Small-Town Dreams (6 page)

“I’m sorry,” he apologized immediately, though he still had no idea what he’d done or what her cryptic comment meant. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It was just…I guess a blast from the past is the only way to describe it.”

Josh sat back against the hip-high stump of a long-dead tree that he’d been whittling away at for the past several weeks. He took his baseball cap off and wiped his brow with the sleeve of his plaid flannel shirt, all the while considering her. “I understand how that can be,” he said carefully. “I never know why it happens. But you do. Do you want to talk about why hearing a nickname turned you three shades of pale?”

“When I was a young child, my parents called me Cassie. We went to Colorado for a skiing holiday when I was six. They loved to ski and so did I. They taught me before I could ride a two-wheeler. One minute we were singing by the fire in our rented cabin, and the next there came this roar that I’ll never forget. I can still see my father jump up and run to the big window that faced the mountain. My mother was right on his heels. He turned back and opened his mouth to say something. But he never got it out. I remember that the windows were black as the night, and in a split second they turned white, then burst inward behind him. The next thing I knew I was being swept away into a world that was cold and white—then everything went black.”

“Avalanche?” Josh guessed, horrified for the child she’d been.

Cassidy nodded, biting her lip, her eyes full of tears. “I woke up a few times before the rescuers found me. I remember crying for my parents. Being cold. Then even the cold faded. I woke in the hospital with my grandfather sitting by my bedside. ‘Cassidy,’ he said, ‘you’re going to have to be very brave. Your parents are dead. We’re all the family each other has now. We have to stick together so we can carry on the Jamison name.’ Until that moment, I was just Cassie. After this, I was Cassidy Jamison, heir to Jamison Steel. And you know what? I don’t mind you calling me Cassie at all because I think I need to be her again.”

“That’s an awfully large burden to put on a child,” Joshua commented, then realized that he was holding her again, albeit loosely by her forearms. He let go quickly and stepped back, saying a quick prayer for strength. He was supposed to counsel her, not hug her. He was supposed to care
about
her, not come to care
for
her. It was a probably a fine balance, but he was sure there was an almost physical line—and one he could not cross. He didn’t have the right.

He cleared his throat. “So while you’ve been playing hermit up there in Ma’s prize guest room, you’ve been thinking,” he quipped, hoping to sound at ease. “That’s good. But dwelling on your problems too much is as bad as pretending they don’t exist. I have an idea. I visit an older woman who lives up the mountain. She’s a shut-in. Would you like to go along for a change of scenery? The view of the valley from her back porch is spectacular.”

Josh held his breath, waiting, hoping she’d agree. He could see that she needed a break. Maybe if she saw how difficult someone else’s life was, she’d forget to dwell on her own unsettled circumstances. And maybe exposure to a woman like Maude would fan the flames of the hunger for spiritual things that she’d given him a glimpse of that night outside Earl’s.

“Are you sure she wouldn’t mind a stranger showing up out of the blue?”

“Maude loves company. She just can’t get in to town much anymore.” Josh decided to take her question as an indication that she wanted to tag along. “You’ll see. She’ll love another person to talk to. Especially a woman.” He picked his watch up off a nearby log and checked the time. “I just need a little time to get washed up. Give me five minutes, and I’ll meet you at the truck.”

Josh left his ax where it was and rushed off before she could change her mind. He tried to put the anticipation that bubbled through him down to the thrill of victory, but he was very much afraid what he felt was excitement over the opportunity just to spend time with her.

Cassidy had already climbed inside the pickup by the time Josh returned. While they traveled, he told her several stories about Maude Herman that were steeped in local color, hoping to prevent the kind of intimacy he’d felt the last time he invited her to ride with him. He failed miserably.

When they arrived, Cassidy jumped out of the cab before he could get his door open, just as she had at Earl’s after they’d look over the Swenson house. But this time she looked ill at ease when he met her at the tailgate. Did she feel the same attraction to him that he felt for her?

No. That wasn’t possible. After all, what had he to offer compared to all the professional men she knew? And that was another reason he’d told Henry he didn’t want to come to care for her. He had absolutely nothing to offer her. It must be that she was still uncertain of Maude’s welcome, he told himself, though he thought uncertainty seemed very un-Cassidy-like.

“You’re sure about this?” she asked, her gray-blue eyes endearingly shy.

“Maude will love having you. Come on.” He took her arm and fought to ignore the electricity he felt flow from her.

“What exactly do you
do
when you visit her? And why is she a shut-in?” she asked, still a tentative note in her voice.

“I usually read to her and talk to her. She’s crippled with arthritis, has a bad heart that’s kept her from having joint replacements done, and is nearly blind. I also see to occasional repairs. In fact, she has a plumbing problem Ma promised I’d fix when she called on Maude yesterday. You two can get to know each other while I work.”

Josh directed Cassidy up the steps and across the porch. He knocked on the front door and heard Maude call from somewhere in the house, “Come on in.”

Josh opened the door and stopped halfway through to make sure Cassidy followed him. He was glad he had. She stood there with a shocked look on her face. “What?” he asked.

“She doesn’t have her door locked.”

“So?”

“It isn’t safe. Didn’t you say she lives up here all alone?”

“This isn’t the city. No one locks their doors out here.” He looked down at the knob in his hand. “I doubt this old lock even has a key anymore.”

“Well, what are you standing there jawin’ about, Joshua Daniels? Get on in here and stop lettin’ out all my heat!” Maude yelled from the parlor.

“I’m coming, Miss Maude. I even brought you a surprise.” He looked back at Cassie and grinned. “Now you’ve got to come in or she’ll never let me hear the end of it.”

Cassidy considered him seriously, her stormy-sky eyes narrowed in thought. He fought the urge to squirm. Then her lips tipped up in a wry smile.

“Your life seems to be ruled by women you act as if you’re afraid of,” she said, “but the truth is you just plain adore them.”

“She’s got your number,” Maude shouted. “You comin’ in or not, girl!”

“I’m coming, Miss Maude,” Cassie said, chuckling as she sauntered on by him like royalty consorting with the peasants. She turned her head and looked over her shoulder at him from the doorway of the parlor. Now her smile and eyes taunted him. “Are you coming, Joshua?”

Josh chuckled ruefully when Maude let out a raucous cackle. He just might regret the day he’d tried to take Cassidy Jamison under his wing because she was capable of turning his life on its quiet ear. In fact, he very much feared she already had.

C
assidy turned from taunting Joshua to the wizened old woman ensconced in a small recliner. She had a cap of snowy white, wavy hair and wore a pair of thick frameless glasses. Her snap-front housecoat, while bearing the burden of many washes, was still the brightest, cheeriest thing in the room. She made an incongruous statement sitting in an unabashed piece of modern Americana while the rest of the furniture had seen more than half a century’s use.

Thin gingham curtains filtered the light, and old rag rugs dotted the wide planking of the floors. Against one wall sat a tattered old sofa covered with a patchwork quilt that was the same log cabin design as the one Joshua had lent her that first night. She wondered idly if Maude had taught Irma the pattern.

“You that new boarder at Irma’s?” Maude asked.

“I’ve rented a room from the Tallingers, yes.”

A challenging look entered the old woman’s eyes. “Well, you like what you see or are you feelin’ sorry for poor old Maude? If it’s sorry, then go wait in the truck! Got no time for moony youngun’s with more money than sense.”

Cassidy was used to gruff. She’d been raised on gruff and wasn’t in the least intimidated by it. In fact, after the worrisome camaraderie of the ride here, she saw the chance to spar with Maude as a welcome distraction. “I’ve got no problem with what I’ve seen of your house, Miss Maude. It’s homey and clean.”

“Not fancy as yours, though. That what you’re thinking?”

“What I was thinking is that my apartment is about as friendly as a museum. I can guarantee you’d hate it. Actually, the day I left for this unplanned vacation, I more or less decided that I wasn’t too crazy about it myself.”

The old woman gave a sharp nod as if Cassidy had passed some sort of test. “Sit and tell me about yourself. Joshua, you run along and see to my water closet. So tell me, young lady, why’d you fix your home up the way you did if you don’t like it?”

“I didn’t, exactly. I hired a decorator because I didn’t have time to do it myself.”

“Did I hear you right?” Maude asked with a deep frown, and leaned forward. “You have a job that keeps you so busy you had to hire someone to spend your money for you?”

Joshua’s bark of laughter echoed from the doorway. “You tell her, Miss Maude.”

Cassidy scowled and shot him a look that had sent other men scurrying for cover. She’d walked into that one, but refused to let Maude score points for him. He scored enough of them for himself. “I thought you went to fix the plumbing.”

Josh put his hands up as if to ward off an attack and retreated down the hall, his laughter trailing after him.

“You ain’t gonna scare that boy into meekness, child. He’s faced bigger challenges in his lifetime than any of God’s children should ever see, and not buckled.”

Cassidy turned back to face Maude and thought that the old woman was more than a little right. “It doesn’t seem fair, does it,” she said, giving up on the idea of using Maude as a distraction from thinking of Joshua. She felt compelled to hear all she could about his story—about him.

Maude made a dismissive gesture with her hand. “Fair’s a weather forecast. Got nothin’ to do with life. In my day, we were happy if we had enough to eat between wakin’ with the sun and the rising of the moon. Now Joshua, he’s doing fine for himself. Got a job he loves working for the Lord Almighty. No better life’s work than that.”

“But he’s lost his whole life. All his wonderful childhood memories are gone,” Cassidy said, her voice breaking. It worried her—how much she cared about his pain.

But she had no time to worry, because the old woman shrugged her thin shoulders in a way that eloquently stated
que sera sera,
and said, “Could be there aren’t all that many good memories for him to recall. This could all be the Lord’s plan. Maybe Joshua shouldn’t remember a family who never looked for him.”

“It does seem odd that they didn’t, doesn’t it,” Cassidy conceded.

Maude pursed her lips and nodded. “Yep.”

“And he does seem to have a full life.”

“’Course he does. He’s using the gifts the Man upstairs gave him. You should see him with the little ones crawling all over him in the nursery. And he can sit down with the ones that’re just a mite bit older and make the Lord come alive for them. But it’s the older ones in those hard teen years. He can sure talk to them, and, more important, he gets them talking back.”

“I’d like to see that. I’ve only seen him with Irma and Henry.”

“You didn’t go to services last night?”

“No. I had some thinking to do. I’m…confused about my life.”

“Can’t imagine a better place to think than in the Lord’s house, hearing His word preached. He’s the guider of your life, child.”

Cassidy shrugged, discounting that idea. “Why would He care what I do with my life? I have no desire to enter the ministry, believe me.” She’d never relied on God to help her make a decision, until flipping the coin that brought her to Mountain View. A mocking voice inside her head chided,
No, you’ve let your grandfather run your life for you.

“You think He doesn’t care what the rest of us do? My brother Ethan prayed every morning for His guidance and wisdom to come to him throughout the day. Far as I can see, he never made a wrong step in life. So tell me, what’s wrong with your life that has you confused? Besides that you hire other people to fix up your house a way you don’t like, of course.”

Cassidy smiled at Maude’s teasing, then sobered when she really thought about how to answer the old woman. “My job is very high pressure, besides requiring long hours. And—” She hesitated, knowing that once she said it aloud, she’d have to own the truth. “And I hate it.”

Maude’s wrinkled face wrinkled even more. “Then, why do it?”

“I work in my grandfather’s steel company. My father was supposed to take over the reins from Grandfather, but my parents were killed when I was six. Grandfather raised me after that. He always told me it was my duty to succeed him since my father was gone. I’m obligated to him. You understand obligation and family ties?”

Maude nodded, her eyes sober.

“Joshua doesn’t,” Cassidy continued. “He has no real family ties. He’s working with Henry because he wants to, not because he has to. I
have
to. But…” She stopped mid-thought. There was wisdom in the grave murky golden eyes assessing her. And she wanted that wisdom. “Miss Maude, do I owe my grandfather the rest of my life? It doesn’t seem fair, but then, you already told me the real meaning of
fair.
”

Maude only frowned, obviously deep in thought. She closed her eyes, and several silent minutes later Cassidy realized the old woman had fallen asleep. Disappointment pricked at her, but she shrugged. It was just as well, she thought. She knew the answer Maude would give her. Older people understood duty and honoring their family obligations.

So she sat thumbing through Maude’s Bible and came to the book of Joshua. She remembered Josh’s explanation of how he’d gotten his name, and wondered if Maude was right. Did God really do more than observe from afar? Could the distant Being she’d only thought of in passing for years really care enough about her to guide her life? To want her to be happy?

“I suppose you’ll be rushing back to your grandfather and his company as soon as your car is fixed,” Maude grumbled.

Cassidy fumbled the Bible. “Oh, I thought you’d drifted off!” She looked up into eyes that were shrewd and penetrating.

“Well, of course I did. I’m an old woman. I sleep all the time. Waste of time if you ask me. I don’t have much left before I go home to the Lord, and here I am doing something I don’t want to do but I don’t have a choice. You do. It’s stupid for you to waste your youth trying to be what you aren’t. Now, go keep Joshua company. I’m going to take a nap. A long one this time.”

Joshua looked over his shoulder as he pulled the trash out of the truck bed and tossed it into the Dumpster behind Irma’s Cafe. Cassidy stood leaning against the rear fender of the pickup, looking up at the sky. She’d been quiet ever since he’d left her alone with Maude. He’d taken her up there hoping time with someone with more problems than she had would give Cassie some perspective, but she seemed even more troubled now. “Did Maude say something to upset you?”

Cassidy looked at him as he walked to her side. “Not upset. She gave me a lot to think about. At first she mostly talked about you.”

“A truly terrifying subject, I can see.”

She smiled for the first time in an hour. “You are such a teaser, Joshua Daniels. What I’ve been thinking about are the things she said about God. Her perceptions of Him, and yours and Irma and Henry’s, are so different from any I’ve ever heard before. You all seem to think He really cares. Irma said He even cares what we do with our lives.”

“I believe He does.”

“I guess you must. She also told me not to waste my life doing something I don’t want to do. But Josh, what about that commandment? It’s something about honoring our parents. Wouldn’t that extend to my grandfather, too, since he was my guardian? He wants me to work with him, and I don’t think I want to. How is that honoring his wishes?”

Josh sighed. “I always thought this amnesia of mine was a burden. Maybe it isn’t if pleasing family is this much trouble. I can’t imagine not doing what I do. Doesn’t your grandfather want you to be happy?”

“He thinks Jamison Steel will make me happy.”

“Maybe you need to tell him it doesn’t. It seems to me that if he loves you, he’ll understand. As for God, of course He cares what you do with your life. In Luke 12:6 and 12:7, Jesus tells that even though sparrows aren’t worth a lot of money, God knows about what is happening to every one of them. Now figure that if He cares that much about lowly birds, we’re worth much more to Him. Is it any wonder that He cares much more what is happening to us and what we do with our lives?”

“I guess,” she said almost unconsciously, and returned to her silent perusal of the sky. “Could God have a different plan for me than working at Jamison Steel?”

“I only know that we don’t always understand at the time why things happen or why life takes us in another direction than the one we thought we’d go, but that eventually we understand. Then it’s like this lightbulb goes on and we say, ‘Oh, now I get it.’”

Cassidy crossed her arms. He could see her thinking, her eyes staring unseeingly ahead, yet alive and active. He knew a tough question was coming. She didn’t disappoint him. “Then…if He’s really out there directing things, why not tell us what’s up somehow. And why do awful things happen, like you getting hurt so badly, if He’s the one directing them?”

Josh took a deep breath and said a silent prayer for the right words. “You mean like, why do bad things happen to good people? It’s an age-old question and the answer is really pretty simple. Because He gave us free will, and some people choose to use it for evil or are just careless in the case of accidents.

“I guess there are some things that happen that He could stop like tornados and such, but He doesn’t. And that sort of plays into the first part of your question,” he continued. “If we knew why trials come into our lives, we wouldn’t need to rely on Him. And He wants us to turn to Him. In the tough times when we rely on His strength, He gives us this sweet peace about our circumstance, and we get to know His love better that way.”

“So He could really want me to do something else?”

“Maybe. Or maybe He wants you at least to change your priorities.” Josh dropped an arm behind her onto the wall of the pickup bed and stared off at the sky with her. He wondered if she saw the Lord’s majesty in the stars the way he did.

When Cassidy turned her head and looked up at him, Josh felt as if Jerry Frank’s prize mare had kicked him in the stomach.

“Why can’t life be as simple as this?” she asked, her hand gesturing to the quiet forest scene before them.

“Can’t imagine,” he said.

He stood there staring down into her compelling gaze, at a complete loss for words. All he wanted at that moment was to feel her in his arms and her lips under his. Josh stepped back, sure she would be horrified if she knew what he’d been thinking.

As he turned away, he thought he saw a look of disappointment cross her expression. But when he looked back a split second later, he was sure he’d been wrong.

Josh looked up from the commentary on Daniel he was reading when he heard movement at the door of the study. Cassidy stood framed by the light of the parlor, curiosity written on her features. He glanced around the room with its floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and cheery fire leaping in the fireplace. He wanted to remember her here in this room he loved so dearly. “Come on in. What can I do for you?”

She shrugged. “I’m sort of at loose ends. What are you doing?”

“Henry’s eyesight isn’t all that good anymore. I’m looking up some references for him.”

“References? You mean where something is in the Bible?”

Josh shook his head. “I’ve got most of that in my head. Henry, too. No, this is more like which church scholar said what. What their insights were into a certain Bible passage or a circumstance in the life of…well, like right now we’re in Daniel.”

She smiled. “One of your heroes if I remember correctly.” Cassidy’s gaze dropped to his crowded desk, then lifted to meet his eyes. “Are biblical commentaries at all like financial commentaries done by leading economists?”