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  Noelle chuckled. “That’s our Melva.”

  “But if we tell them what’s going on, then it’ll hurt everybody’s feelings,” Carissa said.

  “We’re going to take care of you,” Noelle said. “We can’t take chances with your life, and they’ll understand that.”

  “Maybe,” Carissa muttered.

  Noelle nodded. “Eventually. It’s okay, honey. We’ll get through this together.” She turned to Nathan. “You’ll stay here while I go to Jill’s?”

  “Now?”

  “Jill gets up early. We have some talking to do.”

  Nathan jerked his head toward the door. “This time I’m going with you. Taylor came on duty at four. I’ll call him to sit with Carissa until we get back.”

  The abundant plant life in Hideaway revealed one of God’s perfect backdrops this autumn morning, displaying a rich beauty of which Nathan never tired. Mockingbirds filled the air with music, and sunshine turned the tiny dewdrops on the grass and thick foliage into diamonds. The rising sun illuminated the brightly colored Victorian-style houses that Nathan and Noelle passed, walking through town.

  The serenity that surrounded them obviously did nothing to lighten Noelle’s mood. Nathan didn’t have to look in her eyes to know she was distressed.

  “Want to tell me about it?” he asked at last.

  She glanced at him. “About what?”

  “Something’s bothering you.”

  “Big surprise,” she said dryly.

  “You might as well tell me what’s wrong.”

  She kicked at a walnut on the uneven sidewalk and sent it shooting out into the narrow street. “I was having a dream just before Carissa woke me this morning.”

  “What kind of dream?”

  “Nightmare. I’d just killed someone.”

  He winced. He’d forgotten how she’d often had terrifying dreams as a child. “You’ve had those nightmares before.”

  She walked beside him in silence for a moment, kicked another walnut into the street, arms held tightly to her sides, hands stuffed into the pockets of her jacket. “The guilt is debilitating.”

  “Guilt? From the dream?”

  She nodded. “I couldn’t help feeling that I was eavesdropping on someone else’s emotions, someone close to me.”

  “Do you remember any more about it?”

  “Just that I was washing my hands in cold creek water and I kept imagining there was blood on my hands, even though I couldn’t see any. I can’t help wondering if this was what Carissa’s attacker was feeling.” She glanced up at Nathan, then returned to her study of the sidewalk. “It was horrible.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how that must feel.”

  “Last night, when Pearl came to the old house and scared me, I didn’t know who it was, but I knew it was family, just like I sense the presence of family at other times, even though I’m not always conscious of the knowledge. Could that be the kind of thing Carissa sensed?”

  “I can sense my mother’s presence by the scent of her shampoo,” Nathan said. “I can tell my father’s presence by his footsteps.”

  For a moment, Noelle didn’t reply. “For me, this gift, when it comes, is just like another sense, like sight and hearing. You know how sometimes you’ll hear something without paying any attention to it, without even realizing you can hear it?”

  He nodded.

  “I want to just tune it out.”

  “Of course, I understand. I try to tune out things I don’t want to know, but are you sure you want to tune out God’s voice?”

  She fell silent.

  “Don’t avoid something if it’s the right thing to do,” he said softly. “You’ve avoided a particular connection with me, maybe because I’m a link to your past, and you don’t want to remember that.”

  “I’m not avoiding you. How can you say that?”

  “That isn’t what I said. You’re resisting a deeper relationship because of the past.”

  She walked several yards before replying. “I couldn’t do without you right now, Nathan. I cherish our friendship, and I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize that at this point.”

  “What do you mean, ‘at this point’?”

  Another long silence. “I mean I haven’t exactly been at my best lately, and I don’t want to take advantage of you just to have someone in my life.”

  “Someone in your life?”

  “You know. Someone to depend on. Someone to…care about.”

  “So what I hear you saying is that you don’t want to consider a more meaningful relationship with me because you feel you’d be exploiting me somehow?”

  Her steps slowed. She looked up at him. “That isn’t what I meant. It’s just that I don’t have the most sterling reputation in Hideaway, and I earned my bad name fairly. You could meet someone—”

  “Oh, what a load of hogwash!”

  She frowned and looked away. “Okay, maybe I am getting a little carried away with remorse, but that truly is one of the reasons that I’ve been reluctant to come back to work at the Hideaway Clinic. I can’t help wondering why anyone would want to take a chance on me.”

  “We don’t have time for me to list all the reasons I think the clinic would jump at the chance to have you,” Nathan said.

  He was rewarded by a slight upturn of her lips.

  He watched as her smile was replaced, once more, by quiet brooding. “Do you think the guilt you experienced in the dream might be a remnant of the exaggerated shame you insist on carrying because of your past?”

  Her steps slowed. “Exaggerated shame?”

  Oops. He heard the challenge in her voice and immediately regretted his choice of words.

  “The things I did were more than just little mistakes, Nathan. I don’t think I’m exaggerating the consequences of my actions.”

  “Okay, so you blew it completely. You crossed the line in a few parts of your life, and now you regret it so much you believe that you deserve to pay for the rest of your life.”

  “And you don’t agree,” she said dryly.

  “Absolutely not. You’ve learned and grown from your experience, and now you need to give yourself a break. Don’t you think you’ve been punished enough, losing your position and enduring all the abuse and manipulation Joel dished out?”

  “I was willful enough to marry him in the first place, without considering the impact on myself or my family.”

  “So one bad choice negates your chance for a future relationship? A good one this time?”

  He barely heard her sigh. He studied her profile as she walked beside him. Noelle Cooper had always been beautiful, the image of her mother, with delicate features, eyes that seemed to see into a person’s soul, and a wide smile that could rival a sunrise. At least, so it always seemed to him.

  “How do you know so much about my marriage to Joel?” Noelle asked.

  “This is Hideaway, not Springfield. However I try to avoid the grapevine here, it hits me right between the eyes with dependable frequency. I know Joel was under surveillance for illegal drug activity when you married him, and that your family heartily disapproved of the marriage, so you moved to Springfield.”

  “After which he continued his illegal methamphetamine manufacturing, became victim to his own poison and took me right down with him,” she finished.

  “That was your choice then. But God doesn’t hold past mistakes against anyone for life. He doesn’t work like that.”

  “I don’t know everything about how God works.”

  “You don’t have to know or understand everything about God before you let Him work through you,” Nathan said.

  She raised a hand to silence him. “I’m not at my best right now. I can only focus on one thing at a time, and this morning I’m desperately trying to figure out how to confront the people I love with the possibility of family involvement in Carissa’s abduction.”

  “Okay. I have one more question about Cecil. What happened to change him from the outgoi
ng, friendly guy I knew in high school?”

  “As you pointed out, this is Hideaway, not Springfield,” she said, dabbing at her eyes with her fingers. “Haven’t the local gossips filled you in? Or is my past the only subject of conversation around here?”

  “Let’s just say that you’re a more likely subject for the church ladies. You and I are both single, and there are some hopeless romantics in this town.”

  She let out a give-me-a-break sigh. “Well,” she said, “Cecil’s story is pretty simple. When Uncle Todd and Aunt Harriet moved to Texas ten years ago, just before the accident at the sawmill, Cecil, who was married with two children then, wanted to take an engineering job in St. Louis. But Uncle Todd laid huge responsibilities on him, convincing Cecil that if he took the job, the sawmill would go under and the family business would be destroyed. He claimed that Cecil would be failing in his Christian duty to the Cooper family.”

  Nathan shook his head as they strolled up the sidewalk to Jill’s house. “Spiritual blackmail.”

  “You call it blackmail, I call it manipulation. When Gladys divorced Cecil, she accused him of not standing up to his parents, and I think he agreed and blamed himself for the failure of their marriage.”

  “Sounds like guilt complexes run in the Cooper family.”

  “We all have our issues. I think Cecil’s allowed bitterness and regret to change his personality, and I know it worries Melva. But, please, don’t preach him a sermon about it today, okay? Right now, we’ve got other subjects to pursue.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Jill’s seventy-five-year-old Victorian-style house, sky-blue with navy-and-pink trim, looked clean, crisp and inviting as Noelle preceded Nathan up a flagstone walk to the porch. She knocked gently at the door, unwilling to use the bell in case someone was still sleeping. Since Jill seldom locked up when she was home, the delicately carved door opened with ease when Noelle tried it.

  As she led the way through the foyer, Noelle inhaled the aromas of bacon, fried potatoes and maple syrup. “I just remembered I haven’t eaten in forever.”

  Nathan closed the door behind them. “I’m starved, too.”

  “I doubt Jill’s cooking my typical breakfast fare, though.”

  “Don’t tell me. Yogurt and bananas and some kind of dried seaweed?”

  Noelle shot him a grin over her shoulder. “Specifically, goat’s milk yogurt or salmon—highly nourishing and delicious, but I’ll make an exception today.” If she could swallow anything, since for her, stress had never been an appetite stimulant. “I don’t suppose we could grab a bite before we drop the bomb?”

  “What bomb?” came a sleepy-gruff voice from the staircase above them.

  For a moment, Noelle couldn’t tell who was speaking, Cecil or Justin. Then big, bare feet and jeans-clad legs descended the steps. Justin emerged down from the shadows, shirtless, dark hair sticking up in all directions. He was the image of his father at the same age, down to the cowlick on his crown that never behaved.

  Justin had just turned seventeen, and Noelle couldn’t help the wonder she felt at the new depth in his voice, and the recent dark shadow of beard on his chin and jaw. Hadn’t it been just a few moons ago that she’d been racing bicycles with him down the lane and playing catch in the hollow? How time had flown. She missed those days.

  “You’re dropping a bomb?” he asked.

  “After breakfast,” Noelle said.

  He pulled a shirt down over his head as he descended the final step and joined them in the foyer. “Carissa okay?”

  “She’s fine, and we want to make sure she stays that way.” Noelle once again sniffed the delicious aromas emanating from the back of the house. “Is everyone in the kitchen?”

  He shrugged a lanky shoulder. “Pearl’s not. She went home last night.”

  “I know, I saw her.”

  He frowned at her. “You went out there?”

  “Yes. I needed to check out a few things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Some records, some memories.” She headed down the hall.

  “You might not want to go to the kitchen right now,” Justin said. “I could hear arguing all the way upstairs. Voices carry through the heat vents.”

  “Arguing about what?” Nathan asked.

  Justin gave an impatient snort. “What else? It’s always about the business. A real cozy family get-together in there. I wish Dad and Jill had never formed that partnership. Jill keeps insisting on helping with data entry, and now it’s all one big mess. They can’t get anything to balance.”

  Noelle motioned for Justin to join them, and led the way to the back of the house, where the kitchen, dining room and family room were located. She heard the sharp clip of Jill’s voice in counterpoint to Melva’s dulcet tones—a sure sign Melva was attempting to placate Jill about something.

  “We’ll get it all worked out, Jill, I promise.” Melva’s Ozark accent was heavy, betraying her tension. “If Harvey were alive, I know he’d be able to find the problem in two shakes, but—”

  “Well, we can’t turn to Harvey,” Jill said. “You’ve been keeping the books for how long? Years before you and Cecil got married. You should know where the money went.”

  “Jill, slow down a minute,” came the rumble of Cecil’s voice, sounding irritated. “We’ve got a little more on our plates than usual, and money isn’t so tight we can’t wait a few hours to see how Carissa’s doing.”

  “Carissa’s fine.” Jill’s tone held a note of weariness that Noelle hadn’t heard in years. “I just talked to Taylor on the telephone.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like a final verdict from a doctor,” Cecil drawled.

  Noelle rounded the corner of the hallway that opened up into the kitchen and dining area. Cecil stood at the breakfast bar holding a coffee mug. Melva sat perched at the bar, her arms over her chest, shoulders squared. Jill stood at the stove, flipping pancakes with quick, sharp movements that revealed her anxiety.

  They all looked around when Noelle entered with Nathan and Justin.

  “So the prodigal cousin shows her face at last.” Cecil’s deep voice, so like his son’s, held an undercurrent of relief—no doubt at the sudden opportunity to change the subject. His blue eyes took in her appearance at a glance.

  He gave her a brief smile and pulled a chair back from the table. “Have a seat. You look tired.”

  “Thanks,” she said, not moving from the doorway.

  His eyebrows arched as he glanced past her shoulder toward his son. “Up so early, Justin?”

  “Couldn’t sleep with you three harping on each other down here.”

  Jill turned from the stove and gave an unamused snicker. Her gaze passed over Noelle, then returned to her face for a closer examination. “Where were you last night? I thought you’d stay here.”

  “I was at the clinic,” Noelle said. “I spent the night with Carissa.”

  “All night?” Jill turned off the burner and slid the skillet of bacon to a hot pad.

  “You weren’t there when I left,” Cecil said. “Funny thing was, Nathan couldn’t seem to tell me where you’d gone.” He flicked a gaze at Nathan, who stood beside Noelle with a hand on her elbow.

  “I’ll tell you all about it,” Noelle said, taking the chair her cousin had pulled out for her, “after breakfast.”

  As Jill and Melva placed the food on the table, Cecil poured coffee. Noelle waited. This was her family. She loved them. But she didn’t need a special gift—natural or supernatural—to feel the tension in this room. The bits of argument she’d overheard disturbed her.

  Nathan sat beside her, and she drew strength from his calm presence. She must have lost her senses in high school, when she let other guys and popularity lure her away from the best friendship she’d ever had.

  While grace was being offered, Noelle felt tears stinging behind her closed lids. She’d been on the edge of tears since yesterday morning. What had gone wrong with her family? With her whole life?
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br />   When the others began to eat, Noelle realized she couldn’t swallow a bite. She placed pancakes and bacon on her plate and picked up her fork, but she could only mangle the food. She finally put down her fork and sipped her coffee, while Melva tried to make conversation with Nathan about the project to beautify the town square.

  Noelle began to notice the way Justin consumed his food—slowly, passing his fork from his left hand to his right hand before placing each bite in his mouth, then replacing the fork precisely between his plate and his milk glass before picking it up again and repeating the ritual.

  No one else seemed to notice. Noelle looked up to find her sister watching her closely, blue eyes dark with worry.

  Melva finished her plate first, then delicately patted her lips and pushed her chair a few inches from the table. “Noelle, no wonder you’re so skinny. You said you wanted to wait until after breakfast to talk, but you didn’t eat a thing. Don’t you ever have breakfast?”

  “Goat milk yogurt,” Nathan answered for her.

  Melva wrinkled her nose. “You and your health food.”

  “Actually, it’s delicious,” Noelle said. “And I didn’t start eating goat’s milk yogurt to be healthy. Bertie Meyer introduced me to it years ago, and I’ve loved it ever since.”

  “So when are you going to tell us about what you were doing at the clinic all night?” Cecil asked, pushing his half-empty plate away. “Especially after Karah Lee told us Carissa would be fine without us.”

  “Karah Lee knew you were all tired, since none of you slept the night before. I did. You needed the rest.”

  Nathan placed a hand over one of hers, and she looked down to find that she had been shredding her paper napkin. She could feel the attention of the others.

  “What’s going on?” Jill asked.

  “We needed to talk to you all this morning,” Nathan said quietly, squeezing Noelle’s hand with gentle firmness. “We’ve got a problem, and we were reluctant to say anything until we’d had time to think about—”

  “What’s this ‘we’ bit?” Cecil asked. “Don’t tell me you stayed with Carissa, too.”