Always in Her Heart (11 page)

“What are you looking so solemn about?” Link lowered Marcy into her stroller. “She loved it.”

“I was just hoping I actually got a picture of how much she loved it. I'm not exactly the world's greatest photographer.” She fell into step as Link started pushing the stroller along the path. “But ac
tually, there's something I need to tell you. Can we wait a bit to rejoin the others?”

He nodded. “Let's take a walk.”

She had to tell him what she'd learned. She could only hope he wouldn't overreact.

“It was Linda. She's the one who told Julia about the play group.”

“How do you know?” His hands tightened on the stroller handle and his jaw tensed.

“She told me.” Annie hurried her words. “She really didn't mean to do anything wrong. Julia wormed the facts out of her without Linda realizing what was going on.”

“That sounds like Linda. She always thinks the best of people.”

“You're not angry, are you?”

He shook his head, but she sensed something held back.

“Not at Linda. Now Julia—I suspect Julia knew just what she was doing when she suggested the social worker stop over at that particular time. She probably knew it might upset you to have Mrs. Bradshaw showing up the first time you hosted the play group.”

“It's kind of a creepy feeling.” The breeze sent a shower of golden leaves skittering across the path, and she had to push her hair back out of her face. “Knowing there's someone who's—well, wishing you ill.”

He looked as if he were considering her words. “I
don't think it's as active a feeling as that where you're concerned. They just want you out of their way.”

“But Frank really does dislike you.” She hadn't thought it through, but she realized it was true as soon as she said the words.

“I'd say so.” Link stopped the stroller where the grassy area sloped into the trees. A trail led on into the woods along a stream, disappearing around a steep curve in the hill.

“Why?”

He shrugged. “He has ever since Davis and I went into business together. Actually, I think he resented Davis from the day he was born. Our success, whatever it amounts to, made him worse.” He reached out to take her hand. “I'm afraid you just got added onto his dislike for me.”

She ought to pull her hand free. She didn't want to.

He nodded toward the trail. “Are you up for a walk? I promise you, there's something special at the end of the trail.”

“It looks too rough for the stroller.”

“I'll put Marcy in the carrier on my back.” He pulled the carrier from the stroller basket as he spoke.

“In that case, sure.” She shouldn't be taking advantage of another excuse to be alone with Link, but they were together so much anyway that it hardly seemed worth the effort to try and impose limits.

She helped him adjust the carrier, and then lifted
Marcy to his back. The baby pounded her small hands on his shoulders, bouncing eagerly.

“I think she's looking forward to a hike,” Annie said. “What about the stroller? We can't just leave it here.”

“Sure we can.” He shook his head in mock sadness. “You keep forgetting you're not in the city now. No one will bother it.”

“You're right. Things are different in Lakeview.”

No one would steal a stroller from the park. That was a positive, certainly. The clannishness she'd seen in the people here might be a negative, at least where she was concerned, but she thought of Linda's caring and felt a little better.

Link walked easily up the trail, even with Marcy on his back, and she followed.

“Linda told me about what you did for her husband.”

He shrugged. “Joe's a good worker. I didn't want to lose him. He's proved himself since then.”

She didn't think that was all of it. “Some employers wouldn't have given him a chance to prove himself.”

He was quiet for a moment, and she thought he wasn't going to answer. Then he glanced back over his shoulder. “A few people gave me a chance to prove myself. I figured I ought to pass it on.” He lengthened his stride, and she sensed that was all he intended to say.

The path grew narrower and steeper, and conver
sation would have been difficult if he'd wanted to talk. Steep cliffs of gray shale rose on both sides, and the path twisted to follow the rushing stream.

Link looked over his shoulder again. “This is Eagle Glen. Are you okay to go on?”

“Fine. It's very pretty.” Actually, it was a little scary. The valley was so narrow that the sound of the water seemed to fill it.

Pale green moss covered the lower part of the cliffs, with tiny lavender and white wildflowers growing improbably in the smallest of niches. A fragment of verse passed through her mind.
“He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock.”

Link paused. “Need a breather?”

“I'm okay.” Except that she did sound breathless.

He grinned. “It's just a little farther.”

“Lead on.”

A few more yards and the path rounded a sheer buttress of gray rock. Beyond it—

Annie stopped, amazed. No wonder the water had sounded so loud. The stream widened out to a shallow pool, rimmed by flat gray rocks. Above the pool, a waterfall cascaded from the top of surrounding cliffs.

She tilted her head back. “It's astonishing.”

Link smiled, obviously pleased with her reaction. “Eagle Falls. It's one of the highest falls on the east coast. Higher than Niagara, although it doesn't have that volume of water.”

High, high above them she could see a sliver of sky. A tree, bright with autumn gold, leaned over the
top of the cliffs. Its leaves drifted down like golden rain onto the still pewter pool beneath.

Annie's throat grew tight. The towering gray walls might have been a Gothic cathedral. “It's like—”

“A church,” he finished for her. “That's what I always think when I come here. God's own creation.”

“Yes.” The word came out in a whisper.

Lord, I think we both feel Your presence here.
She realized she didn't know what specifically to pray for, but that didn't seem to matter.
Please, guide our steps.

For a long moment she just looked at Link, feeling as if they existed, for once, in perfect harmony.

“G
ood night, little sweetheart.”

Link lowered Marcy into the crib. She snuggled down, curling one arm around her teddy bear, her body relaxing and her eyes drifting shut.

He patted her, humming softly, knowing she didn't need it but wanting to prolong the sweet moments. He looked back with faint surprise at the man he'd been just a few short weeks ago—the man who hadn't even been able to put a baby to bed.

Confidence made the difference—both his own confidence that he could do this and Marcy's confidence in him. It surprised him how much pleasure he took from this simple accomplishment.

He switched off the elephant lamp, leaving a small pink night-light burning, and slipped quietly from the room.

The old house was Sunday-evening quiet, with An
nie out to Bible study and Marcy asleep. The house seemed to settle around him, as if it had become used to his alien presence, accepting him even though he wasn't a Conrad.

He went slowly down the stairs to the family room.
Family.
The word lingered in his mind.

What was God trying to teach him?

He'd put Annie's dollhouse on the folding table so he could work on it at odd moments. He picked up the tiny stair rail he'd glued together—then felt as if he were standing back and looking at himself.

Putting a baby to bed. Mending a dollhouse. Sure looked like a family man to him. He stifled the little voice that said appearances were deceiving, and pulled the lamp closer so he could get a better angle on the dollhouse's interior. He began fitting the railing back into place.

The door swung open. Annie came in with a gust of rain. She shook out her umbrella and propped it in the corner.

“You're working on the dollhouse.” Her face lit with so much pleasure that it warmed him.

“I had a little time to spare after I got Marcy down.” He leaned back in the chair, watching as Annie shed her jacket and fluffed rain-dampened hair.

She came toward him. “Did she go down all right?”

“Without a murmur.”

Her smile seemed to congratulate him. She rested her hand on the back of his chair as she leaned over
to peer into the dollhouse. He caught a whiff of her light, fresh scent and felt the moist brush of her hair against his cheek.

“You've done so much already. I never dreamed you could repair all the damage. I'd have given up.” She glanced at him, her face very close.

He managed to take a breath without strangling. If she had any idea how much he wanted to kiss her, she'd fly across the room.

“Wait until I give it a fresh coat of paint. It'll look like new.”

She ran the tip of her finger along the wooden mantelpiece. “There used to be a picture in a miniature frame over the mantel. I'll see if I can find something, but it will have to be attached so Marcy can't pull it loose.”

“I can do that.” He studied her face. She looked lost in memories. “What about furniture? And dolls?”

“I'll look for things that are big enough to be safe for an almost-two-year-old. I remember—”

“What?”
What's put that look of sadness in your eyes, Annie?

“We had a family of dolls that fit the house—father, mother, two sisters, and a baby that Becca insisted was a brother named Tommy.”

“No chance of a real baby brother, I take it?” He put the question cautiously, still not sure what she found unhappy in these reminiscences.

“My mother was hospitalized for severe depression
several times, and I imagine my parents decided it was too difficult to have any more children. As it was, my father had his hands full taking care of us.”

He'd once assumed that Annie and Becca had had the perfect childhood. He'd been wrong.

“Weren't there any relatives who could help?”

Annie shook her head. “Not any who lived close. And Daddy never wanted to send us away. We managed. I looked after Becca.”

When did you have a chance to be a little girl, Annie?

She touched one of the upstairs rooms. “This was the girls' room. Every night, Becca would bring the mommy doll in here to kiss them good-night. I guess it was her way of coping when our mother was away.”

Unable to resist, he captured her hand in his. “How did you cope, Annie?”

She looked surprised. “I had Becca to take care of.”

“You were a child yourself.” He thought about Marcy, sleeping securely in her crib in spite of all that had happened in her young life. “You needed someone to kiss you good-night, too.”

He realized the words were a mistake as soon as he spoke. They made him too aware of her closeness in the quiet room. Her lips parted, and he remembered how they tasted. The slightest movement by either of them and they'd be in each other's arms again.

Annie drew back, a flush warming her cheeks.
“You—you must find it odd to be working on an old-fashioned Victorian.”

She spoke as if any subject would do to fill up the silence they might otherwise fill with a kiss.

“All of your houses are modern, aren't they?”

If that was how Annie wanted it, he couldn't do anything but go along. “It's not really so different, except in style. The Victorians built homes for the way people lived then. I build homes for the way people live now. I've liked the Victorian style since I was a kid.”

He stopped. Only the silence and the need to ease Annie's obvious discomfort would send him down that road of memory.

“Why is that?”

She was clearly confident that he'd share his thoughts with her. Maybe she had the right to expect that. They'd come a long way in a few short weeks.

He propped his elbows on the table, frowning at the dollhouse's gingerbread trim. He reached out to touch it lightly.

“I remember a street lined with houses like this.” He shook his head. “I'm not sure where. Maybe in northwestern Pennsylvania.”

She was silent, but her very stillness seemed to force him to continue.

“The street might have been Maple, or Chestnut. Streets like those were usually named for trees, I decided.”

“Streets like those?”

“The kind of street where the houses had been there for a hundred years or so. The kind of street where real families had lived in real houses for generations.”

He shrugged, trying to shake off the heaviness of the memory. “I must have been about eight the first time I noticed a neighborhood like that. Then I figured out that every new town we went to had one, and I started looking for them.”

That search had been a relief, in a way, from the succession of dingy apartments and dingier motels he and his mother had lived in. He'd been dreaming, but they hadn't been bad dreams. When his mother was drinking, he could always go out and walk by those houses.

Annie put her hand on his shoulder. He felt her warmth permeate his shirt and touch his skin.

“I'd look at the lights and try to figure out what kind of people lived in houses like that.” He'd imagined what it would be like to belong there, among the lucky ones. He shrugged, uncomfortably aware of how much he was revealing. “Kid stuff, I guess. Wanting what's on the other side of the fence.”

“That's why you went into building, isn't it?” Her words arrowed right into his heart. “So you could create the thing you didn't have.”

 

Annie heard her own words and was aghast at her temerity. How could she have asked Link something so personal? The lines in their relationship had
blurred in the past weeks, but she shouldn't be pressing into an area that was not only private but probably also painful.

“I'm sorry.” She clenched the hand she'd rested on his shoulder, her nails biting into her palm. “I shouldn't have said that. It's none of my business.”

Link shook his head slowly. “It's okay.” He looked surprised at himself. “I don't know that I ever thought of it that way, but maybe you have a point. Homes have always fascinated me—not skyscrapers or institutions. Just homes for ordinary people to live in.”

Her throat had gone tight with tension, and she tried to speak naturally. “That's a very worthwhile thing. Homes should be beautiful as well as functional.”

“I always felt that if I could get the—” He stopped, seeming at a loss for words, and made an amorphous shape with his hands.

“Well, the shell of the house, but not just that. If I could get the physical structure right, it ought to help ensure happiness for the people who live there.” He shrugged, one corner of his mouth lifting in a half smile. “Or maybe I'm just being self-important about what I do.”

“It's not self-important to put your best self into your work.” Tears stung her eyes. “That's why the lakeside project is going to be so beautiful.”

His mouth firmed. “I hope so. Davis and I felt good about what we were doing there. It always
meant something special to me, but now—well, now, it's like I have to finish it to fulfill Davis's dream, as well as my own.”

“You've come a long way.” Did he realize how far?

He leaned back, fixing his gaze on her face. “You know what I wanted when I was a kid, Annie. Your turn. What did you want?” He lifted one hand, palm out. “And don't tell me you wanted to take care of Becca. I already know that. What did you want for Annie?”

Her mind scrambled to come up with something. She couldn't say some routine childhood wish, like a pony, not when he'd opened his heart to her. And then it popped into her mind, as if it had been there all along.

“You'll laugh,” she warned. “It wasn't a very worthy ambition.”

He took her hand, holding it lightly. She knew he'd let her go at the slightest indication, but she didn't move.

“Tell me.”

“I always wanted to be like Becca.” She felt her cheeks grow warm, and she knew she was figuring this out as she went along. “Well, you knew her. Everyone loved Becca. She just radiated warmth, and people were drawn to her. I wanted to be like that but I didn't know how. I still don't. I think it's something you're either born with or not.”

He enveloped her hand in both of his, and she felt
protected. “You're talking about your parents, aren't you?”

She had to nod. “Yes.” It was hard to speak around the lump in her throat. “They love me, of course. But Becca made their faces light up. And mine, too.” She smiled, remembering. “We were never competitive, like sisters sometimes are when they're close in age. You know, she even got me a date for the prom. She said if I didn't go, she wouldn't. That was Becca. She'd do anything for people she loved.”

“She was one of a kind,” Link said quietly. His grip tightened. “But so are you.” He lifted her hand between his and kissed it. The touch of his lips moved straight from her hand to her heart. “I'd say both the Gideon girls turned out pretty special.”

Her heart seemed to swell. Did he really mean that?

Maybe it didn't matter. He'd said it, and that should be enough for her.

The careful defenses she'd kept around her heart for so long crumbled into dust. She'd given away too many pieces to Link in the past few weeks. Would there be anything left of her when their time together came to an end?

 

That thought was still in the back of Annie's mind a few days later, much like the pot of potatoes she had simmering on the back stove burner. It didn't require looking at all the time, but it was there.

She glanced into the family room to be sure Marcy
was still safely occupied with her easel and crayons. Marcy loved to color, but was just as likely to color her way off the easel and onto the surrounding furniture if not watched. She hadn't given Becca enough credit for her ability to do so many things at once.

In a way, things had been better since that conversation with Link on Sunday night. It was as if, with his secrets out in the open, Link could relax.

She wished she could do the same. The little worm of worry came out when she least expected it. She understood why the project was so important to him—it was his measure of success. She just couldn't help but wonder how he'd take it if something went wrong.

At least the latest visit from Mrs. Bradshaw had gone well. She'd happened to arrive when Marcy was in her sunniest mood, and the house, for once, had been cleaned up enough to look passable. She'd seemed impressed by the photo album they'd started putting together, and had actually smiled warmly at Annie when she left, as if with approval.

Voices from the porch startled her, and she turned down the burner under the chicken. Marcy beat her to the door and threw herself at Link as soon as he opened it.

Link grabbed her, tossing her in the air, and Jenna came through the door behind him, laughing at the sight.

“I met Jenna at the curb,” Link said. He perched Marcy on his shoulder. “She was afraid she'd inter
rupt our dinner, but I said we always have time for her.”

“Of course we do.” Annie held out her hand to the woman who'd been Becca's close friend. “Come sit down.”

“I can't stay long.” Jenna closed the door behind her, and Annie realized she looked worried. “But I just had to talk to you.”

Something was wrong. Annie gestured toward the couch, then sat down next to Jenna. She didn't know what, but something was wrong. Link plopped Marcy down beside her easel and came to sit on the arm of the sofa, his hand resting on Annie's shoulder as if for support. So he had the same instinct.

Jenna bit her lip, a frown line forming between her brows. “I've been worrying about this since last night. And praying, too.” She gave them a ghost of a smile. “Pastor Garth would say I should have prayed first, and then I wouldn't have to worry.”

“What is it? Has something happened?” Annie's hands knotted together.

“Maybe it's not important, but—well, you know the church supper was last night.”