Safe Haven

by Hannah Alexander

  “Maybe I’ll make sure he has something to think about next time,” she said.

  “I’d better quit while I’m ahead. You’re what…six feet?”

  She glared. “Five-eleven and three-quarters. You fitting me for a body bag?”

  “Okay, listen—let’s call a truce? I promise not to try to guess your weight again if you’ll promise not to mention my smoking.”

  Her gaze narrowed. “Forget it. Not a deal. What kind of a person would I be if I allowed you to use insults and subterfuge to keep me from telling you the truth about what you’re doing to your health?” She stepped into the street.

  He followed. “Oh, I don’t know, the word polite comes to mind.”

  “Forget that. Women my size aren’t expected to be polite. Why disappoint people?”

  In spite of the situation, he smiled. To him, she was the perfect size. As long as he learned to keep his mouth shut about it.

  Come to think of it, both of them could stand to learn that lesson.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Fawn opened her eyes, then squinched them shut against a blinding light and a world spinning out of control. Where was she?

  Her clothes stuck to her skin and her head pounded. A bird chirped nearby and a breeze touched her face. The laughter and screams of children and the rumble of motorboats was closer than usual, and she could hardly hear the hammers and saws and the banging and clanging of heavy equipment at the construction site.

  This wasn’t the barn loft.

  She shielded her eyes with her hand and eased her eyelids open once more. Lake water, a few feet down a rocky shelf of shoreline, reflected the sun back at her. She half turned and saw the church behind her through the trees. She had been in the shade when she collapsed here this morning.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered to herself as she crawled slowly, painfully, back beneath the shade of the forest that edged the church. She was far enough from everything that probably nobody’d seen her. She felt so weak, it was hard to move. She needed water.

  Right now, though, she just wanted to sleep.

  The sun was nudging its way into the edge of trees in the west. Fawn slumped on the ledge of rock above the lake when a noisy paddleboat trudged by in front of her. Laughter and music echoed across the lake, and she caught a whiff of barbecue smoke.

  Shading her eyes again, she watched the people on board—the women in their slinky-sexy swimsuits and the men baring their sunburned chests, already drunk and loud.

  Only one man on board wore a suit, and Fawn leaned forward, squinting again to study him better.

  She caught her breath when she realized she knew that face. The last time she’d seen it, he was shooting at her. Harv.

  She wanted to jump up and run away, but she could barely drag herself to her feet and wobble across the uneven stone ledge.

  Apparently, her movement caught the man’s attention. He watched her for a few seconds as the boat paddled farther down the lake. He raised something to his face, but by now he was too far away for her to see what it was. She turned away, showing him her back. It could be a camera, or a pair of binoculars, but whatever it was, she’d bet he could see her better than she could see him. And she’d recognized him.

  A rock tripped her. A tree caught her fall. She hugged the trunk and slid to the ground as everything went dark.

  Karah Lee sat at a table overlooking the lake in a far corner of the Lakeside Bed-and-Breakfast dining area on Tuesday evening. This place rocked. Bertie’s breakfast bar had become so popular that she and Edith had started opening it to the public in the evening, and now the place was packed with sunburned boaters and fishermen, water-skiers and hikers starved after a day of activity.

  Karah Lee took a sip of her excellent coffee and settled back, watching the other diners as they carried their trays to tables near the windows overlooking Table Rock Lake. The mingled aromas of eggs, bacon, ham and onions—and Bertie’s black walnut waffles—drifted from the food bar and filled Karah Lee’s senses, helping her forget, for a few moments, that her own meager fare was dry toast and yogurt.

  Ugh. Why couldn’t Bertie and Edith do salads and soups for dinner? Why breakfast again? No one in their right mind did a breakfast buffet at night.

  Although a lot of people seemed to be enjoying it.

  Karah Lee loved breakfast, but even her comfy scrubs were showing a little too much affection for her growing curves. She didn’t have time to drive into Branson and find an outlet mall, and she didn’t want to shop for a larger size.

  She bit off a corner of the toast and grimaced at the lack of taste compared to the aromas of sumptuous fare that filled her senses. Maybe if she smoothed just a little layer of cream gravy over this…It would be lower in calories than butter, wouldn’t it? But as more people came through the entrance from the lobby, she decided not to take a chance on losing her seat to go back through the line.

  A group of six young men and women, barely out of their teens, carried their trays to the long section of tables beside her and sat down with an echo of scraping chair legs on the wooden floor. Their talk and laughter mingled with details of the boat ride they’d taken the night before. They teased each other about hangovers and about the skiing they planned to do tomorrow, and discussed the possibility of pooling their money so they could make a down payment on a condo unit.

  Taking another sip of coffee, Karah Lee tried to tune out the chatter as she gazed through the plate-glass window at the pink and gold sunset framed by a lacy etching of trees. The reflection of colors transformed the surface of the lake into a treasure chest of glowing coals.

  She was so entranced by the sight that it took her a couple of seconds to notice that one tree trunk in the thicket of forest between the church and the lakeshore was shaped a little oddly—and it appeared blue.

  As she continued to stare, the trunk seemed to take on the shape of a human.

  This day had started weird, so why change now?

  “Mind if I sit here?”

  She looked up, startled, to see Taylor standing beside her table, tray in hand. “Where’d you come from?” She used her foot to shove a chair out for him. “Be my guest. I think this is the only place left in the dining room.”

  He sat down.

  “I’m sorry about this morning.” She glanced out the window again. Denim blue. A tree wearing blue jeans?

  He poured maple syrup over his waffle. “What about this morning?”

  She dragged her gaze from the tree. She was definitely losing it. “For nagging you like I was your mother or something. Unless you blow smoke in my face, I don’t have any right to preach.”

  He didn’t reply as he placed a napkin in his lap, then paused briefly, gaze lowered, before picking up his fork.

  “It’s a stupid, self-destructive habit,” he said at last.

  She watched as he cut a bite of the luscious, rich, fragrant black walnut waffle. “So you’re trying to self-destruct?”

  “I’ve never been a pack-a-day smoker. Maybe half a pack, at most. I guess since I don’t have that many during a day, I’m trying to convince myself I haven’t reached the danger point.”

  She bit down gently on her tongue and remained silent as he placed the delectable looking bite of waffle into his mouth. There were a lot of things she wanted to say, but she’d already harangued him too much.

  “If I’d been through what you have in the past few years, maybe I’d be self-destructive, too,” she said. “Besides, lots of people have self-destructive habits. Mine is eating, yours is smoking. But I’ll tell you what—I’m on a diet. Maybe we could form our own chapter of Smokers and Overeaters Anonymous. I’ll call you when I’m tempted to take a bite of Bertie’s black walnut waffles, and you call me when you’re tempted to take a smoke.”

  He grinned suddenly, and the expression transformed his face as he set his fork onto his plate. “You’re kidding, right? You really think you need to lose weight?”

  She waited for the
punch line. He didn’t say more. Okay, she really, really liked this guy.

  “My son would have blasted me for smoking,” he said. “I can almost hear him now, ‘Dad, what kind of a Christian witness would you be if someone saw you doing that?’”

  She set her coffee cup down. “Christian witness. I’d take a nickel for every time I heard those words.”

  “From whom?”

  “My mother.”

  “You were raised in a Christian family?”

  “Actually, you could say I’m the product of a mixed marriage. My mother was a believer, and my father attended church with the family when he thought it would serve a purpose.”

  “A purpose?”

  “You know, earn him votes and improve his reputation. He’s a politician.” For some reason, instead of resentment, for the first time Karah Lee felt only sadness. Dad had failed in his relationships, and he was alone again, in spite of all his political success.

  And Mom, in spite of her continued claims about her faith in God, had responded with such bitterness after the divorce and the discovery of her cancer that she’d alienated her oldest daughter. It wasn’t until that final year of struggle that she’d come to terms with her situation and shown a more peaceful attitude.

  “Earth to Karah Lee.”

  She blinked and refocused on Taylor.

  “I asked if your mother’s faith had an impact on you.”

  “You’re asking if I did the whole ‘walk the aisle’ routine?”

  “Did you?”

  “Sure. I grew up Baptist. I said the sinner’s prayer, I was baptized, the works.”

  “Okay, but I guess what I’m really asking is if you’re truly a believer. In Christ.”

  She didn’t hesitate. “Yes. I just avoid church, which I know is a contradiction in terms for some people. You?”

  He nodded and looked away. “Hard to believe, huh?”

  “Why?”

  “Because someone whose Lord is Christ wouldn’t pollute his body.”

  Karah Lee suppressed a snort. “Right. You tell me where you can find a church filled with slender, physically fit Christians. Not that I’m excusing you for smoking. I think it’s a disgusting habit.”

  “You have such a forgiving spirit,” he said dryly.

  “So I’ve been told.”

  For a moment the noise of chatter in the dining room became too uncomfortable for them to hear each other talk, and Karah Lee contented herself by watching Taylor devour his waffle and bacon.

  He didn’t even offer her a bite.

  The din grew louder as more diners entered. Two people grabbed the extra chairs from Karah Lee and Taylor’s table, and Willy, from the boys’ ranch, circled the room in his clean white apron, jeans and T-shirt, bussing tables for Bertie. This place would keep all the ranch boys busy if it continued, and it wasn’t even a weekend.

  When Willy pushed his cart through the swinging doors into the kitchen, Karah Lee caught sight of Blaze at the huge steel sink in back, and she shook her head. At this rate he was going to burn out before he graduated from high school.

  Taylor polished off his melon, finished his milk and stacked his dishes back on the tray. His mouth moved, but Karah Lee couldn’t hear him above the ruckus.

  She leaned forward. “What?”

  “I said let’s get out of here!” he shouted.

  She was glad to comply.

  A splash of water reached Fawn through the darkness, and she tried to cry out, to move, to open her eyes so she could see to get a drink.

  But her eyes wouldn’t open. The refreshing sound faded away, until she was lost again in that nightmare place of heat and screams and frightening faces…until she found herself in a tacky bedroom with still another strange man she had to be nice to. Very nice.

  Great-Grandma said nice girls never did things like this. What would she think if she knew?

  Even in the darkness, Fawn tried to forget she was alive. Maybe she was going to die.

  Then would everything be okay?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Taylor felt a surge of relief as he led the way onto the front porch, stepping from the racket of the crowded lobby and dining area into a symphony of peace.

  “Ozark silence,” he murmured, holding the old-fashioned screen door for Karah Lee.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a phrase I started using when I first moved here last year.” He went down the wooden steps and inhaled the fragrance of sunbaked cedar and felt the touch of a fresh evening breeze. “It’s never actually silent here in the Ozarks. There’s always the sound of birdsong or wind in the trees or motorboats on the lake, but they’re good sounds, filled with life.” He ambled across the lawn to the street, and Karah Lee walked beside him.

  “Motorboats are filled with life?” she said. “You’re kidding.”

  “You obviously haven’t spent much time in the desert.”

  “Nope, but I’d guess there must be something attractive about even the sound of a boat motor on the lake, if it’s evidence of water.”

  “Exactly.”

  “That would work for a desert dweller, but I was raised next to the Missouri River, and the sound of a motor seemed like an intrusion to me.”

  They walked in the grass alongside the road for a few minutes. A whippoorwill shouted its echoing call from a treetop nearby, and a fox squirrel skittered across the road a few yards ahead of them. Taylor realized, suddenly, that he hadn’t felt this content in a while.

  They strolled past the ancient church building, with its private, fenced, fastidiously maintained cemetery that took up about an acre of ground west of the building. Weeping willows guarded the dead from six vantage points amongst the tombstones, but concrete benches welcomed visitors.

  “I love this place,” Taylor said.

  Karah Lee gave him a strange look. “The cemetery? You come here often? I don’t think it counts unless you attend the church next door.”

  Taylor smiled at the lame joke. “You said you avoid church?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Any reason?”

  He didn’t receive an immediate answer, and he glanced at Karah Lee to find her gazing thoughtfully back at the church building, with its Ozark stone exterior and freshly painted white trim.

  “My parents got a divorce,” she said. “It was so humiliating to have to face it, and to admit it again and again every time someone asked about Dad at church, that my mother and I both eventually quit going.”

  “I’d think your church community would have supported you through it.”

  Karah Lee gave a half shrug. “I think most of them would have, but at the time everyone was as shocked as Mom and I, and they asked a lot of uncomfortable questions. Some old jerk even had the gall to suggest that my mother must have been partly to blame.”

  “Was she?”

  Karah Lee turned and focused her disapproving gaze on Taylor. “My father left my mother for another woman. Yes, my mother had her faults, but no jilted spouse wants to shoulder the blame for someone else’s adultery.”

  “I’m sorry.” Stupid question, idiot!

  “Think nothing of it,” she said dryly.

  “So after that, you and your mother stopped associating with all those friends you’d made over the years, cutting off ties to your whole support structure.”

  “You could put it that way.”

  He watched her silhouette as she studied the tombstones in the cemetery. Her face might not be called classically pretty. She had a firmer than normal chin and a wider than normal mouth. Her eyes, though, struck him with their unusual beauty, the golden amber warming her face. It was said that eyes were the windows to the soul. With Karah Lee, that link seemed a little more firmly established. She was one of those people who didn’t usually try to hide their thoughts.

  A light breeze blew strands of red hair across her face, and he resisted the urge to smooth them away. She looked so vulnerable, and he felt a surge of sadne
ss for the memories of a divorce that seemed to live with her still.

  She turned back to him suddenly. “And you? Do you attend church?”

  Uh-oh, back to him again. He shook his head. “To be honest, I guess you could say I quit for the same reason.”

  “Your divorce?”

  He nodded, then strolled back toward the cemetery. “I drive past this place almost every day, and I’ve always felt drawn here, especially on Sundays, when the parking lot’s filled with cars.” He trailed his hand along the top of the white fence.

  “So why don’t you attend?”

  He thought about that for a moment. “Maybe I don’t feel as if I belong.”

  “Why not? Just because you’re divorced?”

  “Not just that. I guess the blow of losing Chip, then my wife, then my partner, all combined to make me wonder if God really was in control, after all, and if so, why was He allowing everything to hit me at once like that?” What was it about this woman that forced him to practice all this self-honesty? Maybe it was her own addiction to blurting out the truth.

  “And is He?”

  “In control?”

  She nodded.

  “Yeah, He just doesn’t control things the way I want Him to.”

  “My sister stopped attending church long before our parents divorced,” Karah Lee said. “She told me once that she could meet with God anywhere she wanted, and she didn’t have to depend on church to communicate with Him.”

  “And does she communicate with Him?”

  “I don’t think so. She doesn’t even communicate with me. At least, not until recently.”

  “What about you?” Taylor asked. “Do you pray?”

  “Sometimes.” She frowned, seemed to think about that for a moment, then grimaced. “I guess not very much, except out of desperation for a sick patient. You?”

  “I’d like to get back in the habit.” Once upon a time, he’d prayed every day, especially after Chip’s death, clinging desperately to the knowledge that his son was truly with God. It wasn’t until after Clarice left that he’d pushed God away.