Canyon Walls

by Julie Jarnagin

  “You didn’t have to waste perfectly good chocolate,” Cassie said. “That’s just unwomanly.”

  ❧

  For the rest of the day, Cassie couldn’t keep herself from glancing at the enormous flower arrangement. Cassie grinned to herself. She had never been boy crazy or the kind of girl who pined over male attention, but she had to admit it felt pretty good, even if it was from someone she hadn’t quite figured out.

  Her mood quickly came back down to earth when she opened her e-mail and saw Marvin Hartley’s name in the Sender line. Sending two e-mails in a row, as opposed to phone calls, was extraordinarily rare for Mr. Hartley. The only thing she could guess was that he didn’t want to face her in person. Maybe because she was the only female director, he feared she would be more emotional than the others. Maybe he was afraid she would cry if he spoke too harshly with her or delivered bad news. Whatever it was, she didn’t like it.

  She sucked in a short breath before clicking on his name.

  Dear Miss Langley:

  We have scheduled the date and time for the next meeting of the board. Because it has been an extended period of time since several of the board members have visited the camp, we’ve elected to accomplish two tasks by holding the meeting in your facilities. . . .

  I hope the date and time work within the camp’s schedule. Please contact me to confirm everything and to go over the needs (projector, seating, etc.).

  Regards,

  Marvin Hartley

  The date was sooner than Cassie had expected, less than three weeks away. She wiped her damp palms across the legs of her pants. Not only was she going to face the people who could take the camp away, but she also needed to treat them as distinguished guests in her camp. She cringed thinking about it, and then remorse swept over her. Wouldn’t God want her to show them love as He commanded her to show love to anyone whom she came in contact with day to day? The lines between fighting for what she believed to be right and showing kindness to those who threatened to take that away from her were blurry, as they were with Will.

  She took one of her Bibles from the shelf above her desk. She flipped to the concordance in the back and ran her finger down the list of topics.

  Ambition, anger, anxiety, confidence, forgiveness—so many of them fit. She stared at the word “enemies” but then went back to a word better describing what she needed: courage. She stopped and flipped to the page number beside the word and looked up Deuteronomy 31:6 in her Bible.

  “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

  Cassie leaned her head back against her chair repeating the phrase “he will never leave you” out loud. She stuck a scrap of paper in the page so she could go back to it later.

  What would her own life be like if she hadn’t come to the camp? She shivered at the thought. She was ashamed of how she had reacted since she had learned the camp was in jeopardy. She had given up, and the campers were too important to disregard. She couldn’t work miracles, but God could.

  She moved the mouse on her sleeping computer to change the screen saver of swirling lines back to her e-mail. She clicked the Reply button and rubbed her hands together.

  Dear Mr. Hartley,

  I would be happy to host the board meeting here at the camp, and the dates and times you sent are available on our schedule. I’m sure we can accommodate whatever needs you might have.

  I do have one request to ask of you. I would like time to speak at the meeting. No one knows this camp better than I do, and I would be grateful for the chance to fight for it.

  God bless you,

  Cassie Langley

  Cassie held her finger on the Send button, working up enough nerve to press it. She leaned back and closed one eye and hit Send.

  Nine

  The next morning Cassie attempted to pull the tape off her toes. It felt like she was pulling her toenail off with it, but after several minutes of convincing herself to rip it off, she managed to expose the injury. Her entire toe had turned several shades of black, purple, blue, red, and yellow and was swollen to almost twice its normal size.

  Her toenail was the blackest part of her toe, and she had little doubt it wouldn’t be there for long. Luckily, people didn’t see her feet very often, but she still hoped a new toenail would eventually take its place.

  When Cassie arrived at her office, the sweet smell of the bouquet that welcomed her. She straightened the vase on her desk. She needed to thank Will, but she didn’t know what to say to him.

  Forcing herself not to think about it, she dialed the number written in her schedule on the first day of the men’s retreat.

  “Overman Real Estate,” said a woman with a perky voice.

  Cassie tapped her ink pen against her forehead. “Um, yes.” She stalled, trying to remember what it was she wanted to say. “Is Will available?”

  “No, I’m sorry. He’s out of the office right now. Can I take a message?”

  The tension drained from her shoulders. Leaving a message was the easiest thing to do. “Please tell him Cassie called to say thank you.”

  “Okay,” she said, sounding a little confused. “Will he know what it’s regarding?”

  “Why don’t you tell me yourself?” Will said from the doorway.

  Cassie sat with her mouth open, not knowing what to say. This guy was persistent.

  “Ma’am? Are you there?” the woman on the phone said.

  “Yes. Um, sorry. You can disregard the message.”

  By the time she had placed the phone back in the receiver, Will held the silver frame with a photograph of Cassie’s family.

  Will’s dimples appeared on his cheeks. “These have to be your relatives.”

  Cassie took the frame. In the picture she stood beside her mom, with her sister on the other side of her. Their oval faces and small features stared back at her. Cassie’s were even more pronounced with her hair pulled off her face. “I guess we do look alike.”

  He took the frame and set it back on the desk. “So, it sounds like you spoke with Lillian.”

  Cassie grinned. “Your sister?”

  Will nodded.

  “I was calling to thank you for the flowers. They’re beautiful.”

  “I’m glad you liked them,” he said.

  She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but what are you doing here?”

  He leaned on the doorframe. “I came to check on you and see how you’re doing. I was worried about you.”

  There he went again with his unending need to help her, but this time it was sweet. “I’m—”

  “Fine. I know. You don’t need me checking on you, but I enjoy it.”

  He didn’t wear a suit jacket as he had at church, just slacks and a crisp, white shirt. Some kind of fancy cell phone device was clipped to his brown leather belt, and a big silver watch hung between his hand and shirt cuff. “Sometimes I need an excuse to escape work.”

  She tapped the ends of her fingers on her desk. “So, you have a different injured woman who you visit every week. Gives new meaning to ambulance chaser.”

  His eyebrows rose. “No, but you’re funny.”

  When he sat, she had to move the vase to see his face clearly. “What’s going on at work—family problems or business problems?”

  “I didn’t say there were problems, just that I wanted to get away.”

  She wiggled her finger toward his phone. “Your gizmo there is flashing.”

  He didn’t look down at it, but Cassie couldn’t help being distracted by it. “Aren’t you going to answer it or take it back to the dealership or something?”

  Will hit a button, turning off the device. “Truthfully, I can’t stand this thing, but my brother thought it would be a good idea if we all got one. Now they can reach me whenever they want, but I’m not sure it’s a good thing. Sometimes I just need to escape.”

  Cassie understood how he felt. S
ometimes she needed an escape from her entire life. “You’re welcome to hide down here for a while,” Cassie said. “But what do you do for fun when you don’t have impaired women to keep you company? Do you have hobbies? Or is it all work, all the time? When you’re not stalking me, that is.”

  He picked up a bloom that had fallen on the desk and tossed it toward her. “I can’t tell you.”

  She picked up the flower and stuck it behind her ear. “Why not?”

  “Because you would give me a worse time than my family already does.”

  “Now I’m intrigued. What if I guess it? You’ll tell me then, won’t you?”

  He let his shoulders slump. “I guess.”

  She tried to picture him playing golf but decided he would be too impatient for golfing, and he wouldn’t be embarrassed enough about it not to tell her. When she couldn’t think of a hobby that might be possible, she guessed taxidermy more to see a reaction out of him than anything else.

  “Taxidermy?” Will asked. “No, of course not. Why would you think that?”

  She pretended to consider it a moment longer. “No? Really? I thought I had it.”

  “What else do you see me doing in my free time?”

  “Noodling?” she asked.

  “I don’t even know what noodling is,” Will said.

  “Noodling involves trying to catch a catfish by sticking your arm into holes underwater and getting a fish to latch onto your bare hand,” she said, reaching her arm out to demonstrate. “And let me say, I meet some interesting people in my job.”

  He shook his head. “You’re a terrible guesser.”

  She stroked her chin. “Stamp collecting? Knitting? Espionage? Scrapbooking?” She named off everything that popped into her mind.

  He held his hands up in the air. “Okay. I give up. Come out to my truck, and I’ll show you.”

  Cassie stood, feeling satisfied she had won and he had given up. She limped from behind her desk.

  Will pointed at her foot. “Fine, huh? Looks like you’re still in some pain.”

  “It’s not broken,” she said.

  A broad grin spread across his face. “Uh-huh.”

  When they walked outside together, she looked for the little silver car. “Where’s your car?” she asked when she didn’t see it.

  He stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Oh. . .that wasn’t my car.”

  Cassie was confused. He had been driving it both times she had seen him in a vehicle. “It wasn’t?”

  “My friend was moving. I loaned him my truck, and I drove his car last week.”

  “Huh.”

  He looked at her and spun his hand in a circle in front of her face. “What is this?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “This look you’re giving me.”

  She pretended to be insulted. “I’m not giving you a look.”

  He snapped his fingers. “You think of me differently depending on if I drive a little sports car or a pickup.”

  He looked entirely too amused by his new revelation. “I most certainly do not care what you or anyone drives. I’m not that shallow.”

  “Oh I don’t think you’re shallow. I think you thought I was a pretty boy.”

  Cassie crossed her arms. “That’s not true.”

  “Sure,” he said, drawing the word out.

  “I’m serious. That kind of thing doesn’t matter to me.”

  “What do you drive?” he asked.

  Cassie didn’t want to answer him. “You haven’t told me what your hobby is yet.”

  “I’m going to show you, but don’t try to change the subject. I want to know what you drive.”

  Cassie could tell by the smirk on his face he wasn’t going to let it go. She breathed an overexaggerated sigh. “I drive a truck.”

  She expected a sarcastic comment or a loud, hearty laugh, but instead all she got was a quiet, “Ah.”

  She looked up at him, and he was smiling. He nudged her with his elbow.

  They walked down the sidewalk to Cassie’s dream truck. She tried not to let on how much she admired his vehicle. She had loved pickups since her grandpa had taught her how to drive his in an empty parking lot when she was fifteen. She wasn’t an easy student because she was headstrong, and she liked to drive fast.

  He led her around to the truck bed. She looked over the edge to see a miniature airplane taking up most of the bed. It looked like an actual two-seater plane someone shrank in the dryer.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  “It’s an RA aircraft.”

  “A what?”

  He laughed. “A radio-controlled plane.”

  It didn’t look like any remote-control toy she had ever seen her nieces play with at Melissa’s. It looked expensive. He had it tied down with rope and bungee cords. “Cool. How does it work?”

  He opened the passenger door and picked up a remote larger than a television remote, with knobs and buttons. “Basically, you control everything from this transmitter. I love flying them, but I also like tinkering with them, fixing stuff and adding better parts.”

  She walked around to the other side of the truck to get a better view.

  “Aren’t you going to make fun of it?” he asked.

  “As much as I like giving you a hard time, this seems really fun.”

  He held up the remote. “My family thinks it’s a ridiculous waste of time and money.”

  Cassie was actually a little jealous. She wished she had something she loved to do that didn’t involve work. “It’s a hobby. Aren’t hobbies supposed to be fun and pointless?”

  He folded his arms on the tailgate. “I don’t know. My brother loves to take his boat out on the lake, and my brother-in-law goes fly-fishing.”

  “Has he ever been noodling?”

  Will’s brow furrowed. “Not that I know of. I think since I’m the youngest, they think I don’t take things seriously.”

  “Someday you’ll have to teach me how it works.”

  He held an open hand out to her. “Deal.”

  She put her hand in his, and as they shook on it, Cassie tried to control the butterflies in her stomach. She slipped her hand out of his.

  Will glanced at his watch. “I really do need to get back to the office. If they hear I’ve been out playing all day, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  “Can you come back tonight around nine o’clock?” Cassie was surprised the words had come out of her mouth without really thinking about it. She stared at him expectantly.

  “Sure. Should I ask why first?”

  She shook her head. “No, there’s something I think you’d enjoy.”

  She watched him drive out of the canyon. She liked Will, and it scared her.

  ❧

  Cassie needed to go into town before everything closed at five. Sometimes she missed living in a city where she could go to the grocery store at 2 a.m. Now if she needed something after dark that couldn’t be found at a gas station, she was out of luck.

  The town of Wyatt Bend was made up of one stoplight, a post office, a few churches, and a downtown the chamber of commerce had spent years trying to rejuvenate. Cassie stopped at the bank, an old building on the town square that was a constant hub of activity.

  She stood in line behind a farmer with a local co-op hat and green cow manure on the legs of his wranglers. She smiled at a red-headed boy holding up a sucker the teller had given him.

  The teller waved Cassie over. The woman looked a little younger than Cassie and wore a sheer shirt with a camisole underneath. Her fingernails were long and painted in a french manicure, and her hair had perfectly placed highlights. Cassie handed her a deposit slip. The teller’s long nails clicked against the computer keyboard. She looked up at Cassie. “You’re Cassie Langley.”

  “That’s me,” she said, flipping through the checks to make sure she had endorsed them correctly.

  The girl leaned in close. Her perfume made Cassie’s eyes water. “I heard you’re dating Will Overman
.”

  Cassie froze. “Excuse me?”

  “Meredith,” she called to the teller with identical highlights at the other end of the counter. “This is the one she said was dating Will.”

  Cassie fumbled for the right words, but the shock of the statement made it impossible for her to think straight. “I’m not dating Will,” she said. “I’m not dating him,” she said, repeating herself to the lady in line behind her who now stood closer to her.

  “He is gorgeous,” her teller said. “All the girls here call him Will Head-over-Heels Man.”

  Cassie tapped her short bare nails on the counter as the girl stared at her and waited for her to respond. “Ah, Will Overman. I get it,” she said, trying to sound lighthearted.

  “When he comes in here, he’s always joking around. Isn’t he funny?”

  “Um, I. . .” She didn’t know how to respond. “Can you please write the balance on the receipt?”

  “I heard that last year he was engaged to some girl in the city. She dumped him because he worked too much. What kind of girl would dump him?”

  Cassie shrugged and looked around to see who else was listening. She was sure this conversation would be the topic of the town gossip all week.

  “Is he romantic?” the other teller asked.

  Cassie couldn’t help but think about the flowers sitting on her desk. “Like I said, we’re not dating.”

  The girl winked at her and said, “Of course not.”

  Cassie had to fight the urge to jump on the faux marble counter and scream, “I am not dating Will Overman!”

  Hopefully, the talk about her and Will meant they gossiped less about the camp’s financial troubles. From the moment Cassie had accepted the job, the town hadn’t accepted Cassie and openly shared their skepticism of her. She would never be who they wanted her to be. She was an outsider, a mystery. For a town that liked to be able to refer to someone by his nickname from junior high, a girl from another state who only drove into town when it was absolutely necessary was more a threat than an asset. Maybe that’s why everyone wanted to link her to Will. That would mean they had figured her out.

  The two girls in the bank began whispering before she could escape through the glass doors. She could feel their eyes following her. When she was alone in her truck, all her insecurities brewed in her mind. They were probably saying that Will was far too good looking and successful for a girl like her.