Creighton's Hideaway (20 page)

Healing hills.

Shana felt a Presence far greater than she had ever imagined, as it wrapped her in a cocoon of comfort. “This must be what Pastor Harrigan meant when he mentioned the Holy Spirit at church.”

Her thoughts sprinted on. Life was good. And she was ready to face her troubles head-on. She'd like to find the unknown person in her cabin during daylight. She returned to find it empty. After lunch, Shana decided to help Creighton feel better. She shuffled through the cupboards and grabbed a bag of chocolate chips. She was soon out the door again. Anger and fear marched with her, but she wouldn't acknowledge either one.

Her brisk gait took her to the ranch house. The garage stood open, Creighton's truck was gone. She let herself in the house and spoke his name into the silence, just to make sure he was really absent. No answer, but she was greeted by the faint smell of chicken, which flavored the air from the day before. “Thank goodness it isn't that awful stench from my own place.”

She opened cupboard and pantry doors and soon had ingredients set out on the counter. Eggs from the fridge joined the recipe stash, and she turned the oven on to preheat.

While she mixed the dry ingredients, a smile formed. In the city, she would have turned on the TV. Here in the country, she discovered her own thoughts were adequate.

The last baking sheet of cookies was in the oven when she heard Creighton's truck pull up. She wiped her hands on the dishcloth and whisked away a speck of flour from the front of her khakis. Then she took a breath and opened the door, “Hey, there.”

Creighton nudged the pickup door shut with his shoulder. Two plastic grocery sacks dangled from each hand. “Well, hi there, yourself.” His smile lit her insides.

“I hope you don't mind. I helped myself to your goods and baked—” She held the door so he could enter the kitchen.

“Chocolate chip cookies,” he inhaled with obvious sensory pleasure. “Wow. What a treat.”

He set two of the bags on the table and crossed to place the other two on the counter next to the fridge. He grabbed a cookie with one hand and motioned to Shana with the other. The cookie disappeared in his mouth, and she was drawn by the teasing gleam in his eyes. “Think I'll go grocery shopping more often.” His gaze locked with hers. “Come here.” His low, husky voice traveled through the fibers of her torso.

She stepped into his embrace. Shana caught her breath a beat before his lips touched hers.

Creighton moaned in response and kissed her thoroughly. Light and gentle at first, then deeper. As though he sensed that she had no strength in her legs, he held her by the elbows.

He ran a roughened thumb over her bottom lip, grinned, and then kissed her nose. “I…” he rasped. “Want…” Then he brushed a cheek against her temple.

Her knees went watery.

“To…” He kissed the spot in front of her ear.

She couldn't feel her feet on the floor.

“Savor every taste.” He showered kisses as soft as gentle raindrops across her forehead, just below the hairline. His thumbs traced her jaws and then caressed the corners of her mouth. His lips found purchase on hers again, and his hands gravitated to her waist.

She returned the kiss, and tunneled her fingers through his hair from nape to temple. Her senses were assaulted by the rightness of Creighton's overwhelming embrace. Where the strength came from, she didn't know, but she brought her hands down to put pressure on his chest. Then she leaned away. She mumbled, “I need some air.” Once outside, she dropped her head into her hands.

This was Creighton's world.

Their lives were miles apart with her job and home elsewhere. She must return to Lincoln.

 

****

 

“No doubt about it,” Creighton greeted Shana outside after he emptied the grocery sacks, “you're mightier than your size.” His quick glance in her direction confirmed that she must feel as dazed as he did. He fidgeted with the billed cap on his head. “Would you like to ride with me to take Valerie her groceries?”

“OK.”

“I didn't see you to get a list so I guessed at what to buy for you.” In an attempt to put a time perspective on things, he added, “Whatever's left once you leave, I can use myself.”

She drew an audible breath.

He wheeled his quad out of the garage and lifted the remaining groceries from the truck. He climbed on without a word, and set the heaviest bag in front of him.

Shana took the plastic sacks from his hands once she had eased herself into place.

He turned to face forward again, and hid the smile that threatened.

She draped the handles of one sack over her shoulder like a purse. She held the other between his side and her leg. With her free hand, she looped her fingers into his waistband. He jolted, but in a pleasurable way. Except, this pain hit his heart and not his hide.

At her cabin, Valerie met them with glazed eyes.

Creighton suspected she'd been staring at her computer screen for too long. She must have picked up on the tension because her head swung from Creighton to Shana, then back again. As though she surmised this was not a time for chitchat, she mouthed her “thanks,” and went back inside.

Thoughts swarmed in his mind louder than the quad's motor during the short ride to Shana's cabin. How could she be interested in him, when he had done the things he had? He still couldn't juxtapose his desire for her with his painful past. And she'd be leaving soon, returning to Lincoln where he had no part in her life.

Creighton believed in treating a woman like a lady, even if there was a protective distance between them now. He wanted her to stay. He knew she had to go. He shut off the engine, waited for her to climb down, and then dismounted. With a shake of his head, he declined Shana's offer to help. He carried all the plastic sacks into her cabin. Turning from the kitchen area, he crossed to the sliding door so he could get a better look at the bleached bone on the deck.

“I found it on the way to the tipi rings.”

An added golden light came in to meld the blue to green of her eyes.

She's beautiful.
He drew a ragged breath.
God's gift, this woman. Is she my gift? God, do You mean for her to be my completion?

“Would you mind if I take it back to Lincoln with me? I'll do something with it, maybe buy a cactus plant and set it next to the pot.”

“I don't mind at all. We've got a ravine where we dump what the coyotes leave.” Creighton turned away and stared down at the creek. He wasn't in a hurry to depart. Her nearness tugged at him. Yet, he didn't want to touch her again, to have one more encounter to haunt him after she was gone.

She came to his side and tucked her hand into his. “Creighton, I can tell that for some reason you don't like the idea of getting close to me.” She leaned her head against his arm.

“It's not—” He couldn't finish.

“Can't we be friends? Christian friends can care about one another, can't they?” She stepped in front of him so there was no way he could prevent being drawn into the honest freshness of her face.

“I'm a jerk.” He ran his knuckles down her jaw line. “I don't mean to make you feel bad because of my moods. But you make me feel things that surprise me.”

“OK. I'll try not to invade your space.” She leaned her hands on the railing.

Heel. Jerk. Scaredy-cat
.
Stop!
His dad had called the old Creighton those names.

The new man was righteous in the sight of God. The theme of Romans, chapter six came to mind.
Believers are dead to sin and alive to Christ.
Yet we continue to struggle
. He missed her warmth, feeling the empty space where Shana had stood. Creighton massaged the corded muscles at the back of his neck.
Oh, Lord, forgive me for not feeling good enough for her. She's found herself out here on the land that You've made me caretaker of. Now I'm turning my back on her because I feel unworthy. Show me Your will
.

“There's so much to enjoy here, and I love spending time outdoors. Have I seen it all?”

“Maybe. Can't compare to what God makes. But, do you like to swing?”

“I love to swing! Is it a rope swing in a tall tree?” Enthusiasm tinted her cheeks an appealing blush.

Creighton grinned at the show of color. “Let's go, then.”

He ran to the stairs, jumping down all steps at once, and was on the quad before Shana reached the bottom step.

Their laughter rang out as they took a playful, reckless ride to the other side of the ranch house and garage. He enjoyed the heightened speed because Shana nestled in close and grabbed his sides for balance a couple of times.

A giant cottonwood watched over the garage. Creighton recalled the day when as a teen he could no longer encircle the trunk. On the opposite side of the garage, a huge tree limb dripped two streams of bright yellow rope. The board seat of the swing spanned nearly three feet.

Shana jumped off the four-wheeler in her exuberance. “I love it! It's so big.”

Creighton tucked his fingertips into his front pockets, pleased that something he had made with his hands brought her such delight. “I figured Rita would have more than one kid, so I made it to fit a couple of kids.”

She sat, gripped the thick ropes, leaned way back and lifted her feet. Her laughter thrilled his heart.

“If I did that,” he finally managed, “I'd lose the last chocolate chip cookie I gobbled.” Creighton pulled his gaze away and wheeled his four-wheeler into the garage. Then he busied himself by straightening the cab of his truck. He even picked up the floor mats and shook them off, anything to keep him busy.

All he really wanted to do was join in Shana's play. He longed to push her high in the swing, to feel the movement of feminine muscle and fine bone beneath his hands. But he ignored the need that dug at his belly. Could it be the love Valerie had mentioned?

“I can't think about need. Or love.” He ground out through clenched teeth as gravel flew from one of the mats. Then he pounded the mats together. “My old man was a drunk and I followed in his footsteps.” How could he even consider sharing his life with a woman as gifted and delightful as Shana? He couldn't. “Bent elbow disease, Dad. Bending that elbow to take the next drink. And I inherited the same desire,” he mumbled to the mat he placed against the floor pedals. “I never measured up as a son. How could I measure up as a husband, or father?” In despair, he slammed the truck door.
I'm better off alone.

 

****

 

Shana felt like a child in the swing. She lifted her toes away from the earth and drifted. Back and forth, back and forth, the slight breeze lifted her hair and gently dropped it again with each sway to and fro. She could see the barn, corral, and beyond the stock tank, to the endless sea of grass over hill and dale. She laughed out loud at her poetic choice of words.

God had worked a miracle in her heart. Sure, she had troubles. But she didn't have to face them alone. Identity theft may be a misnomer. She had discovered her identity in Jesus.

She floated to a stop, stepped around the swing and turned to face the other direction. Once again, she pushed off and pumped her feet, higher and higher. So high, that she glimpsed a stretch of the paved road to the north of the ranch. A road that would take her home to Lincoln in a few short days. Shana sat in the motionless swing a long time before she meandered back to her cabin.

She saw nothing of Creighton.

She stopped, closed her eyes and opened her senses: the warmth of the sun, the kiss of the breeze, the meadowlark's song. The dry grass and earth smell that she could almost taste. She opened her eyes to colors that God alone had made.

She soon had everything picked up, cleaned, and put in its place in the cabin. Everything except her laptop and research notes. She moseyed to the table and wrapped the charcoal gray stone in the palm of her hand. Rubbing a thumb over the ridges worn smooth by the passage of time, she considered the person who had used this stone as a tool.

She came to no conclusions except one. Well, two. They had nothing to do with a native person who had lived long ago.

Shana knew without a doubt that as much as she believed Creighton was the one man for her, she could move on with her life, with or without Creighton.

And she could be content, as long as she sought God and walked by faith. He would light her path. And if it was a dark path, He'd still be with her.

She set down the stone and picked up Vera Rice's Bible. Crossing the room to the kitchen area, she ran a tall glass full of water, and went outside. Following Creighton's example, she found references for different words in the concordance.

Psalm 121:1 set a prayer of thanksgiving in her heart when she read aloud, “'I lift up my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from?'” Shana studied the Word until dusk, when she could no longer read the print.

A
pee-ik
cry pierced the early evening silence. She caught a movement and followed the quick dart of a good-sized bird with a white stripe underneath each gray wing. The bird dove and rose straight up again.

“Nighthawk,” Creighton's voice drifted from near the cottonwood tree.

Her pulse, kicked into high gear by the hawk's cry, continued its wild fluttering at the low cadence of his voice. Out on his evening stroll again.

She listened to the rustling leaves as he drew closer.

“Leslie once explained that Indians called them thunderbirds.”

“Really? Do you know why?”

“Guess it's because the silly birds fly around during thunderstorms. I'd think that insects take shelter, so hawks can't be flying for food. The way the male nighthawk likes to dip and rise, I guess it's for the thrill of a ride in the wind.”

“I think I've seen a thunderbird in some Indian designs.”