by LoRee Peery
She read aloud:
Dearest Shana,
We were both going on emotions last night. It would not have been right for me to stay here. I rested until I knew you were sleeping. Didn’t want to wake you when I left.
Guess I need to give you some breathing room. I’ll be at Rita’s, and then head home. I’ll be in touch.
I do love you. I was searching and didn’t know what, who, I was missing until you came into my life.
Love, Creighton.
Shana slumped into the kitchen chair and buried her face in her folded arms. She had pretty much laid out that she didn’t need him. But she hadn’t meant for him to leave! Her distress turned to prayer. She sought the Lord for guidance to get over these knocks.
No money. No job. No car.
No future with Creighton?
But she would get this Sammi Ambrose out of her life. Fortified after pouring her heart out to the Lord, Shana grabbed for the index of the yearbook to test her memory. She flipped to the correct page and frowned over the effort to focus on a picture of the teen in question.
Her kitchen door burst open.
“You mangy, spoiled brat.” Saliva flew from the banshee’s lips with the verbal attack. “Why couldn’t you have stayed on that ranch?”
Shana jumped out of her chair, too stunned to consider the proper reaction to this crazed woman. She recognized Sammi Ambrose immediately, yet she looked so different.
Sickened to her core, Shana understood more in an instant than she could take in. Instead of long dark hair and black clothing, Sammi now mirrored Shana in appearance. Identical curly hair, Shana’s missing beige jacket over her fuchsia camisole, and khakis.
“You’ve ruined it all by coming back.” Madness glinted in Sammi’s eyes.
A rancid perfume mixed with sweat permeated the air. Alarm for her own safety dropped like lead in Shana’s chest.
Calm. You have to remain calm.
“For the first time in my life I’ve had enough money to walk in a store and buy whatever I wanted.”
Sammi, so close now that Shana could feel her fetid breath, spewed more emotion than a roomful of recovering addicts.
Shana felt too paralyzed to move more than her nostrils to draw in some air.
“You’ve ruined my life.” A crazed look entered Sammi’s eyes. “In school you had it all together. Top grades. Parents who always gave you what you needed. You’ve never had to go without.”
Shana twitched inside, empathizing with the hurt, lost teen instead of the woman before her. She felt as though Sammi expected her to defend herself, but Shana had no clue what to say.
“The difference has always been clear,” Sammi raged. “You grew up one of the haves. I grew up a have-not.”
The assurance she was not alone flowed throughout Shana’s body. She knew what she had to do. Lord, give me strength.
“I might have some real fun by wiping you out. Forever.” Sammi Arnold retreated towards the counter, and warned, “Don’t move. Don’t even breathe.”
Shana had had enough of being told what she could and could not do.
Sammi grabbed for a knife.
Shana was quicker. Restraint training took over. She slammed Sammi to the floor.
Sammi fought against the restraint, spouting expletives.
Steadfast and unfaltering, Shana held on with a mighty, unknown calm, far beyond her comprehension.
****
The next day, Shana gathered garage sale items and piled them around the sofa, more thankful than she could say for the routine activity. After all, that’s what she had decided to do for a little money earlier, while she was at the ranch.
It had truly been a long day.
She eventually slid her feet into canvas slides. She was surprised to discover that it was late afternoon. She walked four blocks to a corner convenience store for the daily paper. With her hands no longer occupied, her mind opened up to recent events.
Instinct and training enabled Shana to restrain Sammi Ambrose after she had stormed in. But Shana realized a large amount of heavenly strength must have assisted. Once they had scooted down to the floor, all the fight went out of Sammi, who turned catatonic by the time Shana’s 9-1-1 call was answered.
Shana couldn’t recoup her monetary loss, or the loss of her car, or job, but she smiled at the memory of her talk with Investigator Shelbourne.
He had shaken his head in disbelief. “You mean to tell me that after all that’s taken place, you refuse to file charges against Sammi Ambrose?”
“Isn’t that what Jesus would do? Seek help for the lost instead of retribution?”
Sammi would pay the legal charges that had nothing to do with Shana.
But Shana could have had Sammi put away for a long time. Impersonation, fraud, home invasion, grand theft auto, attempted assault, pain, and suffering—she imagined the list could grow on.
But what would Shana gain from such an action?
The bottom line was Sammi needed help unavailable behind bars.
Her parents waited in the driveway when Shana returned from the convenience store.
Shana’s mother jumped out of the passenger side. “I called you at work and they said you were no longer there!” She enveloped Shana in a safe hug.
“Then I asked for Rita.” Carol swiped a hand across Shana’s cheek. “Oh, honey, why didn’t you call?”
By this time, Shana was engulfed in the broad chest and comforting, studious smell of her father.
“Let’s go in, shall we?” Shana suggested after another hug.
Seated at the kitchen table, her mom fingered Creighton’s note and her dad ran a finger over the rusty barbed wire on one of the candleholders. Shana didn’t want her parents to dampen her closeness with Creighton. But she imagined they were nervous, as well.
“It’ll turn out for the best.” She tried to reassure them with a smile. “Really.”
Shana looked from one to the other. A tear balanced on her mother’s lower lashes.
Her father frowned.
“I admit. Yesterday was more than a little tough.” She nodded at the pale blue note paper. “Creighton was here.”
“Shana,” Her mother hesitated and glanced at her father.
Shana interrupted. “He helped me a lot.”
“I’m glad. I know we only met briefly, but somehow I sense a darkness about him. Do you know his past?”
“I do. And we’re fine. If there’s something dark about Creighton, it goes back to anger at himself more than anything. There’s the normal family stuff, but I know if he ever gets angry with me, we’ll work it out. I’ll go through the job ads on the internet.”
Her parents sat without speaking, looking at her with a mixture of emotions spread across their faces— confusion on her dad’s, and compassion on her mother’s. They wanted to spoil their only child.
But she was a woman now, not a girl. “The Pines is giving me one month’s severance pay. No more auto deposit for me, I’ll pick it up personally. That’ll take care of rent. But, Mom, I’ll probably need the use of your car until I can lease something once I’m working again. Dad, I’ll repay you for the rent you covered as soon as I can.”
He finally spoke, “You won’t take a loan for a car?”
“No way. Let the bank keep the expensive ones.”
“You won’t come home until you get back on your feet?”
“Sorry, Mom. But I’m a big girl, now.” A huge smile bloomed as she realized how strong she really did feel. “Besides, I’ve got God on my side.”
No One better for my corner of the world.
She stood and planted a kiss on a cheek of each parent.
“Let me get you something to drink,” she offered, “and I’ll tell you about meeting my new Best Friend.”
21
Creighton swiped his brow with a forearm. With sweat-free vision, his gaze followed the tree-lined creek. The cottonwoods glowed yellow in the bright November sunlight. He turned towards the
bellowing echoes where Roger’s cattle milled in a temporary corral. The low diesel rumble of twin big-rig engines filled the air. Hired help stirred up dust as the men separated cows from calves.
Winter preparations on the ranch were well underway and had all the men busy.
He turned back to the job at hand, splitting firewood. Before the lowered ax split the next chunk of wood, he envisioned Shana as he’d last seen her. His soul ached, he missed her so much. They had confessed their love for one another. So what was he doing here? Alone? As the two pieces of wood clunked to the ground, he jerked up his head as a flash of red, and rubbed his eyes at the mirage.
But a real Shana meandered his way.
His feet were rooted to the ground. A punch could turn him into a bobble-head.
Her smile shone as golden as the day. Her eyes sparkled bluer than any sky. Her dark curls bounced longer, richer looking than any bountiful soil a rancher could pray for.
He couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. He needed her. He loved her.
“Hey, big guy.” She beamed, arms outstretched.
Her voice released his immobility. Creighton ran. When he felt her warm flesh, he picked her up and swung her around. The warmth of vanilla wound its way through him. “Oh, how I’ve missed you.”
“Now, come on. We’ve talked nearly every night.” Her voice came out saucy.
He teased her right back. “You haven’t missed me like I’ve missed you?”
“Welllll—” She ran her fingers through his hair and brushed his lips with her own. “You know I have.”
Creighton groaned. He tightened his hold and drank from her lips. When he broke for air, he managed to say against her hair, “So what brings you to my neck of the woods, pretty lady?”
She straightened and wiggled back to look at him. She caught her tongue between her teeth and lifted a brow. “I’ve been offered a job at Hope Circle. Think you could handle having me live as close as O’Neill?”
He whooped and threw his hunter green cap in the air. He rested his hands on her shoulders. “Now what do you think? I love you, woman.” Creighton lifted her and circled. “Will you come be my love and live with me here? Have my children?”
She leaned back against the crook of his arm and yelled to the heavens, “Yes!”
They kissed again, her embrace tight around his neck.
“Now that we’re agreed on that, you’re positive about letting off Sammi Ambrose?”
“She didn’t get off, Creigh, I just didn’t add my charges. She’s facing enough.”
“Are you excusing her?”
“Not at all, but imagine yourself at age nine. Actually, go back further than that. She was born in a bathtub in a trailer house in Alvo. She grew up with drugs in the house. Her parents were busted for meth and disappeared from her life.
“There are no coincidences with God, like you going through treatment at Hope Circle in O’Neill where I’m going to work. Sammi lived at The Pines in between foster homes until she was sixteen. Sammi, in some twisted way, decided she wanted to be me. To have my life.”
Creighton played with a curl, cupping it behind her ear and between his fingers.
“We had a few high school classes together. Sammi studied and envied my life. To her way of thinking, she was never treated as anyone worthwhile. In her eyes, I represented a spoiled girl who had every advantage in the world.”
He wrapped her close and kissed the top of her head. Creighton pulled back and focused on her mouth before he looked her in the eye. “I want to tell you something.”
Shana nodded at his serious tone and loosened her hold.
He set her on her feet and they walked arm in arm to the swing under the cottonwood.
Creighton took the seat and invited her in.
She sat on his lap and relaxed against his chest.
“I’ve made peace with Thomas.” It was easier to say than he had ever imagined. “Tom believed that I abandoned him when I left home. He had so much hurt buried deep inside that after we spoke, I cried for a couple of days over the way he unloaded his heart.” Creighton drew in Shana’s familiar vanilla scent. “Dad hadn’t paid much attention to him until I went off to college. Then, according to Thomas, Dad berated him without let-up. Constantly taunted him about not doing the work around the ranch I had. Told him he was worthless. All the ugly things he used to say to me, he loaded onto Tom.”
Shana leaned to the side and looked up at Creighton. She smoothed a finger over his furrowed brow.
They were back on the ranch. They had each followed a long and winding road to the home God had chosen for them.
“We talked a long time, sweetheart.” Creighton smiled. “I’m healed of this inadequacy I’ve always felt. The only father I need is God. He’s enabled me to forgive my earthly dad, forgive myself, and—” Creighton started the swing in motion. “He’ll teach me how to be a father to our children.”
“Please, may we walk down the aisle before the kids come?” Shana teased.
He broke out in laughter. “Oh, how I want to be chasing you around the kitchen table when I’m ninety.”
She giggled and gave him a jaunty smile. “But what if I don’t want to be chased?” The greenish-blue eyes he’d love to look at until his dying day glistened and sparkled. “Or, I could be the one chasing you around the kitchen.”
He brought the swing to a halt.
They could make it here, with each other, in God’s country.
Her gaze met his and he leaned in for a kiss as healing as the hills, sealing their commitment to one another.
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