by Susan Page Davis, Darlene Franklin, Pamela Griffin, Lisa Harris
Hannah’s glee became infectious, and Clemmie was soon laughing as well, the two girls holding each other until they got a grip on sobriety again.
“He can be a terror and a trial,” Clemmie mused once she’d calmed. “I can’t say I wasn’t warned. But I’m no quitter.”
“I admire that about you. Me, I often give up too easily or worry what other people might say or think.”
“Well, I’m not worried about that, either.”
“Except when it comes to Joel finding out who you are.”
The girls grew quiet.
“Do you also think I’m wrong to keep it from him?” Clemmie eyed her friend. She had earlier told her that Thea shared such reservations, and so, apparently, did Herbert.
“I’m only keeping quiet for his own good. If he knew who I was at this rocky moment in our all-too-brief association, anything positive I want to accomplish would be lost, and he’d remain in his pathetic little pit of despair forever.”
Hannah grinned. “Like Pilgrim’s Progress. I read that for a book report.”
“Exactly.”
Hannah lowered her gaze, growing introspective. “I’m not exactly sure Mama would agree with your methods. She would say deceit is deceit, plain and simple, but your heart’s in the right place, I think.” She peered intently at Clemmie as if she could see through her.
“What do you hope to gain by all this? You’re not still all gaga over him, are you?”
“Of course not. I told you. I’m not a child any longer.”
“I know that, silly. But, well, you’re a woman. And he’s a man.”
Her words brought the strangest tingle to Clemmie’s skin. “I only want to help him. That is, if he’d put his armor and weapons down long enough to let me.”
“Weapons?”
“The tongue can be a powerful weapon.”
“Oh, right.”
“And his throwing arm isn’t half-bad either.”
They both giggled.
“Well, like I told you when you first brought it up, I’ll support you however I can. With this bazaar Mother’s partly in charge of, I find my days occupied. I’m just glad you found something to do—but still sorry I’m not here much of the day.”
“It’s not as if we don’t spend any time together. We’re talking now.”
“That’s true.” Hannah’s smile again brightened. “So, what’s your first plan of attack in ‘Operation Save Joel’?”
“ ‘Operation Save Joel’—I like that! I do often feel as if I’m in a war zone when I’m around him.” Clemmie dropped her chin to her hand, deep in thought. Suddenly she smiled.
“Is that offer to help immediately available?”
“Sure. What do you have in mind?”
“I need you to take me to your grocer’s. I have money from what Grandfather gave me. And both Father and Uncle Brent slipped me some, all without any of them knowing.” She laughed with affection at the antics of her male relatives, each of whom had tried to evade notice when giving her “a little cash” before she left for the train. “Aunt Darcy always said the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, though what I really want is to get through to his brain. But maybe that’s the best route to get there.”
“Are you sure just a small, teensy part of you wouldn’t like to get through to his heart as well?” Hannah teased, holding her thumb and forefinger a slight distance apart. “Are you absolutely sure you’re as immune to him as you say?”
Hannah’s eyes were much too sharp. Mumbling an offhand “Of course,” Clemmie rose from the bed and shrugged back into her sweater.
The bitter, cantankerous Joel she now contended with was far removed from the easygoing boy and pleasant young man she once knew. Strangely, however, that didn’t deflect her desire to keep him in her life. She didn’t elaborate on her feelings to Hannah, not wanting to admit there might be more than a grain of truth to her statement.
She was beyond schoolgirl obsessions, for pity’s sake. But then, she was no longer a schoolgirl, as Hannah had pointed out. She was a woman. And blind or not, Joel was every bit as much a man as before, the same man who could still make her heart beat triple time or come to a sudden, breathtaking stop.
When he wasn’t being impossible.
“To the grocer’s then?” Clemmie asked cheerily, tamping down any spiraling thoughts that might resurrect the old dream.
“This late?”
“If they’re still open, I’d like to get an early start tomorrow and do a few things while your uncle’s cook isn’t in the kitchen. Think she’ll mind me using it?”
“Annie? No, she’s gone home to her family for the night. And Mr. Carter does keep late hours on weekends, hoping for more business. So his shop would be open, I would think.”
“Perfect.”
“I’ll ask Father to drive us.”
“It’s too far to walk?”
“Unlike you, I don’t walk.” Hannah gave a little shiver. “Not when there are four perfectly good wheels and an engine begging to be used.”
Clemmie giggled at the silliness of her pampered friend, feeling ten times better than when she had arrived that evening. She just hoped the feeling would last through tomorrow, when she faced the temperamental lion in his confined den once again.
Chapter 5
Joel sat on his porch chair, the warmth of the sun acting as a rebel to his belligerent mood. He waited for the inevitable footsteps in the grass. When they finally came, he sat so rigid they could have made a springboard to a pool out of him.
“Good morning. I brought back your clean laundry.”
He grunted in reply.
“Is there anywhere special you keep it?”
“In the latrine,” he bit out.
“Fine, if you’re going to be that way about it.” Her voice maintained a calm cheeriness, rasping against his nerves like a cheese grater. “I’ll find a place to put these myself then.”
Her light steps disappeared inside his shed, and with a groan he got up to follow. The last thing he wanted was her nosing through every one of his personal things.
“In that trunk,” he grumbled. “At the foot of the bed.”
He heard the lid creak as she raised it, the rustle of cloth as she put the articles away, and the muted thud and click as she closed the trunk.
An eternity of silence passed, though his fine-tuned ears could hear her breathing and noticed it had picked up a notch. He sensed her eyes on him.
She approached.
On involuntary impulse he backed up a step, to the porch.
Her steps halted. His mouth thinned.
Ridiculous! He was not afraid of a girl as Herbert had implied. Especially not this girl.
With resolve Joel moved forward more than the single step back he’d taken, until he came close enough to feel the warmth of her body and to be awash in the scent of lilacs, though no part of him touched her.
She gave a sudden and soft intake of breath.
“Was there anything else?” he asked, striving to sound polite, though he would rather toss her over his shoulder and carry her from his home.
“I …” She gulped and swallowed loud enough for him to hear. “H–how did you …” He felt the stir of air as she moved past him, toward the wall. The brush of her fingertips smoothed over the oilcloth.
“I may be blind, lady, but my hands weren’t amputated.”
“O–of course not. I only meant …” She sighed. “You cleaned this?”
“No, the elves slipped in while I was asleep.”
“Well, at least you never lost that charming sense of humor,” she mumbled.
“What?” He grew alert at her strange choice of words and swiftly turned his head her way.
“I—that is, Herbert told me you once were quite … funny.” Her words trailed off weakly into an explanation.
“Yeah, that’s me,” he quipped derisively. “Funny man Joel. Take a seat, and let me entertain you. Slapstick is my specialty. Espe
cially if you leave my pathway cluttered.”
She blew out a harsh, disgusted breath, not in the least amused, which adversely brought his first genuine smile.
“I’ll just leave you to practice your act then, shall I? Though with me around, I defy you to find one thing out of place, on your floor or otherwise.” To his surprised relief, he heard her retreat to the door. “I’ll be back later with your supper.” She hesitated, retraced her steps to the table, where he heard the silverware she scraped together, then marched out once again.
At last he was left alone. Alone, that is, except for the trace of her scent lingering in the air, surrounding him. The warm, clean smell of sunshine on skin and hair, mixed with lilacs. It stirred his traitorous thoughts into reliving the past moments.
Again that niggling sense of something not being right prickled at his mind, something he couldn’t place his finger on. That, more than anything else, was what he didn’t like about this new cleaning woman and cook Thea had hired. The girl unbalanced his sense of reality, setting him on an uneven keel, which made living ten times worse when all he saw was darkness.
Four more days, as he’d promised her—or rather, as she’d manipulated out of him—and then he would demand she leave. At least with the wait he couldn’t be accused of not trying, as Herbert had said. Or of being intimidated by a slip of a girl.
Chop!
Clemmie let loose with a cleaver, neatly slicing a potato in half. Chop!
Off went the head of the onion.
Chop! Chop! Chop!
The long, lean carrots became history.
“You seem to be taking more pleasure in that task than it should involve,” Thea remarked in amusement as she watched her. She picked up the saucer holding a slab of creamy yellow butter. “And real butter? You’re spoiling him.”
Clemmie hated the butter substitute of oleo that so many people were forced to use in these hard times, what Darcy also used at the Refuge. For what she had in mind, oleo wouldn’t suffice, and it had been worth the extra money to procure the genuine article. She knew it would make a huge difference in flavor, too. Just this one time, and one time was all she needed for the hoped-for breakthrough.
“He needs a little spoiling. Maybe that’s part of his problem.” She stopped chopping long enough to cast Thea an embarrassed glance. “Oh! I didn’t mean that you haven’t been doing a good job of things.”
Thea laughed her off. “I know. Don’t worry. You’re being very tolerant toward him after his ill behavior. Herbert told me,” she explained at Clemmie’s curious glance. “And I also know what daily interaction with Joel can entail!”
“So why do you put up with it?” Clemmie knew her own reasons, but she wondered what motivated Thea to beard the beast in his self-made cage every day.
Thea shrugged. “He’s Herbert’s oldest and dearest friend. Before he went blind, he really was quite the debonair fella.” She sighed. “I’m also hoping that by showing him people care about what happens to him, maybe he’ll draw close to God again. And that God will use me somehow to reach him. That reminder is the only thing that keeps me patient when he’s in one of his moods.”
“Then he really has turned from his faith?” The news distressed Clemmie.
Thea wasn’t quick to answer. “He’s very bitter and confused. Even before he went blind, he was getting to that point.”
“Oh? But why …”
“He didn’t actually come to Connecticut of his own free will. Did I tell you? Herbert pushed him into it, worried about the trouble Joel was getting into—or rather had gotten himself into.”
“Trouble? What tr—”
A horrendous shriek followed by loud wailing cut off Clemmie’s words.
“Oh dear. Loretta must have fallen. I do hope this is just a clumsy phase she’s going through!” Thea hurried from the room, leaving Clemmie to deliberate her thoughts.
What had happened before his blindness to set Joel on the path of turning from God? Though she wouldn’t have called him a strong Christian when he was at the Refuge—not like her parents—he was no heathen. His father’s long incarceration in jail had at first been the stimulus for the young Joel to become a hoodlum, but later the penalty of his father’s crimes, along with the knowledge that he’d died in his cell, had made Joel want to repent and not become like the man who sired him. He’d told Clemmie on several occasions that he thought of her father as his own. So what had happened to change all that? What kind of “trouble” could Thea be referring to?
The questions revolved inside her mind. Throughout the rest of her meal preparations, she tried to come up with answers. Thea didn’t return, and once all was ready, Clemmie resolved she would ask her friend at the next available opportunity. Taking a deep breath, she picked up the plate she’d prepared and a glass of water and set them on a tray.
“All right,” she muttered, building up nerve. “Prepare for round two, Joel Litton, and this time I’m coming out the winner.”
Loaded with her delicious weapon that with any luck would break through his barricade, she made her way to his shed. He wasn’t sitting outside as she expected, and she pulled at her lip with her teeth, hesitating, before she balanced the tray with one hand and knocked.
“Get lost.”
“It’s me. Cl—Marielle.” She caught herself just in time.
“I know who it is.”
She gritted her teeth. “That knock was a courtesy, not a request. If you don’t open the door to me in the next three seconds or give me a legitimate reason why I can’t enter, I’m coming inside.” When he didn’t respond, she put her hand to the latch in resolve, her shoulder to the wood. It wouldn’t budge.
He’d barricaded himself inside!
“Joel Litton, if you don’t open this door right now, I’ll go and get Herbert to break it down. You know me well enough by now to know I mean it!” Silence.
“All right then, till the count of three. One … two …” Maybe she should have given him to the count of five—or perhaps ten—and wondered if it was harder for him to navigate without his vision, even in familiar areas.
“Thr—”
The barricade he’d used made a scraping sound, and the door swung open. Joel’s blue eyes blazed down at her. Strange that they could see nothing, as vibrant as they were. Like living blue coals.
“What do you want?” he growled.
She tamped down a fleeting moment’s nervousness. “I brought dinner.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Nonsense.” She managed to brush past, knocking him aside without upsetting the tray, and heard his grunt of surprise. “You have to eat. You didn’t eat last night, and Thea mentioned you had no breakfast or lunch. You can’t keep this up, or you’ll starve to death.”
“Maybe that’d be best.”
She set the tray on the table with a little slam and whirled to face him. “Joel Litton, don’t you dare talk that way! Shame on you! There are plenty of people suffering in this world—not just you. If everyone gave up on living, where would this nation be, I ask? We’d all be history!”
He took two steps toward her. “Don’t give me any lectures, lady! You can’t possibly know what it’s like.”
“To be blind? No. But I do know about suffering. I know what it means to hurt.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What pain has a little thing like you suffered in this world? You seem disgustingly cheery most of the time.”
His tense but flippant words were like blows, since he’d been the crux of much of her pain. “Oh, I’ve suffered. The loss of a family member. The ache of rejection. The desolation of loneliness. But I’ve learned to put my faith in God, even when I don’t understand why those things happened. He knows all and always has an answer if I’m quiet enough to listen. Sometimes He gives no answer, just a feeling of peace.”
Hardness carved his face into a mask of stone. “Don’t talk to me about God! Where was God when my friend’s car went over an embankment? Where was God
when I had to tell his ailing mother that her only son had died and attend his funeral and two others—but by some twist of insanity I alone survived? Where was God when his fiancée tried to overdose a week later, after learning she was pregnant with his kid?”
Shock ran cold throughout Clemmie, freezing her anger, which then melted into horrified compassion. Without thought she reached out to him. “Joel, I’m so sorry….”
He knocked her hand away from his arm. “Spare me your pity. I don’t need it, and I sure don’t deserve it.”
“Don’t deserve it?”
He turned his back on her, his head lowered.
Confused by his belittling words but realizing that to extend the conversation might result in getting her thrown out a second time, she changed the subject. “Please eat. I spent a lot of time preparing this meal. I was told it’s your favorite.”
Joel’s shoulders jerked, his stance becoming rigid again. After what seemed endless seconds, while Clemmie held her breath, he slowly took a seat at the table.
He stared down at the plate as if he could see it. Often she had to remind herself he couldn’t. He seemed so familiar with everything, rarely fumbling in his actions, which came steady and sure.
“Roast … potatoes … carrots … onions …” He quietly ticked off the food groups. The aroma of the meal permeated the cabin, which is how he must have known each one.
“Yes and a special surprise for dessert.”
“Oh?” His tone wasn’t exactly inviting, but neither did it condemn.
“Strawberry shortcake! With real cream.”
She had hoped her declaration would at least bring a smile.
Instead he became very still and frowned.
“Why would you think that was my favorite?”
“It’s not?”
“I never told Thea. As a matter of fact, I never told her any of it. Or Herbert.”
Clemmie sucked in a breath. They’d taken care of him for over a year and didn’t know his favorite foods? “I—but—h–he mentioned he grew up with you. A–at the Refuge. He probably remembered from that.” She swallowed, her conscience uneasy at her little deceit. But Joel couldn’t find out her identity yet. Things were still so rocky between them. She forced her tone to achieve calm and not stutter. “If those aren’t your favorites, I apologize. It’s still delicious food.”
