Orchard Hill Volume Two

by Kara Lynn Russell

  David took her arm and steered her into a coffee shop. “Let’s take a break.”

  “Okay, but I don’t want to take too long. I told Hope we’d be back early.” Sarah’s friend was watching Charity.

  Soon they were sipping their coffees in a quiet booth at the back of the shop.

  After a few minutes of silence, David put his mug down. “There’s something I have to ask you.”

  “OK. Go ahead.”

  “Are you sure you want to go through with this engagement thing. You don’t have to, you know. There’s still a chance that I could win the custody case without you.”

  A chance. That wasn’t very reassuring. “No, I want to do this.”

  “What exactly is it that makes you feel so compelled to keep Charity out of Beverly’s grasp.”

  “Isn’t that what you want, too?”

  “Of course it is. And, excuse me for saying this, but Charity is nothing to you. You hardly knew her before Maggie died. I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me.”

  Sarah stared at him for a moment, and then dropped her gaze. She supposed it was a reasonable question, but the answer was difficult for her.

  “I was a foster kid, on and off, for most of my childhood. I didn’t have a father and my mother…well, she has emotional problems. Sometimes she’d be fine, but then she’d get depressed and not get out of bed for days. Stuff like that.” She spoke mechanically, not allowing any emotion to color her words.

  “And you didn’t have a good experience, I take it.”

  “I had a lot of experiences, some good and some bad. But I’ve seen Beverly’s type before.”

  “And what type is that?”

  “She’s not doing this out of any love for Charity. She wants to adopt her because it will make her look good. She wants to be able to parade Charity around as an example of her goodness and generosity or something like that.”

  “Before you got to the restaurant last night, I asked her some questions about why she wanted to adopt Charity. It sounded to me that she was embarrassed by her brother abandoning his child.”

  “I believe that with help and nurturing, Charity will be able to overcome her disability and lead a normal life. But someone like Beverly will try to hide any weakness rather than encourage Charity to overcome it. She won’t hold up under all the demands Beverly would make on her.”

  “That’s why this is so important to you? You can relate to what she’s going through.”

  Sarah nodded, still not meeting his eyes. “I can’t allow that to happen to any child if I can do something to stop it.”

  “Sarah, you are a remarkable woman. I’ve never met anyone so generous, so willing to go out of her way for others.”

  “Oh, David, stop. You don’t need to flatter me to get my help.”

  “Will I ever get you to accept a compliment?” He shook his head at her and then drew something out of his pocket. It was a small, velvet covered box. He opened it, revealing the ring with the square cut diamond.

  It looked even bigger than it had in the store. That had to be a two carat stone at least. “Where did that come from?”

  David reached across the table for her hand. “I bought it while you were talking to Misty and Perry. I could tell you liked it.” He slid the ring onto her finger.

  “No, I didn’t. I told you it was too flashy, remember.”

  “I know you just said that because of the price.”

  She started to take the ring off her finger, but David stopped her. “It’s bought and paid for, Sarah. It’s your ring.”

  She pulled her hand away from him. “I can’t accept this.”

  “Why not? I can afford it.”

  “That’s not the point.” She was so agitated that it was difficult for her to remain in her seat.

  Again David reached out, this time capturing both her hands. “It would mean a lot to me if you accepted the ring.”

  She searched his eyes and saw nothing but sincerity in his warm gaze. “What if I lose it or something happens to the ring?”

  “Don’t worry. Insurance will cover it.”

  “I’ll…I’ll give it back after everything’s cleared up.”

  He didn’t reply to that statement, just took a long drink from his coffee mug, draining it. He set the mug down and asked, “Are you ready to go?”

  “Yes, I suppose we should head home.”

  “Who said anything about going home? We have more shopping to do.”

  David insisted on dragging her to the mall where they bought some new clothes for Charity. Mostly fall stuff because David said what she had from last year was a size smaller.

  “I can’t believe you even thought to check that, David. Most guys I know wouldn’t.”

  “Well, I probably wouldn’t have either, but I was going through Charity’s things to see how much would need to be packed for when we…leave.” Funny how he was having such a hard time talking about that. It hadn’t been so long ago that he couldn’t wait to leave Orchard Hill behind.

  Before they checked out, David stopped at a sale rack to look at some of the summer clothes. He was examining a cute denim dress, with a high waisted blue gingham bodice and princess seams, when one of the sales clerks stopped and told him, “There’s a matching mom’s dress that goes with that.”

  “There is?” This caught David’s interest right away. He’d been wanting to suggest a few new things to Sarah as well, but didn’t know how. The way she camouflaged her beauty behind a frumpy wardrobe bothered him.

  The sales clerk looked Sarah over with a practiced eye. “I think we have one in your wife’s size,” she said.

  Sarah opened her mouth—to protest, no doubt—but he cut her off. “We’d love to see it.”

  She frowned at him and whispered, “I don’t need a new dress.”

  “Mother-daughter outfits would really impress the lawyers. You and Charity would look like you belonged together.”

  His argument seemed to work. Sarah tried on the dress, which looked even better than he thought it would, and then even allowed him to pay for it. David realized he’d found the secret to getting Sarah to do what he wanted—make her think it was for Charity’s sake.

  TITLE

  Orchard Hill: volume Two

  Chapter 5

  The next morning, David picked up Sarah for church. They’d decided it would be good for them to be seen together, but that as far as her friends were concerned, she was just helping David with Charity. It sounded like a good plan.

  Sarah grabbed a t-shirt and jumper from her closet. The new dress was hanging there. She wished she could wear it today, but if she and Charity showed up wearing matching dresses, no one would believe there was nothing going on between her and David. The dress would wait for their first visit with Beverly’s lawyer.

  After she’d dressed, Sarah examined herself in the full length mirror on her closet door. David had said that she was hiding a great figure behind shapeless clothes. She’d always thought she was concealing a few extra pounds. Sarah pulled the excess fabric to the back of the dress and considered the result.

  Her waist was small, which pleased her, but she thought that everything else was too big. With a sigh, she released the fabric and let the jumper drape back over her figure.

  Then there was the ring. It made her nervous to have such an expensive piece of jewelry lying around. But she didn’t want to wear it. Last night she’d placed the box in her top dresser drawer. She thought about it, nestled among her socks there. What if someone broke in while she was gone and the ring was stolen? How would she ever repay David?

  “Okay, now Sarah,” she said aloud, “you aren’t exactly living in a high crime area. And if someone in Orchard Hill suddenly decided to pursue a career in burglary, he certainly wouldn’t start with your apartment.”

  But she couldn’t stop worrying about the ring, so in the end, she tossed it into her purse before she left the house.

  In church, she loved sitting
with Charity and David. She almost felt like they were a real family, the kind she’d always dreamed of being a part of. During the service, her attention drifted as she allowed herself to spin a little fantasy.

  As the worship service drew to a close, Pastor Isaac called on Perry Parker to make an announcement. He stood and made his way to the front of the church, where Misty sat with the choir. He took her hand and drew her to her feet as he said, “I’ve asked Misty to be my wife, and she’s said yes.” A few people began to applaud, but then Pansy Parker fairly flew out of her seat.

  “You…you asked her—Misty Green—to marry you?” Pansy looked as if she was about to explode. Before she could launch herself into a tirade, Misty shouted out, “Perry and I haven’t been the only ones shopping for rings.” She mouthed ‘sorry’ to Sarah and David, and then continued. “While we were picking out our own ring, we ran into Sarah Rogers and David Daniels.”

  Applause broke out again, covering Pansy’s rage. Before she could recover, the congregation began to file out of the pews and into the gathering space.

  Sarah couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. Misty had gone back on her promise. Yes, it was to prevent her future mother-in-law from making a scene, but still…

  Before Sarah could gather her wits, there was a crowd of people around them, offering good wishes. While she sat there stunned, David was shaking hands and smiling at everyone. He pulled her to her feet and started them moving toward the door. All she could think of was escape, but she knew there was no chance of leaving without—

  “Sarah,” hollered Hope as she launched herself at her friend. She braced herself just in time to keep the energetic Hope from knocking her to the floor. “I knew there was something going on that you hadn’t told me about.”

  “Um, well, we just weren’t ready to go public about this,” mumbled Sarah.

  “Where’s the ring?”

  “The ring?”

  Hope laughed. “Misty said you were shopping for a ring. Did you find one?”

  “Oh, yes, the ring.” Sarah rummaged in her purse and came up with the little velvet box.

  “What’s it doing in there?”

  “I said we weren’t ready to make an announcement.”

  Hope took the box from her and opened it. Her mouth dropped open in astonishment. “Oh, Sarah. This is beautiful.”

  “What it is, is huge. I didn’t want David to spend the money…”

  “But he can afford it, so why not,” David interrupted. “I’ve been working so much the last few years that I haven’t had a chance to spend anything I made. I figure this is a good place to start.”

  He took the ring from Hope and slid it onto Sarah’s finger.

  “Aaawww,” sighed Hope.

  Oliver, who’d been standing next to her, put out a hand to David. “Congratulations.”

  “It looks like we’ll both be up to our eyebrows in wedding preparations soon. Maybe we can commiserate,” offered David.

  “Maybe. Hope and I were going out for brunch with a couple of other friends. Would you like to join us?”

  “Who…” Sarah began to ask, but just then Andrew Thomas and Faith Fielding stepped up to offer their congratulations. Andrew was the school principal and Faith had been his secretary for many years before he realized that he was in love with her. Now, they were also planning a wedding.

  “Oh great,” grumbled Andrew. “Brunch is going to be like a bridal convention.” A smile lurked in the corners of his mouth, softening his comment.

  Andrew’s daughter Robin, a college freshman, stepped in and offered to watch Charity while the three couples had brunch. “I sat for her a few times when I was in high school, so she knows me.”

  Charity did seem to like Robin, so David made arrangements to pick her up at Andrew’s house after brunch.

  “What about Kevin?” asked Andrew, referring to Faith’s thirteen year old son.

  “He’s spending the afternoon with Peter Velasquez,” she explained, referring to Hope’s nephew. “They’ve already left.”

  “If all the kids are taken care of, let’s meet at the café,” suggested Andrew.

  A few minutes later, David and Sarah were alone in his car.

  “I can’t believe this happened,” wailed Sarah. “Why did we ever think we could keep this a secret? We didn’t even make it one day.”

  “I’m sorry,” David apologized. “I guess I should have gotten the ring by myself.”

  “It’s not your fault. I agreed to everything.”

  “When we break up, feel free to blame it all on me. You can make me a huge villain,” he insisted.

  “What difference will that make?”

  “Then everyone will be talking about me and not you. Really, you can say whatever you want. Tell everyone I ran off with my secretary to Tahiti.”

  “Do you have a secretary?”

  “No.”

  “And where’s Charity while you’re romancing your nonexistent secretary?”

  “Um…They have nannies in Tahiti, don’t they?”

  Sarah stared at him for a minute, and then she started to laugh. David felt a smile spreading across his own face. He’d do everything he could to protect Sarah from being hurt when the engagement was called off. The last thing he wanted was for her to worry.

  They found a parking spot down the street from the Apple-a-Day Café, and David shut off the car.

  “Now that our secret is out, we should talk about how we’re going to handle things,” Sarah suggested.

  “What things?”

  “Like, where we met for one thing. I don’t think we can tell people we only met a couple of weeks ago. They’ll think we’re insane.”

  David thought for a minute. “We can say we’ve been chatting online for months. We used screen names so neither of us realized who the other was at first.”

  “Then when we figured it out, we were so overcome with joy that we ran out and bought an engagement ring?”

  “That’s the spirit,” he said. “What else can you think of?”

  “I suppose we can make it through brunch,” Sarah responded, “but we’d better spend the afternoon telling each other our life stories. That way we should be prepared for any questions.”

  Sarah reached for the door handle, but before she opened it, David spoke again. “One more thing.”

  “What?”

  “What about physical stuff.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know, engaged people hold hands and hug and…”

  “And kiss.” Sarah groaned. “How did everything get so out of control?”

  David knew he was treading on dangerous ground, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “Maybe we should practice?”

  “Practice?”

  “Yeah. I think we should try a practice kiss, so the first time we have to kiss in public, it won’t be so awkward.”

  “Why would we have to kiss in public?”

  “Because that’s what people who are in love do, Sarah. I’m not saying we have to put on an exhibition, but we should at least kiss each other hello and good-bye.”

  Sarah looked doubtful. “I suppose.”

  “So I think we should practice.”

  “When?”

  “How about right here, right now.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Totally. Trust me, this is the best thing to do. We’ll just get it over with and then the next time won’t be so awkward.”

  Sarah considered. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “I know I am.” He reached across the seat and took Sarah in his arms.

  She giggled nervously. “This is ridiculous.”

  “Usually I get to kiss a girl before she laughs at me.”

  “I’m not laughing at you. Just the situation.”

  “Enough talk. How about some action?” he teased.

  David’s only intention had been to steal a simple kiss, but the moment his lips touched hers, he knew nothing would ever be simple be
tween them. Instead of letting go, he pulled her even closer. She felt perfect in his arms.

  The world faded away, and he was aware of nothing but Sarah. He felt her heart beating against his chest, her form filling his arms, her lips moving against his. The word ‘home’ drifted into his mind.

  From what seemed like a long way away, there was a sharp knocking sound. Suddenly Sarah shoved him away. Confused by the abrupt shift back to reality, David blinked and the world swam back into focus. Sarah’s friend Hope was knocking at the window.