by Marta Perry
His feet thudded across the patio. None of them would go off and leave the door standing open at this hour. He bolted inside and ran for the library. Lights on, computer on, desk chair pushed back. It looked as if Andrea had just walked away.
Some rational part of his mind kept insisting that there could be a logical explanation, but he didn’t believe it. Rachel—Rachel was sleeping on this floor now, in the little room off the kitchen.
He saw the light go on as he ran to it. He was probably scaring her to death.
“Rachel, it’s Cal. Is Andrea with you?”
“No. What’s happening?” Fear laced her voice.
He flung open the door. Rachel sat up in bed, pulling a robe around her.
“The back door is standing open, and I can’t find Andrea.”
“If she took the dog out—”
He felt as if he’d been doused with cold water. “That must be it. Sorry. I’ll just check.”
Logical explanation, see? But the fear drove him back out to the patio. “Andrea! Andrea, are you out here?”
A light went on overhead, and he heard footsteps on the stairs. Katherine. She hurried toward him.
“Cal, what are you doing back? Why are you calling for Andrea?”
“Is she upstairs?”
“No.” She glanced toward the library and paled. “She and Barney were still down here. She must have taken him out. But why didn’t she hear you call?”
“I’ll look for her. Where’s a flashlight?”
She pulled a drawer open and thrust a heavy torch into his hand. “I’m calling the police.”
He jerked a nod and hurried out the door. Better a false alarm than a tragedy. He’d never been one to go on instinct, but this sense was stronger than he’d ever experienced.
Is it You, Lord? If it is, help me to listen. Show me where to go. Please, keep her safe.
He ran across the lawn toward the outbuildings. The car that had no possible reason for being there—it had come from behind the outbuildings. He swung the light around.
“Andrea! Where are you?”
Nothing. The buildings were dark and silent, the security lights reflecting from them, mocking him. They hadn’t kept Andrea safe.
And the dog—the dog must be with her. “Barney!” he yelled. “Here, boy. Barney!”
Not even an answering woof. He paused by the tool-shed, the urgency pounding along his veins like a power in his blood, telling him to hurry, hurry. But where?
Lord, help me. If this is from You, help me.
He took a breath. Think. The car came down the disused lane behind the outbuildings—the lane that led only to the old barn. He ran, heart thudding in his ears. Behind him, from the house, the bell began clanging insistently. Katherine, trying to rouse the Zook family to come and help.
The circle of light bounced. He rounded the corner, saw the barn doors, and knew the instinct that drove him was right. Both doors stood open, and the grass leading to them was bent down from the passage of a car.
He thudded inside. A car had been in here—he could smell the fumes. Strong, too strong. He swung the light around. Empty, nothing…
The light flashed on a door—solid as the barn, the old-fashioned latch dropped down into its pocket, securing it. He ran toward it, stumbling on a length of hose, righting himself, reaching the door.
Flung it open and staggered back from the fumes. Andrea. He took a deep breath and threw himself through the door. Woman and dog lay together against the outer wall. Another figure—a man. Bendick. Still, too still.
He grabbed Andrea, stumbled back out, through the barn, out into the cold night air. Think, remember your CPR training, but even as he thought it she coughed, choked and gasped in a gulp of air.
Tears filled his eyes. Please, God, please, God. He knelt in the damp grass, holding her against him. “Andrea, wake up. Say something. Breathe.”
She stirred, murmured something, then sank limply against him. But she was breathing. Her eyelids fluttered.
“I’ve found her!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Call the paramedics.” Poor Katherine must be terrified, but he couldn’t do anything else. He’d have to go back in for Bendick….
Lights bobbing toward him—Eli, his son and the oldest grandson with him, running with trousers pulled on over nightshirts.
“In the barn, the back room. Bendick and the dog. Mind the fumes.” Samuel nodded and pelted into the barn with the boy, while Eli knelt beside him.
“Will she be all right, then?”
“She’s breathing.” He looked at the older man, not ashamed of the tears that spilled over. “She’s alive.”
“Thank the Lord,” Eli said.
The wail of a siren split the night.
Yes, thank You, Father. Thank You.
Andrea toyed with the piece of dry toast that was all she thought she could get down. They sat around the breakfast table in various stages of exhaustion. Emma kept pressing food on people, as if that were the only cure for the night they’d been through.
Since she’d missed most of it, either through being unconscious or at the hospital, she tried to concentrate on what Chief Burkhalter was saying, but her gaze kept straying to Cal.
His face was drawn, the skin pulled tight against the bone, as if he’d been in battle and wasn’t sure it was over. She’d had no chance to talk with him alone, and still didn’t know what had brought him back. She only knew he’d come in time to save her. That was enough.
Barney padded around the table from Grams to her, sighed, and thudded heavily to the floor next to her, as if he’d decided that she needed his protection.
“…caught up with the woman the other side of Harrisburg,” Burkhalter was saying. “She tried to bluff it out. Might have gotten away if Burke hadn’t gotten to you in time.” He eyed her soberly. “Just glad you’re okay.”
She nodded, not sure she trusted herself to speak. The memory was too fresh.
“I don’t understand.” Grams seemed to have aged overnight. “I’d believe anything of Betty, but Nick—we’ve known him and trusted him for thirty years.”
“Are they talking?” Cal asked.
Burkhalter shrugged. “The woman clammed up tight and asked for a lawyer. Bendick is still in the hospital, but he’s babbling like Conestoga Creek.” He turned to Grams. “Might make you feel a little better to know that apparently Bendick never intended to steal from the company. He had gambling losses he was ashamed to admit to your husband, took money to pay them off intending to replace it, he says, but the secretary found out and started blackmailing him. I imagine a thorough look into the books will prove she helped herself to quite a bit. Whether you’ll ever get it back again is another question. The lawyers will have to sort that out.”
“I still don’t understand,” Rachel said. “What was the point of all of the tricks they pulled? Was that Uncle Nick or Betty?”
“According to Bendick, they figured Andrea was the one person who might make sense of their doctored records, especially if she got hold of her grandfather’s ledgers. The secretary was pulling the strings, blackmailing him to try and scare Andrea away. He claims he couldn’t take it anymore, was coming here to tell you the truth when she attacked him.”
The timing suddenly made sense. “I had the ledgers on my desk in the afternoon, when Betty stopped in. She must have thought I was on to them.”
“We found the ledgers in her car,” Burkhalter said. “Looks like they had some hope of locating them before you did. And he thought if Mrs. Unger gave up the idea of the inn, you’d go back to the city and leave things alone.”
“Levi saw him.” Emma spoke unexpectedly, her hands holding tight to the back of Grams’s chair. “He finally told us. He saw Mr. Bendick here when he shouldn’t of been. He wanted to tell Andrea, but he was too shy. Mr. Bendick said to meet him in Cal’s place, so he could explain. Instead he pushed him.”
“Levi—he was trying to tell me that night when he stood outside the house. And he
followed me when I left the farm.”
Emma nodded. “He meant to help. He didn’t know how.”
It was all starting to fall into place. “What about Rachel, the hit-and-run? Did they do that?”
“Bendick claims not,” Burkhalter said. “We’ll keep looking, but we may never know the truth about that.”
Grams reached up to clasp Emma’s hand. “At least Levi and Rachel are going to be all right.”
“And Ms. Hampton,” Burkhalter added. “The secretary hoped we’d think Bendick was guilty, at least long enough to let her get away.” He shifted his gaze to Cal. “What made you come back, Burke? Did you suspect it was something to do with the books?”
Her breath stopped. Why, Cal? How did you know?
“No, not at all.” He looked as if he were blaming himself. “I just…” He hesitated. “I just had a feeling.”
Grams glanced at the clock and got to her feet. “Goodness, we’ll be having guests here before you know it. We have to get ready.” She bustled around the table, making shooing motions with her hands. “Andrea, you go and rest before you fall over. We’ll take care of everything. Go on now.”
People began to scatter. If Cal intended to tell her anything, it would have to wait.
The final guests left on Monday afternoon, heaping delighted praise on Three Sisters Inn. Andrea looked at Grams and Rachel. They wore grins just as goofy as hers probably was.
“We actually did it,” she said. “I’m not sure I believed it would work.”
“I did.” Rachel patted her arm. “Thanks to you, and Grams, and Emma, and Nancy, and everyone else who helped out.”
“They all said they’d be back.” Grams sounded a little surprised. “Two couples have already booked for a second visit.”
“You know, Grams, if you’re able to recover the money Betty stole, you might not have to run the inn.” She was fairly certain she knew the answer to that, but they may as well get it out in the open.
Grams looked astonished. “Not run the inn? Of course we will. This is the most fun I’ve had in years.”
Andrea hugged her. It looked as if she’d been wrong about a lot of things, but this was one time when she didn’t mind that.
Grams patted her. “You should go and rest. You both should.”
“Sounds good.” Rachel stifled a yawn.
“I think I’ll go out back and get some fresh air first.” Andrea whistled to Barney, who scurried to her side. She patted his head. “You’re my self-appointed watch-dog, aren’t you?” So maybe he wasn’t the brightest dog in the world, but he was loyal.
Afternoon sun slanted across the lawn, filtering through the trees to touch the brilliant colors of the flowers. The sandstone patio wall glowed golden. Cal sat, just where she thought she might find him.
The dog padded quietly at her heels as she stepped off the patio and went to sit beside him.
He gave her a questioning look. “You’re not turned off by the view out here after what happened to you?”
That was a nice, safe way to start what they had to say to each other. “It’s still beautiful.” She managed to look at the dark bulk of the old barn where it lifted above the outbuildings. “I guess there’s something about nearly dying that makes you appreciate life.”
“I should have been here,” he said abruptly, emotion roughening his voice. “I shouldn’t have left until I was sure everything was all right.”
Sorrow deepened. It would have been better if he’d said he shouldn’t have left at all, but he hadn’t. She’d have to accept that.
“You came back in time, that’s all that counts.” It took an effort to keep her voice even. “What made you come back, Cal? I need to know.”
He touched her hand lightly, and that touch seemed to reverberate through her. “I kept thinking I’d been unfair, leaving the way I did without talking to you. I tried telling myself I’d done it for the best, but I wasn’t very convincing.” He looked at her then. “I’m sorry.”
She nodded, trying to dispel the lump in her throat. “That’s why you came back last night? Because you’d been wrong to leave without talking to me?”
“Not exactly.” His brow furrowed. “I don’t know if I can explain. I just felt an overwhelming pressure to come, not to wait for morning, not to delay, just to come.” His fingers wrapped around hers. “I think God was giving me the push I needed. That’s the only explanation I have.”
“It’s all you need.” The feelings she’d had when she was trapped came flooding back—the assurance of God’s presence, the half-remembered dream about Grandfather. “Remember when you asked me what brought on my claustrophobia?”
He looked startled by the change of subject, but nodded.
“I found out. Some of it I remembered, some Grams told me. When I was five, I fell into an abandoned well behind the old barn.”
“That would certainly do it.”
She nodded. “Grandfather was out in the field with Eli and some of the men. They heard me cry. My grandfather had the men hold his legs and lower him down so that I could reach his hands. He pulled me out.”
“And you didn’t remember it?”
“No. I asked Grams why they didn’t tell me, but apparently they thought it was better forgotten. Last night—last night I remembered, some of it at least. When I was digging the airhole, I could feel God’s presence with me. Somehow I’d lost that certainty of His presence, but now it’s back. And I remembered my grandfather’s voice, telling me to reach farther so I could take his hand. It kept me going.”
Cal held her hand between his palms, and his touch comforted her. “You feel differently about your grandfather than you did when you came.”
She nodded, wanting to articulate it. He needed to understand how she’d changed. “I can see him more clearly now, and look at the situation like an adult instead of a child. He was a strong, stubborn, fallible human being, not a superhero. He loved and he made mistakes, like we all do. But the loving—that was the important part.”
“I’m glad,” he said simply.
She turned to face him. “Understanding that made me see that I want things to be straight between us. No long silences or things left unsaid.”
“That’s asking a lot. I’m not sure I’m brave enough for that.”
“I think you are.” She had to give him the choice. Either they could take the risk of loving each other, or he could go back to hiding from the world in his safe, peaceful sanctuary.
He looked down at their clasped hands. “You know why I left. I’d started to care about you too much. I knew the kind of life you want, and I couldn’t ask you to change. It seemed better—safer, I guess—if we parted before it became too difficult.” The corner of his lips curled slightly. “I was wrong. It was more than difficult. It was impossible. Andrea, I know that hiding isn’t the answer for me. I choose this life because it’s right for me, but I don’t want it to come between us.”
Something lifted inside her, and she wanted to laugh. They’d been so foolish, trying to protect themselves from falling in love. God had known better than they had.
“Funny thing about that.” She couldn’t help the lilt to her voice. “Being here with family again, seeing how unreasonable my boss is and how cutthroat my colleagues, made me take a serious look at what I want out of life. Maybe that security I was looking for doesn’t mean I have to have the biggest office, or make the most money.”
He was looking at her with so much love shining in his eyes that she didn’t know whether she should laugh or cry.
“I was thinking I might start a little bookkeeping business of my own, where I could be my own boss. You know any small towns that might need a business like that?”
He slid his arm around her and drew her close. “I think we might be able to find the right place. And I know a carpenter who’ll give you a good price on office furniture.”
She leaned into him, feeling his strength, knowing his character and his faith. She’d been look
ing for security in the wrong place, just as Cal had been looking for peace in the wrong place. God was calling them to love and to dare, not to hide and be safe.
She lifted her face, meeting his lips, and knew this time she was home to stay.
STEEPLE HILL BOOKS
ISBN: 978-1-4268-0471-7
HIDE IN PLAIN SIGHT
Copyright © 2007 by Martha P. Johnson
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