A Hickory Ridge Christmas (13 page)

“This was the best New Year's I've ever had,” Todd said as he shifted his position so he could block the wind from reaching her.

The gallant gesture made her smile. Not so long ago, when he was fresh from balmy Singapore, Todd would have been suggesting that they both go inside, out of the wind.

“I agree. It was the best.”

“It's going to be an even better year for us.” He drew her into his arms, holding her tightly against his thick coat.

As she rested her head against his shoulder, Hannah closed her eyes and breathed in his musky cologne. It felt so right that it should have frightened her, but for once she just let herself enjoy the wonder of being with him.

After a few seconds or minutes, Todd drew away from her and rested his hands on her shoulders. “I love you, Hannah. I've wanted to tell you that for so long.”

Hannah's chest squeezed, and her eyes burned.
Until that moment, she didn't realize how much she'd longed to hear him say those words, as well. It wasn't the first time he'd spoken them, but this time meant so much more.

He smiled at her and traced his gloved thumb along her jawline. Placing his fingers beneath her chin, he lifted her mouth toward his, but he paused as if again asking her permission. She nodded and closed her eyes, waiting.

His kiss was soft and unhurried. Hannah had never felt so cherished as she did at that moment in the shelter of his arms. When he finally pulled away, he squeezed his eyes shut and leaned his forehead against hers.

“Why do all my purest intentions flee the moment you're in my arms?” he said with a chuckle. “Sorry.”

“Why are you sorry? You only kissed me.”

He took a deep breath and shook his head as he took a step back from her. “I can't ever imagine kissing you and not wishing for more.”

Hannah stared at the ground. Even in the wind, her cheeks felt warm. But somehow his confession made her feel more treasured. “I guess I shouldn't invite you in then.”

“Probably not a good idea.” He smiled. “I want to do this right this time. I can wait.”

They stood there in silence as the chill seeped through their outerwear. Hannah tightened her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering.

“You know, I loved you even then,” he said quietly, drawing her attention back to his face. “Even
when I wasn't mature enough to know what to do with all those feelings.”

“I knew, even then.” The time had come; she could feel it. Could she finally confess aloud what had been in her heart all along? Clearing her throat, she whispered, “I love you, too. Then and now.”

Hannah waited, expecting the panic inspired by the words to settle in, heavy and immovable. Instead, her heart felt light, as if a weight she hadn't even known was there had been lifted.

On a sharp intake of air, Todd drew her into his arms again, cradling her head against his shoulder. “I've waited so long to hear you say that. I thought you would never forgive me. I thought—”

He stopped himself, but Hannah heard the thick emotion in his voice. “You do forgive me, don't you?”

“Of course, I do,” she heard herself assuring him. And she had, really. She couldn't continue to hold him accountable for leaving her when it wasn't his decision. Todd so clearly trusted her with his heart. Maybe one day she could learn to trust that way, too. Completely. For now, loving him would have to be enough because it was all she had to give.

“H
appy New Year!”

“Happy New Year to you, too, Mom.” Todd pressed the portable phone to his ear and peeled open his eyes one by one. The only light filtering into the room came from a streetlamp outside his apartment, and his bedside clock read six forty-five.

“You didn't happen to check the time before you called, did you?”

“Of course,” Sharon McBride said. “It's nearly eight. I just cleaned up the dinner dishes. We had pot roast with red-skin potatoes.”

“Sounds delicious,” he said, though he doubted he could have eaten even that at this hour. “There's a thirteen-hour time difference, remember?”

“I never can remember how many hours it is.” Her chuckle filtered through the phone line along with some intercontinental static. “But you need to get up for church soon, anyway.”

He could have slept two hours longer, and he'd been too keyed up to close his eyes before three o'clock that morning, but he kept that information to himself. Flipping the light on, he climbed out of bed and padded into the kitchen. He wouldn't be able to go back to sleep after this conversation anyway.

Sharon cleared her throat audibly. “Todd William McBride, are you going to tell me or not?”

“Tell you what?” Todd couldn't help smiling because he knew exactly
what.
Finally he took pity on her. “No, I didn't propose to Hannah yet.”

“Why not?”

“It was too soon.”

When she didn't say anything Todd knew from experience that his mother expected him to explain. “I don't know. I'd even bought the ring and had it with me, but I felt like God was telling me to wait.”

“Can't argue with that.” Though her tone made it sound as if she wished she could. “You did send Hannah our love, didn't you?”

“Yes, I did. Don't worry, Mom. I'm going to ask her.” He poured himself a bowl of cereal and opened the refrigerator for the milk.

“Well, don't wait too long. Your dad and I are looking forward to coming back for the wedding. And I can't wait to get my hands on my grandbaby.”

“Remember, Mom, Rebecca's not a baby anymore.”

“Then you'd better marry her mother and give her your name before my granddaughter is a teenager who doesn't want to be spoiled by her Nana McBride.”

It was such a relief to hear his mother talk that
way, showing that she was ready to accept her grandchild with open arms.

“Rebecca will let you spoil her even before we get married. She's very generous that way.”

“I'm sure she is.” She chuckled for a few seconds and then became serious again. “Still, don't you think it's time for you to bring your family together? Past time?”

Todd nodded though she couldn't see him. “That's what I plan to do, and it's going to be perfect.”

“Remember, honey, perfect is an awful lot to expect from anyone. We're imperfect people. We're just loved by a perfect God.”

“She forgave me, Mom. For leaving her behind. For…everything.”

“That's wonderful, honey. Now don't you think it's time you forgave yourself?”

His mother ended the conversation soon after, but her question followed him while he finished breakfast and showered for church. Why had it been so easy to forgive Hannah, even for keeping Rebecca from him, when it was so hard to forgive himself for the sins of his past?

What if God was so selective with His forgiveness? Todd shook his head over the ludicrous idea. God always forgave, and Todd knew he'd been forgiven from the moment he'd first repented his sin with Hannah. And yet he couldn't let it go. Even when he'd opened his life to God, he'd clung to this tiny part of him, holding on to his guilt so tightly that he'd denied himself the intimacy that he craved with the Father.

He didn't want that distance anymore.
“Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”
He'd understood that much from the Scripture in the Book of Luke. But now he finally understood that to have the kind of relationship he longed for with God first and then with the woman he loved, he had to finally forgive himself.

 

Half of January had already ticked away and tax season was in full force by the Monday morning when Hannah received a strange summons for a meeting at Hickory Ridge. It had to have something to do with Deacon Littleton's question before the holidays, she surmised. Otherwise, they never would have called on her.

Still, she'd been unsettled by the odd sound in her father's voice when he'd phoned, asking her to join the meeting. Was the discrepancy more serious than the head deacon had let on?

Unbidden, her thoughts flashed to another time and a different meeting in the church conference room. Andrew and Serena had been there, facing down the Deacons' Board and accusations of sexual impropriety, all to protect Hannah's secret a few days longer. Though she had no sin to confess this time, a sense of foreboding tripped up her spine.

Nothing appeared too out of the ordinary at first, even the Michigan State Police patrol car that sat in the parking lot alongside several other cars. Trooper Brett Lancaster occasionally stopped through while he was patrolling the perimeter of GM Proving Grounds where they connected Livingston and Oakland Counties.

But the second police car, this one from the Milford Police Department, gave her pause. Something was very wrong, and from the tone of her father's voice, it had something to do with him.

Call Todd,
a voice inside her immediately suggested, but she pushed aside the thought. She didn't know anything yet, and even if she did, her only reason to phone him would have been to lean on him, and she had to believe she was stronger than that. She was probably just being silly to consider calling him.

A rumble of voices emerged from the conference room as soon as she passed through the church entrance. She knocked on the door before pulling it open. A sense of déjà vu struck her like a sudden wave of nausea.

The painting of Jesus surrounded by children still hung above the fireplace in the room where, to describe the lighting as poor would be considered an understatement. All nine deacons were in their regular places along the long dark wood conference table. Reverend Bob and Andrew were seated at the end of the table on metal folding chairs.

The cast would have been the same as from that play five years before except for the addition of building contractor Rick McKinley, who'd recently filled the vacancy on the Deacons' Board, and two uniformed officers, representing different police agencies.

“Oh, Hannah, we're glad you're here.”

The greeting came from Deacon Littleton, but Hannah couldn't help glancing at her father instead.
Reverend Bob had folded his hands in a prayerful pose, but his eyes were open. Though his glasses had slipped down his nose, he made no effort to push them back in place. How old and pale he looked, as though he'd battled the world and lost.

Her pulse raced, and it was all she could do not to rush to her father and demand to know what was wrong.

“Hannah,” Deacon Littleton said to draw her attention back to the center of the table.

“What's going on?”

The head deacon glanced around the room before he spoke. “Do you remember the bookkeeping problem I mentioned to you a few weeks ago? Well, my mistake didn't turn out to be a mistake.”

“I don't understand.” Thoughts rushed at her in a hailstorm that allowed no time for weighing conclusions. What did this have to do with her or her father?

Deacon Littleton gestured toward Milford Police Chief Pete Conyers, who picked up the conversation from him. “Hannah, there appears to be a widespread case of embezzlement involving several of the church accounts, including the building fund for Hickory Ridge's Family Life Center.”

She shot another glance at her father, who still stared at his gripped hands. Panic tasted acidic in her mouth. Could her father have— No. She dismissed the thought before it had a chance to fully form.

“There has to be some mistake.”

“Unfortunately, there isn't.” Brett spoke this time, his expression grim. “My gut told me something was wrong. I should have listened…”

Hannah drew her eyebrows together as another thought struck her. “You don't think I—”

Andrew came to his feet, shaking his head to stop the direction of her question. “No, Hannah, we don't. Look, we're not making ourselves clear. We've asked you here for two reasons—your familiarity with the church accounts and your acquaintance with Olivia Wells.”

“Olivia?”

“Also known as Olivia Wilson, Olivia Wilder and Olivia Whiting,” Chief Conyers said, looking up from the spiral-bound notebook in his hands.

“Are you serious? What kind of money are we talking about?”

Deacon Littleton glanced down at the printed list of figures in front of him. “As close as I've been able to tally it so far, about twenty-five thousand dollars.”

Hannah blinked. To some families in the wealthy suburbs of Detroit, a figure like that was a nice bonus after a healthy sales season, but to a small church, where every dollar had to be stretched to keep the black columns from becoming red, it was a fortune.

“She is also wanted for questioning in connection with embezzlement cases at the Presbyterian church in Brighton, a Methodist one in Okemos and a tiny Baptist congregation in Dansville,” Chief Conyers continued.

“I knew she looked familiar that first time I saw her at Bible study,” Brett said, shaking his head. “But I just couldn't connect the sweet lady at church with the police sketch on the bulletin board I passed every day at the
Brighton Post.
”

Andrew lowered into his seat next to Reverend Bob. “Come on, Brett, give yourself a break. She fooled us all.”

Several of them glanced at Reverend Bob then, but if he noticed at all, he didn't give any sign of it. He was the one who had been fooled most of all, and Hannah wished with all her heart she could take away her father's pain.

Brett, clearly in his role as Trooper Lancaster now, stood and paced the room.

“Hannah, when is the last time you saw Olivia Wells?”

“Uh, it must have been at church yesterday.” She thought for several seconds. Come to think of it, Olivia hadn't been there. If she'd noticed it at the time, she would have thought it odd. Olivia had become one of the most regular attendees in the last several months. “No, that isn't right. I think it was a week ago Sunday.”

Brett cleared his throat. “And what about you, Reverend?”

The minister started at being addressed directly. “I'm sorry. What did you ask?”

“When is the last time you saw Olivia Wells?”

“At church on January eighth. She said she would be away a few days visiting some extended family.”

Brett wrote something down in his notebook. “Did she happen to mention where these family members lived?”

“Outside Lansing, I think, but that could mean anywhere, couldn't it?”

“Yes, it could, but it could also mean that Olivia hasn't skipped the state yet.”

“And that she really might be from Michigan,” the police chief chimed in. “The suspect certainly tried to stay close to home while committing her alleged crimes. All the embezzlement cases occurred within a fifty-mile radius. We'll check the NCIC database—that's the National Crime Information Center—and see if we come up with any hits.”

Andrew, who had stepped to the rear of the room to refill his foam coffee cup, turned back to the rest of them. “That one's simple. She took a chance that leaders of the different churches in the region didn't hang out together and share notes, and she was right.”

All those in the room nodded and murmured over that, probably feeling by varying degrees guilt over the lack of ecumenical fellowship that had allowed someone to continue these crimes for so long.

There would be more questions to follow: how much they knew about Olivia Wells outside church, where she lived and who else resided with her, what she did during her off-hours from the church office. The last question turned back to the man who had remained strangely quiet throughout the meeting.

“Bob, you will make yourself available for further questioning, won't you?”

Reverend Bob nodded to Chief Conyers but didn't meet his gaze. The whole situation struck Hannah as terribly unfair. Olivia had been the first woman her father had taken any interest in since her mother's death. How cruel she had to be to take advantage of
struggling churches and a man who'd done nothing but give of himself to those who needed him.

When the meeting was finally over and most of the others had filed from the room, Hannah turned back to her father, who sat staring out one of the room's two narrow windows. Andrew paused at the doorway and caught Hannah's attention, but she motioned for him to go ahead without her.

As she approached her father, he smiled up at her, but the expression didn't reach his eyes.

“Are you okay?”

“I wouldn't call it my best day.”

“What would you call it?”

“A day when I'm glad God is here to catch me.”

He reached his right arm across his body to rub his left shoulder.

“Here, let me do that.” She kneaded his shoulders that felt frailer than she remembered. Was it a sign of adulthood to realize her father was just a middle-aged man rather than some larger-than-life hero?

“Thanks, honey.” He shifted so that her hands fell away from him.

“This could all be a big misunderstanding, you know.”

“It could be.”

But they both knew it probably wasn't. Olivia's absence was at the very least suspicious.

Instead of saying more, Bob glanced at his watch. “Shouldn't you be getting back to work?”

“Is that an excuse not to talk about it anymore?”

“Possibly.”