You'll Think of Me

by Robin Lee Hatcher

  She pushed aside her tent flap and looked toward the other pup tent. The flap was tied open. The tent was empty. Derek was nowhere in sight.

  She’d heard him talking to someone after he returned from the search last night. She’d considered getting out of the sleeping bag and going to him. But she hadn’t had the energy. Her strength had been spent in tears, and she’d felt too fragile to ask anybody any questions or to listen to any answers.

  But she wanted to see him now. As quickly as she could manage in such cramped quarters, she changed into clean clothes, then brushed her hair and fastened it again in a ponytail.

  The search team and others in the camp had gathered in a semicircle on the dirt road to get a briefing. Although she knew she would be instructed to remain in camp, like yesterday, she still wanted to hear what the commander had to say.

  She made her way toward the group, looking for Derek’s familiar form. She couldn’t find him—and somehow she knew in her heart that he was already searching the mountains, doing everything he could to bring Alycia home to her.

  Because he cared for her.

  Because maybe he even loved her.

  A split second before the earth gave way beneath his feet, Derek knew he was in trouble. The next instant he tumbled down a steep hillside. He grunted as he rolled over the uneven earth and large rocks, but he didn’t feel real pain until he hit the bottom of the ravine, the air knocked out of him. Fireworks exploded before his eyes. Nausea swirled in his belly.

  He closed his eyes and waited for the worst of the sensations to pass. Slow breath in. Slow breath out. Repeat. And again.

  “Mr. Johnson? Is that you?”

  He wondered at first if he was hallucinating. Maybe he’d hit his head harder than he thought.

  “You okay, Mr. Johnson?”

  He opened his eyes. Alycia stood over him, looking down with worried eyes. Another time he might have laughed. He hadn’t found her. Instead, he’d fallen down a hillside to land at her feet.

  “You okay?” she repeated.

  “I think so.”

  “I saw you fall. It looked pretty bad.”

  He tried to sit up, caught his breath, sagged back to the ground, eyes closed.

  “Your shirt’s all bloody, Mr. Johnson.”

  So that’s why his side hurt worse than any other spot on his body. He must have torn the stitches loose. He put his hand against the wound. “I’m okay. What about you?” He opened his eyes and looked at her. Her hair was a mess and her face was dirty, but otherwise she looked okay.

  “I got lost.”

  “I know. We’ve been looking for you.”

  “I fell down a hill, like you, only I wasn’t hurt. But I got all turned around.” She lowered her eyes. “I didn’t do what you said. I didn’t stay still and wait. I kept trying to find my way back. And then it got dark. I was scared.” Her chin quivered.

  “Hey, kiddo.” He motioned her close. “Come here.”

  She was in his arms in a flash, burying her face into his chest but managing to avoid his injured side. Instead of crying, she shivered. At least that’s what it felt like to Derek.

  “It’s okay,” he said against her hair as he patted her back. “I’ve got you, Alycia. You’re safe now.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t do what you said.” The words were muffled against his jacket. “Again.”

  “We’ll talk about that later. Right now, we need to get you back to your mom. She’s at the campground, waiting for you.”

  Alycia pulled her head back to look up at him. “Mom’s here?”

  “She sure is, and she’s pretty worried, not knowing where you are.”

  “We’d better go.” Alycia stood again.

  He started to get up and felt another stab of pain. “Kiddo, I think you’re going to have to help me. I’m hurting pretty bad. Think you can help me?”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay.” He held an arm toward her. “Help me up and let’s go.”

  Alycia got under his arm and Derek used her like a crutch. For just a moment, her head was eye level with his wound. “You’re bleeding bad, Mr. Johnson.”

  “Looks worse than it is.” That’s what he’d told Hank at the hospital. He hoped it was still true after his drop off the side of a mountain.

  “We’ve got her!”

  At the shout, Brooklyn shot to her feet, spinning toward the campground entrance. Lucca—who had returned to the mountains that morning to continue the vigil with Brooklyn—did the same. In unison they reached for each other’s hands.

  “She’s all right,” the herald of good news continued from somewhere near the main road.

  Brooklyn felt her knees grow weak again. She had to force herself to breathe as tears filled her eyes. But not so much that she couldn’t see the red SUV coming up the road.

  “Is it them?” she asked, her voice breaking.

  Lucca answered, “I think so.” She squeezed Brooklyn’s hand.

  The SUV stopped. A passenger door opened, and a moment later Alycia dropped to the ground and ran toward her.

  “Mom!” Alycia hugged her around the waist, almost toppling them both.

  Thank You, God. Thank You. Thank You. Thank You.

  “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry.” Alycia pulled back and looked up, tears filling her eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t do what I was supposed to. Mr. Johnson said you were worried. I didn’t mean to do that.”

  “It’s all right, honey.” Brooklyn pulled her close again. “I’m just glad you’re okay. That you’re safe.” Tears of joy and relief streaked her own cheeks.

  “I thought I saw a deer and I wanted to get its picture so I followed it. And then I couldn’t see anybody and I kept looking and they weren’t anywhere.” Alycia took a breath and drew back a second time to look at her mom. “I fell down a mountain and it got dark.”

  “Oh, honey.” Brooklyn ran her hands over Alycia’s shoulders and arms, needing reassurance that she was unhurt.

  “I was really scared, Mom, but then Mr. Johnson found me.”

  “Actually,” Derek said.

  Startled by his voice, Brooklyn looked up.

  “It was Alycia who found me.”

  His face was smudged with dirt and his shirt was torn and . . . and bloody. Her heart skipped another beat.

  “What happened?” she whispered.

  Before Derek could answer, Alycia said, “He fell down a mountain too. Only it was a different one. But I saw it, and I helped him up. The blood’s not from the fall though. He’s bleeding where the knife cut him.”

  “Knife?” Brooklyn’s eyes widened as she straightened.

  Derek shook his head. “It’s nothing.”

  “He got stabbed yesterday. With a knife. He was in the hospital and everything. That’s why he wasn’t here with me. ’Cause he was hurt.”

  Derek shot a look at Alycia, clearly wanting her to be quiet.

  Brooklyn also looked at her daughter. “Did Mr. Johnson tell you that?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “He told the man who found us, after we got in the car. I was in the backseat, but I heard him.”

  “Derek?” Brooklyn lifted her gaze again, and her heart gave a strange hiccup.

  Even with a suntan and dirt on his face, his skin looked pale. “I’m okay.”

  He clearly was not okay.

  “We’ll talk later. I’ll tell you everything.” He grimaced. “Later.”

  Chapter 32

  Derek leaned against the headboard of the bed in one of Gran’s guest bedrooms, obediently sipping more herbal tea. There were some battles no man was meant to win. Trying to convince his grandmother that he was well enough to stay in his own home was one of them. Trying to refuse her herbal tea was another.

  A steady stream of visitors had come throughout the afternoon. Hank McLean and his wife had just left. Adrian and Tracy Vinton had been there half an hour earlier. But so far the one person Derek really wanted to see hadn’t come.

  Gran re
appeared in the doorway. “You’re not getting much rest with all of your friends dropping by to see how the hero is.”

  “I’m not a hero, Gran. And I’m getting plenty of rest. I don’t remember the last time I spent a whole afternoon in bed, doing nothing but eating and drinking tea. I should be at home. There’s a lot I need to—”

  “Your dog and livestock are being cared for and your vegetables are being watered and weeded. There is nothing you have to do that someone else isn’t gladly doing for you. You can stay right in that bed for a couple of days. Until the doctor says you can go home.”

  Derek suspected the doctor, in this regard, would say whatever his grandmother told him to say. No more and no less.

  The doorbell rang. Gran sighed. “Here are more friends to see you. Shall I send them away?”

  “That would be rude, and you’re never rude.”

  Gran shook her head at him before leaving the bedroom doorway.

  Derek chuckled. His grandmother was enjoying her role as nurse and protector way too much. Perhaps he needed to get hurt more often so she could fuss over him.

  “Although this herbal tea is for the birds.” His gaze fell to the cup in his hand. He would much prefer a bold cup of coffee or even a tall glass of iced tea with a slice of lemon. He wasn’t going to get either of those, so no point asking. He chuckled again.

  Soft footsteps in the hallway announced the approach of his next visitor. He looked to see who it would be. His breath caught when Brooklyn stepped into view. She looked tired, but at least she’d come.

  Even though their eyes had met, she still rapped on the doorjamb. “May I come in?”

  “Sure.” He pushed himself up against the pillows at his back.

  She took a couple of steps into the room, then stopped again. “They whisked you away so fast this morning, we didn’t have any time to talk.”

  “I know.”

  “How are you?” She motioned toward his torso, the bandages hidden beneath his T-shirt.

  “I’m good. How’s Alycia?”

  “She’s good too. The doctor checked her over. A few scratches and a bruise or two. Nothing serious.” Brooklyn offered a tentative smile. “She was afraid at first that the other girls would be angry with her for spoiling the campout. But they’re not. They’re just glad she’s okay.”

  “Good.”

  Her expression tightened. “Why didn’t you tell me what Mac Tompkins did?”

  “I couldn’t. You were worried enough.”

  “You were already hurt. You shouldn’t have been out there.”

  “Of course I had to be out there. I love the kid.” He hadn’t planned to say those words, but they were the truth. He loved Alycia—and he loved Alycia’s mom. More every day. There wasn’t much of anything he wouldn’t do for the two of them.

  Brooklyn didn’t seem to have heard him. “If you hadn’t found her . . .”

  “If it hadn’t been me, it would have been somebody else. And I didn’t really find her. I ran into her.”

  “At first I was angry,” she said softly. “I blamed you for not being with her. That wasn’t fair of me.”

  “I disappointed her. I know that.”

  She looked him square in the face. “Let me finish, Derek. I . . . There’s a lot I need to say.”

  “All right.”

  She took a few more steps forward, bringing her to the foot of the bed. She didn’t look away from him, although he suspected she wanted to. What he wanted most was to get out of the bed and hold her in his arms. He could. He was clothed. But he had the good sense to wait.

  “I haven’t . . . I haven’t trusted hardly anyone since Chad walked out on me. I didn’t want to trust. I was convinced that we were better on our own, just me and Alycia.” She took a breath, her shoulders rising and falling. “But I was wrong. I needed others. I need others.”

  You need me, he thought.

  Something flickered in her eyes, as if she’d heard the words he hadn’t spoken. Then she continued, “I didn’t come back to Thunder Creek because I wanted to. I came back because it was my one real chance to make a better life for Alycia.” Another breath in and out. “So I was determined to make the best of what I thought was a bad situation.”

  Again he had to resist the urge to go to her, to shelter her, to comfort her.

  “But over the summer, there was Ruth and all of her friends and Zach and Lucca and Pastor Adrian and Tracy and so many others who made me feel that I belong.” Unshed tears glittered in her eyes. “And there was you.”

  There was no resisting it now. Derek tossed aside the sheet and got out of bed, ignoring the jab of pain that the sudden movement caused. He didn’t stop until he stood before her. He moved to take her in his arms, but she stopped him with the palm of her hand against his chest.

  “You and all of the people who welcomed me home, you all made me see that it wasn’t a bad situation, the way I’d expected it to be. You, all of you, made me part of a three-strand cord.”

  He gave his head a slight shake, not following her exact meaning.

  “It’s a verse in the Bible. I read it just last week. It didn’t mean much to me at the time, but after Alycia and I got home from the doctor’s, I remembered it and I finally understood what God had been telling me.”

  He waited. As much as he wanted to hold her, needed to hold her, he sensed it was important that he let her say what she’d come to say.

  “It says, ‘If one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart.’” Tears slipped from her eyes.

  With the pads of his thumbs, he wiped them away.

  “God is the first and most important of those strands, and I’m the second. But my daughter, my friends, my neighbors, my community. All of them are that third important strand. They were all there to help me when Alycia and I first got to Thunder Creek, and they were there to help me when I needed my car repaired and my house cleaned and fixed and when I needed a job. They were all there yesterday when Alycia went missing. I wasn’t alone. Not for a moment of it.”

  He loved her. He loved her vulnerability. He loved her courage. He loved the tremble in her chin and the determination in her eyes.

  “But mainly that third strand in those verses is you, Derek. You made me stronger. You lifted me up. I didn’t want to trust you, and yet somehow I couldn’t keep from it, no matter how hard I tried not to.”

  He’d waited long enough. He drew her close and kissed her. And if he could have his way, he just might never stop.

  A hundred different emotions exploded inside of Brooklyn as Derek kissed her. All of them amazing and wonderful and magical. She didn’t resist or try to pull away. She knew now that this was where she belonged.

  It was Derek who drew back first, but he didn’t go far. His hands rose to gently cup her face, and his gaze locked with hers. “Brooklyn, I never realized how fast someone could become essential in my life. You haven’t been back three months yet, but you . . . you . . . You’ve got to know how I feel about you.” He stopped, searching her with his gaze.

  “How do you feel about me, Derek?” she asked, hoping he would say it, fearing he would say it.

  “I love you, of course.”

  “Of course?”

  He kissed her again, more forcefully this time, stealing her breath away. When he broke the kiss at last, she couldn’t have stood without his hands holding her arms.

  “Brooklyn, I want to be by your side, helping you do whatever you choose to do. I admire you. I admire your courage and your determination. I admire the way you mother Alycia. I couldn’t care less about your land or what you choose to do with it. I just want to be a part of your life. Of yours and Alycia’s lives. I love you. I love you both.”

  Strange. She’d known, walking into this room, that she had fallen in love with him. She’d even believed that he might love her or at least that he might learn to. But now that he’d said the words aloud, she couldn’t believe she�
�d heard right. She was afraid she’d imagined it all.

  Uncertainty flickered in his eyes. “Do you think you could ever love me?”

  “It’s too late,” she whispered. “I already do.”

  He gathered her close again, not kissing her, just holding her tight. She closed her eyes and melted against him.

  “Brooklyn, I want to love you the way you deserve to be loved.” He rubbed his cheek against her head. “And I don’t think that means we’ll never be mad or argue with each other. We’ll disagree again. Maybe often. I know you can be stubborn. So can I. But that cord that binds us won’t break. Not ever. I’ll never leave you, no matter what you say or do. I’ll always think of you first. That’s a promise.”

  Tears returned to her eyes as she pulled back to look up at him. “You’ll think of me.”

  “I’ll think of you. Always.”

  His promise touched a secret place. No one except God—and she hadn’t believed that for most of her life—had thought much of Brooklyn Myers, the girl who’d been abandoned by mother, by father, by husband.

  But Derek thought of her, and he would go on thinking of her. He saw her and loved her.

  Like balm on an open sore, she felt his words heal the remaining wound in her heart for good.

  Epilogue

  ONE YEAR LATER

  Momentarily alone in an upstairs bedroom, Brooklyn looked out the window overlooking the special-events garden. Flowers bloomed in an explosion of colors around the circumference, while on the lawn in the center of the garden, white folding chairs sat in perfect rows facing an archway covered in more flowers, predominately daisies and sunflowers. Beyond the archway, hidden by trees and shrubs, were acres of land that had been plowed under this summer in preparation for next year’s planting.

  She smiled to herself. It pleased her to see everything coming to life, to think of the land growing things again, healthy things. To think of roots going down deep in the earth, the way her own roots had gone down in the soil of Thunder Creek.

  It also pleased her that their wedding—hers and Derek’s—would be the first one held in the garden they had so carefully created and cultivated together over this summer. In another month, after they returned from their honeymoon, the Inn at Thunder Creek would officially open to guests. And during every growing season, the guests of the new inn would eat fresh fruits and vegetables grown right on the property.