“Yes.” She spoke with a confidence she hadn’t felt two years ago.
“Then it seems to me you have a choice. You must choose between superstition and faith. You can’t have both. You can choose one or the other.”
Cora frowned. Superstition or faith. One or the other. The choice was hers.
The choice is mine. She felt a quickening in her heart, a new understanding of how God wanted her to live. In faith, not in fear.
She would make the right choice.
Preston
December 1896
Preston often felt as if he rattled around in the enormous Chandler house. Rarely did he have visitors in his home. He saw Sarah Mason most days on his return from the mining office, and he often saw the cook long enough to thank her for his supper. He’d never laid eyes on the maid, but since the house was kept clean, he knew she came in to do her work, overseen by Sarah.
But on this Christmas Eve, the house almost burst at its seams. Guests sat or stood in the hall, the reception room, the parlor, and the dining room. He’d even seen a few men gathered in the library. He wouldn’t be surprised if more guests had made it up the stairs to check out the bedchambers and bathing room on the second floor.
Not that he cared where anyone went. His attention was focused on Cora Anderson.
For months now, he’d felt himself falling in love with her, little by little. He’d tried to resist the feelings, for a number of sound reasons. For one, the dredging hadn’t gone as well as he’d hoped. Buying the dredger and having it shipped to Chickadee Creek had been a huge expense, and thus far it hadn’t paid for itself. He wasn’t sure it would ever pay for itself. What if he kept losing money? Could he ask a woman like Cora to take a risk?
Of course, if he’d wanted to resist falling in love with her, he wouldn’t have sought her out on so many different occasions. Losing his heart was his own fault.
Cora moved to the side of the large fireplace, holding the violin with one hand and the bow with the other. She wore a gown of gold. He imagined she’d worn it to much more glittering affairs than this local Christmas party, and he suspected that, two years ago, it would have been accented by precious jewels around her delicate throat and wrists. But she seemed to sparkle without diamonds or emeralds or topaz.
When Preston had asked her to play tonight, he hadn’t thought she would agree. He imagined he had Sarah to thank for it.
Cora lifted the instrument, bracing the end of it with her chin. Because of the nature of the evening and the layout of the house, Preston had told her to simply begin to play, without any kind of announcement. “Let the music draw their attention,” he’d said. “I guarantee it will.”
And so it did. She started with “Joy to the World” before moving into “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” By the time she was finished with the second song, the house had fallen silent. Guests had filled the parlor, and those who couldn’t get into the room crowded closer to the doorways.
Cora glanced Preston’s way, perhaps wondering if she should continue. He smiled and nodded.
She lifted the bow again, closed her eyes, and played the first notes of “Silent Night.” The music was totally pure, completely beautiful.
And Preston knew he would never be the same after that night.
Cora
December 1896
Two days after Christmas, Cora stared at the headline on the second page of the Chickadee Press, reading it for the third time, trying to make it say something else or to disappear entirely:
LOCAL WOMAN ASTOUNDS GUESTS ON CHRISTMAS EVE
She closed her eyes.
Please, God. Please, no.
She drew a slow, deep breath, opened her eyes again, and read the brief article beneath the headline.
Cora Anderson, the schoolteacher in Chickadee Creek, played her violin for the guests of Preston Chandler at his Christmas gathering earlier this week. Everyone present that evening was amazed by the quality of the performance, no one more so than this reporter.
Miss Anderson came to our fair town in the autumn of last year, and she has become a valued member of our community. But no one seems to have known that she is accomplished not simply in teaching children reading, writing, and arithmetic but also is a virtuoso of the first order on the violin.
Cora sucked in another breath and read the two paragraphs again. When she was done, she set the newspaper aside and closed her eyes once more.
It’s a small newspaper. It only matters to the residents of this community. No one else will see it. Father will never know about it. His spies won’t look here.
All these months, for more than a year and a half, she’d been careful to remain hidden, inconspicuous. And then she’d risked everything because she wanted to play her violin for others. No. No, it was more than that. She’d done it to please Preston. She’d done it because he asked her to play.
Would her father find her because she’d lost her heart to Preston Chandler?
Chapter 17
Chelsea waited until the next morning to call Liam about the sheet music. She got his answering machine but didn’t leave a message. For all she knew he was still with his agent and the director.
Feeling restless, she went for a walk, wanting to beat the heat. At first her thoughts were jumbled, her emotions warring with her better judgment. Finally, deep in the forest, she settled onto a log and tried to sort through her feelings about Liam Chandler.
How could she dread the departure of a man who’d never asked her out on a date, never held her hand, never kissed her? Was there any reason to think he was interested in her beyond a casual acquaintance and perhaps as someone who shared an interest in the history of Chickadee Creek? Not really. And yet . . . And yet there was something between the two of them, something that had grown over the weeks since they’d met. She felt it, and she couldn’t help but hope he felt it too.
A chipmunk scolded her from the limbs of a nearby tree, and smiling, she looked in its direction.
One summer, Chelsea and her sister Evelyn had managed to trap a couple of chipmunks. Ben and Jerry, they’d named them, after the ice-cream magnates. They kept them in an old cage discovered weeks earlier in the trash bin behind a car repair shop in Hadley Station. There was no telling what had lived in the cage before the two little girls found it.
They didn’t have to ask to know their father wouldn’t approve of them trying to make pets of a couple of chipmunks, so they hid the cage inside a large forsythia bush at the back of their yard. For several weeks, they snuck nuts and fruit to the forest rodents at different times of day, and they kept the small water dish filled. But one morning, they discovered an empty and mangled cage—perhaps destroyed by a bear, perhaps by their father. The chipmunks were nowhere in sight.
Tearfully, Evelyn had asked, “Do you think they got away?”
Chelsea had nodded, but she hadn’t been all that sure.
Now she looked at the scolding chipmunk and asked, “You wouldn’t happen to be Ben or Jerry, would you?”
The little guy sat up on his hind legs, front legs folded, and stared right back, refusing to give a reply.
She rose from the log. “Thanks for the distraction anyway.”
He chirped at her.
“You must be Ben, the chatty one.”
He scampered up the tree, disappearing in an instant.
Strange how much better she felt. Nothing in her thinking had changed. She hadn’t hit upon any answers. Nonetheless, her spirits felt lighter as she continued on.
Half an hour later, she was on Chandler Road, headed into Chickadee Creek, when she saw Liam’s truck parked at the old mansion site. Her pulse skittered as her eyes searched the grounds for Liam himself. There was no sign of him. She wondered where he could be.
At that moment, Chipper burst from the trees at the far end of the property and raced in her direction. She stopped walking to await his arrival. Laughter bubbled up inside of her at the dog’s exuberant greeting, as if they were long-lost
friends.
“Chelsea!”
She straightened to see Liam standing beside a large, old shed that leaned to one side.
He motioned for her to join him. “Come have a look.”
She couldn’t imagine what was worth seeing, but her heart delighted in being asked. She walked in his direction, Chipper running on ahead of her.
“You’ll never guess what I found,” Liam said as she drew closer. “There’s a concrete fruit cellar at the back of this shed.”
The discovery didn’t seem worth the excitement he exhibited.
“There are wooden crates filled with stuff down there.”
“Stuff?”
“I don’t know what all. Books. Dishes. Junk. Could all be ruined by this time, but stored in a cool, dry cellar, maybe it’s okay. Come have a look.”
She eyed the leaning shed. “Doesn’t look safe to me.”
“It’s been like this for as long as I can remember, and it hasn’t come down yet. Not even in the worst windstorms. It should be okay.” He held out an arm toward her. “Come on. Have a look.”
She would much prefer to wait until the crates were brought out into the daylight, but she found it hard to resist Liam when he looked at her that way. Mesmerizing.
His hand closed around hers. She hadn’t realized she’d extended her arm until that happened.
He drew her inside the dilapidated shed. Dust hung in the air, as if no breeze had reached the interior in years. Untrue, for light came through where slats were broken off or missing altogether. Straw still covered parts of the earthen floor. A wheelbarrow, lacking its wheel, sat tipped against a sawhorse. A hemp rope hung from a beam, the ends frayed. Two halters, the leather worn, clung to nails in the wall.
“The cellar’s back there.” Liam pointed toward a dark corner. “I’m surprised kids didn’t break in and haul the boxes off long ago. Or at least break them open to see what was inside.”
“Probably nobody expected to find anything in here except a worthless wheelbarrow. You don’t see the cellar from the doorway.”
He drew her closer to the steps. The concrete seemed out of place in the shed, and the open door at the bottom showed nothing but pitch black beyond.
“There are a few photos in one of those books I got from you that give a glimpse of this shed when the estate was in its heyday. Off to that side was a large vegetable garden and some fruit trees too. But from the house and the formal gardens, the shed was entirely hidden from view by the flowers and vines. A genius design.”
“Genius,” she echoed, despite feeling the need to get back outside in the fresh air and daylight.
Liam switched on a flashlight. “There’s at least a dozen crates.” He went down one step. “They must have been there since at least the seventies. Maybe longer.” He looked back, as if expecting her to follow him.
Recognizing the fear rising within, Chelsea shook her head.
“You don’t want to see the crates?”
“Not down there.” The words came out a whisper, her throat too tight for more.
Her pulse raced in her ears. Her lungs seemed incapable of drawing a deep breath. She spun on her heel and hurried outside, not stopping until she reached an open space flooded with sunshine. There, she tipped back her head so she could feel the warmth of the sun on her face. She drew a deep breath in through her nose and blew it out her mouth. One, then another, then another, until the world began to right itself.
* * *
Liam stuffed his fingertips into the back pockets of his jeans. He wanted to go to Chelsea, take her in his arms, and protect her from the terror he’d caught sight of a moment before she bolted. But instinct told him to stay back, to wait it out.
He remembered that day by the highway, when she’d said she didn’t like to be weak. The panic that had overtaken her then had disappeared almost as fast as it came. Which, he supposed, was why he hadn’t thought of it again. Until now. Until he saw her, standing in the sunlight, fighting for control.
Perhaps sensing him watching her, she turned.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She nodded.
He took a couple of steps toward her. “Sorry for back there. I had no idea—”
“Small, dark places frighten me.”
“You’re claustrophobic.”
She nodded again, her shoulders rising and falling on another deep breath. Then, in a voice almost too soft to hear, she said, “It was my father’s favorite punishment for me.”
Liam frowned, the words making no sense to him.
“When I disobeyed, he locked me in a closet. Sometimes for hours.”
Cold fingers seemed to squeeze his heart as he imagined a little girl, curled in a corner in the dark, waiting for release.
Chelsea looked up at the sky again. “I’m okay most of the time. I don’t have panic attacks very often. Not anymore.”
It took Liam a moment to realize how very little he knew about her life before she’d come to Chickadee Creek. He knew her father was dead. He knew she had younger siblings but wasn’t sure how many. A sister was closest to her age. He knew she’d grown up in the panhandle of Idaho and had moved to Spokane as a young adult. He knew she loved her Aunt Rosemary and that she also loved God. And now he knew why she feared small, dark places. But he knew little else. Why was that? Especially since he liked her so much. Had his Hollywood years made him completely self-absorbed? Did he only want to talk about himself, and he liked her because she was willing to listen to him? The questions made his gut knot. If that was true, there wasn’t much about him to like.
As if she knew his thoughts, Chelsea said, “I never talk about it.”
“The claustrophobia?”
“My family. My past. All of it. I avoid it.”
Her words made him feel a little better about himself. But only a little.
The hint of a smile touched the corners of her mouth. “I learned a lot of self-talk over the years. Ways to remind myself that I would be okay, that I had plenty of air, that I wouldn’t suffocate. And now I’m learning to lean into God and let His Word bring me out of the fear.” She paused, her gaze unwavering. “‘For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.’ Do you remember quoting that to me?”
“Yes. I remember.”
“It helped, you know. In the last few weeks, I’ve made it a point to memorize more verses from the Bible. It beats self-talk because there’s real power in it. It’s living and active. Right?”
The urge to hold her close swept over him again. Instead he answered, “Right.”
“I almost forgot.” The expression on her face changed to one of excitement. “I have something to share with you. I found something of Cora’s yesterday.”
“Another violin?”
“No.” Her smile blossomed. “Some sheet music. Music that Cora wrote. You must come over to the shop and see it for yourself.”
He could fall in love with Chelsea Spencer, he thought as he moved toward her. It would be as easy as falling off a log.
Liam's Journal
It looks like I’ll be doing the Wentworth film. Details still to be worked out, but I’ve read enough of the script to know I want this part. I want it bad. Jacob would love it. Wish I could tell him about it. Wish we could sit together in the basement family room and hash over all the possibilities for the role.
Filming will be on location. Oklahoma or Texas. Which means I’ll be gone from Idaho for weeks at a time. Maybe as many as eight. That’s Grayson’s guess.
I need to talk to Mom before I go. She’s left a couple of messages that I’ve ignored. I can’t go on doing that. It’s tempting to leave it that way until I’m back from location, months from now. I’d rather not tell her I’ll be going away. But I can’t do that either.
I remembered something Jacob said to me, not long before he died. He said there’s doing what’s easy and there’s doing what’s right. I need to choose what’s right.
&nb
sp; Liam's Journal
The script is even more amazing than I thought at first. I finished reading the draft Grayson left with me. He said there are changes to be made, but even if there wasn’t a single line altered, I’d be impressed.
And the part I’m to play—the husband and dad, fighting for his land, fighting for his family . . . I only hope I’ll do it justice.
Jacob would love this. If this sort of thing matters in heaven, I hope God will tell my brother about it.
Chapter 18
Chelsea’s pulse sped up again, but it wasn’t fear that caused it this time. It was the way Liam looked at her as he drew closer. Her breath caught in her throat. Did she want to run to him or away from him?
He must have seen her uncertainty. He stopped, then said, “Let’s walk to the shop. To see the sheet music. I’ll come back for my truck later.”
“All right.”
She half expected him to reach for her hand. He didn’t.
“So tell me about this new find of yours.” They fell into step, walking across the mansion grounds to the road. “You said Cora Chandler wrote it. Do you mean it’s something written in her hand?”
“No. It’s published. The copyright date says 1936, and the piece is called Freedom’s Sonata.”
“Have you played it on your violin?”
“Me? No.” She laughed. “An off-key ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ is more my speed at this point. But I called my instructor, and she’s going to play it for me and Aunt Rosemary at my next lesson.”
“Did she recognize the title?”
“No. And she was surprised it wasn’t part of local lore, at the very least.”
They paused on the bridge and, in unison, leaned forearms on the rail and looked down at the creek running beneath them. Chipper stuck his head through the boards and barked once, as if to let them know he paid attention.
Make You Feel My Love Page 17
