Gerald winced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see that it would hurt anyone, with the cattle thief gone.”
“And you hit my father instead of Krueger?” Bertie asked. “Why? What were you doing on our land?”
“It didn’t happen on your land,” Gerald said. “It was on Krueger’s land. I’d just followed him from your place, where he’d tried to rustle another calf from your herd. I’d gotten tired of waiting for the sheriff to help us with our rustling problem and the vandalism, and I decided to take it on myself to find who was doing it.”
“So it really was Krueger doing the rustling?” Red asked.
Gerald nodded. “I didn’t realize Joseph had also been watching him. By the time I followed Krueger back to his place after his failed attempt to catch the calf, it was getting dark. I turned and saw a shadow of someone behind me, thought it was Krueger, and that he was coming after me. I grabbed the first thing I could find to hit him. It was a board. I didn’t realize until afterward that it had nails in it. When I saw that it wasn’t Krueger, but Joseph, I think I…I know I went a little crazy.”
“But why did you try to hide it?” Bertie asked.
“I’m sorry, Bertie. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I never meant to hurt your father, I was trying to help. But when I discovered what I’d done, and Krueger witnessed it, I threatened to tell the sheriff that Krueger was the one who killed Joseph. It would have been easy to convince Butch, especially since Krueger was the rustler. I was also thinking of my wife and son. How could I let Ivan come home from that war to find his father had killed the father of one of his best friends?”
“But Dad, you lied to save yourself,” Ivan said. “You let Bertie and Red and the rest of us wonder all this time who could have done this. You even encouraged Red to try to find the killer. Why?”
Gerald shook his head. “I thought Red would surely come to the same conclusion everyone else has. I told Krueger if he would pack up and leave immediately, I wouldn’t tell the sheriff anything, but I wanted that land.”
“For Ivan’s future,” Red said.
Gerald nodded. “Forgive me, I was thinking of my wife and son. The Exchange is doing okay financially, but we don’t have land, nothing to leave for our son. Nothing from me. Only from Arielle’s family. I’m a proud enough man I need to know I’ve passed a legacy on to my son and grandchildren.”
“With the dam coming in a few years,” Red said, “Krueger’s property will be lakefront property.”
Gerald nodded. “Like I said, I’d do anything for my son.”
“What about the swastikas, the gassed cat in Bertie’s house?” Red asked.
Gerald shook his head, gesturing to Gramercy’s body. “I’m thinking he did it. There’s no other reason he’d have been at Krueger’s house the night of Joseph’s death, because he never made a secret of the fact that he hated Krueger. He came to me later and told me he saw what I did, and he wanted a cut.”
“He was blackmailing you?” Ivan asked.
Gerald nodded, then looked at Bertie, sorrow etched deeply into every line of a face that seemed to have aged far too much in the past few minutes. “That wasn’t why I killed him, Bertie. You have to believe that. I couldn’t let him hurt you. I’d rather go to prison for the rest of my life than be responsible for your death.”
Red’s arms automatically tightened around her as Ivan scrambled down the cliff side to his father.
This was just one more wound that would haunt the history of Hideaway.
Red and Bertie made it to the top of the cliff before Edith returned with a blanket and wrapped it around Bertie. Its warmth felt good, in spite of the heat of the day. Bertie wasn’t sure she would ever recover from the chill that had settled deep inside her.
And yet, the healing touch of Red’s concern, his obvious caring, his dedication to her safety was beginning to work its way through the icy feel of her skin.
Edith hugged her tightly. “Are you going to be okay, honey?” she whispered in Bertie’s ear.
Bertie lied. “I’ll be fine.”
“Then I’ll leave you in Red’s capable care. The sheriff’s loading Gerald in his car. John’s with Ivan, and they’re going to go tell Arielle what’s happened.”
Bertie nodded. “You go on. I’ll be…okay.”
Edith kissed her on the cheek, squeezed Red’s arm, and turned to follow the trail back to the farmhouse.
Bertie felt battered as she walked beside Red up the cow trail behind Edith. She couldn’t bear to think about Gerald. How could she ever face Ivan or Arielle again? How would Gerald ever be able to face his family?
“I kind of know how Gerald feels,” Red said, his voice quiet, filled with the sadness that Bertie felt.
“You didn’t kill a neighbor, then try to hide the truth for your own benefit.”
Red looked down at her. “Who is my neighbor? Someone who lives down the road from me? Or is it someone who saved my life once?”
“Red, you were fighting a war. You did what you had to do.”
“Gerald was trying to find the cattle rustler. Yes, he lost his way, and didn’t own up to what he did. You may never forgive him for what he did to your father. I figure there’ll always be someone in Germany who’ll never forgive me for killing their son, their brother.”
“But it’s not the same thing.”
He stopped and turned to her. Still leaning on his cane, with his free hand he reached up and cupped the side of her face. “I’ve been doing some thinking, and I’ve decided you’re not gonna get any easier to handle.”
“You make me sound like a plow mule.”
A shadow of the old Red peeked from his eyes. “As long as you keep stepping into trouble, you’re gonna need somebody to follow along behind and get you out.”
“You have anybody in mind for that chore?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I figure there’s nobody around who knows you better than I do, so I’ll have to take the job to make sure it gets done right.”
She gazed up into those beautiful blue eyes that reflected the color of the James River on a sunny day. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I’ll have to do all I can to get this leg better if I’m gonna keep up with you. I think you came out here to gather comfrey.”
She nodded.
“Then maybe we should get started on those treatments as soon as possible.”
“You mean now? Today?”
He nodded.
She threw her arms around him. Finally, he realized it was possible to heal. Her Red was coming home at last.
“There was another death two thousand years ago that covers everything we’ve seen in this war,” Red said, still holding her, his touch gentle, loving.
“He paid it all then,” she said. “The Savior willingly laid down His life for me, for you, for Fritz.”
“For Gerald.”
She nodded.
“It helps me to think about that when I think about Fritz,” Red said. “I don’t know if Fritz or his family will ever forgive what I did to him, but I know now that I had no choice. It was war. I had to fight, or I could’ve died, and then you and Ma and a lot of other people would have been going through what his family must be going through now.”
“You’ll probably always have that ache in your chest when you think about Fritz, but living with the constant guilt isn’t the best way to honor Fritz’s death.”
Red reached up and touched her cheek. “I think you’re right.”
“I’m sorry. I’m preaching,” she said. “You told me not to do that.”
He pulled her closer. “Do you know how much I’ve missed you? I didn’t realize a feller could miss a gal so much, especially when she’s right up on the next floor in the same house.”
She let him draw her to his chest, so grateful to see signs of her old Red back in place, she wanted to sing in spite of the day’s pain. Instead, she kissed him. And then she kissed him again, and very nearly swooned right over when he kissed h
er back with all the fervor of the old Red.
She let him wrap her in his strong arms, and she rested her head on his chest, and thanked God in her heart for the touch of the man she loved more than anyone else in the world.
“I don’t suppose you’d ever given any thought to my question last year,” he said, his voice rumbling deep in his chest.
“Which question?”
“The one where I asked if you’d be interested in never leaving Hideaway again, once we returned.”
She leaned back to look up at him. “Why, Red Meyer, if that isn’t a proposal, then I’ve not learned to read you as well as I thought I had.”
He drew her close again, tangling his fingers in her hair. “Will you marry me, Roberta Moennig?”
“You’d better believe I will, Charles Frederick Meyer. I’ve been waiting to hear those words for far too long.”
“How about these words,” he said, brushing his fingers against her cheek and looking into her eyes, his gaze serious. “I’ll love you ’til the day I die. That’s a promise you can count on.”
Epilogue
On August 15, 1945, the day after World War Two ended, Bertie grinned at Second Lieutenant Charles Frederick Meyer as she watched him walk to the front of the church, cane-free, with barely a limp.
He turned to wait for her, his attention completely on her, his blue eyes shining with the love he had shown her throughout the war in so many ways—through his letters, his constant thoughts of her, his determination to protect her at any cost, even if it meant denying his love for her.
There was no denial of that love in his expression now, a fact that no one in the packed church could miss.
Red wore his full dress uniform, his Bronze Star and his Purple Heart amidst several other medals across his chest. He wore them with pride.
Ivan joined him, to stand beside him as best man. In spite of all, their friendship had remained strong, and Bertie had grown to admire her good friend even more in the painful weeks since Gerald’s arrest. His mother, Arielle, had stepped into the breach at the MFA Exchange, and was now running the place during her husband’s absence. Ironically, what would ordinarily have been the family’s disgrace had served to unite Arielle to the town of Hideaway as nothing else had done.
Bertie fumbled with her bouquet as she struggled to battle tears. How she loved this town. This church.
This was the church where, two months ago, her father’s funeral had been conducted. The contrast between that day—the result of pain upon pain—and this day of joy and triumph could not be more dramatic.
Edith Frost, Bertie’s dearest friend, walked ahead of her down the aisle, holding a small bouquet of yellow roses from Lilly’s garden.
The past two months had been a battle, for sure, right here in Hideaway, as Bertie learned to forgive those who had hurt her and her family, and as Red learned to trust her to help him heal physically.
Yes, this day was a triumph, indeed.
Bertie took Lloyd’s arm and followed slowly behind Edith. Bertie proudly wore the pale green dress of chiffon and lace her mother had worn at her wedding.
The church was full of people she loved. She winked at Louise Morrow, who stood smiling at her from the aisle, eyes filmed with tears. She squeezed Lloyd’s arm as they passed by his wife, Mary, and his children, Steven and Joann. God had answered their prayers. Lloyd didn’t have tuberculosis. He’d been able to return home to his family.
Recently, he and Mary had decided to move back to Hideaway. They had enough money saved for a down payment on the Kruegers’ old place, and the Moennig property was now double the size it had been.
One of Bertie’s most difficult decisions had been to forgive the man who had killed her father. She hadn’t thought it would be so hard. After all, it had been an accident. At the time, Gerald had been trying to protect the town. It had turned out to be more painful than she’d expected, but the day she went to Gerald at the jail and told him to his face she forgave him, had been the day his whole family began to heal.
He would be home soon, and she knew she would have yet another battle to fight with herself as Gerald struggled to regain the trust he had broken with friends and family.
Bertie was distracted from thoughts of Gerald by the sight of young Pearl Cooper standing between her parents, eyes as wide and hopeful as any young girl’s as she watched Bertie come down the aisle. Pearl was a beauty, and she had taken every chance to sit by Bertie at church on Sunday—when her parents allowed her to attend church at all. Bertie prayed as she walked that Pearl would be able to overcome tribulations in her own family history, and build a new legacy.
As Edith reached the front, she turned to stand beside Ivan. Those two lovebirds had a strong start. Edith had stood beside Ivan throughout his father’s trial and jail sentencing, and had become good friends with Arielle, assisting her at the Exchange. If Edith ever left Hideaway, Bertie would be amazed.
Cecil Martin, proud Marine, stood watching the procession from near the front of the church. He, too, was home to stay, and was already preparing his high-school classroom for upcoming science projects.
Bertie reached the altar and released her brother’s arm as she held her hands out to Red. Together they turned to face the minister.
Today was their triumph, a triumph for the town, a triumph of the heart. Red and Bertie Meyer would soon have a whole future to explore together.
When their union was sealed with a kiss, the whole congregation applauded their approval. The old Red was back. Red and Bertie Meyer would be a force for good in their beloved town of Hideaway.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-1442-6
HIDEAWAY HOME
Copyright © 2008 by Hannah Alexander
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