Yuletide Peril

by Irene Brand

  “I haven’t said anything before, but I don’t think you should get interested in Janice. Their family background isn’t the best. In fact, I’m sorry that Taylor has become so close to Brooke.”

  “Did you come to this conclusion because I’m seeing a lot of Janice?”

  She looked at him strangely but didn’t answer.

  “Linda, I don’t mean to be unkind, but I’m thirty years old. I have one mother, and I don’t need another one. I like Janice—I don’t know how much yet—but enough that I don’t want you interfering in our relationship or trying to come between Brooke and Taylor. For my sake, I expect you to continue being friendly to Janice. If I have to choose between you and Janice, you might not like my decision.”

  Linda stared at him with cold, proud eyes, and her annoyance was evident.

  “Do I make myself clear?” he asked. When she nodded, he turned and left the kitchen, praying that Linda had gotten the message. He didn’t want to hurt his sister, but he wouldn’t allow her to mess up his chances with Janice. Janice was sensitive about her past, and if she ever had an inkling that Linda disapproved of her because of her family, she might stop seeing him.

  A brisk breeze wafted wispy snowflakes around them as, wrapped in heavy coats and hoods, the four of them started up the hillside. Lance carried a chainsaw. They were breathless before they reached the top of the hill, which leveled off into sparse forestland of tall, deciduous trees, with a few evergreens among them.

  “With Mountjoy’s high ceilings, we can get a large tree,” Janice said, “but these are way too big.”

  “Let’s keep going,” Lance said. “We may find a clearing where the evergreens will be smaller.”

  Soon they reached a section of land where a wide strip of forest had been cleared for a power line. Various sizes of pine trees grew beneath the electric wires. “This is more like it,” Janice said excitedly. “We should find a great one here.”

  As they searched for the perfect tree, they came suddenly upon a cultivated area surrounded by a thicket of evergreens.

  “Oh, look Uncle Lance—here’s a cornfield,” Taylor called.

  Lance looked quickly at Janice, and she was surprised at his expression. Taking a second look, Janice knew they hadn’t discovered a cornfield. Several rows of plants had already been harvested, leaving behind stalks where the plants had been cut two inches or so from the ground. The field was enclosed by a close-woven fence about five feet high.

  “Stay away from the field, girls,” Lance called sharply. “Come back. We’ll look someplace else for a tree.”

  “How come?” Taylor turned around and asked, but she and Brooke obeyed him.

  “For one thing, there aren’t any trees in that field. It’s also muddy, so please do as I say and walk around that area.”

  “What is it?” Janice said quietly.

  “I have a feeling someone has been growing marijuana on your property.”

  Janice looked again at the field. “So there is a connection between Mountjoy and the local drug trade!”

  “Looks like. Sometimes people lay booby traps in these patches to catch intruders before they get to the field—that’s why I didn’t want Brooke and Taylor walking in there. We may even be too close already. Let’s get away from here and cut our trees farther down this power line.”

  “Shouldn’t we notify the police?”

  “Yes, as soon as we return to the house. It’s too late to find the growers, but no doubt this is one of the reasons you’ve been warned away. You got to Stanton about the time marijuana is harvested, and they didn’t want you to find this place.”

  “Why would I be a threat to them?”

  “If you’d have walked up here and notified the police, they would have destroyed the plants. That would cost the growers a lot of money. I can’t even estimate the street value of a field of pot this size.”

  “Is that the reason I haven’t had much trouble lately?” she asked.

  “Could be. Now that they’ve harvested the crop, they’ll likely move their operations next year.”

  Janice let Brooke talk her into cutting a pine tree that was two feet taller than Lance. The tree would look nice in their living room, but she doubted if she could afford to buy enough ornaments to trim it.

  “Which tree do you want, Taylor?”

  “But Mama said—”

  “She said to not get anything for your part of the house. Let’s choose a small tree for my office, and you can help decorate it.”

  They agreed on a three-foot-tall cedar.

  “How are we going to get the trees back to the house?” Janice asked. “I didn’t realize how big our tree would be.”

  “I’ll take the big tree. You carry my chainsaw, and Brooke and Taylor can take turns packing the cedar. We’ll make it.”

  Lance called Sergeant Baxter as soon as they returned to the house. He and another cop came immediately, climbed the hill to see the field and returned soon, affirming Lance’s belief that it was a marijuana patch.

  “We try to find all of these fields and destroy them before they can harvest the stuff, but we can’t find all of them,” Baxter said. “We’ll get some reinforcements and come back tomorrow to check through all of your woods to see if there are other plantings.”

  After Lance helped Janice put the tree in a holder, he knew he had to take Taylor home. His worries about Janice had surfaced again, but he tried to conceal his concern from her. But as he put on his coat to leave, she whispered, “Does this mean my troubles aren’t over?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Janice had taken Brooke to children’s play practice, and Linda had volunteered to pick her up after practice and bring her home. Even without knowing about Lance’s ultimatum to his sister, Janice realized that Linda was friendly again. She welcomed a few hours alone because she needed some privacy to wrap Brooke’s gifts and to arrange the decorations she’d bought at bargain prices.

  Knowing that Janice would be alone, Lance called and asked if he could stop by.

  “As if you have to ask,” she said. “You’re always welcome. I don’t know what I’d have done without you the past four months.”

  Her statement bothered Lance. Did Janice love him at all, or was she just grateful because he’d been so helpful to her?

  “I’ll be out soon.”

  When he arrived, he carried a large box. He set the box on the hall tree while he removed his coat. “This is your Christmas gift,” he said, “but it’s something you can put to use now, so I brought it early.”

  “You shouldn’t have” trembled on Janice’s lips, but she didn’t say the words.

  “It’s a nativity scene I bought in the Holy Land three years ago. I haven’t used it, and I’ve decided this will be perfect for the sideboard in your dining room. Unless you’d rather put the set in another place.”

  “That’s a good place, because I don’t have many decorations for the dining room. But this set must be special to you—I don’t think I should take it,” she protested as he headed toward the dining room.

  “I bought the pieces at a gift shop on Shepherd’s Field near Bethlehem. They’re hand carved of olive wood. I want you to have them.”

  Janice removed the knickknacks she had on the sideboard, and spread a long white, linen runner across the wide surface. They unpacked the figures of Mary, Joseph and the Christ Child and placed them under the frame of a stable. One by one they arranged the other fifteen carvings around the Holy Family, their hands often touching as they worked.

  “I really don’t know how to thank you,” she said when they stood back to look at the nativity scene. “I value this more than any gift I’ve ever received, and I’m going to ask you the same question I asked you several months ago. Why are you doing this for me?”

  “I didn’t know the answer then,” Lance said, “but I do now.” She read the answer in his blue eyes before he drew her close and lowered his head to hers. She made no effort to avoid his lips, but rais
ed her face eagerly. Her eyes closed as his lips touched hers. She had never dreamed that a kiss could be so tender, yet so magnetic. He kissed her again and again until Janice pulled away breathless.

  “I love you,” Lance murmured, “that’s the reason I gave you this gift. I was interested in you the first day we met, but my love has grown until it’s all-consuming. I’m miserable when I’m not with you. My heart is so closely joined to yours that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Do you love me enough to marry me?”

  Janice’s eyes lighted with love and tenderness when she lifted her face. “I love you very much and want to become your wife, but not right away. Everything seems to be going along all right now, but I’m edgy, as if waiting for a storm to break. I’m still not confident that I’ve seen the last of the trouble at Mountjoy, and until I’m sure, I won’t marry you. There are still too many things that are unexplained, and I don’t want you harmed because of my troubles.”

  “Your problems are mine whether or not we’re married, but I’ll be patient.” When he kissed her again, thrilling to her warm response, Lance wondered just how patient he could be.

  When Janice received a check from the Christmas club account she’d saved at SuperMart, she gave Brooke some money to buy gifts and used the rest for her own purchases. Henrietta volunteered to help Brooke buy her gifts.

  Janice spent sparingly, but she did order a poinsettia from the Willow Creek florist to be delivered to Miss Caroline at VOH. In addition to her presents for Brooke, she bought small gifts for Henrietta, Cecil, Linda, Lance and Taylor to give them on Christmas day.

  After receiving Henrietta’s instructions, Janice had few qualms about preparing the food for Christmas, but she was fretting about how to arrange the dining room table. She’d found a few usable linen tablecloths with matching napkins in the sideboard. She’d bleached them until they were gleaming white. She spread one of them on the long table. There were only six matching chairs, but since there would be seven of them for Christmas dinner, she brought a straight chair from one of the upstairs bedrooms and washed and waxed it.

  Janice had been using mismatched dishes and crystal, but she wanted something special for the Christmas table. She’d looked often at SuperMart’s dinnerware display, adoring the holiday-patterned china, although she knew it wasn’t practical. If she bought anything, it should be dishes she could use throughout the year.

  Henrietta solved that problem when she asked Janice to come to her house two weeks before Christmas. She had a set of bone china packed and ready for her.

  “This dinnerware belonged to your grandmother,” Henrietta explained. “John brought it with him when he moved to town, but it belongs at Mountjoy. And there’s a set of silverware in the box, too.”

  Despite Janice’s protests, Henrietta insisted. “I’ve got two other sets of dishes that belonged to the Reids, and they’ll be yours when I die. They’re not as valuable as these, but they’re good china, too.”

  Janice set the table on Christmas Eve morning, handling the pieces of milky-white china with care. She added the Christmas glasses she’d bought at SuperMart and arranged small metallic ornaments around a large candle for a centerpiece. Before she turned off the gleaming chandelier, she looked with pride at the table and at the nativity scene on the sideboard. Her uncle would have been pleased with what she’d done at Mountjoy.

  Because it was snowing and the roads were slick, Lance came to Mountjoy to take Janice and Brooke to the cantata. Janice had never participated in such an impressive presentation and her heart was blessed as she sang praises to God for sending Jesus into the world. When Lance took them home, he lingered at the door long enough to kiss her and wish her a Merry Christmas.

  By the time Janice checked all the doors and windows to be sure they were locked, Brooke had already undressed and was in bed, anticipating getting up early to open gifts. Janice went to the kitchen to prepare a plate of veggies for the next day’s dinner, because she wanted to have the meal ready when her guests arrived. Before she went to bed, she hung a large red stocking for Brooke on the mantel and filled it with candies and fruit.

  It seemed as if she’d hardly closed her eyes when Brooke tapped her on the shoulder.

  “Time to get up! It’s Christmas morning,” she shouted and ran toward the tree in the living room.

  Yawning widely, Janice slipped into a robe and joined her sister. Happily watching Brooke on her knees pulling packages from under the tree, at first Janice didn’t notice that two stockings hung on the mantel instead of the one she’d placed there the night before.

  Pleased that Brooke had prepared a stocking for her out of her meager allowance, while Brooke tried on a pair of fleece-lined boots from her first box Janice squeezed the stocking with her name scratched on it. She couldn’t imagine what was in it, but she peered inside and gingerly lifted out a hunting knife, the blade of which was drizzled with red paint.

  Feeling faint, Janice smothered a shriek and quickly pushed the knife back in the stocking and stuffed it between some newspapers in the magazine rack. She couldn’t let Brooke see the knife. Trembling, she sank down on the couch and feigned an interest in the gifts Brooke was opening.

  “Oh, cool,” Brooke shouted, as she opened Taylor’s gift—a charm bracelet. “I wanted one of these.”

  Brooke lifted a box from under the tree. “Here’s a box for you from Henrietta. Open it—you didn’t get anything except her present and what I bought you, which isn’t much.”

  Thinking of the nativity set that Lance had given her and the promise of his kiss and subsequent proposal, she said, “I have all the gifts I want.” And one she definitely didn’t want, she thought as her trembling fingers struggled to untie the ribbons from the box. What was the meaning of the knife? Was this a new threat to her life? Why did this have to happen today when she wanted to observe the birth of Jesus with her friends? And how did the person get in? The house had been locked up tight when she went to bed.

  She’d hoped the threat of living at Mountjoy was over, and after Lance’s kiss a few days ago, she’d dared to dream of a pleasant future. How could she entertain her guests with this new danger hanging over her head?

  “Hurry up and open your gift,” Brooke said impatiently.

  She opened Brooke’s box first and exclaimed over the white blouse. Henrietta’s package contained a pair of tan slacks and a brown turtleneck sweater. “Henrietta has good taste,” Janice said through stiff lips. “I would have chosen these clothes myself. What did she get for you?”

  “Hey, neat!” Brooke said, as she unwrapped a red-plaid jacket.

  Although Janice had been tempted to go overboard in her gifts for Brooke, she’d used restraint. In addition to the boots, she’d purchased a sweater and skirt outfit, two movies for the VCR and a necklace.

  When Brooke opened her last gift, they stowed the wrapping in a garbage bag and placed the gifts under the tree so Brooke could show them to Taylor.

  “While I put the ham in the oven and start dinner preparations, will you make our beds?” Janice asked. “Then when you finish, we can have a sweet roll and glass of milk for our breakfast.”

  Hearing Brooke’s steps moving toward the bedroom, Janice quickly picked up the stocking holding the knife and went into the kitchen. She pulled a chair close to the cabinets over the sink, stepped up on it and pushed the stocking far back on the top shelf of the cabinet over the sink. She’d decide what to do with it later, but today she’d have to act as if she didn’t have another threat hanging over her.

  After she put the ham in the oven following Henrietta’s written instructions, Janice went into the dining room for a last-minute check. She flipped on the spotlight Lance had brought for the nativity scene. She turned on the chandelier and the table looked elegant with the antique china, the new glasses she’d bought at SuperMart and the gleaming family silverware.

  A lump rose in Janice’s throat and tears filled her eyes. She leaned her head against the wall
.

  Oh, God, she thought. I have You to thank for all of this. When I think of where I came from, I can’t believe that this home actually belongs to me. In spite of the trouble I’ve had here, You’ve sustained me through it all. And whatever danger the future holds, I believe You will care for Brooke and me. Forgive me, God, for my bitterness, my lack of faithfulness to what I know You want in my life.

  Hearing Brooke coming down the hall, Janice swiped at her eyes and went into the kitchen. She poured a glass of chocolate milk for Brooke and placed a package of sweet rolls on the table.

  “I’m going to eat and work at the same time,” she said. “I’m afraid I won’t have everything ready by one o’clock.”

  “Anything I can do?”

  “You can take Hungry’s breakfast to him and wish him a Merry Christmas.”

  Janice ate a roll and sipped on the milk while she peeled sweet potatoes. A Scripture verse she’d heard at VOH kept whirling in her mind—a verse that seemed applicable to her situation. It was maddening to try to remember what the exact words were. When she put the potatoes on to boil, she said to Brooke, “I’ll shower now and get dressed for the day, then you can have the bathroom to yourself.”

  “After I do that, will it be okay for me to watch one of the new videos?”

  “Yes. I’ll let you know if there’s anything else you can do.”

  Before she showered, Janice searched for the Bible Miss Caroline had given her when she left VOH. It was in the bottom of a box she hadn’t unpacked. She turned to the concordance and looked up the words “beginnings” and “humble,” the only two words she could remember from the verse. She soon turned to the eighth chapter of Job.

  “‘Your beginnings will seem humble, so prosperous will your future be,’” she read aloud.

  Janice felt as if God had given her a Christmas gift. This had to be God’s promise that her future was secure in Him. Her beginnings had certainly been humble and God had already brought her a long way. The verse kept revolving over and over in her head as she dressed for the day and prepared the meal. In spite of the newest threat, she felt secure.