Silver Bells

by Raney,Deborah

  Silver Bells

  Deborah Raney

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Epilogue

  Silver Bells

  About the Author

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  Silver Bells

  This novel was first published in 2013, under the same title, by Summerside Press/Guideposts.

  © Copyright 2016 Deborah Raney.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted to any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission from Raney Day Press.

  Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. All characters are fictional and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Published by Raney Day Press.

  Cover and interior design by Ken Raney.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Created with Vellum

  For Tavia and Collin

  May the Lord bless you

  with many, many happy years together

  …one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind

  and straining toward what is ahead,

  I press on toward the goal to win the prize

  for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

  Philippians 3:14, niv

  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;

  old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

  2 Corinthians 5:17, nkjv

  Chapter 1

  “Good morning, Kansas!” The radio scratched out static over deejay Kris Kristiansen’s lilting baritone. “Keepin’ cool on another hot, hot August day. Thanks for waking up to KGRV…music to get you in the groove and out the door.”

  Out the door? Michelle Penn squinted at the clock on her nightstand. Six thirty. She flopped onto her belly and covered her head with the plump feather pillow. Too early. And she’d thought Mom’s “Yoo-hoos” were bad, floating up the farmhouse stairs at the crack of dawn every morning. Now, while she was glad to have her own place in town, no deejay could serve up the aromas of bacon and French toast that had always come with Mom’s wake-up calls.

  Outside the third-story window of her apartment, the leaves of the locust tree brushed the window screens and some sort of yellow-breasted bird sang his heart out. Already it was so hot that she was tempted to turn on the air cooler propped in the window of her kitchenette. But by the time the cool air made it back to her bedroom, she’d be out the door. Besides, her landlord had warned her to watch her electric bill if she ran the cooler. And her budget didn’t leave much room for error. At least not until her first payday.

  But it was all worth having her own place, and she did love her cozy apartment over the Jacksons’ nineteenth-century Victorian. The pitched ceilings and unique nooks and crannies in every room—all three of them—had a charm the new apartment complex on the edge of town could never offer. Not that she could have afforded one of those places.

  She rolled over onto her back and said the short ritual prayer that began every morning. “Please, God, keep Kevin safe, wherever he is today.” She snoozed through Mungo Jerry’s “In the Summertime,” but when Tony Orlando and Dawn “knocked three times,” she took the hint and eased her legs over the side of the bed.

  Instantly, the butterflies in her stomach fluttered to life. First day of her new job, and she couldn’t have felt less prepared. Especially when she thought about Kathy and Carol. Her best friends were no doubt sacked out in the dorm, slumbering with the sweet knowledge that they could skip class if they didn’t feel like getting up till noon.

  Two years of that life had spoiled her, but there wasn’t enough money for her and Allen both to go to college. Dad could use her brother’s help on the farm, but being in college just might keep him out of Vietnam. So, today, Allen would take her place at K-State. She didn’t mind that much. Dad was right that college was a waste of money for her. She’d been there for two years, and she still didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life.

  Well, that wasn’t true, either. She knew. She’d known what she wanted to do with her life from the time she was twelve years old, and she’d been on a fast track in that direction ever since. But Kevin Ferris derailed her dream when he signed on the dotted line at the recruiters’ office two years ago. It still hurt like it had happened yesterday.

  But now, armed with only a few undergrad credits and the dubious experience gained during a work-study job shelving books in the campus library, she would begin her first real job at Bristol’s weekly newspaper.

  “I’m the city reporter for the Bristol Beacon.” She rehearsed the words aloud, hardly able to make them seem true. Why they’d had her start on a Thursday she didn’t know, but at least she only had two days before the weekend. Not that she had anything exciting planned. With all her friends away at college and her love life down the drain, she may as well work every weekend.

  She staggered to the shower, and twenty minutes later, peered into the mirror in the tiny bathroom. If that snooty lady who’d hired her could see her now—cardboard orange juice cans pinned to her head at various angles and an army of freckles brazenly at play on her nose—she’d surely have second thoughts about hiring Michelle Penn.

  Singing along with B.J. Thomas on the radio, she unwound her hair from around seven orange juice cans. “Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head,” she crooned. “And just like the guy—” She stopped mid-verse and stared at a frizzy lock of hair. Those stupid raindrops may as well have been falling on her head. Seventeen Magazine had promised the juice-can method would smooth her unruly curls into sleek perfection. Fat chance.

  She ripped the remaining cans from her head and tossed them into the trash. Tugging a hairbrush through the dishwater-blond mess, she tried to coax it into submission. She finally gave up and pulled it all into a frizzy ponytail on top of her head.

  Taking one look at the clock, she gasped. She pulled on a miniskirt and peasant blouse, stuff
ed her feet into the new wedge sandals she’d bought for the occasion, and flew out the door.

  * * *

  Despite large box fans in each corner of the Beacon office, the air barely stirred. The space felt like a sauna and smelled a little like a library-turned-locker-room. Michelle blew out a breath that ruffled her bangs. She could feel her hair frizzing and her makeup melting, exposing every last freckle.

  Robert Merrick Sr. eyed her as if he was afraid she might faint.

  And well she might.

  “Sorry about the air-conditioning,” he said. “They were supposed to have it fixed last night. Didn’t happen.”

  “It’s okay. I’m used to the heat.” True, but air-conditioning was also the number-one reason she’d opted for an indoor job. She’d spent one summer detasseling corn in triple-digit temperatures. That was enough.

  The Beacon’s owner ran a hand through gray-streaked black hair and motioned for her to follow him through a labyrinth of file cabinets, typesetting equipment, and slanted stand-up desks to the rear of the building. The place seemed strangely deserted for eight o’clock on a weekday.

  “Your desk is right back here,” Mr. Merrick said, unsmiling. She remembered Dad talking about the man who’d moved here from St. Louis to take over the Beacon around the time she started junior high. Apparently eight years hadn’t been long enough for her boss to absorb even a smidgeon of small-town friendliness.

  Mr. Merrick showed her to a makeshift cubicle in a row of three that held a dusty desk piled high with folded newspapers and stacks of catalogs and manila envelopes. He made a halfhearted effort at clearing a one-by-one-foot space on the desktop then merely walked away.

  She looked after him, her mouth agape. “Excuse me… What am I supposed to do with all this…stuff?”

  He looked over his shoulder and shrugged. “I guess that’s your first assignment.”

  “But—”

  “Figure it out. Your résumé said you were a self-starter.”

  She’d heard he was square, but she hadn’t expected him to be such a jerk. She watched him disappear into his office. Maybe this was a test.

  The man in the cubicle next to hers had his nose to a Selectric typewriter and seemed not to notice. Once Mr. Merrick was out of sight, she peeked over the low divider and cleared her throat. The man looked up briefly but ignored her and went back to typing, hunt-and-peck style.

  Well, if the boss wouldn’t introduce her, she’d do it herself. She stuck a hand over the partition. “Hi, I’m Michelle Penn. The new…city reporter.” The title sounded more pretentious than it had in the privacy of her apartment this morning. She didn’t have a journalism degree. Or any degree for that matter. Still, that was the position she’d filled.

  “So I heard.” Tappity-tap-tap-tap.

  “So you heard?” And so much for small-town friendliness. What was wrong with these people? This was Bristol, Kansas, “a little town with a big heart”—according to the sign marking the city limits. She drew her hand back to her own side of the cubicle.

  The collection of sports memorabilia decorating Mr. Hunt-and-Peck’s pegboard walls confirmed her suspicion that he was the sports reporter. Well, that explained a few things.

  He finally stopped typing and looked up. “So where’re you from?”

  “Right here. Well, I mean, I live here in Bristol now, but my dad farms, so I grew up west of town. Northwest, actually. But I’ve been away. At college. K-State—”

  “Slow down. Slow down . . . ” He held up a palm like a school-crossing guard.

  She blushed. She was rambling like the roses on Mom’s trellis. “Sorry. More than you needed to know.”

  “No problem.” How could he sit there looking so cool and collected? In neatly pressed khakis and a crisp white dress shirt, his only concession to the heat was rolled-up shirtsleeves that revealed tanned forearms.

  She tucked in a curl that had escaped her ponytail. “Do you know where I’m supposed to put all this stuff from my desk?”

  He bobbed up to peer over the five-foot-high partition before plopping into his chair again. “I guess you could stack it over by the Xerox. Just don’t let Merrick catch you.”

  “Junior or Senior?”

  He studied her. “Um…Senior. There is no ‘Junior.’ ”

  “But I thought—”

  “It’s Senior and Robert Merrick the third.” He etched a Roman numeral “three” in the air.

  “Oh.” She made a face. “Whoop-dee-doo.”

  That made him laugh.

  She glanced over her shoulder at her desk. “Well, they surely don’t expect me to work with all these piles on my desk.”

  Looking amused, he motioned to his own desk, where a similar jumble of papers and unopened mail cluttered the desktop.

  Rolling her eyes, she scooped a pile of dusty newspapers into her arms. She headed for the corner where a behemoth copier loomed but stopped long enough to poke her head into Sports Guy’s cubicle and risk another question. “Where do I get a typewriter?”

  “You don’t.”

  “I don’t? Then how am I supposed to—”

  “Just kidding.” He shot her what could have been a grin. “You requisition one from Myrtle in Reception. Just be prepared to sign your life away.”

  She eyed him. “Kidding again, right?”

  “I wish I was.” He went back to hunting and pecking.

  She took the hint and left him to his life-changing sports stories. Besides the receptionist and Mr. Merrick, they seemed to be the only ones in the office today, but the third cubicle looked as if it belonged to someone.

  For the next half hour, she moved stacks off her desk to the corner by the Xerox machine, taking furtive glances over her shoulder for fear of running into Robert Merrick Sr.—or Robert “the third,” whom she’d yet to meet. She didn’t relish the thought of getting fired her first day on the job.

  When the desk was clear, she polished it with a rag and a can of lemon Pledge she’d found in the restroom. Satisfied with the results, she went to sign her life away to the receptionist—who apparently also served as personnel director, since Myrtle Dressler was the one who’d hired Michelle.

  “I see you’ve made yourself at home.” Myrtle looked her up and down, peering over cat-eye glasses that hung from a chain around her neck. “Now, I don’t like to mention this, but we do have a dress code here, Miss Penn. Or are you one of those who prefer Ms.?” The way she said it, with her nose wrinkled like a prune, left no doubt as to how she felt about the “feminine mystique.”

  “Oh, please…just call me Michelle.”

  “Well, Michelle, as I said, we do have standards, and that skirt is this close”—she pinched two well-manicured fingers together—“to breaking our dress code.”

  Feeling self-conscious, Michelle tugged at her skirt and prayed this conversation would not get back to her father.

  What was wrong with her? She was almost twenty-one. Why did she still care so much what her father thought? Besides, the skirt wasn’t even that short. And it was in style. Myrtle just needed to get with the program. “I assure you, I won’t be breaking any dress codes. Now, I have my desk cleared off, and I’m ready for my typewriter. The sports guy said you were the one to talk to….”

  “The sports guy?” Myrtle’s brow furrowed deeper, if that were possible.

  “Hey, Myrtle.” Sports Guy appeared beside her as if by magic.

  Michelle felt his hand on her shoulder, its pressure just light enough not to be inappropriate.

  “Let’s get this young lady set up on a Selectric, shall we?” he said.

  “Of course.” Myrtle practically saluted. “Right away, sir.”

  Sir? Talk about discrimination. Well, at least she’d get her typewriter.

  Myrtle curled a finger over her shoulder, beckoning. Michelle followed, mouthing a “Thank you” to Sports Guy as she passed.

  He gave her a friendly wink, and she decided he would be a very nice next-cubicle neigh
bor.

  Half an hour later, she was tapping away on a Selectric identical to the one she’d used in college. One fear down, two hundred and ninety-nine to go. Myrtle had given her a news release to “practice” on. She was an accomplished typist and could have tapped out the whole thing six times by now, but she paced herself and did her best to look busy.

  Sports Guy was on the phone in a serious conversation—if one could consider football a serious topic. From what she could make out over the noise of her Selectric and the awful classical music wafting from the reception area, it sounded like he was doing an interview with someone about the upcoming Bristol Bears football season.

  He hung up and left his cubicle, but when he returned a few minutes later, the unmistakable aroma of coffee floated over the partition that separated them.

  She hit the carriage return, pushed her chair back, and peeked over the divider. “Hey… Mind telling me where I can get a cup of that?”

  “Myrtle didn’t show you where the break room is?”

  She shook her head.

  He looked at his watch. “Coffee break isn’t for another twenty minutes, but I can show you where it is then.”

  She eyed his cup. “We take staggered breaks?”

  “No. Break is at ten.”

  She looked pointedly at the porcelain mug in his hand. “And you get coffee now because…?”

  He looked down, as if he hadn’t realized till this moment that he was drinking coffee. He stuttered and shrugged.

  She put her hand over the divider. “By the way, I didn’t get your name.”

  He shook her hand and a grin bloomed on his face. “I’m Rob.”

  “Rob—” An odd sensation niggled at her.

  He tightened his grip on her hand and looked her in the eyes. “Robert Merrick III… I know, I know…” He let her hand drop and twirled his index finger in the air, mimicking her. “Whoop-dee-doo.”

  Chapter 2

  Michelle could feel her palms sweating even as Robert Merrick III pumped her hand and grinned like Howdy Doody. If she’d thought it was hot in here earlier, now it was a veritable oven.