“You’re welcome, Miss Ashlynne.”
Miss Ashlynne.
I’d been beat by a twenty-year-old, twenty-one if she were a day. I’d come in planning to wheedle Miss Kate out of information on Will, and I was leaving with yet another job to do. A volunteer job no less, one that would put me directly in the path of people with whom I would have little to nothing in common.
I swallowed again. Blew out a pent-up breath.
Oh, boy.
After my lunch hour—and a meal I didn’t get to eat—Will and I left the office, heading to the local schools to get principals’ reports as to the first day back in the new school year. What they were hoping for throughout the year. What changes their schools had made since the previous year in hopes of improving.
“Speaking of school,” I said as we rambled along in the old truck, “I went to an adorable nail salon on Main Street today—you know, to get an appointment for Friday morning? Oh, and by the way, I’m not coming in on Friday morning now that I know I’m supposed to take time off to make up for Saturday work—thank you very much for telling me—anyway, I left the salon and I saw a place you may have heard of. Testament Children’s Museum?”
Will slowed the truck to stop at a red light. His head turned toward me, slowly, as if he were trying to gain the courage to look. I bit my tongue to keep from laughing, until he said, “Take a breath, girl.”
“I’m breathing.”
“You must have iron lungs to have said all that without so much as a gasp.”
“I most assuredly do not have iron lungs.”
“That was a joke.”
“So have you ever heard of it? Green light, by the way.”
Will continued forward. “Heard of what? The nail salon? Yeah. Tips to Toes. A girl I graduated from high school with owns it.”
“Not Tips to Toes. I’m talking about the children’s museum.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of it. Of course I have. I live here, remember. I do some volunteer work there.”
Well, he’d beat me to it. “Really?”
“Yeah, really.” He gave me another slow look. “That didn’t occur to you when you saw me coming out of there earlier?” Then he chuckled. “Nice shade of crimson you got going there in your cheeks.”
I crossed my arms and stared straight ahead. “Very funny.” Then, looking at him, “You saw me?”
“On my way out the door. Saw you waiting for the Toyota to pull out.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Nothing to say.”
“Then let’s start with why you have my cell number but I didn’t have yours?” A question that, of course, had nothing to do with my intended conversation, which was how I could possibly get out of the whole volunteer thing.
“That’s easy. Big Guy gave it to me.”
“When?”
“When I asked him for it. First day. When you were late.”
Not that again. “Why didn’t he give me yours then?”
“Did you ask him for it?”
“No.”
“Well, then. That’s why. What is it the Good Book says? Ask and you shall receive.”
“I don’t think that line of Scripture is talking about cell phone numbers.”
“Truth is truth.”
True. “I hardly pegged you for a guy who’d volunteer his morning off at a children’s museum.” And can you possibly tell me how I might get out of my own volunteerism without coming across looking like a jerk?
We pulled into the first school on our list, Testament Elementary. “I’m sure there’s a lot about me you haven’t pegged.”
“I can’t argue with that. And I’m sure there’s a lot about me that you haven’t pegged.”
Will shut the engine off. “I don’t have to peg you.”
“What does that mean?”
He stared at the steering wheel before saying, “Like I told you before, I know your type.” He opened the driver’s door.
I opened mine, then stepped onto the gravel parking lot of the one-story, rambling brick building with outside covered hallways. “Is that why you’ve been so snippy with me since I arrived here? Because you think you know my type?”
“I don’t think I know your type. I do know your type.” He walked in long strides toward the front doors of the school.
I hurried to keep up. “And what type is that?”
He stopped. Glared at me. “Seriously?”
“Yeah,” I said, not afraid to return the stare. “Seriously.”
“All right. You’re the kind of girl who grew up with the proverbial silver spoon in her mouth. You went to private school. Your mama and daddy paid for ballet classes starting about the age of three until you either got bored with it or went off to college. They paid for piano lessons, too—same thing. You got your nails done the first time at the ripe old age of twelve. Your father bought you the car of your dreams before your sixteenth birthday and made sure you had a stretch limo to get you to prom. You never made below an A in school. You were a cheerleader, homecoming queen, and the girl all boys wanted to date and all girls wanted to be best friends with. How am I doing?”
By now my eyes burned with tears, but I refused Will Decker the pleasure of watching them fall. Nor would I let him know just how far off he was when it came to dates and friends. “Wonderfully,” I lied. “Do you have anything else to add?”
“You worked fairly hard in college, but truth be told, you had a job lined up for you when you got out, no matter how well or poorly you did.”
I pointed my finger at him. “Now that’s not true.”
“Which part?”
“The part about me having a job.”
“You didn’t have a job lined up for you?”
I crossed my arms. “Of course I did. But if you think for one minute my grandmother would have given me a leg up for any reason other than hard work, then you don’t know my grandmother.”
Our eyes locked, mine still swimming with tears. I became uncomfortably aware of his breathing. His nostrils flared until, finally, he blinked. Slowly. Breaking whatever spell held us together. “My apologies to your grandmother,” he said. He tipped the brim of his hat and continued on toward the school building.
“Wait!” I called, running to catch up.
He didn’t stop, but asked, “What now?”
“Don’t I get to tell you what I think I know about you?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to know what you think. I am who I am, no matter your opinion of me.”
He opened one of the two glass doors and allowed me to walk by him. “We’re not done,” I mumbled at him.
“Oh, yes we are,” he said.
Oh, no we’re not, I thought, but chose to say nothing in reply.
I didn’t hear from Rob until later that evening.
“I’m sorry,” he said after the basic openings were out of the way. “I’ve been on a job all day. But I got your message earlier.” He chuckled. “Messages, I should say.”
“Sorry about that. It kept beeping on me.”
“I don’t know why that happens sometimes. But it does. At any rate . . . are you calling to cancel because of the scrimmage game?”
Scrimmage. That was the word. I mentally repeated it several times. “Oh. No. Not at all.” I walked into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and pulled out a bottle of water. “But I was of the understanding that in small Southern towns, on a Friday night during football season, everyone goes to the games.” I twisted the cap and took a long sip, walking back into the living room where my laptop awaited me on the love seat.
“Well, I mean . . . if you want to go. I wouldn’t mind going. We could grab something to eat around here, go to the game. I just thought Lake Lure might be more your speed.”
“Oh my goodness . . . that’s so sweet of you. I mean, seriously, seriously sweet. Because I’ll be honest, if that’s okay with you.”
�
��I wouldn’t want you to be anything but.”
Completely different from his friend, Will. Will didn’t want my thoughts on anything, honest or not, it seemed. “Well . . . okay, then. Here’s the deal: I don’t know a lot about football.” I sat on the sofa and took another sip of water.
“I know.”
The water bottle came from my lips so fast, I splattered myself with water. “You know? Did William say something?”
“No. But any girl who can’t remember scrimmage from practice game doesn’t know football.”
I brushed the moisture from my chin and blouse. “Oh. I told on myself,” I said with a laugh. “Okay. So I don’t know a lot about football. But you can teach me, right?”
“I’d be happy to,” he said, his voice husky and almost seductive.
I shook any thoughts of how adorable I’d found him to be from my mind. “So then . . . what time should I expect you on Friday with these new plans?”
“Six too early?”
“What time does the game start?”
“Seven-thirty.”
“Six sounds perfect.”
“I’ll see you at six, then.”
Was he ending the conversation so soon? “Uh, Rob?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
I smiled. Glanced over at my laptop. “I was just looking at the Chimney Rock website. There are trails there, did you know that?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. I know that.”
“Have you ever walked them?”
“Only a few thousand times. I worked there when we were in high school.”
“We?”
“Will and me. I don’t have too many memories that don’t include Will Decker. At least not from back in those days.”
“Did Will work there, too?”
“Aww, no. ’Fraid not. He’s always worked at the paper. It was sort of a family thing, I guess you could say.”
I certainly knew about family business and working within it. “I see.”
“What do you want to know about the trails?”
“I’ve been thinking about taking up walking trails.”
“You mean hiking?”
“If that’s what it’s called. I suppose I’ll need the right clothes, of course . . .”
“You need to get you some good hiking boots.”
I jumped up, hurried over to the counter where a pad of paper and a pen were stored in a decorative basket. I jotted down hiking boots. “What else?”
“Good socks.” He paused. “Have you ever heard of a place called Bubba O’Leary’s?”
“Just today actually.”
“Tell you what let’s do,” he said. “How about Saturday we go shopping in Chimney Rock and then we’ll go out to dinner that evening at one of the restaurants along Lake Lure.”
“You’ll show me what I need for hiking?”
“Sure will.” He paused. “And, if you like, I’ll take you hiking sometime on the Chimney Rock trails.”
I straightened. “I’d love that. But, I think I have to work on Saturday.”
“Will usually puts in some time on Saturday mornings. Find out what your hours are for Saturday and we’ll make a plan come Friday night. Deal?”
I grew uncharacteristically giddy. “Deal.”
14
In a matter of only a few days, I had taken to rising early, getting showered, dressed, and outside to sit in one of the rock garden chairs. Cup of hot tea in one hand. The book I’d found in the downstairs bedroom in the other.
The first day’s entry had encouraged me to “take long walks.” I hadn’t yet explored the “Decker Ranch,” as it was playfully called, but I at least had a plan to hike along the trails of Chimney Rock. Wednesday’s entry correlated with the mirror tile that read: EAT GOOD FOOD. After my conversation with Rob the night before, I made a decision to get to know Southern cooking better, starting this weekend.
I’d always eaten well. Nutritionally well. Mom had always been a no-junk stickler and I’d followed behind her along the path to healthy living. I occasionally splurged on something decadent, but rarely enough that I never counted a single calorie. Southern cooking, from what I could tell so far, was far from healthy. “If they can slap lard in it,” Gram had told me the night before during a phone conversation I had with her after Rob’s call, “they will.”
Lard.
Eww.
“Not the best for your heart,” she admitted to me, “but fantastic on the palate.”
Well, all right. I was ready to find out.
Thursday’s entry read BELIEVE, and the scriptural entries were from Genesis 15:6—Abram trusted the Lord, and the Lord recognized Abram’s high moral character—and John 11:40— Jesus replied, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believe, you will see God’s glory?”
The block letters at the bottom of the page read: TRUST HIM COMPLETELY.
I looked at the picture, which was the same as one of the blocks in the mirror, depicting a drawn hand with a heart in the center of its palm. I placed my left hand in front of me, stretched my fingers, and tried to imagine a heart in the center.
I had to admit, the concept of the heart and the palm had me confused. What did the two of them, together, have to do with belief? I laid my head against the high back of the chair and closed my eyes, allowing myself to listen to the birds as they sang overhead, the gentle breeze rustling the leaves and sending the wind chimes into motion. An occasional truck worked its gears along the highway, disturbing nature just enough to annoy me. To keep me from concentrating enough to figure out what a heart in the palm of my hand had to do with believing.
Odd. For the first time in my life, progress pressed down on serenity and I didn’t like it. As accustomed as I’d been in my life to city sounds, and as much as they had never annoyed me before, now they did. Here, in the still quiet of these mountains and hills and lush valleys, the jarring interruption seemed wrong. Sitting here, I yearned for the silence. The stillness. And more of it. I frowned, looked at my watch, and sighed.
Like it or not, the time had come to leave my early-morning sanctuary and go to work.
While Will worked outside the office on a couple of stories, I stayed in to work on a report for the Deckers outlining the first steps necessary to relaunch the magazine. I also continued my research on the land around Rob’s place. The first job took all of a half hour. But the second . . .
Within minutes I found myself immersed in a different world. Another time. Wondering what it must have been like for the earliest settlers to this part of the nation. My need for knowledge and love of research kicked in, transporting me to wagons filled with wide-eyed men, women, and children. British Redcoats demanding taxes from a people who wanted only a fresh start without tyranny. But with the wide expanse and promise of the Blue Ridge Mountains and her lush valleys also came opposition from Native Americans who wanted pretty much the same as those who would be the new Americans—to be left alone and in peace.
As if that were not enough, there were those within the settlements who were loyal to the Crown. To all they’d known and believed in from their previous life.
Loyalists.
Then, just when no one really knew whom they could trust, the British army allied themselves with the Cherokee . . .
“They were after the same thing,” I told Will as soon as he dropped into his chair, shortly before noon.
“Who was after what same thing?” He tossed his hat onto the wire in/out file.
“The Cherokee and the British.” I felt my eyes grow wide. “The people who settled here in the mid-1700s were up against more than just getting the land ready for farming, building houses and towns. They were dealing with the British and the Cherokee, and the British and the Cherokee were basically on the same team.”
He smiled. “Nice to see you doing your homework.”
I gave my computer’s screen a quick glance. “What I’ve found so far is pretty interesting stuff.” I pulled a pencil from where I’d jammed it behind my ear a
nd laid it on the desk. “I’m also thinking the magazine could use a history column. Bring the younger people up to speed on what it cost the original settlers to establish themselves here. And maybe we can use the museum to help with that, too.”
Will booted up his computer without comment.
“Don’t you think?”
“Hmmm?”
I wasn’t accustomed to speaking and then repeating myself. “Were you even listening?”
He ran his index finger over the mouse. “Anything on who might be buried out there at Rob’s place?”
Frustration wrapped itself around me like a vise, but I refused to let it squeeze hard enough to choke out my progress in Testament. “Not yet,” I said, keeping my voice firm. “But don’t you think knowing there were settlers here as well as Redcoats and Native Americans opens up a wide possibility?” When he didn’t answer, I changed tack with a new question. “Did you contact the historical society?”
“I did. They’re looking into it as well.”
I returned to the webpage I’d been studying before Will came in. “So . . . ,” I said after a few moments, “will you be at the scrimmage game on Friday?”
He looked at me. “Of course.”
“Oh, good. Maybe we’ll see you there.”
His eyes narrowed. “I thought Rob was taking you to Lake Lure.”
“He was. But I didn’t want him to miss the game. You did stress the importance of football to Testament, after all.” I took a breath. “Besides that, Mr. Decker, I am trying hard to fit in.”
“Humph . . .” He looked at his computer screen and typed a few keystrokes.
“What does that mean?”
“What does what mean?”
“Humph.”
He seemed to ponder his answer before speaking. “I guess I didn’t see you as the kind of girl who’d want to go to a scrimmage game on a Friday night.”
I shimmied in my seat like I was the smartest cookie in the jar. “Well then, I guess you don’t really know my type after all.”
His eyes—completely unreadable—found mine. “I guess not.”
I decided to leave the conversation, and William, alone. I returned to my notes on the county’s earliest settlers and conflicts while Will’s fingers flew over his computer’s keyboard. After a few moments he said, “You know, of course, that for all our lives Rob and I have always attended the scrimmage games—and all the home games, for that matter—together. So, in a lot of ways, I guess you’re pushing me out of the picture in my best friend’s life.”
The Road to Testament Page 13
