Clouds (29 page)

Shelly couldn’t argue. She looked out the windshield at the pale blue, winter sky. Streaks of silver clouds were rising in the distance. But for the moment, the sun held court.

“Are you sure it’s okay that we go out there?” Shelly asked.

“Yes. This is Glenbrooke. Kyle and Jessica don’t even lock their front door. There will be no ‘keep out’ signs or anything.”

Shelly didn’t say anything the rest of the way, holding close her own thoughts about the adventure of starting a camp from the ground up. The idea was appealing, but this would have to be some setup to persuade her to leave Camp Autumn Brook. Shelly thought about how understanding Mr. Hadley had been, even when she delayed making her decision about going full-time.

“This is the place,” Meredith said, coming to a halt on the dirt road and putting down her paper with the directions. “Let’s go exploring.”

“What’s to explore?” Shelly said, looking out at the large meadow and cleared field before them. Markers were in the ground with bits of yellow plastic strips. To the right was a forested area with a trail that led into the thick overgrowth.

“I thought somebody said there was a waterfall,” Meredith said. “I love waterfalls. Let’s go find it.” She was already out of the car.

Shelly got out and looked around. The setting was peaceful.
She could imagine a majestic lodge right there in the middle of the clearing. The meadow should be left as it was, which would provide glorious views from the lodge windows. She could imagine this field bursting with spring wildflowers in about a month. It would be gorgeous, she was sure.

“This way,” Meredith urged, standing at the head of the trail that led into the shaded forest. “I think the waterfall is down this way.”

Shelly joined her, and they crunched through the twigs of this primeval forest. Shelly’s spirit began to lift as she felt something vaguely familiar about this forest. She stopped and closed her eyes, drawing in the fragrance of the green around her. In the treetops, a squirrel chittered loudly, and suddenly she remembered. The wooded trail on the way to St. Annakapella.

Opening her eyes and looking around, Shelly couldn’t help but smile. These woods contained a soft sacredness. What was it her grandma had said?
“All you ever need to know about St. Annakapella is that you were drawn closer to God through his creation on your journey to it.”

“You’re here, aren’t you, God?” Shelly said, barely above a whisper. “I know you are. And I’m here for you. You are my beloved, and I am yours. I don’t want to ever stop falling in love with you.”

Overhead, a small, brown bird started to sing its heart out. The squirrel chittered back fiercely. Shelly smiled.

“Thank you, Father God, for never giving up on me. Thank you for pursuing me.”

“Shelly,” Meredith called from down the trail, “are you coming?”

Reluctantly Shelly left her moment of communion and shuffled down the trail. Meredith was standing at a crossroads.

“We should go to the left, I think,” Meredith said.

“But I can hear water running,” Shelly said. “It sounds as if it’s coming from the right.”

“It might be,” Meredith said, coaxing Shelly along by pulling her to the left. “But let’s check out this trail first and then come back and go that way.”

Shelly stumbled along after Meredith for about eight feet, and then she stopped. “Okay. What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“Meri, I know you. You are a woman on a mission. What is it you’re not telling me?”

Meredith let out a sigh. “Okay, okay. I never was good at keeping secrets.”

They stood in a patch of sunlight that poured through the trees. The faint sound of hammering echoed through the forest.

Meredith gave her sister a hapless grin and shrugged her shoulders. “Promise me you’ll hear me out.”

“I make no promises until you tell me what’s going on.”

“Jana told me a little bit more in her e-mail than I let on.”

“Like what?”

“Like where Jonathan is living.”

Shelly’s eyes opened wider. “Where?”

“You’re not going to believe this.”

“Try me,” Shelly said, raising her voice. She never did like Meredith’s cat and mouse games.

“Right here.”

“Right here,” Shelly repeated, motioning to the forest around them.

“It’s all too bizarre,” Meredith said. “Jonathan lives in Glenbrooke. He was hired by Kyle to develop this camp. He’s working here, right now. I found out from Jana’s e-mail. I called Kyle at the hospital last night. He said Jonathan would be working here this morning.”

“You know,” Shelly said, putting her hands on her hips, “you may think this is a very funny little game of love tag, but I have news for you, Meri: These are real people’s lives you’re messing with. Why didn’t you tell me all this? Did you think it would be fun to play a prank on us? Were you trying to shock me the way I shocked Jonathan in Heidelberg?”

“No!” Meredith stated emphatically. “Nothing like that. I was probably all wrong, and if so I apologize, but when I read Jana’s e-mail, and she said Jonathan was in a little town in Oregon called Glenbrooke, I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to run and tell you, but then I remembered how difficult everything was between you in Heidelberg.”

“So? You don’t have the right to try to arrange meetings.”

“I wasn’t. I was hoping you would once and for all admit to yourself and to Jonathan that you love him and you want him back. I don’t know why that’s been so hard for you to say. All these months I’ve wondered what would have happened if you had opened up your heart to him that morning at the marketplace. Would he still have announced his engagement if he knew you loved him?”

“You can’t make speculations like that in real life, Meredith. It’s not like that. God is the one who orchestrates those things.”

“I don’t doubt that. Look, God brought you and Jonathan to the same place halfway around the world once, and now he’s brought you both to Glenbrooke at the same time. That has to be God! But God’s not the one I’m worried about.”

Shelly adjusted her position, vaguely aware that the echoing of the steady pounding most likely was coming from a hammer that was held in the hand of her only true love. She suddenly felt nervous and unsure of what to do or say if and when she saw him.

“You’re the one who hides, Shelly. That’s why I forced you to write that e-mail last night. You have to tell Jonathan how
you feel. How else is he going to know that you want him back?”

Shelly glanced down at her feet, which had grown cold standing in the damp, molding leaves on the trail. She knew her sister was right. In the same way it had taken her so long to admit to God that she needed him and that she wanted an ongoing love relationship with him, Shelly had a hard time admitting the same thing to Jonathan.

“I know you mean well,” Shelly said. “And you’re probably right about some of your reasoning. But I need a minute to think this through.”

“Jonathan doesn’t know you’re here,” Meredith said. “He’ll probably be shocked again when he sees you.”

“No doubt.”

Meredith gave Shelly a lopsided smile. “I know I probably had no business doing this matchmaking. I apologize if I messed things up. I just wanted to see this brick wall between the two of you finally crumble.”

Shelly let out a deep breath. “I know, Meri. Me, too.”

“So go already,” Meredith said, motioning with her hands for Shelly to shoo on down the trail. “The last hero left on this planet is within your grasp.”

Shelly cleared her throat and moistened her lips. She headed down the trail, checking her coat collar and fluffing her hair off the back of her neck. She had worn it down long and straight this morning. The soft water from the shower had made it extra silky.

Feeling her heart pounding in rhythm with her steps, Shelly walked out of the forest and into a small clearing where the trail led up into another forest. At the entrance of that trail was a large tree from which dozens of ropes hung. Shelly could see a platform about twenty feet up in the tree and boards nailed to the trunk leading up to the structure.

She couldn’t see Jonathan, but she could hear him pounding. Shelly moved to the side bushes, not completely sure she was ready for him to see her. At the base of the bushes she noticed a contraption that looked like something Jonathan would come up with. A taut cable hung just above her head and ran up to the platform in the tree. It looked like a more sophisticated version of the zip line Jonathan’s dad had once rigged at their tree house so they could slide down it. Jonathan had called it their “Tarzan rope,” and both of them had put in many hours of flight time, zipping down that line.

Shelly reached up and gave the cable a little tug. Then, puckering up her lips, she whistled—two short, one long.

The hammering continued.

She tried again, this time louder and longer.

Jonathan stopped hammering. She could see him now, stepping out of the shadow and to the edge of the platform. He had on jeans, a ragged gray sweatshirt, and a carpenter’s tool belt around his waist. He looked down but apparently didn’t see Shelly. Stepping out of the bushes, into the open area, Shelly faced Jonathan unashamed. She whistled again. Two short, one long. Surely Jonathan would remember what that meant: “Come here. Come to the window. I’m waiting for you.”

The instant Jonathan saw her, he froze.

Chapter Twenty-Nine
 

H
i,” Shelly called up.

Jonathan paused. “Hi,” he answered after a moment.

“Did you get my e-mail?”

“What e-mail?”

“I sent you an e-mail yesterday. I guess you didn’t get it.”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“What are you doing here?” Jonathan said, adjusting his stance.

“Well, I’m … ah, talking to you,” she answered coyly.

“But what are you doing here?”

Shelly cleared her throat and called up, “Jonathan, I found out yesterday that you and Elena broke up. I’m sorry.”

He didn’t say anything.

“I was actually already in Glenbrooke. Meredith came to meet with Jessica Buchanan, and I came along for the ride. I didn’t know you were here. Meredith had to drag me out here.”

“Drag you out here?” Jonathan repeated.

“Not drag me to see you. I mean drag me out here like a surprise because she didn’t tell me you were here until just a few minutes ago.”

He was too far away for Shelly to be sure, but it seemed the shocked look had dissipated and his familiar grin was returning.

“I’m glad you’re working here and developing this camp,” she called out.

“Is that what you came out here to tell me?” Jonathan called.

“No.” Shelly paused and took a deep breath. “I came out here to tell you that I want you back.”

He didn’t move. Shelly couldn’t blame him. Jonathan had enough reasons to distrust women. Yet she couldn’t stop the words that sprang to her lips. “Don’t you understand what I’m saying?” She held out her arms as if pleading with him. “I love you. I want you back. What’s the matter, Jonathan Bean? Are you a scaredy-cat?”

In one motion, Jonathan grabbed the handles of the pulley at the platform and pushed off with his legs. As Shelly watched, her best friend came flying down the zip line toward her. His feet hit the ground less than a foot away from her, and his brown hair showed the tousled evidence of his heroic entrance. With searching, gray eyes, he scanned her face.

Shelly stood still, hoping her welcoming smile was making up for her sudden loss of words.

Jonathan pulled off his gloves, and with his rough right hand, he reached over and gently touched her hair, slowly smoothing it to the very ends. His cool hand returned to cradle her cheek and draw warmth from her flushed face.

Shelly kept her gaze on his lips, waiting for them to move
and bring her the words she needed to hear.

Slipping his hand beneath her hair and holding the back of her neck, Jonathan moved closer. Before Shelly could convince her eyes to close, Jonathan kissed her with a kiss that was not like any kiss Jonathan the teenaged boyfriend had ever given her. This was a kiss that pledged undying devotion to his first love, a kiss that took Shelly’s breath away and threatened never to return it.

They pulled away slowly. Shelly tried to breathe. She opened her eyes and saw that Jonathan seemed to be having the same difficulty. They smiled and wrapped their arms around each other.

“I love you,” he whispered in her ear.

It’s likely that the birds were singing in the forest the entire time Shelly had been standing there, but she didn’t notice them until this minute. Under this enchanting canopy of praise, Jonathan and Shelly held each other for a long time.

“So, if Meredith brought you here, where is she now?” Jonathan said, slowly pulling away.

“Here I am,” a voice perked up from the shadows of the forest.

Shelly jumped. “Meredith!”

Jonathan laughed. “Once the sneaky little sister, always the sneaky little sister.”

“I couldn’t leave and not know what was going to happen! That slide down the rope was very impressive, Jonathan. I actually started to cry. You guys make the most romantic, adorable couple I’ve ever seen.”