One Shenandoah Winter (24 page)

“I didn't feel like I deserved to be a part of their happiness just then,” Connie confessed, and then found the rest of it bubbling out. How she had felt about Chad Campbell and the early days, how she had refused to marry him, how she had treated Dawn like her own daughter. How she had disliked Duke from the start. How she had never given him a chance. How she had never accepted how in truth she was still trying to hold on to what was never hers in the first place.

It was all quite a while in the telling, and when she finished Nathan kept on beside her, letting the night and the quiet road and the walk work its way in and calm her down. Finally he said, “We've overshot the mark a ways.”

Connie looked around and realized her house was a half-mile behind them. “Why didn't you stop us?”

“You seemed to need the chance to air out some thoughts, and I liked listening to you talk.”

She allowed Nathan to turn her back around, and began wondering if she had made a fool of herself by all she had just confessed to. But when he spoke again, it was to say, “I can't begin to tell you how different my life is here from before.”

“Different good or different bad?”

“I'm not sure. I'm not even certain how to compare them.” He formed a block with his hands over to his right. “Over there I had one of the top hospitals in the world. I worked inhuman hours, never had enough time, measured my life by the millisecond. It was a constant race, a never-ending battle. I did not know the patients except through the status of their illness. Their families either coped or were referred to counseling. Everything had its slot. And there was never enough time. Never.”

He set another block in place in front of her. “Over here, now, we have my life in Hillsboro. I am beginning to know my patients as people. I have a sense of who they are, the lives they lead, their little dramas and worries and habits and foibles.”

“We've got a lot of those,” Connie offered.

“You do, you know. It's amazing. But at the same time, you have a nobility.”

That drew her to a halt. “Come again?”

“It's true, Connie. I saw it most clearly in Poppa Joe, but it's there in so many of the people I see around here. I used to think what I was seeing was a little bit of him in each of them. A bit of his essence. But it's not his. That's what I was thinking about in the Bible study tonight.” He stopped and looked down at her. “Am I making any sense at all?”

“I've just poured out my life's woes to you and you're asking
me
about making sense?” She reached over and grasped his hand, the movement not even conscious until she had done it. His grip was warm and soft and strong. “Go on. Tell me more.”

His breath was a long stream of white in the starry light. “You people hold to what I've lost. What I've never had, if you want to know the truth. If somebody were to come to me and say, where would I find the true American spirit, I would send them here. To a town that clings to what has defined them and their forefathers for two hundred years. To a people who are stubborn and hardheaded and fiercely protective of their own. To a place where people
matter
, where time is there to be used, not a master that uses them.” He hesitated a long moment, then added softly, “To a life that has a place in it for faith. And values. And caring for others so deeply that a loss or a joy known to one binds them all more closely together.”

Connie felt the same sense of gathering stillness, a clenching of the night air until it was hard to draw enough breath to ask, “You're staying, aren't you? Here. In Hillsboro. With us.”

He nodded slowly, his features showing a somber acceptance of a decision already taken in his heart. “Yes,” he said, the night ringing with quiet force. “Yes. I think I've finally found myself a home.”

She released his grasp so that she could run her hand up his arm and over his shoulder to the warm skin of his neck. “Nathan Reynolds, I do believe you may kiss me now.”

Twenty-Eight

C
onnie carried her good feeling into sleep that night. It was there still with her first cup of coffee. It even managed to brighten the rainy day. Normally Connie hated days like these, when the mountains were short stubby nubs, cut off by clouds so heavy they couldn't lift themselves over the peaks. The roads ran like miniature rivers, and the valley acted like a funnel for every wet and frigid gust. But today the heart's smile shone like her own private sun.

Right until she pulled into Allen Motors and surveyed all the empty repair bays.

Earl, chief mechanic and wrecker driver, sauntered his way through the door leading to the dealership's offices. He was carrying a wrench in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. He was talking back over his shoulder as he stepped into the bays, which was why he did not see Connie at first. When he turned and spotted the Oldsmobile and recognized the driver, he released both hands simultaneously.

The wrench struck one toe, and the cup broke and splashed steaming coffee down the other pants leg. Which was how he came to be doing a rapid two-step as Connie got out of the car and started toward him. She was not smiling now. “Earl?”

“Ow, ow, jeepers creepers, that was hot. Morning, Miss Connie.”

“Earl, where is Poppa Joe's truck?”

“These were my last pair of clean pants too. Miss Connie, we'll have it to you directly.”

“I didn't ask you when it'd be ready, now did I?” She started forward, which caused Earl to two-step his way back toward the doorway. “I asked you
where it was
.”

“Miss Connie, the truck . . . We've . . .” He bent over and swiped at his leg. “Doggone it, that was hot.”

She knew anger was called for here. It was one of those times when the only way she was going to get results was to push, and push hard. But the anger simply wasn't there. She was no longer smiling, but she could feel that sense of lightness still with her. She sighed defeat at herself and said, “Tell me the truth, Earl.”

“The truth. Why sure, Miss Connie.” The lanky mountain man resigned himself to straightening up. He risked one glance in her direction, then his arms started waving and his eyes scattered glances like buckshot out of a bent barrel. “Miss Connie, we've done scoured the whole state for parts. Even got a piece from down Greensboro way, and that's the whole honest truth.”

She crossed her hands. “You're not going to tell me where the truck is, are you?”

“I done worked on that truck harder than I've worked on anything in my entire life. Spent hours and hours under the hood, upside the rack, you name it, I been there. Twice.”

“There's something going on here, I can smell it.” But the smile was back, and not just at heart level. She had to frown just to keep the edges of her mouth from lifting up. “How much is all this going to cost?”

The eyeballs started moving so fast she could almost hear them click. “Now, Miss Connie, you know I don't have a thing to do with costing out work 'round here.”

She was not going to get anything out of the man. “I'll be back here on Monday, Earl. That should give you time to find my truck.”

His shoulders slumped with vast relief. “You do that, Miss Connie. Monday'll be just fine with me.”

“You tell Fuller Allen that if he's thinking on padding my bill with extras I didn't agree to, he's got another think coming. Right upside his head.”

But Earl was already backpedaling toward the doorway. “You have yourself a right good day, now, you hear?”

Connie had a thousand things waiting for her at the county building. A lot of the nonessentials had been left piled up since before the funeral, and she needed to get started on them. Even so, her car seemed to have a will of its own, and drove her from the garage straight over to the clinic. She sat there, watching the rain streak the windshield, wondering how it could seem so awkward and yet so right to be here. An uncommon lightness carried her up the clinic's front steps, her feet scarcely touching the ground. She pushed through the door, shook off the rain from her coat, hung it up, and turned to Hattie and the smirk she knew she would find there.

“Why, if it isn't Miss Connie Wilkes.” Hattie was all eyes and teeth and delight over this change to her routine. “And just how might you be this fine day, Miss Wilkes?”

“Wet. Is Nathan in?”

If anything, the eyes grew bigger. “Why yes, I do believe
Nathan
might be around here somewhere.” She folded her hands primly on her desk. “Shall I go ask if he can see you? I don't recall making an appointment for you, but I'm sure . . .”

Connie drew her face down close to the desk and murmured, “You're not half as cute as you think you are.”

Hattie was not the least bit put off. “This moment ought to be frozen and framed, it's so priceless.”

Connie started to retort, then decided it really wasn't necessary. Which seemed to surprise Hattie as much as it did her, for the woman moved back a fraction and lost the edge to her smirk as Connie seated herself in the chair across from her and leaned across the desk. “Nathan said something to me last night. I want you to know. He said he was thinking about staying here in Hillsboro.”

What was left of Hattie's smirk vanished entirely. “Oh, thank the good Lord above.”

“We don't know anything for certain, mind you. But that's what he told me.” Connie glanced at the closed door. “I stopped by to see if what he said in the night still makes sense to him in the day.”

Hattie rose as though ejected from her seat. “You come right on back with me to his office.”

Connie followed her down the hall. She stood in the center of the office after Hattie had closed the door and gone for Nathan. Rain patted gently against the window. In the distance the swollen river rushed and rustled and called to her. The room smelled slightly musty, probably from the books lining the back wall. Connie walked over and inspected the dusty rows. She opened one at random, saw it was a medical text printed before the First World War.

The door opened behind her. “I really should get around to hauling those things off.”

She snapped the book closed and sneezed as the dust rose in her face. “Excuse me.”

“Bless you.” Nathan took the book from her, put it back, and offered her a clean handkerchief. “Wipe off your hands.”

“My momma used to say that was the mark of a real gentleman, if he was able to offer a lady a clean hankie.”

He led her over to a chair and pulled up another beside her. “I would have liked to have met your parents, Connie.”

“They would have positively swooned at the sight of you.” She handed back the handkerchief, felt the smile unfolding in her heart, did not bother to mask it. “A tall, dark, and handsome young man who also happens to be a doctor.” Then she stopped. “That sounded horrid and forward, didn't it?”

“You can't help but sound good. To me, anyway.” He pulled his chair closer. “I got a call from Margaret Simmons this morning. She said for me to be sure and tell you hello. They're preparing a shipment of used equipment, it ought to be arriving next week. The hospital updates constantly, but what they're casting off is still light-years ahead of what I'm working with now.”

“I'm so glad.” There was such kindness in his gaze, such sorrow and compassion and happiness all mixed in there together that she could not help but reach over and touch his face. He raised his own hand and held hers where it was.

They sat there for a long moment, until Connie lowered her hand, taking his with her, and said, “I was wondering if your feelings about staying in Hillsboro had changed in the light of day.” She glanced at the back window. “Such as it is.”

Nathan shook his head. “I spent a lot of time last night thinking how glad I found myself here.” He stopped. “I mean, that I found myself
coming
here.”

“I know what you mean.”

“There must be people who come to know themselves and God's peace in the city. But I didn't. I don't know if I ever would have. The battle was too much for me.” He was silent a moment, then added, “I think it would take a very strong person to find peace in the city, and keep hold of it.”

Connie leaned forward. “I think you're the strongest man I've ever met. In your own way. Poppa Joe felt the same.”

He was genuinely surprised. “He did?”

“He told me. He said you were a man who hadn't discovered either your strength or your purpose, and he prayed that God would show you both.”

While Nathan mulled that over, thunder rolled down the valley, causing the clinic to shiver. Connie watched his face, saw how her words warmed him. Gradually he drew himself up straighter. A further trace of the old sadness left his eyes. She felt herself shiver with the clinic, filled with joy over being able to bestow such a gift.