Her Small-Town Hero Page 12

  He sensed her disquiet. Something bubbled and roiled beneath that sweet, feminine surface of hers. Like a frightened bird poised for flight, she seemed to long for the warmth of the nest and yet fear it at the same time. On Tuesday, he’d asked her point-blank if she had something troubling her. She’d straightened, smoothed her brow with her wrist, her hands clad in rubber gloves, and looked him in the eye. He’d held his breath, but then her gaze had fallen away. She’d shaken her head and gone back to work. He’d wanted to fold her up in his arms, but whether to shake her or calm her to his touch as if she were an abused puppy he didn’t know.

  For the umpteenth time, he put her out of his thoughts. That lasted, mostly, right up until he found the needed part at, praise God, the very first place he tried.

  Deciding that God must have deemed this a “take it a little slower” day, Holt tooled up Highway 81 to the drive-in burger joint and ordered a double cheeseburger, onion rings, extra-large cola and hot apple pie. The food hadn’t even arrived when an electrifying impulse hit him.

  Why not, since he had a little free time, drive by Cara Jane’s old address? He could find it easily enough, and maybe just seeing where she’d grown up would offer some insight. Of course she’d supposedly left there long ago, but what did he have to lose? Someone might be able to give him some clue to the mystery that was Cara Jane Wynne. Besides, with his busy schedule, he might not have an opportunity like this again for a long while.

  Half an hour later, he pulled over to the curb in front of a modest older home to polish off the burger and rings. The pie, he reasoned, would eat as good cold as hot. He cleaned his face with a napkin and got out of the truck to walk up the broken path to the low porch.

  On the southeast side of town, the small house had been cheaply built back sometime around the Second World War. It had been minimally maintained. The hipped roof showed the most age, sagging in the center, but the original porch had been replaced at some point with a concrete pad that lent a contrasting air of permanence to the plain, square posts which held up the overhanging roof and clapboard siding painted a dull, uninspiring gray. The original front door had long since been traded for a dark, paneled, Spanish-style one that flatly did not belong. Lack of attention had let the yard go to dirt, except for the evergreen shrubs that flanked the walkway and an enormous cedar towering over all.

  Holt knocked and shortly found himself greeted by a friendly young couple.

  “I wonder if you might remember a girl who used to live here, a Cara Jane Wynne?”

  As expected, they shook their heads and told him they’d recently rented the place from a Mr. Rangle.

  “He might know her,” the young man suggested.

  “Or Mrs. Poersel might,” the woman said, pointing next door to a better maintained white house with updated siding and gleaming metal roof. “Poor old thing’s bedridden, but she loves to visit. Sent her nurse over here to invite me in before we even had the car unloaded. I’d guess she’s been in that house fifty years or more.”

  Holt thanked them and walked next door. A jolly black woman in pink nursing scrubs and braids answered his knock, introduced herself as Gladys and let him ask his question before guiding him through a rabbit warren of musty knickknacks and worn furniture to a centralized bedroom and a thin, old woman who looked like she’d disintegrate if an errant puff of air should hit her. The house felt like an oven.

  Mrs. Poersel half reclined in the center of a high, four-poster bed, wearing a frilly pink bed jacket and headband to contain wiry but thinning white hair cropped at chin length. A bed tray straddled her meager lap, and atop it rested a plate containing a sandwich. She was attempting to eat it with a fork and knife, her gnarled and spotted hands trembling with the effort.

  Gladys walked around to the far side of the bed. “This young man wants to ask you about someone,” she said, unceremoniously picking up the sandwich and sticking it beneath the old woman’s nose.

  Mrs. Poersel snapped off a bite, whereupon Gladys dropped the sandwich and left the room. Mrs. Poersel smiled at Holt while chewing punctiliously behind clamped lips.

  He removed his cap and held it before him, saying, “Cara Jane Wynne? I understand she used to live next door.”

  Mrs. Poersel swallowed and broke into a smile so wide it nearly dislodged her dentures. “My, yes!” She rested her knife and fork on the edge of the lap tray. “I do miss her. What fun we had.” She beamed up at him. “Would you like a sandwich? I love a good sandwich, though they’re hard to eat properly, aren’t they?”

  Holt had always figured that the proper way to eat something was the most obvious and efficient. “No, thank you, ma’am. I’ve had my lunch already. Very kind of you to offer.”

  Giggling, she asked, “Did you know about the berries?”

  “The berries?” Holt shuffled his feet, momentarily lost; that or the heat was frying his brain. “Oh! You mean collecting blackberries on the side of the road?”

  Mrs. Poersel laughed. “She could make the best pies in the world! Didn’t you love her berry pies?”

  Lost again, he could only glance around in the vain hope of enlightenment. “Cara Jane? At what? Twelve or thirteen? I—I thought she left here before high school.”

  Mrs. Poersel clapped her hands to her sunken, wrinkled cheeks. “I must mean later on!” Her dark eyes twinkled, the pupils so big that they barely left room for the irises. “No, wait. You’re talking about the girl. Pale, pale hair? Sad smile.” That sounded like Cara Jane, so he nodded. Mrs. Poersel laughed, reminiscing. “She used to catch lightning bugs and keep them in a jar. She’d run all around the yard, almost like one of them, flitting here and there. She was the daughter her aunt never had, you know.”

  “Her aunt?”

  “Mmm. My very best friend in the whole world. Lived for that child. Well, someone had to care for her, didn’t they? Whatever happened to her? Wound up like her mama, I fear.”

  “No, ma’am,” Holt hastened to reassure the elderly woman. “Cara Jane’s just fine. She works for my grandfather and has a little boy of her own.”

  The old woman threw her head back in horror. “Cara Jane! Now, she never mentioned that boy to me.” Shaking her head, she clucked her tongue. “I suppose I might have judged her.” She suddenly looked to Holt, a beatific expression on her face. “Society’s strictures have their place, and the Good Book is solid, but one does learn as one grows older to take a broader, kinder view.”

  Holt had the feeling that they were striving to communicate from alternate universes, but he bobbed his head and said, “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Now, Cara Jane, whatever her faults might have been, she was one for doing one’s best, for making do and being thankful. But it’s not enough for some. I gather her sister was like that.”

  “You mean her brother,” Holt corrected, relieved to find that the Cara Jane whom he had come to know hadn’t changed all that much from the Cara Jane remembered by her old neighbor.

  “Yes, I suppose I do.” The elderly woman’s gaze wandered around the room as if seeing it for the first time. “There was a brother, wasn’t there? Though mostly it was just the girl. Sweet little thing with that blond hair always hanging in her eyes. I wonder what became of her.” Before he could remind her that Cara Jane worked for his grandfather, Mrs. Poersel gusted a great sigh and exclaimed, “I do so miss Cara Jane!”

  “Maybe I could bring her to visit soon,” Holt suggested. He wondered just how long the old dear would remain in this world; she looked that pale.

  She hunched her thin shoulders. “Wouldn’t that be a treat!” Her gaze wandered off again. “My own children were older, you understand, but Mr. Poersel was still alive then. Did you know him? Worked fifty years in insurance.”

  Holt shook his head. “I’m sorry, no.”

  “Those were good times, if only we’d known it, but difficult for a single woman. What else could she do?” Mrs. Poersel shook her head and seemed to answer her own question. “Cleaning other
people’s houses was the only work she could get after the war, you know.”

  Holt felt sure they weren’t speaking of Cara Jane now, but he just smiled. Gladys came back into the room then, walked over to the bed, picked up the sandwich and offered it to the old woman, who retrieved her knife and fork before taking another bite.

  “Now you keep eating,” Gladys instructed kindly, “while I show this young man out.” She smiled at Holt, saying, “The least little thing tires her.”

  A glance showed the old girl all but asleep in her plate already. Holt thanked her for her time, but she didn’t respond. Gladys smiled and turned him toward the door. “She gets awful muddled. Did you find out what you needed to know?”

  “Yes, I think I did.”

  “That’s good,” Gladys was saying. “Then, you both got something out of it. I know she enjoyed the visit, even though it’s not one of her better days. You come back some other time, she might be a little clearer.”

  “I just might do that.”

  “Don’t you be too long about it,” Gladys warned, adding with a smile, “You stay warm out there now.”

  He didn’t think he’d ever be cold again. Sweat trickled down between his shoulder blades as he made his way out into the refreshing January air. Filling his lungs with the sweet, clean briskness, he set out jauntily for the truck. He doubted Mrs. Poersel would even remember him when she woke next, but he felt he ought to return with Cara Jane, out of gratitude if nothing else.

  Mrs. Poersel hadn’t made a whole lot of sense in there, but she’d confirmed to his satisfaction that Cara Jane had, indeed, lived in that house next door. And chased lightning bugs with a jar. He could just see her, skinny little arms and legs pumping, blond hair flying out behind her. As he slid into the truck, he remembered what Cara had said about her drug-addicted mother and Mrs. Poersel’s comment about Cara Jane following in that parent’s footsteps. Suddenly overwhelmed by gratitude, he bowed his head.

  “Thank You, Lord. Because she didn’t turn out like her mama. She’s more like those lightning bugs than poor old Mrs. Poersel can imagine. Thank You for that.”

  After lifting up Mrs. Poersel and thanking God for finding the part he needed to fix the drilling engine, he ended his prayer. Then he peeled the paper wrapping off the fried pie and had himself a little celebration as he headed back to Eden.

  Cara Jane decided to attend prayer meeting that evening, even though it clearly meant leaving Ace in the church nursery. Holt couldn’t help feeling that they’d made progress. Not only had he confirmed that she had, indeed, lived in Duncan, she seemed to be loosening her grip on the boy just a bit. Holt supposed it was understandable, having lost her husband in a puzzling accident, that she would cling to Ace and want to keep him with her, but it was not always the wisest course for Ace himself—or for Holt. Once she felt comfortable leaving Ace in Hap’s care, Holt could spend more time focusing on his own business.

  She balked a bit when they handed off Ace at the nursery door.

  “He’s fine,” Holt assured her, taking her hand and tugging her toward the fellowship hall and the sanctuary beyond it, attached via a narrow hallway.

  Her steps lagged for a bit, then she fell in next to him, her hand never leaving his.

  Holt smiled, thinking of that little girl who had chased lightning bugs with a jar and of the half promise he’d made to Mrs. Poersel. Given that, the statement that followed seemed entirely sensible.

  “I drove by your old house today.”

  Cara Jane stumbled and nearly fell. He grabbed her with both hands, noting the sudden paleness of her face.

  “Y-you did what?”

  He tried not to frown, but alarm bells clanged inside his head. “I had to make a trip to Duncan and I drove by your old house.”

  She leaned back against the beige wall, and he could see her pulse racing in the throb of veins at the base of her throat. “Why did you d-do that?”

  He shrugged, his hands still hovering about her upper arms. “Just wanted to see where you lived.”

  She gulped but managed a wobbly smile. “Never was much to look at.”

  He drew his hands away, tucking his fingertips into the hip pockets of his jeans. “I spoke with a Mrs. Poersel.”

  Cara Jane gasped. “Mrs. Poersel is still alive?”

  “Barely. How old is she, anyway?”

  Cara Jane thought about it, her eyes flitting side to side as she appeared to calculate the years. “I’d guess mid-nineties anyway.”

  “She said she knew your aunt,” Holt prodded.

  “Yes.” Cara Jane dropped her gaze. “The house actually belonged to her. My aunt, I mean.”

  “I take it they were good friends.”

  “Very good friends,” Cara Jane confirmed with a nod, “although Mrs. Poersel was quite a bit older. How ironic that she should outlive my aunt by so many years.”

  “When did your aunt die?” he asked, trying to keep his tone conversational.

  “Oh, before my fourteenth birthday,” Cara Jane said.

  “Is that why you moved away?” He sounded like an inquisitor, even to his own ears.

  Again her gaze dropped. “Yes.”

  The piano began playing in the sanctuary. Cara Jane looked in that direction.

  “Shouldn’t we go in?”

  “In a minute,” he said, aware of a rising anger. Why did she do this to him? What was she hiding? Could he not have one full day of peace about this situation? “Mrs. Poersel would like to see you.”

  “Oh?”

  That single syllable, false and wary and weak, told him how little the idea pleased Cara Jane. It didn’t exactly thrill him, either. He’d thought that he’d settled something today, fixed at least one small piece in the puzzle, but the emerging picture suddenly made no sense to him.

  “I have the feeling that sooner would be better than later,” he told her firmly, “if you know what I mean.”

  Cara Jane swallowed. They both knew that she couldn’t refuse. “I see.”

  Feeling a little ill now, he pressed on. “How about Sunday, between Ace’s nap and the big game?” Hap had planned a Super Bowl party, partly because Charlotte and Ty wouldn’t be joining them after all. Ty’s mother had been rushed into gall bladder surgery, so naturally Ty and Charlotte had felt that they should stay close to her for the time being.

  Cara Jane said nothing for a long moment, but the sound of singing reached them, and she looked once more toward the sanctuary door. He felt the longing in her, the yearning. “Fine,” she said, sounding exhausted. Pushing away from the wall, she started for the sanctuary.

  Holt watched her for an instant, torn between grim relief and keen dread. Then he followed her.

  “Sunday it is, then.”

  “Sunday,” she whispered.

  He had the distinct impression that he’d just sentenced her to a cruel and unusual punishment. Perhaps both of them.

  Chapter Eleven

  C ara saw that she had entered the sanctuary at the front behind the piano. Avoiding eye contact, she kept one shoulder against the wall as she walked to the nearest empty pew and sat down on the end. Holt moved past and took the seat immediately behind her. Thankful for that much distance, she somehow managed to hold on to the edge of her composure, despite the trembling in her limbs.

  She didn’t sing, but she smiled at the woman in front of her who passed her an open hymnal. After the song, Grover rose to speak for a moment before dismissing them to small group. Cara, fighting off panic, barely registered a word, but she soon found herself being swept back the way she’d come, right into the large room they called the Fellowship Hall.

  Earlier she had noticed that a shuttered window opened into a large kitchen along one side of the bland room. Of more immediate interest now, however, were the folding chairs arranged in circles of nine or ten seats. As people began filling them, Holt stepped up and lightly grasped her elbow.

  “There’s a mixed group forming over here.”


  She let him steer her to a chair and soon found herself sitting next to him and across from a couple about his age. The woman leaned forward and said a soft “hello.” Angevine Martin came by, giggling and squeezing Cara’s shoulder. Cara tried, hoped she’d managed, to smile. To her surprise, Holt took charge of the group.

  “Any requests?”

  A middle-aged man, sitting with arms and legs crossed, immediately began to speak about his impending divorce. He went on for several minutes, and Cara noted the soothing, supportive comments of the others, but she felt paralyzed, apart from the group.

  Perhaps it was best that way, she thought tiredly. On Sunday next, her aunt’s best friend would undoubtedly expose her lies and end her time in Eden.

  Even in the midst of her terror, Cara tried to apply analytical logic to the situation, but the pall of doom hung so heavy over her that she could barely form coherent thoughts. Her wisest course might be simply to run, now, tonight, but the idea brought such enormous pain that the inherent fallacy of it seemed incidental. She had too little money accumulated, an undependable vehicle and not even a glimmer of a plan this time, but that all paled in comparison to her grief and disappointment. Her only option seemed to be to make that visit to Mrs. Poersel and endure whatever came of it, however terrifying.

  God help me, she prayed in mechanical silence. Oh, God, please help me.

  Several others around the circle voiced prayer concerns. Holt suggested that they pray silently then let him close them. Several people immediately slipped off their chairs and onto their knees, bowing their heads over the seats they had vacated. Cara followed suit and immediately felt overcome by a presence other than her own.