Homecoming (Sweet Hearts of Sweet Creek Book 1)

by Carolyne Aarsen

  “And what about my letter?”

  Nate looked away, chewing his lip. Behind him a neon sign flashed red, then white, then red, each change synchronized with the pounding of Sheryl’s heart.

  “You knew what was in it,” she urged.

  He turned to her then. “Yes I read it. I had to protect my dad from more hurt. I needed to know what you wanted after three years of silence.”

  “And you found out.” Sheryl was surprised at how quiet her voice came out. “You found out what I had to live with. You read my pleas, my fear. You coldheartedly sent it back. I had to live with the consequences.” She simply stared at him, her arms clasped tightly across her stomach, her fingers clenching the thin fabric of her coat. “Do you know what I had to live with after that?”

  Nate tried to shrug. Sorrow coiled like a snake through Sheryl, anger twisting her face. She drew back, and with quick, jerky motions pulled off her jacket and rolled up the sleeve of her shirt, exposing the two-inch scar on the inside of her upper arm. It was only a fine line now, a row of dots marching up either side of it from the sutures.

  “Beer bottle, busted across the bedpost,” she said, her voice flat as she struggled for control, remembering the pain, the humiliation. “He discovered I had hidden my tips from him. It was my grocery money for that month. He blew it in an hour.” She ignored his look of surprise as she drew up her skirt, exposing her thigh. “This one is a souvenir of the one time he picked up the mail and found the letter that you decided to send back.” She bent her head as she dropped her skirt. “I’m sorry, but the broken arm doesn’t show, or the bruises from the accident when —” Her voice broke and she pressed her fingers against her mouth, wishing, praying, her silent pleas desperate.

  Nate sat still as a statue while Sheryl battled her emotions. Around them life swirled on—people talking and laughing, saying hello and farewell. A baby cried and a father hushed it. Someone dropped a glass bottle, the brittle sound of smashing glass breaking in on Sheryl’s pain.

  “Last call for the five o’clock bus.” The announcement broke into the moment.

  Sheryl glanced over at Nate, anger and bitterness vying with her sorrow and regret. “That’s what I had to live with. That was the consequence of your sending my letter back.” As she watched him, she saw his face tighten, and he bit his lips, his gaze still downcast, his hands clutching his crutches.

  Sheryl got up as the tinny voice over the intercom propelled her into movement. She bent over and picked up her knapsack.

  “Sheryl.” Nate’s voice made her straighten. She looked over at him, wondering what he would have to say. Their eyes met Was that pain she saw in his eyes? Regret? Sorrow? Or only her deep desire that he show some kind of emotion? But he said nothing more, his face devoid of expression.

  For a moment she stared at Nate as he sat, still holding on to his crutches as if they were his only defense. Sheryl drew in a trembling breath, flipped her knapsack over her shoulder and walked away without a backward glance.

  Chapter 13

  The steady thump of the wheels as they hit the frost heaves on the QE2 would have lulled Sheryl to sleep at any other time. But each time she closed her eyes thoughts, memories and events flipped and whirled around her mind like a kaleidoscope.

  Almost two weeks had passed since she and Mark had driven down this road, and she felt as if she had lived a lifetime.

  With a resigned sigh she turned her head and looked out the tinted windows watching the fields flow past The grain had already turned a pale gold, and here and there swaths of hay lay, awaiting the baler.

  In a month the harvest would begin, and back at Sweet Creek, Mark would have one more cut of hay. A month after that the cattle would be ready to be brought home, calves weaned and shipped. When she’d lived in Sweet Creek she had helped with each part of the operation.

  In her mind she already saw Mark on his horse, herding the cattle down the trails from the far pastures, she could hear the din of the cows and calves bawling as they got separated for weaning, taste the dust of their milling feet as they were squeezed down to smaller and smaller pens until they were finally run through the chute one at a time for their shots and treatments.

  And what would she be doing at that time?

  Sheryl closed her eyes, trying to alleviate the momentary flash of panic. She was headed home to no job and an apartment she knew she had to move out of before it got condemned. All she had to show for eight years of living away from Sweet Creek was a pile of schoolbooks and mismatched furniture. She hoped she could find a job. Government and businesses all were downsizing, and the last time she had gone job hunting, there were thirty applicants for each of the jobs she had applied for.

  I won’t be scared, she thought, biting her lip. She looked down at her knapsack and pulled out the gift Elise and the girls had given her. She hadn’t unwrapped it yet, preferring to savor the mystery of it and to just enjoy the notion that someone had thought enough about her to set something aside and wrap it up.

  Now would be as good a time as any, she thought, carefully peeling off the ribbons and putting them in her knapsack. The tape was next, each piece meticulously pulled off, and then with a smile she folded back the paper.

  A couple of bars of soap wrapped in a pretty handkerchief and a worn book. She sniffed the soap and turned over the book.

  It was a small Bible. Her old one.

  Inside it was a short note from Elise. Sheryl unfolded it and read it. Elise and the girls had found the Bible when they’d cleaned up the cabin for her arrival. They thought she might like to have it back. On the bottom of the letter Crystal and Marla had scrawled their names, and Elise had signed the letter simply “Elise” and put their phone number and address on the bottom.

  Sheryl folded up the letter and set it aside. She opened the Bible to the flyleaf, tracing the inscription there with trembling fingers. Ed’s delicate handwriting, so at odds with his character, showed that the Bible had been presented to her on the day of her mother’s marriage to him, sixteen years ago, and given to her with the hope that they might become a family that feared God.

  They had feared God, at least Sheryl had learned to, she thought, flipping the delicate parchment pages of the Bible. And as for the family part...

  Sheryl sighed lightly. It was no longer as easily decided who and what to blame. She had other experiences and other views to meld in with her own. She smoothed out a wrinkled page, her eyes falling on a childish scrawl in the margin. It simply said, “I love God and he loves me.”

  She remembered again the peace that had flowed over her whenever she’d prayed with the Andrews family and knew it wasn’t just their presence that had created that.

  How she longed for that peace now, she thought, turning the pages randomly, glancing at passages, remembering the cadences and the rhythms of words buried deep in her past.

  She came to the New Testament. Partway through she found a paper wedged between the pages of 2 Corinthians. Curious to see what she had put there, she opened it up. It was an old church bulletin dated the same week she and Jason had left. She glanced over the familiar names, the announcements. Suddenly she noticed under the heading “Church Family,” “Welcome to the Andrews family who will be moving from Vanderhoef and will be making their home here with some of their children. Rick, Elaine and Elise.” Her heart thudded heavily in her chest as she read and reread it. She hadn’t realized that their coming had been that close. Missed each other by days!

  Her throat felt dry as she folded it up again, her fingers shaking.

  God has a plan, Mark had said, a reason for things happening the way they did. What would have happened had she waited? Would she have met Mark? What would he have thought of her?

  She knew the answer to that. Cocky, rebellious and angry. He would have had nothing to do with her then. So what had changed? She had spent eight years with Jason, she had been refused sanctuary from her father... correction her stepbrother.

  Sheryl
slipped the paper back into the Bible, trying to sort out her confused feelings. She should hate her stepbrother for what he did.

  But somehow she couldn’t. She had spent too much time hating, fighting down fears and trying to be strong. It only took from her and left her feeling empty.

  Sheryl looked down at the Bible again, her eyes glancing over the familiar passage, and suddenly her eye caught it. A verse with a star inked beside it. God’s words: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” And then a little further on Paul speaking: “When I am weak then I am strong.”

  It didn’t seem to make sense and yet it did. When she had broken down in Mark’s arms, when she’d allowed someone to give to her, allowed herself to become weak, that was when she had felt renewal come into her.

  When she’d allowed herself to forgive her stepfather, when she had confessed her part in what had happened, shown her weakness, then she’d felt peace and love overcome her.

  Releasing her breath in a cleansing sigh, Sheryl laid her head back, her hand resting on the words she had just read. She didn’t know what lay ahead, but she felt she would just have to trust that somehow maybe Mark and Ed were right Maybe God did have a reason for things happening the way they did.

  “Tory, it’s me.” Sheryl rubbed her forehead with her index finger, clutching the handset of her cell phone as she stared at the building across the street. If this was any indication of some great plan of God, she wondered if maybe the blueprint wasn’t upside down.

  The blackened hulk of her apartment block stared back at her, the acrid smell of smoke still lingering in the air. It had burned down last night, she was told. Had she come home when she’d originally planned she might have been able to salvage her books, the expensive correspondence courses that she had scrimped to buy.

  “Hi, Sheryl.” Tory’s excited voice reassured her that she had done the right thing in calling her friend. “How are you?”

  Sheryl shook her head, grimacing. “Don’t ask.”

  “Well, where are you?”

  “Standing across from what’s left of my apartment.”

  “Oh, no!” Tory’s gasp came clearly across the line. “I wondered if that was your place when I heard it on the news this morning.”

  “Well, wonder no more. I’ve officially joined the ranks of the homeless.” Sheryl stopped herself, vowing she wasn’t going to cry over a pile of rubble that had never been a home to her, only a dwelling.

  “You stay right there. Don’t move. I’ll come and get you right away.”

  “No, Tory, that’s okay. I just...” Just needed to connect with someone, needed to talk to you, she added to herself, and I didn’t dare ask.

  “Sheryl,” Tory said her voice angry. “Don’t you dare even protest or I’ll get even angrier. Now promise me you won’t move?”

  Sheryl nodded. She couldn’t speak.

  “Sheryl?”

  “I won’t,” she whispered. “Thanks.” She ended the call, biting her lip. I won’t cry, she thought, pressing her fist against her mouth, staring at the mess across the road. I hated living there, it was a horrible place. But it had held all she’d had of eight years of her life. It had held her books and clothes and all her personal things.

  Concentrate on something else, Sheryl thought. Count how many seconds it will take Tory to get here. Minutes later A small white vehicle screeched to a halt in front of her, and before it even rocked back, Tory was out and flying around the hood of the car.

  “Sheryl, oh, you poor girl,”

  Sheryl felt herself enfolded in arms that clung and hands that stroked. “You come and stay with us, girl. We have room. You come with me,” Tory murmured over and over again.

  And then Sheryl began to cry. Again.

  “Mr. Carlton’s office, Sheryl speaking,” Sheryl tucked the phone under one ear, typed the message on her computer screen and clicked Print, directing it to Adrian’s printer in his office. “Thank you, Mrs. Donalds. I’ll see he gets the message right away.”

  She got approximately five characters typed when the phone rang again. A quick glance at the clock told her it was 5:10 and if she didn’t watch it she would end up talking to another one of Adrian’s clients past suppertime.

  Tory had gotten her this job working for a lawyer’s office. It wasn’t close to her dream job of becoming a teacher, but it paid the bills while she went to night school.

  She grabbed the phone, tucking it under her ear and repeated her greeting.

  “It’s just me?” Tory yelled.

  In spite of Tory’s raised voice, Sheryl could barely hear her over the background noise of her husband’s mechanic’s shop. Compressors rumbled, pneumatic drills sang, and someone was clanging on a piece of metal.

  Shortly after Sheryl had left for Sweet Creek, Tory’s husband, Mike, purchased the shop where he worked, and Tory gladly had left her job at Dave’s bar to help.

  “Just fine,” Sheryl said, raising her own voice. “I’m getting the hang of things.”

  “Great I’m so glad Mike kept that lawyer’s business card. I knew it would come in handy. Hey, before I left for the garage I got a call from someone named Elise. She just phoned to say hello and asked me to give you the message. Is this one of the Sweet Creek folk?”

  Sheryl paused, her heart beginning an errant rhythm. “Did she say what she wanted?” Sheryl asked.

  “No. Just phoned to chat.” Tory spoke to someone, then she said, “Hey, I got to run. I’ll be working late, but I put a casserole in the oven. You’ll be okay?”

  “I’ll be fine, Tory.”

  “Good. See you later, eh?” Tory clicked off, and Sheryl hung up the phone feeling slightly dazed.

  She had phoned Elise the day after she’d moved in with Tory and Mike, to give her Tory’s home number as well as her cell phone, just in case something happened with Ed.

  “Sheryl, it’s past quitting time:”

  Sheryl looked up into the grinning face of one of the law students, Jordan Calder.

  “I’ve just got this letter to finish, then I’ll go.”

  “Sheryl, has anyone ever told you that you work too hard?” Jordan laid her arms across the smoked glass partition that separated Sheryl’s desk from the hallway and rested her chin on them, her brown eyes narrowed. “If you’re not working late, it’s evening courses at the university. You put in more hours than I do, and I’m supposed to be almost-a-lawyer. Is relaxation not in your vocabulary?”

  Sheryl said nothing, only continued typing. “I just want to do a good job,” she murmured, frowning at Adrian’s scribbled note across a letter.

  “Adrian’s been practically drooling since you came. You could ask for double what you earn now and he’d give it to you.” Jordan finger combed her short hair, the dark strands falling perfectly into place.

  “I’m making enough.” Sheryl ignored her comment and turned the letter to Jordan. “You’ve read enough of Adrian’s scribbles, what do you suppose that says?”

  Jordan took the paper from her, squinting as she turned it first this way then that. “It’s getting clearer. It says, ‘Go home.’”

  “I doubt that” Sheryl laughed reaching for the paper.

  “I’ll hand it over tomorrow.” Jordan held the paper out of reach and, bending around, switched Sheryl’s monitor off, ignoring her polite protest. “The way you type, you can have it done in a couple of minutes on Monday. Time to quit. The weekend is calling.”

  Accepting defeat, Sheryl stood, slipped on her sweater and closed the file on her desk.

  “Someday you’ll thank me for this,” Jordan said, waiting as Sheryl walked past her. “Believe me, work isn’t everything.”

  Sheryl smiled as they walked down the now-empty hall toward the reception area. Jordan Calder was not a typical law student. She worked as much as she thought she should and didn’t have the same hunger that usually typified student lawyers. And once she was off work, Jordan was fun and good for a few laughs. />
  “You’re lucky Adrian was out today, otherwise I’m sure I’d have to help you finagle your way out of yet another request for a date,” Jordan said, punching the ground floor number as they stepped into the elevator. “I’ve never seen him so stuck on anyone before.”

  Sheryl let the comment pass. “He’s a good boss.”

  Jordan rolled her eyes. “Goodness, girl. I’ve never met anyone so obviously unaware of her own good looks. If you dropped that cool and composed act you’d have guys hanging all over you.”

  “I’ll keep it then. That’s the last thing I want or need.”

  “Oh don’t tell me someone as gorgeous as you is a man hater?” Jordan wailed. “I hate it when that happens.”

  “I’m not a man hater.”

  “Next you’re going to tell me that you don’t want the complication. As if guys are some kind of problem to figure out.” The elevator stopped, and the doors swished open. Jordan flung her purse over her shoulder and picked up her briefcase as they stepped out, their footsteps echoing on the marble floor of the foyer. “Now me. I’ve had to claw my way to the bottom of this little law firm. I’m allowed to be disillusioned and cynical. You’re not.”

  “Men aren’t a complication, Jordan. It’s just that they want so much and give so little,” Sheryl said as she paused to button up her coat.

  Jordan narrowed her eyes at Sheryl. “You’re basing your judgment on a narrow experience. There’re lots of generous, good-hearted guys out there.”

  Jason wasn’t, thought Sheryl, shoving her hands in her coat pockets. Ed wasn’t, Nate wasn’t.

  Her thoughts quit as a gust of wind swirled through the foyer. The doors were shoved open and a tall figure strode into the entrance. Long brown hair hung on his shoulders, his jean jacket sat easily on broad shoulders, his long legs easily covered the distance between them.

  Sheryl’s heart leaped to her throat. Her purse slipped out of numb fingers spilling on the floor as she took a step toward him.