Abide with Me

by Delia Parr

  “Russell is making copies of the contract for the beach house. If I bring them tomorrow, will you look them over for me? I know Russell trusts Blair completely, but I’d feel better if you told me everything is in order.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll come early, then, and I’ll bring lunch, too.”

  Andrea shook her head. Changing the time for her appointment also meant changing her mealtimes, too. “I’ll have a late breakfast around ten. Don’t bother with lunch.”

  “Then I’ll bring breakfast at ten,” Madge insisted. She gave Andrea another wink and headed out the door.

  Doris sat down behind her desk. “I’ll cover the Wheatley settlement for you. I thought I had the folder right here,” she mumbled as she moved her briefcase and shopping bag to the floor and rummaged through the mess on her desk. When she came up empty-handed, she frowned. “I was sure I had it here somewhere.”

  Andrea held up the purple folder. “No, I’ve got it.”

  Doris shrugged, apparently oblivious to the fact that Andrea had had to retrieve the folder. “I could call and see if we could move the settlement to the morning, if you’d rather attend, but I doubt that would work. If I recall correctly, the Wheatleys are settling on their old house at ten.” She reached down, retrieved her shopping bag and set it back on top of the desk.

  To Andrea’s surprise, Doris handed her a small bag. “From me to you, for being so gracious with your time and helping me to get situated.”

  “A gift? You bought me a gift? That wasn’t necessary.”

  Doris lifted a brow. “Yes, it was. Open it. I think you’ll agree.”

  Curious, Andrea opened the bag, pulled out a pair of paisley cushions for the armrests on her crutches and smiled. “No more squirrels! Thank you so much,” she murmured, feeling all the more guilty for staring at the other things Doris had bought.

  Doris retrieved Andrea’s crutches from the corner, removed the old gray squirrel cushions and worked the paisley ones into place. “There. Better?” she asked with a grin.

  “Much better. You were right. Thank you.” Andrea put the squirrels into the bag and stored it in one of the drawers of her desk. She turned the page on her daily planner to the next day and made a note to remind herself to give the bag to Madge. By then, the guilt she felt for being annoyed at Doris, who was being so thoughtful, had eased.

  Doris returned the crutches to the corner. “I found the paisley cushions at the medical-supply store at the mall.” She paused and looked around as if checking to see if anyone had overheard her. “Sorry. My sister tells me that mentioning the mall can get me into trouble here in Welleswood, let alone admitting to shopping there.”

  Andrea laughed. “I think you’re safe. Besides, we don’t have a medical-supply store on the avenue.”

  “No, but you have Over the Edge. What a great little shop! I finally found everything I wanted to make my desk more attractive. Ellen, I think she’s the owner? She helped me coordinate everything.” One by one, Doris set out her purchases on top of her desk. “What do you think?”

  Andrea leaned back in her chair, too shocked by the items to do more than gape. She did not even try to reconcile Doris’s promise to organize her workspace with her efforts today to make her desktop more attractive.

  In all honesty, Andrea could only describe the floral arrangement as “over the edge,” pun intended. The mother-of-pearl ceramic dish that held the silk flowers might have passed muster if it had not been shaped like a candle that had been stored in an attic over the summer and melted into a shapeless blob. By themselves, the silk flowers would have been lovely, especially with fewer of them, but the fan of peacock feathers at the back of the arrangement was more than a few degrees past garish.

  The matching desk set, which included a business-card holder that featured a single peacock feather did not inspire a kind thought, either, so Andrea kept her attention on the floral piece. “The feathers add an…an interesting touch,” she managed.

  From the opposite side of her desk, Doris folded her arms over her chest and tilted her head. “It’s better than interesting. It’s perfect. You can’t see a bit of the clutter. We wouldn’t want the clients to think I wasn’t organized,” she added.

  Before Andrea could think of an appropriate response, Jamie returned. He took one look at Doris’s desk and grinned. “Looks cool, Mrs. Blake.”

  So much for hoping Jamie would be an ally.

  “How did you do with the last of the signs?” Andrea asked, hoping to avoid discussing the horror on Doris’s desk any further.

  He held out his empty hands. “I had a very successful morning.”

  Doris beamed. “Didn’t we all?”

  “Didn’t we,” Andrea muttered. She checked her watch. Eleven-fifteen. Still plenty of time for the day to swing around.

  At two-thirty, Andrea sent Jamie to the post office and home for the day. By four, the situation in the office was still status quo—no new problems, but nothing to celebrate, either. In fact, Andrea had managed to make a lot of progress on the settlement for Jane Huxbaugh, which was only days away. Unless she hit an unexpected pothole, the rest of the road to settlement looked smooth. Doris was prepared for tomorrow’s settlement with the Wheatleys, too, and she had left early for a dental appointment.

  The phone had not rung for over an hour. Andrea tapped her pencil eraser against the top of her desk. Something was nagging at her. What was it she still had to do? Her “to do” list gave her no help. Everything had been crossed off except making a call to Office Genie. But there was something else she had to do. She was sure of it. She just could not quite put her finger on it. But it was there, and she would not be able to go home today until she had figured out what she was supposed to do.

  She leaned back in her chair, readjusted her foot on the footrest and looked up at the ceiling to minimize any distractions. She chose a hairline crack in the ceiling to stare at and mentally reviewed her day, starting with when she had arrived at the office. Whatever it was she had to do, did not involve Jamie or Madge.

  That left Doris. Whatever was nagging Andrea did not involve either Doris’s desk or the bizarre decorative elements she had added. There was the mix-up when the doctor’s office called, but Andrea had already put that behind her. Doris seemed convinced the appointment was for Andrea’s ankle, and Andrea had already talked with the office to inform them of the error so they could update their records to indicate Andrea no longer worked alone.

  That left the Wheatley settlement. No help there. Doris was ready for that. If the settlement went smoothly, she would be back at the office by three at the latest, and the Wheatleys would be on their way to their new home. A thought rushed out, and she punched her pencil down so hard on the desk the eraser snapped off. “That’s it! The Wheatleys! I forgot to tell Doris to take the present for them.”

  She tossed the pencil into the trash, along with the eraser, and double-checked her “to do” list on her daily planner. She always gave her buyers American flag kits for their new homes. She should have had it on her list for today. Why didn’t she? Settlement was…tomorrow. On impulse, she flipped her daily planner to the next day and there it was, right next to one o’clock: Wheatley settlement. Gift!

  Below, she had penciled a reminder to check the reorder for a new case of flag kits. She sighed. No wonder she hadn’t written down the reminder for today. She had planned to go to the settlement herself tomorrow and she would have…if her appointment for her chemo treatment had not been changed today.

  She sighed again. “Okay, so I’m not losing it. I was just a little…distracted.”

  No problem, though. She kept a supply of flag kits already wrapped and stored in a closet in one of the conference rooms. She would be here in the morning to tell Doris about the tradition she had started. Besides, she had already written a reminder in her planner in case she forgot.

  With her mind at ease, she pulled out the Office Genie catalogue and chose a new cha
ir for herself, along with a plastic mat for the floor. After she wrote down the product and page numbers, she placed her call to the 800 number. Ten minutes later, she had a confirmation number for her order and a promise of delivery on Friday.

  Feeling rather upbeat by three o’clock and with her day decidedly on the upswing, she made her first executive decision as the owner of a two-woman office. She would close early today. She made a second decision to leave her briefcase at her desk. By three-thirty, she had secured the office. She had even managed to hold on to her purse as she maneuvered her way down to the conference room on her way to her car.

  She had her hand on the closet doorknob when a sense of doom evaporated her optimism. The moment she opened the door, looked inside and saw the empty shelf, she remembered using the last flag kit just last week. “One step forward. Two steps back,” she grumbled. Losing ground was not part of her nature. Losing ground on crutches was a monumental pain that made closing early today less of a gift to herself and more of a necessity if she had any hope of pulling herself together.

  She was not used to forgetting anything, especially where her business was concerned. She did not like it—not even a little.

  She closed the closet door and leaned on her crutches. She could wait until tomorrow morning to send Jamie down to the hardware store to buy a flag kit. Or she could send Doris. No. Scratch that idea. Doris would have to pass Over the Edge along the way and might be tempted to get something for the Wheatleys there instead. Andrea could go herself tomorrow. Wrong again. Madge was coming with breakfast at ten.

  As much as she wanted to go home, it looked like now or never, and the only question to resolve was whether to drive to the hardware store or walk. If she drove, she would have to get in and out of the car and back in again before finally driving home. She was still too awkward at that process, so she decided to walk the two blocks instead.

  “Time for some real exercise, old girl.” She returned to the front office and set her purse on the seat of her chair. After taking out money to pay for the flag kit, which she folded and stuffed into her pocket, she started for the front door. Though she had turned out all the lights, enough late-afternoon sunlight streamed in through the window in the top half of the door to guide her safely.

  She was only a few feet away from the door when a man approached and tried the knob.

  She froze in place and tightened her grip on her crutches. She stared at him, unable to speak, barely able to breathe.

  He stared back and knocked harder.

  Her pulse skipped right to triple time, and her heart pounded against the wall of her chest. Her mouth went dry. Fear melted every thought in her mind.

  She was alone.

  She was too far from her telephone or her cell phone to call for help.

  “Dear Lord, protect me,” she prayed. “Bill Sanderson is at my door.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Bill Sanderson locked his gaze on Andrea. “Mrs. Hooper! I need to talk to you.”

  She barely managed to swallow the lump of fear lodged in her throat. “Go,” she croaked. She cleared her throat and pointed the tip of one of her crutches at him. “Leave now. The…the police are on their way.”

  He shook his head and apparently dismissed her threat for what it was—pure bluff. “I doubt that. Let me in. Please. I’m not trying to frighten you. I just need to talk.”

  “We have nothing to discuss,” she insisted and leaned her weight on both her crutches again. Where, oh, where were the bicycle cops when you needed one? Probably busy chasing skateboarders, which had seemed to be the priority ever since that emergency meeting the mayor had called. “Thank you, Mr. Mayor,” she grumbled. No doubt the police were too preoccupied harassing teenagers to notice a wanted fugitive standing on the avenue in the center of town!

  His eyes flashed. “Don’t you read the papers?”

  She glared at him.

  “Watch TV? You know, CNN? MSNBC? Fox News?” he went on.

  She moistened her lips. “I work for a living. I don’t have a lot of free time,” she snapped.

  He backed away from the door, pulled a paper from his pocket and held it up to the glass in the top half of the door. “Read this.”

  What a brazen man! She took a step back. She had no intention of getting close enough to the door to read whatever he had plastered against the glass, even if the door was securely bolted. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw traffic passing by on the avenue and a number of people walking down the street. No one, however, seemed to notice the stranger at her door.

  Curiosity, however, kept her from turning around and calling the police, and intuition warned her to at least listen to what he had to say or read what appeared to be a newspaper article. He might be brazen, but he was not stupid enough to do anything that would call attention to himself, not in a town this small.

  “You read it,” she countered.

  He smiled. “Fair enough.”

  She listened to every word he said, then made him read the whole article again. Disbelief gave way to relief, but caution kept a tight rein on her instinct to let him into her office.

  Frustration flashed across his face. “Fine. Don’t believe me. I made it all up and had a fake article printed up just to fool you.” He shook his head. “Chief Jackson said you were smart and pretty fair-minded. I guess he was wrong.” He shoved the paper into his pocket, turned and walked away from her door.

  Stunned, she hesitated for a moment, realized her colossal mistake and got to the door as fast as she could. By the time she got the door open and swung herself outside, he should have been a block away. She found him leaning against the storefront next door with his arms crossed over his chest and a smile on his face. She tilted up her chin. “Did you say Chief Jackson?”

  “Chief Warren Jackson.”

  She tightened her jaw.

  He grinned. “He said he appreciated the fact that I stopped by the police station as soon as I got to town, what with all the notoriety surrounding the case.” His expression grew serious. “You’ve got to be the only person I’ve met in the past week who hasn’t read the papers or watched TV. I’m sorry. I really didn’t want to frighten you. I thought you knew what had happened.”

  Her cheeks flushed hot. “No. I’m sorry.”

  Her neighbor, Joe Bocatelli, who operated the tailor shop next door, came outside. He ignored Bill for a moment, stretched to his full height of five feet and four inches, and spoke directly to her. “Is there something I can do for you, Andrea?”

  “No, thanks. I was going to close up early today, but it looks like I almost turned away a customer.” She smiled and nodded to Sanderson. “Why don’t we go inside where it’s cooler?”

  He pushed away from the storefront. “I can come back first thing in the morning, if that’s more convenient.”

  “No. Now is fine,” she insisted, anxious to get them both away the moment she saw Joe’s eyes begin to glimmer with recognition.

  Sanderson followed her back into her office and took a seat in front of her desk while she maneuvered into her own seat as gracefully as she could.

  “You look like you’ve had a harder time than I did since we last met.”

  She sighed. “Skateboarder. He won. I lost. But you…you’ve survived a terrible experience.”

  He shrugged. “Being hijacked wasn’t as bad as being hog-tied and left to die in an abandoned farmhouse. I just figured the good Lord was in control. All I had to do was trust Him to get me home safe and sound. I prayed a lot,” he admitted.

  “Did they catch whoever did this to you?”

  His face darkened. “Not yet, but they will. Once the authorities realized I wasn’t involved, they started to develop leads. I understand the investigation is going pretty well.” He paused. “I guess I lost the house?”

  She grimaced. “I’m sorry. Your check bounced.”

  He exhaled slowly and shook his head. “I was afraid that had happened. The authorities froze everything
, but that’s all cleared up now. I guess that means it’s back to house hunting again.”

  “You’re still serious about relocating here?”

  “I need a place to live, and I need your help. My lease is up in a matter of weeks. I don’t really have the time to start all over with another real-estate agent or to investigate other areas.”

  “This is a small town. You’ll be a bit of a celebrity for a while,” she cautioned.

  He shrugged. “Only to folks who read the papers or—”

  “Or watch television. I know.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “Sorry. I’ve been pretty busy lately.”

  “Are you really showing houses?” he asked. “Using those crutches can’t be easy, especially in your line of work.”

  “I’ve hired a woman to help out for a while.” Quickly, she explained Doris’s credentials and professional background, but she did not share her disappointment with him about having to let Doris take over many of her duties. She did not discuss with him how much resentment had filled her heart because she was forced to step back from the central role she had played in her business—a role that would likely diminish over the course of the next year, not improve. Given his obvious faith in God, after all he had been through in the past week, he might very well remind her to remember that God was in control, to trust Him and to pray a lot.

  Humbled, she turned her attention to the business at hand. “Why don’t we go over some of the listings I have available now? If you see something you like, I can schedule appointments for tomorrow morning and Doris can take you to see the homes.”

  Definitely before Madge shows up at ten, she added mentally.

  He leaned forward. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

  The following morning, Andrea got to work at nine sharp. Despite the extra time she had spent on her morning prayers, she still carried a heavy burden. The way her injury was slowing her down was less frustrating than the way her treatment interfered with her day. In fact, ever since her cancer recurrence, she had felt she had a very short leash tugging at her—a leash that kept her from leading a normal life.