Your Dream and Mine (20 page)

“I’ve learned as much from her as I have from my classes,” Thomasina confided in Trace one evening before class.

“Better sign up for the mission trip, then,” he said.

He spoke of the trip as if it were a done deal, when in fact, the youths were still short of their fund-raising goal. It came up that night in the meeting.

“Can’t we put a collection can in the vestibule?” one of the girls suggested.

“Yeah!” chimed another. “My folks would chip in.”

“This is your project,” said Trace. “Do it yourselves.”

“How?”

“You’ve got strong backs and good minds. Figure it out,” he said.

“I think he better get over that notion,” Deidre whispered to Thomasina. “These kids are never going to make it.”

Overhearing, Trace challenged, “You think they’re too pampered? Hear that, guys? Dee doesn’t think you’ve got the grit. What about you, Tommy?”

Thomasina opened their savings account book. “It says here…”

“I wasn’t asking for a treasurer’s report.” Trace’s fingers brushed hers as he took the book and snapped it closed. “Can they do it, or can’t they?”

“Yes, o’ fearless leader,” she said, and saluted.

The kids cracked up. Trace laughed, too. Thomasina grinned and averted her gaze before the light in his bachelor button blues caught flame in her heart. She wasn’t over
him. Perhaps she never would be. But the satisfaction that came from working with the kids was worth the angst of being so near and yet so far away.

Challenged by Trace’s insistence they do it themselves, the kids stepped up their fund-raising efforts. The cold snowy winter gradually gave way to spring. Trace broke ground on the cabin, providing work for the young people who wanted it. As incentive to tithing a share of their earnings to the mission trip fund, he promised to match their giving dollar for dollar.

“That goes for you, too, Thomasina. Or are you blister shy?” he asked with a grin.

The kids teased Thomasina thereafter, wanting to know when she was going to come out to the farm and earn her blisters. She wished she could. But between work and completing the school year with a decent grade-point average, she couldn’t afford the time.

Ricky tossed his whole earnings into the till the second week in May, and wheedled the rest of the kids into doing the same. They sat at the table and chortled as Trace counted what they’d thrown in the basket, then took out his wallet and emptied it into the basket. It brought the fund to within twenty dollars of the estimated goal for the southwestern trip. Thomasina tossed in the last twenty. The cheers crescendoed to a roar as she waved aside Trace’s protest.

“It is the least I can do,” she shouted above the uproar of the kids. “I haven’t been any help with the fund-raisers, and I can’t help out at the cabin, either. Not until after final exams, anyway.”

“You’re having exams this week?” Trace asked as the kids followed Deidre into the kitchen for refreshments.

“Yes,” said Thomasina.

“What’s next weekend look like?”

Hope rose on gilded wings as Thomasina met his blue gaze. “Not so hot. I have to work from six to two Friday through Sunday. Why?”

“I think these kids have earned a camping trip,” he said. “I thought I’d invite them out to the farm. But if you can’t be there to help chaperone…”

“I can!” Deidre hollered from the kitchen.

The campout was scheduled for the following Friday evening beside the creek. Trace got the night off. Antoinette had to work, and so did Thomasina. But she promised Deidre she’d join them as soon as she got off.

“At 2:00 a.m.? They’ll be sleeping like lambs,” predicted Deidre.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” said Trace.

T
homasina finished her last test Friday afternoon and drove to work beneath overcast skies. She napped briefly in her chair at the bedside of her slumbering patient and stopped at a bakery at the end of her shift.

There was the night scent of coming showers. But the road was dry, and traffic light. The clock on Thomasina’s dash read 3:00 a.m. as she turned up Trace’s dark lane. A light burned in the kitchen window. Was he waiting to accompany her to the campsite?

A breeze whispered through the trees in the farm yard as Thomasina collected a change of clothes, her pocketbook and the box of pastries from the seat of her car. Bushes billowed like dark drape beneath the light of the pole lamp. She veered through the opening in the low stone wall and along the flower-sweet path to the unlatched kitchen door.

“Hello? Trace? Anybody here?”

Silence answered her greeting. Disappointed, Thomasina left the doughnuts on the table and trekked on to the bathroom to wash her face and change into jeans and a sweatshirt. She retraced her steps and stopped short of a now dark kitchen. Who had turned out the light?

“Trace?”

No one answered. Puzzled, Thomasina turned off the living room light, strode across the dark kitchen and let herself out. Three steps beyond the door, a muffled cough and a darting shadow sent her scurrying inside. Alarmed, she locked the door and left the lights out to peek through a gap in the curtains. Accounts of rural burglaries leapt to mind as furtive movement spread lanky shadows over the grass by light of the pole lamp. A would-be intruder? Or could it be one of the kids?

Surely not. Trace and Deidre wouldn’t let them wander about in the middle of the night. Thomasina felt her way along the dark counter to the wall phone. She prayed that Trace had the cell phone in his truck turned on. That he’d hear it ring. Her heart pounded as she got a busy signal. She hung up, then jumped when its jarring ring shattered the silence. She jerked it up, and cried, “Hello?”

The line sounded dead to her quivering ears. But of course! She had dialed the house number, not the cellular. Five five five something something something something.
What was the rest? Think! Think!
Thomasina stretched a finger to the disconnect button, then froze at the sound of breathing on the line.

Someone had picked up the extension! Could Trace be in the bedroom? No! He wouldn’t deliberately scare her, not even in jest. A cold sweat broke on her brow. “Here comes Trace up the lane now.” She spoke into the phone, as if it were an ordinary conversation. “Hold on while I get him.”

Thomasina dropped the phone to the counter and strode to the door, footsteps ringing, thoughts reeling. She dared not go out. Trapped between yard shadows and whoever had picked up the phone. Thomasina turned up the back stairs and crept on cat paws to the upstairs landing.

The distant pole lamp showered thin light through an open bedroom door and the window beyond. She crept inside.
Closed the door. Took a straightback chair. Wincing, fearing each soft sound would betray her as she fitted the top slat under the knob and crossed to the open window.

Mary’s beloved oak tree stretched and yawned in the breeze. Twigs rubbed the house, sparking alarm, then memory. The tree! Trace and Will’s secret exit to the creek on hot summer nights. If worse came to worst, could she hide in its branches!

The distance between window and ground made her stomach churn. The furtive figure in the yard—was he still there? A dry hinge creaked. Thomasina whirled around as the closet door opened. A shape emerged.

She flung herself out the window into the tree and with a muffled cry, crawled along the branch to put distance between herself and the window before whoever, whatever…A soft white streamer fluttered over her face. She clawed at it wildly.

“Miz Rose?”

Clinging to the gnarly limb with hands and knees, Thomasina flung a glance over her shoulder. A light went on in the upstairs room. Had she lost her mind? Or was that Ricky’s face in the window?

“Ricky?”

“You caught us,” he said, chagrin in his voice.

Thomasina gaped at him. “What are you
doing?”

“Playing a joke on Trace,” said Ricky. “Trying, anyway.”

The tree…the eerie white streamers…Like glass splintering in slow motion, reason broke through. The world righted itself. “You’re papering the trees?”

“The toilet paper roll got stuck in the tree,” he admitted sheepishly. “I came up here to uncoil it while Jimmy wrapped the trunk. Then I heard something downstairs and the phone rang, and I picked it up and I heard you say somethin’ about Trace coming, so I whispered at Jimmy to
take cover and I hid in the closet. And then…well, you know the rest.”

“It was
you
on the phone?” cried Thomasina. “Ricky! You scared the life out of me!”

“Me, too,” he said, and looked out toward the clearing where her car was parked. “Where’s Trace?”

“How should I know?”

“But you said to the caller…”

“There was no caller. I thought you were a burglar. I didn’t want you to know I was alone!”

“Oh!” Ricky scratched his head. “That was purty good thinkin’, Miz Rose. Hey, Jimmy. You down there? You can come out. Miz Rose was bluffing, Trace ain’t coming.”

“You’re going to fall!” cried Thomasina, nerves skating on thin ice as Ricky stretched out the window. “Get back. Isn’t anyone watching you kids? Where’s Trace?”

“Looking for Deidre,” said Ricky.

“She’s lost?” said Thomasina, nerves prickling all over again.

“No. She went after Kelli.”

“Kelli’s lost?”

“No. Just pretending to be,” said Ricky. “We didn’t know how else to get Trace away from camp long enough to get up here and—”

“Never mind,” Thomasina cut him short. “Forget I asked. Just go get him.”

“Who?”

“Trace!”

“Aw, Miz Rose. We don’t mean any harm,” mumbled Ricky. “We’ll clean it all up. I promise.”

“I don’t care about that. I want out of this tree!”

“Is that all? We’ll help you.” The limb groaned as Ricky swung out on it.

“Go back!” cried Thomasina. “You’re going to get us both killed.”

“What’s the matter? Don’t you trust me?”

“It’s not that.” She lowered her voice at his injured tone. “I’d just rather you got Trace. Please.”

“All right, I’m going.” Ricky retreated, then turned back to the window. “You want Jimmy to stay with you till I get back?”

A snicker floated up from below. Thomasina realized what a spectacle she was. Pasted to a tree limb like paint on a sign, and with a lot less artistry. Embarrassed, she hugged the limb tighter, gritted her teeth and muttered, “Get moving. Both of you. And don’t come back without Trace.”

They had been gone only a moment when thunder rumbled in the distance. The breeze freshened. A raindrop hit Thomasina’s cheek. The bark pinched her palms and bit into her wobbling knees. She couldn’t stay where she was with the wind rising. She couldn’t get back and she couldn’t get down. All she could manage was to inch forward, praying to reach a less precarious perch before the storm broke.

Trace looked across the field and saw the light in the upstairs window. Deidre must have found Kelli and taken her up to the house. So what was the problem? Was she sick? Hurt? Mad? Scared of the dark? Whatever, Deidre would have to handle it. Already he had left the kids too long.

Trace walked back to the camp. To his surprise, Deidre and Kelli were there. Ricky and Jimmy Jordan were not. Trace stirred the remaining boys to their feet They put on innocent faces and claimed they didn’t know what’d become of Ricky and Jimmy. It was a rhetorical question. The light in the upstairs window had had some help coming on.

Thunder rumbled. The sky started to spit. Hoping to beat the coming downpour, Trace left the pickup truck with Deidre and set off for the house on foot while she and the kids broke camp. He hadn’t gone far when he bumped into the
boys heading back for the creek. Wet enough to want shelter, Ricky made short work of the story.

“You left her in the tree?” Incredulous, Trace said, “What’d you do that for?”

“I said we’d help her,” defended Ricky.

“But she wouldn’t let us,” chimed Jimmy.

“Said to get you, that you’d get her down without killing her,” added Ricky. “I told her it might take a while, that you and Deidre were in the woods trying to—”

“You told her
what?
” Trace cut in. “Never mind. Just go on down to the creek and help the others pack up the gear before the rain washes out the camp. I’ll see you up at the house.”

Trace tramped on.
In the woods with Deidre.
Thanks a lot, guys. No telling what she’d made of that one. At this rate they’d grow gray, with Tommy convinced he was a two-timing louse.

It was peppering down by the time Trace reached the clearing. He grabbed a rope on his way past the shop, stopped under the tree and searched the branches. “Tommy?”

“Here!” Branches rustled, but he couldn’t see her.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m stuck.”

“I’m on my way up.”

“Hurry, would you?” she pleaded. “It’s lightning off in the west and I’m worried about the kids in the woods by themselves.”

“Deidre’s with them. They’re packing up and coming to the house.”

“You found her?”

“She wasn’t lost. She went after Kelli….”

“I know. The boys told me. Have you got a ladder?”

“A rope.” said Trace. “Sit tight. I’m coming.”

Encouraged she hadn’t overreacted to the boys’ words
about the woods and Deidre, Trace climbed the stairs and aimed the beam of his flashlight over the tree.

Thomasina was tucked between branches at the crest of the trunk where the tree arms spread in four directions, making a natural platform. She squinted like a ringtail raccoon, but wouldn’t let go to shield her eyes from the beam. “If you’re wondering how I got up here—”

“The boys told me,” Trace cut in. “Can you catch the flashlight if I toss it to you?”

“Let go, you mean?”

“Never mind,” said Trace at the fear in her voice.

He stuck the torch in his pocket, crawled out the window and onto the rain-slick branch. It had expanded some since his boyhood days. Broad enough for full-sized feet That made it somewhat easier. He stood up.

Thomasina’s stomach contracted at the sway in the branch. “Watch out! You’ll slip!”

“Relax,” soothed Trace. “My feet know it by heart. I could do it with my eyes closed.”

He looked sure-footed as a mountain goat, and still Thomasina’s heart jumped as the limb creaked and groaned. The flashlight slipped from Trace’s pocket. He lunged to catch it and missed. The light thumped to the ground.

Thomasina cringed, eyes squeezed, ears drumming, expecting a heavier thud. None came. She didn’t look again until Trace brushed against her. Safe, in the embracing arms of the tree. She let her breath go, then caught it again as he hoisted himself up to the next branch. “Where’re you going?”

“Take it easy. I’m tying the rope, is all. Those kids,” he muttered as he secured the knot. “What was I thinking, saying I’d take them two thousand miles when I can’t even keep track of them three miles from town?”

“They didn’t mean any harm,” said Thomasina in a small voice. “They like you.”

“Funny way of showing it. Sending me on a wild-goose
chase. Toilet papering my tree,” he grumbled as he dropped onto the branch beside her again, the free end of the rope in his hands. “Ready to swing down?”

“You go first,” she said.

“Tommy, I’m not the one who’s stuck.”

“I just meant…”

“Never mind. We’ll go together. Me Tarzan, you Jane,” he said, tone shifting.

Thomasina braced herself. “Tell me what to do.”

“Let go of the tree for starters.”

When she didn’t respond fast enough to suit him, he wiggled into position behind her, pried her hands loose, wrapped them around the rope and covered them with his own.

“Legs, too,” he ordered. “Haven’t you ever climbed a rope?”

“I don’t even like ladders,” she admitted.

“Nothing to it.” Trace tightened his grip over her hands. “All set? On the count of three. One.”

“Just a second!”

“You don’t like heights, I know. Two…”

“Wait!” The rope stung her palms as she wrenched her hands from beneath his and nearly lost her footing, turning to face him. She caught a handful of his shirt to keep from falling backward.

“Tommy Rose!” He breathed her name, mingled surprise and restraint and something more, something she dared not believe lest she deceive herself yet again. “We’re not getting any drier. Do you want down or don’t you?”

She flushed, but didn’t let go. “I want to tell you something first.”

“I’m listening.”

His face was shiny wet, his hair curled from the rain. The scent of woodlands and campfire smoke distracted her from the words she’d practiced as she waited for him to come. Words that had grown from seeds sown over the
winter and spring as she came at last to see the error in following her own limited understanding without waiting on God.

“I want you to buy me out, Trace.”

“Buy you out?” His hands, loosely linked at her back, returned to the rope. “What’re you talking about?”

“If you’re strapped for money, I’m in no hurry,” she said quickly, certain he’d jump at the chance. “Take as long as you need.”

“I don’t even know what you’re saying.” Trace backed deeper into the branches. “What about the cabins? The camp? Farming the ground?”

“You don’t need me to do any of that.” She let go of him and gripped the tree instead.

“But the children’s camp was your idea!”

“I know. I know,” she said in a rush. “But I’m no good, trying to do it all. I haven’t had time for anyone. Ricky. Pauly. Winny. No patience for my patients. I almost said no to the youth group. Isn’t that the limit? Training to work with kids, and when an opportunity comes, I nearly turn it down?”

“Tommy…”

“No, let me finish.” She drew a deep breath and admitted, “I was trying to repay Nathan and Flo. Not consciously, but all the same you were right about my motives.”