“I’ll use the landline to call him. I’m ready for the number.”
~*~*~*~
While Cara paid for her dinner, Jonathan called the association office, spoke to Frank, and discovered that a package had been left for her. In the middle of his own dinner, Frank promised to run it up to Cara after dessert. “I was going to go see her anyway. When I heard what happened—and now they’re saying the guy’s a rapist. She got off easy.”
Jonathan fought to catch his breath. “Thank you. She’s on the other line, so I’d better go. I think she’s feeling a little jittery.”
Cara chatted as she filled her plate and carried it and her phone to her couch. “Want some curry chicken?”
“Frank has your box, and I will take that curry, thank you very much. Mac and cheese and chicken nuggets with green beans isn’t my idea of a fascinating dinner.”
“Verna off for the night?”
“Weekend,” Jonathan contradicted. “She doesn’t work weekends.”
“That explains why you’re still overworked on weekends. I still think you should hire someone to give you a few hours once a week.”
“I might.” He pinched his nose, still struggling to process Frank’s comment. “I thought I’d keep talking at least until Frank gets there. Do you mind?”
“Do I mind if you talk to me… oh, yeah, that’s something I get so tired of, Jonathan-I-never-shut-up-Lyman.” Cara’s mocking tone sounded almost normal.
It didn’t last. Jonathan heard her plate clatter to the floor as tears flowed freely. “He got your key. He took the one thing I would hate to lose most. How could he take my key?”
“I doubt he went for the jugular on purpose. He just wanted whatever you had of value.”
“He didn’t take my earrings.”
“You were on the phone,” Jonathan reminded her. “He couldn’t risk it.” A new thought occurred to him. “Or maybe he didn’t see them with your phone covering and your hair—” Jonathan remembered his request for hair up and sighed.
Her whimper returned. Between sobs, she told him about the other woman. “If you hadn’t been talking to me—”
“Shh. I was. That’s all that matters. You’re safe, and they’re going to catch this guy.”
“But that poor woman…”
Jonathan didn’t know what to do. His natural instinct was to comfort her the same way he always comforted Riley, but it felt like treating her like a child too. As her tears became more audible, he threw hesitation aside and began to sing in his slightly off-key voice, “Be not dismayed what e’er betide. God will take care of you…”
Through every verse, with every passing minute, Jonathan kept singing. He felt like a fool. Harboring no grand illusions about his ability to sing, he remembered how Lily had sometimes winced as she heard him singing to the children and grimaced. Cara probably prayed that he’d stop. Finally, the last word wavered on his breath as he finished.
“Thank you. That was—that was just what I needed to hear.”
“I wish I sounded—” he hesitated, searching for the right word, but failed. “Better.”
“You sounded wonderful to me. Oh!” A knock at the door startled her. “I think Frank is here.”
“Make sure you look outside first.”
“Oh, Jonathan. I can’t live like this.”
“Open the door; I’m getting impatient.”
He heard her open the door and heard Frank ask if he could do anything for her. She thanked him, and even across the miles, Jonathan could hear the eagerness in her voice—eagerness to shut and bolt the door again. “It’s a brown box…small. Oh, ugh.”
Discouragement filled Jonathan’s gut. “What’s wrong?”
“I dropped my plate of food all over the carpet. I’m going to have to have my carpets cleaned.”
“They’ll never be able to do it. They’d have to completely pack your house and unpack it again.”
“Oh, hush!” She sliced the tape off the box and folded back the flaps, ignoring the plate of food still upturned in front of her couch. “Oh, no! No! Jonathan!”
Alone in his home office, Jonathan grinned. He heard both the excitement and pleasure hidden between tones of dismay. She liked it, even if she wasn’t comfortable admitting it. “I couldn’t leave you there without the key—”
“But he stole the key. He has it and I want the key back.” Cara sighed. “I sound like some histrionic drama queen from junior high.”
“Well, as is usual in cases of robbery and such, I had the locks changed and you needed the new key.”
A giggle escaped before she could prevent it. “Oh, that’s bad. That’s really pathetic.”
“Look what you gave me to work with!”
“Touché.” Cara fingered the key. “I miss the heart. It’s beautiful,” she hastened to add, as if afraid to sound ungrateful. “I just liked seeing the heart.”
“Turn it upside down.”
Upside down, the trio of rings that gave her key a slightly Celtic look did look like a heart. “Oh! I wouldn’t have thought—”
“I wanted you to have a heart. I could have gone for the silver, but it’s just costume jewelry. It seemed like I’d be replacing something of value with a cheap imitation.”
“You didn’t have to. I can only imagine how expensive that key was, and now it has cost you twice or more as much.”
“Not at all. I filed the insurance claim and it’ll be settled in no time.”
“Insurance? You had insurance on my pendant?” He waited as she fumbled with something. “I didn’t realize you could do that! I was going to ask my homeowner’s agent if it was covered.”
“Don’t. Your premiums will go up. I carry special jewelry insurance on all of the pieces I buy. I only buy for mother and my collection, but I added that one by habit.”
She twirled the key between her fingers. “I think I’m going to keep this in the drawer by my bed until you come back. I think maybe if you put this one on me it’ll stay put.”
“I’ll be there in the morning.”
“Don’t you dare!” Cara’s spunk seemed to return completely with that order. “I’d feel even worse than I do now.”
“Stop it.” An authoritative edge entered his voice unbidden. Taking a deep breath, he reminded himself that he had no right to speak like that, and tried again. “Cara mia, please don’t do that. All of your guilt just takes away from my gift. If you don’t want the ‘key to my heart,’ by all means, tell me now while I might recover.” His gentle teasing held a note of seriousness. “But, if it’s just about the money, please drop it. I’m no Midas, but I can well afford the pendant. I wanted you to have it. I tried—” He swallowed hard. “I tried to share my heart in giving it…”
“Thank you, Jonafan. I love my key.”
“Will you do something for me?”
“Anything.” Cara’s confidence seemed restored for the moment.
“Will you call Carly and ask her to come and stay with you?”
“Will you ever say the wrong thing at the wrong time?”
Jonathan chuckled, feeling at last as if things might just be normal again. “Frequently. Trust me.”
Chapter Nineteen
The next week passed by in a whirlwind of meetings, reports, two family dinners, and several calls from Officer Tiller. Twice, they thought they’d caught the man. Twice, Cara and the other victim left the station disappointed.
Carly spent any night Cara expected to be home late at Cara’s house. Jonathan called, emailed, and sent flowers to cheer her when a botched presentation earned her a bawling out by Derek. It had been truly one of the worst weeks of Cara’s life. By Friday night, she ached for a nice, long, relaxing weekend. Alone.
The sun had set and twilight rapidly approached as she reached the walkway to her home. A man stood on her porch, lingering in the shadows. Cara saw him and her panic meter revved into overdrive. She turned, kicked off her shoes, ran across the yard, down the steps to the parking area, and jumped in her
car. By the time she turned on the motor and backed out, a familiar face beamed at her through the windshield.
Cara rolled down the window. “Jacob Laban! What do you think you’re doing!”
His familiar laughter sent waves of nausea over her. How had she found that attractive? She remembered days when she’d swooned over that laugh. Now it sounded like a sick hyena to her. Furious, she pulled back into the parking space and stormed from the car.
“Do you have any idea how terrifying it was to see someone skulking in my doorway?”
“Skulking? I was waiting for you. I heard about your attack—”
“So,” she rephrased, each word dripping with sarcasm. “You decided it made sense to stand in the shadows of the house of the woman who just got attacked by a robber/rapist? I had no idea you were so asinine.”
Jacob stepped back, visibly shaken. “Wow, I heard you’d changed, but I never thought I’d hear you swear.”
Cara physically put her hand to her jaw to ensure it didn’t gape. Had he always been such an idiot? “Um, Jacob. I did not swear. It’s called making good use of our wide and varied language. Had I sworn, you’d recognize it as a four-letter rather than a seven-letter word.”
“Anyway, I heard about you and came right over. I was concerned.” Jacob dismissed the vocabulary discussion by ignoring it completely.
“Well, I’m fine. Thanks for asking.” She inserted her key and opened the door. When she turned to bid him “good evening,” he was gone. “Well, good day to you too.”
“What?”
Cara whirled. “What are you—how did you—aaaak.”
“So, did they catch the guy yet?” Jacob seemed oblivious to Cara’s discomfort.
For several minutes, she answered his questions in noncommittal tones and went about her evening routine. She placed shoes back in their clear plastic boxes in the coat closet. The sight of them drove her a little mad with frustration. Hadn’t she kicked them off in her flight from Jacob? When had she picked them up again?
Jacob asked questions and generally made a nuisance of himself while Cara set her laptop on her desk in her scrapping room and plugged in the charger. As she opened her mail, she filed and shredded each piece, taking as long as she possibly could.
Frustrated, she stormed into the kitchen and began pulling out frozen berries and yogurt. Perhaps a pre-dinner smoothie would cool her off. As she poured it into a glass, she hesitated. Should she offer him one? It seemed rude not to at least offer, but she did not want him to accept, and deep in her heart, she knew he would. “Would you like a smoothie before you go?”
“Where am I going?”
“Look, Jacob, I didn’t invite you here. I have plans for this evening, so, as rude as it sounds, you have fifteen minutes and then you need to leave.”
“Where are you going?”
“That,” she answered as she passed him a glass, “is none of your business.”
Sipping her berry smoothie, Cara punched her answering machine button and picked up her pen. As she took notes regarding a last minute Sunday school need, exterminator scheduler, and her mother’s latest outfit scheme, Jacob wandered through her kitchen and living room, flipping doilies, shifting clocks, and poking pillows as though a bargain hunter at a garage sale. Immediately, Cara made a mental note to thank Jonathan for showing respect for her things, even if he didn’t like them.
The last message warmed her heart. “I was just on the way home from a business dinner and realized that the ball is just four weeks away, and I didn’t know if you had covered the dress bases or not. I’ll be happy to have Mom call you. Oh, and I realized that your birthday is only two weeks after that, so why don’t we celebrate that while I’m in town too? Think you’ll have time? Okay, hitting some horrible traffic near home. Must be an accident. Better go.”
“Who was that?” The suspicious tone in Jacob’s voice would have been comical had it not been so audacious.
“A dear friend. Okay, time’s up. Goodnight. Thanks for the concern. Thanks for stopping by. It’s been good to catch up.”
“I wanted to take you out to dinner.”
“Well, I’m not available, am I? I think I told you that fifteen minutes ago.” Had he really expected to pick up where they left off—left off five years ago?
“Tomorrow night?”
With every ounce of patience she had left, Cara took his glass and hers to the sink, rinsed them, and turned them upside down on a kitchen towel. She’d wash them later. “Jacob, why are you here? Really. Don’t give me this ‘I was worried about you when I heard’ garbage. You could have called if you were worried. What’s going on?”
He tried to lead her to the couch, but she stood in the way and slowly backed him to the door. “You’re not staying, Jacob. Just tell me what you’re doing here and then go home. I’m tired, I have plans, and I don’t have time to play games.”
“I just missed you and when I heard—” He gave her the same puppy dog look that had once melted her in an instant. “I decided I wasn’t going to let another day go by without calling.”
“You didn’t call, you came.” She stared at him dumbfounded. When had she grown so cold? She felt no sympathy for him whatsoever.
“Well, I started to call and then I thought you might still be mad at me about graduation so—”
“You’re kidding me, right?” A look at Jacob’s face told her he was most certainly not kidding. “That was five years ago, Jacob. Honestly. How immature do you think I am? We dated in college; you were done when college was done. It’s over. I get it.”
“But I was just scared and stupid, and by the time I figured out what was wrong; it’d been a year or two…” Her jaw nearly dropped again as she realized he was actually trying to determine if it had been more than two years. “Anyway, I was embarrassed. But when I heard, I decided, embarrassed or not, I had to come make things right with you.”
“Make them right?” Cara’s echo sounded inane even to her own ears.
“Well, you know. Apologize. Start over. We’re both older and more mature now. I’m ready to settle down; you have a good career. We’re in a better position to move forward.”
Her first inclination was to laugh. She couldn’t imagine anything more hysterical at that moment than Jacob talking about “moving forward,” as though the past five years hadn’t disappeared in the interim. She’d grown, moved on, and after about three months of disappointment in the beginning, was quite relieved that he’d saved her from what probably would have been the biggest heartbreak of her life—a life with him with no escape.
However, the hopeful eagerness in his eyes, memories of happy times all those years ago, and her typical gentle nature, prevented her from saying or doing something she’d later regret. “I didn’t hear an apology anywhere, Jacob.”
“I should have talked to you about my fears instead of just dumping you like that. It was wrong and immature of me. I’m sorry.”
A more sincere apology, Cara had never heard. All walls of self-preservation crumbled. “I forgive you, Jacob. I think you felt pressured by me and everyone around us. I was just as wrong for not seeing that. Please forgive me.” With the door open, Cara nudged him through it. She smiled and gave him a weak wave. “I’m really glad you came by.” Jacob started to protest, but Cara just murmured, “Goodnight,” and shut the door.
“I’ll call…” Jacob told her when, but she didn’t listen.
The last thing Cara needed was to dread a call that she knew would be awkward. She refused to let him believe that they would pick up their relationship as though time froze them for a few years and then allowed them to defrost and continue to grow closer again.
Shrugging off the discomfort of future unpleasantness, Cara climbed the stairs, grabbed her waterproof mp3 player, and started a bath. She intended, for the second time in a week, to soak out her stress and frustrations until she felt fully relaxed. And, for the second time in as many days, she forgot to call Jonathan before she san
k beneath the bubbles, lost in the haunting music of Celtic Woman.
Every ounce of strength seemed to dissolve beneath the surface of the water as she let the words and music of “Caledonia” wash over her, soothing her heart, soul, and mind. She loved, craved these moments of respite from the corporate world and the demands on her time from friends and relatives, and somehow, they left her spirit ready for feeding from the Word. Cara tried to explain it to her mother once, but failed. How the voices of women that Cara couldn’t hope to sing along with could possibly prepare her mind for trysts with the Lord would likely remain an unsolved mystery.
Comfortably clad in her favorite summer pajamas, Cara skipped downstairs to find something for dinner. Cool air blasted her as she stared in to her empty fridge—empty save a dozen or so cans of Slim-Fast. Automatically, she closed the door and opened her freezer before opening the fridge again. Slim-fast. Jonathan. She’d forgotten to call again.
Dinner ignored, Cara grabbed her phone and carried it to the couch. She turned her CD player on and the sound of “Danny Boy” washed through the room. With the volume turned to barely audible, she dialed Jonathan’s number and waited for him to answer. However, Bryson answered with a carefully rehearsed, “Lyman residence, may I ask who is calling?”
“Hello, Bryson! It’s Cara. How are you this evening?”
“I’m good. Daddy is washing Riley’s hair. She got syrup in it.”
She smiled at the mental picture of Riley’s little pigtails dipped in syrup. “Syrup? What were you eating?”
“Daddy made breakfast for dinner. We had eggs, sausage, and waffles for dinner. Daddy makes the best waffles ever. I know his secret, but I’m not supposed to tell.”
“Well, then,” Cara said solemnly. “I think I’ll have to get him to tell me himself. That way I know but you didn’t break your word. What else did you and Riley do today?”
For the next ten minutes, Cara listened as Bryson told her about writing his whole name all by himself, how Riley learned to recognize the first letter of her name, and how she’d colored on the butcher-block counter that day. “Oh, my. That must have been hard to clean!”
Speak Now Page 19
