Love Comes Home (39 page)

While she watched, he stood up to get more nails or a new board. Whatever the reason, he paused by a rosebush beside the porch that had survived years of neglect to keep bravely blooming.

Clay seemed to be admiring the rose as he ran his finger across the petals. Almost a caress. He must have felt her eyes on him because he looked up, straight toward her. A flush warmed her cheeks as she flashed her eyes away and back to the business at hand. She and some others were clearing off a wagon to spread out the lunch the women had brought.

She knew he was still watching her, but she didn’t look back toward him. Instead she wished she could just walk into the woods and hide out like Fern. Nobody had seen Fern since early that morning. Lorena said Fern was happy they were fixing up the house for her and that she’d probably take up residence in it at least some of the time. That didn’t mean she was going to stand around in the middle of a boatload of people.

At least Fern knew what she wanted. Or didn’t want.

Tori looked toward the trees and wondered if Fern was watching from the shadows. Then she let her eyes go back to the house. Clay was hammering on the porch again. She didn’t allow her eyes to dwell on him this time, but before the day was over, she’d find a way to tell him she was sorry about what she’d said at the pond. Then it would be up to him if he wanted to talk to her.

Her hands felt suddenly sweaty and her heart fluttered a little. It had never been like this with Sammy. They’d never had to wonder about whether they belonged together. They just did. But now she was wondering if she could belong with someone else. With Clay. She rubbed her hands down her skirt and looked around until she spotted Samantha rubbing Chaucer’s head. Lillie and Mary were right beside her. Graham looked to be telling them a story.

It was so like Graham to stay on the fringes of the activity. He wasn’t like Fern. He liked people, but he also stood just a little apart. Such a funny man. Never married, but he had played matchmaker with Kate and Jay. Now he was doing the same for Tori. It had worked for Kate.

Jay was putting new tin on the roof. Daddy watched from the ground, calling up instructions from time to time. Tori was relieved Daddy wasn’t crawling around up there. Her mother had to keep the store open, but she’d charged Tori with making sure Daddy and Kate didn’t overdo.

Tori smiled. She had plenty to do. Keep an eye on Samantha. Keep Daddy and Kate from working too hard. Find a way to tell Clay she wanted to take back her words telling him to go away. Wave the flies away from the pies and cakes she was setting out on the wagon.

By the middle of the afternoon, Samantha ran out of steam. Tori settled her down for a nap on a quilt under a tree. Mary and Lillie sat down beside her, making clover necklaces. The men had the roof fixed and glass back in the windows. Some people headed home to attend to their own chores. It wouldn’t be long until Clay would have to gather up his family and go home to milk. Tori still hadn’t found an opportunity to talk to him.

The women were inside now scrubbing every surface and painting. The men painted on the outside. The siding had never been painted, and the white planks looked almost out of place. A few people wondered aloud if they might be getting the place too fancy for Fern. Nobody could be sure, since Fern hadn’t made an appearance. So they kept painting.

Every few minutes, Tori peered out the window at Samantha, asleep in the shade. She smiled when Mary stretched out beside her and went to sleep too.

She was up on a chair painting the narrow planks of the kitchen ceiling when Lillie burst through the door. “Mrs. Harper! She’s gone, Mrs. Harper!”

Tori dropped her brush, spattering paint on the just scrubbed floor, and jumped down to run outside. Mary was still there on the quilt, sound asleep, but Samantha was gone.

37

S
amantha!”

The panic in Victoria’s voice shot through Clay. He looked up from packing his tools back in the truck. At the edge of the clearing, Victoria screamed her little girl’s name again. Beside her, Lillie was wringing her hands and weeping. On a quilt in the shade, Mary rubbed her eyes and wailed too.

Clay ran toward them, not sure what tragedy had struck. He just knew that no matter what Victoria had told him at the pond, he couldn’t stay away from her now. Her father and sisters beat him to her. He was left to comfort his little sisters. That needed doing too, but he wanted to put his arms around Victoria and calm her panic by promising to fix whatever was wrong.

“I was supposed to watch Samantha, but she was asleep.” Lillie could hardly choke out the words. “I had to go to the outhouse. I went fast, but when I got back, she was gone.”

He pulled her close to his chest. “Shh, Lillie. We’ll find her.” He looked over at Victoria, who frantically searched the shadows under the trees with her eyes.

“But I already looked everywhere,” Lillie said. “I didn’t want to scare Mrs. Harper.”

“How long did you look?” Clay asked.

“I don’t know.” Lillie sounded pitiful. “I ran everywhere.”

The people clustered around them had grown quiet to listen. Even Victoria stopped screaming Samantha’s name.

“She can’t have gone far,” Kate said.

“She can move faster than you think,” Lorena spoke up.

“She must have gone into the woods,” someone said.

All the color drained out of Victoria’s face as she stared behind her toward the trees that covered acres and acres around the little house. Clay handed Lillie off to his mother and stepped closer to Victoria. He wanted to push his way through her family to put his arms around her, but he had no right to do that.

“Did somebody look in the rain barrels?” somebody else said.

Victoria looked faint.

“She’s not in a rain barrel.” Clay spoke the words firmly, the way he sometimes talked to little Willie to get his attention. He kept his eyes on Victoria. “Everybody calm down. We’ll find her.”

“Clay’s right,” Graham moved up beside him. “Don’t matter how fast she can move, she’s still just a little bit of a girl.”

“You think Chaucer could track her?” Victoria looked at Graham with hope. “The quilt would have her scent.”

“I’m sorry, Victoria. He ain’t a bad dog, but he’s no Poe.” Graham shook his head sadly. “He don’t do tracking, but don’t you worry. We’ll spread out and have this whole area covered in no time and find her for you.”

Kate spoke up. “Let’s be quiet to see if we can hear her. If she realizes she’s lost, she might be crying.”

Everybody went silent. Clay held his breath and shut his eyes, listening with every bit of his senses. A blue jay squawked nearby, while in the distance crows cawed. Way back on the main road a car went by. But he couldn’t hear anybody crying except for Lillie and Mary, who were snuffling back their tears as quietly as they could.

Then the silence seemed to beg a prayer. He’d felt those times when he was alone out in the field, seeing the dirt turn over under his plow or when the sun pushed red up into the sky as he headed out to the barn. At times like that, a prayer would rise up in his heart. He never had a bit of trouble talking that prayer out loud then with the feeling the Lord was right beside him seeing the same things he was seeing. But he’d never prayed aloud in front of people. He wasn’t a preacher. Or even Aunt Hattie, who everybody knew could pray down the Spirit. But he was in her yard and somebody needed to pray.

So he looked up at the sky the way he’d seen Aunt Hattie do and, without thinking about whether they were the best words or not, just opened his mouth and said what was on his heart. “Dear Lord, keep little Samantha safe and help us find her fast.”

He paused before he said amen, and Lorena spoke up. “Until we find her, please send angels to watch over her.”

Mr. Merritt finished off the prayer. “We beg of you, O Lord. Amen.”

Amens echoed all around them. Then Graham and Mr. Merritt started organizing the searchers. Victoria stood in the middle of them, looking as lost as her little girl. Clay moved
up beside her. “The Lord will answer Lorena’s prayer and send angels to watch over Samantha until we find her. You have to believe.”

“I prayed for Sammy. I believed then.”

She sounded so sad Clay thought his heart might break. “This is different. Samantha’s not in a war.”

“Bad things happen everywhere.”

Clay put his hands on her shoulders and stared into her eyes. “They do. But not this time. This time she’s going to come running back to you and be very sorry she wandered away and you’re going to hug her until she tries to squirm out of your arms. But you’ll hug her one more time anyway.”

She almost smiled. Then she looked at the woods behind her. “I’ve got to go look for her.”

“No. You have to wait here so that whoever finds her can bring her straight to you.”

“I can’t just stand here and do nothing while my baby’s lost in the woods.”

“You won’t be doing nothing. You’ll call to her every few minutes. They say people who get lost walk in circles, so she might wander back close enough to hear you.” He leaned down and brushed his lips across her forehead the way he might kiss away a hurt for Mary or Lillie. For just a second, she leaned against him. He wanted to put his arms around her, but it wasn’t the right time. Instead he said, “And believe. Pray and believe.” He looked around at Lorena hovering behind him. “Lorena will help you. She can keep praying down those angels.”

“She summoned angels once,” Victoria whispered the words.

He forced himself to lift his hands away from her shoulders and let Lorena take his place.

“Clay’s right,” Lorena said. “We’ll pray hard and believe with every bit of us, the way Aunt Hattie always did.”

When Clay turned away from Victoria, Graham was waiting for him.

“We split up in teams. The two of us are to look over that way.” Graham pointed to the west. “No time to waste. The sun will be going down soon.” He kept his voice low so Victoria wouldn’t hear him. “It won’t be easy to find the girl once dark falls.”

Graham’s dog barked a couple of times as it followed them into the trees.

“Do you know the woods around here well?” Clay asked.

“Not like Lindell Woods, but these trees hook up to them and I’ve hunted raccoons through here back when I had Poe. Those coons can take a man and his dog on a chase. Now, Fern, she probably knows these trees. She’s traipsed through every woods in the county, I’m thinking, at one time or another.”

“We need her helping hunt then.”

Graham glanced around. “She’s liable to show up. Might even have the girl with her. Or not. You never can tell about Fern.”

They split apart to cover more ground. Every few minutes, Graham called Samantha’s name and his dog barked. If Samantha was anywhere close, she had to hear that. Clay didn’t call to her. Instead he stopped occasionally to listen. And every time he prayed too. Silently now so he could keep listening for crying or some rustle in the brush. Any noise that might mean Samantha was close by.

The last time he stopped, Graham and his dog sounded farther away, and Clay wondered if he should edge back to
ward them. But it seemed better to cover more ground. Light was fading under the trees. Briefly, he thought of his cows at home, but he couldn’t worry about that now. Not until he heard the signal that the child was found. Somebody was to fire a shot in the air if that happened.

Not if. When. He told Victoria to believe. He had to believe too.

“Over here.” The words were a whisper. A whisper he’d heard before. He stopped and listened. Nothing. Then Graham’s dog barked. They’d gotten even farther apart, but the whispered words had come from the other direction. If there had actually been any whispered words. He shook his head. He was imagining things just like he did that day in Lindell Woods when he thought somebody told him to go back. Sometimes a man could want something so much his mind played tricks on him.

He moved on through the trees, but more warily now, putting his feet down slowly and listening each step. Just in case.

“Over here.” The voice was louder this time. It sounded the same as that day in Lindell Woods, but this was definitely not his imagination. He moved toward the sound, not bothering to be quiet now, but moving as fast as the trees and brush allowed. If the Lord was beckoning him to the child, he was ready to listen.

But it wasn’t the Lord. Without warning, Fern Lindell stepped out from behind a tree in front of him. Her purple print blouse contrasted oddly with the men’s overalls she wore.

“’Bout time.” A scowl stiffened her face. “The little girl is scared.”

He frowned back at her. “If you found her, why didn’t you bring her back?”

“Didn’t want to scare her more. Kids think I’m the boogeyman. The little girl’s mama did. I gave her the terrors.”

“She’s not afraid of you now.”

“Maybe not. But she’s afraid of plenty of things.”

“What do you mean?” Clay asked.

Instead of answering, the woman narrowed her eyes on him. “Thought you wanted to find the girl.”

“I do.” The woman was strange, but she was right. “Where is she?”