“He actually moved there and lived with your family?”
“Oh, no. All of this was done secretly because by then, they were both using drugs—which none of us knew at the time.”
Todd whooshed out his breath, and I could picture him rubbing the back of his neck.
“We were so naïve, Todd. We were this faithful little Christian family who attended church every time the doors were open. We had family devotions around the dinner table every night and served food at the homeless shelter once a month, you know?” I sighed. “Our parents loved God and raised us the best they knew how. They never dreamed Jason could be involved in drugs. It wasn’t even on their radar.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. And even when the signs became more obvious, they went into denial. It wasn’t until they were on a first-name basis with the local police officers that they truly realized the situation.” It still seemed unbelievable now, looking back on that time. “Then they decided we should move across town to try to get him away from the ‘bad influences’.”
“Too little, too late by then. I’ve seen it a million times.”
“Yep. All that accomplished was to uproot the rest of us from our lives, while Jason went on doing what he was going to do no matter where we lived.” Sheer madness.
“Where exactly does Brandon fit into all of this?”
“Well, you have to understand that we didn’t have much contact with Brandon. We knew he and Jason were always together, but he rarely came to our home. That’s why I didn’t recognize him until now…especially since he’s changed his appearance so much. And it’s been years since I’ve seen him.”
“He’s always been such a weaselly little liar,” Todd said.
“Tell me about it. Anyway, you know that Jason is serving time in prison.”
“Yes.”
“Brandon should be right there with him. But he somehow pinned all of it on Jason. Has an uncle in law enforcement or something.”
“Callie.” Todd paused. “Do you not know who Brandon’s uncle is?”
“No.”
“Earl.”
I squeezed my eyes shut tight. Well, that explained a lot. But what reason would either Brandon or Earl have to—
“Where does Dot fit into all of this, Callie?”
“I don’t know. She was super excited for me to meet Brandon. Called him a nice young man.” I wound a strand of hair around my finger. “I’m sure she must not have any recollection of the history between him and Jason.”
“Or maybe she doesn’t realize that he’s the same Brandon that hung out with your brother?”
“Maybe. Especially since he’s going by a different last name now. And he looks so different than the scrawny, acne-faced kid I remember. But back to Earl. What would he and Brandon have to gain by picking at me?”
“What do you mean?”
I squirmed a little bit. I hadn’t wanted to tell Todd about Earl’s stupid innuendoes, but I might as well bare it all.
“Earl has said a few things to subtly let me know that he is, um, aware of my past,” I admitted.
Todd growled, and I could picture him grinding his teeth. “But you weren’t charged with anything in the little girl’s death, were you?” he asked.
“No. But I testified at the trial. Against the dad.”
I listened to the pugs snore for a long minute before Todd spoke.
“I don’t like this, Callie.”
“I know. But I can’t think of any connection…” I sucked in my breath. “What if it’s not me?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if it’s Aunt Dot? What if Brandon is trying to—”
“Extort her. And you’re in the way.”
I groaned. “This is getting way too complicated.”
“Tell me about it. Has he been harassing you?”
“No.” I traced the blue and purple zigzag pattern of the afghan with my finger. “He asked me out.”
“Well, that’s a new tactic,” Todd muttered. “You turned him down, I hope?”
I grimaced. This was the part I hated about relationships. Things got so tricky sometimes. “Not exactly…”
“Callie. You can’t seriously—”
“I didn’t know it was him, Todd. And it was before you asked me to go to Zilker with you tomorrow…today.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Maybe we should call off our date to Zilker.”
My heart sank. Why did he sound so cold all of a sudden?
“It’s not like I like the guy, Todd. And especially now—”
“It’s late. I’ll text you in the morning.”
Clearly, the conversation was over.
“Good night, Todd,” I whispered. But he had already ended the call.
“And then he hung up,” I told Mona. We sat perched on the stools behind my counter at C. Willikers, gluing on the last of the moss, thanks be to God.
She peered at me over her half-glasses. Red with rhinestones today, to match her cowboy boots. “I imagine he’s a little touchy when it comes to things like that.”
“Why? I thought we were getting along pretty well, and then—”
“Hasn’t he told you about Darla yet?”
Who was Darla? His ex-wife? “No, we’ve talked mostly about me, I guess.”
Mona snorted. “She cheated on him from pretty much day one, as far as I could tell. Bless his heart, he did everything he could to hold the marriage together until that last fling when she divorced him to marry some rich old dude from Dallas. Old. Like, really old.” She made a face.
Ack.
“I didn’t know.” Though I could have guessed, maybe, if I hadn’t been so focused on my own issues. I had caught glimpses of his soul over the past couple of weeks, and the depth of empathy he had shown me the other night when I told him about Marleigh should have clued me in that he, too, had wrestled with sorrow.
“How long ago was that?”
“Let me think.” Mona poked a pine cone into place at the top of the altar arrangement. “It was around the same time Houston came here to pastor. I remember because Rob had strep throat and he liked to have died of it so he couldn’t go to Houston’s welcoming party thing. But Todd was there and that’s the first time I remembered seeing him back in town. So…three years-ish?”
“Three years since the divorce? Or three years since he’s been back here in Short Creek?”
“Both, I think.” Mona tapped her fingernails on the counter. “At least he has Luke most of the time. Poor kid.”
I pictured Todd’s son, Luke. Tall and dark-haired like his dad, he would be a heart-throb one day, but right now he was in that gawky pre-teen stage. I had met him briefly once in the parking lot after church, but that was it. I was suddenly ashamed I had been so self-absorbed in the few short weeks since I had become acquainted with Todd. Now what was I going to say to him?
“I think I need to go talk to Aunt Dot. Oh, and by the way, thanks for taking me to pick my van up the other day. Looks like someone tore it apart and then only half put it back together.”
“What?”
“Earl again, I bet. Searching for something, I suppose.” I couldn’t think about it anymore right now. I pushed myself off the stool. “Want to go with me?”
“Now? I thought the plan was to finish these candelabras today.”
I shrugged. “It was. But I’ve got to get to the bottom of this Brandon situation. And my mom emailed me.”
“Oh.” Mona apparently knew better than to go there. She stuffed wads of raffia back into the Jenna box. “Does Houston seem okay to you?”
Houston? With everything going on with Todd and the baby, I hadn’t given Houston much thought in the last day or two. “I guess so. Why?”
“He seems kinda moody. Or like he doesn’t feel good. He didn’t even tease me when I said something dumb the other day.”
That was unusual. “I haven’t talked to him in a few days.” Not since he asked if he could call me and then
didn’t. I grabbed my purse and led the way through the door, turning to lock it behind us. I had left the pugs at home today. “Maybe he’s dealing with something personal. Are things going okay at First Church?”
“I guess. He usually tells me if there’s a big deal going on. Like when Owen Thompson’s family decided to sue the church a couple of months ago.”
I rolled my eyes. I could live my entire life and not need to know things like that about someone else’s church. “Are you going with me or not?”
“I need to head back to work. I’m taking tomorrow off since Rob will be home, and Houston needs me to have the bulletin done before I leave today. Tell Dot I’m going to write in to her column and ask her a question.”
I laughed. I still was amused by the idea of my aunt writing the local advice column. “Can’t you ask her in person?”
Mona shook her head. “Not this question,” she said solemnly.
Chapter Thirteen
“Good morning, Auntie,” I called through her open door. “I came to get advice from the famous newspaper columnist.”
She grinned at me over the top of her laptop. “I wondered when you would stop by.”
I kissed her cool cheek. “I can’t believe my own aunt is the advice columnist for the Short Creek Star. How did that happen?”
“Well, Harry has a little grandniece who works at the paper, and she told him the other gal was retiring. He told her I would be the right one for the job.” She beamed at me.
Oh, good. Harry. Not Brandon. I hadn’t realized I was worrying about that until now. “It seems like you’re quite a hit, Auntie. Have you gotten any questions so far that you couldn’t answer?”
She wrinkled her brow. “No, of course not, darlin’. I simply pray and ask for wisdom.”
Of course. Pray and ask for wisdom. Why did that not seem so easy sometimes in my life?
“What’s bothering you, Callie?”
I slumped into the vinyl chair, my heart heavier than it had been lately. “I’m feeling like Much-Afraid again today, I guess. The mountain ahead of me seems too high to climb.”
Aunt Dot closed her laptop and sat up straighter. “You’ve already climbed more in your young life than others I know who are my age or older,” she said.
Yes. And I was weary. My heart ached for Nicole and all the girls like her. For Sherm. For that tiny baby girl. For my broken relationship with my parents. For the beginning of a new relationship with my brother Jason. For peace. For resolution to the crazy things happening in my life—the murder, the rock, the attic visitor, Sheriff Earl, Brandon…Todd. It was one of those times when suddenly, my yearning for Heaven threatened to grow stronger than my desire to live on this earth.
“I want to go Home, Auntie,” I confessed. “I feel like Mossy and Tangle when they sat on the plain, weeping with longing for the land whence the shadows fell.”
That scene from The Golden Key by George McDonald had long been one of our favorite topics of discussion. Aunt Dot nodded. “I know, honey. I feel it myself some days. But that’s what we do when we’re still in the valley. We long for home, but we have to be faithful to what God has called us to do until then.”
“I know.” But that was part of the problem, I suddenly realized. Since I was a child, I had recognized that God had a special claim on me—something that seemed far beyond that which I observed in the lives of other “ordinary” Christ-followers around me. How long did I think playing around at being a florist would last, when I knew God had been working and preparing me for something much greater—something with much more eternal impact? And how did Todd fit into the picture? And why was I dwelling on that now, when I had come to ask Auntie about Brandon?
I massaged my temples. “I need to talk to you about Brandon.”
“That doesn’t sound good. I thought y’all were going out on a date.”
“Auntie…I don’t know how to say this.” I grimaced. “Brandon is not who you think he is.”
“Why, Callie. What do you mean?”
“He’s the same Brandon that was Jason’s friend. Brandon Winters.”
Aunt Dot’s hand flew to her throat. “I didn’t know, Callie,” she whispered. “Why would he…”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
“What are you trying to figure out?” Harry’s big voice boomed through the room, and we both jumped.
“Hi Harry,” I said, glancing at Aunt Dot. She shook her head.
“Say, I saw Preacher Houston out there in the hallway. Not looking so hot. Do y’all know what’s wrong with him?”
I shrugged. “I haven’t seen him in a couple of days. How have you been, Harry?”
“Fine as frog’s hair, ’specially since this little lady is making me so proud.” He winked at me and took Aunt Dot’s hand. “You been keeping up with her in the newspaper?”
“I’ve read most of them. But I’ve been on the receiving end of her advice my whole life.” I smiled. “Oh, and I finally remembered to bring the Pilgrim’s Progress book from The Gift Bag. Remember, the one you thought at first might be from your friend Owen?”
I pulled the book out of my purse and handed it to my aunt.
She ran a caressing hand over the cover before opening it. “It looks exactly like the one Owen gave me,” she murmured. She turned the browned pages with reverence, one at a time. “Oh!”
She looked up at me. “This is the very book Owen gave me, Callie. See? Here’s a violet I pressed in this book from the day he gave it to me.”
Harry and I both crowded close to look. Sure enough, right on the illustrated page of Christian losing his burden rested a flat, yellowed Johnny-jump-up.
“Owen was so sweet,” she said. “I remember him bringing this to the house a few days after Garth passed away. He had picked a little bouquet of violets from somewhere, and handed them to me with the book.” She held her hand to her cheek as she had probably done on that day over ten years ago, tears glinting in her eyes now as then. “He didn’t even say a word to me, just hugged me and left.”
“He was a good man.” Harry swiped at the moisture in his own eyes.
“Yes, he was. One more loved one waiting for us in Heaven.” She looked at me. “Callie and I were talking about that, weren’t we, honey?”
I nodded. It didn’t seem the right time to bring up the fact that somehow Aunt Dot’s book had gotten from her attic to a box left beside the Willowbough dumpster. I glanced at Harry. Had he picked up on my line of thought?
“Vulpes pilum mutat, non mores,” he muttered.
What? The leopard won’t change its spots? I gaped at Harry. He knew Latin? And what was he telling me?
Aunt Dot glanced up from the book in her lap. “What did you say, Harry?”
“I was thinking of the old hymn, ‘When We All Get to Heaven’, darlin’.” He winked at me, then sang the verse in a bass voice: “While we walk this pilgrim pathway, clouds will overspread the sky, but when travelling days are over, not a shadow, not a sigh.”
Aunt Dot and I joined him on the chorus: “When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be, when we all see Jesus, we’ll sing and shout the victory!”
“Amen!” Houston poked his head in the room. “Can I join the choir?”
“Come on in, preacher,” Harry boomed. “The more the merrier, right, gals?”
We laughed, but my heart sank when I saw my friend. His face was haggard, and he looked like he hadn’t slept in days.
I moved my purse to the floor so he could sit in the chair next to me. “Are you okay?”
He nodded, but didn’t meet my eye. “Long last few days. How are you, Dot?”
“Blessed,” she said.
My phone rang. It was Todd. I stood and stepped over Houston’s outstretched legs. “I’ll be right back.”
“Hi.” I walked out into the hallway. “I’m sorry—”
“Callie. No more apologies, remember? You didn’t do anything. It was my fault.”
<
br /> “Okay, but—”
“No, it’s over. No worries. But I do need to talk to you. Is this a good time?”
It’s over? What’s over? Our little misunderstanding from last night? Or our fledgling relationship? My heart sank.
“Um, no, not a good time. I’m at Willowbough with Aunt Dot. So are we—do we still have plans for tonight?”
“If you still want to go.”
Oh, so the ball was in my court.
Maybe that was good. Maybe I should stop this relationship before I got in too deep. Before I made the same mistakes that I did with Kev. Before I hurt another man. “I guess I’ll pass this time, Todd.”
“No problem. But I have information about the case that you need to know. Can I stop by your store tomorrow morning?”
I stared unseeingly at the posters on the hallway bulletin board. “Sure, that will be fine.”
“Okay, see you in the morning.”
Just like that.
“See? This is what happens when I open my heart up a crack and let someone in, Mona,” I whispered. “I mess it up and then my heart hurts again.” Or still, as the case may be.
Chapter Fourteen
I called Lonnie from my shop the next morning. “How’s the little one?”
“She’s such a beautiful baby, Callie. I hope y’all figure something out soon before we get too attached to her.”
“I talked to Sherm last night. He doesn’t know when Nicole will be back.”
“Did you mention anything about—”
“Not yet. I don’t know what she told him before she left, but he thinks she’s working as an accountant in Dallas. And that the man who came to get her is her boyfriend.”
“Oh, boy.”
“Yeah, and I guess Earl didn’t help matters any when he questioned Sherm. Totally went along with Nicole’s story.”
“But what about the baby?”
Make Haste Slowly Page 14
