be staying with my sister and me. And it looks like for longer than just a few days.”
Oh, fine! Way to go, Kari!
She blushed as she took his hand. “I’m Kari Hillyer.” She reddened further. “Well, of course I am,” she muttered. “Listen, I’m really sorry about the swearing . . . I thought I was past that . . . and all.”
He looked bemused. “Past that?”
“I mean, I’m a Christian now. Was a Christian anyway. Just a few days ago. I thought . . . I didn’t think I would be cussing any more. Guess I ruined it. Everything.”
Søren watched sadness flit across her face. He gave a knowing grunt and looked away.
Kari followed his gaze out into the deep prairie and gawked again. It’s magnificent, she realized. No wonder Rose loved it!
“So what you’re saying is that you are a new Christian? Is that right?” Søren asked, still staring out across the vista afforded by their vantage atop the bluff.
“Um, yes. Just since Tuesday.”
“And this is Thursday. Wow. So a whopping two days now?”
“Yes.” Kari gritted her teeth. This guy pushes my buttons but good.
He looked over to her and saw that her irritation masked a sense of loss. “And you think that by cussing a blue streak just now you have driven Jesus away?”
Kari turned to face him. “Well . . . yes. How did you know?”
One corner of his mouth tipped up, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Well, your face told me, Kari Hillyer. But have no fear. Jesus is pretty hard to get rid of, especially once you’ve let him in.”
Palpable relief washed over her. “Really? Are you sure?�
��
“Oh, I’m sure.” His words were tinged with irony. “But just for your future reference, when you became a Christian, it was your eternal spirit that was immediately saved and made clean before God. The rest of you? Your bad attitudes and bad habits? It takes a lifetime for God to work out his salvation in each of us. And no; he doesn’t leave us or let us go while he’s working on us.”
He muttered as an aside, “Nor does he let up.”
Søren looked out across the prairie again. “It’s a process the Bible calls ‘sanctification.’ Our job is to read the Bible, pray, and learn to hear and heed the voice of the Holy Spirit. Little by little, the work God does inside of us changes our hearts and our desires. Those changes inside eventually show up on the outside—in our behaviors. Change happens from the inside out. It’s a miraculous transformation. Does that make sense?”
Kari stood next to him, staring into the distance, peace filling her heart. “So . . . so he won’t leave me?” Like everyone else does?
“Jesus? No. He won’t leave you. He promised, I will never leave you nor forsake you. When you know you’ve done something that displeases or saddens him, be quick to tell him you’re sorry and to ask him to help you. Then move on.”
Kari sighed, relieved. At the same time they turned and faced each other. “Thank you, Søren,” Kari whispered. She stared into his face, wondering how he’d come to such wisdom.
He gave a half laugh. “You’re welcome. Now . . .” he gestured to her car. “Let’s get this mess cleared away, shall we?”
He hauled what remained of the hay bale off the side of the road and dumped it there. Kari busied herself pulling handfuls and clumps of hay out of the car’s interior. She grimaced at the damage to the hood and front window but she also prayed.
Lord, I’m so sorry I had such a fit over this car. I guess . . . I guess my love for it got to be too important, huh? Maybe this is you helping me to put things in the right order? You first. Everything else after? I’m sorry. Will you please help me, like Søren said?
She glanced at herself in the rear view mirror. “Ugh!” She spent a few minutes pulling hay from her hair and wiping dust from her face.
“You ready to go?” Søren, arms folded, leaned against his truck door.
“Yes; where to?”
He heaved a sigh. “You follow me out to Jeff’s place. We’ll leave your car with him; he can call us later and give us the damage. You can ride with me back to our farm. I’ll drop you, turn around, and finish delivering this load.”
“Where are you taking it?” Kari was curious.
“Out to the interstate and then about thirty miles west.”
It dawned on Kari how long it would take him, what with first dropping her car and then backtracking to drop her. “I’ve really messed up your day, haven’t I?”
“Yup. But it can’t be helped, so let’s get going.”
He climbed into his truck and Kari into her car. When she’d turned around, she followed behind, eating his dust the whole way.
I’ll be washing dirt from my hair for a week, she thought glumly.
About twenty minutes later they pulled into a long drive and up to a barn-turned-garage. A red-haired man of about fifty came out to greet them.
“Hey, Jeff. This is my . . . friend, Kari Hillyer. She’s had a little mis—”
Jeff cut him off and never gave Kari a second look. He only had eyes for the Caddy. “Whoo-ee! Look at this baby! Are you crazy? What in the world did you do to her?”
“Uh, she had a little run-in with a bale of hay.”
“Whatareyou, nuts?” As Kari got out, Jeff pored over the car, inside and out. “This car is in mint condition,” he muttered.
“You mean it was in mint condition,” Kari huffed, digging her handbag out from under the passenger seat.
Then she shot Søren a repentant look. “Sorry,” she muttered. He just shrugged.
“Well, it will take a few weeks to do the work, but you won’t know the difference when I’m done,” Jeff answered, still checking out the car, even the trunk.
“We’ll take those.” Søren grabbed Kari’s bags from the trunk. “Can you give her an estimate, Jeff?”
“Take me a day.” He finally looked at Kari. “Where can I reach you?”
“His place, I guess. Only, I won’t be there for ‘a couple of weeks.’ Probably only a couple of days. I’ll need your number so I’ll know how to reach you after I leave.”
“It’ll be pricey,” he warned. “Can’t skimp on anything or it’ll ruin her.”
“Oh, I’m good for it,” Kari answered, “as long as the work is done properly.”
“Oh, I’m good for it—as long as the work is done properly,” Søren mimicked her.
Kari folded her arms and stared at him. “Are you always so rude?”
“Are you always so prissy? Makes a man think you’re a whiney, useless city woman. Come on. I’ve got a long drive ahead and chores to do afterwards.”
She had to climb to get up into the high cab of Søren’s old truck. The seats were as dusty as she was. “Good thing I wore my jeans today,” she muttered, slapping more dirt from her thighs.
They turned around and, after another twenty minutes, they were driving the edge of the bluff and Kari recognized the curve where their “meeting” had resulted in the damage to her car. Then they were rolling down the other side.
She gasped. Below them ran the same little stream she’d seen from atop the bluff. On the left, the bluff curved gently away from the stream creating a wide hollow between it and the creek. A cluster of trees gathered alongside the creek and others dotted the hollow. She thought she’d never seen so picturesque a setting.
As the road descended, Kari studied an old house sitting in the hollow of the bluff. The house listed dangerously to one side. Its paint had been scoured clean by the wind and its rock chimney was crumbling, but a wraparound porch still stood strong. Kari thought it looked like the porch was keeping the rest of the house from falling down.
Did someone actually live there at one time? she wondered.
A couple hundred feet or so from the old house she spied the charred stumps of some outbuildings and a discolored cement pad nearby. It took a minute for Kari to realize that a house had once stood on that pad.
“What happened there?” She pointed to the scene below.
Søren scowled. “Fire. Started in the barn. Took the house and the other outbuildings. Nothing left but the original homestead house.”
Then they were at the bottom, headed toward a sturdy bridge built high over the creek. Kari’s mouth opened as she saw the realtor sign where the road led toward the listing house: For Sale.
“Who owns this place?”
If possible, Søren’s scowl deepened. “We do. That is, a branch of the family does. Us and others.”
They didn’t say another word as they drove over the bridge and alongside a long, fenced pasture that fronted the other side of the creek. Cows and a few horses and goats browsed in the pasture.
At the end of the pasture Søren turned up a lane that led to a white farmhouse. Kari studied what she could see of Søren’s farm with interest: A huge red barn at the top of the pasture; lots of smaller sheds and pens; a large vegetable garden not far from the back of the house, and a long green lawn that sloped toward the road and east, up a low rise covered in neat rows of fruit trees.
As Søren stopped, Kari saw that the lane they were on continued north, past the house, leading to another farm not far away. And beyond both farms, to the east, lay well tended fields of alfalfa, wheat, and corn.
Barking dogs greeted them and a woman in worn jeans and a work shirt emerged from a door at the back of the house.
“Here you go.” He climbed out and pulled her bags off the load of hay.
“Aren’t you even going to introduce me to your sister?” Kari glared at him.
“I don’t have time. Besides, you were going to just drive up and introduce yoursel
f anyway, right? Have at it. I need to deliver this hay and be back here for chores.” He jumped back into the cab, his long legs making it look effortless.
Kari was left standing alone with her bags as three dogs alternately sniffed her and bayed, running circles around her.
“Stop your noise, you ornery dogs, you!” The woman, her long red hair flowing in a single braid down her back, came down the porch steps and walked out to meet Kari. She shook Kari’s hand and grabbed one of the bags. “You must be Kari? I’m Ilsa. What happened to your car? Uncle Quan said you had a Caddy. Hey! You dogs—shut it!”
They climbed the porch steps. Ilsa was already in the kitchen and hadn’t given Kari even a breath of a pause to answer her. She stopped and turned when she realized Kari had stopped on the back porch.
Kari was stopped outside the screen door. Her hand was tracing the familiar words on the sign fastened beside the door: Lost Are Found.
So beautiful! Kari completely related the words to her new life in Christ. I wonder if anyone has an extra sign I can take home with me. If not, I’m going to have one made!
She finally stepped inside just as a young boy with golden-red hair raced into the kitchen from somewhere else in the house. He skidded to a stop when he saw Kari.
“Wow. Who’re you?”
“Max, this is Kari Hillyer. Remember we told you she was coming for a visit?”
He stared at Kari. “You’re pretty,” he blurted. “I like your eyes, too. They’re really blue like mine.”
“Max, mind your manners,” Ilsa replied, giving him a light tap on the head.
“Yes’m. Sorry.”
“It’s all right. Thank you for the compliment,” Kari answered. She realized that Max did have brilliant blue eyes like . . . Søren?
“Is Max your son, Ilsa?”
Lost Are Found (A Prairie Heritage, Book 6) Page 25