by Delia Latham
“Probably nothing. But it was kind of creepy.” She repeated the words that had burned themselves into her brain. “The note said, ‘You need a Time-Out to remember you’re mine.’ Time-Out was hyphenated and both words uppercased.”
For the first time since they’d arrived at the Ponderosa, both Penny and Shay went dead silent. Still, Norah had no problem deciphering the deep concern in their eyes.
“Could be some kid pulling a prank.” Penny’s tiny voice was barely recognizable.
“I don’t think so.” Norah shook her head. “I don’t know why, but I have a feeling it’s more than that.”
“Maybe an old boyfriend?” Shay suggested.
Norah rolled her eyes. “How many boyfriends have I had since you’ve known me?”
Shay sighed. “Only Dylan, though I think it’s high time that changes.” Even in the midst of a serious conversation, she couldn’t resist a little prod.
They sat without speaking until their food arrived, and then Shay held out a hand to each of them. “Let’s pray. Father, we thank You for this beautiful day and for this time of fellowship as dear friends. We thank You for the food on this table. Please let it nourish our bodies, but not our waists.” A soft chuckle followed as Penny and Norah reacted to Shay’s inability to keep humor even from her prayers. “And Lord, whoever is trying to intimidate and threaten our Norah, we ask that You handle it, in Your way, Father, not ours. Be a Fortress and Strong Tower of Protection, a Shield and a Deliverer. We ask it in Your precious name. Amen.”
Shay picked up her fork, but her mind clearly was not on lunch. A furrow in her otherwise smooth forehead indicated her concern.
“Sweetie, maybe if we take that note to the police, they can find a fingerprint.”
Norah’s jaw dropped. “Are you kidding? Shay, they’d laugh me out of the police station. I have nothing but a note. No threats. No stalkers that I know of, up until now, and that’s probably not what this is.” She lifted a bite of mashed potatoes to mouth level. “If I see another of those creepy-crawly notes, I’ll consider it. Now…can we talk about something else, please?” She shoved the fork in her mouth.
“Okay, okay. I get it. Let’s have a nice lunch and not think about anything unpleasant anymore. Where’s Donnie?”
“Donovan, Mama Shay.” Norah rolled her eyes. How many times had she corrected her friend already? She didn’t like nicknames, and she sure didn’t want Donovan losing the beautiful name his father gave him to a shortened version that did it no justice. “And he’s playing miniature golf with a friend from his class.”
“Wow!” Penny’s big eyes widened even more. “He actually went somewhere without insisting you come along?”
Norah nibbled at the inside of her cheek. “Yeah. I’m really glad he went, but…” Warmth traveled up her neck and she chuckled. “Can you believe it kind of hurt my feelings when he didn’t even bat an eye? He just waved and said, ‘See ya later, Mommy.’” She lifted a sheepish gaze to her friends. “What kind of mother am I? I mean, we’ve been pushing the poor kid to be more outgoing, to have fun with his friends, since he first started school. Now he’s taken a first real step in that direction, and I’m jealous of the little girl he’s with.”
Shay snorted and grabbed a napkin to cover her mouth. “His friend is a girl? As in, not a boy?”
“Shay! I repeat, you’re incorrigible. Donovan is seven, not seventeen. This child is a friend.”
“Of course she is, sweetie. But I think it’s safe to say Donnie has a crush.” She shrugged, and then grinned at a sputtering Norah. “Or maybe he just really likes this kid. Maybe she’s his kind of person. You know, like we three musketettes. We’re each others’ kind of ‘persons’.”
Penny hiked both eyebrows up under her wispy bangs. “And what exactly is a musketette, Shay Tileston? Is it something I want to be?”
Shay grinned. “The feminine kind of musketeer, of course. Sheesh. Do I have to send you two back to school, or what?”
Norah reached for the salt, unable to hold back a grin. “You know, I think you get loonier with age, Mama Shay. So we’re the three musketettes, are we?”
“Well, yeah. And we make those musketeers look lame, ladies. Truly lame.” She craned her neck to search the room. “Where’s our waitress? I’m ready for the good stuff.”
“By ‘good stuff,’ you mean Hoss’s chocolate cream pie, right?”
“What else?” She ordered three slices, over the protests of the other two ladies. “Now, back to Donnie.”
“Donovan. Seriously, Mama Shay! I don’t like nicknames.”
Penny ribbed her friend with an elbow. “Be nice. You never call him Donnie unless you’re talking to Norah.”
Norah’s chin dropped. “Is that true?”
“So true.” Penny tried to shovel a forkful of Hoss’s specialty dessert between her lips, but a big, impish grin made the task a little difficult. “Tell her, ‘Mama Shay.’”
Shay made a wry face. “You spoiled it, Penny. I have so much fun poking that little quirk of Norah’s.”
“So not nice!” Norah tossed her crumpled napkin across the table.
Shay caught it, laughing. “You’re such fun to tease, sweetie. I can’t resist.”
“Hey, you two.” Penny’s bright gaze had gone somber, focused on something behind Norah. “Who’s that guy up there? He can’t take his eyes off our girl.”
“Guy? What guy?” Shay followed her friend’s gaze toward the register. “Ohhh, the one with the crooked Ian Somerhalder smile?”
Norah’s fork dropped onto her plate with a loud clatter. Even before the jangle of metal on ceramic stilled, she was on her feet and searching for the customer Penny had mentioned.
“Where, Penny?”
“Easy, honey. Right there. He’s handing his money to the new girl at the counter.”
Norah spotted him and wilted back onto her chair. Trembling fingers betrayed her agitation to the world. Her quaking tummy, at least, she could hide.
Both of her friends had laid forks on plates and sat staring at her as if she’d grown a new nose in the middle of her forehead.
Shay spoke first. “You got some ’splainin’ to do, sweetie.”
* * * *
That night, as she half-watched Watchmen of the World with Donovan, Norah found herself starting at every sound. A summer wind had blown in since lunch with the girls. As a result, branches scratched against the windows, and the old wood floors creaked as if their joints ached. Even the volume of the television, which rose without warning during active scenes, caught her off guard a time or two.
Why hadn’t she thought about Chandler right away? The ‘Time-Out’ thing had niggled at her mind, but she’d failed to put two and two together. After the shock of thinking he was in the Ponderosa, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t made the connection right away.
Time-Out. Unless she was wrong—and she didn’t think so, considering the odd usage of upper- and lower-case letters—the word was a reference to Richie’s Time-Out Hangout, where she and Chandler first met. She hadn’t thought of him in so long, it was almost like that brief, ill-fated relationship never happened. But it had, and she’d ended it with an annulment.
Hadn’t she? A sudden electric shock of shivers spiraled up her spine. Might she have overlooked something?
Norah forced herself to wait until the movie ended and she’d tucked Donovan in for the night before bolting into her bedroom, and to the darkest corner of the walk-in closet. Out came the old suitcase that had seen her through three “lives.” She threw it on the bed and returned to the closet, where she used a stepstool to help her reach the furthest corner of the upper shelf. She couldn’t see it, but she felt it—the cheap purse she’d carried when she left Echo City. On its interior bottom, still trapped beneath the tape with which she’d secured it over a decade ago, she found the key. But trembling fingers turned the simple act of fitting it into the lock into an insurmountable task.
She stopped, laid the key aside
for a moment, and drew three deep breaths. In…and out. Inhale…exhale. Breathe…and release. At last, she managed to open the battered piece of luggage.
Inside, she’d packed everything of importance that belonged to her life prior to Ruidoso. The last item she’d locked away lay on top of the stash—an official-looking manila envelope that contained her Certificate of Annulment. The moment she’d received confirmation the marriage was legally nullified, she’d made Chandler a copy and walked to the post office to mail it. Her own set of papers she’d filed away in her suitcase “lockbox,” almost ashamed of herself for feeling a hundred pounds lighter.
What if she’d examined them too hastily? Could it be she wasn’t free of the marriage she’d entered into at an age not quite sufficient to be called an adult?
But after poring over the documents and the finalized certificate, she found nothing to indicate a problem. The annulment was official. According to Arizona state records, she’d never been married to Chandler Dunn.
Exhausted physically and emotionally, she packed everything back exactly as it had been for years and climbed into bed, chiding herself for being silly. Chandler had given her not a single problem since she left Echo City. Why would he do so now? The terminology of that note was a fluke, that’s all.
Just a fluke.
Still, she sent up a desperate prayer for peace and protection as she drifted off to sleep.
At church the next day, Pastor Darren Wray’s sermon stirred up a tempest in her soul. What were the odds that, given her current state of anxiety, his message would bear the title, “What Lives in the Absence of Fear?”
“The Bible says in 1 John 4:18 that perfect love casts out fear. It also says the one who fears is not made perfect in love. My question to you today is this: Do you love Christ enough? Will you let Him love you enough to replace your anxiety and stress, the constant worry in your life? Those things are fear-based. Every negative emotion has a basis—somewhere, somehow—in fear. Always. Think about it. One of the definitions of fear is “anticipation of the possibility that something unpleasant will occur.” Pastor Wray shook his head. “Are you hearing this, friends? Fear, defined, is you and I sitting around waiting on something bad to happen. Maybe to us, maybe to someone we love.” A little chuckle escaped.
“God is love, my friends. He alone offers a fear-free existence. All it costs is complete trust.”
The minister paused for a moment. “Sometimes fear comes from a place in our pasts. Someone hurt us, and we fear anything that might bring about that kind of hurt again. We sinned, and we fear returning to that place of transgression. We made mistakes that affected not only our lives, but the lives of others…and we fear retaliation, revenge, or retribution for our wrongdoing.
“May I suggest we all stop for a moment? Stop stewing in anxiety. Stop dwelling on stressful thoughts. Stop living under the weight of unforgiveness. Whatever state of being in which fear has you trapped, please…just stop. Take a deep breath and remember that no matter the reason for that unease inside you, God is the answer. He who is perfect love grabs fear by the collar and the seat of the pants and tosses it out the door. But—now listen up, friends, this is the best part. He doesn’t stop there. Our heavenly Champion moves into its former dwelling place—your heart. Your mind. Your life. He fills it to the brim and overflowing, so no room remains for anything but Him. Perfect love.”
Instead of leaving the church lighter of heart, Norah found herself conducting a deep self-examination. Donovan didn’t always require a nap, but today he could barely hold his head up by the time they arrived at home after service. She gave him a hurried lunch and sent him to his room for a short nap. Within five minutes, he was out. Norah curled up on her own bed, closed her eyes, and let her mind drift into places she rarely allowed it to go.
She hadn’t seen or heard from Chandler Dunn since he returned the signed annulment papers to her. Why then was she so ready to think he might be responsible for the note on her windshield? Why now, after all this time, would he resort to such tactics?
Pastor Wray’s comment about the weight of unforgiveness had struck a resonant chord in her, brought vividly to mind things to which she’d given no thought until now. Was she carrying subconscious guilt for not trying harder all those years ago? Maybe her suspicions regarding Chandler were an unconscious transference of blame.
If so, then she was indeed living under the weight of fear. Fear that God hadn’t forgiven her for that failed marriage. Fear that her troubled, unhappy past would somehow show up to haunt her and threaten the happiness she’d found in Ruidoso.
The chances of the culprit being some kid playing a not-very-funny prank were much higher than the possibility that, after all this time, Chandler lurked in the shadows to stalk her.
She slid to her knees beside the bed.
“God, I know You’ve forgiven me for every sin in my life, and that You don’t ‘take back’ forgiveness. Still, I’m not sure I ever asked You to forgive me for abandoning a marriage without trying longer and harder. Should I have endured Chandler’s alcohol problem and his abuse? Might things have worked out for us if I’d been able to surrender to him in every way?”
A little sob burst from her lips, and she grabbed a pillow and buried her head in it so she wouldn’t wake her son.
“My marriage was made non-existent by the legal system, but…does it still exist in Your eyes? Lord, I’m floundering here. I’m not sure which way to go, or where to turn. I want to live in Your love, where fear is a stranger. How do I do that, now that these questions are wriggling around in my mind like a serpent? Father, was I wrong to leave Chandler? I never would have truly loved him, not with the drinking and physical abuse.” She swiped at her tears and sighed. “But I used him, didn’t I? He was a way to free myself of the life of servitude in Quinn’s house. That was wrong. Still, the time to have worried about all this is long past. If I sinned in leaving him, You’ve already forgiven me, but Chandler probably hasn’t. Do I need to approach him now, after all this time, and apologize for giving up so soon? If that’s what You’re asking of me, I’ll do it, even though it’s the last thing I want to do. Whatever it takes, I need peace of mind, Lord. I want Your love to fill me so completely that there’s no room for fear or doubt or confusion.”
She knelt in silence until her knees burned and ached, listening for an answer that didn’t come. After a long time, she climbed into bed and pulled the covers up to her nose. “Lead me, Lord. I’ll follow. In Jesus’ precious name. Amen.”
~ Chapter 11 ~
T
HE JULIET ROSES CAME IN the following Thursday.
Norah unwrapped them and looked them over for damage or disease, though what she wanted was to call Marcus Conley without a second’s delay. She found no problems on the plants, and still didn’t call. She’d ordered two Juliet rosebushes. One went into her inventory. The other received a bright purple cellophane wrap. Norah slipped the transparent paper beneath the container, drew it up along the sides and fixed it in place with a wide, white ribbon. Already, one rose’s petals lay open, their velvety softness and subtle color exposed. A separate bud peeked from green sepals like a baby chick emerging from an egg.
Nice! She could be proud to hand over this Juliet to Marcus.
At last, having proven to herself that she could show restraint, no matter how handsome the face of her new customer, she placed the call…and held her breath until he answered.
“Hello there, Norah of Norah’s Garden and Greenhouse. I had a feeling you’d call today.”
She grinned, despite herself. “Did you now?”
“Yes, ma’am. I did. Well, for the sake of honesty, I should probably say I ‘hoped’ you’d call today.”
“Well, hope does spring eternal, Mr. Conley.”
He laughed, a rich, deep, resonant burst of merriment that Norah felt all the way to her bones. Heavens above! Good thing he hadn’t let loose that piece of unfair weaponry in person. She might have mel
ted onto the floor in a Norah-sized puddle. So much for restraint and control.
“When can I pick it up?”
“Anytime. It’s wrapped and ready to go home with you.”
“Then I’ll be there in half an hour.”
“See you then.”
Never had thirty minutes passed so slowly. By the time the bells jangled over the door when he entered the shop, Norah was short of breath, even a tad sick at her stomach. This would never do. She had no time and little interest in a romantic relationship—not that Marcus had even indicated he wanted one. Why on earth did her silly heart respond to this man like a teenage girl with a major crush?
She forced a smile and a calm exterior—one that didn’t come close to reflecting the storm of emotion in her soul.
“That was fast, Mr. Conley. Were you parked down the road, awaiting my call—I mean, given your gift of clairvoyance...”
He shook his head, and precisely shaped lips curved up on one side in a broad, utterly heart-stopping smile. “Marcus, okay? Call me Marcus.”
“Well, that depends.”
One dark brow shot up his forehead. “Depends on what?”
Despite her fraught nerves, Norah managed an impish grin. “On whether I can be Norah…just plain Norah.”
Disappointment shadowed his face. “Wow, you don’t make it easy, do you?”
Norah frowned. “You won’t call me by my first name?”
He tilted his head, narrowed those incredible eyes, and offered another lopsided smile. Was he aware of what they did to her? “I’ll be honored to call you Norah…Norah. But you can’t be ‘just plain’ anything. Lady, there is nothing plain about you.”
“Oh.” Heat rushed into her face in rolling waves. But the tsunami-strength blush didn’t stem purely from embarrassment. A forceful rush of pleasure zinged all the way through her body. How long had it been since that kind of blatant admiration had come her way?
But that wasn’t true. She didn’t believe in false modesty any more than she believed in self-focus and vanity. Norah couldn’t deny what her mirror showed her every morning. Her brother had told her, the day she married Dylan, that she looked like their beautiful mother. She did, and the past few years had further accentuated that likeness. So yes, she knew she wasn’t hard to look at. She’d become somewhat accustomed to the reactions of fascinated men—stares, whistles, sometimes even coarse, bold comments that made her want to run and hide.
